Do some research it becomes clear quickly what the real story is. Hillary and her bunch
stink to high heaven and have or YEARS. Started with her and husband. They sold this country
o or personal gain.Just search a little and make sure to use factual information. It is there
for anyone to find.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Agent Smith, you testified that the Russians hacked the DNC computers, is that correct?
FBI AGENT JOHN SMITH: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Upon what information did you base your testimony?
AGENT: Information found in reports analyzing the breach of the computers.
DEF ATT: So, the FBI prepared these reports?
AGENT: (cough) . (shift in seat) No, a cyber security contractor with the FBI.
DEF ATT: Pardon me, why would a contractor be preparing these reports? Do these contractors run the FBI laboratories where
the server was examined?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: No? No what? These contractors don't run the FBI Laboratories?
AGENT: No. The laboratories are staffed by FBI personnel.
DEF ATT: Well I don't understand. Why would contractors be writing reports about computers that are forensically examined in
FBI laboratories?
AGENT: Well, the servers were not examined in the FBI laboratory.
(silence)
DEF ATT: Oh, so the FBI examined the servers on site to determine who had hacked them and what was taken?
AGENT: Uh .. no.
DEF ATT: They didn't examine them on site?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Well, where did they examine them?
AGENT: Well, uh .. the FBI did not examine them.
DEF ATT: What?
AGENT: The FBI did not directly examine the servers.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, the FBI has presented to the Grand Jury and to this court and SWORN AS FACT that the Russians hacked
the DNC computers. You are basing your SWORN testimony on a report given to you by a contractor, while the FBI has NEVER actually
examined the computer hardware?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, who prepared the analysis reports that the FBI relied on to give this sworn testimony?
AGENT: Crowdstrike, Inc.
DEF ATT: So, which Crowdstrike employee gave you the report?
AGENT: We didn't receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: What?
AGENT: We did not receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: Well, where did you find this report?
AGENT: It was given to us by the people who hired Crowdstrike to examine and secure their computer network and hardware.
DEF ATT: Oh, so the report was given to you by the technical employees for the company that hired Crowdstrike to examine their
servers?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Well, who gave you the report?
AGENT: Legal counsel for the company that hired Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: Why would legal counsel be the ones giving you the report?
AGENT: I don't know.
DEF ATT: Well, what company hired Crowdstrike?
AGENT: The Democratic National Committee.
DEF ATT: Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You are giving SWORN testimony to this court that Russia hacked the servers
of the Democratic National Committee. And you are basing that testimony on a report given to you by the LAWYERS for the Democratic
National Committee. And you, the FBI, never actually saw or examined the computer servers?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Well, can you provide a copy of the technical report produced by Crowdstrike for the Democratic National Committee?
AGENT: No, I cannot.
DEF ATT: Well, can you go back to your office and get a copy of the report?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why? Are you locked out of your office?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: I don't understand. Why can you not provide a copy of this report?
AGENT: Because I do not have a copy of the report.
DEF ATT: Did you lose it?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why do you not have a copy of the report?
AGENT: Because we were never given a final copy of the report.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, if you didn't get a copy of the report, upon what information are you basing your testimony?
AGENT: On a draft copy of the report.
DEF ATT: A draft copy?
AGENT: Yes.
DEF ATT: Was a final report ever delivered to the FBI?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, did you get to read the entire report?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why not?
AGENT: Because large portions were redacted.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, let me get this straight. The FBI is claiming that the Russians hacked the DNC servers. But the FBI never
actually saw the computer hardware, nor examined it? Is that correct?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: And the FBI never actually examined the log files or computer email or any aspect of the data from the servers? Is
that correct?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: And you are basing your testimony on the word of Counsel for the Democratic National Committee, the people who provided
you with a REDACTED copy of a DRAFT report, not on the actual technical personnel who supposedly examined the servers?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Your honor, I have a few motions I would like to make at this time.
PRESIDING JUDGE: I'm sure you do, Counselor. (as he turns toward the prosecutors) And I feel like I am in a mood to grant them.
Brilliant! that sums it up nicely. of course, if the servers were not hacked and were instead "thumbnailed" that leads to a
whole pile of other questions (including asking wiileaks for their source and about the murder of seth rich).
Looks like Page was Strzok handler within FBI and was intimately involved in suppressing
Hillary email investigation. clinton email investigation has signed of CIA pressure on FBI --
that;s why DNS servers were not investigated by FBI directly -- most probably there was nothing
to investigate as malware was implanted by CrowdStrike which also create fake Gussifer 2.0
personality.
She was probably No.3 person in both email investigation and Russiagate -- "eyes and earths"
of McCabe like she admitted herself.
Looks also that she has a central position in unleashing Russiagate witch hunt and in
scapegoating General Flynn. Whether she deliberately changed documents or not to implicate him is
sill not completely clear.
Interview crates a picture of her as a dangerous ruthless operative. More so then Strzok
deposition. The fact that counter intelligence can be used for the purposes of political witch
hunt is deeply disturbing. Of course, MadCow did not ask this female James Bond why they did not
brief Trump campaign. And the fact that they did not brief Trump campaign suggest that they all
were crooks.
Notable quotes:
"... She had significant roles in the Boston marathon case and in the Edward Snowden case ..."
"... So, I was special counsel to the deputy director. He, of course, runs the FBI. He`s like the COO. And so, with respect to both the Clinton investigation but also the other responsibilities of running the bureau, I tried to serve as his sort of good counsel, his eyes and ears. ..."
"... I was definitely part of the group of people who Director Comey was consulting in terms of what to do, and ultimately, I largely supported his decision. ..."
"... The two investigations couldn`t be less similar. In the Clinton investigation, you`re talking about historical events three years prior, her use of a private e-mail server that was public investigation everybody knew about. With respect to the Russia investigation, we`re talking about trying to investigate what an incredibly hostile foreign government may be doing to interfere in our election. We didn`t know what the answer was, and it would have been deeply prejudicial and incredibly unfair to candidate Trump for us to have said anything before we knew what had had happened. ..."
"... MADDOW: What about the text messages that – in which you and Strzok were talking about, your sort of fear that Trump would be elected and he said, no, we won`t let it happen? ..."
"... PAGE: I mean, by we, he`s talking about the collective we, like-minded, thoughtful, sensible people who were not going to vote this person into office. You know, obviously in retrospect, do I wish he hadn`t sent it? Yes. It`s been mutilated to death and it`s been used to bludgeon an institution I love. And it`s meant that I disappointed countless people. ..."
"... And in terms of the litigation of this issue, the question about whether or not this, as the president and his supporters claimed, reflected some inherent political bias by you and Mr. Strzok and that you had key roles to play in these investigations and therefore the investigations are biased. ..."
One person on that list was Peter Strzok who I`m told not long ago was the top
counterintelligence agent at the FBI. Peter Strzok had a sterling career at the FBI, including
key roles in breaking up high profile Russianintelligence operations inside the United States.
He was the leadcounterintelligence agent in the FBI, and he worked on the 2016
Russiainvestigation.
He was fired in 2018 over text messages he had sent which reflected his personal political
views about President Trump, critical of PresidentTrump, and frankly critical of other people
in politics, too. Now, the president hounds him by name as the FBI`s sick loser,
Peter
Strzok, leader of the rigged witch hunt. Investigating this president, specifically
investigating the central question of his campaign`s potential involvement with the Russian
interference in our 2016 election to try to get him into the White House – I mean, that
national security imperative described in passionate terms today in federal court by the judge
who was overseeing more of the criminal trials that have derived from that investigation than
any other. The people who have actually done that work,the people how have actually talked
about it or supported it or criticized it, but actually done the work, they`ve all been lined
up at the proverbial firing line by this president, as he and his supporters, both in Congress
and in the conservative media, have just tried to pick them up off, destroy them one by one,
ending their careers one after the other, deriding them, attacking them.
But the president has reserved particularly and particularly sustained ire for one former
FBI lawyer named Lisa Page. Lisa Page had been a federal prosecutor. She`d worked in the
criminal division and in the national security division at the justice department. She worked
at the FBI. She had significant roles in the Boston marathon case and in the Edward Snowden
case . Early in 2016, Lisa Page was working a special counsel to Deputy FBI
Director
Andrew McCabe. She worked on the Clinton e-mail investigation. That same year, later in 2016,
she would also play a smaller role in the Russia investigation. And when that became the
Mueller investigation, she briefly worked on that team as well.
... ... ...
She said, quote: The sum total of findings by I.G. Horowitz that my personal opinions had
any bearing on the course of either the Clinton or Russia investigations, zero and zero. And
then she concludes, cool, cool. Lisa Page is now suing the FBI and the Justice Department for
what she calls a breach of privacy with them distributing her personal text messages to
reporters in the middle of an open investigation. She`s also suing them for the suffering that
has followed.
... ... ...
MADDOW: First, I want to talk to you about a million different things, butlet me just ask
you if I got anything wrong in terms of sketching what Iunderstand is the broad outlines of
your career there?
PAGE: No, not particularly. I wasn`t – I wouldn`t want to take credit for Boston or
Snowden. I – it`s really how I met Andy McCabe through the Boston bombing and then
through the work post-Snowden and assisting the White House in the post-intelligence reforms.
But I can`t say that I played an investigative role in any one of those.
MADDOW: So you were involved in the response in those instances (ph) –
PAGE: Exactly right.
... ... ...
PAGE: You know, it`s kind of like all good news stories. It`s part good hard work and part
serendipity. Post-Snowden, there were so many reforms coming out of the Obama White House that
I became the point person for that effort for the FBI. Andy at the time was head of the
national security program, so anything that the White House would be proposing would be
different in term of the authorities and how we conducted our business would have affected his
work. And so, we started working very closely together. He found me trustworthy and reliable
and hopefully smart, and so he asked me to join his staff.
MADDOW: By 2016, by the early months of 2016 in that role in the FBI, you found yourself
working on the Clinton e-mail investigation. Can you talk us through what your role was on that
and what that work is like?
PAGER: Sure. So, I was special counsel to the deputy director. He, of course, runs the
FBI. He`s like the COO. And so, with respect to both the Clinton investigation but also the
other responsibilities of running the bureau, I tried to serve as his sort of good counsel, his
eyes and ears. So I tried to keep both a macro view of all the various things that were
happening at the FBI, but also keep my earto the ground with respect to various investigative
steps and what wascoming next.
MADDOW: One of the things that you described in the interview you did this month with "The
Daily Beast" was that you were aware in the context of that investigation that everything
everybody did that had anything to do with that investigation was going to be very closely
scrutinized and was going to be something that was going to be obviously inherently
controversial. When it came to the decision to make public disclosures about the status of that
investigation, Director Comey criticizing Secretary Clinton even as he was announcing there
weren`t going to be prosecutions, did you have any role in that or did you have strong feelings
about that at the time?
PAGE: I did. I did. I was definitely part of the group of people who Director Comey was
consulting in terms of what to do, and ultimately, I largely supported his decision. This
was not a typical investigation. This was not an investigation where the subject was secret and
nobody knew this investigation was underway. Everyone knew that she was under investigation.
Candidate Trump was ceaselessly, you know, asking to lock her up at his rallies. So, the notion
we would say nothing with respect to choosing not to charge her, even though every person on
the team uniformly agreed that there was no prosecutable case, that was true at the Justice
Department, that was true at the FBI. So, we all agreed that we needed to say something. There
may have been varying differences into how much, and how much detail to get into, but there
wasn`t largely disagreement with respect to whether to say something at all.
MADDOW: And you ultimately ended up working on the Russia investigation deeper into 2016.
Obviously, you were one of the people who was involved in the Justice Department and the FBI in
such a way that you knew a lot about both of those cases.
Did you and the other people involved in those two cases struggle at all with this
discontinuity that the Clinton investigation, for the reasons that you just described, was very
public and various steps of that investigation were disclosed to the public, had a huge
political impact, whereas there was a live, very provocative, very disturbing investigation
into President Trump and his campaign as well and that was kept from the public? Did you
struggle with that discontinuity or the fact that therewasn`t a parallel there?
PAGE: Not at all. Not at all. The two investigations couldn`t be less similar. In the
Clinton investigation, you`re talking about historical events three years prior, her use of a
private e-mail server that was public investigation everybody knew about. With respect to the
Russia investigation, we`re talking about trying to investigate what an incredibly hostile
foreign government may be doing to interfere in our election. We didn`t know what the answer
was, and it would have been deeply prejudicial and incredibly unfair to candidate Trump for us
to have said anything before we knew what had had happened.
MADDOW: In terms of the way this played out ultimately, you become a poster child, along
with several of your colleagues, for these claims from the president, and now increasingly from
the current attorney general that the Trump-Russia investigation was cooked up on the basis of
false allegations or even some conspiracy specifically to hurt his chances of getting elected.
Now, of course, the problem there is no one in the country knew about that investigation before
people had the chance to vote on him. And I just – I mean, as an observer, I find that
flabbergasting. How does that strike you and how does that comport with your understanding of
that process given what you just described?
PAGE: There is no one on this set of facts who has any experience in counterintelligence who
would not have made the exact same decision. This is a question about whether Russia is working
with a United States person to interfere in our election. We were obligated to figure out
whether that was true or not, and to figure out who might be in a position to provide that
assistance.
MADDOW: In terms of the critique that I just implicitly made that if there had been some
sort of conspiracy against candidate Trump, that could have just easily been leaked to the
public so people would know about that when they went to the polls, is that a fair
critique?
PAGE: It is a fair critique, but we were extraordinarily careful not to do anything that
would allow this information to get out before we knew what we had.
... ...
MADDOW: In terms of the text messages and allegations that have been made against you,
you`ve sort of explained yourself in putting those text messages in greater context in terms of
what they meant and the way they were used against you. Can you explain to us tonight what was
meant by, for example, the insurance policy text message? So, this is you and Peter Strzok
texting about theprospect that President Trump is going to be elected, the unlikely
process.
PAGE: Right. I mean, it`s an analogy. First of all, it`s not my text, so I`m sort of
interpreting what I believed he meant back three years ago. But we`re using an analogy. We`re
talking about whether or not we should take certain investigative steps or not based on the
likelihood that he`sgoing to be president or not, right?
You have to keep in mind, if President Trump doesn`t become president, the national security
risks if there is somebody in his campaign associated with Russia plummets. You`re not so
worried about what Russia`s doing vis-a-vis a member of his campaign if he`s not president
because you`re not going to have access to classified information, you`re not going to have
access to sources and methods in our national security apparatus.
So, the insurance policy was an analogy. It`s like an insurance policy when you`re 40. You
don`t expect to die when you`re 40, yet you still have an insurance policy.
MADDOW: So don`t just hope that he`s not going be elected and therefore not press forward
with the investigation hoping, but rather press forward with the investigation just in case he
does get in there.
PAGE: Exactly.
MADDOW: What about the text messages that – in which you and Strzok were talking
about, your sort of fear that Trump would be elected and he said, no, we won`t let it
happen?
PAGE: I mean, by we, he`s talking about the collective we, like-minded, thoughtful,
sensible people who were not going to vote this person into office. You know, obviously in
retrospect, do I wish he hadn`t sent it? Yes. It`s been mutilated to death and it`s been used
to bludgeon an institution I love. And it`s meant that I disappointed countless people.
But this is – this is a snapshot in time carrying on a conversation that had happened
earlier in the day that reflected a broad sense of he`s notgoing to be president. We, the
democratic people of this country, are notgoing to let it happen.
MADDOW: And in terms of the litigation of this issue, the question about whether or not
this, as the president and his supporters claimed, reflected some inherent political bias by
you and Mr. Strzok and that you had key roles to play in these investigations and therefore the
investigations are biased. I mean, the inspector general has looked at that, been critical
of these expressions of strong political views, but also said that there was no indication that
political bias affected any decisions in either these investigations, full stop.
You responded to that on Twitter by saying: cool, cool. Like basically good to know but it
won`t make a difference?
PAGE: It won`t make a difference and it`s two years too late, right? It`s been three
straight years of investigation by the inspector general. Dozens of lawyers and investigators
poring over every investigative step that I took, every text and every email, and I realized
what I`ve known from the beginning which is that my personal views had no impact on the course
of either investigation. But to my "cool, cool" point, two days later, you see Lindsey Graham
in the Senate spend 40 minutes reading text messages again. These are three years old. They`re
– they`ve been described as immaterial ultimately by the inspector general and yet we`re
still talking about them.
"... Imagine millions of government employees paid for by America's tax payer class, involved in covert operations undermining nation states for the benefit of war mongering shadow overlords counting on more never ending chaos feeding their hunger for power. ..."
"... This isn't Orwell's 1984, this Team America on opioids. ..."
"... Senior OPCW official had orders from US/ the Donald. Remember that the Donald bombed Syria based on this fake report , after a false flag done by Al Qaeda's artistic branch, the White Helmets. ..."
"... Pray, do tell where are the consequences for these literal demons that engaged in war crimes? It is quite clear: as long as you are a member of the establishment, you can do whatever the f*ck you want. ..."
"... Third rate script, third rate actors and crooked investigators. TPTB seem to have a plan worked out. Their problem now is that we, the hoi-polloi, have seen it all before, many times, and we can now recognise ******** when it's used to try to influence us. ..."
"... If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists – now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information reaching the press. ..."
"... Instead of these pieces concentrating on the whistleblower how about putting a little heat on the 50 lying bastards who initiated the coverup? ..."
"... The destruction of the countries of the Middle East for the sake of a dwarf with giant ambitions is the most stupid thing the United States has done over the past 30 years in its foreign policy. And yes, all the wars in the Middle East were grounded in lies. And the Americans paid for it all from start to finish. When Americans realize that they need to defend their national interests, and not other people's national interests, maybe something in the Middle East will change for the better. True, I am afraid that with the hight level of stupidity and shortsightedness that is common among Americans, the United States is more likely to be destroyed faster. No offense. ..."
"... And I propose to remember the Syrian Christians who were destroyed by the Saudi Wahhabis, hired by the CIA with the money of American taxpayers and at the request of Israel. Until the Americans begin to investigate the activities of the CIA (and this activity causes the United States only harm), the responsibility for this genocide (you heard right) will be on the American nation. It turns out that in the Middle East you are primarily destroying Christians. How interesting, why such zeal. ..."
"... According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad's editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. "If I don't find another position in journalism because of this, I'm perfectly happy to accept that consequence," Haddad says. "It's not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job knowing that I couldn't report something like this." ..."
"... New leaks continue to expose a cover-up by the OPCW – the world's top chemical weapons watchdog – over a critical event in Syria. Documents, emails, and testimony from OPCW officials have raised major doubts about the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. The leaked OPCW information has been released in pieces by Wikileaks. The latest documents contain a number of significant revelations – including that that about 20 OPCW officials voiced concerns that their scientific findings and on-the-ground evidence was suppressed and excluded. ..."
Wikileaks has released their fourth set of leaks from the OPCW's Douma investigation,
revealing new details about the alleged deletion of important information regarding the
fact-finding mission.
RELEASE: OPCW-Douma Docs 4. Four leaked documents from the OPCW reveal that toxicologists
ruled out deaths from chlorine exposure and a senior official ordered the deletion of the
dissenting engineering report from OPCW's internal repository of documents. https://t.co/ndK4sRikNk
"One of the documents is an e-mail exchange dated 27 and 28 February between members of the
fact finding mission (FFM) deployed to Douma and the senior officials of the OPCW. It includes
an e-mail from Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW , where he instructs that an
engineering report from Ian Henderson should be removed from the secure registry of the
organisation," WikiLeaks writes. Included in the email is the following directive:
" Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive] And please remove all
traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA.'"
According to Wikileaks, the main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma, was
that two of the cylinders were most likely manually placed at the site, rather than
dropped.
"The main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma and two cylinders that were
found on the site of the alleged attack, was that they were more likely manually placed there
than dropped from a plane or helicopter from considerable heights. His findings were omitted
from the official final OPCW report on the Douma incident," the Wikileaks report said.
It must be remembered that the U.S. launched an attack on Damascus, Syria on April 14, 2018
over alleged chemical weapons usage by pro-Assad forces at Douma.
Another document released Friday is minutes from a meeting on 6 June 2018 where four staff
members of the OPCW had discussions with "three Toxicologists/Clinical pharmacologists, one
bioanalytical and toxicological chemist" (all specialists in chemical weapons, according to the
minutes).
Minutes from an OPCW meeting with toxicologists specialized in chemical weapons: "the
experts were conclusive in their statements that there was
no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure". https://t.co/j5Jgjiz8UY pic.twitter.com/vgPaTtsdQN
The purpose of this meeting was two-fold. The first objective was "to solicit expert advice
on the value of exhuming suspected victims of the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April
2018". According to the minutes, the OPCW team was advised by the experts that there would be
little use in conducting exhumations. The second point was "To elicit expert opinions from the
forensic toxicologists regarding the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged
victims."
More specifically, " whether the symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure
to chlorine or other reactive chlorine gas."
According to the minutes leaked Friday: "With respect to the consistency of the observed and
reported symptoms of the alleged victims with possible exposure to chlorine gas or similar, the
experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and
chlorine exposure ."
The OPCW team members wrote that the key "take-away message" from the meeting was "that the
symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate
chemical causing the symptoms could be identified".
The isisrahell have such long hand to pull the plug any stories implicating their crime in
progress otherwise they can put out some bs spins as bombshell reporting about US lies in
Afghanistan war on their wapo for public for those who read it was nothing important revealed
except being a misdirected na
If you want to pay off that student loan you're going to print what they tell you to
print. You're going to inject kids with what they tell you to inject them with. You're going
to think what they tell you to think or you're going to spend your days in a Prole bar
drinking Blatz.
yes, an attack was launched, 50 missiles I believe, after loud warnings that it was
coming, and none of them actually hit anything significant ... this is the way the game is
played .... the good news is that the missiles cost $50 million, and now they will have to be
replaced, by the Pentagon, first borrowing the money through the US Treasury offerings, and
then paying for them from new money printed by the Federal Reserve. capische?
That`s the way it`s always been, it`s the eternal war of good against evil.
And when one evil enemy is defeated, it`s necessary to create a new evil enemy, how else
can the Establishment Elite make money from war, death and destruction.
It's really very awkward & telling how ***** these bunch of western nations are
looking tough on taking out poor defenceless country like Syria on ******** & at the
satried to ease real kickass Russian as you described when they launch the attacks
I kind wish the US & their Zionist clown launch such huge attacks on Iran based on
false flag
I really wanted these evil aggressive powers to taste what it is like to get bombed back
even one they used to throw on multiple weaker nations freely with nothing to fear as
retribution etc
This organisations are all set up in Europe and US run by the filthiest filth on earth who
still think they have God given right to imperial rule over the world.
Your military-industrial-intelligence complex at work, creating justification for more
funding, like always - and who cares if people die as a result? Like Soros said, if they
didn't do it, someone else would. (do I need /sarc?).
They don't like to be shown to be in charge, just to be in charge. And if you think this
is a function of the current admin, you've been slow in the head and deaf and blind for quite
some time.
I've watched since Eisenhower, and "it's always something". Doesn't matter what color the
clown in chief's tie is.
Imagine millions of government employees paid for by America's tax payer class, involved
in covert operations undermining nation states for the benefit of war mongering shadow
overlords counting on more never ending chaos feeding their hunger for power.
This isn't Orwell's 1984, this Team America on opioids.
Senior OPCW official had orders from US/ the Donald. Remember that the Donald bombed Syria based on this fake report , after a false flag done
by Al Qaeda's artistic branch, the White Helmets.
Pray, do tell where are the consequences for these literal demons that engaged in war
crimes? It is quite clear: as long as you are a member of the establishment, you can do
whatever the f*ck you want. Why do we even follow the law, then? Given the precedent that is
being set, we might as well not have any.
Well, they are looking forward to using all those Israeli weapons, er, uh, products, that
local law enforcement has purchased...so watch out for Co-Intel Pro elicitation going
forward....?
Everybody knows the Golem (USA) does Isn'treal's bidding in Syria and elsewhere in the
Near East. Hopefully they keep hammering in the fact that this "gas attack" was an obvious
set-up to use as a pretext (flimsy itself on the face of it) to brutalize Assad and Syria on
behalf of Isn'treal.
The whole thing is built on ******* lies. Worst part about it is, nothing will happen.
Only official news is to believed. You see it and it is a lie. they tell you to believe
it. A lot of people casually believe whatever is spoken on TV. They become teachers and are
taught in college what is right and wrong. We only have a few years before all the brain dead
are in charge and robotically following the message like zombies with no brain
Third rate script, third rate actors and crooked investigators. TPTB seem to have a plan worked out. Their problem now is that we, the hoi-polloi, have
seen it all before, many times, and we can now recognise ******** when it's used to try to
influence us.
It is difficult to underestimate the seriousness of this manipulative act by the OPCW.
In a response to the conservative author Peter Hitchens, who also writes for the Mail on
Sunday – he is of course the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens – the
OPCW admits that its so-called technical secretariat "is conducting an internal
investigation about the unauthorised [sic] release of the document".
Then it adds: "At this time, there is no further public information on this matter and
the OPCW is unable to accommodate [sic] requests for interviews". It's a tactic that until
now seems to have worked: not a single news media which reported the OPCW's official
conclusions has followed up the story of the report which the OPCW suppressed.
And you bet the OPCW is not going to "accommodate" interviews. For here is an
institution investigating a war crime in a conflict which has cost hundreds of thousands of
lives – yet its only response to an enquiry about the engineers' "secret" assessment
is to concentrate on its own witch-hunt for the source of the document it wished to keep
secret from the world.
If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than
a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists
– now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information
reaching the press.
The destruction of the countries of the Middle East for the sake of a dwarf with giant
ambitions is the most stupid thing the United States has done over the past 30 years in its
foreign policy. And yes, all the wars in the Middle East were grounded in lies. And the
Americans paid for it all from start to finish. When Americans realize that they need to
defend their national interests, and not other people's national interests, maybe something
in the Middle East will change for the better. True, I am afraid that with the hight level of
stupidity and shortsightedness that is common among Americans, the United States is more
likely to be destroyed faster. No offense.
And I propose to remember the Syrian Christians who were destroyed by the Saudi Wahhabis,
hired by the CIA with the money of American taxpayers and at the request of Israel. Until the
Americans begin to investigate the activities of the CIA (and this activity causes the United
States only harm), the responsibility for this genocide (you heard right) will be on the
American nation. It turns out that in the Middle East you are primarily destroying
Christians. How interesting, why such zeal.
According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm
about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian
government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad's
editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. "If I don't find another
position in journalism because of this, I'm perfectly happy to accept that consequence,"
Haddad says. "It's not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job
knowing that I couldn't report something like this."
New leaks continue to expose a cover-up by the OPCW – the world's top chemical
weapons watchdog – over a critical event in Syria. Documents, emails, and testimony
from OPCW officials have raised major doubts about the allegation that the Syrian government
committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. The leaked OPCW
information has been released in pieces by Wikileaks. The latest documents contain a number
of significant revelations – including that that about 20 OPCW officials
voiced concerns that their scientific findings and on-the-ground evidence was suppressed and
excluded.
This is, without a doubt, a major global scandal: the OPCW, under reported US pressure,
suppressing vital evidence about allegations of chemical weapons. But that very fact exposes
another global scandal: with the exception of small outlets like The Grayzone, the mass media
has widely ignored or whitewashed this story. And this widespread censorship of the OPCW
scandal has just led one journalist to resign. Up until recently, Tareq Haddad was a reporter
at Newsweek. But in early December, Tareq announced that he had quit his position after
Newsweek refused to publish his story about the OPCW cover up over Syria.
John H. Durham, the United States attorney leading the investigation, has requested Mr.
Brennan's emails, call logs and other documents from the C.I.A., according to a person briefed
on his inquiry. He wants to learn what Mr. Brennan told other officials, including the former
F.B.I. director James B. Comey, about his and the C.I.A.'s views of a notorious dossier of
assertions about Russia and Trump associates.
... ... ...
Mr. Durham is also examining whether Mr. Brennan privately contradicted his public comments,
including May
2017 testimony to Congress , about both the dossier and about any debate among the
intelligence agencies over their conclusions on Russia's interference, the people said.
... ... ..
"The president bore the burden of probably one of the greatest conspiracy theories --
baseless conspiracy theories -- in American political history," Mr. Barr told Fox News. He has
long expressed skepticism that the F.B.I. had enough information to begin its inquiry in 2016,
publicly criticizing an inspector general report released last week that affirmed that the
bureau did.
Mr. Barr has long been
interested in the conclusion about Mr. Putin ordering intervention on Mr. Trump's behalf,
perhaps the intelligence report's most explosive assertion. The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. reported
high confidence in the conclusion, while the N.S.A., which conducts electronic surveillance,
had a moderate degree of confidence.
... ... ...
Critics of the intelligence assessment, like Representative Chris Stewart, Republican of
Utah, said the C.I.A.'s sourcing failed to justify the high level of confidence about Moscow's
intervention on behalf of Mr. Trump.
"I don't agree with the conclusion, particularly that it's such a high level of confidence,"
Mr. Stewart said, citing raw intelligence that he said he reviewed.
"I just think there should've been allowances made for some of the ambiguity in that and
especially for those who didn't also share in the conclusion that it was a high degree of
confidence," he added.
Mr. Durham's investigators also want to know more about the discussions that prompted
intelligence community leaders to include Mr. Steele's allegations in the
appendix of their assessment.
Mr. Brennan has repeatedly said, including in his 2017 congressional testimony, that the
C.I.A. did not rely on the dossier when it helped develop the assessment, and the former
director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has also testified before lawmakers that the
same was true for the intelligence agencies more broadly. But Mr. Trump's allies have long
asked pointed questions about the dossier, including how it was used in the intelligence
agency's assessment.
Some C.I.A. analysts and officials insisted that the dossier be left out of the assessment,
while some F.B.I. leaders wanted to include it and bristled at its relegation to the appendix.
Their disagreements were captured in the highly anticipated report released last week
by Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department inspector general, examining aspects of the
F.B.I.'s Russia investigation.
Mr. Steele's information "was a topic of significant discussion within the F.B.I. and with
the other agencies participating in drafting" the declassified intelligence assessment about
Russia interference, Mr. Horowitz wrote. The F.B.I. shared Mr. Steele's information with the
team of officials from multiple agencies drafting the assessment.
Mr. Comey also briefed Mr. Brennan and other top Obama administration intelligence officials
including the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, and Mr. Clapper
about the bureau's efforts to assess the information in the dossier, Mr. Comey told the
inspector general. He said that analysts had found it to be "credible on its face."
... ... ...
Andrew G. McCabe, then the deputy director of the F.B.I., pushed back, according to the
inspector general report, accusing the intelligence chiefs of trying to minimize Mr. Steele's
information.
Ultimately the two sides compromised by placing Mr. Steele's material in the appendix. After
BuzzFeed News published the dossier in January 2017, days after the intelligence assessment
about Russia's election sabotage was released, Mr. Comey complained to Mr. Clapper about his
decision to publicly state that the intelligence community "has not made any judgment" about
the document's reliability.
Mr. Comey said that the F.B.I. had concluded that Mr. Steele was reliable, according to the
inspector general report. Mr. Clapper ignored Mr. Comey, the report said.
The Washington Post has, after more than two years of investigation,
revealed that senior foreign policy officials in the White House, State and Defense
departments have known for some time that the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was failing
.
In other words, government officials have been
lying .
Few people are shocked. That's a stark contrast to 1971, when the Pentagon Papers , a classified study of
decision-making about Vietnam, were leaked and published. The explosive Pentagon Papers showed
that the U.S. government had systematically lied about the reality that the U.S. was losing the
Vietnam War.
The failure of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan has been known for years. Virtually
none of the U.S. goals have been met . These goals included a strong, democratic, uncorrupt
central government; the defeat of the Taliban; eliminating the poppy fields that contribute to
the world's heroin problem; an effective military and police and creating a healthy,
diversified economy.
The Inspector General has repeatedly documented the reality in its widely available (and
widely reported)
audits .
Despite this public record of failure, officials continued to trumpet political
and military gains on the ground, even that the U.S. could prevail.
Privately, they have been wringing their hands.
Shades of Vietnam.
Public confidence in government was shaken by the publication of the Pentagon Papers in
1971.
AP/Jim Wells
Sad history of Vietnam
The Pentagon
Papers revealed that senior officials asserted in the 1960s that the Viet Cong were dying
in record numbers, enemy leadership was decapitated and there was "light at
the end of the tunnel ." Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and his commanders, who knew the
reality, continuously called for even more force from 1961 to 1969.
H.R. McMaster, in his classic study of
Vietnam decision-making , excoriated the military for not bringing the truth to President
Lyndon Johnson, for presenting Johnson with the "lies that led to Vietnam."
Now we learn, courtesy of The Washington Post, that, when interviewed in 2015 as part of
Special Inspector General's " Lessons Learned " project,
Lute said , "We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan we didn't have
the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking."
While Afghanistan is clearly not Vietnam, Washington is still
Washington.
The U.S. secretly plotted and carried out the overthrow of the democratically elected leader
of Iran, Mohammad Mossadeq, in 1953. Here, an Iranian protests U.S. involvement in the coup.
Pahlavi Dynasty, public domain
But
Vietnam was the big lie , permanently exposing the gap between myth – the government
knows everything better – and reality – that policy is failing.
Since Vietnam, the media and congressional, think-tank and scholarly investigators have
suspected something with every intervention.
To the public , the truth about Afghanistan has been clear; public opinion has been way
ahead of what The Washington Post revealed.
Good reasons for lies
Lies are an integral part of national security operations. They seek credibility for
government policy. They mislead adversaries, cover up mistakes and failures.
Above all, they are intended to secure public support for policy and defeat opposition at
home. Political scientist John Mearsheimer has noted
that governments don't often lie to their allies and adversaries, "but instead seem more
inclined to lie to their own people."
In particular, secrecy and deception convey power. As philosopher Sissela Bok says ,
"Deception can be coercive. When it succeeds, it can give power to the deceiver."
Secrecy allows policies to be tweaked outside public view . Insiders gain influence
arguing for new approaches to the same goals. Even the goals can shift as interventions
deteriorate. The political consequences of failure may be avoided.
It is rare for an official to acknowledge failure and reverse policy; personal, political
and national credibility may be at stake. President Johnson insisted that he was not going to
be the "first
president to lose a war." Bush, Obama and even Trump did not want to "lose"
Afghanistan.
Nonetheless, lying about military interventions carries a serious risk.
The Pentagon Papers eroded public faith in the credibility of our democratic government.
That erosion was later reinforced by the Watergate scandal. As
Bok, the philosopher, wrote , "deception of this kind strikes at the very essence of
democratic government."
British leader Winston Churchill said , "In
war-time truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
Deception aimed at the public and the Axis was an essential part of Churchill's war
strategy.
The Afghanistan papers reveal yet again that statesmen still believe the truth should be
concealed. But the credibility of statecraft and leadership itself were seriously eroded by the
Vietnam lies, weakening the fabric of democracy.
The mild reaction to lying in plain sight about Afghanistan suggests the U.S. may be well
down the road to unravelling government's credibility and our democracy altogether.
Here's a key point - on June 12, Assange announces that Wikileaks will soon be releasing
info pertinent to Hillary. HE DOES NOT SAY THAT HE WILL BE RELEASING DNC EMAILS.
And yet, on June 14, Crowdstrike reports a Russian hack of the DNC servers - and a day later, Guccifer
2.0 emerges and proclaims himself to be the hacker, takes credit for the upcoming Wikileaks
DNC releases, publishes the Trump oppo research which Crowdstrike claimed he had taken, and
intentionally adds "Russian footprints" to his metadata.
So how did Crowdstrike and G2.0 know
that DNC EMAILS would be released?
Because, as Larry postulates, the US intelligence
community had intercepted communications between Seth Rich and Wikileaks in which Seth had
offered the DNC emails (consistent with the report of Sy Hersh's source within the FBI).
So
US intelligence tipped off the DNC that their emails were about to be leaked to Wikileaks.
That's when the stratagem of attributing the impending Wikileaks release to a Russian hack
was born - distracting from the incriminating content of the emails, while vilifying the Deep
State's favorite enemies, Assange and Russia, all in one neat scam.
Gossufer2.0 and CrowdStrike are the weakest links in this sordid story. CrowdStrike was nothing but FBI/CIA contractor.
So the hypothesis that CrowdStrike employees implanted malware to implicate Russians and created fake Gussifer 2.0 personality
is pretty logical.
Notable quotes:
"... Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of then CIA Director John Brennan ..."
"... In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust. ..."
"... We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the Vault 7 documents : ..."
"... Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович" is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.) ..."
"... Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA. ..."
"... The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich. Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign, would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia. ..."
"... The only source for the claim that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. ..."
"... Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch, but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June. That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction. ..."
"... The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU. ..."
"... LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU." ..."
"... ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments? ..."
"... With the Russians not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet), would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump. ..."
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report insists that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were created by Russia's military intelligence organization,
the GRU, as part of a Russian plot to meddle in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Election. But this is a lie. Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks
were created by Brennan's CIA and this action by the CIA should be a target of U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation. Let me
explain why.
Let us start with the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment aka ICA. Only three agencies of the 17 in the U.S. intelligence
community contributed to and coordinated on the ICA--the FBI, the CIA and NSA. In the preamble to the ICA, you can read the following
explanation about methodology:
When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as "we assess" or "we judge," they are conveying an analytic assessment or
judgment
To be clear, the phrase,"We assess", is intel community jargon for "opinion". If there was actual evidence or source material
for a judgment the writer of the assessment would state, "According to a reliable source" or "knowledgeable source" or "documentary
evidence."
Pay close attention to what the analysts writing the ICA stated about the GRU and Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks:
We assess with high confidence that the GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data
obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.
Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be an independent Romanian hacker, made multiple contradictory statements and false claims
about his likely Russian identity throughout the election. Press reporting suggests more than one person claiming to be Guccifer
2.0 interacted with journalists.
Content that we assess was taken from e-mail accounts targeted by the GRU in March 2016 appeared on DCLeaks.com starting
in June.
We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks.
Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity. Disclosures through WikiLeaks did
not contain any evident forgeries.
Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or
electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and
DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump
campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks
were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of
then CIA Director John Brennan.
Here's Mueller's take (I apologize for the lengthy quote but it is important that you read how the Mueller team presents this):
DCLeaks
"The GRU began planning the releases at least as early as April 19, 2016, when Unit 26165 registered the domain dcleaks.com
through a service that anonymized the registrant.137 Unit 26165 paid for the registration using a pool of bitcoin that it had
mined.138 The dcleaks.com landing page pointed to different tranches of stolen documents, arranged by victim or subject matter.
Other dcleaks.com pages contained indexes of the stolen emails that were being released (bearing the sender, recipient, and date
of the email). To control access and the timing of releases, pages were sometimes password-protected for a period of time and
later made unrestricted to the public.
Starting in June 2016, the GRU posted stolen documents onto the website dcleaks.com, including documents stolen from a number
of individuals associated with the Clinton Campaign. These documents appeared to have originated from personal email accounts
(in particular, Google and Microsoft accounts), rather than the DNC and DCCC computer networks. DCLeaks victims included an advisor
to the Clinton Campaign, a former DNC employee and Clinton Campaign employee, and four other campaign volunteers.139 The GRU released
through dcleaks.com thousands of documents, including personal identifying and financial information, internal correspondence
related to the"Clinton Campaign and prior political jobs, and fundraising files and information.140
GRU officers operated a Facebook page under the DCLeaks moniker, which they primarily used to promote releases of materials.141
The Facebook page was administered through a small number of preexisting GRU-controlled Facebook accounts.142
GRU officers also used the DCLeaks Facebook account, the Twitter account @dcleaks__, and the email account [email protected]
to communicate privately with reporters and other U.S. persons. GRU officers using the DCLeaks persona gave certain reporters
early access to archives of leaked files by sending them links and passwords to pages on the dcleaks.com website that had not
yet become public. For example, on July 14, 2016, GRU officers operating under the DCLeaks persona sent a link and password for
a non-public DCLeaks webpage to a U.S. reporter via the Facebook account.143 Similarly, on September 14, 2016, GRU officers sent
reporters Twitter direct messages from @dcleaks_, with a password to another non-public part of the dcleaks.com website.144
The dcleaks.com website remained operational and public until March 2017."
Guccifer 2.0
On June 14, 2016, the DNC and its cyber-response team announced the breach of the DNC network and suspected theft of DNC documents.
In the statements, the cyber-response team alleged that Russian state-sponsored actors (which they referred to as "Fancy Bear")
were responsible for the breach.145 Apparently in response to that announcement, on June 15, 2016, GRU officers using the persona
Guccifer 2.0 created a WordPress blog. In the hours leading up to the launch of that WordPress blog, GRU officers logged into
a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455 and searched for a number of specific words and phrases in English, including
"some hundred sheets," "illuminati," and "worldwide known." Approximately two hours after the last of those searches, Guccifer
2.0 published its first post, attributing the DNC server hack to a lone Romanian hacker and using several of the unique English
words and phrases that the GRU officers had searched for that day.146
That same day, June 15, 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 WordPress blog to begin releasing to the public documents
stolen from the DNC and DCCC computer networks.
The Guccifer 2.0 persona ultimately released thousands of documents stolen from the DNC and DCCC in a series of blog posts
between June 15, 2016 and October 18, 2016.147 Released documents included opposition research performed by the DNC (including
a memorandum analyzing potential criticisms of candidate Trump), internal policy documents (such as recommendations on how to
address politically sensitive issues), analyses of specific congressional races, and fundraising documents. Releases were organized
around thematic issues, such as specific states (e.g., Florida and Pennsylvania) that were perceived as competitive in the 2016
U.S. presidential election.
Beginning in late June 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release documents directly to reporters and other
interested individuals. Specifically, on June 27, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 sent an email to the news outlet The Smoking Gun offering
to provide "exclusive access to some leaked emails linked [to] Hillary Clinton's staff."148 The GRU later sent the reporter a
password and link to a locked portion of the dcleaks.com website that contained an archive of emails stolen by Unit 26165 from
a Clinton Campaign volunteer in March 2016.149 "That the Guccifer 2.0 persona provided reporters access to a restricted portion
of the DCLeaks website tends to indicate that both personas were operated by the same or a closely-related group of people.150
The GRU continued its release efforts through Guccifer 2.0 into August 2016. For example, on August 15, 2016, the Guccifer
2.0 persona sent a candidate for the U.S. Congress documents related to the candidate's opponent.151 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer
2.0 persona transferred approximately 2.5 gigabytes of Florida-related data stolen from the DCCC to a U.S. blogger covering Florida
politics.152 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona sent a U.S. reporter documents stolen from the DCCC pertaining to the
Black Lives Matter movement.153"
Wow. Sounds pretty convincing. The documents referencing communications by DCLeaks or Guccifer 2.0 with Wikileaks are real. What
is not true is that these entities were GRU assets.
In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE
OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the
work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust.
We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it
appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the
Vault 7 documents :
Vault 7 is a series of documents that WikiLeaks began to publish on 7 March 2017, that detail activities and capabilities of the
United States' Central Intelligence Agency to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files, dated from 2013–2016,
include details on the agency's software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs,[1] web browsers (including
Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera Software ASA),[2][3][4] and the operating systems of most smartphones (including
Apple's iOS and Google's Android), as well as other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux[5][6
One of the tools in Vault 7 carries the innocuous name, MARBLE.
Hackernews explains the purpose and function
of MARBLE:
Dubbed "Marble," the part 3 of CIA files contains 676 source code files of a secret anti-forensic Marble Framework, which is basically
an obfuscator or a packer used to hide the true source of CIA malware.
The CIA's Marble Framework tool includes a variety of different algorithm with foreign language text intentionally inserted into
the malware source code to fool security analysts and falsely attribute attacks to the wrong nation.
Marble is used to hamper[ing] forensic investigators and anti-virus companies from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks
to the CIA," says the whistleblowing site.
"...for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then
showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion," WikiLeaks
explains.
So guess what
gullible techies "discovered" in mid-June 2016? The meta data in the Guccifer 2.0 communications had "Russian fingerprints."
We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0 -- the nom
de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove
it -- left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era.
Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside
the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured
to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович"
is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the
Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren
Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.)
Just use your common sense. If the Russians were really trying to carry out a covert cyberattack, do you really think they
are so sloppy and incompetent to insert the name of the creator of the Soviet secret police in the metadata? No. The Russians are
not clowns. This was a clumsy attempt to frame the Russians.
Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they
had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA.
The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering
those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich.
Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign,
would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia.
It is essential to recall the timeline of the alleged Russian intrusion into the DNC network. The only source for the claim
that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. Here is the timeline for the DNC "hack."
Here are the facts on the public record. They are at odds with the claims of the Intelligence Community:
It was
29 April 2016 , when the DNC claims it became aware its servers had been penetrated. No claim yet about who was responsible.
And no claim that there had been a prior warning by the FBI of a penetration of the DNC by Russian military intelligence.
According to CrowdStrike founder , Dimitri Alperovitch, his company first supposedly detected the Russians mucking around
inside the DNC server on 6 May 2016. A CrowdStrike intelligence analyst reportedly told Alperovitch that:
Falcon had identified not one but two Russian intruders: Cozy Bear, a group CrowdStrike's experts believed was affiliated
with the FSB, Russia's answer to the CIA; and Fancy Bear, which they had linked to the GRU, Russian military intelligence.
The Wikileaks data shows that the last message copied from the DNC network is dated Wed, 25 May 2016 08:48:35.
10 June 2016 --CrowdStrike waited until 10 June 2016 to take concrete steps to clean up the DNC network. Alperovitch told
Esquire's Vicky Ward that: 'Ultimately, the teams decided it was necessary to replace the software on every computer at the DNC.
Until the network was clean, secrecy was vital. On the afternoon of Friday, June 10, all DNC employees were instructed to leave
their laptops in the office."
On June 14, 2016 , Ellen Nakamura, a Washington Post reporter who had been briefed by computer security company hired by the
DNC -- Crowdstrike--, wrote:
Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the
entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security
experts who responded to the breach.
The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC's system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said
DNC officials and the security experts.
The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential
candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political
action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.
15 June, 2016 , an internet "personality" self-described as Guccifer 2.0 surfaces and claims to be responsible for the hacks
but denies being Russian. The people/entity behind Guccifer 2.0:
Used a Russian VPN service provider to conceal their identity.
Created an email account with AOL.fr (a service that exposes the sender's IP address) and contacted the press (exposing his
VPN IP address in the process).
Contacted various media outlets through this set up and claimed credit for hacking the DNC, sharing copies of files purportedly
from the hack (one of which had Russian error messages embedded in them) with reporters from Gawker, The Smoking Gun and other
outlets.
Carried out searches for terms that were mostly in English, several of which would appear in Guccifer 2.0's first blog post.
They chose to do this via a server based in Moscow. (this is from the indictment,
"On or about June 15, 2016, the Conspirators logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455")
Created a blog and made an initial blog post claiming to have hacked the DNC, providing links to various documents as proof.
Carelessly dropped a "Russian Smiley" into his first blog post.
Managed to add the name "Феликс Эдмундович" (which translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, also known as "Iron Felix") to the metadata
of several documents. (Several sources went beyond what the evidence shows and made claims about Guccifer 2.0 using a Russian
keyboard, however, these claims are just assumptions made in response to the presence of cyrillic characters.)
The only thing that the Guccifer 2.0 character did not do to declare its Russian heritage was to take out full page ads in the
New York Times and Washington Post. But the "forensic" fingerprints that Guccifer 2.0 was leaving behind is not the only inexplicable
event.
Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch,
but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June.
That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction.
It is only AFTER Julian Assange announces on 12 June 2016 that WikiLeaks has emails relating to Hillary Clinton that DCLeaks or
Guccifer 2.0 try to contact Assange.
The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's
team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source
of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham
should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that
the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA,
not the GRU.
LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential
election was the CIA, not the GRU."
Larry, thanks -- vital clarifications and reminders. In your earlier presentation of this material did you not also distinguish
between the way actually interagency assessments are titled, and ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or
the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments?
Thank you Larry. You have discovered one more vital key to the conspiracy. We now need the evidence of Julian Assange. He is kept
incommunicado and He is being tortured by the British in jail and will be murdered by the American judicial system if he lasts
long enough to be extradited.
You can be sure he will be "Epsteined" before he appears in open court because he knows the source of what Wikileaks published.
Once he is gone, mother Clinton is in the clear.
I can understand the GRU or SVR hacking the DNC and other e-mail servers because as intelligence services that is their job, but
can anyone think of any examples of Russia (or the Soviet Union) using such information to take overt action?
With the Russians
not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet),
would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump.
I suspected that Deep State has at least two opposing factions. The Realistists want him to
break up the empire, turn back into a republic; the Delusionals want to extend the empire,
continue to exploit and destroy the world. If so, the contradictions, reversals, incoherence
make sense. IMO as I said.
Gary Weglarz ,
I predict that all Western MSM will begin to accurately and vocally cover Mr. Binney's
findings about this odious and treasonous U.S. government psyop at just about the exact time
that -- "hell freezes over" -- as they say.
Jen ,
They don't need to, they have Tony Blair's fellow Brit psycho Boris Johnson to go on
autopilot and blame the Russians the moment something happens and just before London Met
start their investigations.
"... You are turning a policy disagreement between two branches of government into an impeachable offense -- it is no more legitimate than the Executive Branch charging members of Congress with crimes for the lawful exercise of legislative power. ..."
"... You know full well that Vice President Biden used his office and $1 billion dollars of U.S. aid money to coerce Ukraine into firing the prosecutor who was digging into the company paying his son millions of dollars. You know this because Biden bragged about it on video. Biden openly stated: "I said, 'I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion dollars' I looked at them and said: 'I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money.' Well, son of a bitch. He got fired." Even Joe Biden admitted just days ago in an interview with NPR that it "looked bad." Now you are trying to impeach me by falsely accusing me of doing what Joe Biden has admitted he actually did. ..."
"... This is nothing more than an illegal, partisan attempted coup that will, based on recent sentiment, badly fail at the voting booth. You are not just after me, as President, you are after the entire Republican Party. But because of this colossal injustice, our party is more united than it has ever been before. History will judge you harshly as you proceed with this impeachment charade. Your legacy will be that of turning the House of Representatives from a revered legislative body into a Star Chamber of partisan persecution. ..."
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Madam Speaker:
I write to express my strongest and most powerful protest against the partisan impeachment crusade being pursued by the Democrats
in the House of Representatives. This impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers,
unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of American legislative history.
The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional
theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever. You have cheapened
the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!
By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution,
and you are declaring open war on American Democracy. You dare to invoke the Founding Fathers in pursuit of this election-nullification
scheme -- yet your spiteful actions display unfettered contempt for America's founding and your egregious conduct threatens to destroy
that which our Founders pledged their very lives to build. Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you are offending Americans
of faith by continually saying "I pray for the President," when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative
sense. It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!
Your first claim, "Abuse of Power," is a completely disingenuous, meritless, and baseless invention of your imagination. You know
that I had a totally innocent conversation with the President of Ukraine. I then had a second conversation that has been misquoted,
mischaracterized, and fraudulently misrepresented. Fortunately, there was a transcript of the conversation taken, and you know from
the transcript (which was immediately made available) that the paragraph in question was perfect. I said to President Zelensky: "I
would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it." I said do
us a favor, not me , and our country , not a campaign. I then mentioned the Attorney General of the United States.
Every time I talk with a foreign leader, I put America's interests first, just as I did with President Zelensky.
You are turning a policy disagreement between two branches of government into an impeachable offense -- it is no more legitimate
than the Executive Branch charging members of Congress with crimes for the lawful exercise of legislative power.
You know full well that Vice President Biden used his office and $1 billion dollars of U.S. aid money to coerce Ukraine into firing
the prosecutor who was digging into the company paying his son millions of dollars. You know this because Biden bragged about it
on video. Biden openly stated: "I said, 'I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion dollars' I looked at them and said: 'I'm
leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money.' Well, son of a bitch. He got fired." Even Joe
Biden admitted just days ago in an interview with NPR that it "looked bad." Now you are trying to impeach me by falsely accusing
me of doing what Joe Biden has admitted he actually did.
President Zelensky has repeatedly declared that I did nothing wrong, and that there was No Pressure. He further emphasized that
it was a "good phone call," that "I don't feel pressure," and explicitly stressed that "nobody pushed me." The Ukrainian Foreign
Minister stated very clearly: "I have never seen a direct link between investigations and security assistance." He also said there
was "No Pressure." Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a supporter of Ukraine who met privately with President Zelensky, has said:
"At no time during this meeting was there any mention by Zelensky or any Ukrainian that they were feeling pressure to do anything
in return for the military aid." Many meetings have been held between representatives of Ukraine and our country. Never once did
Ukraine complain about pressure being applied -- not once! Ambassador Sondland testified that I told him: "No quid pro quo. I want
nothing. I want nothing. I want President Zelensky to do the right thing, do what he ran on."
The second claim, so-called "Obstruction of Congress," is preposterous and dangerous. House Democrats are trying to impeach the
duly elected President of the United States for asserting Constitutionally based privileges that have been asserted on a bipartisan
basis by administrations of both political parties throughout our Nation's history. Under that standard, every American president
would have been impeached many times over. As liberal law professor Jonathan Turley warned when addressing Congressional Democrats:
"I can't emphasize this enough if you impeach a president, if you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it
is an abuse of power. It's your abuse of power. You're doing precisely what you're criticizing the President for doing."
Everyone, you included, knows what is really happening. Your chosen candidate lost the election in 2016, in an Electoral College
landslide (306-227), and you and your party have never recovered from this defeat. You have developed a full-fledged case of what
many in the media call Trump Derangement Syndrome and sadly, you will never get over it! You are unwilling and unable to accept the
verdict issued at the ballot box during the great Election of 2016. So you have spent three straight years attempting to overturn
the will of the American people and nullify their votes. You view democracy as your enemy!
Speaker Pelosi, you admitted just last week at a public forum that your party's impeachment effort has been going on for "two
and a half years," long before you ever heard about a phone call with Ukraine. Nineteen minutes after I took the oath of office,
the Washington Post published a story headlined, "The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun." Less than three months
after my inauguration, Representative Maxine Waters stated, "I'm going to fight every day until he's impeached." House Democrats
introduced the first impeachment resolution against me within months of my inauguration, for what will be regarded as one of our
country's best decisions, the firing of James Comey (see Inspector General Reports) -- who the world now knows is one of the dirtiest
cops our Nation has ever seen. A ranting and raving Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib, declared just hours after she was sworn into office,
"We're gonna go in there and we're gonna impeach the motherf****r." Representative Al Green said in May, "I'm concerned that if we
don't impeach this president, he will get re-elected." Again, you and your allies said, and did, all of these things long before
you ever heard of President Zelensky or anything related to Ukraine. As you know very well, this impeachment drive has nothing to
do with Ukraine, or the totally appropriate conversation I had with its new president. It only has to do with your attempt to undo
the election of 2016 and steal the election of 2020!
Congressman Adam Schiff cheated and lied all the way up to the present day, even going so far as to fraudulently make up, out
of thin air, my conversation with President Zelensky of Ukraine and read this fantasy language to Congress as though it were said
by me. His shameless lies and deceptions, dating all the way back to the Russia Hoax, is one of the main reasons we are here today.
You and your party are desperate to distract from America's extraordinary economy, incredible jobs boom, record stock market,
soaring confidence, and flourishing citizens. Your party simply cannot compete with our record: 7 million new jobs; the lowest-ever
unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans; a rebuilt military; a completely reformed VA with Choice
and Accountability for our great veterans; more than 170 new federal judges and two Supreme Court Justices; historic tax and regulation
cuts; the elimination of the individual mandate; the first decline in prescription drug prices in half a century; the first new branch
of the United States Military since 1947, the Space Force; strong protection of the Second Amendment; criminal justice reform; a
defeated ISIS caliphate and the killing of the world's number one terrorist leader, al-Baghdadi; the replacement of the disastrous
NAFTA trade deal with the wonderful USMCA (Mexico and Canada); a breakthrough Phase One trade deal with China; massive new trade
deals with Japan and South Korea; withdrawal from the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal; cancellation of the unfair and costly Paris Climate
Accord; becoming the world's top energy producer; recognition of Israel's capital, opening the American Embassy in Jerusalem, and
recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; a colossal reduction in illegal border crossings, the ending of Catch-and-Release,
and the building of the Southern Border Wall -- and that is just the beginning, there is so much more. You cannot defend your extreme
policies -- open borders, mass migration, high crime, crippling taxes, socialized healthcare, destruction of American energy, late-term
taxpayer-funded abortion, elimination of the Second Amendment, radical far-left theories of law and justice, and constant partisan
obstruction of both common sense and common good.
There is nothing I would rather do than stop referring to your party as the Do-Nothing Democrats. Unfortunately, I don't know
that you will ever give me a chance to do so.
After three years of unfair and unwarranted investigations, 45 million dollars spent, 18 angry Democrat prosecutors, the entire
force of the FBI, headed by leadership now proven to be totally incompetent and corrupt, you have found NOTHING! Few people in high
position could have endured or passed this test. You do not know, nor do you care, the great damage and hurt you have inflicted upon
wonderful and loving members of my family. You conducted a fake investigation upon the democratically elected President of the United
States, and you are doing it yet again.
There are not many people who could have taken the punishment inflicted during this period of time, and yet done so much for the
success of America and its citizens. But instead of putting our country first, you have decided to disgrace our country still further.
You completely failed with the Mueller report because there was nothing to find, so you decided to take the next hoax that came along,
the phone call with Ukraine -- even though it was a perfect call. And by the way, when I speak to foreign countries, there are many
people, with permission, listening to the call on both sides of the conversation.
You are the ones interfering in America's elections. You are the ones subverting America's Democracy. You are the ones Obstructing
Justice. You are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our Republic for your own selfish personal, political, and partisan gain.
Before the Impeachment Hoax, it was the Russian Witch Hunt. Against all evidence, and regardless of the truth, you and your deputies
claimed that my campaign colluded with the Russians -- a grave, malicious, and slanderous lie, a falsehood like no other. You forced
our Nation through turmoil and torment over a wholly fabricated story, illegally purchased from a foreign spy by Hillary Clinton
and the DNC in order to assault our democracy. Yet, when the monstrous lie was debunked and this Democrat conspiracy dissolved into
dust, you did not apologize. You did not recant. You did not ask to be forgiven. You showed no remorse, no capacity for self-reflection.
Instead, you pursued your next libelous and vicious crusade -- you engineered an attempt to frame and defame an innocent person.
All of this was motivated by personal political calculation. Your Speakership and your party are held hostage by your most deranged
and radical representatives of the far left. Each one of your members lives in fear of a socialist primary challenger -- this is
what is driving impeachment. Look at Congressman Nadler's challenger. Look at yourself and others. Do not take our country down with
your party.
If you truly cared about freedom and liberty for our Nation, then you would be devoting your vast investigative resources to exposing
the full truth concerning the FBI's horrifying abuses of power before, during, and after the 2016 election -- including the use of
spies against my campaign, the submission of false evidence to a FISA court, and the concealment of exculpatory evidence in order
to frame the innocent. The FBI has great and honorable people, but the leadership was inept and corrupt. I would think that you would
personally be appalled by these revelations, because in your press conference the day you announced impeachment, you tied the impeachment
effort directly to the completely discredited Russia Hoax, declaring twice that "all roads lead to Putin," when you know that is
an abject lie. I have been far tougher on Russia than President Obama ever even thought to be.
Any member of Congress who votes in support of impeachment -- against every shred of truth, fact, evidence, and legal principle
-- is showing how deeply they revile the voters and how truly they detest America's Constitutional order. Our Founders feared the
tribalization of partisan politics, and you are bringing their worst fears to life.
Worse still, I have been deprived of basic Constitutional Due Process from the beginning of this impeachment scam right up until
the present. I have been denied the most fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution, including the right to present evidence,
to have my own counsel present, to confront accusers, and to call and cross-examine witnesses, like the so-called whistleblower who
started this entire hoax with a false report of the phone call that bears no relationship to the actual phone call that was made.
Once I presented the transcribed call, which surprised and shocked the fraudsters (they never thought that such evidence would be
presented), the so-called whistleblower, and the second whistleblower, disappeared because they got caught, their report was a fraud,
and they were no longer going to be made available to us. In other words, once the phone call was made public, your whole plot blew
up, but that didn't stop you from continuing.
More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials.
You and others on your committees have long said impeachment must be bipartisan -- it is not. You said it was very divisive --
it certainly is, even far more than you ever thought possible -- and it will only get worse!
This is nothing more than an illegal, partisan attempted coup that will, based on recent sentiment, badly fail at the voting booth.
You are not just after me, as President, you are after the entire Republican Party. But because of this colossal injustice, our party
is more united than it has ever been before. History will judge you harshly as you proceed with this impeachment charade. Your legacy
will be that of turning the House of Representatives from a revered legislative body into a Star Chamber of partisan persecution.
Perhaps most insulting of all is your false display of solemnity. You apparently have so little respect for the American People
that you expect them to believe that you are approaching this impeachment somberly, reservedly, and reluctantly. No intelligent person
believes what you are saying. Since the moment I won the election, the Democrat Party has been possessed by Impeachment Fever. There
is no reticence. This is not a somber affair. You are making a mockery of impeachment and you are scarcely concealing your hatred
of me, of the Republican Party, and tens of millions of patriotic Americans. The voters are wise, and they are seeing straight through
this empty, hollow, and dangerous game you are playing.
I have no doubt the American people will hold you and the Democrats fully responsible in the upcoming 2020 election. They will
not soon forgive your perversion of justice and abuse of power.
There is far too much that needs to be done to improve the lives of our citizens. It is time for you and the highly partisan Democrats
in Congress to immediately cease this impeachment fantasy and get back to work for the American People. While I have no expectation
that you will do so, I write this letter to you for the purpose of history and to put my thoughts on a permanent and indelible record.
One hundred years from now, when people look back at this affair, I want them to understand it, and learn from it, so that it
can never happen to another President again.
Sincerely yours,
DONALD J. TRUMP
President of the United States of America
cc: United States Senate
United States House of Representatives
If anyone was watching The Horowitz hearing in the senate today it would be hard to conclude
that RussiaGate and Ukrainegate will not have serious consequences going forward.
The whole sordid, nasty conspiracy seems on the verge of being exposed, maybe as high as
Obama himself, although he is just a puppet himself, and indictments are sure to follow. I
don't see how anyone could think that this will not be catastrophic for the democratic
party.
The House impeachment is driven by several factors:
After Russiagate, when Trump began to investigate its fraudulent origins, the Dems feared the exposure of Obama-era
corruption if not high crimes. Hence Ukrainegate is preemptive political tactics.
The investigation into Russiagate led right to Ukraine, and thus to Biden. In the context of Sanders' campaign,
Ukrainegate became an imperative for the factions of the capitalist class that dominates the DNC. If Biden falls on Ukraine
issues, then Sanders is inevitable; an anathema to Wall Street and Big Tech DNC donors.
3. While 1 and 2 dominate DNC machinations, foreign policy is also a factor. The foreign policy establishment is absolutely
against any hesitation with respect to confronting Russia as part of a regional and global strategy for primacy. Trump's limited
prevarications on Russia might threaten the long established strategy to expand Nato to Ukraine and thereby to encircle Russia
and maintain US dominance over Europe. So, even though Trump names great power rivalry as the name of the game today, his inclination
for making nice with Putin threatens to weaken the US hold over Europe, which Trump wants to label as an economic competitor.
It is with these points that the strategic differences become apparent: Trump is raising a realist, neo-mercantalist strategy
against ALL potential competitors; the DNC and the deep state hold a strategy of liberal hegemony: globalization and US primacy
through dominating regional alliances, and impregnating US hegemony INSIDE the vassal States of the empire.
All of this, however, is bound to fail for the DNC, and down the road for Trump himself.
The contradictions of US empire and global capitalism cannot be mitigated by either more liberal strategies or realist ones.
BREAKING BIG: John Durham Is Investigating Former CIA Director John Brennan's Role in 2016
Election Interference and His LIES TO CONGRESS! (Video)
The New York Times reported tonight that federal prosecutor John Durham is
investigating former CIA Director John Brennan's role in the 2016 election. Durham has called
for Brennan's emails, call logs and other documents.
"... Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring their power to bear on domestic policy as well. ..."
"... Impeachment, and the pro-bureaucracy anti-democracy campaign related to it, besides its more petty purposes (distraction from real social problems; forestalling Sanders), is the culmination of technocracy's attempted coup against a president who, even though he agrees with this cabal on all policy matters, is considered too unreliable, too undisciplined, too damn honest about the evil of the US empire. If they can take him down, they think they can restore the full business-as-usual status quo including the compliance of the rest of the world. ..."
Historically the ability of unelected, unaccountable, secretive bureaucracies (aka the "Deep
State") to exercise their own policy without regard for the public or elected officials,
often in defiance of these, has always been the hallmark of the destruction of democracy and
incipient tyranny.
Today's Deep State most resembles the colonial administrations during the heyday of
European imperialism. These too worked to run their own secret foreign policy, and to bring
their power to bear on domestic policy as well.
Although both halves of the One-Party really want the effective tyranny of state and
corporate bureaucracies, it's not surprising that it's the Democrats (along with the MSM)
taking the lead in openly defending the tyrannical proposition that the CIA should be
running its own foreign (and implicitly domestic) policy, and that the president should be
just a figurehead which follows orders. That goes with the Democrats' more avowedly
technocratic style, and it goes with the ratchet effect whereby it's usually Democrats which
push the policy envelope toward ever greater inequality, ecocide and tyranny.
Now is a time of rising irredentism and the decline of all the ideas of
globalization and technocracy, though the reality is likely to hang on for awhile. The whole
Deep State-Zionist-Russia-Deranged-Trump-Deranged-MSM-social media censorship campaign is
globalization trying to maintain its monopoly of ideas by force, since it knows it can never
win in a free clash of ideas.
Impeachment, and the pro-bureaucracy anti-democracy campaign related to it, besides
its more petty purposes (distraction from real social problems; forestalling Sanders), is the
culmination of technocracy's attempted coup against a president who, even though he agrees
with this cabal on all policy matters, is considered too unreliable, too undisciplined, too
damn honest about the evil of the US empire. If they can take him down, they think
they can restore the full business-as-usual status quo including the compliance of the rest
of the world.
Since impeachment's going to fail, we can expect the system to try other ways.
hey b... i like your title - "How The Deep State Sunk The Democratic Party" ... could change
it to" How the Deep State Sunk the USA" could work just as well...
Seven of the 11 security state representatives who had joined the Democrats in 2018 gave
the impulse for impeachment.
is this intentional?? it sort of looks like it...
good quote from @ 26 lk - "The contradictions of US empire and global capitalism cannot be
mitigated by either more liberal strategies or realist ones."
@babyl-on 35
yes that is about right. The top power networks are all a tight mix of names from govt, MIC,
and private equity (incl. top 2-3 investment banks). With the latter group naturally paying
the salaries of the whole policy making ecosystem, and holding the positions that select
future generations who will eventually take their place.
They want the security of knowing noone in the world will mess with them. This
necessitates that noone in the world *can* mess with them. Pretty straightforward from
there.
"... "The sworn statements of Mr. Flynn and his former counsel belie his new claims of innocence and his new assertions that he was pressured into pleading guilty," Sullivan said in his Dec. 16 opinion ( pdf ). ..."
"... In June, he fired his lawyers and hired former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , who has since accused the government of misconduct, particularly of withholding exculpatory information or providing it late. ..."
"... Powell has argued that Flynn's previous lawyers had a conflict of interest because they testified in a related case against Flynn's former business partner. Flynn had previously told the court he would keep the lawyers despite the conflict, but Powell said prosecutors should have asked the judge to dismiss the lawyers anyway. Sullivan disagreed, saying Flynn failed to show a precedent that the prosecutors had that obligation. ..."
"... Powell also said the government had no proper reason to investigate Flynn in the first place and that it had set up an "ambush interview" with the intention of making Flynn say something it could allege was false. ..."
"... Sullivan disagreed again and said that previously, with the advice of his former lawyers, Flynn never "challenged the conditions of his FBI interview." ..."
"... Powell said Flynn's answers to the agents weren't "material," meaning relevant to the FBI investigation of election meddling. ..."
"... Sounds like Flynn got bad advice from his previous lawyers, and the judge is requiring Flynn to live with the consequences. In other words, it is as if the judge is prohibiting Flynn from changing legal representation because Flynn cannot do anything different than what his first team of "counselors" advised. ..."
"... Flynn is as deep state as it gets. He would throw the book at any one of you. Make no mistake. Being a general is a political appointment. ..."
"... Flynn was also a ******* lobbyist for foreign governments, including Turkey,...without disclosing his advise was paid for. He sold himself out like a whore. ..."
"... "Michael Flynn reportedly filed paperwork on Tuesday for the $530,000 worth of work he did last year that "could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey." https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/03/08/michael-flynn-admits-turkey-lobbying ..."
"... NATO Alliance member Turkey? How about a list of Israel friends with benefits. MIC grifters and aipac. Bloated orange imbecile can not fight only tweet. ..."
"... They say Dems and other psychos always accuse others of what they themselves are doing. Ever heard of the Clinton Foundation? Operating expenses: 95%.Benevolent aid: 5%. Suck on that for awhile. ..."
"... Flynn did nothing wrong. Was framed setup and then blackmailed to plead. Who will pay a price. Brennan Comey Strzok? Those who stood with Trump were ruined under false pretenses. ..."
"... Oh how soon you forget that Flynn commited war crimes in Grenada. ..."
"... Then bring him up on those charges. In court those kinds of leaps are inaddmissable. ..."
"... Hahahaha Grenada. Reagan's signature military victory. Flynn should be a super hero. Grenada and Panama are the only victories the Pentagon clowns have managed. What should we expect they only get $1,000,000,000,000.00 a year ..."
"... Remember that Michael Flynn waived his right to appeal this judge's decision when he plead guilty. This won't be going to a higher court. He's going down and the judge who is sentencing him is PISSED. ..."
"... Flynn is going to prison. Hillary is not. The sooner you jackoffs accept that, the sooner you'll be able to move on with your lives instead of living out your pitiful existence in bitterness and regret. And no, you won't be doing any civil war. You'll just be angry, your anger will turn inward, and you'll poison yourselves with resentment, living out your days alone. Don't say you weren't warned. ..."
"... They threatened his son if he did not plead guilty. Of course, to you Dems the means justifies the end. He will be pardoned, and deservedly so. ..."
"... I don't expect Clinton to go to jail ... committing crimes or not she is untouchable. People may wish it but it will never ever happen she has too much on all the other criminals. ..."
A federal judge has denied requests by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to prompt the government to
give him information he deems exculpatory and to dismiss the case against him .
District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan sided with the government in arguing that Flynn was
already given all the information to which he was entitled. The judge also dismissed Flynn's
allegations of government misconduct, noting that Flynn already pleaded guilty to his crime and
failed to raise his objections earlier when some of the issues he now complains about were
brought to his attention.
"The sworn statements of Mr. Flynn and his former counsel belie his new claims of
innocence and his new assertions that he was pressured into pleading guilty," Sullivan said
in his Dec. 16 opinion (
pdf ).
Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, pleaded guilty on Nov. 30, 2017, to
one count of lying to the FBI. He's been expected to receive a light sentence, including no
prison time, after extensively cooperating with the government on multiple investigations.
In June, he fired his lawyers and hired former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , who has since accused the
government of misconduct, particularly of withholding exculpatory information or providing it
late.
Powell has argued that Flynn's previous lawyers had a conflict of interest because they
testified in a related case against Flynn's former business partner. Flynn had previously told
the court he would keep the lawyers despite the conflict, but Powell said prosecutors should
have asked the judge to dismiss the lawyers anyway. Sullivan disagreed, saying Flynn failed to
show a precedent that the prosecutors had that obligation.
Powell also said the government had no proper reason to investigate Flynn in the first place
and that it had set up an "ambush interview" with the intention of making Flynn say something
it could allege was false.
Sullivan disagreed again and said that previously, with the advice of his former lawyers,
Flynn never "challenged the conditions of his FBI interview."
Flynn was interviewed by two FBI agents, Joe Pientka and Peter Strzok, on Jan. 24, 2017, two
days after he was sworn in as President Donald Trump's national security adviser.
The prosecutors argued that the FBI had a "sufficient and appropriate basis" for the
interview because Flynn days earlier told members of the Trump campaign, including soon-to-be
Vice President Mike Pence, that he didn't discuss with the Russian ambassador the expulsion of
Russian diplomats in late December 2016 by then-President Barack Obama.
Flynn later admitted in his statement of offense that he asked, via Russian Ambassador to
the U.S. Sergei Kislyak, for Russia to only respond to the sanctions in a reciprocal manner and
not escalate the situation.
The FBI was at the time investigating whether Trump campaign aides coordinated with Russian
2016 election meddling. No such coordination was established by the probe, which concluded more
than two years later under then-special counsel Robert Mueller.
Powell argued that whatever Flynn told Pence and others in the transition team was none of
the FBI's business.
"The Executive Branch has different reasons for saying different things publicly and
privately, and not everyone is told the details of every conversation,"
she said in a previous court filing .
"If the FBI is charged with investigating discrepancies in statements made by government
officials to the public, the entirety of its resources would be consumed in a week."
Powell said Flynn's answers to the agents weren't "material," meaning relevant to the FBI
investigation of election meddling.
Sullivan, however, thought otherwise, using a broader description of the investigation. The bureau, he said, probed the "nature of any links between individuals associated with the
[Trump] Campaign and Russia" and what Flynn said was material to it. The description Sullivan used appears to omit the context of the probe, which focused
specifically on the Russian election meddling.
Powell was dealt a bad hand by Flynn's previous corrupt and incompetent attorneys. The
judge has an obligation to honor the new views of new counsel. He can't assume that Flynn had
been well advised by former counsel. There's no evidence or history of that. They sold him
out.
Sounds like Flynn got bad advice from his previous lawyers, and the judge is requiring
Flynn to live with the consequences. In other words, it is as if the judge is prohibiting
Flynn from changing legal representation because Flynn cannot do anything different than what
his first team of "counselors" advised.
He's so Deep State that Brennen and Clapper went to Soetoro to get him fired after the
election. Flynn was going to rat them out on the treasonous Iran deal. When Obama said no
because it was too close to the end of his presidency they then criminally framed Flynn.
Flynn was lied to. Flynn was a 30 year veteran and General. Flynn couldn't imagine his
country turning against him like this. None of us could. But with the cabal running our
country, it could and did happen. Now we have to stamp out the cockroaches before it's too
late.
Flynn was also a ******* lobbyist for foreign governments, including Turkey,...without
disclosing his advise was paid for. He sold himself out like a whore.
NATO Alliance member Turkey? How about a list of Israel friends with benefits. MIC grifters and aipac. Bloated orange imbecile can not fight only tweet.
This ***** judge will give him a mouse sentence to protect his own *** . We don't know the half of it . How close is the judge to Obama ? I think we are going to find out .
President Trump should step in now and Pardon Gen.Flynn and Roger Stone both trial were
fixed unethical and not based on fact and law. In Stones case a radical jury of Demon
Rat-Brains were assembled to hand down a guilty verdict.
They say Dems and other psychos always accuse others of what they themselves are doing.
Ever heard of the Clinton Foundation? Operating expenses: 95%.Benevolent aid: 5%. Suck on that for awhile.
Flynn did nothing wrong. Was framed setup and then blackmailed to plead. Who will pay a price. Brennan Comey Strzok? Those who stood with Trump were ruined under false pretenses.
Those who violated the constitution and rule of law are media pundants and
undisturbed.
Orange dotard please divert some of your swamp creatures from destroying Iran, Venezuela
and Bolivia.
America needs the secret police smashed and held accountable for sedition and treason.
Hahahaha Grenada. Reagan's signature military victory. Flynn should be a super hero. Grenada and Panama are the only victories the Pentagon clowns have managed. What should we expect they only get $1,000,000,000,000.00 a year
The minute they let Flynn off he talks and they sure as hell don't want that. They want to drag this out as long as possible and hope for a miracle (Trump gets beat
) or at least time enough for them to bugger off. FISA has known for years they were lied to by the FBI and now it has been confirmed . So why didn't they do anything then or now ? Were they in on it ? How do you draw any
other conclusion ?
Remember that Michael Flynn waived his right to appeal this judge's decision when he plead
guilty. This won't be going to a higher court. He's going down and the judge who is
sentencing him is PISSED.
Flynn is going to prison. Hillary is not. The sooner you jackoffs accept that, the sooner
you'll be able to move on with your lives instead of living out your pitiful existence in
bitterness and regret. And no, you won't be doing any civil war. You'll just be angry, your anger will turn
inward, and you'll poison yourselves with resentment, living out your days alone. Don't say
you weren't warned.
I don't expect Clinton to go to jail ... committing crimes or not she is untouchable. People may wish it but it will never ever happen she has too much on all the other
criminals.
Flynn can ask to withdraw plea, but he's turned down that opportunity three times, so
judge might not allow it. Then everything Powell has been doing becomes relevant. Up to this point it's just a bunch
of noise, unfortunately.
So let me just be sure I understand this: he is being denied evidence that could prove
innocence on a trial related to a guilty plea, which was largely the result of persecution by
the FBI and we ALLOW this to happen in America? What has happened to this country?
"... an inquiry by cabinet secretary Lord Hunt in 1996 concluded that "a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5" had "spread damaging malicious stories". ..."
"... Well, if a cabinet secretary says that it must be true. MI5, not MI6 - I think MI5's the heavy mob - but I just wondered if our spooks had passed these tricks on to the lads who put the Steele dossier about. ..."
Massive win, Colonel, that as far as I know nobody predicted. Not the polls, not the political blogs. But I didn't follow it that
closely so that's just a general impression.
My man, Nigel Farage, got squeezed mercilessly. I was looking around the BBC site to find out how mercilessly when I came across
a picture of the bete noir of my father's time, Harold Wilson. Wilson was convinced that MI something was out to get him - bugged
his office, spread smear stories about him around the press, even a possible coup.
The odd rumour of all this had spread to my corner of the English provinces and I'd always wondered if there was anything in it.
So I clicked on the BBC article -
" .. A 1987 inquiry concluded the allegations of a security service plot against Wilson were untrue. However, an inquiry
by cabinet secretary Lord Hunt in 1996 concluded that "a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5" had "spread damaging malicious stories".
Well, if a cabinet secretary says that it must be true. MI5, not MI6 - I think MI5's the heavy mob - but I just wondered if
our spooks had passed these tricks on to the lads who put the Steele dossier about.
On another security matter I note with concern above - "Those are Jacobite tribesmen at the top. Some of my ancestors were
such as they." I thought so. '15 and '45 caused us a lot of trouble and just in case the tradition remained in your family I'm
opening a file. We're very happy with our present Queen, thank you, and we don't want you replacing her with some Stuart relic you
might happen to have dug up.
Though I suppose it would only be poetic justice. We've just had a go at toppling your President so why shouldn't you return the
compliment and topple Her Majesty.
"... Nothing could have better prepared me to understand how the global economy works! I had all the statistics, I had the help of the government people explaining to me how the CIA worked with drug dealing and other criminals and kidnappers to raise the money so it would be off the balance sheet funding and Congress didn't have to approve it when they would kill people and sponsor revolutions. ..."
In the the linked interview that you provided Michael Hudson describes the inception of
the modern day criminal US State:-
In the last few months that I worked for Chase Manhattan in 1967, I was going up to my
office on the ninth floor and a man got on the elevator and said, "I was just coming to your
office, Michael. Here is a report. I'm from the State Department (I assumed that this meant
CIA).
"We want to calculate how much money the US could get if we set up bank branches and
became the bank for all the criminal capital in the world."
He said, "We figured out we can finance, (and he said this in an elevator), we can
finance the Vietnam War with all the drug money coming into America, all of the criminal
money. Can you make a calculation of how much that might be?"
So I spent three months figuring out how much money goes to Switzerland, from drug
dealings, what's the dollar volume of drug dealings.
They helped me with all sorts of statistics on that, and said, "We can become the
criminal capital of the world and it'll finance the dollar and this will enable us to afford
the spending to defeat communism in Vietnam and elsewhere. If we don't do that, the bomb
throwers will come to New York."
So I became a specialist in money laundering!
Nothing could have better prepared me to understand how the global economy works! I had
all the statistics, I had the help of the government people explaining to me how the CIA
worked with drug dealing and other criminals and kidnappers to raise the money so it would be
off the balance sheet funding and Congress didn't have to approve it when they would kill
people and sponsor revolutions.
They were completely open with me about this.
I realized they'd never done a security check on me.
We will see... I am skeptical about idea that Brennan will be indicted.
But this article supports the idea that impeachment was a counterattack of Brannan faction of CIA and Clinton mafia against
Barr and Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... Former CIA officer and counter-intelligence expert Kevin Shipp says that former Obama Administration Attorney General (AG) Eric Holder gave a big Deep State panic signal when he wrote in an Op-Ed last week in the Washington Post trashing current AG William Barr and his top prosecutor John Durham ..."
"... We have to understand it was Eric Holder that Barack Obama used to target the heads of corporations that spoke out publicly about Barack Obama. We know Holder was held in 'Contempt of Congress.' He spied on AP reporters, ran guns to drug cartels and blacked out the information. He spied on over a hundred journalists, and on and on we go... ..."
"... when Holder comes out and puts out this bombshell in the Washington Post, which is another indication that indictments are coming. John Brennan, former Obama Administration CIA Director, is going to be at the top of the list. " ..."
"... during the entire Trump Presidency, the mainstream media (MSM) has operated as a propaganda arm of the Deep State and the Democrats ..."
"... Shipp says the hoax of Russia collusion and the impeachment sham of President Trump is distracting us from other very big problems such as the extreme debt the country and the world is facing . Shipp says, ..."
Former CIA officer and counter-intelligence expert Kevin Shipp says that former Obama
Administration Attorney General (AG) Eric Holder gave a big Deep State panic signal when he
wrote in an Op-Ed last week in the Washington Post trashing current AG William Barr and his top
prosecutor John Durham. Shipp explains,
"This is very significant. We all remember that Holder was Obama's right hand man. Eric
Holder was Barack Obama's enforcer. The fact that Holder comes out this quickly after the
Inspector General (IG) Horowitz Report comes out... and makes this veiled threat against
Durham's reputation. The fact that Eric Holder came out and made this statement is a clear
indication to me they are running scared.
We have to understand it was Eric Holder that Barack Obama used to target the heads of
corporations that spoke out publicly about Barack Obama. We know Holder was held in 'Contempt
of Congress.' He spied on AP reporters, ran guns to drug cartels and blacked out the
information. He spied on over a hundred journalists, and on and on we go...
They (Deep State) are convinced there are going to be indictments. Secondly, there is AG
Barr's outrage over (IG) Horowitz's report and what it did not do. He made statements that
there was spying and actions by government officials that need to be criminally looked into.
Barr's outrage over this shows me that there are going to be indictments, and that he is
taking this seriously. Again, when Holder comes out and puts out this bombshell in the
Washington Post, which is another indication that indictments are coming. John Brennan,
former Obama Administration CIA Director, is going to be at the top of the list. "
Shipp says during the entire Trump Presidency, the mainstream media (MSM) has operated as a
propaganda arm of the Deep State and the Democrats . Shipp contends,
"They put these stories out intentionally because they are creating their own story, and
that is what the propaganda mainstream media does. It creates its own story...
They want to frame their latest story that there really wasn't any spying on Trump. That's
what FISA warrants and applications are all about. They are all about spying ."
Shipp thinks this will be a big nail in the coffin of the MSM. Shipp says, "The mainstream
media will never come back from this..."
"...because finally, through shows like this and others, the real information is coming
out as to what the mainstream media has done . At the top of that list is the New York Times,
the Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC...
What they did is they created the Russia collusion story as if it was reality, as if it
was real. That is part of the procedure in doing this. Then, they invented the evidence, and
that was the Steele Dossier. They portrayed this as evidence to create this false narrative.
Then they sent this story out to each outlet, and all repeat the same story over and over and
over again knowing the more they repeat it, the more people were going to believe it. Then,
the FBI leaked information to the mainstream media. The FBI took that information leaked to
the media and used their stories as evidence. Brennan leaked the dossier to the mainstream
media as part of this whole machine."
Shipp says the hoax of Russia collusion and the impeachment sham of President Trump is
distracting us from other very big problems such as the extreme debt the country and the world
is facing . Shipp says,
"Trump inherited a financial monster that was not his doing. When he was sworn into
office, it already existed. It is very serious, and I think now or very soon the U.S.
government will not be able to afford the interest on the national debt, much less paying off
the debt itself."
It is reported that central banks are buying record amounts of gold, and even Goldman Sachs
is telling its clients to buy the yellow metal. Shipp says,
" This is a solid indicator that we are headed for the financial rapids with Goldman Sachs
especially. Goldman Sachs is a global bank, and it's one of the main banks in the United
States. The fact that Sachs and others are building up gold reserves is a clear indication
that they expect a financial downturn, to put it mildly, that is coming. "
Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with former CIA Officer and whistleblower Kevin Shipp.
I kinda think that everyone is holding off to see if Trump gets re-elected.
If he does then there will be indictments, jail time, and a real cleaning of the
house.
The guys in the middle of this investigation depose the "liberal" old guard and offer
sacrifices to their own "conservative" god of filth. Same Mammon, just a different order of
worship.
If he doesn't get re-elected then the guys that are investigating this can just slink back
into the current slime and survive in some basic way.
I have seen this dynamic when companies merge as equals. Everybody is afraid to act
because the stakes are so high. It's a chess game played by ruthless cowards.
In case of Page it was much worse the Glenn Greenwald claims. The most probably scenario
that he was directed to join Trump compain and then to contact Russian government so that this
false flag operatin can be used for establishing surveillance. Why they need to establish
surveillance on CIA/FBI informant? Because he called people they really wanted to survail.
Just as was true when the Mueller investigation closed
without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia over the
2016 election, Wednesday's issuance of the long-waited report from the
Department of Justice's Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives
from the U.S. media were utter
frauds .
Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI's gross abuse of its power
– its serial deceit – is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to
demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI –
in order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter
Page during the 2016 election – manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating
evidence, and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.
If you don't consider FBI lying, concealment of evidence, and manipulation of documents in
order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign to be a major
scandal, what is? But none of this is aberrational: the FBI still has its headquarters in a
building named after J. Edgar Hoover – who constantly blackmailed elected officials
with dossiers and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into killing himself – because
that's what these security state agencies are. They are out-of-control, virtually unlimited
police state factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and subvert
democracy and civic and political freedoms as a matter of course.
In this case, no rational person should allow standard partisan bickering to distort or
hide this severe FBI corruption. The IG Report leaves no doubt about it. It's brimming with
proof of FBI subterfuge and deceit, all in service of persuading a FISA court of something
that was not true: that U.S. citizen and former Trump campaign official Carter Page was an
agent of the Russian government and therefore needed to have his communications
surveilled.
Just a few excerpts from the report should suffice to end any debate for rational persons
about how damning it is. The focus of the first part of the IG Report was on the warrants
obtained by the DOJ, at the behest of the FBI, to spy on Carter Page on the grounds that
there was probable cause to believe he was an agent of the Russian government. That Page was
a Kremlin agent was a widely disseminated media claim – typically asserted as fact even
though it had no evidence. As a result of this media narrative, the Mueller investigation
examined these widespread accusations yet concluded that "the investigation did not establish
that Page coordinated with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016
presidential election."
The IG Report went much further, documenting a multitude of lies and misrepresentations by
the FBI to deceive the FISA court into believing that probable cause existed to believe Page
was a Kremlin agent. The first FISA warrant to spy on Page was obtained during the 2016
election, after Page had left the Trump campaign but weeks before the election was to be
held.
About the warrant application submitted regarding Page, the IG Report, in its own words,
"found that FBI personnel fell far short of the requirement in FBI policy that they ensure
that all factual statements in a FISA application are 'scrupulously accurate.'" Specifically,
"we identified multiple instances in which factual assertions relied upon in the first FISA
application were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based
upon information the FBI had in its possession at the time the application was filed."
It's vital to reiterate this because of its gravity: we identified multiple instances in
which factual assertions relied upon in the first FISA application were inaccurate,
incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based upon information the FBI had
in its possession at the time the application was filed.
The specifics cited by the IG Report are even more damning. Specifically, "based upon the
information known to the FBI in October 2016, the first application contained [] seven
significant inaccuracies and omissions." Among those "significant inaccuracies and
omissions": the FBI concealed that Page had been working with the CIA in connection with his
dealings with Russia and had notified CIA case managers of at least some of those contacts
after he was "approved as an 'operational contact'" with Russia; the FBI lied about both the
timing and substance of Page's relationship with the CIA; vastly overstated the value and
corroboration of Steele's prior work for the U.S. Government to make him appear more credible
than he was; and concealed from the court serious reasons to doubt the reliability of
Steele's key source.
... ... ..
Among the most significant new acts of deceit was that the FBI "omitted the fact that
Steele's Primary Subsource, who the FBI found credible, had made statements in January 2017
raising significant questions about the reliability of allegations included in the FISA
applications, including, for example, that he/she did not recall any discussion with Person 1
concerning Wikileaks and there was 'nothing bad' about the communications between the Kremlin
and the Trump team, and that he/she did not report to Steele in July 2016 that Page had met
with Sechin."
In other words, Steele's own key source told the FBI that Steele was lying about what the
source said: an obviously critical fact that the FBI simply concealed from the FISA court
because it knew how devastating that would be to being able to continue to spy on Page. As
the Report put it, "among the most serious of the 10 additional errors we found in the
renewal applications was the FBI's failure to advise [DOJ] or the court of the
inconsistences, described in detail in Chapter Six, between Steele and his Primary Sub-source
on the reporting relied upon in the FISA applications."
The IG Report also found that the FBI hid key information from the court about Steele's
motives: for instance, it "omitted information obtained from [Bruce] Ohr about Steele and his
election reporting, including that (1) Steele's reporting was going to Clinton's presidential
campaign and others, (2) [Fusion GPS's Glenn] Simpson was paying Steele to discuss his
reporting with the media, and (3) Steele was "desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and
was passionate about him not being the U.S. President."
If it does not bother you to learn that the FBI repeatedly and deliberately deceived the
FISA court into granting it permission to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a
presidential campaign, then it is virtually certain that you are either someone with no
principles, someone who cares only about partisan advantage and nothing about basic civil
liberties and the rule of law, or both. There is simply no way for anyone of good faith to
read this IG Report and reach any conclusion other than that this is yet another instance of
the FBI abusing its power in severe ways to subvert and undermine U.S. democracy. If you
don't care about that, what do you care about?
* * * * *
But the revelations of the IG Report are not merely a massive FBI scandal. They are also a
massive media scandal, because they reveal that so much of what the U.S. media has
authoritatively claimed about all of these matters for more than two years is completely
false.
Ever since Trump's inauguration, a handful of commentators and journalists – I'm
included among them – have been sounding the alarm about the highly dangerous trend of
news outlets not merely repeating the mistake of the Iraq War by blindly relying on the
claims of security state agents but, far worse, now employing them in their newsrooms to
shape the news. As Politico's media writer Jack Shafer wrote in 2018, in
an article entitled "The Spies Who Came Into the TV Studio" :
In the old days, America's top spies would complete their tenures at the CIA or one of
the other Washington puzzle palaces and segue to more ordinary pursuits. Some wrote
their memoirs . One
ran for president . Another died a few months after
surrendering his post. But today's national-security establishment retiree has a different
game plan. After so many years of brawling in the shadows, he yearns for a second,
lucrative career in the public eye. He takes a crash course in speaking in soundbites,
refreshes his wardrobe and signs a TV news contract. Then, several times a week, waits for
a network limousine to shuttle him to the broadcast news studios where, after a light
dusting of foundation and a spritz of hairspray, he takes a supporting role in the anchors'
nighttime shows. . . .
[T]he downside of outsourcing national security coverage to the TV spies is obvious.
They aren't in the business of breaking news or uncovering secrets. Their first loyalty --
and this is no slam -- is to the agency from which they hail. Imagine a TV network covering
the auto industry through the eyes of dozens of paid former auto executives and you begin
to appreciate the current peculiarities.
In a perfect television world, the networks would retire the retired spooks from their
payrolls and reallocate those sums to the hiring of independent reporters to cover the
national security beat. Let the TV spies become unpaid anonymous sources because when you
get down to it, TV spies don't want to make news -- they just want to talk about it.
It's long been the case that CIA, FBI and NSA operatives tried to infiltrate and shape
domestic news, but they at least had the decency to do it clandestinely. In 2008, the New
York Times' David Barstow
won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing a secret Pentagon
program in which retired Generals and other security state agents would get hired as
commentators and analysts and then – unbeknownst to their networks – coordinate
their messaging to ensure that domestic news was being shaped by the propaganda of the
military and intelligence communities.
But now it's all out in the open. It's virtually impossible to turn on MSNBC or CNN
without being bombarded with former Generals, CIA operatives, FBI agents and NSA officials
who now work for those networks as commentators and, increasingly, as reporters.
Congrats to my friend @joshscampbell , CNN's newest
national Correspondent. His passion for going where the news is and covering important
stories will continue to benefit viewers. pic.twitter.com/j49k0KOzNj
The past three years of "Russiagate" reporting – for which U.S. journalists have
lavished themselves with Pulitzers and other prizes despite a
multitude of embarrassing and dangerous errors about the Grave Russian Threat – has
relied almost exclusively on anonymous, uncorroborated claims from Deep State operatives (and
yes, that's a term that fully applies to the U.S.). The few exceptions are when these
networks feature former high-level security state operatives on camera to spread their false
propaganda, as in this enduringly humiliating instance:
John Brennan has a lot to answer for -- going before the American public for months,
cloaked with CIA authority and openly suggesting he's got secret info, and repeatedly
turning in performances like this. pic.twitter.com/EziCxy9FVQ
All of this has meant that U.S. discourse on these national security questions is shaped
almost entirely by the very agencies that are trained to lie: the CIA, the NSA, the Pentagon,
the FBI. And their lying has been highly effective.
For years, we were told by the nation's leading national security reporters something that
was blatantly false: that the FBI's warrants to spy on Carter Page were not based on the
Steele Dossier. GOP Congressman Devin Nunes was
widely vilified and
mocked by the super-smart DC national security reporters for issuing a
report claiming that this was the case. The Nunes memo in essence claimed what the IG
Report has corroborated: that embedded within the FBI's efforts to obtain FISA court
authorization to spy on Carter Page was a series of misrepresentations, falsehoods and
concealment of key evidence:
As the Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi – one of the few left/liberal journalists with
the courage and integrity to dissent from the DNC/MSNBC script on these issues – put it
in
a detailed article :
"Democrats are not going to want to hear this, since conventional wisdom says former
House Intelligence chief Devin Nunes is a conspiratorial evildoer, but the Horowitz report
ratifies the major claims of the infamous '
Nunes memo .'"
That the Page warrant was based on the Steele Dossier was something that the media
servants of the FBI and CIA rushed to deny. Did they have any evidence for those denials?
That would be hard to believe, given that the FISA warrant applications are highly
classified. It seems far more likely that – as usual – they were just repeating
what the FBI and CIA (and the pathologically dishonest Rep. Adam Schiff) told them to say,
like the good and loyal puppets that they are. But either way, what they kept telling the
public – in highly definitive tones – was completely false, as we now know from
the IG Report:
Yes. I am telling you the dossier was not used as the basis for a FISA warrant on Carter
Page.
Over and over, the IG Report makes clear that, contrary to these denials, the Steele
Dossier was indeed crucial to the Page eavesdropping warrant. "We determined that the
Crossfire Hurricane team's receipt of Steele's election reporting on September 19, 2016
played a central and essential role in the FBI's and Department's decision to seek the FISA
order," the IG Report explained. A central and essential role .
Just compare the pompous denials from so many U.S. national security reporters at the
nation's leading news outlets – that the Page warrant was not based on the Steele
Dossier – to the actual truth that we now know :
"in support of the fourth element in the FISA application-Carter Page's alleged
coordination with the Russian government on 2016 U.S. presidential election activities, the
application relied entirely on the following information from Steele Reports 80, 94, 95,
and 102″ (emphasis added).
Indeed, it was the Steele Dossier that led FBI leadership, including Director James Comey
and Deputy Diretor Andrew McCabe, to approve the warrant application in the first place
despite concerns raised by other agents that the information was unreliable. Explains the IG
Report:
FBI leadership supported relying on Steele's reporting to seek a FISA order on Page
after being advised of, and giving consideration to, concerns expressed by Stuart Evans,
then NSD's Deputy Assistant Attorney General with oversight responsibility over QI, that
Steele may have been hired by someone associated with presidential candidate Clinton or the
DNC, and that the foreign intelligence to be collected through the FISA order would
probably not be worth the 'risk' of being criticized later for collecting communications of
someone (Carter Page) who was "politically sensitive."
The narrative manufactured by the security state agencies and laundered by their reliable
media servants about these critical matters was a sham, a fraud, a lie. Yet again, U.S.
discourse was subsumed by propaganda because the U.S. media and key parts of the security
state have decided that subverting the Trump presidency is of such a high priority –
that their political judgment outweighs the results of the election – that everything,
including outright lying even to courts let alone the public, is justified because the ends
are so noble.
As Taibbi put it:
"No matter what people think the political meaning of the Horowitz report might be,
reporters who read it will know: Anybody who touched this nonsense in print should be
embarrassed."
No matter how dangerous you believe the Trump presidency to be, this is a grave threat to
the pillars of U.S. democracy, a free press, an informed citizenry and the rule of law.* * *
* *
Underlying all of this is another major lie spun over the last three years by the
newly-minted media stars and liberal icons from the security state agencies. Ever since the
Snowden reporting – indeed, prior to that, when the New York Times' Eric Lichtblau and
Jim Risen (now with the Intercept)
revealed in 2005 that the Bush-era NSA was illegally spying on U.S. citizens without the
warrants required by law – it was widely understood that the FISA process was a
rubber-stamping joke, an illusory safeguard that, in reality, offered no real limits on the
ability of the U.S. Government to spy on its own citizens. Back in 2013 at the Guardian, I
wrote a
long article , based on Snowden documents, revealing what an empty sham this process
was.
But over the last three years, the strategy of Democrats and liberals – particularly
their cable outlets and news sites – has been to venerate and elevate security state
agents as the noble truth-tellers of U.S. democracy. Once-reviled-by-liberal sites such as
Lawfare – composed of little more than pro-NSA and pro-FBI apparatchiks –
gained
mainstream visibility for the first time on the strength of a whole new group of liberals
who decided that the salvation of U.S. democracy lies not with the political process but with
the dark arts of the NSA, the FBI and the CIA.
Sites like Lawfare – led by Comey-friend Benjamin Wittes and ex-NSA lawyer Susan
Hennessey – became Twitter and cable news stars and used their platform to resuscitate
what had been a long-discredited lie: namely, that the FISA process is highly rigorous and
that the potential for abuse is very low. Liberals, eager to believe that the security state
agencies opposed to Trump should be trusted despite their decades of violent lawlessness and
systemic lying, came to believe in the sanctity of the NSA and the FISA process.
The IG Report obliterates that carefully cultivated delusion. It lays bare what a sham the
whole FISA process is, how easy it is for the NSA and the FBI to obtain from the FISA court
whatever authorization it wants to spy on any Americans they want regardless of how flimsy is
the justification. The ACLU and other civil libertarians had spent years finally getting
people to realize this truth, but it was wiped out by the Trump-era veneration of these
security state agencies.
In an excellent article
on the fallout from the IG Report , the New York Times' Charlie Savage, long one of the
leading journalistic experts on these debates, makes clear how devastating these revelations
are to this concocted narrative designed to lead Americans to trust the FBI and NSA's
eavesdropping authorities :
At more than 400 pages, the study amounted to the most searching look ever at the
government's secretive system for carrying out national-security surveillance on American
soil. And what the report showed was not pretty.
The Justice Department's independent inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, and his
team uncovered a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process in how the F.B.I. went
about obtaining and renewing court permission under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act, or FISA, to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.
"The litany of problems with the Carter Page surveillance applications demonstrates how
the secrecy shrouding the government's one-sided FISA approval process breeds abuse," said
Hina Shamsi, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security
Project. "The concerns the inspector general identifies apply to intrusive investigations
of others, including especially Muslims, and far better safeguards against abuse are
necessary."
His exposé left some former officials who generally defend government
surveillance practices aghast.
"These errors are bad," said David Kris, an expert in FISA who oversaw the Justice
Department's National Security Division in the Obama administration. "If the broader audit
of FISA applications reveals a systematic pattern of errors of this sort that plagued this
one, then I would expect very serious consequences and reforms" .
Civil libertarians for years have called the surveillance court a rubber stamp because
it only rarely rejects wiretap applications. Out of 1,080 requests by the government in
2018, for example, government records
showed that the court fully denied only one.
Defenders of the system have argued that the low rejection rate stems in part from how
well the Justice Department self-polices and avoids presenting the court with requests that
fall short of the legal standard. They have also stressed that officials obey a heightened
duty to be candid and provide any mitigating evidence that might undercut their request. .
. .
But the inspector general found major errors, material omissions and unsupported
statements about Mr. Page in the materials that went to the court. F.B.I. agents
cherry-picked the evidence, telling the Justice Department information that made Mr. Page
look suspicious and omitting material that cut the other way, and the department passed
that misleading portrait onto the court.
This system of unlimited domestic spying was built by both parties, which only rouse
themselves to object when the power lies in the other side's hands. Just last year, the vast
majority of the GOP caucus joined with a minority of Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi and Adam
Schiff to
hand President Trump all-new domestic spying powers while blocking crucial reforms and
safeguards to prevent abuse. The spying machinery that Edward Snowden risked his life and
liberty to expose always has been, and still is, a bipartisan creation.
Perhaps these revelations will finally lead to a realization about how rogue, and
dangerous, these police state agencies have become, and how urgently needed is serious
reform. But if nothing else, it must serve as a tonic to the three years of unrelenting media
propaganda that has deceived and misled millions of Americans into believing things that are
simply untrue.
None of these journalists have acknowledged an iota of error in the wake of this report
because they know that lying is not just permitted but encouraged as long as it pleases and
vindicates the political beliefs of their audiences . Until that stops, credibility and faith
in journalism will never be restored, and – despite how toxic it is to have a media
that has no claim on credibility – that despised status will be fully deserved.
The former (((Guardian))) "journalist" *** libtard Joo who lives in Brazil with his
boyfriend, is going to tell us the truth about the (((FBI))) and the (((Deep
State)))????
LOL
The (((Intercept))) has already ratted out at least one whistleblower to the Deep State,
so be careful on who do you believe in..
The most important point of the FISA abuse for surveillance authorization of 4 US
citizens was for the purpose of collateral surveillance of all of their contacts with the
Trump campaign, transition and White House
investigate the 17 intel agencies that unanimously said Russia 'meddled' in the 2016
election. if they lied for political gain, then they are traitors for trying to start a war
with Russia that endangers all Americans
I honestly don't care either way. The entire system is corrupt and overrun with Zionists
from top to bottom, including of course the MSM. All this theater of a witch hunt against
Trump is for show; in reality they're all on the same page, playing the American public for
fools. That's why nothing significant ever changes no matter who gets into office. Always
more wars for faux-Israel and the MIC, staged coups and proxy wars abroad, more regulatory
capture, the national debt skyrocketing into oblivion, no border security, special
privileges for a (((chosen few))) which violate Constitutional law, massive bailouts at
taxpayers' expense, and on it goes.
I did not waste my time reading it all. Just skimmed few paragraphs to confirm that all
of this was known to everybody long time ago.
To me the basic question is why Trump is a such *****. He should fire long time ago 3/4
of CIA, FBI, Justice Department and many other three letter government employers. He has
full right as a president to do this. If he doesn't do that they eventually will destroy
him.
Instead he is pussying around those grave issues and nobody gets punished for high
crimes they committed. He is just tweeting crap that bear no consequences to anybody.
This is the best chance he's got to drain the swamp. But I am pretty sure swamp will
stink for a long time after he is gone. In short, he is sissy unable to do the job he
promised to do to the people who voted for him.
No reputable legal authority would fear ensuring due process for an accused, unless it had no evidence of an actual crime
to justify prosecution...but DID have ulterior motives and nefarious purposes for doing so.
Let's be clear.
To date, not a single shred of actual evidence has ever been produced to prove Russian involvement or interference in the
2016 presidential election.
***.
Nada.
We have the opinion of domestic intelligence agencies, but we have no physical or direct evidence.
On the contrary, we have as much reason to believe some or all of them interfered in the Trump campaign, to orchestrate
and execute a foreign interference hoax against Trump, before and after his election.
Daily, and throughout this sick prog left congressional abuse of power, we have repeatedly heard claims of an "ongoing
war with Russia" in Ukraine.
Which war is this? Is this a continuation of the non-invasion of the Donbas in 2014? The specious and false claims of Russian troop concentrations, and tanks rolling, that even spy satellites didn't see? Are we still lying about this? If so, where are the media reports of Russian airstrikes, burning Ukrainian villages, or body bags?
In any "on-going" war with Russia, we would've been treated to near-constant news video of Russian armor all over eastern Ukraine. Have we? Perhaps this war they keep telling us about is like the Russian "invasion" of Crimea that didn't happen either.
We clearly remember the two Crimean-initiated referenda which put them back in their ancestral Russian
homelands, but none of that had anything to do with invading Russians, who already had a substantial military
presence in Crimea for decades.
No sir, Professor Turley.
There is no basis whatsoever for Trump's impeachment.
There is mounting evidence of a continued coup against this president, and the substantial number of Americans
who actually elected him.
We too are closely monitoring the actual situation...
Just as was true when the Mueller investigation closed
without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia
over the 2016 election, Wednesday's issuance of the long-waited report from the
Department of Justice's Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives
from the U.S. media were utter
frauds .
Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI's gross abuse of its power
– its serial deceit – is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to
demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI – in
order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter Page
during the 2016 election – manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating evidence,
and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.
If you don't consider FBI lying, concealment of evidence, and manipulation of documents in
order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign to be a major scandal,
what is? But none of this is aberrational: the FBI still has its headquarters in a building
named after J. Edgar Hoover – who constantly blackmailed elected officials with dossiers
and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into killing himself – because that's what
these security state agencies are. They are out-of-control, virtually unlimited police state
factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and subvert democracy and
civic and political freedoms as a matter of course.
In this case, no rational person should allow standard partisan bickering to distort or hide
this severe FBI corruption. The IG Report leaves no doubt about it. It's brimming with proof of
FBI subterfuge and deceit, all in service of persuading a FISA court of something that was not
true: that U.S. citizen and former Trump campaign official Carter Page was an agent of the
Russian government and therefore needed to have his communications surveilled.
Is it just part of the human condition that as any writer or any publication gains a
reputation for truth and revelation and dependability, that that reputation is sooner or
later leveraged for gain or influence or access?
I can think of a number of examples where I'm almost certain that that is the case,
although I'll avoid writing their names.
In the end, we are all of us really quite alone in the universe, enjoying only periods
with the illusion of support and fellowship.
On the example of the Kennedys, the assassinations provide perhaps the greatest
illustration of how things work.
I should say that I regard them as two chapters in one book. John's killers had to be
Bobby's killers also because that intense younger man, once holding the powers of the
presidency, would have relentlessly hunted down his brother's killers.
We know that he did not believe the Warren Commission, though he did not go around saying
that. He even apparently had some idea of who the killers might be, never telling others any
details of his suspicions.
Books have for decades been churned out by either the CIA or friends of the CIA or
unwitting assets of the CIA arguing for the truth of the Warren Commission.
On the other hand, as someone with a long interest in the events, I believe that a great
many of the books against the Warren Commission were also written by the same interests. Not
all of them, but many.
Books especially that either are so preposterous or poorly written and edited that they
effectively discredit those who do not accept the (absurd) findings of the Warren
Commission.
After all, it was some CIA disinformation officer who came up with the term "conspiracy
theorist" in the 1960s to discredit genuine critics of the Warren Commission, a term of such
lasting power, it is still widely used, its application having spread to a large number of
topics.
Those with power do tend to keep guiding events no matter how hard we struggle to
understand and correct the course of affairs.
Power is a very real thing, almost physical in its presence, and it is rarely overturned
by truth or justice or fairness.
It's not an inspiring view, but I fear it is reality.
Jacques Ellul's 1973 Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Minds is still the antidote to
Bernaysian brainwashing. Short of reading it, there are excellent reviews on Amazon and
elsewhere. Ellul makes the same point as the author here, that no group is more taken in by
propaganda than the educated classes who fancy themselves above propaganda for being
constantly immersed in it.
@Adrian About Chris Hedges' participation in presenting this award to Bellingcat "News from
Underground" came yesterday up with this:
a friend who knows the background of Chris Hedges' involvement writes that "he was duped
into presenting the Emmy to Bellingcat -- and, from what I hear, he believes it was done
intentionally to smear him."
As this friend is someone I (and many others) quite admire for his integrity and bravery,
and as it's wholly plausible that Hedges would have been set up, I am reserving judgementon
his action, and urge people on this list to do so, too.
@Adrian Hedges would have known who the nominees are just seeing Bellingcat in there and
knowing this is the Emmies well, it's hard to believe otherwise than Hedges is a clever fake as
I have long suspected
Let's recall that Hedges in his previous life was an NYT war correspondent who covered the
Bosnian conflict knowing Yugoslavia quite well from visits there in the 1980s his reports
demonizing Serbs stood out like a sore thumb
I quickly pegged him as a complete liar, like the rest of the MSM propagandists that were
repeating boilerplate canards meant to demonize the hugely successful nation of Yugoslavia
which of course they were trying to tear apart
For instance, 'the Serb-dominated Yugoslavia' was a standard sentence that appeared
literally in every single story repeated ad nauseum literallu dozens of times a day and clearly
meant to convince the reader that dismantling the progressive and ethnically harmonious nation
of Yugoslavia was somehow the right thing to do
But it was pure bullshit anyone who had ever been to Yugoslavia would instantly recognize
that as a 'WTF ?'
There is much much more in Hedges' closet
But then, miraculously, he had a 'Road to Damascus' moment a few years later [we are
supposed to believe] and somehow became a 'good guy'
Bullshit Mr. Curtin nails the sly method here exactly
[The] bread of truth is essential to conceal untruth.
An excellent article
PS Counterpunch is a complete bullshit rag that has been coopted completely Plutocrat Pierre
Omidyar and his little 'Intercept' outfit is similarly continuing in the footsteps of prior
plutocrat propagandists like the Ford foundation Rockefellers and others
The ultimate goal is controlling YOU they need you to be obedient and believing and not ask
any questions
@FB Haven't looked at Bellingcat (not exactly a sophisticated operation if you ever worked
in the ad business) since MH 17 and Putin's Syria pacification, but upon reading this article
it became clear that Hedges must be either an idiot or deeply embedded.
One doesn't exclude the other, of course. The uneducated public wouldn't need to catch up on
so much information, and still get a great head start if they ever found out wtf "cui bono"
even means – but that's not gonna happen.
It's just not how the human mind works.
And behind Brennan we can can see the Nobel Peace Price winner.
Notable quotes:
"... A major role in directing the plot has fallen to Obama's consigliere John Brennan, the current director of the CIA. ..."
"... One part of the still ongoing deligitimization campaign was the FBI investigation of alleged Russian connections of four members of the Trump election campaign. ..."
"... The FBI agents and lawyers intentionally lied to the court. Their violations were not mistakes. All 51 of them were in favor of further spying on members of the Trump campaign and on everyone they communicated with. ..."
"... The FBI has used the Steele dossier to gain further FISA application even after it had talked with Steele's 'primary source' (who probably was the later 'buzzed' Sergei Skripal ) and after it had learned that the allegations in the dossier were no more than unconfirmed rumors. ..."
"... That the dossier was mere dreck was quite obvious to any sober person who read it when it was first published ..."
"... That summer, GCHQ's then head, Robert Hannigan, flew to the US to personally brief CIA chief John Brennan. The matter was deemed so important that it was handled at "director level", face-to-face between the two agency chiefs. ..."
"... (This is a Moon of Alabama fundraiser week. Please consider to support our work .) ..."
"... Occam's razor: CIA-MI6, with approval of US Deep State (Clintons, Bush, McCain, Brennan, Mueller, etc.), meddled to elect Trump and pointed fingers at Russia to initiate a new McCarthyism. ..."
"... "Sergey Lavrov: In my opinion, Congress sounds rather obsessed with destroying our relations. It continues pursuing the policy started by the Obama administration. As I mentioned, we are used to this kind of attack. We know how to respond to them. I assure you that neither Nord Stream-2 nor Turkish Stream will be halted." ..."
"... ... the current anti-Russian idiocy was started by Obama's team and was designed for Clinton to escalate ... ..."
"... It's Kissinger's WSJ Op-Ed of August 2014 that provides the answer. In this Op-Ed, Kissinger calls for a restored US Empire that is essentially Trump's MAGA. Kissinger is writing immediately after the Donbas rebels have won. The Russians refused to heed Kissinger's advice (to back down) and it has become apparent that Russia's joining the West is no longer an inevitability as the US elite had assumed. ..."
"... Good chance Steele had little to do with writing the Dossier. "Simpson-Ohr Dossier", anyone? Steele was needed as a credible looking intelligence officer with Russia ties and a past working relationship with US Intel, as cover to sell to FBI, FISA Court, and the public (meeting with Isikoff, Yahoo News story). ..."
"... Glenn Simpson and wife Mary Jacoby had written articles for the WSJ in 2007 and 2008 with a script and language similar to the Dossier. Devin Nunes seems to believe this scenario, and it is discussed in detail in books by Dan Bongino and Lee Smith, among others. ..."
"... physchoh @ 60; The difference, at least in my mind, is that, the "Russia did it" meme, is the weakest of all cases against DJT. Corbyn, on the other hand, may actually be hurt by the bogus charges. IMO, what this shows is coordination between the elites to bring down a progressive in the UK, who fancies public control over major finances instead of private concerns. ..."
"... So Horowitz was technically correct when he did not find bias. What he might have been reluctant to spell out is that he did find malice. ..."
When Hillary Clinton was defeated in the U.S. presidential election the relevant powers
launched a campaign to delegitimize the President elect Donald Trump.
The ultimate aim of the cabal is to kick him out of office and have a reliable
replacement, like the Vice-President elect Pence, take over. Should that not be possible
it is hoped that the delegitimization will make it impossible for Trump to change major
policy trajectories especially in foreign policy. A main issue here is the reorientation of
the U.S. military complex and its NATO proxies from the war of terror towards a direct
confrontation with main powers like Russia and China.
...
A major role in directing the plot has fallen to Obama's consigliere John Brennan, the
current director of the CIA.
One part of the still ongoing deligitimization campaign was the FBI investigation of alleged
Russian connections of four members of the Trump election campaign.
Horowitz finds that the FBI was within the law when it opened the investigation but that the
FBI's applications to the FISA court, which decides if the FBI can spy on someone's
communications, were based on lies and utterly flawed.
Your host unfortunately lacked the time so far to read more than the executive summary. But
others have pointed out some essential findings.
If the report released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz
constitutes a "clearing" of the FBI, never clear me of anything. ...
Much of the press is concentrating on Horowitz's conclusion that there was no evidence of
"political bias or improper motivation" in the FBI's probe of Donald Trump's Russia contacts,
an investigation Horowitz says the bureau had "authorized purpose" to conduct.
...
However, Horowitz describes at great length an FBI whose "serious" procedural problems and
omissions of "significant information" in pursuit of surveillance authority all fell in the
direction of expanding the unprecedented investigation of a presidential candidate (later, a
president).
...
There are too many to list in one column, but the Horowitz report show years of breathless
headlines were wrong. Some key points:
The so-called "Steele dossier" was, actually, crucial to the FBI's decision to seek secret
surveillance of Page. ...
...
The "Steele dossier" was "Internet rumor," and corroboration for the pee tape story was
"zero." ...
Appendix 1 identifies the total violations by the FBI of the so-called Woods Procedures, the
process by which the bureau verifies information and assures the FISA court its evidence is
true.
The Appendix identifies a total of 51 Woods procedure violations from the FISA application
the FBI submitted to the court authorizing surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter
Page starting in October 2016.
A whopping nine of those violations fell into the category called: "Supporting document
shows that the factual assertion is inaccurate."
For those who don't speak IG parlance, it means the FBI made nine false assertions to the
FISA court. In short, what the bureau said was contradicted by the evidence in its official
file.
The FBI agents and lawyers intentionally lied to the court. Their violations were not
mistakes. All 51 of them were in favor of further spying on members of the Trump campaign and
on everyone they communicated with.
The FBI has used the Steele dossier to gain further FISA application even after it had
talked with Steele's 'primary source' (who probably was the later
'buzzed' Sergei Skripal ) and after it had learned that the allegations in the dossier were
no more than unconfirmed rumors.
The anonymous former British operator hears from an anonymous compatriot that two anonymous
sources, asserted to have access to inner Russian circles, claimed to have heard somewhere
that something happened in the Kremlin.
They assert that Trump was supported and directed by Putin himself five years ago while
even a year ago no one would have bet a penny on Trump gaining any political significant
position or even the presidency.
It is now claimed that the FBI is exculpated because the Horowitz report did not find
"political bias or improper motivation". But that omits the fact that at least four high
ranking people in the FBI and Justice Department who were involved in the case were found to be
politically
biased and were removed from their positions.
It also omits that the scope of Horowitz's investigation was limited to the Justice
Department. He was not able to investigate the CIA and its former director John Brennan who was
alleging Russia-Trump connections months before the FBI investigation started:
Contrary to a general impression that the FBI launched the Trump-Russia conspiracy probe,
Brennan pushed it to the bureau – breaking with CIA tradition by intruding into
domestic politics: the 2016 presidential election. He also supplied suggestive but ultimately
false information to counterintelligence investigators and other U.S. officials.
The current CIA director Gina Haspel was CIA station chief in London during that time and
while several of the entrapment attempts of Trump campaign staff by the FBI investigation
happened. Horowitz spoke with neither of them.
The current Horowitz Report, read alongside his previous report on how the FBI played inside
the 2016 election vis-a-vis Clinton, should leave no doubt that the Bureau tried to influence
the election of a president and then delegitimize him when he won. It wasn't the Russians; it
was us.
That is correct, but the whole conspiracy was even deeper. It was not the FBI which
initiated the case.
My hunch is still that the FBI investigation was a case of parallel construction which is often
used to build a legitimate case after a suspicion was found by illegitimate means. In this case
it was John Brennan who in early 2016 contacted the head of the British GCHQ electronic
interception service and asked him to spy on the Trump campaign. GHCQ then claimed that
something was found that was deemed
suspicious :
That summer, GCHQ's then head, Robert Hannigan, flew to the US to personally brief CIA chief
John Brennan. The matter was deemed so important that it was handled at "director level",
face-to-face between the two agency chiefs.
The FBI was tipped off on the issue and on July 31 2016 started an investigation to
construct a parallel legal case. It send out British and U.S. agents to entrap Trump campaign
members. It used the obviously fake Steele dossier to gain FISA court judgments that allowed it
to spy on the campaign. Downing Street
was informed throughout the whole affair. A day after Trump's inauguration the UK's then
Prime Minister Theresa May
fired GHCQ chief Robert Hannigan.
One still open question is to what extend then President Barack Obama was involved in the
affair.
There is another ongoing investigation by U.S. Prosecutor John Durham. That investigation is
not limited to the Justice Department but will involve all agencies and domestic as well as
foreign sources. Durham has the legal rights to declassify whatever is needed and he can indict
persons should he find that they committed a crime. His report will hopefully go much deeper
than the already horrendous stuff Horowitz delivered.
(This is a Moon of Alabama fundraiser week. Please consider to support our
work .)
Posted by b on December 11, 2019 at 16:16 UTC |
Permalink
Anyone taking bets on Durham/Barr making indictments in this mess? My guess is a whole lot of
horse trading is going on behind the scenes now, as in, "I'll trade you a censure for all
potential indictments going down the memory hole."
Typical dog and pony show which will change nothing relating to interventionist foreign
policy and the new cold war with Russia. Too many saw benefits from the corruption in Ukraine
to dig deep there; the Bidens were just the most blatant, Lindsey Graham and others from both
parties were involved so don't expect much from the Senate hearings. The bipartisan major
goals are a fait accompli; universal acceptance that Russia worked to undermine our elections
(and to destroy our "Democracy") and are thus an enemy we must fight, and it's universally
accepted by all that we MUST provide Ukraine with Javelin missiles and other lethal aid to
fight "Russian Aggression" (with little mention that even Obama balked at that reckless
option). All of these proceedings are great distractions, but the weapons of war will not be
diminished.
Unfortuneately, few will question the findings of these investigations or consider the
possibility that the investigations themselves are misdirection/cover-up.
IMO the Lavrov-Pompeo
presser is notable mostly for Lavrov's discussion of Russiagate (about 6 minutes in).
Lavrov tells us that the Russian's repeatedly sought to clarify their noninterference by
publishing correspondence - which the Trump Administration didn't respond to. And he actual
mentions McCarthyism!
Wait, wot?
Yeah, during the worst of the Russiagate accusations, Trump wouldn't do things that
would've helped to prove that Russiagate was a farce!!
So, during the election, Trump called on Putin to publish Hillary's emails (the very act
of making such a request is likely illegal because at the time it was known that her emails
contained highly classified info) but he wouldn't accept Russia's publication of
exculpatory info about Russiagate?!?!
This would cause cognitive dissonance galore in an Americans that hear it - so one can
be sure that it will not be reported.
Occam's razor: CIA-MI6, with approval of US Deep State (Clintons, Bush, McCain, Brennan,
Mueller, etc.), meddled to elect Trump and pointed fingers at Russia to initiate a new
McCarthyism.
Meanwhile in bizarroland (aka USA), Barr says Russiagate is a fantasy based on FBI "bad
faith" - yet Pompeo still presses on with the "Russia meddled" bullshit.
thanks b... i like your example in the comment - ''those who thought otherwise should
question their judgment''.. good example!
i am a bit concerned like @ 2 casey, that most of this is going to go down the memory hole
and there will be that made in america stamp on it - ''no accountability''... i wish i was
wrong, but getting worked up at the idea anyone is going to be held accountable for any
actions of the usa, or the insiders playing the usa, is clearly a fools game at this point..
all i mostly see is the needed collapse and waiting for that to happen..
Thanks for that, there are definitely cracks in the armor and we should promote that
narrative as you do in your link. Tulsi Gabbard has also expanded the awareness, hopefully
she will make the upcoming debates despite strong efforts to silence her. I'll try more to
focus on the positive!
@ 6 jr.. there is a press release on all what was said
here for anyone interested..
lavrov quote and etc. etc.. "We suggested to our colleagues that in order to dispel all
suspicions that are baseless, let us publish this closed-channel correspondence starting from
October 2016 till November 2017 so it would all become very clear to many people. However,
regrettably, this administration refused to do so. But I'd like to repeat once again we are
prepared to do that, and to publish the correspondence that took place through that channel
would clear many matters up, I believe. Nevertheless, we hope that the turbulence that
appeared out of thin air will die down, just like in 1950s McCarthyism came to naught, and
there'll be an opportunity to go back to a more constructive cooperation."
I continue to believe that the FBI and Horowitz perjured themselves
in the FISA report. To correct a mistake in a previous post I made, I
believe they lied when the claimed the Steele Dossier was not a
predicate for opening crossfire hurricane. How can the Steele dossier
not be instrumental in the opening of the investigation when bruce ohr's
wife nellie ohr was working at fusion gps when bruce ohr met with
steele
to discuss the dirty dossier.
In other words, the FBI
was concocting Operation Crossfire Hurricane prior to the time they had
any knowledge of the phony Papadopoulus predicate that the russians were proferring
the clinton emails to the trump campaign.
The FISA report claim that Operation Crossfire
Hurricane was predicated solely on the Papadopolous allegations is therefore a lie. There
was, in fact, no real predicate for Operation Crossfire Hurricane. The predications
cited were all fictions and inventions fabricated in a conspiracy between MI6(the FFC or
friendly foreign country cited in the Horowitz report), the
DOJ and the FBI. Operation Crossfire Hurricane was a massive Psyop from its inception.
What major publications have picked up this info from the State Dept PR? Which of them are
questioning why Trump didn't agree to let the Russians publish the exonerating information?
And how many of those are linking this strange fact to other strange facts and thus raising
troubling questions about the 2016 election?
<> <> <> <> <> <>
It's not just that Trump refused to publish exculpatory material. Anyone that's been
reading my comments (and/or my blog) knows that Trump also:
- hired Manafort - whose work for pro-Russian candidates in Ukraine had drawn the ire of
CIA - despite Manafort's having no recent experience with US elections;
- helped Pelosi to be elected Speaker of the House by inviting her to attend a White
House meeting about his border wall (along with Chuck Schumer) prior to the House vote to
elect a Speaker.
- initiated Ukrainegate by talking with Ukraine's President about investigating an
announced candidate - he didn't have to do this(!) he could've let subordinates work
behind the scenes .
And then there's a set of suspicious activity that is difficult to explain, such as: ...
- Kissinger's having called for MAGA in August 2014 (Trump announced his campaign 10
months later and he was the ONLY MAGA candidate and the ONLY populist in the Republican
primary) ;
- London as a nexus for the US 2016 campaign (Cambridge Analytica; GPS Fusion;
Halper, etc.) ;
- Hillary's making mistakes in the 2016 campaign that no seasoned politician would
make;
- the settling of scores via entrapments of Flynn, Manafort, and Wikileaks/Assange
(painted as a hostile intelligence agency and Russian agent).
All of these and more support the conclusion that CIA-MI6 elected MAGA Trump and initiated
Russiagate.
The anonymous former British operator hears from an anonymous asserted compatriot what two
anonymous sources, asserted to have access to inner Russian circles, claim to have heard
somewhere that something happened in the Kremlin. <-- Perhaps it is too much to add that
the entire conversation happen in a pub, like an eyewitness account of a trout caught by an
angler that was larger than a tiger shark [the trout was so large, not the angler].
I am a great fan of Dmitri Orlov and have just read a large portion of his linked
post.
What I do not see Orlov doing is taking into account--in his takedown of "scientific"
models---evidence of global warming/change such as *actual* observations of *actual, current*
phenomena that are being measured today, such as the condition of the world's coral reefs;
the rate of melting of permafrost and release of methane gas; the melting of Greenland (and
other) glaciers and release of fresh water into the oceans; acidification of oceans; and
quite a lot of evidence for sea level rise, such as saltwater intrusion into freshwater
swamps, aquifers, etc.
More can be gleaned by the manner in which BigLie Media spin the investigation's results. At
The Hill , Jonathon Turley makes that clear in the first paragraph:
"The analysis of the report by Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz
greatly depends, as is often the case, on which cable news channel you watch. Indeed, many
people might be excused for concluding that Horowitz spent 476 pages to primarily conclude
one thing, which is that the Justice Department acted within its guidelines in starting its
investigation into the 2016 campaign of President Trump."
The further he goes the worse it gets for the Ds. And he's 100% correct about the biases
present in reporting about the Report.
Remarks made by Lavrov at the presser were likely done prior to anyone from Russia's
delegation having digested any of the Report. What I found important was the following
revelation by Lavrov:
"Let me remind you that at the time of the first statements on this topic, which was on
the eve of the 2016 US presidential election, we used the communications channel that linked
back then Moscow and the Obama administration in Washington to ask our US partners on
numerous occasions whether these allegations that emerged in October 2016 and persisted until
Donald Trump's inauguration could be addressed. The reply never came. There was no
response whatsoever to all our proposals when we said: look, if you suspect us, let's sit
down and talk, just put your facts on the table. All this continued after President Trump's
inauguration and the appointment of a new administration. We proposed releasing the
correspondence through this closed communications channel for the period from October 2016
until January 2017 in order to dispel all this groundless suspicion. This would have
clarified the situation for many. Unfortunately, this time it was the current administration
that refused to do so. Let me reiterate that we are ready to disclose to the public the
exchanges we had through this channel . I think that this would set many things straight.
Nevertheless we expect the turbulence that appeared out of thin air to calm down little by
little, just as McCarthyism waned in the 1950s, so that we can place our cooperation on a
more constructive footing." [My Emphasis]
Lavrov on Mueller Report: "It contains no confirmation of any collusion." End of story.
But we do have all this compiled evidence within our communications we're ready to publish is
the USA
agrees.
The Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) organization has yet to publish anything
about the report. However, Matt Taibbi often writes for that outlet, so his reporting at
Rolling Stone ought to be seen as a proxy FAIR report.
Now that we know Carter Page was working for the CIA as an informant in 2016, is it
reasonable to speculate that Page was planted in the Trump campaign by the CIA?
The Inspector General of the Department of Justice, Micheal Horowitz's report on the move to
delegitimize the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is clear proof of the massive rot
that lies at the heart of the US' political system. If this matter is whitewashed over by the
MSM, then one more step will have been taken to a violent and bloody revolution in the US of
A.
By now Steele's credibility is zero. Time to revisit Steele's involvement with the debunked
"Russia bought the soccer World Champion games", the Litvinenko polonium poisening and the
Skripal novichok poisening. The timing of the Skripal matter deserves some scrutiny in
relation to Skripal possibly being Steele's source for the infamous Trump dossier. There
might be a motive hidden there.
Thank you for posting Lavrov's words. Between those words and the IG report the kabuki
farce is revealed. Why was Trump ignoring the Russian offer you might ask. Because it suited
him to have this nonsense dominate the news cycle, you might conclude. Trump and Comey and
Brennan deserve each other.
just like 9-11... this is an inside job... does anyone really think the truth is going to
come to light in any of it?? i'm still with @ 2 caseys view...
Thanks for your reply! Yes, agreed, and I'd add Obama and Clinton.
Lavrov also held another presser at the conclusion of his visit that provides additional
info not covered in the first. The following is one I thought important:
"Question: The day before, US Congress agreed on a draft military budget, which includes
possible sanctions against Nord Stream-2 and Turkish Stream. Have you covered this topic? The
Congress sounds very determined. How seriously will the new restrictions affect the
completion of our projects?
"Sergey Lavrov: In my opinion, Congress sounds rather obsessed with destroying our
relations. It continues pursuing the policy started by the Obama administration. As I
mentioned, we are used to this kind of attack. We know how to respond to them. I assure you
that neither Nord Stream-2 nor Turkish Stream will be halted."
I must emphatically agree with Lavrov's opinion and was very pleased he answered
forthrightly. What seems quite clear is the current anti-Russian idiocy was started by
Obama's team and was designed for Clinton to escalate, with bipartisan Congressional backing.
That she lost didn't stop the anti-Russian wheel from being turned. So, logic tells us to
discover the reason for Obama to alter policy. Over the years I've written here why I think
that was done--to continue the #1 policy goal of attaining Full Spectrum Dominance over the
planet and its people regardless of its impossibility given the Sino-Russo Alliance made
reality by that policy goal. That a supermajority in Congress remain deluded is clearly a
huge problem, and those continuing to vote for the War Budget need to be removed.
b posted, in part;"When Hillary Clinton was defeated in the U.S. presidential election the
relevant powers launched a campaign to delegitimize the President elect Donald Trump."
It doesn't take HRC and her resident scum-bag sycophants to deligitimize DJT, his sorry
life-style, and his past record do that quite nicely, IMO.
Are you aware of any means by which a member of congress or of a congressional committee can
be impeached or otherwise censured for the misconduct of official duties? That would at least
be Schiff...
Posted by: Paul Damascene | Dec 11 2019 21:24 utc |
32
@ 31 john.. i didn't know i had to read the orlov article to say what i did to you!! your
post @11 never make any internet link to orlov... what am i missing? does this mean i can
only speak with you after i have read another orlov article? lol...
"It doesn't take HRC and her resident scum-bag sycophants to deligitimize DJT, his sorry
life-style, and his past record do that quite nicely, IMO."--ben @28
Ah, but that would be legitimate deligitimization, like attacking his actual policies.
Those are rocks that would break the Democrats' own windows as well as Trump's.
1. Senate Foreign Relations Comm passed Turkey sanctions bill
2. Pentagon Chief warned Turkey moving away NATO
3. U.S. lawmakers introduce legislation to curb Turkey's nuclear weapon obtainment"
Finally, the pretense of being nice to Turkey has come to an end. It will now intensify
its looking East, and pursue its national interests. IMO, the Eastern Med's energy issues
will now become a major headache.
karlof @ 29: The head Dems know their pushing the " Russia did it"meme is weak, but the
PTB
insist on it, to keep the MIC funds flowing.
The "no-brainer" charges should be; "Obstruction" and "Emoluments" violations. Charges the
public can grasp.
What happens if you, or any average person, ignores a summons to appear? They are
arrested.
Funneling govt. funds for personal gain is a violation of law, if you are POTUS.
These are violations average Americans can grasp, not the current circus of he said, she
said, going on in D.C. lately.
Guess my point is, this hearings are built to fail, because most of our so-called
leaders
like things the way they are. The rape of the workings classes will continue.
Yes. The impeachment process is the same as for Trump. Censuring is much easier but doubt
it will occur as too many are deserving. We're seeing the reason Congressional elections are
held every two years--vote 'em out if they're no good!
... the current anti-Russian idiocy was started by Obama's team and was designed for
Clinton to escalate ...
I don't agree that the baton would be passed to Clinton. The Deep State uses the two-party
system as a device. It's not tied to partisan concerns. If the Deep State and the
establishment really wanted Clinton elected, they would've made that happen. Few expected
Trump to win and few would've been outraged if he had lost. Yet he won. Against all odds. Furthermore, Clinton wasn't the MAGA candidate as called for by Kissinger - Trump was. And
he was from the beginning of his candidacy.
Russiagate was based on suspicions of a populist that was compromised by Russia.
Hillary has too much baggage to play populist or nationalist - including Bill's involvement
with Epstein.
Also, you're forgetting the set ups of Manafort, Flynn, and Wikileaks/Assange - which were
important parts of Russiagate and also a convenient way of settling scores. These set-ups
required the Russiagate-tainted candidate (Trump) to win.
And Trump's beating Hillary makes him the classic come-from-behind hero - giving Trump a
certain legitimacy that an establishment candidate wouldn't have. That's important when
contemplating taking the country to war in the near future.
It's strange to me that people can think that Hillary was the 'chosen candidate', and be
OK with that but find a possible selection of a different candidate (Trump, as it turns out)
to be outrageous and inconceivable.
=
... with bipartisan Congressional backing . That she lost didn't stop the
anti-Russian wheel from being turned.
Since the Deep State and the Establishment desired an effort to restore the Empire, they
would turn to whomever could most effectively accomplish that task.
Once again: It didn't have to be Hillary that was selected. In fact, for many reasons
(that I've previously expressed) Hillary would have been a poor choice.
=
So, logic tells us to discover the reason for Obama to alter policy. Over the years I've
written here why I think that was done--to continue the #1 policy goal of attaining Full
Spectrum Dominance over the planet and its people ...
FSD is US Mil policy, not a political goal. It states that US Mil will strive to have
superiority in weapons and capability in every sphere of combat.
Politically, FSD is just one of several means to an end. IMO that end is the maintenance
and expansion of the Anglo-Zionist Empire (aka New World Order).
Also, your dominance theory doesn't answer the question of WHY NOW? (more on that
below)
... regardless of its impossibility given the Sino-Russo Alliance ...
Firstly, US Deep State believes that it is possible. And I personally don't buy the notion
that Russia and China are fated to prevail. If that were obvious, then the moa bar would have
no patrons.
Secondly (and again), WHY NOW? The Sino-Russo Alliance was long in the making. Why did USA
suddenly take note?
It's
Kissinger's WSJ Op-Ed of August 2014 that provides the answer. In this Op-Ed, Kissinger
calls for a restored US Empire that is essentially Trump's MAGA. Kissinger is writing
immediately after the Donbas rebels have won. The Russians refused to heed Kissinger's advice
(to back down) and it has become apparent that Russia's joining the West is no longer an
inevitability as the US elite had assumed.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
I've written many times of Kissinger's Op-Ed and of indications that the Deep State
selected MAGA Trump to be President while also initiating a new McCarthyism. Why is it STILL
so difficult to believe a theory that makes so much sense?
Yes, the status quo is very generous to the Current Oligarchy and its tools, but not so
for the vast public majority which is clamoring for change. IMO, much can be learned from the
UK election tomorrow, of which there's been very little discussion here despite its
importance. I suggest following the very important developments from the past few days at
Criag Murray's Twitter and
at
his website , the linked article being a scoop of sorts.
Also harder to follow but important as well are ballot initiatives within the states.
This site
has current listing . I just looked over those for California where there are a few good
ones, but the threshold for signatures is getting higher, close to one million are now needed
in CA.
Lavrov's comments about the offers to open up normally closed communications really only
highlight two obvious issues:
The previous US Administration had no interest in shutting off the oxygen to the "Trump =
Moscow's Man" campaign; and
The current US Administration cannot afford to be perceived as receiving help in this matter
from the country he is alleged to be beholden to for his election.
With only 9% approval, it ought to be easy to toss out most Congresscritters, excepting
that part of the Senate not up for reelection.
You'd think so, but somehow the numbers pretty much reverse when these same people
consider their own rep, and the incumbency reelection rate is shockingly high (haven't
looked recently but IIRC it has hovered around 90% for decades). Apparently it is amazingly
easy to convince the masses that their guy is the one good apple in the bunch.
Jon Schwartz
reminds me why I don't stop and peruse magazine stands anymore. Seeing the words and this
picture would've sparked lots of unpleasant language:
"The best part of Michelle Obama explaining she shares the same values as George W. Bush
is she was being interviewed on network TV by Bush's daughter. There's nothing more American
than our ruling class making us watch them discuss how great they all are."
And the escalation wasn't rigged for Clinton to initiate--yeah, sure, whatever the rabbit
says.
Until there is some comparison of how the FISA court usually works, none of this chatter
means a thing. Violations of Woods procedures and assertions not supported by documents are
SOP. The FISA court is always a joke.
Delgeitimizing Trump, reversing the election, all simple-minded drviel, as only nitwits
see Trump as anything but the loser.
Skripal knows something that US-UK either 1) don't want the Russians to know OR 2) don't
want ANYONE to know.
What could that be? 1) That Steele dossier is bullshit? We know that. 2) That Steele
dossier was meant to be bullshit ? Well, that raises a whole host of questions,
doesn't it?
Good chance Steele had little to do with writing the Dossier. "Simpson-Ohr Dossier", anyone?
Steele was needed as a credible looking intelligence officer with Russia ties and a past
working relationship with US Intel, as cover to sell to FBI, FISA Court, and the public
(meeting with Isikoff, Yahoo News story).
Glenn Simpson and wife Mary Jacoby had written
articles for the WSJ in 2007 and 2008 with a script and language similar to the Dossier.
Devin Nunes seems to believe this scenario, and it is discussed in detail in books by Dan Bongino and Lee Smith, among others.
The Afghanistan report outlines a *massive fraud*. $14 billion/month, 90% of the world's
opium, no "progress", oh, and lying to Congress for two decades.
physchoh @ 60; The difference, at least in my mind, is that, the "Russia did it" meme, is the
weakest of all cases against DJT. Corbyn, on the other hand, may actually be hurt by the
bogus charges. IMO, what this shows is coordination between the elites to bring down a progressive in the
UK, who fancies public control over major finances instead of private concerns.
Fox News, now: Biden blames staff, says nobody 'warned' him son's Ukraine job could raise
conflict. In a TV comedy Seinfeld, one of the main characters, George, is a compulsive liar with a
knack of getting in trouble. Sometimes he has a job. Final scene of one of those jobs:
Boss: "You have been seen after hours making sex with the cleaning lady on the top of your
desk."
George (after a measured look at his boss): "If I was only told that this kind of things
is being frown upon..." [and she had cleaned the desk both before AND after!]
I have theory about why Horowitz did not bias in the FBI. The
definition of bias is to harbor a deeply negative feeling that
clouds one's judgement about a person or subject. However, the
conspirators' judgement was not clouded in this case. Their
negative feelings focused their intent to destroy the object of
their feeling. The precise term for this is malice.
So Horowitz
was technically correct when he did not find bias. What he might
have been reluctant to spell out is that he did find malice.
Re Really?? | Dec 11 2019 18:31 utc | 14 and AshenLight | Dec 11 2019 19:36 utc | 19
I agree with you. Orlov is a brilliant, insightful analyst, who is also very funny. But he
is off the mark with his dismissal of global warming and also with his endorsement of nuclear
power. The immense amounts of waste from uranium mining all the way to hundreds of thousands
of tons of high-level waste in spent fuel pools pose a huge threat to current and future
generations . . . like the next 3000 generations of humans (and all other forms of life) that
will have to deal with this. Mankind has never built anything that has lasted a fraction of
the 100,000 years required for the isolation of high-level wastes from the biosphere. Take a
look at Into
Eternity which is a great documentary on the disposal of nuclear waste in Finland.
Orlov's analysis is superficial, unfortunately, in these areas.
"... The FBI agents and lawyers intentionally lied to the court. Their violations were not mistakes. All 51 of them were in favor of further spying on members of the Trump campaign and on everyone they communicated with. ..."
"... The FBI has used the Steele dossier to gain further FISA application even after it had talked with Steele's 'primary source' (who probably was the later 'buzzed' Sergei Skripal ) and after it had learned that the allegations in the dossier were no more than unconfirmed rumors. ..."
The FBI agents and lawyers intentionally lied to the court. Their violations were not
mistakes. All 51 of them were in favor of further spying on members of the Trump campaign and
on everyone they communicated with.
The FBI has used the Steele dossier to gain further FISA application even after it had
talked with Steele's 'primary source' (who probably was the later
'buzzed' Sergei Skripal ) and after it had learned that the allegations in the dossier were
no more than unconfirmed rumors.
By now Steele's credibility is zero. Time to revisit Steele's involvement with the debunked
"Russia bought the soccer World Champion games", the Litvinenko polonium poisening and the
Skripal novichok poisening. The timing of the Skripal matter deserves some scrutiny in
relation to Skripal possibly being Steele's source for the infamous Trump dossier. There
might be a motive hidden there.
As early as
August 2018 , there had been speculation that the Skripals were being held at USAF
Fairford airbase, based on audiovisual evidence in the background garden scene where the
interview took place. Helmer's sources (they requested anonymity) spotted a chicken coop in
the background which they say is a crow ladder trap. This is one indication that the garden
scene was located near a runway. Background noises included the roar of jet engines.
If Helmer's information is correct, then we can now understand why the British government
never gave Russian embassy staff access to the Skripals: London was in no position to do so,
the Skripals were on US territory.
One implication of this new information is that the Skripals may no longer be in Britain
and may now be living in North America somewhere with new identities. Should something happen
to them (or have happened to them already), they will not be missed by their new neighbours.
The Skripals will never be allowed to return to Russia and Sergei Skripal will never see or
be allowed to communicate with his elderly mother again.
It really does look as if Sergei Skripal may have had something to do with that Orbis
dossier after all, even if as a minor source or as a reference rather than the primary source
of disinformation about Donald Trump's past activities in Moscow. What other work has Skripal
done for his American masters?
It looks as if Sergei Skripal may not be the primary source of the disinformation in
Christopher Steele's dossier. Perhaps the person who is the primary source
is not a Russian at all.
JR | Dec 11 2019 19:41 utc | 20 brings up a revisiting of the Litvinenko polonium poisoning.
It is worth mentioning that a tiny but crucial and virtually never mentioned detail of the
official inquiry (considered the last word on the matter) is that those conducting the
official inquiry were never allowed access to the autopsy report -- which should have been
(which would have been, in any honest effort at inquiry) the bedrock starting point. The
report has right along been sequestered by Scotland Yard in the interests of... you guessed
it: national security. Go figure...
It strikes me that the best explanation of the attack on the Skripals is not that he was
responsible for the Steele Dossier in any way, but that he could easily prove that it was a
fantasy. And was planning to do so.
He knew better, though, than to say so in the UK which suggests that he was on his way
home with his daughter when MI6 caught up with him and poisoned them both.
Steele, Pablo Miller and Skripal were old partners in crime.
I'm wondering whether the mistake Sergei made was not to leave the house -- probably worth
lotsa rubles -- behind and just go. On the other hand he was almost certainly under constant
surveillance.
@50 The Official Report to which you refer was also very careful to enter extensive
caveats regarding its conclusions for which there was almost no real evidence.
It seems important to note that Mr. Lavrov refers to administrations in his
comments, not presidents per se. As there are many staff in presidential
administrations, it seems entirely possible that 1) the requests from the Russians never
reached Obama or Trump personally, and 2) either or both presidents were therefore not even
aware of the requests. In the case of Trump, that would be consistent with the fact that many
members of his administration have been revealed to have operated contrary to his wishes.
@Jen #42
The Skripals residing on US territory would definitely indicate that the US has been the
senior partner in the "Skripal operation". This seems to be part of a general pattern.
@Jackrabbit #48
For the Steele dossier to be intentional bullshit (meaning its creator(s) knew it was
false when they created it) doesn't seem all that surprising. Intelligence agencies promote
disinformation all the time. That in no way means that Trump is in on the game.
Both Putin and Lavrov have stated that they talked directly with Obama and Trump about the
issues involved with their relations, so there's no excuses or obfuscation possible is this
case.
This is selective quotes from anti-Trump of neocon author. The general tone of the article is
completely different from presented quotes.
Notable quotes:
"... ..."This was an overthrow of government, this was an attempted overthrow -- and a lot of people were in on it," Trump declared , while Barr insisted , in a more lawyerly fashion, "The Inspector General's report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken." ..."
The report confirmed that the Russia investigation originated, as has been previously
reported, with the Trump campaign adviser
George Papadopoulos bragging to an Australian diplomat about Russia possessing "dirt" on
Hillary Clinton, which the IG determined "was sufficient to predicate the investigation." The
widespread conservative belief that the investigation began because of the dubious claims in
the Steele dossier was false. "Steele's reports played no role" in the opening of the Russia
investigation, the report found, because FBI officials were not "aware of Steele's election
reporting until weeks later."
...The IG also "did not find any records" that Joseph Mifsud, the professor who told
Papadopoulos the Russians had obtained "dirt" on Clinton, was an FBI informant sent to entrap
him.
...Page "did not play a role in the decision to open" the Russia investigation, and that
Strzok was "was not the sole, or even the highest-level, decision maker as to any of those
matters."
...the IG did determine that the Page FISA application was "inaccurate, incomplete, or
unsupported by appropriate documentation," which misled the court as to the credibility of the
FBI's evidence when seeking authority to surveil Page.
..."This was an overthrow of government, this was an attempted overthrow -- and a lot of
people were in on it,"
Trump declared , while Barr insisted , in a more lawyerly fashion, "The Inspector General's
report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential
campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps
taken."
Adam
Serwer is a staff writer atThe Atlantic, where he covers
politics.
They poisoned with the USA with Russophobia for decades to come, and that really increases
the risk of nuclear confrontation, which would wipe out all this jerks, but also mass of innocent
people.
Notable quotes:
"... The only way to prevent it, IMHO, is having a Western public shifting just 5 % of their "breads and circuses" paradigm to that issue. Just 5. Not holding my breath I am afraid. ..."
"... Which proves the main point of mine: access to information means shit in the real world of power play. Sheeple didn't care then; they care even less now (better distractions). ..."
Sooner or later you'll have this, IMHO: Reaction time 7 minutes . You know,
decision-making time to say "launch" or not. The decision-maker in the White House, Downing
Street and Elysees Palace either a geriatric or one of this new multiracial breed. Just think
about those people
Add to that the level of overall expertise by the crews manning those systems, its
maintenance etc. Add increased automation of some parts of the launch process with
hardware/software as it's produced now (you know, quality control etc.).
It will take a miracle not to have that launch sooner or later. Not big, say .80 KT. What
happens after that is anybody's guess. Mine, taking the second point from the fourth
paragraph .a big bang.
The only way to prevent it, IMHO, is having a Western public shifting just 5 % of
their "breads and circuses" paradigm to that issue. Just 5.
Not holding my breath I am afraid.
@peterAUS The rational actor false supposition has it that the biologics can't be used
because they don't recognize friend from foe.
Rational actors? Where? Anthrax via the US mail.
One rational actor point of view is that you have to be able to respond to anything.
Anything. In a measured or escalating response. Of course biologics are being actively
pursued to the hilt. Just like you point out about Marburg.
But, the view from above is that general panic in the population cannot be allowed, and so
all biologics have to be down played. "of course we would never do anything like that, it
would be insane to endanger all of humanity". Just like nukes. So professors pontificate
misdirection, and pundits punt.
So don't expect real disclosure, or honest analysis. "We only want the fear that results
in more appropriations. Not the fear that sinks programs." Don't generate new Church
commissions. Hence the fine line. some fear yes, other fears, no.
Well Washington D.C.
Hahahahaha sorry, couldn't resist.
So don't expect real disclosure, or honest analysis.
I don't.
But I also probably forgot more about nuclear war than most of readers here will ever
know. And chemical, when you think about it; had a kit with atropine on me all the time in
all exercises. We didn't practice much that "biologics" stuff, though. We knew why, then.
Same reason for today. Call it a "stoic option" to own inevitable demise.
Now, there is a big difference between the age of those protests I mentioned and today.
The Internet. The access to information people, then, simply didn't have.
Which proves the main point of mine: access to information means shit in the real
world of power play. Sheeple didn't care then; they care even less now (better
distractions).
Well, they will care, I am sure. For about ..say in the USA ..several hours, on
average.
We here where I am typing from will care for "how to survive the aftermath" .. for two
months.Tops.
So CIA agent Carter Page joins Trump campaign and then do several "improper" moves like
travel to Moscow and contracts with Russian officials things in order to create a pretext for FBI
investigation. Which of course was promptly started. This is called false flag operation.
From comments: "He wasn’t a victim, he was an asset. When actors portray a victim, they
are ACTING!!!"
Notable quotes:
"... "The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses". - the esteemed Malcolm X. ..."
"... Seth Rich downloaded the emails on a potable drive. Was he Russian? ..."
"... DNC/ FBI/ CIA/ CNN/ NBC have merged into the 5 headed serpent. ..."
"... Roger Stone got some minor facts wrong and is facing jail time, Brennan and Comey outright lied to Congress, when are they going to jail? ..."
"... "June 2017, CIA told FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith that Carter Page was working for them (the CIA)." Clinesmith then changed that notification so he could submit the last (FISA) renewal. ..."
"... "Lets hope Carter Page spends the rest of his life sueing everyone..." lol Thats the meanest thing ive ever heard you say! O:) ..."
There are so many crooked actors and actresses hired by the MSM it is just pathetic. They
are not reporters, they are there only to put on a show for the masses.
"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the
innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the
minds of the masses". - the esteemed Malcolm X.
"June 2017, CIA told FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith that Carter Page was working for them
(the CIA)." Clinesmith then changed that notification so he could submit the last (FISA)
renewal.
1:52
- This is what a paid shill looks like. If the money is good, they'll read whatever is on the
prompter. Years from now when they're demonized by the corrupt media they'll scratch their
head and ask... What happened to integrity in our country???
If you asked me 20 years ago wether I would be watching Fox News to get the most rational
point of view in politics, I would have said you were crazy. Another great job Tucker! In my
opinion, you’re one of the best news men of our current time; questioning needless
wars, and calling out politicians, gvmnt officials and your counterparts at other news desks
with rational arguments. Well done sir!
Personally seen these types of things/cases in lower levels, police chiefs and officials,
judges, prosecutors, mayor, FBI, and so on. Not surprisingly it happens elsewhere. ...But
very disappointed of it all.
If I were an American citizen, I'd be very concerned about the utter incompetence of the
FBI that the IG report exposed. The dems don't seem to be bothered by this at all. Go
figure.
The Establishment has played this game many times before .. remember PM Harold Wilson was
put up as a Russian Agent .. sure they won that game but NOT this time .. they fear President
Trump because the have nothing over him .
The Democ-rats and the media (I repeat myself) are shamelessly LYING through their teeth
to the American People. There was NO Russian collision—it's a HOAX made by LOSERS who
can't accept their loss in 2016 so they were up to smear the winner, President Trump, by all
means, possible including Illegal surveillance, fraud and manipulation—ABUSE of
government power for political prosecution.
Steele dossier......fake evidence bought and payed for by the democrats and presented to
the FISA court by James Comey...........FELONY FELONY FELONY!......this one can’t be
talked away!
Tucker, thank you for being a constant drumbeat for the criminal activity undertaken by
the FBI and CIA to ultimately unseat a duly elected President. No rest until they are held
accountable.
How could the FBI be innocent? We saw the emails. We saw them cover up for Bill Gates,
Clinton, Epstein, Brunel, and all the others. We saw how they protected these abusers of
children. We saw how they worked to overthrow a sitting president. We saw how they protected
the Awan’s and Huma.
THE FIX WAS IN - People are saying that Nellie Orr the Russian Expert is best friends with
the IG's Horowitz wife - So nice - Bruce your husband is a lap dog and works for the FBI .
People should be outraged as the cover up continues . Just like OJ - they have 10 times the
evidence that would convict anyone else - have them charged , arrested , tried and jailed .
Different rules for corrupt politicians and their friends in law enforcement .
Michael Cohen In prison, Papadopulos went to prison, Flynn is going to prison, Roger Stone
is going to prison, Manafort is in prison and Devin Nunes and Rudy Giuliani are under
investigation.....Lock them up, lock them up!!!!
CIA tells FBI who in turn uses their corrupt media to spread the lies as truth. The less
intelligent among us believe them as gospel and thus we get "Russian Collusion, or Quid Pro
Quo, or Iraq has weapons of mass destruction " and on and on.....
Ukraine and Barisma may be corrupt, but after reading the summary of this report, this
country better not be calling any country corrupt. The USA is following Rome. Soon it will
die.
FBI is totally corrupted by it's unchecked power, these deep states have the guts to
repeatedly use FALSE Information again & again to spy on the opposition political party
presidential candidate campaign. The Fake News medias continue to cover for them, it is
sickening!
The FBI based on the IG report are either criminally liable for deceiving FISA courts, or
the most inept, bumbling criminal investigation agency ever. Looks like both to me. Any FBI
agent or employee who knew the FBI was breaking the law, and remained silent needs to be
fired immediately and prosecuted along with the principals, for aiding and abetting criminal
activity. This sounds like RICO violations.
if Carter Page didn't run the 2016 "Trump Election Campaign Committee of Moscow" from the
ROSNEFT bureau offices inside the Kremlin, where did Carter Page run the "Trump Election
Campaign Committee of Moscow" ?
Horowitz needs to stop being a wuss and tell the whole truth. His report is a big lie. The
whole thing was a political attack. It started with John McCain and he handed it off to Obama
and Crooked Hillary. There was no reason at all to investigate Trump. Is the IG part of the
deep state? Democrats are acting like this report is good news for them.
Steele was not the author of the fake dossier, DNC FusionGPS Glen Simpson was, and Steele
used as cover. Coming in the Durham findings. 17 FBI "mistakes" in a row all against Trump?
No bias? B S.
How Trump has "conned" the American tax payer: This is just a few of his fraud actions!He
set up a foundation to benefit the military, then him and his family pocketed our money.He
started a Fake University, then stole the money from the American people.He cheated on his
wives, then paid them to keep quiet so it wouldn't damage his chances in the election.He
stiffed 100's of worker's he hired and then made up an excuse y they didn't get paid
If Donald Trump was a Russian spy it would’ve been the deepest cover of any secret
agent ever....he came here after his lgb training as a young man and became a celebrity for
30 years before finally putting his dastardly plan to go from pageant owner to president into
action! If that were anywhere close to true the Russians did so much work I think they earned
the 4-8 years in the White House! I know that at this point I’d rather have Vladimir
Putin as President than any of the top democrats!
Folks..All this soap opera is just a smoke screen to hide what is really important and is
happening right now at this very minute. The Federal Reserve Banking cartel is pumping 100s
of billions of dollars into insolvent banks again like they did in 2008. This time it is more
and we taxpayers will again foot the bill. The banks are getting this money called REPO
loans. Watch your cash everyone as the Federal Reserve has only 1 product and that is
printing money( debt) that they will use to steal your assets and future.
There are many opinions about the Horowitz report. As with a prior report Horowitz lays
out damning evidence and then draws exactly the wrong conclusion. Why does he have to draw
ANY CONCLUSIONS? His job is to present the facts and the evidence and to let "We the People'
draw conclusions. Reminds me of Comey declaring that Hillary's actions were irresponsible but
not criminal. Why? She didn't act with intent. She was just incompetent! Tucker is absolutely
right! What does it matter what their motive was? Like Clinton, they behaved in a criminal
fashion.
The tread is reproduced as is. And out 100 posts available in NYT "all view mode 90% can be classified as plain vanilla Neo-McCarthyism
If they are representative sample of the country, the country is crazy.
This editorial can also be classified as lunatic. But in reality it is much worse: the paper became completely subservant
to intelligence agencies. Should probably be renamed the Voice of the CIA. .
Monday's congressional hearing and the inspector general's report tell a similar story.
By Jesse Wegman Mr. Wegman is a member of the editorial board.
When it comes to Donald Trump and Russia, everything is connected.
That's the most important lesson from the two big events that played out Monday on Capitol Hill -- the House Judiciary Committee's
hearings on President Trump's impeachment and the
release of the report on the origins of the F.B.I.'s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
One of these involved the 2016 election. The other involves the 2020 election. Both tell versions of the same story: Mr. Trump
depends on, and welcomes, Russian interference to help him win the presidency. That was bad enough when he did it in 2016, openly
calling for Russia to hack into his opponent's emails -- which
Russians tried to do that
same day . But he was only a candidate then. Now that Mr. Trump is president, he is wielding the immense powers of his office
to achieve the same end.
That is precisely the type of abuse of power that the founders
were most concerned about when they
created the impeachment power, and it's why Democratic leaders in the House are pressing ahead with such urgency on their inquiry.
They are trying to ensure that the 2020 election, now less than a year away, is not corrupted by the president of the United States,
acting in league with a foreign power. "The integrity of our next election is at stake," said Representative Jerry Nadler, the chairman
of the Judiciary Committee. "Nothing could be more urgent."
On Monday morning, lawyers for the Democrats on the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees presented
the clearest and most comprehensive narrative yet of President Trump's monthslong shakedown of the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr
Zelensky, for Mr. Trump's personal political benefit. They explained in methodical detail how the president withheld a White House
meeting and hundreds of millions of dollars in crucial, congressionally authorized military aid to Ukraine, all in an effort to get
Mr. Zelensky to announce two investigations -- one into Mr. Trump's political rival, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter, and another
into Ukraine's supposed interference in the 2016 election.
David Leonhardt helps you make sense of the news -- and offers reading suggestions from around the web -- with commentary every
weekday morning.
Who would benefit from these announcements? Mr. Trump, who believes his re-election prospects are threatened most by Mr. Biden,
and Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, who has been working for years to make Ukraine the fall guy for his own interference
in the 2016 election. Mr. Putin has not fooled serious people, like those in the American intelligence community who determined that
his government alone was responsible
for meddling on Mr. Trump's behalf . But he has fooled Republicans in Congress, who have degraded themselves and their offices
by faithfully parroting Mr. Putin's propaganda in the mainstream press.
Republicans are in lawyer mode, advocating for Trump as if he were their client. Lawyers make the best case they can for their
clients. It helps if they believe in the case, but it also helps to know the case's weaknesses so they can avoid them. The best
lawyers can do both at the same time. Republicans are called on by the Constitution to exit lawyer mode and enter juror mode (which
is, or should be, similar to why-did-this-aircraft-crash mode). So far, they are not heeding this call. From all appearances,
they are mouthing the words of the Constitution while avoiding or refusing to hear or understand them. They took an oath to support
the Constitution, but they are deaf to its call, or have moved to a place beyond understanding it.
The issue of whether to impeach was made by the President when he engaged in an abuse of his office for personal gain and then
obstructed Congress' oversight function. We all understand the political downside arising from an acquittal in the Senate but
that interest needs to be secondary to doing the right thing. On these facts, the decision representatives must make of whether
to impeach really is no decision at all. Just do the right thing.
When Senator John McCain died, he scripted his own funeral as a full bore defense against Trumpian Nationalism, and as an admonishment
against a GOP too willing to sell the soul of our nation out to a cultist repudiation of objective fact, truth, and Constitutional
order. McCain was a controversial maverick –a person I both admired and disliked in equal proportion. But there is one thing I
will always admire him for: his final letter to the nation. It was a warning! He blew a golden bugle to sound the alarm against
those entities both within and without our nation who wish to do our democratic republic harm. McCain, whether you agreed with
the premise of the Vietnam war or not, was an American hero who served his country and his fellow soldiers with incontrovertible
valor and love. President Donald Trump has no concept of what that dedication and sacrifice entails – and sadly, neither do many
of the GOP members who continue to lie and make excuses for a president who is clearly abusing his office for personal gain. McCain
characterized Trump's actions in Helsinki as an unfathomable 'abasement of the U.S. presidency.' All I can say is the GOP sure
ain't the party of my father who fought in WWII against fascism and autocracy. It aggrieves me to no end to witness what too many
members of Congress have become: tyrants toward the very meaning of American democracy. God save us from our own duplicity.
@Twg Well said, and though I sometimes did not agree with McCain on matters of policy, I wish he were still with us, hopefully
to show his fellow republicans what integrity looks like, and what America is supposed to be about. The Republican party I have
known and respected is alas, like Senator McCain, no longer with us.
Americans have to realize that the whole world is mocking us, and that doesn't necesarily inspire respect. That cold be dangerous.
Many medical professionals have noticed a decay in the mental abilities of the president, and certain abnormalities. It would
be wise to suggest to the family that maybe the best way forward, with minimal losses would be to motivate a retirement. That
would be face saving for them, and save the country from a bitter impeachment spectacle that would not be positive for the USA.
I'm waiting for Trump's financial info to be released. There's something in there he doesn't even want his base to know . I think
the logical conclusion is that whatever financials DJT has hidden do indeed lead to Moscow. Actually, all of this is very, very
alarming. Does Putin have a political asset planted here? Y or N I wish the answer was no and that we had a different President.
Can we as a nation hold things together when our leader wants to tear us apart?
All roads lead to the highest bidder(s). 21st century America in the era of Citizens United. Market pricing and the government
is open for transactional business domestic and international. Alternate realities per GRU/FOX/GOP misinformation. Combine foreign
money carefully grooming an in-need Trump, and a party worshipping money and you have a perfect storm removing any sense of civic
duty. Hundreds of years to build and unwound in a few decades, the breathtaking and tragic fall of greatness and hope in our lifetime.
It's not fiction, and every day I have to check if it's really happening, and shockingly it is.
There was no Russian meddling, only Ukraine who meddled in 2016 and they are still at it. Listening to the Judiciary Committee
hearings, it seems that the Russians have hacked into the Republican Party servers and are sending talking points to Republicans
who are defending the indefensible president.
At some point, Republicans have to ask themselves which is better for their party and the country. Slavish devotion to Trump,
or losing an election and leaving Democrats a mess to clean up, as in 1932 and 2008?
Block witnesses from testifying, then say that the hearing is incomplete. Romney told America at the Republican Convention in
2012 that Russia was our biggest enemy, DJT wanted them to help Republicans win in 2016, said he believed Putin in 2018, and wants
to convince us that it was really the Ukraine in 2019. The House has to impeach, even if politically it may be a bad move, because
it is the right thing to do; indeed, the very actions I've seen in the past several weeks has given me glimmers of hope for the
country.
Trump will be reelected for the reason that the Russian intelligence agencies are still able to hack our election results, because
Trump has blocked fixing the weaknesses. That is what happens when a Manchurian candidate is elected and then allowed to obstruct
justice. It is not clear the US will survive Trump. One key thing he did was arrange to have the teams at DHS that watch for smuggled
nuclear bombs were stood down and disbanded. See the report in the LA Times last July "Trump administration has gutted programs
aimed at detecting weapons of mass destruction".
I don't suppose a constructed transcript of Trump's meeting with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tomorrow will be offered up as
a token of our leader's transparency.
It's clear now that AG William Barr isn't interested in enforcing the rule of law with fellow republicans, and especially the
president. How can there be no recourse when an attorney general completely sells out to a criminal president? Can the employees
of the Justice Dept hold a vote of no confidence in the AG? Can 10,000 attorneys nationwide express the same? The prospect of
Trump and Barr running roughshod over the rule of law for another year is truly frightening.
65,845,063 voters knew clearly who this man was from the beginning and voted for what would have been a better now and future.
It was never any secret. 62,980,160 voters also knew clearly who this man was and voted for him anyway. If the Democrats can ensure
that we have a fair election in 2020. I'm confident they will win the majority in the house and senate and retake the White House
and the end game for Trump will be jail. The problem is, he might not be the only one who's crimes come to light and I suspect
a good lot of the GOP are threatening and blackmailing each other to hold the line. If there's any good men or women left in the
GOP, your country and history are calling you.
It has easy to predict Trump's next move for the last 3 years. Just ask, "What would both benefit Trump, and benefit Putin?" Trump
supporters = Putin supporters.
Do you know the American people are fed up with the discourse of all politicians. The republicans are fed up with any decency
for the republic. The democrats are fed up with the republicans not facing the common sense of a exec not capable of being the
President of the United states. I as a person am fed up with a political system that is not working for all people, just a select
few. It's time too have term limits for all positions in gov't. That means all people that serve the people whether it be judges,
senators or congressmen/women. It's time to find common sense again in our society as a whole society. We on this earth are all
HUMAN.
Unfortunately their are serious problems with term limits. Just consider yourself in the role of a Congressional Representative
limited to 4 terms. You know that in 8 years, you'll be be back on the job market. You can selflessly work for the public and
damage your ability to get a job or tend to people who can hire you after you leave office. You're rational. Which future would
you pick?
Trump needs to keep Putin happy lest he unleash with all the damaging info he has collected on Trump and his financial crooked
deals with Russians over decades. THe Russian mob reports to Putin as a former KGB agent he knows how to collect compromat on
a politician and how to use it to get Trump to break into a giddy smile when he sees Putin his master it's obvious to most keen
observers.
Folks it is simple. Can we hear what Trump and Putin said to each other a few months ago. It is recored and on a server it should
not be on. I am not sure why nobody is talking about these transcripts.
Finally! We get someone stating the obvious fact of Trump/Putin. Why are the Dems not talking about this all the time? Why are
Congressmen and women not asking the witnesses about this? This is the ONE thing the Republicans are afraid of, so it is the one
thing Democrats should do. I have been disappointed that the Russian asset thing hasn't been brought up....It's as if it is purposely
bold. Trump is a Russian asset, either witting or unwitting. I doubt if there is one upper Intelligence Official that wouldn't
say this. So find the right one and have them sit as a witness for this inquiry. And now the Russian big wig Diplomat and KGb
spy, Lavarov, is visiting tomorrow. Good grief! Everyone is thinking this, so get out and say it Dems! Dr. Fiona Hill tried to
lead into this direction but still the Dem Committee would take it up and aske her what she thought. Say it: All of Trump's Roads
Lead to Russia.
Any American adult who has made an effort to educate himself or herself about Mr. Mueller's investigation or these impeachment
proceedings understands that yes, with Trump all roads lead to Russia. Now if the poll numbers mean anything, Trump's crimes and
Russia's involvement only matter to about 60% of us. As Trump's poll numbers remain steady, some 40% of Americans don't care what
lawbreaking he is involved with or whether other nations now control our elections. Stop and think about this for a minute. Trump
supporters know but literally do not care that Russia is tampering with our elections (2016 and 2020). Their cult-like support
for Trump is why the Republican Senate will not remove him. There is no other reason Trump will remain in office. Trump has mesmerized
his supporters like a modern day Rasputin. They will do literally anything for him, and Senate Republicans know this. Trump voters
do not mind that Putin controls our nation at the highest levels of decision making. Again - think about this - they know he does,
and they do not care. So I ask the rest of us. Is this the America we want to live in? To raise our families in? Where a large,
rabid minority is in thrall to a lunatic puppet whose strings are firmly in Putin's hands? Because this is very much the America
we live in now. The time will come, though, when we, the majority, will no longer tolerate the Trump/Putin regime. But the longer
we wait, the harder it will be oust these tyrants.
In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. said Russia was an important source of funding for the Trump businesses. American banks wouldn't lend
him money. Saudi Arabia likely bailed out Jared's disastrous real estate investment in NYC. Follow. The. Money.
You say that Mr. Putin "has fooled Republicans in Congress, who have degraded themselves and their offices by faithfully parroting
Mr. Putin's propaganda in the mainstream press." You are correct on all counts, except that the Republicans have not been fooled
by Putin. They have gone along, headlong and absolutely willingly, in a complete sellout of personal and national principle and
integrity. They should not be forgiven for this conduct, any more than Mr. Trump should be forgiven for his sellout of America.
For Republicans who believe so fervently in their counterfactual narrative, there is an immediate remedy. Bring facts and evidence
to the Committees and testify under oath. Without witnesses and evidence presented under oath, all of the GOP antics simply look
foolish and very much like they are defending the guilty. It is unfortunate that there is no penalty for elected officials who
share unfounded conspiracy theories, engage in innuendo and obstruct process in official Committee hearings. It is also regretable
that this President is not held accountable for trying to intimidate witnesses in real time during testimony. And it is a sad
reality that one of the most corrupt rulers in the world, who rules a hostile power, has managed to entirely win over one of our
major parties.
The strangest defense advanced today was the idea that the alleged state of the economy was reason not to impeach the President:
the Republicans assert that America, the Constitution, the principle of our government are for sale to be bought by the rising
stock market and a plethora of low-wage jobs. We are Faust, and the smell of sulphur is nauseating.
If the IG's report on the 2016 Russia investigation had found the only problem was that two of the agents involved had horrible
hangnails, Barr and Trump would have condemned it.
Whatever Trump is doing, he always care about his main benefactors, Putin and MBS. This is the first time I have witnessed in
history that an American president became a Russian puppet with all his Republican followers at the Congress and Senate. American
constitutional crisis happening right in front of the world. I heard the cries of James Madison, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin
from their graves.
Sir, do you honestly think that House Republicans have been "fooled" by Mr. Putin? On the contrary, it's pretty obvious they understand
and believe the conclusions from our Intel community. These are instead willful lies for political gain. And while some Americans
may actually be misled by the theater presented as rebuttal to the impeachment, it's hard to imagine for most it's once again,
not conviction but convenience that places such "patriots" solidly in Russia's back pocket.
The pattern of behavior is clear and compelling: Trump is selling out this country, its national security, its integrity and sovereignty,
in order to keep power and avoid his own prosecution, and protect his financial interests. We must get the truth about his relationships
and indebtedness to Putin, the Saudis, and Erdogan. Our country has been hijacked and Trump will continue to corrupt the US and
turn it into an autocracy if he is not stopped and held accountable under the law.
The country voted for this President knowing he is a flawed man in many ways. I don't think anything changes here - the Senate
will speedily acquit him and the voters in the swing states will have to decide if they want to give Mr. Trump a second chance
while the rest of the country impotently watches.
If one looks at all of his actions as "How could this benefit Russia?" most of it makes sense. Why start a trade war with China
and Western allies? Why withdraw from Syria? Why try to polarize the American public? Effectively showing this to the public is
critical.
Excellent piece. We all know Trump, Inc. turned to Russian oligarchs after '08 for condo sales. It just so happened that those
same oligarchs (read as kleptocrats) were laundering money through Deutsche Bank, who was the only bank willing to lend to Trump.
Trump's loan officer amazingly was SC Justice Anthony Kennedy's son. Trump was and is a desperate man in need of cash/ Putin is
a desperate man who knows that the geyser of oil money that funds his national budget, and has done so since the 1920's, is coming
to an end. Russia has no large material economic exports other than oil and gas, but it does still have a large military, hence
the military incursions into Moldova, Ossetia, Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. Desperate men do desperate things, and desperately
try to project power with weak hands.
The Republicans in Congress were not fooled by the Russians. They believe in Trump no matter what the Russians do. The bottom
line is - What does Putin have on Trump
I don't understand why there hasn't been more of a pushback by the military. They went heavily for Trump in 20116, with many bases
in the South and many recruits from economically devastated areas, but in the interim, they have seen his reckless, lurching foreign
policy, worship of Putin, and clear evidence that somehow everything he does benefits Russia. A commander's first obligation is
to their troops, so knowing the man in charge considers their lives subject to both Trump's whims, and Putin's whispers should
provoke some reaction. No?
Unfortunately - to put it mildly - impeachment will have no effect on the conduct of the 2020 election. The wheels are already
turning, everyone knows their part, and only a massive commitment by an honest intelligence apparatus (if there is one) can stop
it. One can only hope that, in 2020, the American people make a statement so overwhelming that there can be no doubt as to their
intent, despite whatever meddling there may have been. It is entirely possible that there will never be a truly credible election
again as long as there are bad actors who are power hungry or bent on destabilizing democratic governments. And make no mistake,
these threats are coming from right wing autocracies, and they are in the ascendancy all over the world. American centrists and
liberals are the only force that can change that. Are those stakes big enough for you?
We may finally have the answer as to why Trump is so accommodating to Putin. Trump has so many investments in Russia dependent
on Putin's support. Trump financial reports will reveal this collusion between Trump and Putin. This should not come as a surprise
to attentive Americans. Think of the worst an American president can do and that will bring you close to understanding Trump.
Nobody's saying how Trump withholding military aid to Ukraine would benefit Putin and Russia in their WAR against Ukraine. It
was, indeed, MILITARY aid he was withholding, was it not? I understand that this is not the impeachable offense of attempting
to enlist a foreign government to win an election, but I believe this aspect of the situation should be brought out.
The Republican Party has been officially reduced to a giant miasma of fraud, fiction, fantasy, conspiracy theory, deflection,
misdirection and prevarication. After tax cuts for rich people and rich corporations...the GOP has no other public policy ideas
(except for bankrupting the government). A civilized country needs little things like infrastructure, education, technology, voting
rights, law and order, regulations, fair taxation and facts to move forward. But none of those things are ever mentioned by the
Republican Party; conspiracy-mongering and tax cuts are now the official governing planks of the Grand Old Propaganda/Grand One
Percent party. This is no way to manage a nation anywhere except into the ground. Americans need to hit the Trump-GOP eject button
before these Lord of the Fly Republicans take us over a very steep right-wing cliff of insanity.
The Republican Party is now Trump's party and the Republicans know it and are acting accordingly. You could call them opportunists
following the way the political winds are blowing. The Constitution is based on members of Congress caring about the Constitution
and searching for the truth. Since this is now not the case when if comes to the Republicans the Constitution has no remedy for
this situation. The only remedy is an election and if Trump can manipulate elections to his advantage using foreign powers then
there is no remedy and the system of government set up by the founders will be no more. The new system replacing it will be controlled
by Trump. Putin figured out how to control Russian elections so he always wins and it is likely that Trump has a goal of imitating
Putin. Ultimately this would mean taking over the press as Putin did. Trump cannot declare total victory as long as the there
is a free press which he has labeled the enemy of the people.
From an acute perspective ..indeed shocking to say the least of the nature of this peculiar relationship. But looking at the big
picture as evidence by all that has occurred in his or during this eye opening period for all the world to see....not so much
so...For me, this dynamic is much expected.
"The witness has used language which impugns the motives of the president and suggests he's disloyal to his country, and those
words should be stricken from the record and taken down," Mr. Johnson said. The Johnson rule effectively reads the impeachment
power out of the constitution. How can you impeach a president if no one can say anything bad about him/her?
We have yet to plow the most fertile road yet. What does Trump care about over all else? Trump. How does Trump gauge his progress?
His money. Where does his money come from? Good question. We all know he has filed for bankruptcy 6 times. We all know that because
of those bankruptcies, American banks will not loan him any money. We all know he has significant financial dealings with Deutsche
Bank. Now, who put the money in Deutsche Bank that ended up financing Trump's business.? That is the two billion dollar question.
We also know that Russian oligarchs deal in billions of dollars. We also know that Trump has close relations with Russian business
interests. We also know that Trump kowtows to Putin like Pence kowtows to him. We also know that Trump is doing everything possible
to conceal his financial dealings from everyone and everything. So, we know that one billion plus one billion equals two billion.
But does it also equal Trump? This money road is one we should take a ride on. Will it also take us to Putin?
The first Democratic candidate who labels Trump a "Russian agent" will own the simplest and most effective tag line going into
the general election, provided of course that that candidate does his best to channel his inner Trump by never backing down but
instead doubling down every chance he or she gets. Is Trump a Russian agent, paid for and accounted for? Not easy to say without
some doubt, but that doesn't really matter because he sure as shoottin' acts like one. And when have the facts ever stopped Trump
from going on the attack? The more Trump denies the label, the more he'll be digging his own grave. The real crime here is not
so much the strong arming of Zelenskyy for a Biden investigation. That's small potatoes compared to Trump's withholding congressionally
designated US military aid from a country engaged in a hot war with Russia, the same cast of characters who starved anywhere from
one to eleven million Ukrainians during the 1930's. The Russian agent must go.
I would not say Trump's lying "is effective", I would say it "has been effective". At some point, the public and his party may
have had it with the thuggery and we do not know when that breaking point is.
For the sake of protecting our 2020 elections from Russian hackers and disinformation, the House is justified in moving forward
fast, over the process howls of Republicans, with the compelling evidence they have surrounding Ukraine. But they need to continue
investigating his business and financial ties to Russia and any other autocratic governments and their oligarchs, e.g. Turkey
and Saudi Arabia. Especially if he is not convicted and removed by the Senate and stands for re-election, Americans need to know
what conflicts of interest he has in making foreign policy and military decisions because American soldiers' lives are at stake.
The Mueller investigation did not go down that road. Any businessman with global interests is automatically compromised, even
more than a vice president whose son sits on a foreign corporation's board of director. Trump's own children continue to do business
in foreign countries and we have no idea what Ivanka and Jared, sitting in the White House with top security clearances, are doing.
In short, Ukraine should not be the only concern of congressional oversight committees. There's a lot more.
Trump must believe that Russian help in 2016 did help him to win. He must feel that fake evidence presented by an "independent"
investigator such as a foreign government appears to carry more weight that the same fake evidence from a partisan investigator.
Otherwise why would he be taking such chances to duplicate via Ukraine what he got from the Russians in 2016. But now that the
Russian connection is outed, he can't go back to that well.
I worry it's all for naught. Dems in the House vote to impeach, GOP in the Senate vote to acquit. Trump remains highly competitive
in 2020 election, Russia and other adversaries interfere, Trump stays put. Then what?
@NA Wilson Think of this situation differently. To have all possible scope to defeat him, we must support everything we can to
undermine him. Lack of impeachment would have been business as usual. At some point his finances will get out and then all bets
are off.
@NA Wilson: It's all Hands on deck to save the country. Don't just vote, donate what money you can, work for candidates, knock
doors, make calls. It's the only way out of this nightmare.
The Impeachment hearings weren't really necessary to prove what most everyone who's been paying attention knows. With Trump, all
roads lead to Moscow. In fact, he's already acting very Putin-esque in his own way by forbidding anyone in the White House to
respond to subpoena, by installing the fear of God in those who do, by punishing anyone who dares to think or act on their own,
and then there's the act of holding a foreign country ransom until they agree to do his bidding -- not to mention inviting outside
interference in our presidential elections. All the signs are not only there but they are ominous. By holding himself above the
U.S. Constitution, Trump has declared war on this country and all the laws that govern it. And while entertainment-starved Americans
laugh and cheer at his rallies, he and the Republicans drain our right to vote, and with it our Democracy. Today wasn't an epiphany.
It was a warning.
There seems to be no discussion of the financial backing trump received after '08-09 from sources inside Russia and how these
actors would have expressed their support (or conditions for their silence) to the trump campaign during '15-16. Did the FBI not
identify and investigate the funders behind trump and their interactions with the campaign during 2016? Would this not have been
reasonable for an investigation to look into when its entire raison d'etre was to detect sources of Russian influence?
I wonder if Mr. Wegman believes that this editorial will change anyone's mind or influence how anyone votes in the upcoming presidential
election. Basically, this is classic preaching to the choir and sadly mostly a wasted effort. I would like to read articles with
proven ideas that worked to change the minds of Republicans and other like them. Such articles might give me some better ideas
to convince my pro-Trump friends and neighbors to Vote for America next November.
"When it comes to Donald Trump and Russia, everything is connected." This! This is the central fact of all the things Trump has
done (so far), and yet, the Democrats have failed to make this the central focus of the case against him. Instead, they've focused
on one incident, and not even the most egregious one, to justify impeachment and removal from office. This was a terrible miscalculation.
No, there is no doubt that Trump attempted to coerce Ukraine into helping with his re-election by announcing a bogus investigation
of the Bidens. Nor any doubt that this constituted "high crimes and misdemeanors". But this was not the highest of crimes he's
committed, nor have the Dems been able to convince any Republicans, or many independents, that this deserves Trump's removal.
Moreover, they failed to produce the "smoking gun" of one witness or document in Trump's own words directing the quid pro quo.
They gave plenty of room for the Republican attack machine to cast enough doubt and confusion that all but ensures Trump's acquittal
in the Senate. Instead of focusing only on this one incident, the Democrats should have built their case around the theme that
"with Trump, all roads lead to Russia". That is a crime that even the most skeptical doubter can grasp, and when linked together,
all of his crimes can be shown to be of a pattern of serving Putin, and not the people of the United States. All roads lead to
Putin, but the Democrats chose to follow a dead end.
@Kingfish52 I completely agree with you and truly don't understand why the Democrats have not been shouting this from the rooftops.
For mercy's sake! The problem is not just that the president solicited help from a foreign power for his own personal gain! That's
bad enough, but isn't the point that he did this because he is beholden to Russia? Russia. is. not. our. friend. Why aren't the
Democrats explaining this clearly to the American people? Trump is Putin's puppet and it could not be more obvious! Don't people
understand that it doesn't just happen to be Ukraine that Trump took a notion to squeeze for his "personal gain"? He doesn't just
want to win because it is so nice to win elections. He has to do what Putin tells him. Obviously, every last Republican in Congress
understands this clearly. Why can't the Democrats explain it to the American people clearly?
Obama did not provide lethal aid to Ukraine, after the Russians invaded Crimea. Obama did not Russia prevent the Iranian nuclear
deal. Trump cancelled the Iranian nuclear deal, then provided lethal aid to Ukraine. Now I get it. Trump is working for Putin.
By March 2015, the US had committed more than $120 million in security assistance for Ukraine and had pledged an additional $75
million worth of equipment including UAVs, counter-mortar radars, night vision devices and medical supplies, according to the
Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency. That assistance also included some 230 armored Humvee vehicles. Trump appears
to be echoing a critique leveled at the Obama administration by the late Republican Sen. John McCain. "The Ukrainians are being
slaughtered and we're sending blankets and meals," McCain said in 2015. "Blankets don't do well against Russian tanks." While
it never provided lethal aid, many of the items that the Obama administration did provide were seen as critical to Ukraine's military.
Part of the $250 million assistance package that the Trump administration announced (then froze and later unfroze) included many
of the same items that were provided under Obama, including medical equipment, night vision gear and counter-artillery radar.
The Trump administration did approve the provision of arms to Ukraine, including sniper rifles, rocket launchers and Javelin anti-tank
missiles, something long sought by Kiev.
@Mike Trump was not the one providing lethal aid to Ukraine. It was the house and senate that proposed and forced this aid into
an appropriation bill - against the wishes of the Trump administration. After Trump realized he could not block this funding he
did the second best thing - he used it to blackmail the Ukraine government to provide him with dirt on Biden and support for Putin's
favorite narrative (that it was Ukraine not Russia that interfered in the 2016 election).
@Mike It also took two acts of Congress to get the aid to Ukraine. Trump had nothing to do with it. Only the Impound Inclusion
Act for foreign aid allows the President to time the release of the funds, which Trump did not follow. The Act was created because
Nixon, like Trump, was playing fast and loose with our tax dollars. Who was the last President who asked for help from a foreign
intelligence agency? Which President favored foregn intelligence agencies over his own? Answer no one other than Trump. If that
doesn't show he's in someone's pocket, nothing does.
"... Hillary Clinton, Her husband Bill and Barak Obama are all deep cover CIA agents in addition to their other positions, as documented in the book "CIA: Crime Incorporated of America". ..."
"... The arms came from more places than simply Libya, although Libya was the central shipping and gathering point to go to Turkey and then on to Syria. Turkey was part of the Obama enablers of ISIS and ISIL big time ! Obama made sure ISIS got all the weapons and munitions and equipment we left behind and did literally nothing to stop them at all. He, Brennan, Hillary as well as Kerry all have massive blood on their hands via the atrocities of ISIS ! ..."
"... Not forgetting William Browder, part of the same gang, whose grandfather was the Leader of the US Communist Party. No doubt with close ties to Allen Dulles and ''peration Paperclip'. ..."
"... Will never forget Brennan, going to Ukraine, with instructions, just prior to 2 May 2014 and the Odessa Trade Union Massacre. Coincidence or what? ..."
"... Brennan may well have already been CIA when he joined the CPUSA. In any case, he's scum. ..."
"... Tucker Carlson and the author of this article asks, How can someone like Brennan be provided security clearance for top secrets in the CIA. A very easy answer: the entire American financial/judicial/military/spy organizations have become highly corrupt. Meanwhile, millions of adult Americans could care less. ..."
"... "When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America...America will triumph over you". https://t.co/uKppoDbduj -- John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) March 17, 2018 ..."
Let's get something clear from the start. In 1976, in his 20s, John Brennan was a card carrying communist who supported the then
Soviet Union, at the height some might say of the Cold War, so much so he voted and assisted Gus Hall, the communist candidate for
President against a devout Christian, Jimmy Carter who ultimately won the Presidency.
Yet under four years later, just after the then Soviet Union invaded, just weeks before, Afghanistan and months after the tumultuous
Iranian revolution of 1979, which at the time many thought the Soviet Union had a hand in, Brennan was accepted into the CIA as a
junior analyst.
At that time, John Brennan should have never got into the CIA, or any Western Intelligence agency given his communist background.
Think on that carefully as you continue to read this.
Also reflect on the fact that Brennan, later in his CIA career, was surprisingly elevated from junior analyst to the prestigious
position of Station Chief in Saudi Arabia where he spent a few years.
Its said he was appointed purely for 'political' reasons, alleged to have been at the direct request of Bill Clinton and other
Democrats not because of a recommendation or merit from within the Agency.
Its further said that the Saudis liked Brennan because he became very quickly 'their man' so to speak. Some reports, unsubstantiated,
even allege Brennan became a Muslim while there to ingratiate himself with the Saudis.
Important to read is an NBC news article entitled 'Former Spooks Criticize CIA Director John Brennan for Spying Comments' by Ken
Dilanian dated March 2nd, 2016.
The article contains many revealing facts and evidence, while giving a flavour, of the feelings of many in the CIA who felt that
Brennan was totally unsuitable and unqualified to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
A final controversy is the little known fact of Brennan's near four year departure from the CIA into the commercial world, having
been 'left out in the cold' from the CIA, from November 2005 to January 2009 when he was CEO of a private company called 'The Analysis
Corporation'.
So why was he then reinstated into the CIA, to the surprise of CIA's senior management, by newly elected President Obama, to head
the CIA? No answer is available as to why he left the CIA in 2005.
Lastly let's not forget Brennan's many failures as CIA head in recent years, one most notable is the Benghazi debacle and the
death of a US Ambassador and others there. Something else to ponder.
Back to the present an the issue of security clearances.
In early August, on the well known American TV Rachel Maddow Show, Brennan back tracked on his Trump traitor claim by saying "I
didn't mean he (Trump) committed treason. I meant what he has done is nothing short of treasonous." Rachel Maddow responded correctly
"If we diagram the sentence, 'nothing short of treason' means it's treasonous?"
A simple question follows. Since he is no longer in the CIA, why does he need a security clearance other than to commercially
exploit it?
Tucker Carlson explains succinctly here:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kzxf9TcJ_3k
Last month what can be described as 200+ 'friends of Brennan', former CIA officials of varying rank, responded against the removal
of former CIA Director Brennan's security clearances, in support of him.
These men and women too most likely will have their clearances revoked.
And why not?
Since the only purpose they retain it is to make money as civilians?
A potentially more serious issue than 'the Brennan controversies' is that the US intelligence community has around 5 million people
with security clearances as a whole includes approximately 1.4m people holding top secret clearances. It is patently a ridiculously
high number and makes a mockery of the word secret.
Former CIA veteran Sam Faddis is one of the few people brave enough and with the integrity required, that has stood up
and told some of the real truths about Brennan in an 'Open Letter', yet this letter's contents have hardly at all been reported in
the media.
Generally by nature, CIA Officers sense of service and honour to their Country, their professionalism and humility, and disdain
for publicity has dissuaded most of them to enter the current very public Brennan controversy; but for how much longer?
I implore you to cease and desist from continuing to attempt to portray yourself in the public media as some sort of impartial
critic concerned only with the fate of the republic. I beg you to stop attempting to portray yourself as some sort of wise, all-knowing
intelligence professional with deep knowledge of national security issues and no political inclinations whatsoever.
None of this is true.
You were never a spy. You were never a case officer. You never ran operations or recruited sources or worked the streets abroad.
You have no idea whatsoever of the true nature of the business of human intelligence. You have never been in harm's way. You have
never heard a shot fired in anger.
You were for a short while an intelligence analyst. In that capacity, it was your job to produce finished intelligence based
on information provided to you by others. The work of intelligence analysts is important, however in truth you never truly mastered
this trade either.
In your capacity as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, while still a junior officer, you were designated to brief
the President of the United States who was at that time Bill Clinton. As the presidential briefer, it was your job to read to
the president each morning finished intelligence written by others based on intelligence collected by yet other individuals. Period.
While serving as presidential briefer you established a personal relationship with then President Bill Clinton. End of story.
Everything that has transpired in your professional career since has been based on your personal relationship with the former
president, his wife Hillary and their key associates. Your connection to President Obama was, in fact, based on you having established
yourself by the time he came to office as a reliable, highly political Democratic Party functionary.
All of your commentary in the public sphere is on behalf of your political patrons. It is no more impartial analysis then would
be the comments of a paid press spokesman or attorney. You are speaking each and every time directly on behalf of political forces
hostile to this president. You are, in fact, currently on the payroll of both NBC and MSNBC, two of the networks most vocally
opposed to President Trump and his agenda.
There is no impartiality in your comments. Your assessments are not based on some sober judgment of what is best for this nation.
They are based exclusively on what you believe to be in the best interests of the politicians with whom you long since allied
yourself.
It should be noted that not only are you most decidedly not apolitical but that you have been associated during your career
with some of the greatest foreign policy disasters in recent American history.
Ever since this President was elected, there has been a concerted effort to delegitimize him and destabilize him led by you.
This has been an unprecedented; to undermine the stability of the republic and the office of the Presidency, for solely partisan
political reasons. You and your patrons have been complicit in this effort and at its very heart.
You abandoned any hope of being a true intelligence professional decades ago and became a political hack. Say so.
Sam Faddis
EPILOGUE:
I decided to update this article with this epilogue that summarises events since its first publication, but by not writing more.
By simply adding links showing Brennan speaking in March just before Meuller's Report was released, and excerpts of other interviews
and commentaries.
In this way, reader's can judge for themselves Brennan's essentially undoubtable despicable character which shines through by
watching and reading the below 8 links up to 1st April 2019. There are many more, but in consideration of space, I've selected these
links.
These are not in chronological order, date/time wise.
I would add that, for his own 'survival', and that of his co-conspirators, there will, I predict, over the coming days and weeks,
be an attempt by Brennan to STILL try and fabricate 'dirt' on President Trump to justify his treacherous behaviour against importantly
more than just Trump, but 'the Office of the President', something for which, in my opinion, he and those involved should be prosecuted
for, even some jailed for.
Most particularly in addition to Brennan is clearly Obama himself, Clinton, Clapper and Comey et al.
The CIA operation in Benghazi was smuggling weapons captured from the Libyan army to Syria via Jordan and Turkey to arm the
anti Assad forces. This operation was directed by Brennan, Clinton, Obama and General Petraeus and was in total violation of national
and international law.
Ambassador Stevens was aware of this operation and allowed to die by delaying a military rescue operation, as part of a cover
up of this illegal operation. Dead men tell no tales.
Hillary Clinton, Her husband Bill and Barak Obama are all deep cover CIA agents in addition to their other positions, as documented
in the book "CIA: Crime Incorporated of America".
They don't like Trump because he is the first non CIA President in a long while
(George W. Bush was not CIA but under his father's influence) and not part of the secret team. Hopefully, they eventually will
be punished for their crimes. Qanon gives hope!
The arms came from more places than simply Libya, although Libya was the central shipping and gathering point to go to Turkey
and then on to Syria. Turkey was part of the Obama enablers of ISIS and ISIL big time ! Obama made sure ISIS got all the weapons
and munitions and equipment we left behind and did literally nothing to stop them at all. He, Brennan, Hillary as well as Kerry
all have massive blood on their hands via the atrocities of ISIS !
Not forgetting William Browder, part of the same gang, whose grandfather was the Leader of the US Communist Party. No doubt
with close ties to Allen Dulles and ''peration Paperclip'.
Which provided safe passage and new identities for the Nazi and Bolshevik
Elite. Funny how the stench behind the overthrow of he Russian Empire, can still be found, firmly embedded in the swamps of the
21st century.
Will never forget Brennan, going to Ukraine, with instructions, just prior to 2 May 2014 and the Odessa Trade Union
Massacre. Coincidence or what?
Wasn't McCain's father also good friends with Allen Dulles? Wonder where Clinton fitted into the work of Dulles?
One of the more murky issues is the murder of Michael Hastings. A lot of information died with his murder but some info indicates
that he was working on a major report on Brennan. He reportedly advised his friends that the fbi was working on an investigation
on him and he was fearful for his survival
As many will recall, Hastings died in June 2013 in fiery crash of his Mercedes which
was speeding at up to 100 mph in a calif neighborhood.
Also, many will recall, the leaking of "Vault 7" by wikileaks indicated that one of the tools revealed was the ability to remotely
control a vehicle without any input from the driver, positive or negative. This ability is described in detail in the following:
How do you think the Royal Family killed princess Diana? If they can control a drone on the other side of the globe, they can
certainly control the accelerator, brakes and steering of a motor vehicle.
Only the most creepy evil people are allowed to be in our government. They have done a terrible job. Our country is like a
plane in a death spiral, and the same list of creeps keeps getting into the White House. The same people no matter who we elect.
Trump has the same people, or worse than Obama or Hillary or Bush had. It's past time to try and salvage whatever is left of this
country.
100 Stinger shoulder launch ground-to-air missiles. Stevens tried to block the shipment, the embassy was attacked by a highly
skilled, armed, assault team - the story told by "Tonto", one of the military contractors involved in the attempted rescue. All
those Americans in Benghazi were sacrificed in the same way the USS Liberty crew was sacrifice.
Greater Israel is the base of all this violence. Incidentally, "Tonto" and his mates had to commandeer a private jet, after
the fire-fight, that got them to Germany - the US/CIA/State Dept., etc. left them to their own methods and they got out, to the
consternation of the Obama/Clinton Administration.
Tucker Carlson and the author of this article asks, How can someone like Brennan be provided security clearance for top secrets
in the CIA. A very easy answer: the entire American financial/judicial/military/spy organizations have become highly corrupt. Meanwhile,
millions of adult Americans could care less.
Well............Those two contrasts will be intriguing to watch how the grandchildren and great-grandchilren will fare when
the US Empire becomes so degraded, that the young will have to forage on their own for housing, water, and food.
"When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful
place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy
America...America will triumph over you".
https://t.co/uKppoDbduj -- John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) March 17, 2018
He has to be part of a CIA "cleansing" operation.
Better put him in jail with no rights whatsoever . Let that turd rot in some humid dungeon . That's for the rats like this one
.
@Dave from Oz Dietrich Doerner's Logic of Failure makes clear that decision makers
consistently make grotesque errors based on faulty modeling of the world, incomplete feedback
assumed to be complete, and so on. Even the data are often mistaken for deductive truths, but
if one looks at, for example, the number of actual weather data points used to create those
complex surface maps, it becomes obvious why the results are disappointing -- in that case
possibly spoiling a picnic, but with the military, destroying a civilization.
You might recall the lessons of Longterm Capital Management's use of predictions based on
PDE's, with results that should have been foreseen as being predictably as unreliable as
weather forecasting, and for the same reasons -- that beneath all the fancy math lie guesses
of all too fallible men.
Regarding a faulty worldview, could there possibly be a more distorted model of reality
than America serving as Israel's footstool, the country that with its fifth column is
responsible for Lavon, USS Liberty, JFK/RFK, and, not least, 9/11. In the world of
probabilities, there is no standard of textual evidence evaluation or mathematical
demonstration so low it won't give cover to the Pentagon's costumed bureaucrats and members
of Congress to look the other way regarding Israel and its fifth columns' acts of war against
the country they're all sworn to protect.
MLK became a problem when he joined RFK against Vietnam in early 1968. When he started
counseling his young Black men against Vietnam, he had to go too. I'll never forget that.
Hideous.
Why do they always shoot their rivals in the head? Never a miss back then, ever..
@Anonymous I have doubts that zionists were central to, or instigators of, the JFK coup,
but the Jewish mob sure was in on it, and since they knew and were involved, as was Lyndon,
that gave the zionists Mossad the blackmail they needed to put Lyndon in their pocket. They
proved this when he covered up the Liberty affair. Since then the zionists have been free to
do as they wished. I propose these changes were gradual, and that zionism has been curated as
a MI6 intelop since the Balfour Declaration, in part to create the 5th column we have now.
Looks like it got out of control, Golem-like. This is a pity, as it may result in the ruin of
their own people, just as we see Semitic zionists shooting Semitic natives in a sort of
turkeyshoot every Friday is it kosher to kill on Shabbos? I wonder.. . a kind of civil war,
so we see a vast schism forming between Jews and nominally Jewish zionists.
@Walter The Zionism Psy-Op began much earlier than the Balfour declaration. It was a
result of losing sovereignty when Poland disappeared in 1772 and was partitioned between
Prussia, Russia, and Austria. (Poland was a condominium with two governments, a Jewish one
and a Polish one. The Jews had their own parliament, and the Poles theirs, plus a king. This
evolved out of the original agreements the Khazars of the south made with the Lithuanians to
be a mercenary army, police force, and tax collectors.) Having lost control of one country,
Poland (through their own misuse of taxes), the High Command in Lithuania decided they needed
another country. The propaganda was that the riots -- pogroms -- that began in Russia at the
end of the 19th century were anti-Jewish riots; that the Czar was anti-Jewish, etc. And the
big Psy-Op was the Dreyfus Affair, which was completely fake. Which is why the original
written offer to sell "secrets" -- which were not secrets at all -- mysteriously disappeared
before the Germans occupied France in 1940. But the phony Dreyfus Affair immediately led to
the first Zionist Congress in Basel. Herzl was only a hired propagandist, and disposed off
when he finished the job for which he was recruited as a journalist (as was Wilhelm Marr --
who popularized the term "Antisemitism"). World War I and the Balfour agreement to get
America into the war on the British side delivered the goods.
"... Haddad added that he is now seeking legal advice and looking into the possibility of whistleblower protections for himself, and said at the very least he will publish the information he has while omitting anything that could subject him to legal retaliation from his former employer. ..."
"... Newsweek has long been a reliable guard dog and attack dog for the US-centralized empire, with examples of stories that its editors did permit to go to print including an article by an actual, current military intelligence officer explaining why US prosecution of Julian Assange is a good thing, fawning puff pieces on the White Helmets , and despicable smear jobs on Tulsi Gabbard . ..."
"... Newsweek also recently published an article attacking Tucker Carlson for publicizing the OPCW scandal, basing its criticisms on a bogus Bellingcat article I debunked shortly after its publication . ..."
"Yesterday I resigned from Newsweek after my attempts to publish newsworthy revelations
about the leaked OPCW letter were refused for no valid reason," journalist Tareq Haddad
reported today via Twitter .
"I have collected evidence of how they suppressed the story in addition to evidence from
another case where info inconvenient to US government was removed, though it was factually
correct," Haddad said.
"I plan on publishing these details in full shortly. However, after asking my editors for
comment, as is journalistic practice, I received an email reminding me of confidentiality
clauses in my contract. I.e. I was threatened with legal action."
Haddad added that he is now
seeking legal advice and looking into the possibility of whistleblower protections for himself,
and said at the very least he will publish the information he has while omitting anything that
could subject him to legal retaliation from his former employer.
"I could have kept silent and kept my job, but I would not have been able to continue with
a clean conscience," Haddad said .
"I will have some instability now but the truth is more important."
This is the first direct insider report we're getting on the mass media's conspiracy of
silence on the OPCW scandal that I wrote
about just the other day . In how many other newsrooms is this exact same sort of
suppression happening, including threats of legal action, to journalists who don't have the
courage or ability to leave and speak out? There is no logical reason to assume that Haddad is
the only one encountering such roadblocks from mass media editors; he's just the only one going
public about it.
The ubiquitous propagandistic tactic of fake news by omission distorts the public's
worldview just as much as it would if mass media outlets were publishing bogus stories whole
cloth every day, only if they were doing that it would be much easier to pin them down on their
lies, hold them accountable, and discredit them.
A
recent FAIR article by Alan MacLeod documents how the Hong Kong demonstrations are pushed
front and center in mainstream consciousness despite the fact that to this day not one
protester has been killed by security forces, while far more deadly violence is being directed
at huge protests in empire-aligned nations like Haiti, Chile and Ecuador which have been almost
completely ignored by these same outlets.
This deliberate omission causes a distorted worldview
in casual and mainstream news media consumers in which protests are only happening in nations
that are outside the
US-centralized power alliance . We see the same kind of deliberate distortion-by-omission
with the way mass media continually pushes the
narrative
that Donald Trump is "soft on Russia", while remaining completely silent on the overwhelming
mountain of evidence to the contrary .
The time is now for everyone with a platform to start banging the drum about the OPCW
scandal, because we're seeing more and more signs that the deluge of leaks hemorrhaging from
that organisation is only going to increase. Mainstream propagandists aren't going to cover it,
so if larger alternative media outlets want to avoid being lumped in with them and discredited
in the same sweep it would be wise to start talking about this thing today. It's only going to
get more and more awkward for everyone who chose to remain silent, and more and more validating
for those who spoke out.
The possibility of CrowdStrike central role in creation of Russiagate might be one reason that Congressional Democrats (and
Republicans) were trying to swipe under the carpet the part of Trump conversation where he asked Zelenski to help to recover
server images CrowdStrike shipped to Ukraine.
Another question is that now it is possible that one of CrowdStrike employees or Alperovich himself played the role of Gussifer
2.0
Notable quotes:
"... There is strong reason to doubt Mueller's suggestion that an alleged Russian cutout called Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen emails to Assange. ..."
"... Mueller's decision not to interview Assange – a central figure who claims Russia was not behind the hack – suggests an unwillingness to explore avenues of evidence on fundamental questions. ..."
"... the government allowed CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party's legal counsel to submit redacted records, meaning CrowdStrike and not the government decided what could be revealed or not regarding evidence of hacking. ..."
"... John Brennan, then director of the CIA, played a seminal and overlooked role in all facets of what became Mueller's investigation: the suspicions that triggered the initial collusion probe; the allegations of Russian interference; and the intelligence assessment that purported to validate the interference allegations that Brennan himself helped generate. Yet Brennan has since revealed himself to be, like CrowdStrike and Steele, hardly a neutral party -- in fact a partisan with a deep animus toward Trump. ..."
Most of the material in this article will be familiar to regular readers of SST because I
wrote about it first. Here are the key conclusions:
The report uses qualified and vague language to describe key events, indicating that
Mueller and his investigators do not actually know for certain whether Russian intelligence
officers stole Democratic Party emails, or how those emails were transferred to
WikiLeaks.
The report's timeline of events appears to defy logic. According to its narrative,
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced the publication of Democratic Party emails not
only before he received the documents but before he even communicated with the source that
provided them.
There is strong reason to doubt Mueller's suggestion that an alleged Russian cutout
called Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen emails to Assange.
Mueller's decision not to interview Assange – a central figure who claims
Russia was not behind the hack – suggests an unwillingness to explore avenues of
evidence on fundamental questions.
U.S. intelligence officials cannot make definitive conclusions about the hacking of the
Democratic National Committee computer servers because they did not analyze those servers
themselves. Instead, they relied on the forensics of CrowdStrike, a private contractor for
the DNC that was not a neutral party, much as "Russian dossier" compiler Christopher Steele,
also a DNC contractor, was not a neutral party. This puts two Democrat-hired contractors
squarely behind underlying allegations in the affair – a key circumstance that Mueller
ignores.
Further, the government allowed CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party's legal counsel
to submit redacted records, meaning CrowdStrike and not the government decided what could be
revealed or not regarding evidence of hacking.
Mueller's report conspicuously does not allege that the Russian government carried out
the social media campaign. Instead it blames, as Mueller said in his closing remarks, "a
private Russian entity" known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA).
Mueller also falls far short of proving that the Russian social campaign was
sophisticated, or even more than minimally related to the 2016 election. As with the
collusion and Russian hacking allegations, Democratic officials had a central and overlooked
hand in generating the alarm about Russian social media activity.
John Brennan, then director of the CIA, played a seminal and overlooked role in all
facets of what became Mueller's investigation: the suspicions that triggered the initial
collusion probe; the allegations of Russian interference; and the intelligence assessment
that purported to validate the interference allegations that Brennan himself helped generate.
Yet Brennan has since revealed himself to be, like CrowdStrike and Steele, hardly a neutral
party -- in fact a partisan with a deep animus toward Trump.
I encourage you to read the piece. It is well written and provides an excellent overview of
critical events in the flawed investigation.
Republicans are afraid to raise this key question. Democrats are afraid of even mentioning CrowdStrike in Ukrainegate hearings.
The Deep State wants to suppress this matter entirely.
Alperovisch connections to Ukraine and his Russophobia are well known. Did Alperovich people played the role of "Fancy Bear"? Or
Ukrainian SBU was engaged? George Eliason clams that
"I have already clearly shown the Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian Intelligence Operators." ... "Since there is so much crap surrounding
the supposed hack such as law enforcement teams never examining the DNC server or maintaining control of it as evidence, could the hacks
have been a cover-up?"
Notable quotes:
"... So far at least I cannot rule out the possibility that that this could have involved an actual 'false flag' hack. A possible calculation would have been that this could have made it easier for Alperovitch and 'CrowdStrike', if more people had asked serious questions about the evidence they claimed supported the 'narrative' of GRU responsibility. ..."
"... What she suggested was that the FBI had found evidence, after his death, of a hack of Rich's laptop, designed as part of a 'false flag' operation. ..."
"... On this, see his 8 October, 'Motion for Discovery and Motion to Accept Supplemental Evidence' in Clevenger's own case against the DOJ, document 44 on the relevant 'Courtlistener' pages, and his 'Unopposed Motion for Stay', document 48. Both are short, and available without a 'PACER' subscription, and should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in ascertaining the truth about 'Russiagate.' (See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6775665/clevenger-v-us-department-of-justice/ .) ..."
"... And here, is is also material that he may have had more than one laptop, that 'hard drives' can be changed, and that the level of computer skills that can be found throughout the former Soviet Union is very high. Another matter of some importance is that Ed Butowsky's 'Debunking Rod Wheeler's Claims' site is back up online. (See http://debunkingrodwheelersclaims.net ) ..."
"... The question of whether the 'timeline' produced by Hersh's FBI informant was accurate, or a deliberate attempt to disguise the fact that all kinds of people were well aware of Rich's involvement before his murder, and well aware of the fact of a leak before he was identified as its source, is absolutely central to how one interprets 'Russiagate.' ..."
"... Why did Crowdstrike conclude it was a "Russian breach", when other evidence does show it was an internal download. What was Crowdstrike's method and motivation to reach the "Russian" conclusion instead. Why has that methodology been sealed? ..."
"... Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers. ..."
"... What were the relationships between Crowdstrike, DNC, FBI and the Mueller team that conspired to reach this Russian conclusion. ..."
"... Why did the Roger Stone judge, who just sent Stone away for life, refuse Stone's evidentiary demand to ascertain how exactly Crowdstrike reached its Russsian hacking conclusion, that the court then linked to Stone allegedly lying about this Russian link ..."
"... Indeed, let's set out with full transparency the Ukraine -- Crowsdtrike player links and loyalties to see if there are any smoking guns yet undisclosed. Trump was asking for more information about Crowdstrike like a good lawyer - never ask a question when you don't already know the right answer. Crowdstrike is owned by a Ukrainian by birth ..."
"... Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike. ..."
"... In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives. ..."
"... His role in what we may define as "converting DNC leak into DNC hack" (I would agree with you that this probably was a false flag operation), which was supposedly designed to implicated Russians, and possibly involved Ukrainian security services, is very suspicious indeed. ..."
"... Mueller treatment of Crowdstrike with "kid gloves" may suggest that Alperovich actions were part of a larger scheme. After all Crowdstike was a FBI contactor at the time. ..."
The favor was for Ukraine to investigate Crowdstrike and the 2016 DNC computer breach.
Reliance on Crowdstrike to investigate the DNC computer, and not an independent FBI investigation, was tied very closely to
the years long anti-Trump Russiagate hoax and waste of US taxpayer time and money.
Why is this issue ignored by both the media and the Democrats. The ladies doth protest far too much.
what exactly, to the extend I recall, could the Ukraine contribute the the DNC's server/"fake malware" troubles? Beyond, that
I seem to vaguely recall, the supposed malware was distributed via an Ukrainan address.
On the other hand, there seems to be the (consensus here?) argument there was no malware breach at all, simply an insider copying
files on a USB stick.
If people discovered there had been a leak, it would perfectly natural that in order to give 'resilience' to their cover-up
strategies, they could have organised a planting of evidence on the servers, in conjunction with elements in Ukraine.
So far at least I cannot rule out the possibility that that this could have involved an actual 'false flag' hack. A possible
calculation would have been that this could have made it easier for Alperovitch and 'CrowdStrike', if more people had asked serious
questions about the evidence they claimed supported the 'narrative' of GRU responsibility.
The issues involved become all the more important, in the light of the progress of Ty Clevenger's attempts to exploit the clear
contradiction between the claims by the FBI, in response to FOIA requests, to have no evidence relating to Seth Rich, and the
remarks by Ms. Deborah Sines quoted by Michael Isikoff.
What she suggested was that the FBI had found evidence, after his death, of a hack of Rich's laptop, designed as part of
a 'false flag' operation.
On this, see his 8 October, 'Motion for Discovery and Motion to Accept Supplemental Evidence' in Clevenger's own case against
the DOJ, document 44 on the relevant 'Courtlistener' pages, and his 'Unopposed Motion for Stay', document 48. Both are short,
and available without a 'PACER' subscription, and should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in ascertaining
the truth about 'Russiagate.' (See
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6775665/clevenger-v-us-department-of-justice/
.)
It is eminently possible that Ms. Hines has simply made an 'unforced error.'
However, I do not – yet – feel able totally to discount the possibility that what is actually at issue is a 'ruse', produced
as a contingency plan to ensure that if it becomes impossible to maintain the cover-up over Rich's involvement in its original
form, his laptop shows 'evidence' compatible with the 'Russiagate' narrative.
And here, is is also material that he may have had more than one laptop, that 'hard drives' can be changed, and that the
level of computer skills that can be found throughout the former Soviet Union is very high. Another matter of some importance
is that Ed Butowsky's 'Debunking Rod Wheeler's Claims' site is back up online. (See
http://debunkingrodwheelersclaims.net )
Looking at it from the perspective of an old television current affairs hack, I do think that, while it is very helpful to
have some key material available in a single place, it would useful if more attention was paid to presentation.
In particular, it would be a most helpful 'teaching aid', if a full and accurate transcript was made of the conversation with
Seymour Hersh which Ed Butowsky covertly recorded. What seems clear is that both these figures ended up in very difficult positions,
and that the latter clearly engaged in 'sleight of hand' in relation to his dealings with the former. That said, the fact that
Butowsky's claims about his grounds for believing that Hersh's FBI informant was Andrew McCabe are clearly disingenuous does not
justify the conclusion that he is wrong.
It is absolutely clear to me – despite what 'TTG', following that 'Grub Street' hack Folkenflik, claimed – that when Hersh
talked to Butowsky, he believed he had been given accurate information. Indeed, I have difficulty seeing how anyone whose eyes
were not hopelessly blinded by prejudice, a\nd possibly fear of where a quest for the truth might lead, could not see that, in
this conversation, both men were telling the truth, as they saw it.
However, all of us, including the finest and most honourable of journalists can, from time to time, fall for disinformation.
(If anyone says they can always spot when they are being played, all I can say is, if you're right, you're clearly Superman, but
it is more likely that you are a fool or knave, if not both.)
The question of whether the 'timeline' produced by Hersh's FBI informant was accurate, or a deliberate attempt to disguise
the fact that all kinds of people were well aware of Rich's involvement before his murder, and well aware of the fact of a leak
before he was identified as its source, is absolutely central to how one interprets 'Russiagate.'
1. Why did Crowdstrike conclude it was a "Russian breach", when other evidence does show it was an internal download. What
was Crowdstrike's method and motivation to reach the "Russian" conclusion instead. Why has that methodology been sealed?
2. Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently
put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to
help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.
3. What were the relationships between Crowdstrike, DNC, FBI and the Mueller team that conspired to reach this Russian
conclusion.
4. Why did the Roger Stone judge, who just sent Stone away for life, refuse Stone's evidentiary demand to ascertain how
exactly Crowdstrike reached its Russsian hacking conclusion, that the court then linked to Stone allegedly lying about this Russian
link .
5. Indeed, let's set out with full transparency the Ukraine -- Crowsdtrike player links and loyalties to see if there are
any smoking guns yet undisclosed. Trump was asking for more information about Crowdstrike like a good lawyer - never ask a question
when you don't already know the right answer. Crowdstrike is owned by a Ukrainian by birth .
Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently
put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted
to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.
Alperovich is really a very suspicious figure. Rumors are that he was involved in compromising PGP while in MacAfee( June 2nd,
2018 Alperovich's DNC Cover Stories Soon To Match With His Hacking Teams - YouTube ):
Investigative Journalist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the CEO Bill Larsen bought a small,
Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to Silicon Valley.
MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate to reduce NSA spying on the
public.
The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order
to crack encrypted communications to write a back door for law enforcement.
Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would
go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike.
In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted
communications for covert action operatives.
His role in what we may define as "converting DNC leak into DNC hack" (I would agree with you that this probably was a
false flag operation), which was supposedly designed to implicated Russians, and possibly involved Ukrainian security services,
is very suspicious indeed.
Mueller treatment of Crowdstrike with "kid gloves" may suggest that Alperovich actions were part of a larger scheme. After
all Crowdstike was a FBI contactor at the time.
While all this DNC hack saga is completely unclear due to lack of facts and the access to the evidence, there are some stories
on Internet that indirectly somewhat strengthen your hypothesis:
Pelosi interference in elections might cost democrats a victory. She enraged Trump base and
strengthened Trump, who before was floundering. Now election changed into "us vs them" question,
which is very unfavorable to neoliberal Dems. as neolibelism as ideology is dead. She also
brought back Trump some independents who othersie would stay home or vote for Dem candidate. No
action of House of Representatives can changes this. Bringing Vindman and Fiona Hill to testify
were huge blunders as they enhance the narrative that the Deep State, unaccountable Security
Establishment, controls the government, to which Trump represents very weak, but still a
challenge. As such they strengthened Trump
Essentially Dems had driven themselves into a trap. Moreover actions of the Senate can drag
democrats in dirt till the elections, diminishing their chances further and firther. Can you
image the effect if Schiff would be called testify under oath about his contacts with Ciaramella?
Or Biden questioning about his dirty dealing with both Yanukovich administration and Provisional
Government after the 2014 coup d'état (aka EuroMaydan, aka "the Revolution of dignity"
?
Notable quotes:
"... It is true that both Obama and Trump have been falsely accused of presiding over "withdrawal" and "retreat." In Obama's case, Republican hawks made this false claim so that they could attack a fantasy version of Obama's record instead of arguing against the real one. Members of the foreign policy establishment have been warning about Trump's supposed "isolationism" for four years and it still hasn't shown up. Both presidents have been criticized in such similar ways despite conducting significantly different foreign policies because these are the automatic, knee-jerk criticisms that pundits and analysts use to criticize a president. ..."
"... Because there is a strong bias in favor of "action" and "leadership," the only way most of these people know how to attack a president is to say that he is "failing" to "lead" and is guilty of "inaction." It doesn't matter if it makes sense or matches the facts. It is the safe, Blobby way to complain about a president's foreign policy without suggesting that you think there is something wrong with the underlying assumptions about the U.S. role in the world. Instead of challenging the presidents on their real records, it is easier to condemn non-existent "isolationism" and pretend that presidents that maintain or increase U.S. involvement overseas are reducing it. ..."
"... We should debate whether U.S. commitments overseas need to be reduced, but we really have to stop pretending that the U.S. has been reducing those commitments when it has actually been adding to them. ..."
Gideon Rachman tries to find
similarities between the foreign policies of Trump and Obama:
Both men would detest the thought. But, in crucial respects, the foreign policies of
Donald Trump and Barack Obama are looking strikingly similar.
The wildly different styles of the two presidents have disguised the underlying
continuities between their approaches to the world. But look at substance, rather than style,
and the similarities are impressive.
There is usually considerable continuity in U.S. foreign policy from one president to
another, but Rachman is making a stronger and somewhat different claim than that. He is arguing
that their foreign policy agendas are very much alike in ways that put both presidents at odds
with the foreign policy establishment, and he cites "disengagement from the Middle East" and a
"pivot to Asia" as two examples of these similarities. This seems superficially plausible, but
it is misleading. Despite talking a lot about disengagement, Obama and Trump chose to keep the
U.S. involved in several conflicts, and Trump actually escalated the wars he inherited from
Obama. To the extent that there is continuity between Obama and Trump, it has been that both of
them have acceded to the conventional wisdom of "the Blob" and refused to disentangle the U.S.
from Middle Eastern conflicts. Ongoing support for the war on Yemen is the ugliest and most
destructive example of this continuity.
In reality, neither Obama nor Trump "focused" on Asia, and Trump's foray into
pseudo-engagement with North Korea has little in common with Obama's would-be "pivot" or
"rebalance." U.S. participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a major part of Obama's
policy in Asia. Trump pulled out of that agreement and waged destructive trade wars instead.
Once we get past generalizations and look at details, the two presidents are often
diametrically opposed to one another in practice. That is what one would expect when we
remember that Trump has made dismantling Obama's foreign policy achievements one of his main
priorities.
The significant differences between the two become much more apparent when we look at other
issues. On arms control and nonproliferation, the two could not be more different. Obama
negotiated a new arms reduction treaty with New START at the start of his presidency, and he
wrapped up a major nonproliferation agreement with Iran and the other members of the P5+1 in
2015. Trump reneged on the latter and seems determined to kill the former. Obama touted the
benefits of genuine diplomatic engagement, while Trump has made a point of reversing and
undoing most of the results of Obama's engagement with Cuba and Iran. Trump's overall hostility
to genuine diplomacy makes another one of Rachman claims quite baffling:
The result is that, after his warlike "fire and fury" phase, Mr Trump is now pursuing a
diplomacy-first strategy that is strongly reminiscent of Mr Obama.
Calling Trump's clumsy pattern of making threats and ultimatums a "diplomacy-first strategy"
is a mistake. This is akin to saying that he is adhering to foreign policy restraint because
the U.S. hasn't invaded any new countries on Trump's watch. It takes something true (Trump
hasn't started a new war yet) and misrepresents it as proof that the president is serious about
diplomacy and that he wants to reduce U.S. military engagement overseas. Trump enjoys the
spectacle of meeting with foreign leaders, but he isn't interested in doing the work or taking
the risks that successful diplomacy requires. He has shown repeatedly through his own behavior,
his policy preferences, and his proposed budgets that he has no use for diplomacy or diplomats,
and instead he expects to be able to bully or flatter adversaries into submission.
So Rachman is simply wrong he reaches this conclusion:
Mr Trump's reluctance to attack Iran was significant. It underlines the fact that his
tough-guy rhetoric disguises a strong preference for diplomacy over force.
Let's recall that the near-miss of starting a war with Iran came as a result of the downing
of an unmanned drone. The fact that the U.S. was seriously considering an attack on another
country over the loss of a drone is a worrisome sign that this administration is prepared to go
to war at the drop of a hat. Calling off such an insane attack was the right thing to do, but
there should never have been an attack to call off. That episode does not show a "strong
preference for diplomacy over force." If Trump had a strong preference for diplomacy over
force, his policy would not be one of relentless hostility towards Iran. Trump does not believe
in diplomatic compromise, but expects the other side to capitulate under pressure. That
actually makes conflict more likely and reduces the chances of meaningful negotiations.
It is true that both Obama and Trump have been falsely accused of presiding over
"withdrawal" and "retreat." In Obama's case, Republican hawks made this false claim so that
they could attack a fantasy version of Obama's record instead of arguing against the real one.
Members of the foreign policy establishment have been warning about Trump's supposed
"isolationism" for four years and it still hasn't shown up. Both presidents have been
criticized in such similar ways despite conducting significantly different foreign policies
because these are the automatic, knee-jerk criticisms that pundits and analysts use to
criticize a president.
Because there is a strong bias in favor of "action" and "leadership," the only way most
of these people know how to attack a president is to say that he is "failing" to "lead" and is
guilty of "inaction." It doesn't matter if it makes sense or matches the facts. It is the safe,
Blobby way to complain about a president's foreign policy without suggesting that you think
there is something wrong with the underlying assumptions about the U.S. role in the world.
Instead of challenging the presidents on their real records, it is easier to condemn
non-existent "isolationism" and pretend that presidents that maintain or increase U.S.
involvement overseas are reducing it.
Rachman ends his column with this assertion:
In their very different ways, both Mr Obama and Mr Trump have reduced America's global
commitments -- and adjusted the US to a more modest international role.
The problem here is that there has been no meaningful reduction in America's "global
commitments." Which commitments have been reduced or eliminated? It would be helpful if someone
could be specific about this. The U.S. has more security dependents today than it did when
Trump took office. NATO has been expanded to include two new countries in just the last three
years. U.S. troops are engaged in hostilities in just as many countries as they were when Trump
was elected. There are more troops deployed to the Middle East at the end of this year than
there were at the beginning, and that is a direct consequence of Trump's bankrupt Iran
policy.
We should debate whether U.S. commitments overseas need to be reduced, but we really
have to stop pretending that the U.S. has been reducing those commitments when it has actually
been adding to them.
"... Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward Russia. The Council in turn is financed by Google Inc. ..."
"... In a perhaps unexpected development, another Atlantic Council funder is Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Those allegations were the subject of Trump's inquiry with Zelemsky related to Biden. The Biden allegations concern significant questions about Biden's role in Ukraine policy under the Obama administration. This took place during a period when Hunter Biden received $50,000 a month from Burisma. ..."
"... Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 presidential race. ..."
"... Another listed OCCRP funder is the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. ..."
"... Together with Soros's Open Society, Omidyar also funds the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which hosts the International Fact-Checking Network that partnered with Facebook to help determine whether news stories are "disputed." ..."
There are common threads that run through an organization repeatedly relied upon in the
so-called whistleblower's complaint about President Donald Trump and CrowdStrike, the outside
firm utilized to conclude that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee's servers
since the DNC would not allow the U.S. government to inspect the servers.
One of several themes is financing tied to Google, whose Google Capital led a $100 million
funding drive that financed Crowdstrike. Google Capital, which now goes by the name of
CapitalG, is an arm of Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of
Alphabet, has been a staunch and active supporter of Hillary Clinton and is a longtime donor
to the Democratic Party.
CrowdStrike was mentioned by Trump in his call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign,
reportedly helped draft CrowdStrike to aid with the DNC's allegedly hacked server.
On behalf of the DNC and Clinton's campaign, Perkins Coie also paid the controversial
Fusion GPS firm to produce the infamous, largely-discredited anti-Trump dossier compiled by
former British spy Christopher Steele.
CrowdStrike is a California-based cybersecurity technology company co-founded by Dmitri
Alperovitch.
Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the
Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward
Russia. The Council in turn is financed
by Google Inc.
In a perhaps unexpected development, another Atlantic Council
funder is Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe
Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Those allegations were the subject of Trump's inquiry with
Zelemsky related to Biden. The Biden allegations concern significant questions about Biden's
role in Ukraine policy under the Obama administration. This took place during a period when
Hunter Biden received $50,000 a month from Burisma.
Besides Google and Burisma funding, the Council is also financed by billionaire activist
George Soros's Open Society Foundations as well as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc. and
the U.S. State Department.
Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State
Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization
repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint
alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign
country" in the 2020 presidential race.
The charges in the July 22 report referenced in the whistleblower's document and released
by the Google and Soros-funded organization, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting
Project (OCCRP), seem to be the public precursors for a lot of the so-called whistleblower's
own claims, as Breitbart News
documented .
One key section of the so-called whistleblower's document claims that "multiple U.S.
officials told me that Mr. Giuliani had reportedly privately reached out to a variety of
other Zelensky advisers, including Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan and Acting Chairman of the
Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov."
This was allegedly to follow up on Trump's call with Zelensky in order to discuss the
"cases" mentioned in that call, according to the so-called whistleblower's narrative. The
complainer was clearly referencing Trump's request for Ukraine to investigate the Biden
corruption allegations.
Even though the statement was written in first person – "multiple U.S. officials
told me" – it contains a footnote referencing a report by the Organized Crime and
Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
That footnote reads:
In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on
22 July, two associates of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019 and met
with Mr. Bakanov and another close Zelensky adviser, Mr. Serhiy Shefir.
The so-called whistleblower's account goes on to rely upon that same OCCRP report on three
more occasions. It does so to:
Write that Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko
"also stated that he wished to communicate directly with Attorney General Barr on these
matters." Document that Trump adviser Rudi Giuliani "had spoken in late 2018 to former
Prosecutor General Shokin, in a Skype call arranged by two associates of Mr. Giuliani."
Bolster the charge that, "I also learned from a U.S. official that 'associates' of Mr.
Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team." The so-called
whistleblower then relates in another footnote, "I do not know whether these associates of
Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in the 22 July report by OCCRP, referenced
above."
The OCCRP
report repeatedly referenced is actually a "joint investigation by the Organized Crime
and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and BuzzFeed News, based on interviews and court and
business records in the United States and Ukraine."
BuzzFeed infamously also first
published the full anti-Trump dossier alleging unsubstantiated collusion between Trump's
presidential campaign and Russia. The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign and
the Democratic National Committee and was produced by the Fusion GPS opposition dirt
outfit.
The OCCRP and BuzzFeed "joint investigation" resulted in both OCCRP and BuzzFeed
publishing similar lengthy pieces on July 22 claiming that Giuliani was attempting to use
connections to have Ukraine investigate Trump's political rivals.
The so-called whistleblower's document, however, only mentions the largely unknown OCCRP
and does not reference BuzzFeed, which has faced scrutiny over its reporting on the Russia
collusion claims.
Another listed OCCRP funder is the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal
billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
Together with Soros's Open Society, Omidyar also
funds the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which hosts the International
Fact-Checking Network that partnered with Facebook to help determine whether news stories are
"disputed."
Like OCCRP, the Poynter Institute's so-called news fact-checking project is openly
funded by not only Soros' Open Society Foundations but also Google and the National
Endowment for Democracy.
CrowdStrike and DNC servers
CrowdStrike, meanwhile, was brought up by Trump in his phone call with Zelensky. According to the transcript, Trump told Zelensky, "I would like you to find out what
happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike I guess you have one of
your wealthy people The server, they say Ukraine has it."
In his extensive
report , Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller notes that his investigative team did not
"obtain or examine" the servers of the DNC in determining whether those servers were hacked
by Russia.
The DNC famously refused to allow the FBI to access its servers to verify the allegation
that Russia carried out a hack during the 2016 presidential campaign. Instead, the DNC
reached an arrangement with the FBI in which CrowdStrike conducted forensics on the server
and shared details with the FBI.
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2017, then-FBI Director
James Comey
confirmed that the FBI registered "multiple requests at different levels," to review the
DNC's hacked servers. Ultimately, the DNC and FBI came to an agreement in which a "highly
respected private company" -- a reference to CrowdStrike -- would carry out forensics on the
servers and share any information that it discovered with the FBI, Comey testified.
A senior law enforcement official stressed the importance of the FBI gaining direct access
to the servers, a request that was denied by the DNC.
"The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to
servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been
mitigated," the official was quoted by the news media as saying.
"This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third party for information. These actions
caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier," the
official continued.
... ... ...
Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter.
He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, "
Aaron Klein Investigative
Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.
Russians did not hack the DNC system, a Russian named Dmitri Alperovitch is the hacker
and he works for President Obama. In the last five years the Obama administration has
turned exclusively to one Russian to solve every major cyber-attack in America, whether the
attack was on the U.S. government or a corporation. Only one "super-hero cyber-warrior" seems
to "have the codes" to figure out "if" a system was hacked and by "whom."
Dmitri's company, CrowdStrike has been called in by Obama to solve mysterious attacks on
many high level government agencies and American corporations, including: German Bundestag,
Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the White
House, the State Department, SONY, and many others.
CrowdStrike's philosophy is: "You don't have a malware problem; you have an adversary
problem."
CrowdStrike has played a critical role in the development of America's cyber-defense policy.
Dmitri Alperovitch and George Kurtz, a former head of the FBI cyberwarfare unit founded
CrowdStrike. Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director at the FBI is now CrowdStrike's
president of services. The company is crawling with former U.S. intelligence agents.
Before Alperovitch founded CrowdStrike in 2011, he was working in Atlanta as the chief
threat officer at the antivirus software firm McAfee, owned by Intel (a DARPA company). During
that time, he "discovered" the Chinese had compromised at least seventy-one companies and
organizations, including thirteen defense contractors, three electronics firms, and the
International Olympic Committee. He was the only person to notice the biggest cyberattack in
history! Nothing suspicious about that.
Alperovitch and the DNC
After CrowdStrike was hired as an independent "vendor" by the DNC to investigate a possible
cyberattack on their system, Alperovitch sent the DNC a proprietary software package called
Falcon that monitors the networks of its clients in real time. According to Alperovitch,
Falcon "lit up," within ten seconds of being installed at the DNC. Alperovitch had his
"proof" in TEN SECONDS that Russia was in the network. This "alleged" evidence of Russian
hacking has yet to be shared with anyone.
As Donald Trump has pointed out, the FBI, the agency that should have been immediately
involved in hacking that effects "National Security," has yet to even examine the DNC system to
begin an investigation. Instead, the FBI and 16 other U.S. "intelligence" agencies simply
"agree" with Obama's most trusted "cyberwarfare" expert Dmitri Alperovitch's "TEN SECOND"
assessment that produced no evidence to support the claim.
Also remember that it is only Alperovitch and CrowdStrike that claim to have evidence
that it was Russian hackers . In fact, only two hackers were found to have been in the
system and were both identified by Alperovitch as Russian FSB (CIA) and the Russian GRU (DoD).
It is only Alperovitch who claims that he knows that it is Putin behind these two hackers.
Alperovitch failed to mention in his conclusive "TEN SECOND" assessment that Guccifer 2.0
had already hacked the DNC and made available to the public the documents he hacked –
before Alperovitch did his ten second assessment. Alperovitch reported that no other hackers
were found, ignoring the fact that Guccifer 2.0 had already hacked and released DNC documents
to the public. Alperovitch's assessment also goes directly against Julian Assange's repeated
statements that the DNC leaks did not come from the Russians.
The ridiculously fake cyber-attack assessment done by Alperovitch and CrowdStrike
naïvely flies in the face of the fact that a DNC insider admitted that he had released the
DNC documents. Julian Assange implied in an interview that the murdered Democratic
National Committee staffer, Seth Rich, was the source of a trove of damaging emails the website
posted just days before the party's convention. Seth was on his way to testify about the DNC
leaks to the FBI when he was shot dead in the street.
It is also absurd to hear Alperovitch state that the Russian FSB (equivalent to the CIA) had
been monitoring the DNC site for over a year and had done nothing. No attack, no theft, and no
harm was done to the system by this "false-flag cyber-attack" on the DNC – or at least,
Alperovitch "reported" there was an attack. The second hacker, the supposed Russian military
(GRU – like the U.S. DoD) hacker, had just entered the system two weeks before and also
had done "nothing" but observe.
It is only Alperovitch's word that reports that the Russian FSB was "looking for files on
Donald Trump."
It is only this false claim that spuriously ties Trump to the "alleged"
attack. It is also only Alperovitch who believes that this hack that was supposedly "looking
for Trump files" was an attempt to "influence" the election. No files were found about Trump by
the second hacker, as we know from Wikileaks and Guccifer 2.0's leaks. To confabulate that
"Russian's hacked the DNC to influence the elections" is the claim of one well-known Russian
spy. Then, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously confirm that Alperovitch is correct
– even though there is no evidence and no investigation was ever conducted .
How does Dmitri Alperovitch have such power? Why did Obama again and again use Alperovitch's
company, CrowdStrike, when they have miserably failed to stop further cyber-attacks on the
systems they were hired to protect? Why should anyone believe CrowdStrikes false-flag
report?
After documents from the DNC continued to leak, and Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks made
CrowdStrike's report look foolish, Alperovitch decided the situation was far worse than he had
reported. He single-handedly concluded that the Russians were conducting an "influence
operation" to help win the election for Trump . This false assertion had absolutely no
evidence to back it up.
On July 22, three days before the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, WikiLeaks dumped a
massive cache of emails that had been "stolen" (not hacked) from the DNC. Reporters soon found
emails suggesting that the DNC leadership had favored Hillary Clinton in her primary race
against Bernie Sanders, which led Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair, along with three
other officials, to resign.
Just days later, it was discovered that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
(DCCC) had been hacked. CrowdStrike was called in again and once again, Alperovitch immediately
"believed" that Russia was responsible. A lawyer for the DCCC gave Alperovitch permission to
confirm the leak and to name Russia as the suspected author. Two weeks later, files from the
DCCC began to appear on Guccifer 2.0's website. This time Guccifer released information about
Democratic congressional candidates who were running close races in Florida, Ohio, Illinois,
and Pennsylvania. On August 12, Guccifer went further, publishing a spreadsheet that included
the personal email addresses and phone numbers of nearly two hundred Democratic members of
Congress.
Once again, Guccifer 2.0 proved Alperovitch and CrowdStrike's claims to be grossly incorrect
about the hack originating from Russia, with Putin masterminding it all. Nancy Pelosi offered
members of Congress Alperovitch's suggestion of installing Falcon , the system that
failed to stop cyberattacks at the DNC, on all congressional laptops.
Key Point: Once Falcon was installed on the computers of members of the U.S.
Congress, CrowdStrike had even further full access into U.S. government accounts.
Alperovitch's "Unbelievable" History
Dmitri was born in 1980 in Moscow where his father, Michael, was a nuclear physicist, (so
Dmitri claims). Dmitri's father was supposedly involved at the highest levels of Russian
nuclear science. He also claims that his father taught him to write code as a child.
In 1990, his father was sent to Maryland as part of a nuclear-safety training program for
scientists. In 1994, Michael Alperovitch was granted a visa to Canada, and a year later the
family moved to Chattanooga, where Michael took a job with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
While Dmitri Alperovitch was still in high school, he and his father started an
encryption-technology business. Dmitri studied computer science at Georgia Tech and went on to
work at an antispam software firm. It was at this time that he realized that cyber-defense was
more about psychology than it was about technology. A very odd thing to conclude.
Dmitri Alperovitch posed as a "Russian gangster" on spam discussion forums which brought his
illegal activity to the attention of the FBI – as a criminal. In 2005, Dmitri flew to
Pittsburgh to meet an FBI agent named Keith Mularski, who had been asked to lead an undercover
operation against a vast Russian credit-card-theft syndicate. Alperovitch worked closely with
Mularski's sting operation which took two years, but it ultimately brought about fifty-six
arrests. Dmitri Alperovitch then became a pawn of the FBI and CIA.
In 2010, while he was at McAfee, the head of cybersecurity at Google told Dmitri that Gmail
accounts belonging to human-rights activists in China had been breached. Google suspected the
Chinese government. Alperovitch found that the breach was unprecedented in scale; it affected
more than a dozen of McAfee's clients and involved the Chinese government. Three days after his
supposed discovery, Alperovitch was on a plane to Washington where he had been asked to vet a
paragraph in a speech by the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
2014, Sony called in CrowdStrike to investigate a breach of its network. Alperovitch needed
just "two hours" to identify North Korea as the adversary. Executives at Sony asked Alperovitch
to go public with the information immediately, but it took the FBI another three weeks before
it confirmed the attribution.
Alperovitch then developed a list of "usual suspects" who were well-known hackers who had
identifiable malware that they commonly used. Many people use the same malware and
Alperovitch's obsession with believing he has the only accurate list of hackers in the world is
plain idiocy exacerbated by the U.S. government's belief in his nonsense. Alperovitch even
speaks like a "nut-case" in his personal Twitters, which generally have absolutely no
references to the technology he is supposedly the best at in the entire world.
Dmitri – Front Man for His Father's Russian Espionage Mission
After taking a close look at the disinformation around Dmitri and his father, it is clear to
see that Michael Alperovitch became a CIA operative during his first visit to America.
Upon his return to Russia, he stole the best Russian encryption codes that were used to protect
the top-secret work of nuclear physics in which his father is alleged to have been a major
player. Upon surrendering the codes to the CIA when he returned to Canada, the CIA made it
possible for a Russian nuclear scientist to become an American citizen overnight and gain a
top-secret security clearance to work at the Oakridge plant, one of the most secure and
protected nuclear facilities in America . Only the CIA can transform a Russian into an
American with a top-secret clearance overnight.
We can see on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page that he went from one fantastically
top-secret job to the next without a break from the time he entered America. He seemed to be on
a career path to work in every major U.S. agency in America. In every job he was hired as the
top expert in the field and the leader of the company. All of these jobs after the first one
were in cryptology, not nuclear physics. As a matter of fact, Michael became the top expert in
America overnight and has stayed the top expert to this day.
Most of the work of cyber-security is creating secure interactions on a non-secure system
like the Internet. The cryptologist who assigns the encryption codes controls the system
from that point on .
Key Point: Cryptologists are well known for leaving a "back-door" in the base-code so
that they can always have over-riding control.
Michael Alperovitch essentially has the "codes" for all Department of Defense sites, the
Treasury, the State Department, cell-phones, satellites, and public media . There is hardly
any powerful agency or company that he has not written the "codes" for. One might ask, why do
American companies and the U.S. government use his particular codes? What are so special about
Michael's codes?
Stolen Russian Codes
In December, Obama ordered the U.S. military to conduct cyberattacks against Russia in
retaliation for the alleged DNC hacks. All of the attempts to attack Russia's military and
intelligence agencies failed miserably. Russia laughed at Obama's attempts to hack their
systems. Even the Russian companies targeted by the attacks were not harmed by Obama's
cyber-attacks. Hardly any news of these massive and embarrassing failed cyber-attacks were
reported by the Main Stream Media. The internet has been scrubbed clean of the reports that
said Russia's cyber-defenses were impenetrable due to the sophistication of their encryption
codes.
Michael Alperovitch was in possession of those impenetrable codes when he was a top
scientist in Russia. It was these very codes that he shared with the CIA on his first trip
to America . These codes got him spirited into America and "turned into" the best
cryptologist in the world. Michael is simply using the effective codes of Russia to design
his codes for the many systems he has created in America for the CIA .
KEY POINT: It is crucial to understand at this junction that the CIA is not solely working
for America . The CIA works for itself and there are three branches to the CIA – two of
which are hostile to American national interests and support globalism.
Michael and Dmitri Alperovitch work for the CIA (and international intelligence
corporations) who support globalism . They, and the globalists for whom they work, are
not friends of America or Russia. It is highly likely that the criminal activities of Dmitri,
which were supported and sponsored by the FBI, created the very hackers who he often claims are
responsible for cyberattacks. None of these supposed "attackers" have ever been found or
arrested; they simply exist in the files of CrowdStrike and are used as the "usual culprits"
when the FBI or CIA calls in Dmitri to give the one and only opinion that counts. Only Dmitri's
"suspicions" are offered as evidence and yet 17 U.S. intelligence agencies stand behind the
CrowdStrike report and Dmitri's suspicions.
Michael Alperovitch – Russian Spy with the Crypto-Keys
Essentially, Michael Alperovitch flies under the false-flag of being a cryptologist who
works with PKI. A public key infrastructure (PKI) is a system for the creation, storage, and
distribution of digital certificates which are used to
verify that a particular public key belongs to a certain entity. The PKI creates digital
certificates which map public keys to entities, securely stores these certificates in a central
repository and revokes them if needed. Public key cryptography is a
cryptographic
technique that enables entities to securely communicate on an insecure
public network (the Internet), and reliably verify the identity of an entity via digital signatures .
Digital signatures use Certificate Authorities to digitally sign and publish the public key
bound to a given user. This is done using the CIA's own private key, so that trust in the user
key relies on one's trust in the validity of the CIA's key. Michael Alperovitch is
considered to be the number one expert in America on PKI and essentially controls the
market .
Michael's past is clouded in confusion and lies. Dmitri states that his father was a nuclear
physicist and that he came to America the first time in a nuclear based shared program between
America and Russia. But if we look at his current personal Linked In page, Michael claims he
has a Master Degree in Applied Mathematics from Gorky State University. From 1932 to 1956, its
name was State University of Gorky. Now it is known as Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni
Novgorod – National Research University (UNN), also known as Lobachevsky University. Does
Michael not even know the name of the University he graduated from? And when does a person with
a Master's Degree become a leading nuclear physicist who comes to "visit" America. In Michael's
Linked In page there is a long list of his skills and there is no mention of nuclear
physics.
Also on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page we find some of his illustrious history that
paints a picture of either the most brilliant mind in computer security, encryption, and
cyberwarfare, or a CIA/FBI backed Russian spy. Imagine that out of all the people in the world
to put in charge of the encryption keys for the Department of Defense, the U.S. Treasury, U.S.
military satellites, the flow of network news, cell phone encryption, the Pathfire (media control)
Program, the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Global Information Grid, and TriCipher
Armored Credential System among many others, the government hires a Russian spy . Go
figure.
Michael Alperovitch's Linked In Page
Education:
Gorky State University, Russia, MS in Applied Mathematics
VT
IDirect -2014 – Designing security architecture for satellite communications
including cryptographic protocols, authentication.
Principal SME (Contractor)
DISA
-Defense Information Systems Agency (Manager of the Global Information Grid) – 2012-2014
– Worked on PKI and identity management projects for DISA utilizing Elliptic Curve
Cryptography. Performed application security and penetration testing.
Technical Lead (Contractor)
U.S.
Department of the Treasury – 2011 – Designed enterprise validation service
architecture for PKI certificate credentials with Single Sign On authentication.
Comtech Mobile
Datacom – 2007-2010 – Subject matter expert on latest information security
practices, including authentication, encryption and key management.
BellSouth – 2003-2006 – Designed and built server-side Jabber-based messaging
platform with Single Sign On authentication.
Principal Software Research Engineer
Pathfire – 2001-2002
– Designed and developed Digital Rights Management Server for Video on Demand and content
distribution applications. Pathfire provides digital media distribution and management
solutions to the television, media, and entertainment industries. The company offers Digital
Media Gateway, a digital IP store-and-forward platform, delivering news stories, syndicated
programming, advertising spots, and video news releases to broadcasters. It provides solutions
for content providers and broadcasters, as well as station solutions.
Obama – No Friend of America
Obama is no friend of America in the war against cyber-attacks. The very agencies and
departments being defended by Michael Alperovitch's "singular and most brilliant" ability to
write encryption codes have all been successfully attacked and compromised since Michael set up
the codes. But we shouldn't worry, because if there is a cyberattack in the Obama
administration, Michael's son Dmitri is called in to "prove" that it isn't the fault of his
father's codes. It was the "damn Russians", or even "Putin himself" who attacked American
networks.
Not one of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies is capable of figuring out a successful
cyberattack against America without Michael and Dmitri's help. Those same 17 U.S. intelligence
agencies were not able to effectively launch a successful cyberattack against Russia. It seems
like the Russian's have strong codes and America has weak codes. We can thank Michael and
Dmitri Alperovitch for that.
It is clear that there was no DNC hack beyond Guccifer 2.0. Dmitri Alperovitch is a
"frontman" for his father's encryption espionage mission.
Is it any wonder that Trump says that he has "his own people" to deliver his intelligence
to him that is outside of the infiltrated U.S. government intelligence agencies and the Obama
administration ? Isn't any wonder that citizens have to go anywhere BUT the MSM to find
real news or that the new administration has to go to independent news to get good intel?
It is hard to say anything more damnable than to again quote Dmitri on these very
issues: "If someone steals your keys to encrypt the data, it doesn't matter how secure the
algorithms are." Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of CrowdStrike
"... And RUH8 is allied with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike. ..."
"... Russia was probably not one of the hacking groups. The willful destruction of evidence by the DNC themselves probably points to Russia not being one of the those groups. The DNC wouldn't destroy evidence that supported their position. Also, government spy agencies keep info like that closely held. They might leak out tidbits, but they don't do wholesale dumps, like, ever. ..."
"... That's what the DNC is lying about. Not that hacks happened (they undoubtedly did), but about who did them (probably not Russian gov), and if hacks mattered (they didn't since everything was getting leaked anyway). ..."
"... The DNC/Mueller/etc are lying, but like most practiced liars they're mixing the lies with half-truths and unrelated facts to muddy the waters: ..."
"... An interesting question is, since it's basically guaranteed the DNC got hacked, but probably not by the Russians, is, what groups did hack the DNC, and why did the DNC scramble madly to hide their identities? ..."
"... And while you think about that question, consider the close parallel with the Awan case, where Dems were ostensibly the victims, but they again scrambled to cover up for the people who supposedly harmed them. level 2 ..."
"... DNC wasn't even hacked. Emails were leaked. They didn't even examine the server. Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools that we know about from wikileaks. It's important to know how each new lie is a lie. But man I am just so done with all this Russia shit. level 2 ..."
"... Crowdstrike claims that malware was found on DNC server. I agree that this has nothing to do with the Wikileaks releases. What I am wondering is whether Crowdstrike may have arranged for the DNC to be hacked so that Russia could be blamed. Continue this thread level 1 ..."
"... George Eliason promises additional essays: *The next articles, starting with one about Fancy Bear's hot/cold ongoing relationship with Bellingcat which destroys the JIT investigation, will showcase the following: Fancy Bear worked with Bellingcat and the Ukrainian government providing Information War material as evidence for MH17: ..."
"... Fancy Bear is an inside unit of the Atlantic Council and their Digital Forensics Lab ..."
Cyberanalyst George Eliason has written some intriguing blogs recently claiming that the
"Fancy Bear" which hacked the DNC server in mid-2016 was in fact a branch of Ukrainian intelligence linked to the Atlantic
Council and Crowdstrike. I invite you to have a go at one of his recent essays:
Since I am not very computer savvy and don't know much about the world of hackers - added
to the fact that Eliason's writing is too cute and convoluted - I have difficulty navigating Eliason's thought. Nonetheless,
here is what I can make of Eliasons' claims, as supported by independent literature:
Russian hacker Konstantin Kozlovsky, in Moscow court filings, has claimed that he did the
DNC hack – and can prove it, because he left some specific code on the DNC server.
Kozlovsky states that he did so by order of Dimitry Dokuchaev (formerly of the FSB, and
currently in prison in Russia on treason charges) who works with the Russian traitor hacker group Shaltai Boltai.
According to Eliason, Shaltai Boltai works in collaboration with the Ukrainian hacker group
RUH8, a group of neo-Nazis (Privat Sektor) who are affiliated with Ukrainian intelligence.
And RUH8 is allied with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike.
Cyberexpert Jeffrey Carr has stated that RUH8 has the X-Agent malware which our
intelligence community has erroneously claimed is possessed only by Russian intelligence, and used by "Fancy Bear".
This might help explain why Adam Carter has determined that some of the malware found on
the DNC server was compiled AFTER Crowdstrike was working on the DNC server – Crowdstrike was in collusion with Fancy Bear
(RUH8).
In other words, Crowdstrike likely arranged for a
hack by Ukrainian intelligence that they could then attribute to Russia.
As far as I can tell, none of this is pertinent to how Wikileaks obtained their DNC emails,
which most likely were leaked.
How curious that our Deep State and the recent Mueller indictment have had nothing to say
about Kozlovsky's confession - whom I tend to take seriously because he offers a simple way to confirm his claim. Also
interesting that the FBI has shown no interest in looking at the DNC server to check whether Kozlovsky's code is there.
Its worth noting that Dimitri Alperovich's (Crowdstrike) hatred of Putin is
second only to Hillary's hatred for taking responsibility for her actions.
level 1
Thanks - I'll continue to follow Eliason's work. The thesis that Ukrainian
intelligence is hacking a number of targets so that Russia gets blamed for it has intuitive appeal.
level 1
and have to cringe.
Any hacks weren't related to Wikileaks, who got their info from leakers, but
that is not the same thing as no hack. Leaks and hacks aren't mutually exclusive. They actually occur together
pretty commonly.
DNC's security was utter shit. Systems with shit security and obviously
valuable info usually get hacked by multiple groups. In the case of the DNC, Hillary's email servers, etc.,
it's basically impossible they weren't hacked by dozens of intruders. A plastic bag of 100s will not sit
untouched on a NYC street corner for 4 weeks. Not. fucking. happening.
Interestingly, Russia was probably not
one of the hacking groups. The willful destruction of evidence by the DNC themselves probably points to Russia
not being one of the those groups. The DNC wouldn't destroy evidence that supported their position. Also,
government spy agencies keep info like that closely held. They might leak out tidbits, but they don't do
wholesale dumps, like, ever.
That's
what the DNC is lying about.
Not that hacks
happened
(they undoubtedly did), but about
who
did them (probably not Russian gov), and if hacks mattered
(they didn't since everything was getting leaked anyway).
The DNC/Mueller/etc are lying, but like most practiced liars they're mixing
the lies with half-truths and unrelated facts to muddy the waters:
Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools
Yes, but that spoofed 'evidence' is not the direct opposite of the truth,
like I see people assuming. Bad assumption, and the establishment plays on that to make critic look bad. The
spoofed evidence is just mud.
An interesting question is, since it's basically guaranteed the DNC got
hacked, but probably not by the Russians, is, what groups
did
hack the
DNC, and why did the DNC scramble madly to hide their identities?
And while you think about that question, consider the close parallel with
the Awan case, where Dems were ostensibly the victims, but they again scrambled to cover up for the people who
supposedly harmed them.
level 2
What's hilarious about the 2 down-votes is I can't tell if their from
pro-Russiagate trolls, or from people who who can't get past binary thinking.
level 1
DNC wasn't even hacked. Emails were leaked. They didn't even examine the
server.
Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools that we know about
from wikileaks. It's important to know how each new lie is a lie. But man I am just so done
with all this Russia shit.
level 2
Crowdstrike claims that malware was found on DNC server. I agree that this
has nothing to do with the Wikileaks releases. What I am wondering is whether Crowdstrike may have arranged for
the DNC to be hacked so that Russia could be blamed.
Continue this thread
level 1
George Eliason promises additional essays: *The next articles, starting with one about Fancy Bear's hot/cold ongoing
relationship with Bellingcat which destroys the JIT investigation, will showcase the following: Fancy Bear worked with Bellingcat and the Ukrainian government providing
Information War material as evidence for MH17:
Fancy Bear is an inside unit of the Atlantic Council and their Digital
Forensics Lab
Fancy Bear worked with Crowdstrike and Dimitri Alperovich Fancy Bear is
Ukrainian Intelligence
How Fancy Bear tried to sway the US election for Team Hillary
Fancy Bear worked against US Intel gathering by providing consistently
fraudulent data
Fancy Bear contributed to James Clapper's January 2017 ODNI Report on Fancy
Bear and Russian Influence. [You really can't make this shit up.]
Fancy Bear had access to US government secure servers while working as
foreign spies.*
level 1
Fancy Bear (also know as Strontium Group, or APT28) is a Ukrainian cyber espionage group. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike incorrectly has said
with a medium level of confidence that it is associated with the Russian military intelligence
agency GRU . CrowdStrike
founder,
Dmitri Alperovitch , has colluded with Fancy Bear. American journalist
George Eliason has written extensively on the subject.
There are a couple of caveats that need to be made when identifying the Fancy Bear hackers.
The first is the identifier used by Mueller as Russian FSB and GRU may have been true- 10 years
ago. This group was on the run trying to stay a step ahead of Russian law enforcement until
October 2016. So we have part of the Fancy bear hacking group identified as Ruskie traitors and
possibly former Russian state security. The majority of the group are Ukrainians making up
Ukraine's Cyber Warfare groups.
Eliason lives and works in Donbass. He has been interviewed by and provided analysis for RT,
the BBC , and Press-TV. His
articles have been published in the Security Assistance Monitor, Washingtons Blog, OpedNews,
the Saker, RT, Global Research, and RINF, and the Greanville Post among others. He has been
cited and republished by various academic blogs including Defending History, Michael Hudson,
SWEDHR, Counterpunch, the Justice Integrity Project, among others.
Fancy Bear is Ukrainian IntelligenceShaltai Boltai
The "Fancy Bear hackers" may have been given the passwords to get into the servers at the
DNC because they were part of the Team Clinton opposition research team. It was part of their
job.
According to Politico ,
"In an interview this month, at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing
ethnic communities -- including Ukrainian-Americans -- she said that, when Trump's unlikely
presidential campaign. Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev
and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private
intelligence operatives. While her consulting work began surging in late 2015, she began
focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well."
[1]
The only investigative journalists, government officials, and private intelligence
operatives that work together in 2014-2015-2016 Ukraine are Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta, Ukraine
Cyber Alliance, and the Ministry of Information.
All of these hacking and information operation groups work for Andrea
Chalupa with EuroMaidanPR and Irena
Chalupa at the Atlantic Council. Both Chalupa sisters work directly with the Ukrainian
government's intelligence and propaganda arms.
Since 2014 in Ukraine, these are the only OSINT, hacking, Intel, espionage , terrorist , counter-terrorism, cyber, propaganda , and info war channels
officially recognized and directed by Ukraine's Information Ministry. Along with their American
colleagues, they populate the hit-for-hire website Myrotvorets with people who stand against
Ukraine's criminal activities.
The hackers, OSINT, Cyber, spies, terrorists, etc. call themselves volunteers to keep safe
from State level retaliation, even though a child can follow the money. As volunteers motivated
by politics and patriotism they are protected to a degree from retribution.
They don't claim State sponsorship or governance and the level of attack falls below the
threshold of military action. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had a lot of latitude for
making the attribution Russian, even though the attacks came from Ukrainian Intelligence. Based
on how the rules of the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber are
written, because the few members of the coalition from Shaltai Boltai are Russian in
nationality, Fancy Bear can be attributed as a Russian entity for the purposes of retribution.
The caveat is if the attribution is proven wrong, the US will be liable for damages caused to
the State which in this case is Russia.
How large is the Fancy Bear unit? According to their propaganda section InformNapalm, they
have the ability to research and work in over 30 different languages.
This can be considered an Information Operation against the people of the United States and
of course Russia. After 2013, Shaltay Boltay was no longer physically available to work for
Russia. The Russian hackers were in Ukraine working for the Ukrainian government's Information
Ministry which is in charge of the cyber war. They were in Ukraine until October 2016 when they
were tricked to return to Moscow and promptly arrested for treason.
From all this information we know the Russian component of Team Fancy Bear is Shaltai
Boltai. We know the Ukrainian Intel component is called CyberHunta and Ukraine Cyber Alliance
which includes the hacker group RUH8. We know both groups work/ worked for Ukrainian
Intelligence. We know they are grouped with InformNapalm which is Ukraine's OSINT unit. We know
their manager is a Ukrainian named Kristina Dobrovolska. And lastly, all of the above work
directly with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich.
In short, the Russian-Ukrainian partnership that became Fancy Bear started in late 2013 to
very early 2014 and ended in October 2016 in what appears to be a squabble over the alleged
data from the Surkov leak.
But during 2014, 2015, and 2016 Shaltai Boltai, the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, and CyberHunta
went to work for the DNC as opposition researchers .
The
First Time Shaltai Boltai was Handed the Keys to US Gov Servers
The setup to this happened long before the partnership with Ukrainian Intel hackers and
Russia's Shaltai Boltai was forged. The hack that gained access to US top-secret servers
happened just after the partnership was cemented after Euro-Maidan.
In August 2009 Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff at the State Department Huma Abedin
sent the passwords to her Government laptop to her Yahoo mail account. On August 16, 2010,
Abedin received an email titled "Re: Your yahoo account. We can see where this is going, can't
we?
"After Abedin sent an unspecified number of sensitive emails to her Yahoo account, half a
billion Yahoo accounts were hacked by Russian cybersecurity expert and Russian intelligence
agent, Igor Sushchin, in 2014. The hack, one of the largest in history, allowed Sushchin's
associates to access email accounts into 2015 and 2016."
Igor Sushchin was part of the Shaltai Boltai hacking group that is charged with the Yahoo
hack.
The time frame has to be noted. The hack happened in 2014. Access to the email accounts
continued through 2016. The Ukrainian Intel partnership was already blossoming and Shaltai
Boltai was working from Kiev, Ukraine.
So when we look at the INFRASTRUCTURE HACKS, WHITE HOUSE HACKS, CONGRESS, start with looking
at the time frame. Ukraine had the keys already in hand in 2014.
Alexandra
Chalupa hired this particular hacking terrorist group, which Dimitry Alperovich and
Crowdstrike dubbed "Fancy Bear", in 2015 at the latest. While the Ukrainian hackers worked for
the DNC, Fancy Bear had to send in progress reports, turn in research, and communicate on the
state of the projects they were working on. Let's face it, once you're in, setting up your
Fancy Bear toolkit doesn't get any easier. This is why I said the DNC hack isn't the big crime.
It's a big con and all the parties were in on it.
Hillary Clinton exposed secrets to hacking threats by using private email instead of secured
servers. Given the information provided she was probably being monitored by our intrepid
Ruskie-Ukie union made in hell hackers. Anthony Weiner exposed himself and his wife
Huma Abedin using
Weiner's computer for top-secret State Department emails. And of course Huma Abedin exposed
herself along with her top-secret passwords at Yahoo and it looks like the hackers the DNC hired to
do opposition research hacked her.
Here's a question. Did Huma Abedin have Hillary Clinton's passwords for her private email
server? It would seem logical given her position with Clinton at the State Department and
afterward. This means that Hillary Clinton and the US government top secret servers were most
likely compromised by Fancy Bear before the DNC and Team Clinton hired them by using legitimate
passwords.
Dobrovolska
Hillary Clinton retained State Dept. top secret clearance passwords for 6 of her former
staff from 2013 through prepping for the 2016 election. [2][3] Alexandra Chalupa was
running a research department that is rich in (foreign) Ukrainian Intelligence operatives,
hackers, terrorists, and a couple Ruskie traitors.
Kristina Dobrovolska was acting as a handler and translator for the US State Department in
2016. She is the Fancy Bear *opposition researcher handler manager. Kristina goes to Washington
to meet with Chalupa.
Alexandra types in her password to show Dobrovolska something she found and her eager to
please Ukrainian apprentice finds the keystrokes are seared into her memory. She tells the
Fancy Bear crew about it and they immediately get to work looking for Trump material on the US
secret servers with legitimate access. I mean, what else could they do with this? Turn over
sensitive information to the ever corrupt Ukrainian government?
According to the Politico article, Alexandra Chalupa was meeting with the Ukrainian embassy
in June of 2016 to discuss getting more help sticking it to candidate Trump. At the same time
she was meeting, the embassy had a reception that highlighted female Ukrainian leaders.
Four Verkhovna Rada [parlaiment] deputies there for the event included: Viktoriia Y.
Ptashnyk, Anna A. Romanova, Alyona I. Shkrum, and Taras T. Pastukh. [4]
According to CNN ,
[5] DNC sources said Chalupa
told DNC operatives the Ukrainian government would be willing to deliver damaging information
against Trump's campaign. Later, Chalupa would lead the charge to try to unseat president-elect
Trump starting on Nov 10, 2016.
Accompanying them Kristina Dobrovolska who was a U.S. Embassy-assigned government liaison
and translator who escorted the delegates from Kyiv during their visits to Albany and
Washington.
Kristina Dobrovolska is the handler manager working with Ukraine's DNC Fancy Bear Hackers.
[6] She took the Rada
[parliament] members to dinner to meet Joel Harding who designed Ukraine's infamous Information
Policy which opened up their kill-for-hire-website Myrotvorets. Then she took them to meet the
Ukrainian Diaspora leader doing the hiring. Nestor Paslawsky is the surviving nephew to the
infamous torturer The WWII OUNb leader, Mykola Lebed.
Fancy Bear's Second Chance at Top
Secret Passwords From Team Clinton
One very successful method of hacking is called
social engineering . You gain access to the office space and any related properties and
physically locate the passwords or clues to get you into the hardware you want to hack. This
includes something as simple as looking over the shoulder of the person typing in
passwords.
The Fancy Bear hackers were hired by Alexandra Chalupa to work for DNC opposition research.
On different occasions, Fancy Bear handler Kristina Dobrovolska traveled to the US to meet the
Diaspora leaders, her boss Alexandra Chalupa, Irena Chalupa, Andrea Chalupa, US Dept of State
personnel, and most likely Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich. Alperovich was working with the
hackers in 2015-16. In 2016, the only groups known to have Fancy Bear's signature tools called
X-tunnel and X-Agent were Alperovich, Crowdstrike, and Fancy Bear (Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta,
Ukraine Cyber Alliance, and RUH8/RUX8. Yes, that does explain a few things.
Alleged DNC
hack
There were multiple DNC hacks. There is also clear proof supporting the download to a USB
stick and subsequent information exchange (leak) to Wikileaks . All are separate events.
The group I previously identified as Fancy Bear was given access to request password
privileges at the DNC. And it looks like the DNC provided them with it.
the Podesta email hack looks like a revenge hack.
The reason Republican opposition research files were stolen can be put into context now
because we know who the hackers are and what motivates them.
At the same time this story developed, it overshadowed the Hillary Clinton email scandal. It
is a matter of public record that Team Clinton provided the DNC hackers with passwords to
State Department
servers on at least 2 occasions, one wittingly and one not. Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian
Intelligence Operators.
If the leak came through Seth Rich , it may have been because he saw
foreign Intel operatives given this access from the presumed winners of the 2016 US presidential
election . The leaker may
have been trying to do something about it. I'm curious what information Wikileaks might
have.
Alperovitch and Fancy Bear
George Eliason, Washingtonsblog: Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell
Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear. investigated. [7]
In the wake of the JAR-16-20296 dated December 29, 2016 about hacking and influencing
the 2016 election, the need for real evidence is clear. The joint report adds nothing
substantial to the October 7th report. It relies on proofs provided by the cyber security
firm Crowdstrike that is clearly not on
par with intelligence findings or evidence. At the top of the report is an "as is"
statement showing this.
The difference bet enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of
specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors
that need to be investigated for real crimes. For instance, the malware used was an
out-dated version just waiting to be found. The one other interesting point is that the
Russian malware called Grizzly Steppe is from Ukraine. How did Crowdstrike miss this when
it is their business to know?
The bar for identification set by Crowdstrike has never been able to get beyond words
like probably, maybe, could be, or should be, in their attribution. The bar Dimitri
Alperovitch set for identifying the hackers involved is that low. Other than asking
America to trust them, how many solid facts has Alperovitch provided to back his claim of
Russian involvement?
information from outside intelligence agencies has the value of rumor or
unsubstantiated information at best according to policy. Usable intelligence needs to be
free from partisan politics and verifiable. Intel agencies noted back in the early 90's
that every private actor in the information game was radically political.
Alperovitch first gained notice when he was the VP in charge of threat research with
McAfee. Asked to comment on Alperovitch's discovery of Russian hacks on Larry King, John
McAfee had this to say. "Based on all of his experience, McAfee does not believe that
Russians were behind the hacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), John Podesta's
emails, and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. As he told RT, "if it looks like
the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you it was not the Russians."
How does Crowdstrike's story part with reality? First is the admission that it is
probably, maybe, could be Russia hacking the DNC. "Intelligence agencies do not have
specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin 'directing' the identified
individuals to pass the Democratic emails to Wiki Leaks." The public evidence never goes
beyond the word possibility. While never going beyond that or using facts, Crowdstrike
insists that it's Russia behind both Clinton's and the Ukrainian losses.
NBC carried the story because one of the partners in Crowdstrike is also a consultant
for NBC. According to NBC the story reads like this."The company, Crowdstrike, was hired
by the DNC to investigate the hack and issued a report publicly attributing it to Russian
intelligence. One of Crowdstrike's senior executives is Shawn Henry , a former senior FBI
official who consults for NBC News.
In June, Crowdstrike went public with its findings that two separate Russian
intelligence agencies had hacked the DNC. One, which Crowdstrike and other researchers
call Cozy Bear, is believed to be linked to Russia's CIA, known as the FSB. The other,
known as Fancy Bear, is believed to be tied to the military intelligence agency, called
the GRU." The information is so certain the level of proof never rises above "believed to
be." According to the December 12th Intercept article "Most importantly, the Post
adds that "intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in
the Kremlin 'directing' the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to
WikiLeaks."
The SBU, Olexander Turchinov, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense all agree that
Crowdstrike is dead wrong in this assessment. Although subtitles aren't on it, the former
Commandant of Ukrainian Army Headquarters thanks God Russia never invaded or Ukraine
would have been in deep trouble. How could Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike be this
wrong on easily checked detail and still get this much media attention?
Crowdstrike CEO Dmitri Alperovitch story about Russian hacks that cost Hillary
Clinton the election was broadsided by the SBU (Ukrainian Intelligence and Security) in
Ukraine. If Dimitri Alperovitch is working for Ukrainian Intelligence and is providing
intelligence to 17 US Intelligence Agencies is it a conflict of interest?
Is giving misleading or false information to 17 US Intelligence Agencies a crime? If
it's done by a cyber security industry leader like Crowdstrike should that be
investigated? If unwinding the story from the "targeting of Ukrainian volunteers" side
isn't enough, we should look at this from the American perspective. How did the Russia
influencing the election and DNC hack story evolve? Who's involved? Does this pose
conflicts of interest for Dmitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? And let's face it, a
hacking story isn't complete until real hackers with the skills, motivation, and reason
are exposed.
According to journalist and DNC activist Andrea Chalupa on her Facebook page "After
Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a
meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns
within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. "That's when we knew it was the
Russians," said a Democratic Party source who has been directly involved in the internal
probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, "we told her
to stop her research."" July 25, 2016
If she was that close to the investigation Crowdstrike did how credible is she? Her
sister Alexandra was named one of 16 people that shaped the election by Yahoo news.
The DNC hacking investigation done by Crowdstrike concluded hacking was done by
Russian actors based on the work done byAlexandra Chalupa? That is the
conclusion of her sister Andrea Chalupa and obviously enough for Crowdstrike to make the
Russian government connection.
How close is Dimitri Alperovitch to DNC officials? Close enough professionally he
should have stepped down from an investigation that had the chance of throwing a
presidential election in a new direction. According to Esquire.com, Alperovitch has
vetted speeches for Hillary Clinton about cyber security issues in the past. Because of
his work on the Sony hack, President Barrack Obama personally called and said the
measures taken were directly because of his work.
Alperovitch's relationships with the Chalupas, radical groups, think tanks, Ukrainian
propagandists, and Ukrainian state supported hackers [show a conflict of interest]. When
it all adds up and you see it together, we have found a Russian that tried hard to
influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016.
The Chalupas are not Democrat or Republican. They are OUNb. The OUNb worked hard
to start a war between the USA and Russia for the last 50 years. According to the
Ukrainian Weekly in a rare open statement of their existence in 2011, "Other
statements were issued in the Ukrainian language by the leadership of the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (B) and the International Conference in
Support of Ukraine. The OUN (Bandera wing) called for" What is
OUNb Bandera? They follow the same political policy and platform that was developed
in the 1930's by Stepan Bandera . When these
people go to a Holocaust memorial they are celebrating
both the dead and the OUNb SS that killed.[8] There is no
getting around this fact. The OUNb have no concept of democratic values and want an
authoritarian
fascism .
Alexandra Chalupa- According to the Ukrainian Weekly , [9]
"The effort, known as Digital Miadan, gained momentum following the initial Twitter storms.
Leading the effort were: Lara Chelak, Andrea Chalupa, Alexandra Chalupa, Constatin Kostenko
and others." The Digital Maidan was also how they raised money for the coup. This was how the
Ukrainian emigres bought the bullets that were used on Euromaidan. Ukraine's chubby nazi,
Dima Yarosh stated openly he was taking money from the Ukrainian emigres during Euromaidan
and Pravy Sektor still fundraises openly in North America. The "Sniper Massacre" on the
Maidan in Ukraine by Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, University of Ottowa shows clearly detailed
evidence how the massacre happened. It has Pravy Sektor confessions that show who created the
"heavenly hundred. Their admitted involvement as leaders of Digital Maidan by both Chalupas
is a clear violation of the Neutrality Act and has up to a 25 year prison sentence attached
to it because it ended in a coup.
Andrea Chalupa-2014, in a Huff Post article Sept. 1 2016, Andrea Chalupa
described Sviatoslav Yurash as one of Ukraine's important "dreamers." He is a young
activist that founded Euromaidan Press. Beyond the gushing glow what she doesn't say
is who he actually is. Sviatoslav Yurash was Dmitri Yarosh's spokesman just after
Maidan. He is a hardcore Ukrainian nationalist and was rewarded with the Deputy
Director position for the UWC (Ukrainian World Congress) in Kiev.
In January, 2014 when he showed up at the Maidan protests he was 17 years old. He
became the foreign language media representative for Vitali Klitschko, Arseni
Yatsenyuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok. All press enquiries went through Yurash. To meet
Dimitri Yurash you had to go through Sviatoslav Yurash as a Macleans reporter found
out.
At 18 years old, Sviatoslav Yurash became the spokesman for Ministry of Defense
of Ukraine under Andrei Paruby. He was Dimitri Yarosh's spokesman and can be seen
either behind Yarosh on videos at press conferences or speaking ahead of him to
reporters. From January 2014 onward, to speak to Dimitri Yarosh, you set up an
appointment with Yurash.
Andrea Chalupa has worked with Yurash's Euromaidan Press which is associated with
Informnapalm.org and supplies the state level hackers for Ukraine.
Irene Chalupa- Another involved Chalupa we need to cover to do the story justice
is Irene Chalupa. From her bio– Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the
Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent
at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has worked for more than
twenty years. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council,
where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor
for Ukraine's propaganda channel org She is also a Ukrainian emigre leader.
According to Robert Parry's article [10] At the forefront
of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and
especially in foreign policy are the Atlantic Council . Their main
goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.
The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central
and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia.
Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was "Are you
willing to go to war with Russia?" Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support
throughout the campaign.
What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the
Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship
status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite
conflict of interest for Crowdstrike's investigation. Trump's campaign was gaining ground
and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or
Homeland Security?
When you put someone that has so much to gain in charge of an investigation that
could change an election, that is a conflict of interest. If the think tank is linked
heavily to groups that want war with Russia like the Atlantic Council and the CEEC, it
opens up criminal conspiracy.
If the person in charge of the investigation is a fellow at the think tank that wants
a major conflict with Russia it is a definite conflict of interest. Both the Atlantic
Council and clients stood to gain Cabinet and Policy positions based on how the result of
his work affects the election. It clouds the results of the investigation. In Dmitri
Alperovitch's case, he found the perpetrator before he was positive there was a
crime.
Alperovitch's relationship with Andrea Chalupa's efforts and Ukrainian intelligence
groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and
Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers.
When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch's twitter relationships, you have to ask why the
CEO of a $150 million dollar company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and
its hackers individually. There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for
the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine's Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be
investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government. Crowdstrike is
also following their hack of a Russian government official after the DNC hack. It closely
resembles the same method used with the DNC because it was an email hack.
Crowdstrike's product line includes Falcon Host, Falcon Intelligence, Falcon
Overwatch and Falcon DNS. Is it possible the hackers in Falcons Flame are another service
Crowdstrike offers?
In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA.
[11] They consider the
CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance
is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity,
Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the
Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency."
Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he
writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This
image shows Crowdstrike in their network. Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker
network. In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The
network communication goes through a secondary source. Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it's the official twitter account for
Ukraine's Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence.
The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates
journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could
be on the list.
Should someone tell Dimitri Alperovitch that Gerashchenko, who is now in charge of
Peacekeeper recently threatened president-elect Donald Trump that he would put him on his
"Peacemaker" site as a target? The same has been done with Silvio Berscaloni in the
past.
Trying not to be obvious, the Head of Ukraine's Information Ministry (UA
Intelligence) tweeted something interesting that ties Alperovitch and Crowdstrike to the
Ukrainian Intelligence hackers and the Information Ministry even tighter. This single
tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information
Minister's following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and
Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch's story was received and not retweeted or
shared. If this was just Alperovitch's victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be
shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it
to themselves and not draw unwanted attention.
These same hackers are associated with Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa through
the portals and organizations they work with through their OUNb. The hackers are funded
and directed by or through the same OUNb channels that Alperovitch is working for and
with to promote the story of Russian hacking.
When you look at the image for the hacking group in the euromaidanpress article,
one of the hackers identifies themselves as one of Dimitri Yarosh's Pravy Sektor
members by the Pravy Sektor sweatshirt they have on. Noted above, Pravy Sektor
admitted to killing the people at the Maidan protest and sparked the coup.
Going further with the linked Euromaidanpress article the hackers say "Let's
understand that Ukrainian hackers and Russian hackers once constituted a single very
powerful group. Ukrainian hackers have a rather high level of work. So the help of
the USA I don't know, why would we need it? We have all the talent and special means
for this. And I don't think that the USA or any NATO country would make such sharp
movements in international politics."
What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it
out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state sponsored,
Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack
they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are
also laughing at US intel efforts.
The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting
a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt
Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by
Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated.
According to the Esquire interview "Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought
the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of
the personal in his battle cry. "A lot of people who are born here don't appreciate
the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they've never had it any
other way," he told me. "I have."
While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism
is not. Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine's interests and delivering
a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he's a patriot. He isn't
serving US interests. He's definitely a Ukrainian patriot. Maybe he should move to
Ukraine.
The evidence presented deserves investigation because it looks like the case for
conflict of interest is the least Dimitri Alperovitch should look forward to. If these
hackers are the real Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, they really did make sharp movements in
international politics. By pawning it off on Russia, they made a worldwide embarrassment
of an outgoing President of the United States and made the President Elect the suspect of
rumor.
Obama, Brazile, Comey, and CrowdStrike
According to Obama the
hacks continued until September 2016. According to ABC, Donna Brazile says the hacks didn't stop
until after the elections in 2016. According to Crowdstrike the hacks continued into
November.
Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile said Russian hackers persisted in trying
to break into the organization's computers "daily, hourly" until after the election --
contradicting President Obama's assertion that the hacking stopped in September after he warned
Russian President Vladimir Putin to "cut it out."-ABC
This time frame gives a lot of latitude to both hacks and leaks happening on that server and
still agrees with the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs). According to
Bill
Binney , the former Technical Director for the NSA, the only way that data could move off
the server that fast was through a download to a USB stick. The transfer rate of the file does
not agree with a Guciffer 2.0 hack and the information surrounding Guciffer 2.0 is looking
ridiculous and impossible at best.
The DNC fiasco isn't that important of a crime. The reason I say this is the FBI would have
taken control over material evidence right away. No law enforcement agency or Intel agency ever
did. This means none of them considered it a crime Comey should have any part of investigating.
That by itself presents the one question mark which destroys any hope Mueller has proving law
enforcement maintained a chain of custody for any evidence he introduces.
It also says the US government under Barrack Obama and the victimized DNC saw this as a
purely political event. They didn't want this prosecuted or they didn't think it was
prosecutable.
Once proven it shows a degree of criminality that makes treason almost too light a charge in
federal court. Rest assured this isn't a partisan accusation. Team Clinton and the DNC gets the
spotlight but there are Republicans involved.
Investigative Jouralist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the
CEO Bill Larsen bought a small, Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to
Silicon Valley.
MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate
to reduce NSA spying on the public.
The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was
sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order to crack encrypted communications to write a back door
for law enforcement.
Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named
Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking
scandal - Crowdstrike.
In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry
platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives.
"... Michael K Atkinson was previously the Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ-NSD) in 2016. That makes Atkinson senior legal counsel to John Carlin and Mary McCord who were the former heads of the DOJ-NSD in 2016 when the stop Trump operation was underway. ..."
Folks, this "Ukraine Whistleblower" event was a
pre-planned event. As we begin to understand the general outline of how the Schiff Dossier was
assembled, we are now starting to get into the specifics. First discovered by researcher Stephen
McIntyr e, there is now evidence surfacing showing the ICIG recently created an entirely
new 'whistleblower complaint form' that specifically allowed for the filing of complaints "
heard from others ".
... ... ...
The timing here is far too coincidental. This was a set-up .
Sean Davis from the Federalist
is also hot on the trail.
Sean Davis – Between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly
eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged
wrongdoings. This raises questions about the intelligence community's behavior regarding the
August submission of a
whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump. The new complaint document no
longer requires potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to
Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are
reporting.
The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until
after the transcript of Trump's July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr
Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand
knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have
zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only "heard about [wrongdoing] from
others."
The internal properties of the
newly revised "Disclosure of Urgent Concern" form , which the intelligence community
inspector general (ICIG) requires to be submitted under the Intelligence Community
Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA), show that the document was uploaded on September 24,
2019, at 4:25 p.m., just days before the anti-Trump complaint was declassified and released
to the public. The markings on the document state that it was revised in August 2019, but no
specific date of revision is disclosed. (
read more )
President Trump announced Joseph Macguire as the Acting ODNI on August 8th, 2019 . (
link ) The CIA operative "whistle-blower" letter to Adam Schiff and Richard Burr was on
August 12th ( link
). Immediately following this letter, the ICIG rules and requirements for "whistle-blowers" was
modified, allowing hearsay complaints. On August 28th Adam Schiff begins tweeting about the
construct of the complaint.
As Stephen McIntyre notes : "it
appears almost certain that, subsequent to the CIA operative "WB" complaint, the DNI introduced
a brand new Urgent Disclosure Form which offered a previously unavailable alternative to report
allegations with no personal knowledge."
The CIA whistleblower complaint is likely the VERY FIRST complaint allowed using the new
IGIC protocol and standard. Taken in combination with the timeline of the August 12th
notification letter to Schiff and Burr and the Schiff tweet of August 28th, there's little room
for doubt this Ukraine whistleblower impeachment effort was pre-planned.
Additionally, this coordinated effort ties back-in Intelligence Community Inspector General,
Michael K Atkinson .
The center of the Lawfare Alliance influence was/is the Department of Justice National
Security Division, DOJ-NSD. It was the DOJ-NSD running the Main Justice side of the 2016
operations to support Operation Crossfire Hurricane and FBI agent Peter Strzok. It was also the
DOJ-NSD where the sketchy legal theories around FARA violations (Sec. 901) originated.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) is Michael K Atkinson . ICIG Atkinson is
the official who accepted the ridiculous premise of a hearsay ' whistle-blower '
complaint; an intelligence whistleblower who was " blowing-the-whistle " based on
second hand information of a phone call without any direct personal knowledge, ie '
hearsay '.
Michael K Atkinson
was previously the Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the National
Security Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ-NSD) in 2016. That makes Atkinson senior
legal counsel to John Carlin and Mary McCord who were the former heads of the DOJ-NSD in 2016
when the stop Trump operation was underway.
... ... ...
Within a heavy
propaganda report from the New York Times there are also details about the Intelligence
Community Inspector General that show the tell-tale fingerprints of the ICIG supportive intent
(emphasis mine):
[ ] Mr. Atkinson, a Trump appointee, nevertheless concluded that the allegations appeared
to be credible and identified two layers of concern.
The first involved a possible violation of criminal law. Mr. Trump's comments to Mr.
Zelensky " could be viewed as soliciting a foreign campaign contribution in violation of the
campaign-finance laws, " Mr. Atkinson wrote , according to the Justice Department memo. (
read
more )
Does the " foreign campaign contribution " angle sound familiar? It should, because
that argument was used in the narrative around the Trump Tower meeting with the Russian
Lobbyist Natalia Veselnitskaya. More specifically, just like FARA violations the overused
"campaign contribution" narrative belongs to a specific network of characters, Lawfare.
The "Schiff Dossier", aka "whistle-blower" complaint was a constructed effort of allied
members within congress and the intelligence apparatus to renew the impeachment effort. The
intelligence team, including the ICIG, changed the whistleblower form to allow the CIA to
insert the Schiff Dossier, written by Lawfare.
And the irony is the jstreet/lawfare group along with congress are taking two weeks off for
Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur, day of repentance and day of atonement. What do you wanna make a
bet they're not atoning or repenting of their evil hearts.
The Bongino video (1076 IIRC) did a nice job of showing that Shiff had it before it was
formally filed Schiff references things in the complaint in a tweet prior to the complaint
being filed
"
The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) is Michael K Atkinson. ICIG Atkinson is
the official who accepted the ridiculous premise of a hearsay 'whistle-blower' complaint; an
intelligence whistleblower who was "blowing-the-whistle" based on second hand information of
a phone call without any direct personal knowledge, ie 'hearsay'.
The center of the Lawfare Alliance influence was/is the Department of Justice National
Security Division, DOJ-NSD. It was the DOJ-NSD running the Main Justice side of the 2016
operations to support Operation Crossfire Hurricane and FBI agent Peter Strzok. It was also
the DOJ-NSD where the sketchy legal theories around FARA violations (Sec. 901)
originated.
Michael K Atkinson was previously the Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of
the National Security Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ-NSD) in 2016. That makes
Atkinson senior legal counsel to John Carlin and Mary McCord who were the former heads of the
DOJ-NSD in 2016 when the stop Trump operation was underway.
Michael Atkinson was the lawyer for the same DOJ-NSD players who: (1) lied to the FISA
court (Judge Rosemary Collyer) about the 80% non compliant NSA database abuse using FBI
contractors; (2) filed the FISA application against Carter Page; and (3) used FARA violations
as tools for political surveillance and political targeting.
Yes, that means Michael Atkinson was Senior Counsel for the DOJ-NSD, at the very epicenter
of the political weaponization and FISA abuse.
"... More generally, I think AI gets far too much of the billing in authoritarian apocalypse forecasts. Cheap, ubiquitous cameras, microphones, and location trackers are the real issue. If the state can track everyone's movements and conversations, then it can build a better Stasi even with crude, simple ai. ..."
The theory behind this is one of strength reinforcing strength – the strengths of
ubiquitous data gathering and analysis reinforcing the strengths of authoritarian repression to
create an unstoppable juggernaut of nearly perfectly efficient oppression. Yet there is another
story to be told – of weakness reinforcing weakness. Authoritarian states were always
particularly prone to the deficiencies identified in James Scott's Seeing Like a State
– the desire to make citizens and their doings legible to the state, by
standardizing and categorizing them, and reorganizing collective life in simplified ways, for
example by remaking cities so that they were not organic structures that emerged from the
doings of their citizens, but instead grand chessboards
with ordered squares and boulevards, reducing all complexities to a
square of planed wood . The grand state bureaucracies that were built to carry out these
operations were responsible for multitudes of horrors, but also for the crumbling of the
Stalinist state into a Brezhnevian desuetude, where everyone pretended to be carrying on as
normal because everyone else was carrying on too. The deficiencies of state action, and its
need to reduce the world into something simpler that it could comprehend and act upon created a
kind of feedback loop, in which imperfections of vision and action repeatedly reinforced each
other.
So what might a similar analysis say about the marriage of authoritarianism and machine
learning? Something like the following, I think. There are two notable problems with machine
learning. One – that while it can do many extraordinary things, it is not nearly as
universally effective as the mythology suggests. The other is that it can serve as a magnifier
for already existing biases in the data. The patterns that it identifies may be the product of
the problematic data that goes in, which is (to the extent that it is accurate) often the
product of biased social processes. When this data is then used to make decisions that may
plausibly reinforce those processes (by singling e.g. particular groups that are regarded as
problematic out for particular police attention, leading them to be more liable to be arrested
and so on), the bias may feed upon itself.
This is a substantial problem in democratic societies, but it is a problem where there are
at least some counteracting tendencies. The great advantage of democracy is its openness to
contrary opinions and divergent perspectives . This opens up democracy to a specific set of
destabilizing attacks but it also means that there are countervailing tendencies to
self-reinforcing biases. When there are groups that are victimized by such biases, they may
mobilize against it (although they will find it harder to mobilize against algorithms than
overt discrimination). When there are obvious inefficiencies or social, political or economic
problems that result from biases, then there will be ways for people to point out these
inefficiencies or problems.
These correction tendencies will be weaker in authoritarian societies; in extreme versions
of authoritarianism, they may barely even exist. Groups that are discriminated against will
have no obvious recourse. Major mistakes may go uncorrected: they may be nearly invisible to a
state whose data is polluted both by the means employed to observe and classify it, and the
policies implemented on the basis of this data. A plausible feedback loop would see bias
leading to error leading to further bias, and no ready ways to correct it. This of course, will
be likely to be reinforced by the ordinary politics of authoritarianism, and the typical
reluctance to correct leaders, even when their policies are leading to disaster. The flawed
ideology of the leader (We must all study Comrade Xi thought to discover the truth!) and of the
algorithm (machine learning is magic!) may reinforce each other in highly unfortunate ways.
In short, there is a very plausible set of mechanisms under which machine learning and
related techniques may turn out to be a disaster for authoritarianism, reinforcing its
weaknesses rather than its strengths, by increasing its tendency to bad decision making, and
reducing further the possibility of negative feedback that could help correct against errors.
This disaster would unfold in two ways. The first will involve enormous human costs:
self-reinforcing bias will likely increase discrimination against out-groups, of the sort that
we are seeing against the Uighur today. The second will involve more ordinary self-ramifying
errors, that may lead to widespread planning disasters, which will differ from those described
in Scott's account of High Modernism in that they are not as immediately visible, but that may
also be more pernicious, and more damaging to the political health and viability of the regime
for just that reason.
So in short, this conjecture would suggest that the conjunction of AI and authoritarianism
(has someone coined the term 'aithoritarianism' yet? I'd really prefer not to take the blame),
will have more or less the opposite effects of what people expect. It will not be Singapore
writ large, and perhaps more brutal. Instead, it will be both more radically monstrous and more
radically unstable.
Like all monotheoretic accounts, you should treat this post with some skepticism –
political reality is always more complex and muddier than any abstraction. There are surely
other effects (another, particularly interesting one for big countries such as China, is to
relax the assumption that the state is a monolith, and to think about the intersection between
machine learning and warring bureaucratic factions within the center, and between the center
and periphery).Yet I think that it is plausible that it at least maps one significant set of
causal relationships, that may push (in combination with, or against, other structural forces)
towards very different outcomes than the conventional wisdom imagines. Comments, elaborations,
qualifications and disagreements welcome.
Ben 11.25.19 at 6:32 pm (no link)
This seems to equivocate between two meanings of bias. Bias might mean a flaw that leads to
empirically incorrect judgements and so to bad decisions, and it's true that that type of
bias could destabilize an authoritarian state. But what we usually worry about with machine
learning is that the system will find very real, but deeply unjust, patterns in the data, and
reinforce those pattern. If there's a particular ethnic group that really does produce a
disproportionate number of dissidents, and an algorithm leads to even-more-excessive
repression of that group -- I'm not sure why an authoritarian state would see a stability
threat in that tendency.
More generally, I think AI gets far too much of the billing in authoritarian
apocalypse forecasts. Cheap, ubiquitous cameras, microphones, and location trackers are the
real issue. If the state can track everyone's movements and conversations, then it can build
a better Stasi even with crude, simple ai.
I'd just like to point out (re: the tweet in the original post) that the "Uighur
face-matching AI" idea is bullshit invented by scaremongers, with no basis in fact and
traceable to a shoddy reddit thread. The Chinese government is not using facial recognition
to identify Uighur, and the facial recognition fears about the Chinese government are vastly
overstated.
Australia's border control facial recognition software is far more advanced than
China's, as is the UK's, and facial recognition is actually pretty common in democracies. See
e.g. the iPhone.
The main areas in which China uses facial recognition are in verifying ID for some high
cost functions (like buying high speed rail tickets), and it's quite easy to avoid these
functions by joining a queue and paying a human. The real intrusiveness of the Chinese
security state is in its constant bag searches and very human-centric abuses of power in
everyday life in connection with "security". Whether you get stopped and searched depends a
lot on very arbitrary and error prone judgments by bored security staff at railway stations,
in public squares, and on buses, not some evil intrusive state technology.
Conversely, the UK is a world leader in installing and using CCTV cameras, and has been
for a long time. Furthermore, these CCTV cameras are a huge boon to law-abiding citizens,
since they act as both excellent forms of crime prevention (I have had this experience
myself) and for finding serious criminals. The people responsible for the death of those 39
Vietnamese labourers in the ice truck were caught because of CCTV; so was the guy who
murdered that woman on the street in Melbourne a few years ago.
Finally to address another point that's already been raised (sadly): China no longer
harvests organs, and the 2019 report that says it does is a sham. The social credit system is
also largely a myth, and nobody from China even seems to know wtf it is.
If you're going to talk about how state's work, and the relative merits of autocratic vs.
democratic states and their interaction with technology, it's a really good idea to get the
basic facts right first.
Nathanael 11.26.19 at 6:10 am (no link)
I'll add that John Quiggin's point that Xi has already lost control of the provinces is
correct -- but it DOES threaten his position as dictator. Once the provincial governors know
they can act with impunity, it is absolutely standard for the next step to be getting rid of
that annoying guy who is pretending to be dictator. It may take a few years but Xi now has
dozens of powerful insiders who know that he's a weakling. They'll bide their time but when
he crosses too many of them they'll take him out. And if China doesn't shut down coal, he's
going to look like a weakling internationally too, in a couple of years. This will create a
new group of ambitious insiders with a different reason to take him out.
Xi broke the "technocratic consensus" which was present after Deng, of central committee
members who strove for competence and fact-based decision-making. That was a surprisingly
effective type of junta government which led to lots of thinkpieces about whether
authoritarian China would beat the democratic west. But it succumbed to the succession
problem, like all authoritarian systems; Xi made himself Premier-for-life and the country is
now exhibiting all the usual failures of authoritarian countries.
Hidari 11.26.19 at 9:08 am (no link)
@11 Yes it's strange that allegations of Chinese use of facial recognition software is
gaining so much traction at a time when the Trump regime is deliberately ratcheting up
tensions with China to pursue nakedly imperial goals, when the objective facts of Israeli use
of similar software, which the Israelis boast about (
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/why-did-microsoft-fund-israeli-firm-surveils-west-bank-palestinians-n1072116
) doesn't cause so much interest, at a time when the Trump regime has simple decreed that the
Israeli invasion/colonisation of Palestine is 'legal under international law'.
One of life's little mysteries I guess.
If we must talk about China could we at least bring it back to areas where we are
responsible and where, therefore, we can do something about it?
"... Only a computer illiterate would think that CrowdStrike needed to take the physical DNC server to Ukraine in order to analyze it. Any computer can be cloned and its digital image can be sent within minutes anywhere on the planet in the form of ones and zeroes. It can also exist in multiple digital copies, carrying not just confidential archives, but also history logs and other content that can reveal to an expert whether the hacking occurred, and if so, by whom. ..."
"... The copies of the DNC server on CrowdStrike computers are likely to hold the key to understanding what really happened during the 2016 election, the origin of the anti-Trump witch hunt, and the toxic cloud of lies that had been hanging over the world and poisoning minds during the last three years. ..."
"... And now the new Ukrainian government might subpoena these copies from CrowdStrike and finally pass them to FBI experts, which should've been done three years ago. The danger of this happening is a much greater incentive for the Democrats to preemptively destroy Trump than all the dirt Joe Biden had been rolling in as Obama's vice president. ..."
"... I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. ..."
"... The fraudulent "CrowdStrike conspiracy" deflection is not a show of the Democrats' strength. Instead, It betrays their desperation and panic, which tells us that Trump is squarely over the target. ..."
"... Yet DOJ Mueller conclusively signed off on the unsubtaniated fact the Russians had hacked the DNC computers in his final Weissman Report. Just one more part of the curious Mueller report that was far more a CYA hit piece against future claims of Obama crimes, than an investigation of past Trump ones. ..."
The conspiracy theory that exposes the Democrats' desperation and panic.
Fri Nov 29, 2019
Oleg Atbashian
133 In the last few days, media talking heads have been saying the word "CrowdStrike" a
lot, defining it as a wild conspiracy theory originating in Moscow. They were joined by Chris
Wallace at Fox News, who informed us that president Trump and his ill-informed fans believe in
a crazy idea that the DNC wasn't hacked by the Russians but by some Ukrainian group named
CrowdStrike that stole the DNC server and brought it to Ukraine , and that it was Ukraine that
meddled in our 2016 election and not Russia.
A crazy idea indeed. Except that neither Trump nor his fans had ever heard of it until the
Democrat-media complex condescendingly informed them that these are their beliefs.
Let's look at the facts:
Fact 1. In 2016 the DNC hired the Ukrainian-owned firm CrowdStrike to analyze their server
and investigate a data breach.
Fact 2. CrowdStrike experts determined that the culprit was Russia.
Fact 3. The FBI never received access to the DNC server, so the Russian connection was never
officially confirmed and continues to be an allegation coming from the DNC and its
Ukrainian-owned contractor.
Fact 4. Absent the official verdict, other theories continue to circulate, including the
possibility that the theft was an inside job by a DNC employee, who simply copied the files to
a USB drive and sent it to WikiLeaks.
None of these facts was ever disputed by anyone. The media largely ignored them except for
the part about the Russian hackers, which boosted their own, now debunked, wild conspiracy
theory that Trump was a Russian agent.
Now that Trump had asked the newly elected Ukrainian president Zelensky to look into
CrowdStrike during that fateful July phone call, the media all at once started telling us that
"CrowdStrike" is a code word for a conspiracy theory so insane that only Trump could believe in
it, which is just more proof of how insane he is.
But if Trump had really said what Mr. Wallace and the media claim, Ukrainians would be the
first to call him on it and the impeachment would've been over by now. Instead, Ukrainians back
Trump every step of the way.
So where did this pretzel-shaped fake news come from, and why is it being peddled
now ?
Note this is a classic case study of propaganda and media manipulation:
Take an idea or a story that you wish to go away and make up an obviously bogus story
with the same names and details as the real one.
Start planting it simultaneously on media channels until the fake story supplants the
real one, while claiming this is what your opponents really believe.
Have various fact-checking outlets debunk your fake story as an absurd conspiracy theory.
Ridicule those who allegedly believe in it. Better yet, have late night comedians do it for
you.
Once your opponent is brought down, mercilessly plant your boot on his face and never let
up.
This mass manipulation technology had been tested and perfected by the Soviet propaganda
machine, both domestically and overseas, where it was successfully deployed by the KGB. The
Kremlin still uses it, although it can no longer afford it on the same grandiose scale. In this
sense, the Democratic think tanks are the true successors of the KGB in deviousness, scope, and
worldwide reach of fake narratives. How they inherited these methods from the KGB is a story
for another day.
For a long time this technology was allowing the Democrats to delegitimize opposition by
convincing large numbers of Americans that Republicans are
Haters
Racists
Fascists
Deniers of science
Destroyers of the environment
Heartless sellouts to corporate interests
And so on - the list is endless.
The Soviet communists had aptly named it "disinformation," which a cut above the English
word "misinformation." It includes a variety of methods for a variety of needs, from bringing
down an opponent to revising history to creating a new historical reality altogether. In this
sense, most Hollywood movies on historical subjects today disinform us about history,
supplanting it with a bogus "progressive" narrative. The Soviet term for such art was
"socialist realism."
Long story short, the Democrat-media complex has successfully convinced one half of the
world that Trump is a Russian agent. Now they're acting as if they'd spent the last three years
in a coma, unaware of any bombshell stories about collusion. And bombshell stories without any
continuation are a telltale sign of fake narratives. The only consequence of these bombshells
is mass amnesia among the foot soldiers.
The Trump-Russian outrage is dead, long live the Trump-Ukraine outrage. And when that
outrage is dead, the next outrage that will be just outrageous.
The current impeachment narrative alleges that Trump used military aid as leverage in asking
Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden (which implies the Democrats know Biden is dirty, otherwise
why bother?). What's not in this picture is CrowdStrike. Even though Trump mentioned it in the
phone call, it has nothing to do with the Bidens nor the Javelin missiles. CrowdStrike has
nothing to do with impeachment. We're told it's just a silly conspiracy theory in Trump's head,
that it's a nonissue.
But then why fabricate fake news about it and plant blatant lies simultaneously in all media
outlets from Mother Jones to Fox News? Why risk being exposed over such a nonissue? Perhaps
because it's more important than the story suggests.
Only a computer illiterate would think that CrowdStrike needed to take the physical DNC
server to Ukraine in order to analyze it. Any computer can be cloned and its digital image can
be sent within minutes anywhere on the planet in the form of ones and zeroes. It can also exist
in multiple digital copies, carrying not just confidential archives, but also history logs and
other content that can reveal to an expert whether the hacking occurred, and if so, by
whom.
The copies of the DNC server on CrowdStrike computers are likely to hold the key to
understanding what really happened during the 2016 election, the origin of the anti-Trump witch
hunt, and the toxic cloud of lies that had been hanging over the world and poisoning minds
during the last three years.
And now the new Ukrainian government might subpoena these copies from CrowdStrike and
finally pass them to FBI experts, which should've been done three years ago. The danger of this
happening is a much greater incentive for the Democrats to preemptively destroy Trump than all
the dirt Joe Biden had been rolling in as Obama's vice president.
This gives the supposedly innocuous reference to CrowdStrike during Trump's call a lot more
gravity and the previously incoherent part of the transcript begins to make sense.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been
through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened
with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your
wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went
on, the whole situation.
If you read the transcript on the day it was released, you probably didn't understand what
Trump was even talking about, let alone what had caused such a disproportionate outrage,
complete with whistle blowing and calls for impeachment. What in that mild conversation could
possibly terrify the Democrats so much? They were terrified because, unlike most Americans, the
Democrats knew exactly what Trump was talking about. And now you know, too.
The fraudulent "CrowdStrike conspiracy" deflection is not a show of the Democrats'
strength. Instead, It betrays their desperation and panic, which tells us that Trump is
squarely over the target.
It also helps us to see who at Fox News can be trusted to tell us the truth. And it ain't
Chris Wallace.
Fine dissection of the CrowdStrike story. Of course if the DNC was serious about
finding out who breached their security they would have allowed the FBI to investigate.
They didn't - which means they're covering something up.
And who doesn't have at least one backup system running constantly, I have two and am
just a home user and the DNC would not have been dumb enough not to have one on the
premises and one off site for safety and preservation and the FBI could have gotten to
either one if they wanted to. DWS was involved in something very similar and the FBI
backed off again. I thought the DNC and the FBI were on the same page and would have
liked to find out how the "transfer" happened?
Yet DOJ Mueller conclusively signed off on the unsubtaniated fact the Russians had
hacked the DNC computers in his final Weissman Report. Just one more part of the curious Mueller report that was far more a CYA hit piece
against future claims of Obama crimes, than an investigation of past Trump ones.
Seth Rich - paper trail to Wikilinks needs to come out in any Senate impeachment trail
since Democrats claim the Ukraine phone call was Trump's alleged downfall. CROWDSTRIKE
was the only favor Trumps asked for.
There are two important facts to glean from this article:
1) Crowdstrike, the DNC contractor, is Ukrainian
2) that the famous server may have been backed up in Ukraine and not tampered with.
From the MSM we were given the 'interpretation' that Trump is an idiot who believes
that the DNC shipped the server with no changes to the Ukraine. No folks. He 'gets'
technology and security. He actual ran a business! (imagine).
I'd love to hear that in Hillary's own voice. :) You know, cleaned with a cloth?
That pretty much sums it up. MSM in total cahoots on this too since they put the
entire topic of the CROWDSTRIKE part of the phone call into the cone of silence.
The Left and media (One and the same within the "Deep State") have been playing "Three
Card Monte" with America for a while; it stops now!
The "Impeachment" media show being run by the Lefty tool cretins in the House has
NOTHING to do with wrong doing by President Trump. It has EVERYTHING to do with the fear
that President Trump will expose the depth of the swamp and bring the criminals on the
Left down to Justice!
We are s close to getting to the bottom of the conspiracies that threaten our nation.
Time to make the America haters pay for the harm they have done to our nation!
We need open and in depth prosecution of the criminal activities of the Left. There
needs to be LONG prison sentences and, yes, even executions for those that seek to
undermine our nation.
People need to know that there our GRAVE penalties for betraying our nation!
In fact, when I first heard this story - that is: very recently - I was puzzled: why
should a major party in the Country that invented IT and is still at its leading edge,
ask an obscure firm of a crumbling, remote foreign State to do their IT security
research? I'm not saying that Ukraine is a s++thole Country, but... you get me.
Either they have very much to hide, or they fear some closeted rightwing geek that works
in any of the many leftist US technofirms. Or, CrowdStrike were involved from the
beginning of the story, from the Steele dossier perhaps?
The whole Crowdstrike fiasco has been around for years - plus became a solid CYA part
of the Mueller report too - just in case the Democrats needed to bury it later.
don't you get it? The DNC is completely infiltrated by Ukrainian graft. Even Joe Biden
was on the take. Why won't they run their IT? (there is no Research in IT here, just
office software)
If you want to sell and deliver State Secrets and Intel to our enemies, then you
(Obama, the Clintons, the DNC) simply make it easier for THEM to access. They have done
this for years, and this is why they had to fill the DOJ, the FBI and the State
Department with traitors and haters of America and American principles. Barack Hussein
Obama, the Clintons, their evil administrations and even two-faced RINOS like McCain,
Romney, and Jeff Sessions were actively involved. This is treason pure and simple, and
all of the above could be legitimately and justifiably hung or shot without recourse, and
rightly so!
I have known about "Crowdstrike" since Dec. 2017. Pres. Trump is just subtlety
introducing background on what will be the biggest story of treachery, subversion,
treason and corruption ever. QAnon that the fakenews tries to vilify as a LARP has been
dropping crumbs about "Crowdstrike", Perkins Coir, Fusion GPS, FVEY and so much more!
Crowdstrike mentioned 7x in the last 2 years. I can't urge people enough to actually
investigate the Q posts for themselves! You will be stunned at what you have been
missing. Q which says "future proves past" and "news will unlock" what I see in the media
now is old news to those of us following Q. Q told us that "Senate was the prize" "Senate
meant more" that the investigations started in the House would now move to the Senate and
all this that the Dems and Rinos have been trying to hide is going to be exposed.
Fakenews corporate media has litterally written hundreds of hit pieces against Q - me
knows "they doth protest to much" - Recent Q post told "Chairman Graham its time. Senate
was the target"
Keep up with the Q posts and Pres. Trump's tweets in once place:
https://qmap.pub/ - And if you are still having a hard time believing this is legit
Pres. Trump himself has confirmed Q posts by "Zero Delta" drops - if you think this is
fake - try and tweet within 1 minute of when Pres. Trump does BUT your tweet has to
anticipate his! YOU have to tweet first and HE has to follow you within 1 minute.
MATHEMATICAL IMPOSSIBILITY UNLESS you are in the same immediate space or communicating at
the time of the tweets! To all you doubters that think Q is just a by chance scam - NO
WAY. There have been MANY, MANY of these ZERO DELTA PROOFS over the last 2 years. The
most recent was Nov. 20th.
Crowdstrike in the dog who did not bark. The Democrat cone of silence they put on even
the mention of the word has been the most damning clue this is where the real action
is.
The assertion that a digital image of the computer can be transmitted quickly all
around the world is not necessarily correct in my experience as a cyber security analyst.
I'm not an upper echelon type, but I am aware that it can take up to weeks to transmit
such images depending on the hard disk, where it is, and the connections/network to your
device creating the image. The FBI should have physically taken the device since there
was a suspicion of wrong doing by Hillary Clinton. Had it been Donald Trump's computer I
do not doubt the FBI would either have imaged it on the spot or taken the device.
Last night I completely removed Catalina-Safari on my older Mac Book Air and
re-installed Mohave-Safari from my backup to the day before I installed Catalina
including the data and system just like it was before. It took around 5 hours and was
cabled and not on Wi-Fi and it was perfect and reset the clock, my old e-mails and the
newer ones as well. I can't believe being hooked into real broadband or fiber couldn't do
the same in a relatively short period of time, but still significantly longer than a
thumb drive or external hard drive.
One variable is how big your hard drive is. If it is a big drive at a remote location,
say somewhere in California to the Midwest, it can take weeks for a forensic backup. I
only say that because . . . well, I'm not allowed to say. But you get it.
The assertion is a figure of speech. Today's IT infrastructure companies sell the
service of maintaining clones in real-time in two or more locations for safety purposes.
VMware and other off-the-shelf products makes this kind of setup easy to deploy. Did
Crowdstrike offer that service and did the DNC buy it, that is the question? And, if so,
did Crowdstrike keep the image on their backups in Ukraine?
(Note: it is not obvious that such a setup would preserve the forensic data the FBI would
be looking for, but its a start).
You say--"John Brennan convened a secret task force at CIA headquarters composed of several
dozen analysts and officers from the CIA, the NSA and the FBI.
The unit functioned as a sealed compartment, its work hidden from the rest of the
intelligence community. Those brought in signed new non-disclosure agreements to be granted
access to intelligence from all three participating agencies."
Repeat: "Those brought in signed new non-disclosure agreements to be granted access to
intelligence from all three participating agencies"!!!
I suppose this means that John Brennan had access to all electronic communications
gathered on Trump campaign officials by the NSA. That suggests to me that the intel agencies
now have almost absolute power over future elections in the US. All the agency chiefs have to
do is concoct some wacky pretext for expanding their surveillance net (Like "collusion") and,
presto, they have immediate access to all private conversations between presidential
candidates and their lieutenants.
Do the American people really want John Brennan and his crooked spawn to choose our future
leaders??
I certainly hope Durham can crack this nut, otherwise this country is headed for the
landfill.
I've been surprised to learn that it wasn't IG Horowitz that uncovered the Strzok-Page texts
but rather Strzok's wife. With all of the so-called investigators involved in the "Russian
collusion" matter, turns out it was a scorned wife who unearthed the Rosetta Stone of the
hoax.
And now Sundance on the CTH has an item addressing the claims of former Overstock CEO
Patrick Byrne that he was used in an FBI op that tried to dirty up Trump campaign associates
via Maria Butina:
Larry, thanks for the clarifications (and the reassurance). Your entry so consistently
mentions payment that I find myself wondering how to correctly relate payment and spying.
That is, one can be an unpaid informant (Sater could be acting simply in exchange for a delay
in sentencing, though that might also constitute payment perhaps?).
Others could just be acting as good citizens, patriots or under direct question by the
authorities. None of which would necessarily entail payment, but some of which could
constitute spying (perhaps??) even if unpaid...
Further, spying here isn't the only thing that might be considered illegal, improper or
otherwise censurable. True?
Sundance sees these leaks as coming from investigation targets who are allowed to read and
comment on and rebut the draft report language addressing them. Thus, this is probably
"spinning" by targets and their media pals to try to "set the narrative" before the report is
released. Horowitz can rebut these "target" comments in the final report and the "targets"
are not provided any rebuttal material prior to the final report release, so it will be quite
interesting to see what the report actually says when final....
so we have this IG investigation that takes forever to complete, and when people ask why so
long the answer is the scope was increasing and we have to get it right. Now, with the report
finally being released, people are told the IG never had the jurisdiction necessary and we
have to wait for Durham.
1. Sater states that he was trying to do the Moscow deal to make money, on his own. Not
prompted by FBI.
2. I don't see in that super long pdf for Steele where there is a payment record. Please
give the exact page. There are some pages on the form, that are for payments. But no
indication that a payment was made. My recollection is that FBI was PLANNING to pay Steele,
but never did. (Correct me if wrong, like to see the actual page number.)
3. The Greenberg thing is the most interesting (and mysterious). Still, it's not 100%
proven to me that he was prompted by the government to make the approach. Perhaps likely, but
I don't see why you refer to it as a fact.
4. In general, there is a bad habit from our side to state speculation, even likely
speculation as fact. See this from Sundance all the time. Really gets in the way of serious
sleuthing and discussion though. The problem is one gets confused over what really is fact,
versus what is speculation. (An easy one is all the speculation that Mifsud was an intel
asset, versus just a networker--who knows for sure.)
P.s. To one of your commenters: My recollection was that the Strozk texts came to light
because of Lisa Page being questioned on the McCabe leak. Have seen a lot of our side jumping
to conclusions that the Strozk wife was the precipitant (but all the recent document said was
that she had access and threatened).
"... The worst of these massacres happened in Ghouta in August 2013 when 2000 civilian hostages (rebel claim) were gassed to death by rebels and their pre-White Helmets "civil defence". The OPCW was there to cover up the crime and to fabricate evidence to assign blame to Syria. ..."
Manufacturing a pretext for the U.S.
missile strike on Syria in April 2018 is nowhere near the biggest of OPCW's crimes. The
OPCW is an accessory , both before and after the fact to the crime of
mass murder.
It should now be clear to everyone that Syrian "rebels" gassed thousands of hostages in
cellars, most likely with chlorine gas, and then paraded the victims in White Helmets
snuff videos. OPCW conspired in this crime in both encouraging the terrorists to more murder
and by protecting them afterward by assigning blame to Assad and the Syrian government.
The worst of these massacres happened in Ghouta in August
2013 when 2000 civilian hostages (rebel claim) were gassed to death by rebels and their
pre-White Helmets "civil defence". The OPCW was there to cover up the crime and to fabricate
evidence to assign blame to Syria.
We have been documenting
these crimes and hoaxes at A Closer Look On Syria from December 2012. OPCW was used
from the beginning to manufacture consent for war. See for example:
Of course, the OPCW is already there! I highly suggest Caitlin Johnstone's article b
linked be read, which can be
found here .
We should expand on Petri's number of people involved in this crime to include all the
paid disinformation artists noted in Caitlin's essay at minimum. What becomes very clear in
all this is the total collusion with OPCW upper level management--those whom the
whistleblowers and their allies within OPCW petitioned--in these crimes as Petri contends.
Until they are visibly replaced, nothing issued by OPCW has any credence.
OPCW has shown to be a pure political entity, used at will by few regimes in the UN to
promote their agenda, b has done a tremendous job to humanity to bring the truth to the
public worldwide. Syrians have paid the price for UN leaders support to global terrorism for
too long. It must stop now.
"... According to a Nov. 21 report by independent journalist Sara Carter, U.S. Attorney John Durham is questioning personnel in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA). ONA awarded about $1 million in contracts to FBI informant Stefan Halper, who appears to have played a key role in alleged U.S. intelligence agency spying on 2016 Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. ..."
"... In addition, however, a court filing indicates that ONA's director, James H. Baker, "is believed to be the person who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn's calls" to The Washington Post. ..."
"... The filing adds that Baker "was Halper's 'handler'" at ONA. Moreover, according to the court filing, the tasks assigned to "known long-time operative for the CIA/FBI" Halper "seem to have included slandering Mr. Flynn with accusations of having an affair with a young professor (a British national of Russian descent)." ..."
"... The filing notes that Flynn's defense team has requested phone records for then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper , likewise in order to confirm contacts with Ignatius. The filing singles out records for Jan. 10, 2017, when, according to the filing, "Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of 'take the kill shot on Flynn.'" ..."
"... The Pentagon's current inspector general has already found that Baker's office "did not maintain documentation of the work performed by Professor Halper or any communication that ONA personnel had with Professor Halper." As a result, according to the inspector general, ONA staff "could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations." ..."
"... Acting Pentagon Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in November 2017 started an investigation into charges that Baker retaliated against a whistleblower who red-flagged "rigged" contracts, including Halper's. Another $11 million in contracts under scrutiny went to the Long Term Strategy Group (LTSG), which is run by a schoolmate of Chelsea Clinton, whom she has referred to as her "best friend." ..."
"... The House Judiciary and Oversight committees -- which interviewed almost two dozen witnesses -- concluded in December 2018 that the Obama Justice Department treated Trump and Clinton unequally, affording Clinton and her associates extraordinary accommodations, while potentially abusing surveillance powers to investigate Trump's associates. ..."
The
Obama holdover heading the Pentagon office
reportedly under investigation by the U.S. attorney who is conducting the criminal probe of
the Trump -- Russia investigation was accused of leaking a classified document, in a recent
court filing for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
The connection hasn't been previously reported.
According to a Nov. 21 report by independent journalist Sara Carter, U.S. Attorney John
Durham is questioning personnel in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA). ONA awarded
about $1 million in contracts to FBI informant Stefan Halper, who appears to have played a key
role in alleged U.S. intelligence agency spying on 2016 Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and
George Papadopoulos.
In addition, however, a
court filing indicates that ONA's director, James H. Baker, "is believed to be the person
who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn's calls" to The Washington Post.
Specifically, the filing states, "ONA Director Baker regularly lunched with Washington Post
Reporter David Ignatius."
The filing adds that Baker "was Halper's 'handler'" at ONA. Moreover, according to the
court filing, the tasks assigned to "known long-time operative for the CIA/FBI" Halper "seem to
have included slandering Mr. Flynn with
accusations of having an affair with a young professor (a British national of Russian
descent)."
Baker didn't respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times as of press time.
The filing notes that Flynn's defense team has requested phone records for
then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper , likewise in order to confirm
contacts with Ignatius. The filing singles out records for Jan. 10, 2017, when, according to
the filing, "Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of 'take the kill shot on
Flynn.'"
Clapper didn't respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times as of press time.
The Pentagon's current inspector general has already found that Baker's office "did not
maintain documentation of the work performed by Professor Halper or any communication that ONA
personnel had with Professor Halper." As a result, according to the inspector general, ONA
staff "could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his
work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations."
Acting Pentagon Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in November 2017 started an
investigation into charges that Baker retaliated against a whistleblower who red-flagged
"rigged" contracts, including Halper's. Another
$11 million in contracts under scrutiny went to the Long Term Strategy Group (LTSG), which
is run by a schoolmate
of Chelsea Clinton, whom she has referred to as her "best friend."
According to the whistleblower's attorney, "Baker's interest was his awareness of the
LTSG-Clinton connection; his presumptive desire to exploit that to his advantage in the event
of a Clinton election win; and the fact that contractors like LTSG served as a lucrative
landing pad for ONA retirees."
The attorney charged that Baker's claims about the whistleblower were "demonstrably false,"
calling Baker "partisan and highly vindictive."
At the time, Richard Perle, Ronald Reagan's former Assistant Secretary of Defense, called
Baker "a shallow and manipulative character that should have gone with the change in
administration." Perle further charged that the whistleblower "clearly was the target, for
political reasons, of an effort to push him out of government," saying "he's a Trump loyalist,
and it was launched and sustained by an Obama holdover."
That inquiry is being carried out by the inspector general's Investigations of Senior
Officials Directorate.
Raising additional questions, a 2016 report further revealed
that the ONA had failed to produce the top-secret net assessments the office was established to
conduct for more than 10 years, even with a yearly budget approaching $20 million.
Baker was named
as ONA director on May 14, 2015, during the Obama administration. A contemporaneous report
called his appointment "part of a wave of new Pentagon personnel moves in recent days,
senior-level officials who will outlast President Obama's final term in office." Baker
replaced Andrew W. Marshall, nicknamed "Yoda" for his "wizened appearance, fanatical
following in defense circles, and enigmatic nature." Obama Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in
selecting Baker, "passed over several of Marshall's acolytes who were in the running for the
position."
The House Judiciary and Oversight committees -- which interviewed almost two dozen
witnesses --
concluded in December 2018 that the Obama Justice Department treated Trump and Clinton
unequally, affording Clinton and her associates extraordinary accommodations, while potentially
abusing surveillance powers to investigate Trump's associates.
Jacqueline Deal, president of LTSG, wrote in an email to The Epoch Times: "My colleagues and
I began performing work in support of the Office of Net Assessment during the George W. Bush
administration, over a decade before the office's current director was appointed. None of the
awards received by LTSG from the Department of Defense resulted directly or indirectly from the
actions or influence of Secretary [Hillary] Clinton. Any statement or implication otherwise is
false."
Baker
replaced Andrew W. Marshall, nicknamed “Yoda” for his “wizened
appearance, fanatical following in defense circles, and enigmatic nature.” Obama
Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in selecting Baker, “passed over several of
Marshall’s acolytes who were in the running for the position.”
Holy ****...The replacement head of the Highlands Group..he may as well be that white
bearded guy in the matrix.. Hes the director of the MIC CIA NSA. ..the whole ball of
wax..puts it all together...only he is not Yoda like before him..like putting a restaurant
fast food manager in charge of the manhattan project. I know those acolytes must be really
pissed..and probably a potential source of leaks.
Investigations my eye! This has been going on since Moby **** was a minnow.
McCabe has been out there making money while under criminal referral.. That investigation
is DONE and still nothing happens.
The public information available on at least 50 of these double dealers is enough to send
them all up the river as of a few YEARS ago...but we have to have more
investigations...that's so they can figure out how to cover it all up.
Fire these creeps. Hire Sidney Powell.. They'll be swinging inside of six months.
"... Authored by John Solomon via JohnSolomonReports.com, ..."
"... Daily intelligence reports from March through August 2019 on Ukraine's new president Volodymyr Zelensky and his relationship
with oligarchs and other key figures. ..."
"... State Department memos on U.S. funding given to the George Soros-backed group the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. ..."
"... The transcripts of Joe Biden's phone calls and meetings with Ukraine's president and prime minister from April 2014 to January
2017 when Hunter Biden served on the board of the natural gas company Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All documents from an Office of Special Counsel whistleblower investigation into unusual energy transactions in Ukraine. ..."
"... All FBI, CIA, Treasury Department and State Department documents concerning possible wrongdoing at Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All documents from 2015-16 concerning the decision by the State Department's foreign aid funding arm, USAID, to pursue a joint
project with Burisma Holdings. ..."
"... All cables, memos and documents showing State Department's dealings with Burisma Holding representatives in 2015 and 2016.
..."
"... All contacts that the Energy Department, Justice Department or State Department had with Vice President Joe Biden's office
concerning Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden or business associate Devon Archer. ..."
"... All memos, emails and other documents concerning a possible U.S. embassy's request in spring 2019 to monitor the social media
activities and analytics of certain U.S. media personalities considered favorable to President Trump. ..."
"... All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning efforts by individual Ukrainian government officials to exert influence on
the 2016 U.S. election, including an anti-Trump Op-Ed written in August 2016 by Ukraine's ambassador to Washington or efforts to publicize
allegations against Paul Manafort. ..."
"... All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning contacts with a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa
and her dealings with the Ukrainian embassy in Washington or other Ukrainian figures. ..."
There are still wide swaths of documentation kept under wraps inside government agencies like the State Department that could
substantially alter the public's understanding of what has happened in the U.S.-Ukraine relationships now at the heart of the impeachment
probe.
As House Democrats mull whether to pursue impeachment articles and the GOP-led Senate braces for a possible trial, here are 12
tranches of government documents that could benefit the public if President Trump ordered them released, and the questions these
memos might answer.
Daily intelligence reports from March through August 2019 on Ukraine's new president Volodymyr Zelensky and his relationship
with oligarchs and other key figures. What was the CIA, FBI and U.S. Treasury Department telling Trump and other agencies
about Zelensky's ties to oligarchs like Igor Kolomoisky, the former head of Privatbank, and any concerns the International Monetary
Fund might have? Did any of these concerns reach the president's daily brief (PDB) or come up in the debate around resolving Ukraine
corruption and U.S. foreign aid?
CNBC ,
Reuters and
The Wall Street
Journal all have done recent reporting suggesting there might have been intelligence and IMF concerns that have not been fully
considered during the impeachment proceedings.
State Department memos detailing conversations between former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and former Ukrainian Prosecutor
General Yuriy Lutsenko . He says Yovanovitch raised the names of Ukrainians she did not want to see prosecuted during their first
meeting in 2016. She calls Lutsenko's account fiction. But State Department officials admit the U.S. embassy in Kiev did pressure
Ukrainian prosecutors not to target certain activists. Are there contemporaneous State Department memos detailing these conversations
and might they illuminate the dispute between Lutsenko and Yovanovitch that has become key to the impeachment hearings?
State Department memos on U.S. funding given to the George Soros-backed group the Anti-Corruption Action Centre.
There is documentary evidence that State provided funding to this group, that Ukrainian prosecutor sought to investigate whether
that aid was spent properly and that the U.S. embassy pressured Ukraine to stand down on that investigation. How much total did
State give to this group? Why was a federal agency giving money to a Soros-backed group? What did taxpayers get for their money
and were they any audits to ensure the money was spent properly? Were any of Ukrainian prosecutors' concerns legitimate?
The transcripts of Joe Biden's phone calls and meetings with Ukraine's president and prime minister from April 2014 to
January 2017 when Hunter Biden served on the board of the natural gas company Burisma Holdings. Did Burisma or Hunter Biden
ever come up in the calls? What did Biden say when he urged Ukraine to fire the prosecutor overseeing an investigation of Burisma?
Did any Ukrainian officials ever comment on Hunter Biden's role at the company? Was any official assessment done by U.S. agencies
to justify Biden's threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. aid if Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin wasn't fired?
All documents from an Office of Special Counsel whistleblower investigation into unusual energy transactions in Ukraine.
The U.S. government's main whistleblower office
is investigating allegations from a U.S Energy Department worker of possible wrongdoing in U.S.-supported Ukrainian energy
business. Who benefited in the United States and Ukraine from this alleged activity? Did Burisma gain any benefits from the conduct
described by the whistleblower?
OSC has concluded there is a "substantial likelihood of wrongdoing" involved in these activities.
All FBI, CIA, Treasury Department and State Department documents concerning possible wrongdoing at Burisma Holdings.
What did the U.S. know about allegations of corruption at the Ukrainian gas company and the efforts by the Ukrainian prosecutors
to investigate? Did U.S., Latvian, Cypriot or European financial authorities flag any suspicious transactions involving Burisma
or Americans during the time that Hunter Biden served on its board? Were any U.S. agencies monitoring, assisting or blocking the
various investigations? When Ukraine reopened the Burisma investigations in March 2019, what did U.S. officials do?
All documents from 2015-16 concerning the decision by the State Department's foreign aid funding arm, USAID, to pursue
a joint project with Burisma Holdings. State official
George Kent has testified he stopped this joint project because of concerns about Burisma's corruption reputation. Did Hunter
Biden or his American business partner Devon Archer have anything to do with seeking the project? What caused its abrupt end?
What issues did Kent identify as concerns and who did he alert in the White House, State or other agencies?
All cables, memos and documents showing State Department's dealings with Burisma Holding representatives in 2015 and 2016.
We now know that Ukrainian authorities escalated their investigation of Burisma Holdings in February 2016 by raiding the home
of the company's owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. Soon after, Burisma's American representatives
were pressing the State Department to help end the corruption allegations against the gas firm, specifically invoking Hunter
Biden's name. What did State officials do after being pressured by Burisma? Did the U.S. embassy in Kiev assist Burisma's efforts
to settle the corruption case against it? Who else in the U.S. government was being kept apprised?
All contacts that the Energy Department, Justice Department or State Department had with Vice President Joe Biden's office
concerning Burisma Holdings, Hunter Biden or business associate Devon Archer. We now know that multiple State Department
officials believed Hunter Biden's association with Burisma created the appearance of a conflict of interest for the vice president,
and at least one official tried to contact Joe Biden's office to raise those concerns. What, if anything, did these Cabinet agencies
tell Joe Biden's office about the appearance concerns or the state of the various Ukrainian investigations into Burisma?
All memos, emails and other documents concerning a possible U.S. embassy's request in spring 2019 to monitor the social
media activities and analytics of certain U.S. media personalities considered favorable to President Trump. Did any such
monitoring occur? Was it requested by the American embassy in Kiev? Who ordered it? Why did it stop? Were any legal concerns raised?
All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning efforts by individual Ukrainian government officials to exert influence
on the 2016 U.S. election, including an anti-Trump Op-Ed written in August 2016 by Ukraine's ambassador to Washington or efforts
to publicize allegations against Paul Manafort. What did U.S. officials know about these efforts in 2016, and how did they
react? What were these federal agencies' reactions to a Ukrainian court decision in December 2018 suggesting some Ukrainian officials
had improperly meddled in the 2016 election?
All State, CIA, FBI and DOJ documents concerning contacts with a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra
Chalupa and her dealings with the Ukrainian embassy in Washington or other Ukrainian figures. Did anyone in these U.S. government
agencies interview or have contact with Chalupa during the time the Ukraine embassy in Washington says she was seeking dirt in
2016 on Trump and Manafort?
When I launched JFK Facts, a blog about
the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, in 2012, I was often asked by strangers, "So
who killed JFK?" "I don't know," I shrugged. "It's too early to tell." Given that the handsome
liberal president had been shot dead a half-century before, my answer was a lame joke based on
an
apocryphal story . Henry Kissinger once said that when he asked Zhou Enlai, "What was the
effect of the French Revolution on world history?" the Chinese statesmen replied, "It's too
early to tell."
True to Kissingerian form, the story turns out to be not exactly true. Zhou was actually
responding to a question about France's political convulsions in 1968, not 1789. But
Kissinger's spin on the anecdote struck me as perceptive. The meaning of a great historical
event might take a long time–a very long time–to become apparent. I didn't want to
jump to conclusions about the causes of JFK's murder in downtown Dallas on November 22,
1963.
It's still too early to tell. Fifty six years after the fact, historians and JFK researchers
do not have access to all of the CIA's files on the subject The 1964 Warren Commission report
exonerated the agency with its conclusion that Kennedy was killed by one man alone. But the
agency was subsequently the subject of five official JFK investigations, which cast doubt on
its findings.
The Senate's Church Committee investigation showed that the Warren Commission knew nothing
of CIA assassination operations in 1963. JFK records released in the last 20 years show the
Commission's attorneys had no real understanding the extensive counterintelligence monitoring
of Lee Harvey Oswald before JFK was killed. We now know that senior operations officers,
including counterintelligence chief James Angleton, paid far closer attention to the obscure
Oswald as he made his way to Dallas than the investigators were ever told.
To be sure, there is no proof of CIA complicity in JFK's death. And conspiracy theories
spouted by the likes of the Alex Jones and
James Fetzer deserve no attention. The fact remains some of the most astute power players of
1963–including Lyndon
Johnson , Charles DeGaulle,
Fidel Castro , and Jackie and Robert Kennedy–concluded that JFK was killed by his
enemies, and not by one man alone. Did these statesmen get it wrong, and the under-informed
Warren Commission get it right?
The new documentary,
Truth is the Only Client, says yes. The film, shown last month in the auditorium of the
U.S. Capitol, features interviews with numerous former Warren Commission staffers. Supreme
Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who served as a fact checker for the Commission in 1964, defends
the lone gunman conclusion, saying, "You have to look at the new evidence and when you do, I
come to the same conclusion."
Justice Breyer, oddly, passes judgment on evidence he has not seen. The record of the CIA's
role in the events leading JFK's assassination is far from complete. In 2013 I reported on JFK
Facts that Delores Nelson CIA's information coordinator had stated in a sworn affidavit filed
in federal court, that the agency retained 1,100
assassination-related records that had never been made public.
A small portion of this material was released in 2017, including new details about the
opening of the CIA's first Oswald file in October 1959.
Yet thousands of JFK files remain secret. According to the latest figures from the National
Archives, a total of 15,834 JFK files remain fully or
partially classified, most of them held by the CIA and FBI. Thanks to an
October 2017 order from President Trump, these documents will not be made public until
October 2021 , at the earliest.
The assumption of Justice Breyer and many others is that any and all unseen CIA material
must exonerate the agency. It's an odd conclusion. If the CIA has nothing to hide, why is it
hiding so much? While 95 percent of the still-secret files probably are trivial, the remaining
5 percent -- thousands of pages of material–are historically pregnant. If made public,
they could clarify key questions in the long-running controversy about JFK's death.
These questions have been raised most concisely by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a career CIA officer
who served in senior positions. Now a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, Mowatt-Larssen
has implicated his former employer in the Dallas ambush. In a
presentation at Harvard last December, Mowatt-Larssen hypothesized that a plot to kill JFK
emanated from the CIA's station in Miami where disgruntled Cuban exiles and undercover officers
loathed JFK for his failure to overthrow Castro's government in Cuba.
Mowatt-Larssen has yet to publish his presentation and documentation, so I can't say if he's
right or wrong. But he asks the right question: "How can intelligence operational and
analytical modus operandi help unlock a conspiracy that has remained unsolved for 55 years?"
And he focuses on the right place to dig deeper: the CIA's Miami office, known as WAVE
station.
My own JFK questions involve George Joannides, a decorated undercover officer who served as
branch chief in the Miami station in 1963. He ran psychological warfare operations against
Cuba. In 2003, I sued the CIA for Joannides' files. The lawsuit ended 15 years later in July
2018, when Judge Brett Kavanaugh, in his last
opinion before ascending to the Supreme Court, tossed my case. Kavanaugh declared the
agency deserved "deference upon deference" in its handling of Freedom of Information Act
requests about JFK files.
Nonetheless, my lawsuit illuminated the extraordinary sensitivity of the psy-ops Joannides
ran out of WAVE station. As reported in the New York Times, Fox News, Associated
Press, and Politico
, Morley v. CIA forced disclosure of the fact Joannides had received the CIA's Career
Intelligence Medal in 1981. The honor came two years after he stonewalled the House Select
Committee on Assassination about what he knew of Oswald's contacts with pro-and anti-Castro
Cubans in the summer and fall of 1963.
I believe Joannides was honored because he concealed the existence of an authorized covert
operation involving Oswald that has never been publicly acknowledged. In CIA lingo, Joannides
protected the agency's "sources and methods" concerning Oswald. And he might have done more.
His actions may have also shielded other officers who knew of a scheme to kill the liberal
president and lay the blame on Cuba.
Never been seen by JFK investigators, they contain details about his Joannides' undercover
work in Miami in 1963, when he funded Oswald's antagonists among the anti-Castro Cuban exiles.
They also detail his work in 1978, when he duped chief
investigator Robert Blakey and the House Select Committee on Assassination. These records, the
agency says, cannot be released in 2019 without risk of "irreversible harm" to national
security.
It's a bizarre claim, at odds with the law. These ancient documents, all of them more than
40 years old, meet the statutory definition of "assassination-related," according to federal
judge John Tunheim. He chaired the Assassination Records Review Board which oversaw the
declassification of 4 million pages of JFK files between 1994 and 2017. In an interview,
Tunheim told me that, under the terms of the 1992 JFK Records Act, the Joannides files are
subject to mandatory review and release. "It's a no-brainer," he said.
Yet the files remain off-limits to the public. Thanks to the legal consensus, articulated by
Justices Kavanaugh and Breyer, the CIA enjoys "deference upon deference" when it comes to the
JFK assassination story. As a result, the JFK Records Act has been flouted. The public's
interest in full disclosure has been thwarted.
Yet legitimate questions persist: Did a plot to kill JFK originate in the agency's Miami
station as Mowatt-Larssen suggests? The fact that the CIA won't share the evidence that could
answer the CIA man's question is telling.
So these days, when people ask me who killed JFK, I say the Kennedy was probably victimized
by enemies in his own government, possibly including CIA officers involved in anti-Castro and
counterintelligence operations. I have no smoking gun, no theory. Just look at the suspicious
fact pattern, still shrouded in official secrecy, and it's easy to believe that JFK was, as
Mowatt-Larssen puts it, "marked for assassination." Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Jefferson Morley
"... America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the 1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted. ..."
"... Big, brawny America – its power establishment – very much was inclined towards dominating the world after WWII. The whole tone of the American press and speeches of major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent, sensitive type would be concerned by it. ..."
"... America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over" as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened. ..."
"... Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China – so there were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington. ..."
"... Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even insist they do so. ..."
The motives for so many Western spies serving the Soviet Union – and in the 1940s and
1950s the Soviets had the best "humint" on earth – were rather idealistic. This was
largely true for the Cambridge Circle in Britain. They were concerned that America was going
to "lord it over" the Russians and everyone else.
America was feared by many intellectuals, both in the United States and Britain of the
1940s and 1950s, and their fears were not unwarranted.
Big, brawny America – its power establishment – very much was inclined
towards dominating the world after WWII. The whole tone of the American press and speeches of
major political figures in the period was actually quite frightening. Any highly intelligent,
sensitive type would be concerned by it.
You certainly did not have to be a communist to feel that way, but being one assisted with
access to important Soviet contacts. They sought you out.
America wanted a monopoly on nuclear weapons, so that it would be in an unassailable
position as it built its imperial apparatus after WWII, the time effectively it "took over"
as world imperial power with so many potential competitors flattened.
It made little secret of its desire to keep such a monopoly, so brilliant people like
Oppenheimer would be well aware of something they might well regard as ominous.
Later, the Pentagon actually planned things like an all-out first strike on the
Soviets – it did that more once as well as doing so later for China – so there
were indeed plenty of dark intentions in Washington.
A hugely important general like MacArthur was unblinkingly ready in 1950 to use atomic
weapons in the Korean War to destroy North Korea's connections with China.
I read several major biographies of Oppenheimer, and there is little to nothing concerning
Soviet intelligence work. When I came across the Sudoplatov book with its straightforward
declaration of Oppenheimer's assistance, it was difficult to know how to weigh the claim.
Spies and ex-spies often put disinformation into their books. Sometimes officials even
insist they do so.
Judging by what is suggested here, if Oppenheimer did help, it was in subtle ways like
letting Klaus Fuchs, a fellow scientist and a rather distinguished one (but a Soviet spy),
look at certain papers. But the scientific community always has some considerable tendency to
share information, a tendency having nothing to do with spying.
In general, it should be understood, that Oppenheimer, despite all his brilliance, was a
rather disturbed man all his life. Quite early on, as just one example, he attempted to
poison someone he did not like. Only pure luck prevented the man's eating a lethally-laced
apple. There were other disturbing behaviors too.
Later they believed that equality of superpower status for the Soviet Union would
contribute to world peace.
How dumb were these "scientists". Everyone knows that once Soviet Union fell, peace and
freedom and democracy are flowering all over the world and United States are not waging any
wars anymore.
"... "Yeah," Tulsi answers. "I point to two things. One is you have the foreign policy establishment and the military-industrial complex in Washington that carries such a huge amount of influence over both parties." ..."
"... She continues, "There are campaign contributions, the influence that these contractors have in this pay-to-play culture , this corrupt culture in Washington, but you also just have people who don't understand foreign policy and who lack the experience to make these critical decisions that impact our lives and the safety and security of the American people. This is so serious about what's at stake here." ..."
"... Democratic presidential primary debate, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019, in Atlanta, via the AP. ..."
In a rare moment with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi
Gabbard explained why the leading figures in her party are war hawks. Far from days of the
Democrats feigning to have any semblance of an 'anti-war' platform (only convenient for Liberal
activism during the Bush years, but fizzling out under Obama), today's party attempts to
out-hawk Republicans at every turn.
"I'm looking at the Democratic establishment figures," Matthews introduced, "people I
normally like. John Kerry, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton. You go down the list. They all supported
the war in Iraq. Why were they hawks? " (Though we might ask, what do you mean, "
were ?"). "Why so many Democrats with a party that's not hawkish, why are so many of
their leaders hawks?" Matthews reiterated.
In the segment, Matthews heaps rare praise on Tulsi for being "out there all alone tonight
fighting against the neocons."
"Yeah," Tulsi answers. "I point to two things. One is you have the foreign policy
establishment and the military-industrial complex in Washington that carries such a huge amount
of influence over both parties."
She continues, "There are campaign contributions, the influence that these contractors
have in this pay-to-play culture , this corrupt culture in Washington, but you also just have
people who don't understand foreign policy and who lack the experience to make these critical
decisions that impact our lives and the safety and security of the American people. This is so
serious about what's at stake here."
Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.
Please
enter a valid email Thank you for subscribing!Something went wrong. Please refresh
and try again.
The interview happened immediately after this week's fifth Democratic debate Wednesday night
in Atlanta, and after pundits have continued to complain that Gabbard is a 'single issue
candidate'.
However, is there any candidate in her party or in the GOP saying these things?
We find ourselves in a rare moment of agreement with MSNBC's Matthews: she is "out there all
alone tonight fighting against the neocons." Tags Politics
"... JFK's assassination made possible the acquisition of nuclear arsenal by Israel and the unhindered growth of the most important foreign lobby such as AIPAC. On the cui bono question Israel is a perfect match. Israel gained everything form the JFK's death ..."
"... Was Johnson having an affair with Israeli agent Mathilde Krim? Did LBJ have reason to fear he was liable to be dumped from the Democratic ticket in 1964 because of the Bobby Baker and Billy Sol Estes scandals? Why did Richard Nixon lie about his own presence in Dallas when Kennedy was killed? Why was George HW Bush for a long time unable to remember his whereabouts on Nov. 22? ..."
"... All available evidence points to the CIA and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the cooperation of the Secret Service, as the murderers of President Kennedy. ..."
"... It is well documented that JFK wanted to break down the power of the Central Intelligence Agency. Could this have had dire consequences and let to his untimely death? Let's have a look! ..."
"... This "Israel did it" theory doesn't quite answer the question of how physical evidence was destroyed and eyewitnesses intimidated by agents of the US government. This I base on an assertion in Douglass's book JFK and the Unspeakable that men with Secret Service and FBI credentials immediately began the cover up operation. ..."
"... Fullbright who publicly denounced Israel and their control of the US Congress on National TV and the fact that Kennedy wanted him as Secretary of State must have also riled the Jews. Fullbright was also against the Vietnam War. ..."
"... Of course, I know the speculation it was Israelis who were behind it (Dimona), but I don't find it persuasive. There are other means to avoid US inspection, and Kennedy was not adamant about it at all. These are things politicians toy with all the time, and while not a "friend" of Israel, Kennedy was not an enemy -- one could consider Eisenhower, if we judge him by his actions during Suez canal crisis- to be an "enemy" of Israel (of course this too is simplistic, politics is a rough business). ..."
"... The Warren Commission hogwash was almost as ridiculous as the official 911 nonsense, and Mark Lane's 1966 book "Rush to Judgment" helped fuel broad public disbelief in the official story. ..."
"... Talk about quid pro quo to the nth degree, as that hideous snake LBJ gave the MIC and its financiers their wars, etc., in exchange for the Presidency and for keeping his sorry ass out of jail for the Billy Sol Estes and Bobby Baker scandals. Sure, the Israelis benefitted, and were likely a cog in the conspiratorial wheel, but the CIA, Secret Service, and various military agents were the movers and shakers, with LBJ their guarantor. ..."
"... Like any good gumshoe worth his salt, the first question he asks himself after arriving at the crime scene is Cui bono, who benefits? In the case of the JFK assassination, there was clearly one very large beneficiary that stood out above the rest, Israel. By Nov 1963, JFK had two big strikes against him ..."
"... "Mr. Trump has been prevented from releasing the rest of the "top secret" files, in spite of his promise to do so." IIRC, it was Trump doing all of the preventing. ..."
"... This "Israel did it" theory doesn't quite answer the question of how physical evidence was destroyed and eyewitnesses intimidated by agents of the US government. ..."
"... The Mossad and the CIA were part of the same "team"–the CIA handled and continues to handle the ongoing domestic coverup operations as needed (including Mockingbird mass media activities). ..."
"... Connelly is a _very_ interesting figure, and his background prior to the day of the assassination is not very well understood. I was stunned to read that he was a key actor in the Korean War "setup" ..."
"... Remember, Kennedy had just buggered up the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and was threatening to pull out of the CIA's war in Vietnam. With a nod from LBJ the CIA could kill Kennedy and be sure of top-down cover from the moment Kennedy's heart stopped beating, cover which, according to the doctors who attended on Kennedy at Parklands Hospital, was promptly given. ..."
"... Then there's the deathbed confession of CIA agent E. Howard Hunt, which provides a tenuous connection with Richard Nixon, who hired Hunt and Frank Sturgis (both believed to have been among the tramps arrested in Dealey Plaza in the immediate aftermath of the assassination) to. among other things, burglarize the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Building in Washington, DC. ..."
"... I think Oswald the CIA agent who agreed to go to Russia on a fake defector mission for the agency with no way of knowing what would happen to him, would have been an insanely extreme patriot. Such an Oswald might be willing to do anything he was ordered to I suppose. The trouble is Oswald seems to have been anti establishment right back into his teens. He was an immature 17 year old when he joined the Marines, and though he toughened up considerably they evidence of him ever being an anti communist fanatic is just lacking. ..."
"... Be sure and dive into all of the data supporting link's located at the bottom of this web page. November 23, 2019 JFK, MLK, RFK, 50 Years of Suppressed History: New Evidence on Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. Failures to Confront the Unspeakable, and The Way Ahead. Part I
"... It is a documented fact that during all past official visits, President Kennedy's motorcade comprised a open-top lorry, driving ahead of the Presidents' limousine, and carrying journalists sat backward on graded tiers, who would film the President and the crowd cheering on him. ..."
"... At Dallas, the journalists' truck got cancelled, and the way paved for the sole Abraham Zapruder to document the circumstances of the JFK assassination. Just another complete coincidence, obviously. ..."
In my view, summarized
here
, John Kennedy was assassinated by Israel for three major reasons:
Dimona:
President
Kennedy, who had made nuclear disarmament his grand mission on the international level, and was on the way
to achieve it with Khrushchev (as shown by James Douglass in
JFK and the Unspeakable
), was determined to stop Israel developing its own nuclear bomb.
According to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's
interpretation
, it was to plunge into the Israeli deep state and supervise Kennedy's assassination that
Ben-Gurion resigned in July 1963 before receiving Kennedy's ultimatum letter demanding inspections of
Dimona.
American Zionist Council:
John Kennedy and his Attorney General Bobby Kennedy had infuriated Zionist leaders by supporting an
investigation led by Senator William Fulbright (whom Kennedy had been prevented to name as Secretary of
State) aimed at registering the American Zionist Council as a "foreign agent" subject to the obligations
defined by the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which would have rendered its lobbying division, the
AIPAC, near powerless. On October 11, 1963, the AZC received a formal demand from RFK's office to register
within 72 hours (details
here
).
To these reasons for assassinating
Kennedy, we must add the opposite reasons for putting Johnson instead in the Oval Office, for Johnson buried
both the Dimona and the AZC proceedings, and cut U.S. support for Nasser's in order to boost support to
Israel. In 1967, he would commit high treason against his own country by allowing and covering-up Israel's
failed false-flag attack on the USS Liberty. No wonder Israel loved Johnson as much as they hated Kennedy.
Zionists had reasons to fear that
Joseph Kennedy did "inject some poisonous drops of anti-Semitism in the minds of his children, including his
son John's" (as printed in September 1960 by the
Herut,
Menachem Begin's political party).
[6]
Alan
Hart,
Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews
, vol. 2:
David Becomes Goliath,
Clarity Press, 2013,
p. 252.
In 1940, John had published a book titled
Why England Slept,
adapted from his
Harvard thesis which was, as the title alluded, a response to Churchill's 1938 book
While England Slept,
and a veiled support for his father's pro-appeasement views. In his Pulitzer prize-winning book
Profiles in Courage
(1956), Kennedy had declared his admiration for Senator Robert Taft, who by calling
the Nuremberg trials a shameful parody of justice had sacrificed his political career, including his chances
for the presidency, rather than build it on hypocrisy. Although Zionists probably didn't know it until
recently, in 1945, JFK had written the following in his diary, as quoted
here
by Abigail Abrams:
The Kennedys were a family of strong
traditions and strong convictions. They had to be destroyed, politically as had Charles Lindbergh
(1902-1974), and if necessary physically, before they extirpate America from Zionists' clutches.
Dallas was an Israeli coup, ordered from
Tel Aviv with Johnson's support, and supervised by the local B'nai B'rith under the cover of the Dallas
Citizens Council, who was sponsoring Kennedy's visit, and of whom Abraham Zapruder himself was a member
(watch his satisfaction when interviewed two hours after JFK's assassination in the History Channel
documentary
JFK – 3 Shots That Changed America
, at 43:34).
When trying to make sense of Dallas'
Umbrella Man, we are faced with a dilemma: should we believe Witt's explanation of his strange behavior (as
does Josiah Thompson), or should we consider him an accomplice to the assassination (as does Russ Baker)?
Only in the framework of the Israeli theory pioneered by Michael Collins Piper is it possible to surmount
the dilemma.
Let's recap what we know for certain.
Fact number 1: on the sunny day of November 22, 1963, one man was standing on the President's motorcade
route with an open umbrella, at the precise moment and place when JFK was shot. To assume that the Umbrella
Man's strange behavior and JFK's assassination are unrelated is unreasonable. The coincidence is just too
improbable.
Fact number 2: In 1978, Louie Steven
Witt claimed in front of the HSCA that he was the Umbrella Man and explained that he wanted to heckle JFK
about his father's policy of appeasement of Hitler in 1938.
Although Thompson and Baker disagree
about everything else, they agree that there can be no connection between John Kennedy's assassination and
Joseph Kennedy's appeasement policy. That is where they are both wrong.
Was Louie Steven Witt a Zionist agent, a
sayan
? Not necessarily. Operations like the JFK assassination are planned on a strict need-to-know
basis: no one knows more than he needs to know. Witt
declared to the HSCA
that he belonged to no organization whatsoever. He summarized his motivation for
his "bad joke" in these words:
"In a coffee break conversation
someone had mentioned that the umbrella was a sore spot with the Kennedy family. Being a
conservative-type fellow, I sort of placed him in the liberal camp and I was just going to kind of do a
little heckling."
What would be interesting to know is:
who inspired Witt during his coffee break? Did the coffee break take place in the office of Witt's Jewish
boss, director of the Rio Grande National Life insurance Co. in Dallas? Did Witt have insurmountable debts,
like Jacob Rubenstein, aka Jack Ruby? Russ Baker mentions that the company wrote a lot of insurance for the
military and was located in the same building that housed the local office of the highly negligent Secret
Service.
Mr Witt, would you kindly come forward
again and answer a few questions?
I looked at 43:34 of the documentary posted with Zupruder being interviewed shortly after the assassination;
and what I see is a man aghast and at a loss for words, not "satisfied" as you supposed.
There is no better theory of JFK assassination than outlined by the author. JFK's assassination made
possible the acquisition of nuclear arsenal by Israel and the unhindered growth of the most important
foreign lobby such as AIPAC. On the
cui bono
question Israel is a perfect match. Israel gained
everything form the JFK's death
I am absolutely certain that the murder of JFK was the work of a group of conspirators rather than an
individual. The umbrella man is not new to me. I never gave him much thought though I have read work by
others who factor him as a key role in the assassination. The interview of Josiah Thompson was most thought
provoking in that it showed how someone on the periphery of a big event can be implicated theoretically yet
really it appeared to be nothing more than happenstance.
The takeaway from this is that we should never
take for granted the basic tenet of our justice system that presumes innocence. The burden of proof of guilt
lies with those making the accusation. Was the umbrella man a participant in that homicide? I don't know and
there is really no evidence proving otherwise.
Let's keep our eye on the ball. Sadly no one will ever be held to account for that murder. That is not to
say that the truth will never be known. One day we will know exactly what happened and who was responsible.
The lesson here is to not get immersed in that which can not be proven but can also detract from those who
were really responsible.
I'm quite happy to believe that Jews killed JFK, but things like this are a very thin reed to hang anything
on;
Dallas was an Israeli coup, ordered from Tel Aviv with Johnson's support, and supervised by the local
B'nai B'rith under the cover of the Dallas Citizens Council, who was sponsoring Kennedy's visit, and of
whom Abraham Zapruder himself was a member (watch his satisfaction when interviewed two hours after JFK's
assassination in the History Channel documentary JFK – 3 Shots That Changed America , at 43:34).
Zapruder's expression is totally equivocal. His strange momentary smile could be the natural reaction of
someone who is suddenly embarrassed to be on the point of tears. You can't make history out of 'testimony'
this weak.
Dimona: President Kennedy, who had made nuclear disarmament his grand mission on the international
level, and was on the way to achieve it with Khrushchev (as shown by James Douglass in JFK and the
Unspeakable), was determined to stop Israel developing its own nuclear bomb.
This is the same James Douglass who was incapable of spotting the obvious difference between Oswald's
wide head and Billy Nolan Lovelady's narrow head, thereby establishing himself as someone who is unreliable
with
any
evidence.
@Germanicus
Exactly what I thought when I realized the webpage of
Jewish Life
that I screenshot was taken away,
like the one from the
5 Towns Jewish Times
saying "Our First Jewish President Lyndon Johnson?" (of
which I didn't get a screenshot). So I've just save the screenshot of the page of the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency that you mention, titled: "Lyndon Johnson: no better friend"
the article says:
"Johnson was the most emotionally committed to Israel of any American president -- a fact that is not
popularly known but is clear from his background," Dennis Ross, a veteran Middle East negotiator in
Republican and Democratic administrations, said last year at a symposium of the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, where he is counselor.
Johnson was the first president to invite an Israeli prime minister, Levi Eshkol, on a state visit. They
got along so well -- both men were farmers -- that Johnson paid Eshkol the rare compliment of inviting him
to his ranch.
LBJ soon abandoned pressure on Israel to come clean about the Dimona reactor. He increased arms sales to
Israel and in 1968, after Israel's primary supplier, France, imposed an embargo as a means of cultivating
ties in the Arab world, the United States became Israel's main supplier of weapons, notably launching the
talks that would lead to the sale of Phantom fighter jets to Israel.
Johnson wanted to commit more forcefully to Israel's cause in the lead-up to the 1967 Six-Day War, but he
felt constrained from a dramatic show of military might because of the failures of the war in Vietnam
then dogging his presidency. Nonetheless, during the war, he ordered warships to within 50 miles of
Syria's coast as a warning to the Soviets not to interfere.
In a speech in the war's immediate aftermath, Johnson effectively nipped in the bud any speculation that
the United States would pressure Israel to unilaterally give up the lands it had captured. He laid down
not only the "land for peace" formula that would inform subsequent U.N. Security Council resolutions, but
made it clear that any formula had to ensure Jewish access to Jerusalem's Old City.
@Daniel Rich
They donated half that money to a police charity on behalf of officers killed/wounded that day to be fair.
And by Kennedy wanting Israel nuke free is more than enough to prompt his assassination even though he was
hated by the entire military industrial complex.
If this was straight
assasination why go to so much trouble. The CIA had at the time developed weapons that could assasinate by
giving heart attacks or cancer and were discussed in the church committee investigation into the CIA. It
would have been very easy for someone to assasinte kennedy for instance when he was viting Marilyn Monroe or
his many mistresses. An affair is a good excuse for a heart attack.
No the murder of kennedy was not just about getting rid of him. It was a highly symbolic , even ritualistic
act.
It showed ultimately the power of the conspirators. It showed the impotence of the public. Its about
immobilizing effective resistance to the elite. Conspiracy theories become part of the psychological control
that they hold over the mass mind. The umbrella man is part of that symbolic control
"No wonder Israel loved Johnson as much as they hated Kennedy."
Y
ou should have written:
No wonder Johnson hated Kennedy as much as he loved Israel.
Was Johnson having an affair with Israeli agent Mathilde Krim? Did LBJ have reason to fear he was liable
to be dumped from the Democratic ticket in 1964 because of the Bobby Baker and Billy Sol Estes scandals? Why
did Richard Nixon lie about his own presence in Dallas when Kennedy was killed? Why was George HW Bush for a
long time unable to remember his whereabouts on Nov. 22?
With previous assassination plots in Chicago and Tampa, and the JBS handing out these posters in Dallas,
it was dereliction of duty for the Secret Service to have failed to clear high rise buildings in Dallas on
the motorcade route. Indeed, it was against their own regulations for Kennedy's limousine to have made those
sharp, slow-speed turns that took it through Dealey Plaza, and it was nothing short of being an accomplice
to murder for Secret Service driver William Greer to have allowed JFK's limousine to slow to a stop in the
killing zone when shots rang out.
With all that, I see umbrella man as nothing but a big red herring.
OK, but that was just on the side: I'm not building anything on that. This whole article is just an
anecdotic appendix to my main Kennedy article.
This is the same James Douglass who was incapable of
Yes, I am aware of the many shortcomings of Douglass, including his many blind spots (never heard of
Dimona, believes Johnson was such a good guy that, having failed to prevent the assassination of his beloved
president, he at least prevented the invasion of Cuba that it was meant to trigger, etc.). Nevertheless, his
book opened my eyes to Kennedy's determination to disarm the world and end the Cold War.
@PeterMX
It is also amazing that, 56 years after the terrible event that ruined America, Mr. Trump has been prevented
from releasing the rest of the "top secret" files, in spite of his promise to do so.
"Just days before he was
assassinated, JFK confided to his secretary that he wanted to replace his vp when he ran for reelection – he
didn't think LBJ was fit for president."
Later in the piece: Looking straight ahead and without hesitating he replied, "At this time I am thinking
about Gov. Terry Sanford of NC. But it will not be Lyndon."
Jack didn't want LBJ as his vp in the first place, but thought that the only way he could win was to put
that evil SOB on the ticket. He probably was right, as LBJ delivered Texas. Given the decades long national
trauma, from which the country has never recovered, it would have been far better if Nixon had won.
Oliver Stone's JFK blames the CIA, the military, and LBJ, makes no mention of Israel, and treats Ruby and
Zapruder sympathetically. No doubt explained by the fact that the movie was funded and produced by Israeli
superagent Arnon Milchan.
The movie is a limited hangout made to ensure that those who cannot swallow the
obvious lies of the Warren Commission will direct their anger otherwise than at Israel.
It showed ultimately the power of the conspirators. It showed the impotence of the public. Its about
immobilizing effective resistance to the elite. Conspiracy theories become part of the psychological
control that they hold over the mass mind. The umbrella man is part of that symbolic control
You nailed it. Also note this was an "Event", where hit men from all over the world (many of whom worked
as contractors for various intelligence agencies) converged in one place to honor their craft. A select few
participated in the actual execution, the rest were there to confuse any future investigators with false
leads.
This was a modern ritual sacrifice–think of it as alchemy in action.
September 24, 2019 The Coverup of President John F. Kennedy's Assassination Is Wearing Thin. All available
evidence points to the CIA and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the cooperation of the Secret Service, as
the murderers of President Kennedy.
It is well documented that JFK wanted to break down the power of the Central Intelligence Agency. Could
this have had dire consequences and let to his untimely death? Let's have a look!
Jan 21, 2019 Celebs and relatives of Martin Luther King Jr. call for new probe into his death ahead of
his public holiday as they claim his assassination and JFK, RFK and Malcolm X's killing were conspiracies
covered up by the government
A group of at least 60 US citizens including journalists, lawyers and historians are calling for new
investigations into four history-making assassinations
Nov 23, 2016 53 YEARS AFTER JFK ASSASSINATION CIA ADMITS THIS CONSPIRACY THEORY IS ACTUALLY FACT
Shortly
after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade
through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas. It's been 53 years since the assassination. Since that
fateful November day, conspiracy theories have abounded. However, when we sift through the disinformation
and look at only verifiable facts, we find no need for theories -- as the conspiracy was a fact.
Israeli PM David Ben-Gurion ordered the murder of JFK, because Kennedy had stood up to that maniac regarding
Israel getting nukes.
Mossad And The JFK Assassination
Their motive? Israel's much touted Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who ruled that country from its
inception in 1948 until he resigned on June 16, 1963, was so enraged at John F. Kennedy for not allowing
Israel to become a nuclear power that, Collins asserts, in his final days in office he commanded the
Mossad to become involved in a plot to kill America's president.
Ben-Gurion was so convinced that Israel's very survival was in dire jeopardy that in one of his final
letters to JFK he said,
"Mr. President, my people have the right to exist, and this existence is in
danger."
In the days leading up to Ben-Gurion's resignation from office, he and JFK had been involved in an
unpublicized, contentious debate over the possibility of Israel getting nuclear capabilities. Their
disagreement eventually escalated into a full-fledged war of words that was virtually ignored in the
press. Ethan Bronner wrote about this secret battle between JFK and Ben-Gurion years later in a New York
Times article on October 31, 1998, calling it a "fiercely hidden subject." In fact, the
Kennedy/Ben-Gurion conversations are still classified by the United States Government. Maybe this is the
case because Ben-Gurion's rage and frustration became so intense – and his power so great within Israel –
that Piper contends it was at the center of the conspiracy to kill John Kennedy. This stance is supported
by New York banker Abe Feinberg, who describes the situation as such:
"Ben-Gurion could be vicious,
and he had such a hatred of the old man [Joe Kennedy, Sr., JFK's father]."
Ben-Gurion despised Joe
Kennedy because he felt that not only was he an anti-Semite, but that he had also sided with Hitler
during the 1930's and 40's. [We will touch upon this aspect of the story in an upcoming article entitled
The CIA and Organized Crime: Two Sides of the Same Coin].
Anyway, Ben-Gurion was convinced that Israel needed nuclear weapons to insure its survival, while
Kennedy was dead-set against it.
This inability to reach an agreement caused obvious problems.
One
of them revolved around Kennedy's decision that he would make America his top priority in regard to
foreign policy, and not Israel!
Kennedy planned to honor the 1950 Tripartite Declaration which said
that the United States would retaliate against any nation in the Middle East that attacked any other
country. Ben-Gurion, on the other hand, wanted the Kennedy Administration to sell them offensive weapons,
particularly Hawk missiles.
.Gerald Posner, in his 1993 book Case Closed, posited that the errant first shot was fired at Z 160,
which put the entire shooting sequence at 8.4 seconds. (8) In the 13 years since Posner's book, several
highly respected students of the assassination have weighed in with reputable analyses of the first
shot's timing. Their estimates lead to total elapsed times of around 8.8, 8.4, and 8.6 seconds .
@ThreeCranes
Dr.Charles Crenshaw was one of the surgeons who treated JFK when he was brought into Parkland Hospital
stated that he " considered the throat wound to be an entrance wound and the large head wound (at the right
rear of JFK's head ) to be an exit wound Along with many of my Parkland colleagues I believed at the time
that the President had been hit twice from the front ."
"Every doctor who was in the trauma room had his own reasons for not refuting the official line .whatever
was happening was larger than any of us anyone who went as far to eliminate the President of the United
States would surely not hesitate to kill a doctor ."
Charles Crenshaw , " JFK Conspiracy of Silence " 1992
Fyi, in David Lifton's important & scientific book, "Best Evidence," he turned to a
fundamental example as to why JFK's head projected backward & a brain matter fell upon the limo's trunk.
Based upon physics,
Mr.
Lifton offered the kiddie example at a town carnival, & the act of shooting at plastic ducks. He emphasized
that wounded plastic duckies fall backward, not forward.
P.S.: David Lifton concluded unequivocally that a Secret Service role was critical to allow JFK's murder
& subsequent cover-up.
@LondonBob
Maybe so. Perhaps Baker is right: the Umbrella Man was a signal man, and Witt is not the Umbrella Man. But
then, fact number 2 become even more significant: why would someone come forward to make a declaration to
the HSCA that had the effect of connecting in the public psyche JFK's public assassination to the Kennedys'
anti-Semitism, and therefore, implicitly, to Jewish vengeance?
(I should have included that paragraph).
This "Israel did it" theory doesn't quite answer the question of how physical evidence was destroyed and
eyewitnesses intimidated by agents of the US government. This I base on an assertion in Douglass's book JFK
and the Unspeakable that men with Secret Service and FBI credentials immediately began the cover up
operation.
Douglass pointed to this as proof that a group of CIA insiders, no doubt loyal to Dulles, were
the orchestrators. How else to get real credentials for fake agents? That still makes sense to me though M.
Guyenot's writings make it clear that the Israelis would have been happy to lend an assist.
JFK's public assassination to the Kennedys' anti-Semitism,
Laurent Guyenot, I have already posted – my agreement with your well written analysis.
However, (please pay attention),
John F. Kennedy was not an 'anti-Semite,' he liked Arabs.
Semites are Peoples from the Middle East. The overwhelming majority of Jews are NOT Semites. They hail
from Europe, or from America-by route of Europe.
I would recommend
Arthur Koestler's Thirteenth Tribe
, as the first read – of many to understand &
correctly use the term "Semite."
The term Semite is cynically used as a misdirection tool.
The Jewish Oligarch claim to be Semites,
is a deceitful way of laying claim to land in the Middle East. The worst anti-Semites are Jews, who are busy
Ethnically Cleansing Palestinian Arabs, stealing their lands & wealth, and, additionally, attempting to
conquer all of the Middle East, and Remove, or Exterminate the indigenous Semites.
Orwell
exposed the manipulation of Language, in his
1984
, as the key tool of oppressors to
reduce their subjects to slavery.
A couple of years ago I finally fulfilled a promise I made to my self back in November 22nd 1963 as I sat in
Edinburgh Scotland on that fateful Friday night,that I would one day visit Dealey plaza Dallas and see for
my self.
As I drove into the plaza up W Commerce street what struck me immediately was how small it all felt and as I
walked around the compact size of Dealey plaza was reinforced. I had been viewing the unfolding events all
these years through the lens of a narrow angle press camera and Zapruders home movie wide angle lens, which
to me made the place look far more expansive than it is when you are there in person. I have been unable for
some time to come up or read anyone else's theory which explained satisfactorily the shallow back wound in
Kennedy the throat wound with just a tiny knick in the tie , the wounding of Connelly, the Teague face hit,
the damage to the windscreen and the chrome strip of the car and the shot which hit the grass.
who claimed that umbrella man had fired a poison paralysing dart at Kennedy at about z189. I took this
with a pinch of salt when I first read it. The plaza looked to big for this to have been likely and the
distance from the kerb side to the car would be to large to have a realistic chance of success from an
umbrella, but having visited the plaza and seeing how close he actually was, far fetched though it seems,
it's a good theory that fits what you see happening in the Z film.
So I think Richard E. Sprague is pretty much right , first Umbrella man opens his umbrella the coloured
man stands in front of him with his hand in the air and umbrella man fires his flechette hitting Kennedy in
the throat. Then Kennedy's hands go to his throat and he is quickly parallalized. The radio man passes the
message to start shooting. The first shot comes in , it misses but hits the street lamp standard or the tree
and fragments, one of the fragment hits Kennedy in the back and one fragment hits Teague in the face along
with bits hitting the car chrome strip and windscreen. A second shot comes in and hits Connelly in the chest
and Connelly starts screaming "they are going to kill us all". The third shot hits Kennedy in the head as
Z313 as he sits stiff and ridged slightly angled but upright in the car. There may have been a 4th shot from
the grassy knoll which was a head shot also and a possible 5th shot , the one hit the grass in Dealey Plaza.
With a sixth and possible second shot hit on Connelly. Since we now have multiple shooters and Umbrella man
the timing of shots is no longer a factor not if they are coming in close together can we determine exactly
how many.
Ok but here is my justification's for his theory. First you need to read Richard E. Sprague and his
appendages .
We have confirmation that such a weapon existed from Col Prouty.
We have the appearance at the congressional hearing of the Umbrella man Mr Witt in 1978 himself showing the
alleged umbrella he carried that day , which would be rather odd if he had turned up with the real umbrella
and said this is the weapon, so he is an unreliable witness with no evidence chain to this or any umbrella,
so to me he is CIA disinformation.
e said he was putting the umbrella up and down as a protest against Joe Kennedy and Jack Kennedy as
appeasers with some comment about Neville Chamberlain and his appeasement policies in WW2. Sorry Mr Umbrella
man , Mr Chamberlain had died of cancer before America entered WW2 replaced by Churchill in May 1940.
Secondly Mr Chamberlin was an alleged appeaser of Germany not the Soviet Union who were our supposed allies,
while Jack was being accused of Soviet-Cuban appeasement over the Bay of Pigs I assume. It's also safe to
say that in the 30's most middle class people in London wore a bowler hat carried an umbrella and a brief
case.
The lack of reaction from Mr Kennedy as his hands fall to his side when Connelly is crying out and being
pulled into his wife's arms as Jack is frozen in inaction and falling slightly to the side.
The inability of any theory other than the preposterous "magic bullet theory" to explain the lack of
penetration observed with the back wound bullet and the small size of the throat wound would , making it
difficult to be an entrance wound and impossible to be an exit wound favours the explanation of the dart
theory and a bullet fragment causing the back wound. The inexperienced, doctors under great external
pressure would have been looking for a wound with the associated damage that would have been caused by a
whole bullet and none would have heard of the Flechette weapon .
The back wound bullet travelling downwards if it did suddenly deflect and exit the throat so cleanly ,
without significantly damaging the tie is unlikely to hit Connelly also, from its upwards trajectory.
As Mr Holmes would say when you have eliminated the impossible , the magic bullet is one impossible, there
was only 3 bullets is the second impossible, another solution to the small non exiting back wound , and the
small throat wound is another impossible, that Kennedy would have not thrown himself to the floor of the car
after the being hit in the back is another impossible, that Kennedy made not a sound on that day is another
impossible, when Connelly is yelling blue murder.
Did the Jews and the CIA do it , we will never know but it surely was not Oswald.
More on Oliver Stone, taken from the excellent "Final Judgment" by Michael Collins Piper.
THE MOSSAD CONNECTION
David Ben-Gurion – Prime Minister of Israel; resigned his post in disgust with JFK's stance toward
Israel. in April of 1963; Said JFK's position threatened Israel's very survival.
Yitzhak Shamir – A long-time Mossad officer (based largely at the Mossad's chief European office in
Paris), Shamir headed the Mossad's assassination squad at the time of the JFK assassination. A former
French intelligence officer has charged that Shamir himself arranged the hiring of JFK's actual assassins
through a close ally in French intelligence.
Menachem Begin – In 1963, Begin (later prime minister of Israel) was a roving Israeli diplomat; prior to
JFK's assassination he was overheard conspiring with Meyer Lansky's California henchman, Mickey Cohen, in
a conversation that suggested hostile intentions by Israel against the American president.
Luis Kutner – Although known largely as a "mob lawyer," (who was long and closely associated with Jack
Ruby, a sometime-client) Kutner also doubled as an international intelligence operative and functioned as
an advisor to an ad hoc pro-Israel lobby group in the United States.
A. L. Botnick – Head of the New Orleans office of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith, an
intelligence and propaganda arm for Israel's Mossad; a close associate of New Orleans-based CIA contract
operative Guy Banister who helped create Lee Harvey Oswald's preassassination profile as a "pro-Castro"
agitator. Evidence suggests that Banister's manipulation of Oswald may have been carried out under the
guise of an ADL "fact-finding" operation.
Arnon Milchan – Israel's biggest arms dealer, Milchan was "executive producer" (i.e. chief financial
angel) of Oliver Stone's Hollywood fantasy
about the JFK assassination-a fact which may explain
Stone's aversion to exploring the Israeli connection to the affair.
Maurice Tempeisman – The international diamond merchant and Mossad operative who became the lover of
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and used his connections to double-perhaps triple-her substantial fortune,
thereby co-opting the Kennedy family forever.
It makes sense to me that an order was given to the various independent snipers that Kennedy was to be
shot at the precise moment when the presidential limousine drew level with the man holding an open
umbrella.
W
hy not just use the Stemmons freeway sign, or some other physical landmarks in Dealey Plaza to
delineate the kill zone, rather than some doofus with an umbrella who might draw the attention of the
authorities, and be hauled in for questioning?
Why would the snipers need a signal to begin shooting anyway, when they themselves could see their target
entering the predetermined kill zone? Does the hunter need a signal that this the buck, or a matador a
signal that this is the bull? Killing JFK within that kill zone ensured that the patsy could be framed, so
there was no need for any signal for the assassins to know when to begin firing. If a signal was really
needed, the first shot would have done it.
@Laurent Guyenot
I also heard of the supposed invitation of Lindbergh but didn't believe it because I thought it was
nonsense. Wow! Former ex military that I have known were also partial to the idea that Israel and the Jewish
lobby played a role in his assassination.
Supposedly, Kennedy basically insulted someone from one of the
Jewish Groups and they didn't take kindly to it because he was adamant that these groups would register as
foreign agents. Fullbright who publicly denounced Israel and their control of the US Congress on National TV
and the fact that Kennedy wanted him as Secretary of State must have also riled the Jews. Fullbright was
also against the Vietnam War.
If you look at what's happening to Trump right now with this Ukraine
nonsense all the witnesses are Jews. From Epstein to Trump and so forth this shows that Israel and the Jews
will do anything for control of the world and makes their possible input into the Kennedy's death more
plausible.
@follyofwar
"Given the decades long national trauma, from which the country has never recovered, it would have been far
better if Nixon had won."
There is more than anecdotal evidence to suggest that Nixon SHOULD have won.
C.f., "Chicago", "Mayor Daley" etc. If Nixon had won then maybe there wouldn't have been a Watergate. Who
knows? And, no, this country never recovered. Indeed, 11/22/1963 was the beginning of the slow, steady
unraveling of American society which continues apace.
The Abraham Zapruder heirs did not need an umbrella, when in 1999, the US government rained down $16 million
for the film.
Fyi, according to Dishonest Abe's granddaughter's book, instead of forking over the film to either Dallas
cops or FBI, he made a copy and gave the Secret Service custody of the original.
Well, I'll admit I've never looked into this "Umbrella Man" issue, nor have more than glanced over this long
comment-thread. But frankly, I'm pretty skeptical of this particular "conspiracy analysis."
It's important
to remember the public issues of the early 1960s, especially with regard to JFK. A very large one was that
rightwingers widely regarded JFK as "soft on Communism," especially after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.
Put another way, they accused him of "appeasing the Communists" much like Neville Chamberlain and Joseph
Kennedy had been vilified by the MSM for "appeasing Hitler."
So it seems perfectly plausible to me that some Texas rightwinger who felt that way might have gone to
the scene displaying an umbrella as a symbol of Munich-style appeasement, though this time towards
Communism. Maybe a little eccentric, but that seems vastly more plausible than e.g. the Umbrella guy being a
shot-signaler for the JFK snipers. Why would professional snipers need a signaler? And for him to have been
working with the assassins in providing some mystical/symbolic attack on JFK seems totally ridiculous.
And for those interested in my own analysis of the JFK Assassination itself, here are the links to a
couple of articles I published last year:
There might not be a better introduction to the Kennedy Assassination than this documentary, "The Men Who
Killed Kennedy'. I would estimate it's accuracy at around 90%.
Joseph Kennedy was right. The "Jews" did win the war, but they did so along with the US and UK Masonic
establishments. It likely all came down to their power through money and influence. Kennedy was a Catholic
and after the success of the communist revolution in Russia and the spread throughout the 1920's, the RC
Church and nations like Germany were besieged by the movement everywhere. It was mostly spawned by the Anglo
Masonic and Zionist cabal which went on to "win" WWII.
Fascism in Italy, Spain and Germany was a direct reaction to the threat of communism. Mussolini in the
1920's nipped it in the bud, but it continued to spread and the source was the same. By the time of the 1932
election in Germany, a number of Germany cities had voted in communist governments. The threat to freedom of
religion was very real based on what had happened in Russia. Whether the communist ideology was based on
Marx, Lenin or Stalin in that nation, Christians in particular were severely persecuted. When the Christian
Democrats in Germany in that election failed to win a majority, coming in third behind the communists and
the Nazis, then in many places in the following 1933 election, the churches threw their weight behind Hitler
in order to keep the communists from taking over. Like in the US today, it was a matter of the lesser of
evils.
When the war ended with Germany, the USSR which had been supplied and supported by the US throughout the
war, continued to occupy the eastern European nations with the consent of the US and the UK. These were
nations with relatively large Catholic and Protestant populations and the people of those religions were
severely persecuted by the communists regimes. (You can read about what they did to Jewish convert and
Lutheran pastor, Richard Wurmbrand, in order to get an idea of the severity.) When the US army took
possession of Rome in June 1944, in effect it was huge victory over the RC Church for the Masons. At least
since 1958 the ame cabal has been extremely influential in determining Church polices, and controlling
Church finances, and it is from then on that the Vatican has been used to push the so-called "new world
order". From my observations over the years, based on of the various deconstruction polices at work in the
Church, it is clear that the Vatican is essentially a Masonic/Zionist instrument. The same forces are
presently working to deconstruct out nations for their new order.
The deep state in the US is made up of a number of factions, which are always at each other's throats.
Oligarchic families have largely made their initial fortunes outside of the law, or if not then in any case
they all believe they are above the law. The "made" Italian, Irish, and Jewish crime families and dons, all
throughout North America are controlled by establishment oligarchs and government agencies. Vices are
legalised mainly for profit and to give more legitimacy to the money flows. Huge power struggles go on
behind the scenes where despite the information on the independent internet we know little about. The entire
system is rotten to the core.
a declaration [..] that had the effect of connecting in the public psyche JFK's public assassination
[..] to Jewish vengeance?
Thanks for yet another first-class article, and thanks even more for bringing up President Kennedy's
memory on the day anniversary of his cruel and untimely passing.
It is very credible that the Chamberlain symbol story was retrospectively deliberately devised to taunt
and threaten the Kennedy family and their supporters, and remind them of Jewish vengeance.
But "Umbrella Man" cannot be dissociated from another suspicious character, "Signal Man", also called
"Dark Complected Man", who was standing close to him at all times and was filmed raising his arm while the
presidential limousine was approaching.
In Frame 226 of the Zapruder Film, the arm of Dark Complected Man can be seen up with its fist closed, which
in military hand signs means "hold" or "stop".
There were many testimonies that JFK's limousine came to a total halt for many seconds for the final,
murderous headshots; his driver was part of the conspiracy.
What is even more unbelievable and strikingly odd is "Umbrella Man" and "Dark Complected Man" sat next to
each other, on the curb, seconds after the shooting, while everybody else is taking shelter from the shooter
at the Grassy Knoll.
Of course, these were not gay lovers comforting each other, but two perpetrators probably sharing the same
walkie-talkie. A walkie-talkie whose shape could be guessed in the right hand of "Dark Complected Man":
@Jefferson Temple
To the question why US government agents would facilitate the cover up, you find the straight answer in
Michael Collins Pipers book. They had themselves organized their own action, likely a fake assassination
attempt to be blamed on Cuba (that would have been Oswalds part), and they had seriously let down the
defenses of the president when the assassination went real.
Many people had to be afraid of being held to account, so the necessary officials to order the cover up
were easily persuaded. Also note, that Johnson was certainly in on the plot. He would order any serious
investigation to be derailed.
Why not just use the Stemmons freeway sign, or some other physical landmarks in Dealey Plaza to
delineate the kill zone, rather than some doofus with an umbrella who might draw the attention of the
authorities, and be hauled in for questioning?
A marksman doesn't operate alone. He's assisted by a spotter and [when needed, in combat situations. fe]
a 3rd man for general protection. So, we have at least two, 2-men teams [at a minimum]. 1 team [of 2 men]
was spotted on the Grassy Knoll, behind a picket fence, and at the spot the bullet had to be fired from, to
make JFK's head slam back and to the left.
Then triangulate the target and fire.
Am not saying umbrella man did give a signal, but logically, the opening of fire had to be synchronized
to have maximum effect.
The driver not hitting the pedal to the metal when the first shot/s rang out remains a mystery to me,
because the man actually slows down the limo and then JFK's brain is blown to smithereens.
@Sparkon
Good questions. I would suggest that there were multiple shooters in multiple locations and all were
completely unaware of each other.
Why not just use the Stemmons freeway sign, or some other physical landmarks in Dealey Plaza to
delineate the kill zone, rather than some doofus with an umbrella who might draw the attention of the
authorities, and be hauled in for questioning?
Using the freeway sign or any other fixed and inanimate object would mean that each shooter would have to
be contacted separately should the hit need to be called off for any reason. That person would thus know far
too much and pose a high risk of exposing the plotters if caught. The stakes were high indeed!
The umbrella man would know nothing more than where to stand and when to open his umbrella so that him
being called in for questioning would reveal nothing.
Killing JFK within that kill zone ensured that the patsy could be framed, so there was no need for any
signal for the assassins to know when to begin firing.
As I stated, the justification for attempting to synchronise the shots is so that they can all be blamed
on just one "crazed" patsy later.
If a signal was really needed, the first shot would have done it.
Snipers need plenty of time and the exact range to take the kill shot.
It makes sense to me that an order was given to the various independent snipers that Kennedy was to be
shot at the precise moment when the presidential limousine drew level with the man holding an open
umbrella,
Completely agree, dear Nosey, with just a quibble.
The men who shot President Kennedy were hired guns, hit men from the Chicago mob. Their job was, always
is, to
shoot the "target" in the head.
There was at least 3 of them in action, positioned to create a triangulated crossfire.
However, the intention was from the onset to blame it on the patsy Oswald, so it was very important that
the headshot to JFK was taken from behind. The best shooter was positioned behind the limousine, in the
Dal-Tex building, and was in charge with taking the head shot.
When he failed to hit President Kennedy at the head, Plan B was put in action and a headshot taken from
the Grassy Knoll.
So the presence of Umbrella Man and Dark Complected Man next to the limit where a successful headshot
from behind becomes unlikely is very easy to understand:
– Umbrella Man is close from the limousine. He sees that the President's head is intact and opens his
umbrella to tell the Grassy Knoll sniper to shoot.
– His accomplice , Dark Complected Man, raises his arm with a closed fist, a military sign telling JFK/s
driver to stop the limousine to facilitate the execution. This stop of many seconds was recounted by the
witnesses present.
It is so simple and logical. People just don't want to accept the idea because it implies that there was
a vast conspiracy with a large number of people involved.
The movie is a limited hangout made to ensure that those who cannot swallow the obvious lies of the
Warren Commission will direct their anger otherwise than at Israel.
That observation is just as valid for the largest part of the yearly anniversary articles on the Kennedy
assasination: Take the time and scan the articles on your favorite sites, how many of them only just mention
Voldemort country in that context. If only just to refute the idea or to proclaim that only sickos believe
it. It cannot have past by the numerous authors over the years that that theory at least exists.
Instead, you are treated to a steady stream of philosophizing on the deep state, Vietnam, the CIA and the
like. Take note and evaluate your reading matter.
@Ron Unz
I remember my father made a comment long after JFK's asssassination in which he felt JFK was soft on
communism. He also felt Khruschev was a tougher and smarter negotiator. It was only a few sentences, but not
everyone loved JFK. But being German, I think he might have had a soft spot for JFK, if we knew then what we
know now, with his diaries published. Of course, today's Germans no longer think like that. I do not recall
any discussion of JFK's father's views on WW II. That was kept quiet and the media did not make it a public
issue. Those were pre "Holocaust Industry" days in which according to Norman Finkelstein, Jews became bolder
and [even] more outspoken with Israel being perceived as a valuable ally after winning the 1967 war. This,
according to Finkelstein.
I recall JFK being very popular, well liked and people thought "Jackie" was beautiful and thought they
had a beautiful family. I think they were also perceived as having "class", probably because that is what
the media said. I think it was after his assassination that the knowledge of his extramarital affairs (and
Bobby's too) became public and then Jackie married the Greek multi-millionaire Onassis. For my mother, that
took all the class out of Jackie that the media always had said she had. I think they were very popular with
the media. By contrast, JFK's opponent in the 1960 election was Richard Nixon, not as good looking as JFK,
remembered for his tough stance on communism and that probably made him more popular with the right and less
popular with the media and the left.
It would be interesting how this would play out if JFK was still alive and his diaries became public
while he was alive. I have a feeling he may have been tougher than people like my father perceived him to be
and maybe he just held the views he had, but maybe not out of any weakness.
The Kennedys were knocked off with major input from Zionists. I think that almost certainly includes John Jr
(if that were an accident and had been avoided, and John John had failed to get 100% behind both Liberal and
Neocon Jews, then they would have killed him). But true Blue WASPs on both sides if the Atlantic also wanted
the Kennedys destroyed. And the WASP hatred of Irish Catholics has been what has been most used, and used
most effectively, in leading non-Catholic white Middle Americans away from recognizing the Kennedys as the
most important murder victims in the march of the Deep State to make serfs of us all.
It all goes back to
the Judaizing heresy Anglo-Saxon Puritanism, most specifically to archetypal WASP Oliver Cromwell's direct
deal with Jews, opening England to be directed, and eventually owned, by Jewish bankers. There has been a
Brit WASP Deep State since at least the Restoration of the monarchy, and it revealed its total power no
later than the 'Glorious Revolution.' And the Brit WASP Deep State then was tied inextricably to Jewish
bankers.
It is almost as if you either
must
play nice and fair, respectfully and equally, with Celts and
white Catholics or else get made a serf by a Jewish-owned WASP Deep State.
Of course, I know the speculation it was Israelis who were behind it (Dimona), but I don't
find it persuasive. There are other means to avoid US inspection, and Kennedy was not adamant about it at
all. These are things politicians toy with all the time, and while not a "friend" of Israel, Kennedy was not
an enemy -- one could consider Eisenhower, if we judge him by his actions during Suez canal crisis- to be an
"enemy" of Israel (of course this too is simplistic, politics is a rough business).
To illustrate the "rough" side of politics, let's see the following. Let's see Henry Kissinger, with his
publicly suppressed answer to Nixon re Soviet Jews:
Just- they deleted Kissinger's original statement, which can be seen in this leftist guy's clip
(comedienne Sarah Silverman reads Kissinger's words, at 2:06):
"The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they
put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian
concern."
Maybe..maaaybe maaaybe.
..
This remark can be read only in the papers, because "it was taken out of context.
Taken "out of context"? I say:
So, it can be read only in 2-3 places, and not seen in a video
Nothing, I just wanted to point that media manipulations have no limits; that American Jews are not
nearly as monolithic; that one should be aware that talk or statements are not something too reliable; that
one can construct from scratches a huge conspiracy.
Who says that Witt was actually the "umbrella man"? Why was he identified only 15 years after the event?
And even if he was that man- what kind of silly gesture would it be, because who in his right mind would
think that JFK would have noticed anyone in this situation & mentally process this like: umbrella >
Chamberlain > my dad > huh, I'm guilty .
JFK had, I think, a Jewish mistress whom he intended to marry (prior to his marriage) & was dissuaded by
his family; he was not anti-Jewish; Israel, as virtually all American Jews, was horrified by his
assassination, which can be seen from Golda Meir's behavior (she seems to have thought that JFK
assassination was a right-wing coup):
@Iris
"People just don't want to accept the idea because it implies that there was a vast conspiracy with a large
number of people involved."
The primary reason for that is for such a large conspiracy to be tried, much
of the WASP establishment had to have been on board, and most of the rest had to have been known to being
the type easily coerced afterwards to remain silent.
It took WASPs and Zionists to plan it and execute and cover it up, and then spread endless propaganda,
including playing hard on WASP hatreds of Irish Catholics to keep culturally conservative and/or
anti-imperialist Protestant Middle Americans from looking at the evidence of cover up.
@Fred Baggins
I suspect that it was Jewish influence which made the capitalists and communists alllies. They played a
leading role in the USSR, Great Britain and the USA, and they are the only ones that could see the benefit
of these otherwise ideological enemies being allies. Except for the USA (separated from the fighting by two
oceans), no one else benefitted from WW II. If Winston Churchill had been more concerned about his beloved
empire than his own reputation and had not accepted bribes from wealthy Jews when he was in financial need,
Europe and Great Britain would still be great. They would still lead the world. And Jews would have a
fraction of the power they have today. Yes, Jews won that war and were its major beneficiaries, despite
being told the direct opposite. They made it into a world war and they brought the suffering to all Europe,
but particularly to their German enemy, and themselves.
@Emblematic
Robert David Steele's Blog review of " Tavistock Institute : Social Engineering the masses " by Daniel
Estulin – "The deep state playbook " :
"Although I have read and heard over the years of CIA and KGB Freemasons collaborating in betrayal of their
countries and organizations by order of the Freemasons we have to deal with the fact that the President
and everyone of consequence in Congress , Justice and the FBI is a high ranking Freemason . "
"Sir Knight
Earl Warren " By Sir Knight Dr. Ivan M. Tribe (Knightstemplar.org ):
"In 1938 he( Earl Warren ) served as Master of Rose Croix and in 1945 presiding office of the Lodge of
Perfection . By that time he had already been coroneted with the 33rd degree "
Gerald McKnight " Breach of Trust : How the Warren Commission failed the Nation and Why " :
"The records of the Commission disclose that the commission's pre-structured task was to support the FBI's
conclusions : Oswald was the assassin and that he acted alone ."
@PeterMX
" and then Jackie married the Greek multi-millionaire Onassis " – The then was after RFK's assassination:
"If they're killing Kennedys, then my children are targets I want to get out of this country"
So the deal was to offer some safety but you are correct that her marriage to Onassiss "took all the
class out of Jackie that the media always had said she had." But this was the price which the forces that
pushed her in this direction wanted her to pay to diminish and tarnish the legend of JFK. The safety was not
coming form the wealth of Onassis but from the tarnished image and marginalization by marrying the rich
Greek creep.
The primary reason for that is for such a large conspiracy to be tried, much of the WASP establishment
had to have been on board
It was much simpler than that: JFK's assassination was a criminal Zionist conspiracy within a more benign
WASP conspiracy.
A secret mission was organised by the loyal Security apparatus to abort an assassination attempt against
President Kennedy at Dallas.
The abort mission would have resulted in unmasking and arresting criminal elements within the
establishment. Oswald the patsy was part of the abort mission, as was Agent Bouck, the head of the WH Secret
Service. And Robert Kennedy was involved too.
But more powerful parties within the Zionist Deep State were at play: they took control of the situation
and turned it into a real assassination, killing two birds with one stone:
– They executed the independent and principled President who stood up to them.
– They compromised the WASP establishment, including RFK, with the murky and failed abort mission that was
turned into a real assassination, making their responsibility undistinguishable.
Finally, Kennedy had enough, and in a personal letter dated May 18, 1963, the president warned that
unless American inspectors were allowed into Dimona (meaning the end of any military activities), Israel
would find itself totally isolated. Rather than answering, Ben-Gurion abruptly resigned.
Ben-Gurion's successor, Levi Eshkol received Kennedy's next letter, which upped the pressure, warning
that the American commitment and support of Israel "could be seriously jeopardized."
And then there was RFK as Attorney General demanding Israel lobbyist to be registered as foreign lobbyist
and how it was undone after RFK was forced to resign by LBJ year or so later after JFK assassination.
http://www.israellobby.org/azcdoj/
"Judge Rifkind then made a plea for no registration, stating it was the opinion of most of the persons
affiliated with the Council that such registration would be so publicized by the American Council on
Judaism that it would eventually destroy the Zionist movement he did not believe his clients would file
any papers or sign any papers indicating that the organization was an agent of a foreign principal. I
told him that any such information or material that is supplied on that basis would be made part of the
Department's public files available for inspection by the public "
In DOJ internal memo on 4/30/1964 before replacing RFK as AG with Nicholas Katzenbach the following was
stated: "This is the most blatant stall we have encountered. Do you mind suggesting what we do next because
all of us here would call their records before a grand jury." RFK resigns as AG in September 1964. When
Katzenbach became acting AG and then AG exchanges between Jewish lobby and DOJ continued but no action was
taken by DOJ. Eventually on n 11/27/1967, four years and five days after JFK's death AIPAC applies for a
federal tax exemption. The lobby has won.
The Warren Commission hogwash was almost as ridiculous as the official 911 nonsense, and Mark Lane's 1966
book "Rush to Judgment" helped fuel broad public disbelief in the official story.
Talk about quid pro quo
to the nth degree, as that hideous snake LBJ gave the MIC and its financiers their wars, etc., in exchange
for the Presidency and for keeping his sorry ass out of jail for the Billy Sol Estes and Bobby Baker
scandals. Sure, the Israelis benefitted, and were likely a cog in the conspiratorial wheel, but the CIA,
Secret Service, and various military agents were the movers and shakers, with LBJ their guarantor.
Much of the conspiratorial framework is exposed in David Lifton's absolutely must-read book "Best
Evidence" which clearly shows that the body was altered before autopsy in an attempt to make the physical
evidence conform to the Oswald-as-shooter narrative. The conspirators left a wide trail of evidence that
only the highest-level actors could suppress, as in the 911 crimes.
There were many testimonies that JFK's limousine came to a total halt for many seconds for the final,
murderous headshots
There is another film of the assasination, taken from the distance across the Plaza (maybe, someone can
link it? It must have been in the comment section of some earlier article). That film clearly shows, how the
police motorcycles continue while the limosine falls back and nearly comes to a hold. If the driver had done
his job he would have speeded of at the first second of realizing something was going on. These people are
trained for nothing else but exactly such situations. The driver and several other people around the
president must have been in on the plot to varying degrees.
Comparing that film with the Zapruder film also shows that the Zapruder film was severly tempered with
before release – anyone believes that Oliver Stone and his team as Hollywood professionals who based their
plot on that film didn't realize that?
In Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, he mentions that when LBJ was running against Kennedy for the
Democrat nomination in 1960 he attacked Kennedy for his father's appeasement, saying "I was never a
Chamberlain umbrella man."
Weakness, Johnson had seen in three decades in Washington, was never rewarded. When he said of
Vietnam, "We're not going to have any men with any umbrellas," a pointed reference to the hapless
Chamberlain, the message was clear: America would stand up to Ho Chi Minh and the Vietcong in a way that
Chamberlain had not stood up to Hitler and the Nazi regime.
So it seems perfectly plausible to me that some Texas rightwinger who felt that way might have gone to
the scene displaying an umbrella as a symbol of Munich-style appeasement, though this time towards
Communism.
The whole appeasement thing is bunk.
Chamberlain surely didn't give a damn about appeasing Hitler, except as a manipulative stratagem.
But for Britain, in the late thirties, going to war with Germany would have been insane. Britain had at
most four, and possibly only two, deployable army divisions versus Germany's 40 plus. The threat posed by a
rapidly rearming and aggressive Germany was thus best dealt with by bringing Germany into confrontation with
Russia.
By sacrificing Czechoslovakia to Germany, Chamberlain greatly added to Hitler's military resources, which
were then far smaller than Russia's.
Encouraging Polish obduracy in the matter of Danzig, brought German forces directly to the Russian
frontier. Then it was a matter of waiting for these old adversaries to clash in accordance with the plan von
Ribbentrop had shown Winston Churchill during a visit to England in 1937. (Asked by Ribbentrop what he
thought of the plan for German Eastward expansion, Churchill is said to have replied "We don't like the
Russians, but we don't hate them that much.")
Meantime, the British economy had been placed on a war footing, and was turning out more military
aircraft than Germany.
Once the struggle between Germany and Russia had begun, Britain's only major concerns were to protect her
overseas possession, particularly the ME oil fields, which she did successfully, and to prepare a backstop
with massive American participation (Operation Overlord), on the Western front for the time when a greatly
weakened victor of the Russso-German conflict was in a position to turn West with a view to crushing Britain
and achieving a trans-European empire.
This is the original version. It' s actually 9 plus hours. This is cut to 4hours 33 minutes. Sometime during
the past two years this doc has been cut and revised – and loaded back onto YT with unoriginal content.
I find it hard to explain that this is the same Josiah Thompson who published in 1967 a book titled
Six Seconds in Dallas: a micro-study of the Kennedy assassination proving that three gunmen murdered the
President, for which he studied the Zapruder film and interviewed eyewitnesses in order to come up with a
plausible line of fire, and the conclusion of a conspiracy and government cover-up. What happened to
Josiah in between?
This is a great remark within an already so rich article; it introduces the concept of "Controlled
Conspiracy Theory".
At the time (1967) Josiah Thompson published his book, much courageous research on the JFK cover-up had
been produced, of which the most perilous for the perpetrators was the legal crusade undertaken by
New-Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison.
Thompson's book concluded that the hit men were at the Texas School Book Depository, Dallas County Record
and Grassy Knoll.
Of all possible places, he managed to exonerate the DalTex Building, a building entirely owned and run by
the Dallas Zionist community, in which Zapruder had his offices.
The DalTex Building had the best, shortest and most direct line of fire to JFK's limousine; it was the
principal "sniper nest" of the conspiracy.
The concept of "Controlled Conspiracy Theory" nicely applies to Mr Josiah Thompson.
@refl
The driver of JFK's limousine was William Greer, a Protestant from Ulster who in his youth in Northern
Ireland had been a member of the Orange Order. One of the other two drivers in the presidential detail had
died of an untimely heart attack shortly before Dallas.
Israel, as virtually all American Jews, was horrified by his assassination, which can be seen from Golda
Meir's behavior
Why shouldn't they? I am sure that a significant section of American and Israeli Jews are horrified by the
every day action of the IDF. They were horrified by the assassination of Yitzak Rabin.
It must be horrifying to be tied to maniacal leadership, who will sacrifice you any time in the name of the
fulfillment of their sick plan. So if you are a good Christian or Muslim, Buddhist, Pastafari or whatever,
pray for these poor fellows.
Like any good gumshoe worth his salt, the first question he asks himself after arriving at the crime scene is
Cui bono, who benefits?
In the case of the JFK assassination, there was clearly one very large beneficiary
that stood out above the rest, Israel.
By Nov 1963, JFK had two big strikes against him:
1. In 1963 President Kennedy demanded that Ben-Gurion end Israel's nuclear deterrent program. Kennedy warned
in a letter dated May 18, 1963, that unless American inspectors were allowed into Israel's Dimona facility,
Israel would find itself totally isolated. "We are concerned with the disturbing effects on world stability
which would accompany the development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel It is because of our
preoccupation with this problem that my Government has sought to arrange with you for periodic visits to Dimona."
As it turned out, his following reassurance fell on deaf ears "As I made clear in my press conference of May 8,
we have a deep commitment to the security of Israel."
2. In 1963 President Kennedy demanded that the American Zionist Council register under FARA as a foreign
agent. In a letter dated October 17, 1963 (one month before JFK's assassination), Judge Rifkind (a
representative of the AZC), responded to the Kennedy Administration's demand: " it was the opinion of most of
the persons affiliated with the Council that
such registration
would be so publicized by the American
Council on Judaism that it
would eventually destroy the Zionist movement.
"
Along with the quote by AZC Representative Judge Rifkind, here is the infamous quote by Jack Ruby's (born
Jacob Rubinstein) rabbi, Hillel Silverman:
"I was shocked," said Silverman. "I visited him the next day in jail, and I said, 'Why, Jack, why?' He
said, 'I did it for the American people.'"
I interrupted Silverman, pointing out that other reports had Ruby saying he did it "to show that Jews had
guts." The rabbi sighed.
"Yes, he mentioned that," Silverman said. "But I don't like to mention it. I think he said, 'I did it
for the Jewish people.' But I've tried to wipe that statement from my mind."
@CanSpeccy
"If Israel assassinated JFK, who assassinated RFK and John, Jr.?"
– That Israel did them would be a very
conservative conclusion, don't you think?
Picking Sirhan Sirhan as a Palestinian patsy who was upset with RFK's alleged love for Israel was a master
stroke. JFK Jr. who can't stop himself from beating around the bush of the topics of assassinations like
picking Woody Harrelson (*) for the December 1996 cover of his magazine or then digging into Yitzach Rabin
conspiracy and then rumors that he will run for Senate
Joseph Chagra later testified during Harrelson's trial that Harrelson claimed to have shot Kennedy and drew
maps to show where he was hiding during the assassination. Chagra said that he did not believe Harrelson's
claim, and the AP reported that the FBI "apparently discounted any involvement by Harrelson in the Kennedy
assassination."[25] According to Jim Marrs in 1989's Crossfire, Harrelson is believed to be the youngest and
tallest of the "three tramps" by many conspiracy theorists.[22] Marrs stated that Harrelson was involved "with
criminals connected to intelligence agencies and the military" and suggested that he was connected to Jack Ruby
through Russell Douglas Matthews, a third party with links to organized crime who was known to both Harrelson
and Ruby.[23] Lois Gibson, a well-known forensic artist, matched photographs of Harrelson to the photographs of
the youngest-looking of the three "tramps".
"Mr. Trump has been prevented from releasing the rest of the "top secret" files, in spite of his promise to do
so."
IIRC, it was Trump doing all of the preventing.
This "Israel did it" theory doesn't quite answer the question of how physical evidence was destroyed and
eyewitnesses intimidated by agents of the US government.
This has been discussed in depth here in this case and the 911 case.
The Mossad and the CIA were part of the same "team"–the CIA handled and continues to handle the ongoing
domestic coverup operations as needed (including Mockingbird mass media activities).
Connelly is a _very_ interesting figure, and his background prior to the day of the assassination is not very
well understood.
I was stunned to read that he was a key actor in the Korean War "setup":
Isn't it significant that the patsy set up to take the blame for the RFK assassination was a Palestinian?
If the CIA did it, they would naturally have arranged to put the blame elsewhere. Is that not why Sirhan
Sirhan remains incarcerated to this day. Given freedom, the fall guy might give the CIA a headache.
Remember, Kennedy had just buggered up the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and was threatening to pull
out of the CIA's war in Vietnam. With
a nod from LBJ
the CIA could kill Kennedy and be sure of top-down cover from the moment Kennedy's heart
stopped beating, cover which, according to the doctors who attended on Kennedy at Parklands Hospital, was
promptly given.
Then there's the deathbed confession of CIA agent E. Howard Hunt, which provides a tenuous connection with
Richard Nixon, who hired Hunt and Frank Sturgis (both believed to have been among the tramps arrested in Dealey
Plaza in the immediate aftermath of the assassination) to. among other things, burglarize the Democratic Party
headquarters at the Watergate Building in Washington, DC.
That's Mary Pinchot Meyer.
Wife of Cord Meyer, of the CIA.
Sister-in-law of Ben Bradlee.
Lover of JFK, to whom he confided his vision for major peaceful change in the US of A and the world.
Kissinger made himself quit clear more than once about Jewish influence in US policy.
Kissinger was more German than Jew he had the typical 'Germanic manner ' .
German Jews in general were more assimilated than the less educated and more tribal Jews of Poland, Hungary,
etc.. If you look up the origins of the Fifth Column Jews in the Us most of them came thru Poland , where
militant Zionism had a stronghold way before WWII.
Kissinger .
""If it were not for the accident of my birth, I would be anti-Semitic," he once quipped, and "any people
who has been persecuted for two thousand years must be doing something wrong."
Another time, he told a friend, "I was born Jewish, but the truth is that has no significance for me. America
has given me everything."
On Israel .
"On the other hand, we can not make our policy hostage to the Israelis, because our interests, while
parallel in respect to that I have outlined, are not identical in overall terms. From an Israeli point of view,
it is no disaster to have the whole Arab world radicalized and anti-American, because this guarantees our
continued support. From an American point of view this is a disaster."
Jewish disloyalty
Kissinger also went as far as
accusing American Jews of behaving traitorously
for supporting the
Jackson-Vanik Amendment that ruined his and Nixon's effort on a détente agreement with Russia.
@Skeptikal
Yes, Skeptical, and 'thanks" for the reiteration as to who and what was the murdered Mary Pinchot Meyer.
I trust Laurent Guyenot knows about Mary's intense love affair with President JFK,
and after his barbaric & election overturning murder, how she knew about CIA's Counterintelligence & Israel
friendly, James Jesus Angleton's, passion
for
Jack's last nightmatish ride on Elm Street.
P.S.: Mary's remains rest in her great-grandfather, Gifford Pinchot's, Milford, Pa-based estate, which I
have visited. Fyi, it's a tourist spot now where her historical relationship with President JFK is unspoken.
What if it were raining and there were numerous people with umbrellas?
P
recisely.
Despite all the special pleading going on here by people who've read too many men's adventure novels, or
watched too many episodes of "Charlie's Angels," this Rube Goldbergian umbrella signalling scheme would never
get off the ground. It is a unnecessary complication with built-in failure modes.
The go-ahead for the operation was likely given the night before. The die was cast. There was no turning
back, and why would they?
If it had kept raining in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, would it have changed history? Several books and
articles have pondered this question. President John F Kennedy greeted a crowd on a misty morning rain in
Fort Worth at 8:45 a.m. central standard time. The weather in Dallas had been rainy, but the sun came out
before the president's plane had landed.
@Pheasant
The donation could have been sincere, or it could have been a gesture to make them seem concerned patriots, or
it could have been money laundering a payoff to certain members of the Dallas PD for their silence in the
operation. Who knows? I never take any Jewish action at face value.
@Stonehands
Right. I only bought the official story at the time and for a few years after, as a very young kid, but the
idea of Oswald as nothing but a patsy never appealed to me.
@Duke84
I try to avoid the self-certainty that seems to be a bias in the reasoning behind the LHO didn't do it because
he couldn't crowd. On paper the odds against him succeeding increased with every miss and chance for the agents
and cops to fire at him and/or the limo driver to swerve and accelerate. An important point is the chance for
him to get away would decline precipitously too. By my way of thinking the most important factor would have
been single mindedness. He would have had to have been committed to succeed irrespective of the consequences.
We don't know Oswald had no help of encouragement, he may have been talking to Cubans and Soviets about his
intentions and they maybe just listened which he may have interpreted them as having approved. The fact he was
talking to the Cubans and KGB was considered worth keeping secret for several decades, and there is supposed to
be more along the same lines that has still not been declassified.
Even with a miss or two, hitting a moving head from 265 feet would have been workmanlike marksmanship. In
the circumstances that he might have been spotted and shot at any second it was nicely done, but it might have
been a fluke. On the other hand the limo was following a straight track, the driver seems to have brought it to
a near halt before the head shot, and Kennedy was quite exposed. It would depend on the determination of the
shooter not just his skill, but the circumstances and enormity of killing a president are so unique, plus
getting out the area would be so uncertain that it would require someone of formidable resolution.
My feeling is a professional would not even try, and he would understand he'd know too much afterwards
anyway. A loner would not have that problem. Oswald fits the profile better than any CIA agent I think. For the
shooting, you cannot exclude that he may have just got lucky. Whoever did it, they were risking a lot so it
would have to be tremendously meaningful to them.
Oswald seemed such a insignificant person to kill the great man that contingency was ruled out. I think
Oswald the CIA agent who agreed to go to Russia on a fake defector mission for the agency with no way of
knowing what would happen to him, would have been an insanely extreme patriot. Such an Oswald might be willing
to do anything he was ordered to I suppose. The trouble is Oswald seems to have been anti establishment right
back into his teens. He was an immature 17 year old when he joined the Marines, and though he toughened up
considerably they evidence of him ever being an anti communist fanatic is just lacking.
Here is a 60 year old man at 230 yards with a .45 pistol.
@Ted Heath
Once again, let's try to put the "Kennedy wanted to end the FED" myth to bed.
President Kennedy was not assassinated for being anti-Fed. I don't know how much more clearly that can be
said. His death on November 22nd, 1963 was a sad tragedy, but it had nothing to do with any stupid and
baseless Executive Order silver certificate conspiracy.
The claim is not borne out by the facts. First, E.O. 11110 had nothing to do with United States Notes,
and did not affect any section of law referring to them. Second, E.O. 11110 did not anywhere mention any
quantity of money; wherever the $4 billion-plus figure came from, it was not E.O. 11110. Third, The
President had no authority to issue such an edict. Even utilizing the provisions of the Agricultural
Adjustment Act of 1933, the most the President could issue without statutory authorization was $3 billion.
What E.O. 11110 did was to modify previous Executive Order 10289, delegating to the Secretary of the
Treasury various powers of the President. To these delegated powers, E.O. 11110 added the power to alter the
supply of Silver Certificates in circulation. Executive Order 11110, therefore, did not create any new
authority for the Treasury to issue notes; it only affected who could give the order, the Secretary or the
President.
Be sure and dive into all of the data supporting link's located at the bottom of this web page.
November 23,
2019 JFK, MLK, RFK, 50 Years of Suppressed History: New Evidence on Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Martin
Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. Failures to Confront the Unspeakable, and The Way Ahead. Part I
Today November 22, 2019, we commemorate the passing of JFK. November 22, 1963, the assassination of JFK in
Dallas, Texas. Fifty-six years ago. January 21, 2019. Martin Luther King Day
What is even more unbelievable and strikingly odd is "Umbrella Man" and "Dark Complected Man" sat next to
each other, on the curb, seconds after the shooting, while everybody else is taking shelter from the shooter
at the Grassy Knoll.
Questions concerning 3rd photo from the top: Why are the two camera men in this photo filming the couple on
the ground, who themselves are looking directly at the camera men? Why is no one ducking and running for cover,
for as many as 8 shots were supposedly just fired? Why is Abraham Zapruder missing from his lofty post, which
he was said to be filming from at that precise moment?
JFK "signed" his death warrant as soon as he selected LBJ as his running mate . LBJ was ruthless and likely
murdered his way to his leadership role in Congress . Johnson was determined to become President and it is
reported that his fixer , Bobby Baker , at Kennedy's inauguration turned to an associate and stated that
Kennedy would never complete his term of office .
LBJ was determined to have Earl Warren (33rd degree Freemason )lead the commission to investigate Kennedy's
assassination .
Warren refused LBJ 's requests several times and finally agreed to do so . LBJ recounted to his mentor Senator
Richard Russell how he summoned Warren to the Oval Office and informed him of " what Hoover had told him about
a little incident in Mexico City " whereupon Warren began to cry and told LBJ " I won't turn you down , I'll
just do whatever you say ." Excerpted from History Matters Archive -LBJ-Russell .
@Germanicus
You are making my point. Taking away the presumption of innocence has resulted in the holocaust narrative and
many other crimes against individuals and civilized societies.
If you read Laurent's book "Yahweh to Zion" you'll see he's under no illusions about whether he's real or
not. It's likely the most thorough dissection of the sect you'll ever come across.
Indeed. Laurent Guyenot is an outstanding intellectual. It is a immense privilege to read his works, and the UR is doing an equally great favour to its readers by
publishing him. Thanks to all, including the commentators, for the fascinating discussion.
JFK died mysteriously after being hit by four bullets, one in rear cranium, rear shoulder, front throat and
fragmentary bullet to right front temple. Connelly was hit by a zigzag magic bullet, three bystanders were hit
by Elm Street curb bullet splatter and the limousine front windshield were all hit by a lone gunman. LHO, MLK &
RFK were also killed by lone gunmen, and if you do not believe that you will be persecuted.
I thought it had been rather well established that a sharpshooter had been brought in from the
French/Corsican mob.
Lucien Sarti's involvement is possible, but is a red herring. He might have been approached and brought to Dallas to add to the confusion, as the Kennedy assassination
was a sophisticated "smoke and mirrors" operation, with many deliberate false leads.
The people who shot President Kenned were hired guns, members of the Chicago mob: Charles "Chuck" Nicoletti,
Marshall Caifano, Johnny Roselli and James Sutton Files.
President Kennedy was shot at the head twice, almost instantaneously, first by Charles Nicoletti firing from
the Dal-Tex Building, then by James Files taking a shot from the Grassy Knoll.
James Files used a very powerful round, a frangible bullet.
This is why, on the Z film, the President's head is shown first slightly projected forward, then very
powerfully projected backwards and to the left, when the more powerful bullet hit his right temple.
Thanks for the link to the remarkable History Channel JFK documentary.
For the so called 'progressive'
Anglosphere establishment, in both it's 'right' and 'left' manifestations, the 'Chamberlain umbrella' is most
certainly a hated symbol of weakness, appeasement, and ultimate failure. Whether it's prominent presence at
Dealey Plaza that day was a deliberately placed symbolic 'pièce de résistance' to top off a carefully
choreographed assassination or just a quirk of history is something we may never know.
As for Abraham Zapruder, his family, and their profiting from the famous film he took, there are aspects of
it that are remindful of Larry Silverstein and his profiting from 911 and the destruction of the Twin
Towers/Building 7.
In addition to Zapruder's making about a million dollars in today's money by selling rights to it in the
days following the assassination to Life magazine (the head of which, Charles Douglas Jackson, had extensive
experience in psy-ops work for the US government), the Zapruder family in 1999 would win 16 million dollars in
arbitration with the United States over it's ownership, the government having seized ownership of the film from
them. Time Life had sold the film back to the Zapruders years before for $1.
Arbitration had been decided upon to determine the value of the Zapruder film with the film being compared
to Leonardo da Vinci's Codex.
One of the three arbitrators was Kenneth Feinberg, who besides being US senator Ted Kennedy's chief of staff
for five years, was also the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
In addition Feinberg headed up the 7 billion dollar 911 victims compensation fund.
Ironically, July 16, 1999, the day the arbitration panel made it's decision that the US government pay 16
million to the Zapruder family for the JFK assassination film, would also be the very day John F Kennedy Jr
would die in a plane crash:
Zapruder Film Nets $16 Million
The other expert compared the six-foot strip of film, climaxed by the horrific head shot that killed the
president, to the Codex of Leonardo da Vinci, for which billionaire Bill Gates recently paid $30 million.
Adams and Feinberg said that "25 years ago, few if any, could predict the value of the Zapruder film as a
unique historical item of unprecedented worth." They also noted that "items associated with President Kennedy
and his family have been increasing in value."..
..The arbitration panel actually made its decision on July 16, the same day John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a
plane crash, but delayed the announcement in the wake of the tragedy.
@Ron Unz
That's a possibility, of course. In my mind, it is a matter of probabilities. And I find it very improbable
that this guy just happened to do his little protest at this precise spot and seconds. But alos, reading his
testimony to the HSCA, he doesn't mention Kennedy being soft on communism at all. Excerp:
Mr. GENZMAN. Could you elaborate further as to the type of symbol you thought you were applying?
Mr. WITT. I just knew it was a sore spot with the Kennedys; I just knew the vague generalities of it. It had
something to do with something that happened years ago with the senior Joe Kennedy when he was Ambassador to
England.
In fact, when asked if his gesture had anything to do with the Kennedys being soft on communism, he denied:
Mr. Fauntroy. I wonder if you would care to tell us a little more about your understanding of the
significance of the umbrella, and why you felt that it would heckle the president to raise the umbrella?
Mr. WITT. I know the generalities of the thing. It had something to do with the–when the senior Mr. Kennedy
was Ambassador or England, and the Prime Minister, some activity they had had in appeasing Hitler. The
umbrella that the Prime Minister of England came back with got to be a symbol in some manner with the
British people. by association, it got transferred to the Kennedy family, and, as I understood, it was a
sore spot with the Kennedy family, like I said, in coffee break conversations someone had mentioned, I think
it is one of the towns in Arizona, it is Tucson or Phoenix, that someone had been out at the airport or some
place where some members of the Kennedy family came through and they were rather irritated by the fact that
they were brandishing the umbrellas. This is how the idea sort of got stuck in my mind.
Mr. FAUNTROY. Is it true that what you felt was that Mr. Kennedy would be sensitive because of the
appeasement image of the umbrella as related to his father?
Mr. WITT. Not the appeasement thing. It was just–excuse me–I just understood that it was sort of a sore
spot, with them and this was just one thing. I personally never thought too much of liberal politics in
general. In this case the Kennedy family just happened to be in office.
Mr. FAUNTROY. I see. And it had no relationship in your own thinking between Mr. Kennedy's posture with;
say, the Russians?
@Laurent Guyenot
Yes, Laurent, and I can confess to busting your balls," * and indeed, Mary Pinchot Meyer's is "a really moving
story. I once called her JFK's Mary Madgalene."
Nonetheless, for the rather affectionate part of Mary
Magdalene's legacy, she got stoned by crazy & self righteous Jews.
In contrast, the bright & adulterous peacenik, Mary Pinchot Meyer, got murdered on a Georgetown canal trail,
and to date, her's is an Unsolved Case Mystery,
which never appeared on the popular American TV series.
* A lyric from Pink Floyd's song, "Mother."
Thanks for another terrific learning experience, Laurent, and fyi, am saddened how Ron Unz rained acid upon
the fascinating "Umbrella Man."
This author blames the CIA for
obstruction suppression and distortion of the facts findings and accuses it of misrepresentation with powerful
people on board like supreme court justice . Also mentions the suspicions of conspiracy raised by LBG ( out of
all people !) de Gaulle , Robert Kennedy and Fidel Castro.
All of them are dead So is Soviet and most of Cuban dissidents are possibly dead as well
So what is preventing the investigation at the manner the previous investigation was carried out with open
visible fatal flaws and biases .
@Truth3
I believe that the presidential motorcade's route was changed at the last minute, ostensibly to bypass the huge
crowds lined up to see JFK, and hurry him off to the Dallas Trade Mart for his speech. This meant bypassing the
TV cameras, so none would be able to film the assassination in live time (just a cohenincidence, I am sure),
but if this is so, it begs the question of why Zapruder and the Babushka Lady were there with their home movie
cameras to capture what the TV networks would miss.
Lover of JFK, to whom he confided his vision for major peaceful change in the US of A and the world.
I really think the vast JFK hagiography that occupies the minds of many JFK conspiracy people, including
some of the most respectable ones, hardly enhances their credibility. Lots of them seem to believe that JFK was
about to establish world peace and was killed by the CIA for that reason. Frankly, I find the whole framework
totally ludicrous.
For example, Seymour Hersh's book on JFK certainly provides lots of very negative details of his activities.
But JFK conspiracy people always discount Hersh, claiming that he's a JFK hater.
Okay, but what about Michael Collins Piper, whose JFK assassination book has certainly been one of the most
important. He provides some reasonable evidence that JFK had been planning to launch an unprovoked "sneak
attack" against China just before he died:
Offhand, it seems to be that an early 1960s American attack against China would have probably had far worse
and more significant long-term geopolitical consequences than e.g. Bush's attack against Iraq or a possible
Trump attack against Iran.
`Ironically, July 16, 1999, the day the arbitration panel made it's decision that the US government pay
16 million to the Zapruder family for the JFK assassination film, would also be the very day John F Kennedy
Jr would die in a plane crash.
Thanks, very interesting comment.
Just a quibble: JFK Jr did not die in a plane crash; he most probably got killed when his plane was shot
down (by a missile?).
At the time of his death, JFK Jr had acquired a piece of hard evidence that would have allowed him to
re-open the investigation into his father's assassination.
This piece of evidence was a Cartier wristwatch that the President was wearing when he was shot. It got
covered in brain matter and mercury from the frangible bullet that hit JFK.
It was kept for a while by RFK, and finally ended up in John John's possession, accompanied with sworn
affidavits proving its chain of possession.
Indeed, the fact that he voluntarily came forward 15 years later and revealed his identity would
certainly seem to suggest the contrary. Why would he do that if he had been part of the conspiracy?
I think that you misunderstand the nature and purpose of the successive official reviews of JFK
assassination records (ARRB, etc..).
These official reviews were not meant at finding the truth, but at finding the evidence that could lead to
the truth and then destroy it to perpetuate the cover-up.
Many honest researchers involved in these reviews have quit in disgust; the fact is well documented and
should be a conscience call. Best.
In politics, one must not play around. John F. Kennedy understood that 1960 was his time. He had to win
then, or lose forever. As a loser, he would have had much less of a chance to become President in 1964, or
1968.
I highly recommend a reading of his "Profiles in Courage" – a great series of essays, with a message for all
Americans.
Kennedy, a brilliant scholar, and Man of action, had on his agenda important things that had to be done, (or
at least begun), in 1960.
JFK as President:
1. 1st President to insist on Legal Equality of all Americans. (Who was his Atty Gen?)?
2. Unravel French & British Empires (arrange independence for 40 African Nations- including South Africa).
3. De Nuclearize the Zionist Land Thieves.
4. Maintain the Sovereignty of the USA.
5. Ensure Prosperity – Employment, stop Inflation, for American workers.
6. Prevent outbreak of Nuclear Conflict with USSR.
7. You continue this list.
Kennedy could not wait, and, therefore, had to choose L B Johnson as his Vice Presidential running mate
(even though he was well warned of the risks involved – including the danger to his life, as it would place a
Zionist Mafioso only a heartbeat from the Presidency).
Kennedy was on a Mission to save the Republic (our American Republic), which had been weakened and was in
great danger. His brother Robert, was with JFK, all the way. They were idealists, and wanted to save the world.
*Yes, Ron Unz, not one of your other writers have made these points. I am available to flesh these points
out – no charge.
We Americans lost everything on November 22, 1963. We have not yet begun to fight back!
@bluedog
Humility means one does not have to choose this truth or that. Anything is possible. There were once very many
people who thought a conspiracy likely. In the last 50 years, there has been a shift away from thinking a
conspiracy was behind the assassination. While this is only the balance of opinion, it should still carry some
weight against 'who benefits' arguments .
This meant bypassing the TV cameras, so none would be able to film the assassination in live time (just a
coincidence, I am sure).
It is very interesting that you bring this topic.
It is a documented fact that during all past official visits, President Kennedy's motorcade comprised a
open-top lorry, driving ahead of the Presidents' limousine, and carrying journalists sat backward on graded
tiers, who would film the President and the crowd cheering on him.
At Dallas, the journalists' truck got cancelled, and the way paved for the sole Abraham Zapruder to document
the circumstances of the JFK assassination. Just another complete coincidence, obviously.
This article was first published on November 21, 2013.
Today November 22, 2019 is the 56th anniversary of the assassination of JFK
Why was he assassinated?
He favored peace over war.
The normalization of relations with the Soviet Union.
... ... ...
To briefly review, the facts are conclusive that JFK was on terrible terms with the CIA and
the Joint Chiefs. He had refused to support the CIA organized Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. He
had rejected the Joint Chiefs' "Operation Northwoods," a plan to commit real and faked acts of
violence against Americans, blame Castro and use the false flag events to bring regime change
to Cuba. He had rejected the Joint Chiefs case that the Soviet Union should be attacked while
the US held the advantage and before the Soviets could develop delivery systems for nuclear
weapons. He had indicated that after his reelection he was going to pull US troops out of
Vietnam and that he was going to break the CIA into a thousand pieces. He had aroused suspicion
by working behind the scenes with Khrushchev to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis, leading to
claims that he was "soft on communism." The CIA and Joint Chiefs' belief that JFK was an
unreliable ally in the war against communism spread into the Secret Service.
It has been established that the original autopsy of JFK's fatal head wound was discarded
and a faked one substituted in order to support the official story that Oswald shot JFK from
behind. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and President Johnson knew that Oswald was the CIA's
patsy, but they also understood, as did members of the Warren Commission, that to let the true
story out would cause Americans to lose confidence in their own government at the height of the
Cold War.
Robert Kennedy knew what had happened. He was on his way to being elected president and to
holding the plotters accountable for the murder of his brother when the CIA assassinated him. A
distinguished journalist, who was standing behind Robert Kennedy at the time of his
assassination, told me that the killing shots came from behind past his ear. He submitted his
report to the FBI and was never contacted.
Acoustic experts have conclusively demonstrated that more shots were fired than can be
accounted for by Sirhan Sirhan's pistol and that the sounds indicate two different calibers of
firearms.
I never cease to be amazed by the gullibility of Americans, who know nothing about either
event, but who confidently dismiss the factual evidence provided by experts and historians on
the basis of their naive belief that "the government wouldn't lie about such important events"
or "someone would have talked." What good would it do if someone talked when the gullible won't
believe hard evidence?
True to Kissingerian form, the story turns out to be not exactly true. Zhou was actually
responding to a question about France's political convulsions in 1968, not 1789.
But Kissinger's spin on the anecdote struck me as perceptive.
The meaning of a great historical event might take a long time–a very long
time–to become apparent. I didn't want to jump to conclusions about the causes of JFK's
murder in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963.
It's still too early to tell. Fifty six years after the fact, historians and JFK researchers
do not have access to all of the CIA's files on the subject The 1964 Warren Commission report
exonerated the agency with its conclusion that Kennedy was killed by one man alone. But the
agency was subsequently the subject of five official JFK investigations, which cast doubt on
its findings.
The Senate's Church Committee investigation showed that the Warren Commission knew nothing
of CIA assassination operations in 1963. JFK records released in the last 20 years show the
Commission's attorneys had no real understanding the extensive counterintelligence monitoring
of Lee Harvey Oswald before JFK was killed. We now know that senior operations officers,
including counterintelligence chief James Angleton, paid far closer attention to the obscure
Oswald as he made his way to Dallas than the investigators were ever told.
To be sure, there is no proof of CIA complicity in JFK's death. And conspiracy theories
spouted by the likes of the Alex Jones and James Fetzer deserve no attention. The fact remains
some of the most astute power players of 1963–including Lyndon
Johnson , Charles DeGaulle,
Fidel Castro , and Jackie and Robert Kennedy–concluded that JFK was killed by his
enemies, and not by one man alone. Did these statesmen get it wrong, and the under-informed
Warren Commission get it right?
The new documentary,
Truth is the Only Client, says yes. The film, shown last month in the auditorium of the
U.S. Capitol, features interviews with numerous former Warren Commission staffers. Supreme
Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who served as a fact checker for the Commission in 1964, defends
the lone gunman conclusion, saying, "You have to look at the new evidence and when you do, I
come to the same conclusion."
Justice Breyer, oddly, passes judgment on evidence he has not seen. The record of the CIA's
role in the events leading JFK's assassination is far from complete. In 2013 I reported on JFK
Facts that Delores Nelson CIA's information coordinator had stated in a sworn affidavit filed
in federal court, that the agency retained 1,100
assassination-related records that had never been made public.
A small portion of this material was released in 2017, including new details about the
opening of the CIA's first Oswald file in October 1959.
Yet thousands of JFK files remain secret. According to the latest figures from the National
Archives, a total of 15,834 JFK files remain fully or
partially classified, most of them held by the CIA and FBI. Thanks to an
October 2017 order from President Trump, these documents will not be made public until
October 2021 , at the earliest.
The assumption of Justice Breyer and many others is that any and all unseen CIA material
must exonerate the agency. It's an odd conclusion. If the CIA has nothing to hide, why is it
hiding so much? While 95 percent of the still-secret files probably are trivial, the remaining
5 percent -- thousands of pages of material–are historically pregnant. If made public,
they could clarify key questions in the long-running controversy about JFK's death.
These questions have been raised most concisely by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a career CIA officer
who served in senior positions. Now a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center, Mowatt-Larssen
has implicated his former employer in the Dallas ambush. In a
presentation at Harvard last December, Mowatt-Larssen hypothesized that a plot to kill JFK
emanated from the CIA's station in Miami where disgruntled Cuban exiles and undercover officers
loathed JFK for his failure to overthrow Castro's government in Cuba.
Mowatt-Larssen has yet to publish his presentation and documentation, so I can't say if he's
right or wrong. But he asks the right question: "How can intelligence operational and
analytical modus operandi help unlock a conspiracy that has remained unsolved for 55 years?"
And he focuses on the right place to dig deeper: the CIA's Miami office, known as WAVE
station.
My own JFK questions involve George Joannides, a decorated undercover officer who served as
branch chief in the Miami station in 1963. He ran psychological warfare operations against
Cuba. In 2003, I sued the CIA for Joannides' files. The lawsuit ended 15 years later in July
2018, when Judge Brett Kavanaugh, in his last
opinion before ascending to the Supreme Court, tossed my case. Kavanaugh declared the
agency deserved "deference upon deference" in its handling of Freedom of Information Act
requests about JFK files.
Nonetheless, my lawsuit illuminated the extraordinary sensitivity of the psy-ops Joannides
ran out of WAVE station. As reported in the New York Times, Fox News, Associated
Press, and Politico
, Morley v. CIA forced disclosure of the fact Joannides had received the CIA's Career
Intelligence Medal in 1981. The honor came two years after he stonewalled the House Select
Committee on Assassination about what he knew of Oswald's contacts with pro-and anti-Castro
Cubans in the summer and fall of 1963.
I believe Joannides was honored because he concealed the existence of an authorized covert
operation involving Oswald that has never been publicly acknowledged. In CIA lingo, Joannides
protected the agency's "sources and methods" concerning Oswald. And he might have done more.
His actions may have also shielded other officers who knew of a scheme to kill the liberal
president and lay the blame on Cuba. Never been seen by JFK investigators, they contain details
about his Joannides' undercover work in Miami in 1963, when he funded Oswald's antagonists
among the anti-Castro Cuban exiles. They also detail his work in 1978, when he duped
chief investigator Robert Blakey and the House Select Committee on Assassination. These
records, the agency says, cannot be released in 2019 without risk of "irreversible harm" to
national security.
It's a bizarre claim, at odds with the law. These ancient documents, all of them more than
40 years old, meet the statutory definition of "assassination-related," according to federal
judge John Tunheim. He chaired the Assassination Records Review Board which oversaw the
declassification of 4 million pages of JFK files between 1994 and 2017. In an interview,
Tunheim told me that, under the terms of the 1992 JFK Records Act, the Joannides files are
subject to mandatory review and release. "It's a no-brainer," he said.
Yet the files remain off-limits to the public. Thanks to the legal consensus, articulated by
Justices Kavanaugh and Breyer, the CIA enjoys "deference upon deference" when it comes to the
JFK assassination story. As a result, the JFK Records Act has been flouted. The public's
interest in full disclosure has been thwarted.
Yet legitimate questions persist: Did a plot to kill JFK originate in the agency's Miami
station as Mowatt-Larssen suggests? The fact that the CIA won't share the evidence that could
answer the CIA man's question is telling.
So these days, when people ask me who killed JFK, I say the Kennedy was probably victimized
by enemies in his own government, possibly including CIA officers involved in anti-Castro and
counterintelligence operations. I have no smoking gun, no theory. Just look at the suspicious
fact pattern, still shrouded in official secrecy, and it's easy to believe that JFK was, as
Mowatt-Larssen puts it, "marked for assassination."
56 years later, thousands of CIA documents still withheld. None of the principals/agents/
players in the assassination are alive. So the excuse that documents are withheld to protect
individuals no longer holds water. The documents are being withheld to protect the agency
itself (and other organizations) from revealing the roles they played in overthrowing an
elected President of the US.
To be sure, there is no proof of CIA complicity in JFK's death . . . er, not quite see
Russ Baker, Parrott Memo:
[DATE: November 22, 1963]
At 1:45 p.m. Mr. GEORGE H.W. BUSH, President of the Zapata Off-shore Drilling Company,
Houston, Texas, residence 5525 Briar, Houston, telephonically furnished the following
information to writer by long distance telephone call from Tyler, Texas.
BUSH stated that he wanted to be kept confidential but wanted to furnish hearsay that he
recalled hearing in recent weeks, the day and source unknown. He stated that one JAMES
PARROTT has been talking of killing the president when he comes to Houston.
BUSH stated that PARROTT is possibly a student at the University of Houston and is active
in political matters in this area. He stated that he felt MRS FAWLEY, telephone number SU
2-5239, or ARLENE SMITH, telephone number JA 9-9194 of the Harris County Republican
Headquarters would be able to furnish additional information regarding the identity of
PARROTT.
BUSH stated that he was proceeding to Dallas, Texas, would remain in the Sheraton-Dallas
Hotel and return to his residence on 11-23-63. His office telephone Number is CA 2-0395.
According to Nixon, "Jack Rubenstein is LBJ's boy" and although Nixon damn sure wanted to
be President, he "wasn't willing to kill for it."
But LBJ was.
And when a reasonable person wonders why LBJ would twice call back the jets as the Liberty
was being destroyed, it's not difficult to see why. Israel knows the blackmail game well.
With all the explainations out there, I'll put my money on Nixon.
Ordinary people don't want to believe the worst about their leaders, even a slime-bucket
like LBJ, but Larry didn't really have a dentist appointment on 9-11, and 3000 people were
murdered with the consent of some of our dearest leaders.
The facade that the elite hide behind can't fall fast enough, but it's definately falling.
You can only be so naive.
LBJ was actually kind of a "patsy", too, being used by the REAL power brokers... Recall
that he DUCKED down in his limo just before the shots rang out because, while he was let in
on the plot, he really wasn't sure that "they" might not want to take him out too!.... Tragic
as it all was (& still is), it's quite a fascinating story...
Definitely fascinating, and whatever the details, he was certainly in on it. Everything he
did in Dallas indicated that. Cruel guy. Hillary-like, for lack of a better term.
Well Mr Kennedy made his Fortune bootlegging thru Prohibition and that relates Mob ties
!
Shipping Seagrams across the Great Lakes from Canada by Swift Boats that then was
hotshotted across the nation combined with moonshiners that later becoming NASCAR Racers
!
You may be correct, I just think to a lesser extent, Joseph P Kennedy Sr. did tell JFK how
many Votes do you want to Win Election by !
Release of the documents wouldn't pose any threat to the average American. When they claim
National security, they actually mean Deep/Dark state shadow government security. Revealing
the actions of an invisible and very powerful global force operating inside the US government
is their fear.
The Kill shot came from man inside storm drain that Assassin stood inside with Kennedy's
driver car slowdown ( edited out of Car slowdown ) Forcing President John Kennedy 's head
back and to the Left blowing much of his Skull off !
"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people
inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret
proceedings...
Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing
around the globe...no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting
a finding of "clear and present danger," then I can only say that the danger has never been
more clear and its presence has never been more imminent...
For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies
primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration
instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free
choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day.
It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building
of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic,
intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are
concealed, not published.
Its mistakes are buried, not headlined.
Its dissenters are silenced, not praised.
No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed."
Change playback time to 0.25X. Watch the guy with wide girth standing on the curb to the
left of the car, watch his right arm rise up, pull back, fall down to his right side and toss
a black shiny object to the ground. This is Jack Ruby, The owner and operator of a titty bar.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ruby4.htm
"liberal president"--NOT! In Chris Matthews book, Kennedy and Nixon, it paints a picture
of DNC Dem candidates at each others' throats in the DNC smoke filled room. LBJ, Humphrey,
JFK, the Usual Suspects were in front of the committee. JFK horrified all of the prospective
nominees. He stated,"If I don't get the nomination, my old man is going to back NIXON!" There
you have it: was it Oswald or was it LBJ? You choose which it was: Lone Wolf or the VP who
wanted to be POTUS. The "liberal president" was actually quite close to Nixon until 1960.
As the deep state relentlessly tries to take Trump down, maybe he should go scorched earth
and declassify the files implicating the CIA. Can a former President go into witness
protection? Ha.
I want to remind you of Bill Barr's speech to the Federalist Society a week ago. He made a
specific point about the plot to sabotage
Donald Trump's Presidency :
Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called "The
Resistance," and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver
available to sabotage the functioning of his Administration. Now, "resistance" is the language
used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously
connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous – indeed
incendiary – notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means
is that, instead of viewing themselves as the "loyal opposition," as opposing parties have done
in the past, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means
necessary, a duly elected government.
I believe that Bill Barr intentionally signaled that the sedition by the intelligence
community, the FBI and the Department of Justice will not be allowed to slide. But he is going
to do everything to punish them according to the law. He is committed to a rule of law and
enforcing the laws of this country.
In the late 1990s, Durham was tapped by Bill Clinton's justice department to investigate
Boston police and FBI agents' connections with infamous gangster James "Whitey" Bulger. That
investigation ultimately identified corrupt law enforcement officials who had given the killer
information he then used to kill informants and eventually became a part of the case that led
to Bulger's conviction.
Durham's investigation implicated Robert Mueller. According to knowledgeable sources, the
Clinton Justice Department would not allow Durham to
bring charges against Mueller :
In the 1980's, while Mr. Connolly was working with Whitey Bulger, Mr. Mueller was assistant
United States attorney in Boston in charge of the criminal division and for a period was the
acting United States attorney here, presiding over Mr. Connolly and Mr. Bulger as a
''top-echelon informant.'' Officials of the Massachusetts state police and the Boston Police
Department had long wondered why their investigations of Mr. Bulger were always compromised
before they could gather evidence against him, and they suspected that the F.B.I. was
protecting him.
Law enforcement officials also have said they wondered why the United States attorney's
office seemed to give Mr. Bulger impunity. But hearings by United States District Judge Mark
Wolf in 1998 found that Mr. Connolly had not told his bosses in the United States attorney's
office about his work with Mr. Bulger. In general, Judge Wolf found what he described as a
culture of secrecy in the F.B.I.'s handling of its informants that sometimes subverted the
purpose of the program.
I do not believe that Bill Barr is going to prevent John Durham from following the evidence
and charging those culpable with crimes. I suspect that this fact is weighing heavily on Jim
Comey, Andrew McCabe, John Brennab, Jim Clapper and others in the FBI, DOJ and intelligence
community. We will know more in a month.
The most important outcome is transparency, where the public gets to see the breadth &
depth of the activities including the collusion with the media to shape the narrative and the
use of Congressional committees to further the narrative.
The public needs to be able to read about the entire plot and all the sub-plots and the
cast of characters with the roles each played.
We need this to be able to comprehend the extent of violence to the rule of law by those
entrusted with enforcement of the law and the operation of the nations' intelligence
agencies.
We can judge when Durham is done if Barr's speech to the Federalist Society was just
rhetorical or if he really meant it.
Yes. Agree. Informing the public about the true scale of the operation would be very helpful.
That's the acid question: What will Barr deliver?
Of course if he does that the propaganda organs will unleash their vitriol on him and
claim he is Trump's bag carrier. It's not gonna change the minds of any NeverTrumper. It's
value will be a record for posterity.
It is worth pondering, what about Trump has got so many of the elites so riled up? After
all he is one of them. Bill & Hillary attended his wedding to Melania. He has been
photographed at parties with Epstein and moved in celebrity social circles. He's been more
zionist than others before him and he's fed the MIC handsomely. He's not reformed the
surveillance state one iota. It remains at least as secretive and powerful as before. He's
allowed multinational US corporations to repatriate overseas profits to buyback stock that
financially rewards the managerial class. He's done nothing that attacks elite interests. Is
it just that he beat them at their own game and their egos are bruised? In his first run for
public office he wins the biggest prize by defeating the Bush dynasty and Senators and
Governors long in Republican Party leadership and then the Most sure thing, the so entitled
Clinton machine.
You see similar smear operations on Tulsi too. At least with her one can argue that she
has never been a club member.
"what about Trump has got so many of the elites so riled up?"
I don't think it's that hard to figure out: he's too orange, he's too much of an outsider,
he broke Hillary's dream.
But the real crime was saying that the US should try to get along with Russia.
If he had never said the word "Russia" or "Putin" they'd still hate him but we'd be on the
level of psychiatrists speculating that Twitter makes you crazy or something. And it would
the the dims and their tame presstitutes saying that without the (powerful) back up of the
deepstate/borg/blob
You can't run much of an impeachment circus on POTUS's choice of hair product, but Russia
Russia Russia, that keeps going. He colluded with Putin; OK we can't prove that but he wasn't
exonerated; he weakened brave little Ukraine in its fight against Putin. That's all they've
got.
I did hear Barr's definition of "The Resistance" and was so happy that someone finally
explained how evil that idea is in our Democratic Republic. I was so sick of those smug
people I have met who proudly proclaim their allegiance to "The Resistance," as if they count
themselves equal to the French Resistance in WWII against the Nazis.
My wish is that any of the "Resistance" who have made their living on tax-funded salaries
are ripped out of those positions and placed in tax-funded prison cells. And this time, I
would like it if they would be properly guarded so that they can't escape their shame and
punishment through what will be judged as suicide.
In fact, I might enjoy it if the Smithsonian's National Zoo would add displays of the
Resistors right next to any sort of display of venomous snakes.
(There, I've vented my frustration about how long this process for justice has taken and
for the hours and hours of Adam Schiff on television screens. I am not usually a bitter
person, but this whole episode has taken its toll on many of us who are just mere citizens
and tax payers.)
Among the questions that Larry's contribution begs here, is whether branches of this
investigative trail lead back to Mueller himself. If we believe Durham will follow it to
Whitey Bulger and Mueller's potential involvement in enabling murder, then why not to Uranium
One, and his role in the approval of the sale, the (non)investigation of the bags of cash
changing hands, the contributions to the Clinton Foundation and the Bill Clinton speech in
Moscow for $500,000.
And if there, then why not to Mueller's role in the lead up, and follow up to 911?
"... No, it was not suicide Mr. Barr, it was a well orchestrated operation that terminated a man who could embarrass many elites and other people who did not want to be embarrassed. It strikes at the heart of what the populace expects from government an expectation of "fairness." ..."
"... If anyone was truly interested in investigating Epstein his banking and communication records would have been secured. All of the people who interacted with him on a daily basis would have been interviewed. This did not happen and it will not happen because too many people just want him to be forgotten. ..."
I thought I liked Mr. Barr but I do not buy his opinion.
The usual investigation and takedown process was not followed in this case and someone
should answer: why not?
Big planning had to be made to lure Epstein back to Teterboro and take him into custody
immediately on deplaning.
He was immediately kept in isolation but no search and seizure warrants were executed with
his takedown. Why would the crime scenes be left unsecured unless there was a plan?
Proper take down plans are prepared in minute detail. Don't tell us this was not well
planned.
Well, there was a plan. Delay of the official investigation allowed the scenes to be
sanitized before "official" search warrants were requested. No serious law enforcement plan
would allow this process. What was the plan Mr. Barr and who was behind it? Can we have names
please?
When the official search warrants were executed the most damaging evidence was gone.
Everything else was for show.
Then Epstein was kept on ice in that "short of money" jail where cameras malfunctioned and
were known to malfunction.
Mix in a few useful idiots for guards and Epstein was finished. He could not relocate his
blackmail evidence after his takedown and because he was isolated he could not parlay his
information to secure his release. He was done.
No, it was not suicide Mr. Barr, it was a well orchestrated operation that terminated
a man who could embarrass many elites and other people who did not want to be embarrassed. It
strikes at the heart of what the populace expects from government an expectation of
"fairness."
If anyone was truly interested in investigating Epstein his banking and communication
records would have been secured. All of the people who interacted with him on a daily basis
would have been interviewed. This did not happen and it will not happen because too many
people just want him to be forgotten.
Our government caters to the special interest. Unfortunately I hoped for fairness.
Just as important, where is the proof the Russians hacked the DNC computers (hat tip always
to LJ) - since Roger Stone was banned from getting this information by the judge who just
sent him away for life.
CROWDSTRIKE's role in the Democrat impeachment smokescreen needs to keep moving forward
because, it is not going away. Democrats refusal to even mention it, let alone their
obsession trying to relentless label nameless CROWDSTRIKE as a loony, right wing conspiracy
theory simply does not pass the smell test.
Particularly since Schiff does his very best to deep six even mention of Trump's requested
Ukraine CROWDSTRIKE investigation. https://illicitinfo.com/?p=13576
Deep state CROWDSTRIKE collusion is starting to walk like a duck, quack like a duck and
look like a duck.
"The ICA's blockbuster finding was presented to the public as the consensus view of the
nation's intelligence community. As events have unfolded, however, it now seems apparent that
the report was largely the work of one agency, the CIA, and overseen by one man, then-Director
John Brennan, who closely directed its drafting and publication with a small group of
hand-picked analysts.
Nearly three years later, as the public awaits answers from two Justice Department inquiries
into the Trump-Russia probe's origins, and as impeachment hearings catalyzed by a Brennan-hired
anti-Trump CIA analyst unfold in Congress, it is clear that Brennan's role in propagating the
collusion narrative went far beyond his work on the ICA. A close review of facts that have
slowly come to light reveals that he was a central architect and promoter of the conspiracy
theory from its inception. The record shows that:
Contrary to a general impression that the FBI launched the Trump-Russia conspiracy probe,
Brennan pushed it to the bureau – breaking with CIA tradition by intruding into
domestic politics: the 2016 presidential election. He also supplied suggestive but ultimately
false information to counterintelligence investigators and other U.S. officials.
Leveraging his close proximity to President Obama, Brennan sounded the alarm about
alleged Russian interference to the White House, and was tasked with managing the U.S.
intelligence community's response.
While some FBI officials expressed skepticism about the Trump/Russia narrative as they
hunted down investigative leads, Brennan stood out for insisting on its veracity.
To substantiate his claims, Brennan relied on a Kremlin informant who was later found to
be a mid-level official with limited access to Putin's inner circle.
Circumventing normal protocol for congressional briefings, Brennan supplied then-Senate
Minority Leader Harry Reid with incendiary Trump-Russia innuendo that Reid amplified in a
pair of public letters late in the election campaign.
After Trump's unexpected victory, Brennan oversaw the hasty production of the tenuous
Intelligence Community Assessment.
Departing from his predecessors' usual practice of staying above the political fray after
leaving office, Brennan has worked as a prominent analyst for MSNBC, where he has used his
authority as a former guardian of the nation's top secrets to launch vitriolic attacks on a
sitting president, accusing Trump of "treasonous" conduct."
realclearinvestigations
----------------
I know that Horowitz can't indict but he can forward recommendations to a prosecutor with
indictment authority. Would a Grand Jury in the Democratic Party stronghold of Washington, DC
actually indict Obama era conspirators? I doubt it.
The process should be moved to other venues.
I have a side bet with a friend. I no longer believe that the duopoly of parties in the US
will indict anyone over the matter of this article.
Here are transcripts by NSC personal where LTC Vindman 'judgement' is seriously
questioned. Was Vindman the NSC unauthorized/illegal leak? Will DoD take appropriate UCMJ
action against Vindman?
They sure got Flynn Cohen Manifort and Stone quickly.Giuliani associates were indicted to
open up another front.
Pity people that desperately need to be held accountable wil not be so.
That is how the rule of law fails.
Sorry to post twice, but, on a related note, George Elliason appears to show that the
so-called whistleblower inside information, upon which the impeachment is progressing, is
based on not even hearsay, but a Tweet:
Well, I am certainly saddened by this state of affairs.
It appears that the barn doors have been left totally opened for a complete free for all
for anyone who wants to to and has the money, the un-elected position, and the friends to
take over the workings of the U.S. government. Rule of law and rule of reason be damned.
Let's hope that by some miracle this coming election will be such that the people
recognize what has happened and will provide a strong message to those who feel they have a
right to rule from the offices of their unelected positions.
It'd sure be nice if we could get some MAGA candidates for congress going. Right now, Trump's
all alone in Washington; not much hope of getting any part of his agenda passed.
Any GOP candidate facing down the well-honed Democrat mean machine is a daunting prospect.
The well-calculated legacy of the Democrat ginned-up Kavanaugh hearings - we will do and
say anything to smear you, taint you and bring you down. Don't even think of going against us
because we will do the exact same thing to anyone Trump wants to bring on, or run in support
of his administration.
We see the Democrat mean machine in action a lot in California to the point we now have
increasingly "bye elections" where there is no opposition so the candidate does not even have
to face the voters and risk even a write-in opposition vote.
The system is rigged to quickly become a one-party hegemony. They say trends start in
California, so beware of the tricks they pulled out here and got away with it:
(1) term limits;
(2) jungle primaries;
(3) district elections and mandatory protected minority-majority districts;
(4) counting illegals as district resident numbers;
(5) bye election not facing a ballot;
(6) vote by mail lengthening the campaign season beyond all human endurance;
(7) vote- harvesting;
(8) same day voter registration;
(9) outlawing voter ID..
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
.........
What I do not understand is what will DemoRats get if Senate starts the trial.
Notable quotes:
"... "The Democrats waited for better timing of blowing the allegations it came when Zelenskiy visited Washington and blew it in UN plus, met Trump. ..."
"... "Danilyuk was present at the Zelinskiy + Trump conversation, he told about the matters of the conversation to Alexander Vindman. Zelinskiy administration fired Danilyuk but is not able to fire Vindman." ..."
"... The article continues with info on Schiff's staffers meeting in Ukraine, it has the agenda, who attended, etc. There are other related articles too, worth review IMO. ..."
"... It was not clear to the negotiators what Trump actually wanted. Sondland said that at one point he called up Trump and asked an open questions: "What do you want from Ukraine?". ..."
"... According to Sondland Trump responded: "I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing." ..."
"... That Gordon Sondland and his fellow negotiators were flabbergasted that Trump did not tie money for military weapons to the Biden revelations, and that Sondland himself made the assumption that Trump would make the aid money conditional on what Ukraine could provide, might tell us more about the huckster mindset that prevails among the Washington political and bureaucratic elite than it does about Trump's own worldview and psycholoical make-up. Trump may be obsessed with making the Deal of the Century but the people surrounding him in the White House are obsessed with extracting as much blood out of a stone as they can. ..."
"... Regarding the possibility of a Senate trail, just look at the two major papers. They are pushing impeachment with all they have, including awarding sainthood to some who do not deserve it, e.g. Vindman. If the Beltway echo chamber has the desired affect, Shiff will keep things going. ..."
"... This is from Saint Marie's statement: ..."
"... "Supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do. It is also the smart thing to do. If Russia prevails and Ukraine falls to Russian dominion, we can expect to see other attempts by Russia to expand its territory and influence." ..."
"... In other words, trotting out the old Dominoes Theory, first it will be Ukraine, then Belarus, Poland, the Baltics. Oh the horror! ..."
"... The impeachment hearings will never touch the basic underlying fact that Obama/Biden Administration restarted the Cold War by supporting the Maidan Coup and greenlighting the seizing of the ethnic Russian Donbass region. The trench warfare there continues to this day. ..."
"... The only conclusion is that the hatred between globalist oligarchs and nationalists is so deep and powerful that the consequences of a World War are ignored. The 2020 election is pointless. The Republic is dead. The Empire shutters from internal conflict. If the Battle of Carrhae replays once again, the war with Iran will force any survivors to retreat from the Middle East. ..."
"... Copeland @ 33 said; "It seems like the primary role of the investigation, so far, is to advance the national security narrative that portrays Russia as the perpetual enemy of the US." Yes, it "seems" like it, because it is. The corporate empire needs enemies to keep the $ flowing. ..."
This article is really helpful. https://creativedestructionmedia.com/investigations/2019/11/04
Again I have shortened the link, the article states: "Intelligence sources in Kyiv have
informed CD Media that the 'witness' narrative of LT COL Alexander Vindman was created by
corrupt U.S. State Department officials in Kyiv, Ukraine.
According to our sources, "Alexander Vindman [recent witness in favor of Trump
impeachment], Gordon Sondland [US ambassador to the EU and Trump supporter] and Oleksandr
Danilyuk [Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine from late May
until 30 September 2019 before being fired] had a meeting in July 2019. Sondland asked
Danilyuk as head of National Security Bureau of Ukraine to investigate Biden, Burisma, and
Manafort related investigations.
Apparently, Sondland didnt know that Danilyuk is Soros' agent and supplies info to
Democrats. This was the second leak to the Deep State.
The first leak was made by Danilyuk because he was the only person in the room with fluent
English when Zelenskiy and Trump had a phone call conversation. Zelenskiy speaks English on
very intermediate level, loses the context and emotional sense also, Yermak Andrei, the 2d
Advisor to Zelenskiy is, allegedly, on the hook of FSB. Thus, it was Danilyuk who passed
information to the Deep State to attack Trump.
"The Democrats waited for better timing of blowing the allegations it came when
Zelenskiy visited Washington and blew it in UN plus, met Trump.
"Danilyuk was present at the Zelinskiy + Trump conversation, he told about the matters
of the conversation to Alexander Vindman. Zelinskiy administration fired Danilyuk but is not
able to fire Vindman."
The article continues with info on Schiff's staffers meeting in Ukraine, it has the
agenda, who attended, etc. There are other related articles too, worth review IMO.
(1) b is not being clear that Sondland drew a definite line between the White House
meeting and the stalled military aid, in terms of how he thought they were linked to Zelensky
making the desired announcement of investigations: While Sondland said he merely "presumed"
the linkage to the military aid, he asserts the linkage to the White House meeting was made
explicit to him (albeit via Giuliani).
(2) The "well documented Ukraininan interference" that actually occurred (ostensible dirt
on Manafort) bears only a vague relationship to what has lodged in Trump's shriveled lima
bean brain (the DNC server spirited away to Kiev). Of course, since neither the Dems nor the
Repubs are interested in noting this fact, it will be ignored.
thanks b.... the way i see it, usa and everyone loses in the present set up.. you can't get
down and grovel in the swamp with the usa or ukraine, as youre going to get a lot of mud on
you and some of it is going to stick.. the info that comes out of the dynamic between these 2
countries is toxic, no matter which way you look... of course dems naively think they are
going to use it to get rid of trump, but they are dredging up some toxic stuff with a lot of
their own ckeletons in the closet... they are hoping none of it comes out and the focus
remains on - as @5 jackrabbit notes - trump mentioning biden and how this is not allowed.. i
can't see them gaining from this myself as the whole thing is a political theatre where we
mostly know the final outcome... and, it's not just the ammo that trump can throw out here,
but the accidental info such as what @1/2 frances points to as well... lots of ugliness can
come out of this that is going to stick on everyone...
@3 taffyboy.. that is old footage repackaged in a new link... thanks anyway.. it is fairly
clear though and something that the dems think others are going to miss or something.. i
don't get that part.. the dems want to keep the focus on how trump was going after a 2020
rival but i think once anyone starts looking at this, they are going to see a lot more then
they want to see.. mind you, maybe the usa media will be successful in guiding the narrative
for the war party which on some level seem unhappy with trump.. i don't know that it is
eroding trumps fan base though.. maybe.. but as b says - trump is a crook.. everyone knew
this before he got in power.. however, he has slowed down the military agenda some relative
to obama, which is really ironic.. i think it is because trump doesn't profit off the
military industrial complex as he does other stuff.. either way they are all first class
kleptomaniacs all vying for the front of the trough...
The negotiations around the Ukraine issues were going slow. It was not clear to the
negotiators what Trump actually wanted. Sondland said that at one point he called up Trump
and asked an open questions: "What do you want from Ukraine?".
According to Sondland Trump responded: "I want nothing. I want nothing. I want no
quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing."
Trump is a crook. It is fair to presume that he wanted his aides to use all potential
pressure points to deliver the desired results from the Ukrainians. But Trump is also a
smart enough crook to never say that.
Is it possible that, just for once, Trump really did want nothing from Zelensky other than
to find out what Joe Biden stood to gain from pressuring the Ukrainians to sack Viktor Shokin
as Prosecutor General and what Hunter Biden's role as Board Director of a shell energy
company in Ukraine really amounted to?
That Gordon Sondland and his fellow negotiators were flabbergasted that Trump did not
tie money for military weapons to the Biden revelations, and that Sondland himself made the
assumption that Trump would make the aid money conditional on what Ukraine could provide,
might tell us more about the huckster mindset that prevails among the Washington political
and bureaucratic elite than it does about Trump's own worldview and psycholoical make-up.
Trump may be obsessed with making the Deal of the Century but the people surrounding him in
the White House are obsessed with extracting as much blood out of a stone as they
can.
If this ever gets to the Senate, a full trial will result, which will cause who knows how
many skeletons fall out of various Democrat/"Resistance" closets.
What do you think the odds are that, just somehow, nothing goes to the Senate in the
end?
>Nothing goes to Senate, I bet, but also no indictments from Barr.
> How's that for a quid pro quo?
> Posted by: casey | Nov 20 2019 21:54 utc | 13
For a kleptocracy, that almost sounds like a reasonable resolution, so no, that can not be
allowed. Trump is not being a team player, plus the retreat from northern Syria under fire
from potatoes was an unforgivable humiliation. Someone must pay for that, even if it brings
down the whole rotten house, a real possibility. Trump has how many millions of Twitter
followers? If he ever calls them out to the street, even if only 1% respond, and they show up
with guns...
Trump is unpredictable and dangerous. How does one disarm a drunk with a gun at a party?
Very, very carefully. But brain-dead big-dick Dear Leaders don't do carefully. It's Obey Or
Regarding the possibility of a Senate trail, just look at the two major papers. They are
pushing impeachment with all they have, including awarding sainthood to some who do not
deserve it, e.g. Vindman. If the Beltway echo chamber has the desired affect, Shiff will keep
things going.
This is from Saint Marie's statement:
"Supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do. It is also the smart thing to do. If
Russia prevails and Ukraine falls to Russian dominion, we can expect to see other attempts
by Russia to expand its territory and influence."
In other words, trotting out the old Dominoes Theory, first it will be Ukraine, then
Belarus, Poland, the Baltics. Oh the horror!
Margaret Kimberley of Black Agenda Report is always on the money
'https://www.blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-ukrainegate-farce
She explains that "The Democrats are hoping that Ukrainegate will succeed where Russiagate
failed and they can win the presidency without helping their voters.
"This spectacle is a get out the vote effort that doubles as anti-Russian propaganda."
In other words this is a battle to ensure that the Democratic Party does not do what it
has done a couple of times before in history and become aligned with the people against the
oligarchs.
The last to manage that were FDR in 1936 (though Huey Long didn't think so) and WJ Bryan
in 1896. He came very close to winning in his challenge to the financiers, Wall St and the
rich.
There is a real chance this year that Sanders will win the Primaries and in doing so break
the hold that the corporate machines have over the Democratic Party.
To win Sanders will have, first of all, to win the support of the black voters who have
become the most reliable and malleable vote bank in the party. This would break the hold of
the Black Misleadership Class which exists to ensure that class politics do not develop. The
great fear of the oligarchy and their paid agents in the black community is that voters will
stop thinking in racial terms and start judging politicians by their policies.
If that should happen, and 'Every Man become a King', the Few might as well emigrate to
Brazil or Colombia, and take the political class, the media and the 'intelligentsia' with
them.
The impeachment hearings will never touch the basic underlying fact that Obama/Biden
Administration restarted the Cold War by supporting the Maidan Coup and greenlighting the
seizing of the ethnic Russian Donbass region. The trench warfare there continues to this
day.
The same Corporate Democrats together with the Five-Eyes Intelligence Community have
conducted a continuous campaign to defeat and then remove Donald Trump. But they are so
incompetent that he is still in the White House but he is under pressure, all alone,
frustrated and angry, with only his daughter and Kellyanne Conway for support.
Yesterday, the USS Carrier Abraham Lincoln entered Persian Gulf after 6 months nearby;
Carrier Harry Truman is back at sea, ahead of relieving the Lincoln. US National Guard
armored units deployed to eastern Syria to keep the oil. The September drone attack shows
that Aramco's oil production facilities can be taken out at any time. A bad day and the
global economy crashes.
The only conclusion is that the hatred between globalist oligarchs and nationalists is
so deep and powerful that the consequences of a World War are ignored. The 2020 election is
pointless. The Republic is dead. The Empire shutters from internal conflict. If the Battle of
Carrhae replays once again, the war with Iran will force any survivors to retreat from the
Middle East.
Pelosi is driving this impeachment bus to a trial in the Senate next year at the height of
the primaries. The goal is to keep Warren and Bernie locked up in the Senate chamber, giving
Mayor Pete and Biden ( and maybe Bloomberg) a chance to gain ground and win some state races.
The Democrats don't care if they lose to Trump. They will do anything to make sure a
progressive doesn't win to protect their corporate paymasters.
It is beyond me why the Democrats think they can bring Trump down over this.
Of course they don't. The whole thing is a massive cover up. The idea is to bore the world on
Ukraine, sacrifice Biden and prevent Giulani from digging deeper. There is so much dirt over
Ukraine that just allowing a normal investigation would be suicide for the whole dems, not
just Kerry/Biden/Hillary.
The same thing happened with Russia/Mueller. There was never an attempt to get Trump, just
to distract from Fisa inquiries and the blatant Trump spying. The Durham investigation could
crucify many from Brennan to Hillary to probably Obama.
Bore the world with b/s investigations, hope Trump doesn't have time to do his own
homework. It will never work. Giulani has a ton of dirt to reveal if he wants. And in anycase
Trump won last time by ignoring the mudfight and concentrating on slogans that showed he had
listened to what voters are saying. Working class jobs and pay, and then every time a Dem
calls for "protect the immigrants", Transwomen's rights, better universities or attack
Trump's climate change record they lose a thousand votes.
Dem outrage at Trump is just the best thing for him to win marginal working class votes.
BTW - there seems to be this thing nowadays where you can't say the facts point one way
without claiming to hate the victor. Trump is a crook. Assad is an evil person but. China is
a dreadful place but.
Trump didn't go to Washington until 3 years ago. He is probably the most honest man in the
state.
"It is beyond me why the Democrats think they can bring Trump down over this."
Really, it's the Blue wing of the Quigley Party which, for obvious reasons, must run the
anterior assault with passive assistance from the Red wing. Schiff's role was to do a better
job of simulating substance, if the real stuff couldn't be found.
The RINOs need an optical rope-bridge, allowing them to embark on a
principled/Constitutional and oh-so-difficult moral traverse that they can be seen
reluctantly rising to for the benefit of taking the edge off incensed MAGAs. At this point,
the plan of necessity is to weather the civil insurrection because Trump simply has to
go.
Alas Schiff is not delivering much. Nonetheless I suspect that after trying everything and
the kitchen sink to get Trump, reluctant Senators' own dirty (NSA) dossiers will play key
roles. There has never been in the 70-year post WW2 era a more compulsory vote than this. All
swan-divers will be well cared for.
Those who focus on MERIT and SUBSTANCE forget that the real kingmaker is PROCESS. Article
1 Section 3 requires only 'present' Senators need vote on conviction. Thus a lot of games can
be played in the gap and particularly vulnerable RINOs might be allowed a form of sick-day
(e.g. a 20-Senator panel of Dems & Repubs).
It is hard to imagine Trump surviving Mitch's Star Chamber after heaven and earth has been
moved for three years to maneuver him to this point. The singular criticality of the Senate
well only grows as Trump's re-election appears increasingly assured.
T=Of course the less plausible the Schiff findings, the more 'process gerrymandering' will
be relied upon to carry the weight. Again, some level of civil unrest is unavoidable. However
five more years of Trump is a nonstarter.
"Trump is a crook."
I'm confounded by the persisting refusal to draw a qualitative distinction between Trump
and the system he's so clearly at odds with. Not a panacea of course. This is about power.
But distinction enough to rationalize the Herculean efforts being expended to oust
him.
Come on b, do the algebra! Something's lop-sided. Trump could save everyone a lot of
trouble if he simply fell back into the arms of his confederates. Surely at a minimum there's
a material schism in the elites. A schism means daylight in the Panopticon's ceiling. Why
isn't this cheered more?
If Trump swims in crookedness, why does the entire impeachment process hinge on two
ridiculously banal phone calls after over three years of FISA microscopy? Why, in the course
of his 'mock-defense' has he been allowed to turn back the sheets on the existential levels
of Ukraine corruption? Has the Deep State become masochistic in its old age?
And why hasn't the system found his price? Every crook has one. $50 billion would be a
reasonable opening gambit. Does anyone still think this is some kind of false-dialectic
kabuki? If it is, the stage managers deserve the world, or already have it. That, and an
Oscar. Bravo!
Copeland @ 33 said; "It seems like the primary role of the investigation, so far, is to
advance the national security narrative that portrays Russia as the perpetual enemy of the
US." Yes, it "seems" like it, because it is. The corporate empire needs enemies to keep the $
flowing.
Confrontation is much more profitable than peace...
I love the title of Rick Wilson's book "Everything Trump Touches Dies". The man is completely
beshitting the presidency and the USA brand. This is not to say it wasn't foul before he laid
his tiny hands on it. He is a symptom as another commenter here points out of the failure of
the system that produced him.
Impeachment will not solve the problem even though impeachment is fully justified on the
basis of his illegal maneuvers in Ukraine. He should be removed from his command for looting
Syria's oil, or for simply entering upon Syrian territory without being invited. Bush should
be in prison for the Iraq war, for that matter. But he's another symptom.
The clear and present danger is Trump who has thrown a monkey wrench into the global
system and disunited the nations. He's wrecked trade relations with China. He's exacerbated
problems in the ME and assisted Israel in the further destruction of the Palestinian people.
He's attempting to dismantle the lawful regulatory function of government and convert it to a
lawless fascist fortress America with only contempt for international law. His ignorance of
environmental problems is vast.
If this man is not removed from office this nation will die. Sooner than it would
otherwise. It is already very sick. This spectacle of impeachment is a weak remedy. We have
no alternative.
Trump is not a crook. He approached the situation with Z no doubt as he has been approached
countless times by the Mob and the Cops in NYC. "Nice country you got here. It would be a
shame if anything were to happen to it." If you sincerely believe Trump's denial of "quid pro
quo" and his handwritten notes, you might be the only one on the planet. That will hardly
save him from impeachment but not enough to get him tossed out (which I agree with others, is
not the Dems objective). Remember too, this did not start with the Dems. And it's not some
murky Deep State. I am surprised you have not focused on the obvious role of Bolton in all
this. He's hiding behind Kupperman now, waiting for everybody to testify, then he will come
out. He obviously has first hand info on all of this, and it's his cadre who have been
leading the charge, and his allies who have been beating the war drums (V, Taylor, Kent, et
al) with Russia. Finally, whatever the Biden boys were up to, Trump went full Tony Soprano.
Not a good look for an empire in decline. It's a textbook example of the constitutional
meaning of bribery.
tintorelli , Nov 21 2019 3:29 utc | 42
Trump is not a crook. He approached the situation with Z no doubt as he has been
approached countless times by the Mob and the Cops in NYC. "Nice country you got here. It
would be a shame if anything were to happen to it." If you sincerely believe Trump's denial
of "quid pro quo" and his handwritten notes, you might be the only one on the planet. That
will hardly save him from impeachment but not enough to get him tossed out (which I agree
with others, is not the Dems objective). Remember too, this did not start with the Dems. And
it's not some murky Deep State. I am surprised you have not focused on the obvious role of
Bolton in all this. He's hiding behind Kupperman now, waiting for everybody to testify, then
he will come out. He obviously has first hand info on all of this, and it's his cadre who
have been leading the charge, and his allies who have been beating the war drums (V, Taylor,
Kent, et al) with Russia. Finally, whatever the Biden boys were up to, Trump went full Tony
Soprano. Not a good look for an empire in decline. It's a textbook example of the
constitutional meaning of bribery.
"
Lang cites numerous examples of "incompetence and malfeasance in the leadership of the 17
agencies of the Intelligence Community and the Federal Bureau of Investigation," to include the
examples cited above plus the failure to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union. On the
domestic front, he cites his personal observation of efforts by the Department of Justice and
the FBI to corruptly "frame" people tried in federal courts on national security issues as well
as the intelligence/law enforcement community conspiracy to "get Trump."
Colonel Lang asks "Tell me, pilgrims, why should we put up with such nonsense? Why should we
pay the leaders of these agencies for the privilege of having them abuse us? We are free men
and women. Let us send these swine to their just deserts in a world where they have to work
hard for whatever money they earn." He then recommends stripping CIA of its responsibility for
being the lead agency in spying as well as in covert action, which is a legacy of the Cold War
and the area in which it has demonstrated a particular incompetence. As for the FBI, it was
created by J. Edgar Hoover to maintain dossiers on politicians and it is time that it be
replaced by a body that operates in a fashion "more reflective of our collective nation[al]
values."" Giraldi
Tandem of CIA and the State Department against Trump ?
Notable quotes:
"... Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post in May, testified that President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani led a campaign to oust her as ambassador over unsubstantiated allegations that she badmouthed the president and was seeking to stop Ukraine from opening an investigation into Joe Biden and his son. -Axios ..."
"... Last month, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan reportedly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Trump recalled Yovanovitch after Giuliani singled her out for having an anti-Trump agenda. ..."
"... McKinley testified to impeachment investigators that he resigned over the State Department's unwillingness to support foreign service officers caught up in the Ukraine scandal and the apparent "utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance domestic political objectives. ..."
On Monday, the House committees conducting impeachment inquiries into President Trump released transcripts of testimony from several
witnesses, including former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and career diplomat and former senior adviser to Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo, Michael McKinley.
Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post in May, testified that President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani led a campaign to
oust her as ambassador over unsubstantiated allegations that she badmouthed the president and was seeking to stop Ukraine from opening
an investigation into Joe Biden and his son. -Axios
Yovanovitch, who left her position in May, testified that she "assumed" Trump's lack of support for her stemmed from a "partnership"
between Giuliani and Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko .
Last month, Deputy Secretary of State
John Sullivan reportedly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Trump recalled Yovanovitch after Giuliani singled her
out for having an anti-Trump agenda.
McKinley testified to impeachment investigators that he resigned over the State Department's unwillingness to support foreign
service officers caught up in the Ukraine scandal and the apparent "utilization of our ambassadors overseas to advance domestic
political objectives." -Axios
"... Love the Clapper claim (the same Clapper who lied to Congress) says he was just doing his duty in Russiagate. As GBS said, " when a scoundrel is doing something of which he is ashamed, he always says he is doing his duty". ..."
"... There is also a long and inglorious history of interference in domestic politics from the Zinoviev Letter onwards. Plots to stage a military coup against the Wilson government of the 60s and 70s, with Mountbatten as its figurehead. The more recent Skripal Hoax. The contrived Syrian Gas Attack Hoaxes and the White Helmets. They would not hesitate to do the same to Corbyn if they deemed it necessary. ..."
"... The CIA and FBI conspired with the UK and Ukrainian governments to prevent the election of Trump, and then to sabotage and smear his administration once he had been elected. The UK played a major part in this through MI6 and Steele. This is highly dangerous for this country, irrespective of your view of Trump. ..."
"... The Democrats, the Deep State, the MSM, and the Deranged Left were willing to support these conspiracies and hoaxes, and even suspend disbelief, for the greater good. The ends justify the means. All that matters is getting rid of Trump. Anything goes. The corrosive erosion of trust, credibility and integrity in all the institutions of the state is probably irreparable. The legislature and the political process in general. The judiciary. The spooks and police. About 9% of Americans now believe the MSM. ..."
"... No need to even discuss, until Western societies ALL get a grip on the depths of depravity that lie within the actions and "The History of the National Security State" you have to admit, that Julian Assange could not have picked a better book to firmly grip and signal with, than GORE Vidal's, when being manhandled out of the Ecuadorian Embassy, by Spooks who would sell their own mother, let alone nation, in their utter technological ignorance and adherence to anachronistic doctrines & mentality ! ..."
"... The most important thing for us and deliciously so now the election is happening is the BLOWBACK. Our DS lying murdering arses are going to get new ones drilled by Trump and BoBos bromance exploding in full technicolor. ..."
"... By sharing we disrupt the msm messages. Bernard at MoonofAlabama is also worth a daily visitation – priceless analysis on multiple subjects. ..."
"... I'd have thought that events like the spy in the holdall, the spies caught by farmers in Libya, the Skripal's, and the whole over-the-top reaction to the domestic terrorism threat and consequent successful pleas for extra funding, the obvious danger of creating terrorists by security services, the policy of giving asylum to foreign terrorists of countries we don't like and the whole concept of the 5 eyes and GCHQ needs more than ministerial oversight, a committee of yes men/women and an intelligence services commissioner. ..."
As the Quantum field oversees the disintegration of institutions no longer in service to the public, the Democratic party continues
to lose their marbles, perpetuating their own simulated bubble as if they alone are the nation's most trusted purveyors of truth.
Since the Mueller Report failed to deliver on the dubious Russiagate accusations, the party of Thomas Jefferson continues to remain
in search of another ethical pretense to justify continued partisan turmoil. In an effort to discredit and/or distract attention
from the Barr-Durham and IG investigations, the Dems have come up with an implausible piece of political theatre known as Ukrainegate
which has morphed into an impeachment inquiry.
The Inspector General's Report, which may soon be ready for release, will address the presentation of fabricated FBI evidence
to the FISA Court for permission to initiate a surveillance campaign on Trump Administration personnel. In addition, the Department
of Justice has confirmed that Special Investigator John Durham's probe into the origin of the
FBI's counter intelligence investigation during the 2016
election has moved from an administrative review into the criminal prosecution realm. Durham will now be able to actively pursue
candidates for possible prosecution.
The defensive assault from the Democrat hierarchy and its corporate media cohorts can be expected to reach a fevered pitch of
manic proportions as both investigations threatened not only their political future in 2020 but perhaps their very existence.
NBC s uggests that the Barr investigation is a ' mysterious ' review " amid concerns about whether the probe has any legal or
factual basis " while the
NY Times continues
to cast doubt that the investigation has a legitimate basis implying that AG Barr is attempting to " deliver a political victory
for President Trump." The Times misleads its readers with:
Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel
closed it."
when in fact, it was the Russiagate collusion allegations that Trump referred to as a hoax, rather than the Mueller investigation
per se.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va), minority leader of the Senate Intel Committee suggested that Attorney General William Barr " owes the
Committee an explanation " since the committee is completing a " three-year bipartisan investigation " that has " found nothing to
justify " Barr's expanded effort.
The Senator's gauntlet will be ever so fascinating as the public reads exactly how the Intel Committee spent three years and came
up with " nothing " as compared to what Durham and the IG reports have to say.
On the House side, prime-time whiners Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) commented that news of the Durham
investigation moving towards criminal liability " raised profound concerns that Barr has lost his independence and become a vehicle
for political revenge " and that " the Rule of Law will suffer irreparable damage ."
Since Barr has issued no determination of blame other than to assure a full, fair and rigorous investigation, it is curious that
the Dems are in premature meltdown as if they expect indictments even though the investigations are not yet complete.
There is, however, one small inconvenient glitch that challenges the Democratic version of reality that does not fit their partisan
spin. The news that former FBI General Counsel James Baker is actively cooperating with the BD investigation ought to send ripples
through the ranks. Baker has already stated that it was a 'small group' within the agency who led the counterintelligence inquiry
into the Trump campaign; notably former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
Baker's cooperation was not totally unexpected since he also cooperated with the
Inspector General's FISA abuse investigation which is awaiting public release.
As FBI General Counsel, Baker had a role in reviewing the FISA applications before they were submitted to the FISA court and currently
remains under criminal investigation for making unauthorized leaks to the media.
As the agency's chief legal officer, Baker had to be a first-hand participant and privy to every strategy discussion and decision
(real or contemplated). It was his job to identify potential legal implications that might negatively affect the agency or boomerang
back on the FBI. In other words, Baker is in a unique position to know who knew what and when did they know it.
His 'cooperation' can be generally attributed to being more concerned with saving his own butt rather than the Constitution.
In any case, the information he is able to provide will be key for getting to the true origins of Russiagate and the FISA scandal.
Baker's collaboration may augur others facing possible prosecution to step up since 'cooperation' usually comes with the gift of
a lesser charge.
With a special focus on senior Obama era intel officials Durham has reportedly already interviewed up to two dozen former and
current FBI employees as well as officials in the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
From the number of interviews conducted to date it can be surmised that Durham has been accumulating all the necessary facts and
evidence as he works his way up the chain of command, prior to concentrating on top officials who may be central to the investigation.
It has also been reported that Durham expects to interview current and former intelligence officials including CIA analysts, former
CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper regarding Russian efforts to interfere in the
2016 election.
In a recent
CNN
interview , when asked if he was concerned about any wrongdoing on the part of intel officials, Clapper nervously responded:
I don't know. I don't think there was any wrongdoing. It is disconcerting to know that we are being investigated for having
done our duty and done what we were told to do by the President."
One wonders if Clapper might be a candidate for 'cooperating' along with Baker.
As CIA Director, Brennan made no secret of his efforts to nail the Trump Administration. In the summer of 2016, he formed an inter-agency
taskforce to investigate what was being reported as Russian collusion within the Trump campaign. He boasted to Rachel Maddow that
he brought NSA and FBI officials together with the CIA to ' connect the dots ."
With the addition of James Clapper's DNI, three reports were released: October, 2016, December, 2016 and January, 2017 all disseminating
the Russian-Trump collusion theory which the Mueller Report later found to be unproven.
Since 1947 when the CIA was first authorized by President Harry Truman who belatedly regretted his approval, the agency has been
operating as if they report to no one and that they never owe the public or Congress any explanation of their behaviour or activity
or how they spend the money.
Since those days it has been a weak-minded Congress, intimidated and/or compromised Members who have allowed intel to run their
own show as if they are immune to the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Since 1947, there has been no functioning Congress willing
to provide true accountability or meaningful oversight on the intel community.
Renee Parsons has been a member of the ACLU's Florida State Board of Directors and president of the ACLU Treasure Coast
Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, an environmental lobbyist with Friends of the Earth and staff member
of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She can be found on Twitter @reneedove31
Martin Usher
I don't think the Democratic leadership wanted a formal impeachment, they would prefer that Trump just faded away quietly before
the 2020 election and were in the process of collecting information to reinforce this. They got cornered into formalizing the
investigation by Trump's defense team baiting them as part of their overall strategy. It really doesn't change anything.
Whichever way you slice and/or dice it Trump is fundamentally incompetent, he's unable to fulfill the duties of the office
of the President. He also refuses to distinguish between private interests and public service. His cabinet, a rag tag body of
industry insiders and special interests, are busy trying to ride roughshod over opposition, established policy and even public
opinion to grab as much as possible before the whole house of cards collapses. Its a mess, and its a mess that's quite obviously
damaging US interests. Many constituency groups will have gone along with the program because they thought they could control
things or benefit from them but as its become increasingly obvious Trump's unable to deliver they've been systematically alienated.
The DNC is playing this with a relatively weak field of potential candidates for 2020. Much as I personally like a Sanders
or Warren they're just not going to fly in a Presidential contest -- as we found from the Obama presidency the ship of state just
doesn't turn on a dime, you're not going to undo decades or generations of entrenched neoconservatism and a politically divided
country overnight by some kind of Second Coming pronouncements. My concern is that if we don't get our collective acts together
we're going to end up with a President Romney after 2020 -- a much more reasonable choice considering the last four years but
also one that's guaranteed to change nothing. We need the journey but its only going to start with a few steps.
( and as for Trump/collusion we've spent the last three years confusing money with nation states. Trump's a businessman in
a business that's notorious for laundering money from dubious sources (this doesn't mean he's involved, of course)(legal disclaimer!).
I daresay that if Russia really wanted to sink Trump they could easily do so but why would they bother when he's doing such a
great job unaided?)
Latest in series of articles by the author re USA – Ukraine connections
"American Ukrainian nationalists don't like democracy. They don't understand the concept of it and don't care to learn. But
they do understand nationalist fascism where only the top of society matters. They are behind the actors of the Intelligence coup
going on in the US today .This is the mentality and politics the Diaspora is pushing into American politics today. Hillary Clinton
and the DNC is surrounded with this infection which even includes political advisors.
Rest assured they all the related Diasporas are in a fight for their political lives. If Donald Trump wins, their ability to
infect American politics might be broken. Many of the leadership will be investigated for attempting to overthrow the government
of the United States."
"My thoughts on all this are that many of us have become distracted and failed to examine the timeline of events since 9/11. We
look at news and conflict in isolation and move on to the next without seeing what is now a clear pattern."
In terms of the Middle East you need to go back further than the fortuitous event of 9/11 – at least to 1997 and the founding
of the Project for the New American Century which was essentially the first explicit formalisation of the agenda for an imperialist
Neoliberal and Neoconservative globalist new world order deployed through the media constructed conflicts of 'good' and 'evil'
around the world and with it the call for the 'democratisation' of the Middle East under the alibi of humanitarian interventionism
against broadly socialist governments, which since the fall of communism were constructed by Neoliberal fundamentalists as being
patently heretical and ideologically illegitimate forms of government. If it is economically illogical to elect a socialist failed
form of government then one can only assume that the election must have been rigged.
I started looking at this all a few years ago when I asked myself the question 14 years after the invasion of Iraq: where was
the liberal outrage at what had subsequently taken place in the ME? The answer was that from the Invasion of Iraq onward in addition
to fully embracing the economics of Neoliberalism as the end of economic history, the progressive 'left' quietly assimilated and
reduplicated the fundamentalist illiberal political philosophy of the Neocons. The progressive 'left' both in the UK and US have
subsequently become the far Neocon 'right' in all but name and their party hosts of Labour in the UK and the Democrats in the
US remain blissfully unaware of all of this. How else can we explain why they would welcome 'Woke' Bill Kristol into their ranks?
Once one accepts this hypothesis, then an awful lot falls into place in order to explain the 'Progressive' open support for regime
change and the almost total lack of any properly liberal objections to what has taken place ever since.
One key point here is that the Neocons have nothing to do with conservatism or the right. What is striking and most informative
about the history of Neo-conservatism is that it does not have its roots in conservatism at all, but grew out of disillusioned
US left wing intellectuals who were Marxist, anti-Stalinist Trotskyites. This is important because at the heart of Neo-conservatism
is something that appeals strongly to the die hard revolutionaries of the left who hold a strong proclivity for violence, conflict
and struggle. If one looks at the type of people in the Labour party who gravitated to the 'progressive' Neoliberal imperialist
camp they all exhibit similar personality traits of sociopathic control freaks with sanctimonious Messiah complexes such as Blair.
These extremist, illiberal fundamentalists love violence and revolution and the bloodier the better. In Libya or Syria is did
not matter that Gadaffi or Assad headed socialist governments, the Neo-colonised progressives would back any form of apparent
conflict and bloody revolution in any notional struggle between any identifiable form of 'authority' or 'oppression' with any
identifiable form of 'resistance' even if those leading the 'resistance' were head chopping, misogynist, jihadist terrorists.
It makes no difference to the fundamentalist revolutionary mindset.
The original left wing who gradually morphed in the Neoconservatives took 30-40 years to make the transition for the 1960s
to 1990s. The Labour party Blairites made the same journey from 1990 to 2003. Christopher Hitchens made the same journey in his
own personal microcosm.
When is this nausea inducing confected pile of crap going to end? Does anyone else think that Adam Schiff has a screw or three
loose, and should be residing in an institution? And imagine if somehow Mike Pence became Prez. Now that would be something to
scare the bejesus out of you.
Tim Jenkins
Adam Schiff should be shot for Treason, of the highest order, along with many others, including HRC, Brennan & Clapper ; and it
should be a public execution, like in Saudi Arabia. This is war on the minds of the masses, that Schiff for brains cares nothing
for.
As for Chuck Schumer, he can have a life sentence, as long as he manages to shut his utterly unfunny dumb vulgar cousin Amy
up & keep her out of the public eye, forever
Gezzah, life may seem bad right now: but imagine if, you were Amy Schumer's Husband and father of her child. Talk about obnoxious
and utterly nauseating 🙂 , with you Gezzah, all the way.
"When is this nausea inducing confected pile of crap going to end?"
"The presidential election in Argentina was a game-changer and a graphic lesson. It pitted the people versus neoliberalism.
The people won – with new President Alberto Fernandez and former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK) as his VP.
Neoliberalism was represented by a PR marketing product, Mauricio Macri [a Micron look-alike]: former millionaire playboy,
president of football legends Boca Juniors, obsessed with spending cuts, who was unanimously sold by Western MSM as a New Age
paradigm.
Well, the paradigm will soon be ejected, leaving behind the usual New Age wasteland: $250 billion in foreign debt, less
than $50 billion in reserves; inflation at 55 percent; 35.4 percent of Argentine homes can't make it); and (incredible as it
may seem in an agriculturally self-sufficient nation) a food emergency."
Meanwhile, in the real world, the Denmark's Ukronazi-friendly regime has been brought to heel by Germany's common sense:
Some big natural gas news very significant for Russia, Germany and the Ukraine. The Danish pipeline sector has been stalled
for a while now by anti-Russia, pro-Ukrainian forces within the Scandiwegian NATZO-friendly regimes. But it appears that Nordstream
2 _will_ get completed and that Ukraine's gas transit chokehold on the EU will come to an end when Russia's Nordstream 2 comes
online for Europe.
-- -- -- -
Permit for the Nord Stream 2 project is reluctantly granted by the Danish Energy Agency. Nord Stream 2 AG has been granted
a permit to construct natural gas pipelines on the Danish continental shelf.
The permit is granted pursuant to the Continental Shelf Act and in accordance with Denmark's obligations under the UN Convention
on the Law of the Sea. Denmark has been put under obligation to allow the construction of transit pipelines with respect to resources
and the environment.
In my humble opinion, the Trump stuff is all total nonsense.
Donald Trump was a property speculator in New York (amongst other places) and was heavily involved with the Mafia. Likewise,
Trump was heavily involved with Jeffery Epstein.
There's so much dirt on Trump that they could get him with the snap of fingers; but of course that's not what they really want.
Trump is pure theatre; a ploy to divert the masses. 'RussiaGate', 'UkraineGate' are all utter rollocks.
Trump and Obama, and all the rest going back to the assassination of Kennedy, are just puppets.
American/ deep state policy doesn't change a jot with any of them.
Wilmers31
America is always presentation over substance, wrapper over content, and shoot the messenger if you don't like the message. In
the meantime the adults in this world outside the US have to hold it all together. Why was for instance Hillary Clinton not in
the dock for saying 'Assad must go'?? It was meddling in the highest order.
phree
I guess this just goes to show you that a person can be a member of the ACLU, even a leader apparently, and still be highly biased
in favor of Trump.
Just because a witness is "cooperating" with an investigation does not entail that the witnesses testimony or evidence will
favor any particular side.
And implying that Clapper's comments somehow shows guilt when he clearly says he knows of no wrongdoing is pretty over the
top.
I've read a lot of what's out there about the start of the initial Russia investigation, and it does seem that some of the
FBI personnel leading it (McCabe particularly) were anti-Trump.
Isn't the bigger question whether the investigation was justified based on the reports from the Australians that Trump was
getting political dirt on Hillary from Russia? Is the FBI just supposed to ignore those reports? Really?
George Cornell
Love the Clapper claim (the same Clapper who lied to Congress) says he was just doing his duty in Russiagate. As GBS said,
" when a scoundrel is doing something of which he is ashamed, he always says he is doing his duty".
mark
The Spook Organisations and the Dirty Cops are a greater threat to our way of life than any foreign army or terrorist group (most
of which they created in the first place and which they directly control.) They are a law unto themselves and completely
free of any genuine oversight or control.
This applies equally to the US and UK. "We lie, we cheat, we steal", as Pompeo helpfully explains. They also murder people,
at home and abroad. JFK, David Kelly, Diana, Epstein. They plant bombs and blow people up. Many of the "terrorist atrocities"
from Northern Ireland to the present day, were false flag spook operations. The same applies with Gladio on the continent and
the plethora of recent false flags.
There is also a long and inglorious history of interference in domestic politics from the Zinoviev Letter onwards. Plots
to stage a military coup against the Wilson government of the 60s and 70s, with Mountbatten as its figurehead. The more recent
Skripal Hoax. The contrived Syrian Gas Attack Hoaxes and the White Helmets. They would not hesitate to do the same to Corbyn if
they deemed it necessary.
The CIA and FBI conspired with the UK and Ukrainian governments to prevent the election of Trump, and then to sabotage
and smear his administration once he had been elected. The UK played a major part in this through MI6 and Steele. This is highly
dangerous for this country, irrespective of your view of Trump.
Trump has repaid the favour by meddling in Brexit and interfering in UK politics. It is not in his nature to turn the other
cheek. We have spook organisations claiming for themselves a right of veto over election results and foreign policy. These people
are poor servants and terrible masters. We see Schumer warning against crossing the spook organisations, begging the obvious question
– who runs this country, you or the spooks?
The Democrats, the Deep State, the MSM, and the Deranged Left were willing to support these conspiracies and hoaxes, and
even suspend disbelief, for the greater good. The ends justify the means. All that matters is getting rid of Trump. Anything goes.
The corrosive erosion of trust, credibility and integrity in all the institutions of the state is probably irreparable. The legislature
and the political process in general. The judiciary. The spooks and police. About 9% of Americans now believe the MSM.
The irony in all this is that it very much serves Trump's interests. He is extremely vulnerable, having failed to keep
any of his promises. Building The Wall, Draining The Swamp, Bringing The Troops Home. Sorting out health care. Building "incredible,
fantastic" infrastructure.
All the Democrats had to do was highlight these failures, find a suitable candidate, and put forward some sensible policies,
and they were home and dry. Instead, they provided an endless series of diversions and distractions from Trump's failures by charging
down every rabbit hole they could find, Russiagate, Ukrainegate, Impeachment. It couldn't work out better for Trump if he was
paying them.
Expect to see the Orange Man in the White House for another 4 years. And another even more virulent outbreak of Trump Derangement
Syndrome.
Tim Jenkins
Enigmatic and brilliant synopsis, m8, lol: & surely BigB could only agree. And you never even mentioned HQ.Intel. inside.Israel,
today & their illegal trespass of WhatsApp, via corporate 'subsidiaries' with 'plausible' denial of liability of spying on everything-everything
& any body, that could possibly threaten corporate fascist computerised dictatorship: distributing backdoors, like Promis & Prism,
liberally & worldwide, the Maxwells legacy . . . (yet)
No need to even discuss, until Western societies ALL get a grip on the depths of depravity that lie within the actions
and "The History of the National Security State" you have to admit, that Julian Assange could not have picked a better book to
firmly grip and signal with, than GORE Vidal's, when being manhandled out of the Ecuadorian Embassy, by Spooks who would sell
their own mother, let alone nation, in their utter technological ignorance and adherence to anachronistic doctrines & mentality
!
Glad you mentioned 'good ole' cousin ChuckS.' >>> Lol, just for a laugh and a sense of perspective: yes, he is related to Amy
Queen of Vulgarity & hideous societal distraction. What a family of wimps & morons: the 'Schumers' being perfect fodder for ridicule
& intelligent humour, naturally . . . on a positive note, mark, think yourself lucky that you are not married to or the father
of Amy Schumer's child 🙂
The most important thing for us and deliciously so now the election is happening is the BLOWBACK. Our DS lying murdering
arses are going to get new ones drilled by Trump and BoBos bromance exploding in full technicolor.
Think May's dementia tax and Strong and Stable were bad?
Lol. This is going to be a FUN month of early xmases.
SST is essential reading for anyone concerned with US overseas policy and the corruption of the USA itself in the service of
the security state, so, many thanks for posting this link.
Dungroanin
By sharing we disrupt the msm messages. Bernard at MoonofAlabama is also worth a daily visitation – priceless analysis on
multiple subjects.
lundiel
Since those days it has been a weak-minded Congress, intimidated and/or compromised Members who have allowed intel to run
their own show as if they are immune to the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Since 1947, there has been no functioning Congress
willing to provide true accountability or meaningful oversight on the intel community.
Pretty much a carbon copy of our own oversight. We hear even less about our security services than Americans do of theirs.
I'd have thought that events like the spy in the holdall, the spies caught by farmers in Libya, the Skripal's, and the whole over-the-top
reaction to the domestic terrorism threat and consequent successful pleas for extra funding, the obvious danger of creating terrorists
by security services, the policy of giving asylum to foreign terrorists of countries we don't like and the whole concept of the
5 eyes and GCHQ needs more than ministerial oversight, a committee of yes men/women and an intelligence services commissioner.
"... "The border has become a rights-free zone for Americans who have to travel," Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) said in a statement given to Boland at the time. "The founders never could have imagined that the government would be able to sift through your entire digital life, from pictures to emails and even where you've been, just because you decide to take a vacation or travel for work." ..."
At last a victory for citizens. For nearly 20 years, the federal government has used and
abused the memory of the 9/11 attacks to expand its law enforcement authorities at the nation's
airports, even if that has meant broaching one of our most sacrosanct constitutional freedoms:
the right against illegal search and seizure, otherwise known as the 4th Amendment.
On Tuesday, a federal court in Boston ruled that the
Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can no longer
detain Americans coming back over the border to search their laptops, cell phones and other
electronic devices, without cause. One would think this is a no-brainer, but the number of
these incidents has actually escalated to over 33,000 last year -- nearly four times as many as
the previous three years,
according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
The ruling came in a lawsuit, Alasaad v. McAleenan , filed by the
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and ACLU of
Massachusetts, on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without
individualized suspicion at U.S. ports of entry.
International travelers returning to the United States have reported numerous cases of
abusive searches in recent months. While searching through the phone of Zainab Merchant, a
plaintiff in the Alasaad case, a border agent knowingly rifled through privileged
attorney-client communications. An immigration officer at Boston Logan Airport
reportedly searched an incoming Harvard freshman's cell phone and laptop, reprimanded the
student for friends' social media postings expressing views critical of the U.S. government,
and denied the student entry into the country following the search.
According to EFF, border officers "must now demonstrate individualized suspicion of illegal
contraband before they can search a traveler's device."
TAC's Barbara Boland reported on this over the summer . The number of electronic devices
accessed in 2018 was six times the number in 2012, suggesting that this is not only a
post-9/11 issue, but that somewhere along the line the Trump Administration signaled to these
agencies, which are all under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, that it was
gloves-off at the border -- even for American citizens. Lest you think this is just an
extension of the president's tough illegal immigration policies, be warned, many of the folks
targeted were typical international visitors and U.S. citizens -- think students, journalists,
academics, doctors -- and not travelers to this country for the first time. And they were
treated like they were coming into the Third World. From Boland:
One person detailed to Amnesty
International how she was selected for secondary screening at the border, locked in a
cramped, narrow concrete cell, and subjected to an invasive body search. Her requests for a
lawyer and medical treatment were denied. The supervisor told her she would be held
indefinitely.
When she told him that she is an American citizen, he replied: "The Fourth Amendment
doesn't apply here. We can hold you for as long as we want to."
She was released after four hours.
Journalist Seth Harp wrote a similarly
disturbing story about what happened when he was singled out for a "secondary screening" at
the Austin Airport in Texas. CBP agents pried him for information about what he was writing,
his sources, his reporting as a war correspondent, and his discussions with his editors.
"The border has become a rights-free zone for Americans who have to travel," Senator Ron
Wyden (D-Oregon) said in a statement given to Boland at the time. "The founders never could
have imagined that the government would be able to sift through your entire digital life, from
pictures to emails and even where you've been, just because you decide to take a vacation or
travel for work."
Let's hope that Tuesday's order fixes that -- though it might take a Supreme Court ruling to
put an end to it for good.
"... Trump's surprising victory forced a pivot, with Clapper, Brennan and Comey adjusting the narrative to make it appear that Trump the traitor may have captured the White House due to help from the Kremlin, making him a latter-day Manchurian Candidate. The lesser allegations of Russian meddling were quickly elevated to devastating assertions that the Republican had only won with Putin's assistance. ..."
"... The national security team acted to protect their candidate Hillary Clinton, who represented America's Deep State. In spite of considerable naysaying, the Deep State is real, not just a wild conspiracy theory. Many Americans nevertheless do not believe that the Deep State exists, that it is a politically driven media creation much like Russiagate itself was, but if one changes the wording a bit and describes the Deep State as the Establishment, with its political power focused in Washington and its financial center in New York City, the argument that there exists a cohesive group of power brokers who really run the country becomes much more plausible. ..."
"... It is now known that President Barack Obama's CIA Director John Brennan created a Trump Task Force in early 2016. Rather than working against genuine foreign threats, this Task Force played a critical role in creating and feeding the meme that Donald Trump was a tool of the Russians and a puppet of President Vladimir Putin, a claim that still surfaces regularly to this day. Working with James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, Brennan fabricated the narrative that "Russia had interfered in the 2016 election." Brennan and Clapper promoted that tale even though they knew very well that Russia and the United States have carried out a broad array of covert actions against each other, including information operations, for the past seventy years, but they pretended that what happened in 2016 was qualitatively and substantively different even though the "evidence" produced to support that claim was and still is weak to nonexistent. ..."
"... With the help of the Establishment media, Clapper and Brennan were able to pretend that the ICA had been approved by "all 17 intelligence agencies" (as first claimed by Hillary Clinton). After several months, however Clapper revealed that the preparers of the ICA were "handpicked analysts" from only the FBI, CIA, and NSA. He explained rather unconvincingly during an interview on May 28, 2017, that "the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, are almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique," adding later that "It's in their DNA." ..."
"... And this was not a CIA-only operation. Personnel from the FBI also were assigned to the Task Force with the approval of then Director James Comey. Former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele's FBI handler, Michael Gaeta, may have been one of those detailed to the Trump Task Force. Steele, of course, prepared the notorious dossier that was surfaced shortly before Donald Trump took office. It included considerable material intended to tie Trump to Russia, information that was in many cases fabricated or unsourced. ..."
"... The case officers would work with foreign intelligence services such as MI-6, the Italians, the Ukrainians and the Australians on identifying intelligence collection priorities that would implicate Trump and his associates in illegal activity. And there is evidence that John Brennan himself would contact his counterparts in allied intelligence services to obtain their discreet cooperation, something they would be inclined to do in collegial fashion, ignoring whatever reservations they might have about spying on a possible American presidential candidate. ..."
"... e Task Force also could carry out other covert actions, sometimes using press or social media placements to disseminate fabrications about Trump and his associates. Information operations is a benign-sounding euphemism for propaganda fed through the Agency's friends in the media, and computer network operations can be used to create false linkages and misdirect inquiries. There has been some informed speculation that Guccifer 2.0 may have been a creation of this Task Force. ..."
"... In light of what has been learned about the alleged CIA whistleblower there should be a serious investigation to determine if he was a part of this Task Force or, at minimum, reporting to them secretly after he was seconded to the National Security Council. All the CIA and FBI officers involved in the Task Force had sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, but nevertheless were involved in a conspiracy to first denigrate and then possibly bring down a legally elected president. That effort continues with repeated assertions regarding Moscow's malevolent intentions for the 2020 national elections. Some might reasonably regard the whole Brennan affair, to include its spear carriers among the current and retired national security state leadership, as a case of institutionalized treason, and it inevitably leads to the question "What did Obama know?" ..."
"... Obama orchestrated the destruction of a political rival and he will get away scott free .because he's an oppressed and downtrodden dindu. ..."
"... But in fact Obama too is CIA nomenklatura, with the same depth of dynastic ties as GW Bush, albeit not at the same lofty level. ..."
"... This past election was CIA office politics, nothing more. Russigate is simply CIA eminence Hillary, the Queen of Mena, ratfucking a bumptious queue-jumper. She outranks Trump, who was merely a junior money-launderer for the CIA agents who looted the Soviet Union. It was her turn to take the figurehead head-of-state sinecure. She and Bill earned it with their lucrative Clinton Foundation covert-ops slush fund. ..."
"... And has been since the early 1950s when the Allen Dulles-Frank Wisner-James Jesus Angleton crew got rolling. They managed to thoroughly penetrate federal and state bureaucracies, the court systems, major corporations, the financial sector, and the mockingbird media. ..."
"... Clapper revealed that the preparers of the ICA were "handpicked analysts" from only the FBI, CIA, and NSA. He explained rather unconvincingly during an interview on May 28, 2017, that "the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, are almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique," adding later that "It's in their DNA." ..."
There is considerable evidence that the American system of government may have been
victimized by an illegal covert operation organized and executed by the U.S. intelligence and
national security community. Former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper, former CIA
Director John Brennan and former FBI Director Jim Comey appear to have played critical
leadership roles in carrying out this conspiracy and they may not have operated on their own.
Almost certainly what they may have done would have been explicitly authorized by the former
President of the United States, Barack Obama, and his national security team.
It must have seemed a simple operation for the experienced CIA covert action operatives. To
prevent the unreliable and unpredictable political upstart Donald Trump from being nominated as
the GOP presidential candidate or even elected it would be necessary to create suspicion that
he was the tool of a resurgent Russia, acting under direct orders from Vladimir Putin to
empower Trump and damage the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Even though none of the alleged
Kremlin plotters would have expected Trump to actually beat Hillary, it was plausible to
maintain that they would have hoped that a weakened Clinton would be less able to implement the
anti-Russian agenda that she had been promoting. Many observers in both Russia and the U.S.
believed that if she had been elected armed conflict with Moscow would have been inevitable,
particularly if she moved to follow her husband's example and push to have both Georgia and
Ukraine join NATO, which Russia would have regarded as an existential threat.
Trump's surprising victory forced a pivot, with Clapper, Brennan and Comey adjusting the
narrative to make it appear that Trump the traitor may have captured the White House due to
help from the Kremlin, making him a latter-day Manchurian Candidate. The lesser allegations of
Russian meddling were quickly elevated to devastating assertions that the Republican had only
won with Putin's assistance.
No substantive evidence for the claim of serious Russian meddling has ever been produced in
spite of years of investigation, but the real objective was to plant the story that would
plausibly convince a majority of Americans that the election of Donald Trump was somehow
illegitimate.
The national security team acted to protect their candidate Hillary Clinton, who represented
America's Deep State. In spite of considerable naysaying, the Deep State is real, not just a
wild conspiracy theory. Many Americans nevertheless do not believe that the Deep State exists,
that it is a politically driven media creation much like Russiagate itself was, but if one
changes the wording a bit and describes the Deep State as the Establishment, with its political
power focused in Washington and its financial center in New York City, the argument that there
exists a cohesive group of power brokers who really run the country becomes much more
plausible.
The danger posed by the Deep State, or, if you choose, the Establishment, is that it wields
immense power but is unelected and unaccountable. It also operates through relationships that
are not transparent and as the media is part of it, there is little chance that its activity
will be exposed.
Nevertheless, some might even argue that having a Deep State is a healthy part of American
democracy, that it serves as a check or corrective element on a political system that has
largely been corrupted and which no longer serves national interests. But that assessment
surely might have been made before it became clear that many of the leaders of the nation's
intelligence and security agencies are no longer the people's honorable servants they pretend
to be. They have been heavily politicized since at least the time of Ronald Reagan and have
frequently succumbed to the lure of wealth and power while identifying with and promoting the
interests of the Deep State.
Indeed, a number of former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Directors have implicitly or
even directly admitted to the existence of a Deep State that has as one of its roles keeping
presidents like Donald Trump in check. Most recently, John McLaughlin, responding to a question
about Donald Trump's concern over Deep State involvement in the ongoing impeachment process,
said unambiguously "Well, you know, thank God for the 'deep state' With all of the people who
knew what was going on here, it took an intelligence officer to step forward and say something
about it, which was the trigger that then unleashed everything else. This is the institution
within the U.S. government is institutionally committed to objectivity and telling the truth.
It is one of the few institutions in Washington that is not in a chain of command that makes or
implements policy. Its whole job is to speak the truth -- it's engraved in marble in the
lobby."
Well, John's dedication to truth is exemplary but how does he explain his own role in
support of the lies being promoted by his boss George "slam dunk" Tenet that led to the war
against Iraq, the greatest foreign policy disaster ever experienced by the United States? Or
Tenet's sitting in the U.N. directly behind Secretary of State Colin Powell in the debate over
Iraq, providing cover and credibility for what everyone inside the system knew to be a bundle
of lies? Or his close friend and colleague Michael Morell's description of Trump
as a Russian agent , a claim that was supported by zero evidence and which was given
credibility only by Morell's boast that "I ran the CIA."
Beyond that, more details have been revealed demonstrating exactly how Deep State associates
have attempted, with considerable success, to subvert the actual functioning of American
democracy. Words are one thing, but acting to interfere in an electoral process or to undermine
a serving president is a rather more serious matter.
It is
now known that President Barack Obama's CIA Director John Brennan created a Trump Task
Force in early 2016. Rather than working against genuine foreign threats, this Task Force
played a critical role in creating and feeding the meme that Donald Trump was a tool of the
Russians and a puppet of President Vladimir Putin, a claim that still surfaces regularly to
this day. Working with James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, Brennan fabricated
the narrative that "Russia had interfered in the 2016 election." Brennan and Clapper promoted
that tale even though they knew very well that Russia and the United States have carried out a
broad array of covert actions against each other, including information operations, for the
past seventy years, but they pretended that what happened in 2016 was qualitatively and
substantively different even though the "evidence" produced to support that claim was and still
is weak to nonexistent.
The Russian "election interference" narrative went on steroids on January 6, 2017, shortly
before Trump was inaugurated, when an "Intelligence Community Assessment" (ICA) orchestrated by
Clapper and Brennan was published. The banner headline atop The New York Times, itself an
integral part of the Deep State, on the following day set the tone for what was to follow:
"Putin Led Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Says."
With the help of the Establishment media, Clapper and Brennan were able to pretend that the
ICA had been approved by "all 17 intelligence agencies" (as first claimed by Hillary Clinton).
After several months, however Clapper revealed that the preparers of the ICA were "handpicked
analysts" from only the FBI, CIA, and NSA. He explained rather
unconvincingly during an interview on May 28, 2017, that "the historical practices of the
Russians, who typically, are almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor,
whatever, which is a typical Russian technique," adding later that "It's in their DNA."
Task Force Trump was kept secret within the Agency itself because the CIA is not supposed to
spy on Americans. Its staff was pulled together by invitation-only. Specific case officers
(i.e., men and women who recruit and handle spies overseas), analysts and administrative
personnel were recruited, presumably based on their political reliability. Not everyone invited
accepted the offer. But many did because it came with promises of promotion and other
rewards.
And this was not a CIA-only operation. Personnel from the FBI also were assigned to the Task
Force with the approval of then Director James Comey. Former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele's
FBI handler, Michael Gaeta, may have been one of those detailed to the Trump Task Force.
Steele, of course, prepared the notorious dossier that was surfaced shortly before Donald Trump
took office. It included considerable material intended to tie Trump to Russia, information
that was in many cases fabricated or unsourced.
So, what kind of things would this Task Force do? The case officers would work with foreign
intelligence services such as MI-6, the Italians, the Ukrainians and the Australians on
identifying intelligence collection priorities that would implicate Trump and his associates in
illegal activity. And there is evidence that John Brennan himself would contact his
counterparts in allied intelligence services to obtain their discreet cooperation, something
they would be inclined to do in collegial fashion, ignoring whatever reservations they might
have about spying on a possible American presidential candidate.
Trump Task Force members could have also tasked the National Security Agency (NSA) to do
targeted collection. They also would have the ability to engage in complicated covert actions
that would further set up and entrap Trump and his staff in questionable activity, such as the
targeting of associate George Papadopoulos. If he is ever properly interviewed, Maltese
citizen Joseph Mifsud may be able to shed light on the CIA officers who met with him, briefed
him on operational objectives regarding Papadopoulos and helped arrange monitored meetings. It
is highly likely that Azra Turk, the woman who met with George Papadopoulos, was part of the
CIA Trump Task Force.
The Task Force also could carry out other covert actions, sometimes using press or social
media placements to disseminate fabrications about Trump and his associates. Information
operations is a benign-sounding euphemism for propaganda fed through the Agency's friends in
the media, and computer network operations can be used to create false linkages and misdirect
inquiries. There has been some informed speculation that Guccifer 2.0 may have been a creation
of this Task Force.
In light of what has been learned about the alleged CIA whistleblower there should be a
serious investigation to determine if he was a part of this Task Force or, at minimum,
reporting to them secretly after he was seconded to the National Security Council. All the CIA
and FBI officers involved in the Task Force had sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution of the
United States, but nevertheless were involved in a conspiracy to first denigrate and then
possibly bring down a legally elected president. That effort continues with repeated assertions
regarding Moscow's malevolent intentions for the 2020 national elections. Some might reasonably
regard the whole Brennan affair, to include its spear carriers among the current and retired
national security state leadership, as a case of institutionalized treason, and it inevitably
leads to the question "What did Obama know?"
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is[email protected] .
The entire FISA court process has been exposed as an insane sham.
"The Secret Team" just took the absurdity of the process and raised it to the next
level–injecting it into a political campaign.
It would be wonderful if they could fill a jail with every empty suit who touched those
warrants–but I would be stunned if even one of them gets paraded around in the orange
jump-suit they so richly deserve. Read More Replies:
@Moi
Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All
Comments
Looking on at this affair from outside the USA, it is clear that the power and influence of
the USA is waning a lot faster than most people expected.
The replacement of the US military by mercenaries who are called other names was a first
step. The sanctioning and punishing of allies for stepping out of line is the second step.
BTW, it is notable how Japan and Australia are very keen to stay in line but the Europeans
less so.
I suspect the third step will be to encourage a collapse of the Euro – so as to make
wealthy Europeans shift their money to the USA in a panic.
It seems to me that the US public will be the last to learn of what is really happening.
Even on this website there are sometimes letters or articles that mention 9/11 as a
"terrorist" or "Saudi" act. How can one take anything such a person writes seriously?
The control of media and the internet seems to be the last part of the collapse. They will
hang on to that to the very last moment.
John Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force
Could it become Obamagate?
Perhaps, but what is the point? All this bullshit is engineered to make dumbass Americans
think justice is being served. Nothing will come of it no one will go to prison.
As if Trump weren't part and parcel of the Deep State.
His actions in Syria, Bolivia, Hong Kong, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, etc. all prove
incontrovertibly that he is (and has always been) a member in fine standing of the Deep
State. If he is a Manchurian Candidate, he is the true puppet of the Deep State, not the
people or of Russia.
Exactly. I voted for Trump, but, as long ago as mid April 2017, I determined that he was a
Deep Stater his actions are just too obvious to ignore.
The Magic Negro cannot be touched and that is why nothing will be done about the biggest crime in the history of our nation
Obama orchestrated the destruction of a political rival and he will get away scott free .because he's an oppressed and downtrodden dindu.
There is considerable evidence that the American system of government may have been
victimized by an illegal covert operation organized and executed by the U.S.
Which one are you referring to, Iran 1953, Kennedy assassination 1963, Gulf of Tonkin 1964
or the other dozens of examples?
"And this was not a CIA-only operation. Personnel from the FBI also were assigned to the
Task Force "
This just in: both the CIA and FBI are unconstitutional, agencies.Get rid of them -and all
of the other unconstitutional alphabet-soup agencies[FDA,EPA,SEC etc.etc.etc.]. No
downsizing-trash them all- NOW!
This also just in: "Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect
theft [taxes], and counterfeiting [via central bank monopolies], all governments are
essentially, at their very cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be
"reformed","improved", simply because of their innate, unchangeble criminal nature."
onebornfree
"Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way
to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those
of a professional-criminal class." Albert J. Nock
@Alfred
Your point about 9/11 can't be made forcefully enough. We're going straight to hell unless
Israel and its American confederates are brought to justice, these wars ended, and order
restored. Clapper, Comey, Brennan, Mueller, Chertoff and the whole traitorous bunch are
probably guilty as principals but almost certainly they're at least complicit as accessories
before and after the fact. So naturally all we hear about is Russiagate.
The evidence overwhelmingly implicates Israel and not Saudi Arabia as you point out. That
Building 7 was brought down by explosives has been proved beyond doubt by Architects &
Engineers for 911 Truth, and as Dr. Alan Sobrosky put it, if Building 7 was brought down by
explosives, so too were the Twin Towers. The official NIST reports and all related government
narratives are preposterous. They're fairytales for fools inasmuch as the official mechanisms
rely on a suspension of the laws of physics more fanciful than Jack and the Beanstalk. The
story of the nineteen Arabs who couldn't handle Cessna 150s magically flying jetliners into
precise targets is more absurd than fairytale tropes about flying carpets.
Yet for Conservatism Inc and Fox News, which both claim to oppose the Deep State and its
narratives, there's no standard of evidence so low or preposterous that these cucks won't
cling to it to cover up what they must now know is Israel's guilt. We can assume it's
precisely because they're aware of Israel's guilt that they rule out the overwhelmingly
conclusive circumstantial evidence pointing to Israel on the grounds such evidence is
"anti-Semitic" and consequently false on apriori grounds. Moreover, any expert investigator
qualified in the relevant field who uncovers and presents evidence implicating Israel is cast
as the actual terrorist. It should go without saying they've reversed a millennium in the
development of Western thought regarding the connection between evidence and conclusion, and
they've done so for the basest of reasons. At least Conservatism Inc is being daily exposed
for the controlled opposition and worthless club of preppy snots it's always been.
Brilliant Article.
The question is when deep state will finally admit that Globalism after all that sacrifice
and evildoing are just sour grapes. As fox said in Ezops tale.
"the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, are almost genetically driven
to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique," adding
later that "It's in their DNA."
Right, along with drinking vodka and eating borscht.
The one nation that did interfere in the 2016 election, and has inserted themselves
into other elections to get their candidate elected, Israel remains untouched by this (((Deep
State))).
There's plenty of evidence for the Zionists and Israeli-Firsters corrupting the election
process for their fav nation, Israel, but the Operation Mockingbird asshats in the MSM won't
go near that, not if they want to keep their cushy job, 5th Avenue penthouse and that
chauffeured limo.
Anytime AIPAC comes to town, Congress gets into a fight with each other, trying to be the
one that shows the most slavish loyalty to the nation that has attacked the USA numerous
times, spies constantly on us, stealing our military, business and industrial secrets, had a
hand in both murdering JFK, RFK and masterminded the 9/11 FF, and has an overwheling presence
on the FED, yet most Americans don't know that, because the MSM keeps reporting lies,
distortions and half-truths, and always presenting a boogeyman to hate, sometimes Russia,
most times Muslims.
But fear not, that will soon come to an end, for when those TBTF Wall Street
banks–in collusion with the FED–again crash the stock market and drag the economy
down with their greed, that coming crash will make the one of 1929 seem like a picnic.
When that happens, what's left won't be of any interest to Israel to steal or manipulate.
The Deep State murdered Kennedy.
He planned on destroying the Fed and the CIA.
The Deep State required a president that COLLABORATED, like LBJ.
Then they figured, "why not put our guy in?'
Thus Bush 1.
Then Clinton (Bush 1 was his 'mentor') a pervert stooge.
Then Bush 2, a gaymail stooge.
Then Obomber, the gay Kenyan C_A stooge.
Then America says 'Enough', rejects the Witch and elects Trump.
Now the Deep State wants to kill America.
I think it's time for America to kill its' Deep State.
It is, after all, self-defense. Besides, hasn't this gone on long enough?
The alternative is to end up as the modern parallel of Rome.
Clapper, Brennan and Comey " may not have operated on their own." Duh!
You just remember, a donkey won't carry a heavy burden unless it's fed regularly. Find out
who owns the beast and you will have the culprit!
Phil, you should offer your services to the Trump defense/attack team*. Just stay away from
Giuliani (grin). Good article and salvo against Brennan and the rest who deserve all the pain
thay can get.
*Hey money is good especially around Christmas time. (Grin)
This certainly explains the incessant attacks on Trump by the deep state.
You have no concept of a charade being perpetrated on the American people. You don't find
it a little strange that Trump keeps hiring the Deep State denizens he purports to be
fighting? You are incapable of detecting the friend/foe, psychological tactic used to
deceive?
@Anonymous
That's it. Your hearsay trumps thousands of eyewitnesses and conversations of the victims on
flight 93 and in the pentagon.. You must be a first responder too. Talk about easily
influenced–you are why the old media gets away with their corruption. Some anonymous
source writes, says it on TV, and the lemmings follow.
@Biff
As we write, Obama probably is banging away some groupie in a DC mansion basement while the
gorrila is frying chicken upstairs for Oprah.
And Bubba, most likely, is watching porn in the garage in Westchester and the wicked witch
is massaging mrs. Wiener.
But it's Dubya worth looking into because he is out in the cowshed, buck naked save the
cowboy boots and the ten-gallon hat, whipping himself silly for the "mission
accomplished!"
Or, Obama and the police agencies investigated a known organized crime stooge when it became
apparent the GOP could offer no other candidate. Ironically, this was the original intent of
the creation of the FBI.
Don't play into the "victim trump" brand, he needs no help with it.
Thanks much for the most comprehensive précis yet of this bungled CIA putsch. The
articles in sequence teasingly open Gina's kimono, giving us horripilating glimpses of her
bushy penetralia. The question of Obama's involvement is the next step. CIA bots have been
pushing a partisan perspective for some time. Those darn Democrats!
But in fact Obama too is CIA nomenklatura, with the same depth of dynastic ties as GW
Bush, albeit not at the same lofty level. Just look at the oppo research, the best of which
comes from sanitized glimpses of the errands candidates run for CIA. Obama's other passport
is not Kenyan but Indonesian. It facilitated the youngster's schooling during Mom's year of
living dangerously in Indonesia. Obama's dad and stepdad were CIA skins on the wall. Grandma
was not in fact a drunk – she laundered the money for forcible overthrow and genocide
in Indonesia at her bank job in Hawaii. Grandpa was a "furniture salesman," like Bibi,
travelling around Asia under the hoariest old chestnut of NOC cover.
Young Barack was groomed as carefully as Bush minor. His only real job was BIC, a sheepish
front perennially stuffed to bursting with NOCs. While he was still wet behind the ears he
sported at falconry with a future head of state of Pakistan, for chrissakes, at a time when
nobody could get in there. And he got out without getting his head sawed off. How? The
youthful promise of this sullen stoner was somewhat obscure at that time. His GF was the
Aussie daughter of Mike Barry's opposite number. And the Mockingbird unison of ecstatic
acclaim when he rose to public prominence out of nowhere is the proof. His empty suit belings
to CIA.
This past election was CIA office politics, nothing more. Russigate is simply CIA eminence
Hillary, the Queen of Mena, ratfucking a bumptious queue-jumper. She outranks Trump, who was
merely a junior money-launderer for the CIA agents who looted the Soviet Union. It was her
turn to take the figurehead head-of-state sinecure. She and Bill earned it with their
lucrative Clinton Foundation covert-ops slush fund.
@Rabbi
Zaius They sense the rumblings of White solidarity among "the forgotten men and women" of
Trump's base and they do not cotton to this one little bit. Solidarity is forbidden to
Whites. It is only for the coalition of the fringes, all of those groups whose alienation can
be stoked to weaponize them against the descendants of those who founded and built the United
States.
@Dave
Sullivan The FISA warrants had nothing to do with organized crime.
On second thought, that is not correct.
They _were_ organized crime.
(It is not necessary to defend Trump to understand this. FISA warrants based on known fake
"evidence" are a stunning abuse of power–even within the slime-pit of DC.)
Anyone at all familiar with Brennan knows that he was and remains the driver of the
conspiracy to destroy first candidate, then President -Elect, and then POTUS Trump.
The same cannot be said of Comey and Clapper (especially).
It literally makes me sick to my stomach whenever I think about what it says about this
great republic that seditious filth like him rose to such a powerful position. It's rather
obvious he was willing to do anything including, I would submit, gift Russia and God Knows
Who Else anything they wanted in return for helping him destroy our constitutional
republic.
As I'm sure most here know, long before his 2016 election malefactions he had brazenly
engaged in spying on Congress and, most despicably, had debased President Obama and the
Office of the President through NYT revelations that every week Obama picked from his list of
drone assassination targets.
. . . and it inevitably leads to the question "What did Obama know?"
Yes, though more important than that was what Obama was told (by Brennan) and what real
options did he have as president given that Brennan had him by the short hairs.
I've long considered anyone's efforts to prematurely direct liability to President Obama
as a bald attempt to protect Brennan. That worked for the purposes of a general, earlier on,
cover up. It won't at this stage because it isn't even a close call when it comes to
Democrats, elected and rank and file, choosing between the first black president and Brennan,
the American Beria.
And has been since the early 1950s when the Allen Dulles-Frank Wisner-James Jesus Angleton
crew got rolling. They managed to thoroughly penetrate federal and state bureaucracies, the
court systems, major corporations, the financial sector, and the mockingbird media.
So Phil, was there any cooperation/communication between the Trump Task Force and the DNC
dirt-diggers in Ukraine (Ali Chalupa et al), or were they completely independent actions?
it was plausible to maintain that [the Russians] would have hoped that a weakened
Clinton would be less able to implement the anti-Russian agenda that she had been
promoting.
Not sure I follow this line of reasoning. If the Russians had tried unsuccessfully to
throw the election to Trump and Hellary won anyway, how exactly would that leave her
"weakened"? And wouldn't she have that much more reason to go after Russia?
My theory is that Hellary and her deep-swamp creatures only messed with Trump because they
were certain he was going lose. And if they could then plausibly claim after the
election that the Russians had interfered (albeit unsuccessfull) in the election, Hell-bitch
could've used that as a pretext for well, I don't know. War? More sanctions? Inducting
Ukraine into NATO? Invading Syria?
Clapper revealed that the preparers of the ICA were "handpicked analysts" from only the
FBI, CIA, and NSA. He explained rather unconvincingly during an interview on May 28, 2017,
that "the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, are almost genetically
driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique,"
adding later that "It's in their DNA."
I had no idea Clapper was into HBD. Damn, he's biased!
@NPleeze
There is a theater play going on, unending series, each episode catching some other
superficial drift. A-l-l actors in the public view, their dialogues and declamations are
scripted. Trump´s also. He is not the major character, just a single, temporary one.
All media opinion pieces, what is news, are prompt readings. Rectal extraction is close.
Why is this possible? The public is beyond understanding. The ones who do, at least part
of what is going on, being closer to some sectors of society where a whiff of the smell of
power is perceived at clouded times, are interested. The middle classes are scraping and
grabbing and bickering for the scraps of the table of the powerful. It takes them most of
their career to even get to under the table. They are happy dogs, and scraps comparing to
scraps makes them a diverse world of nothings.
It is hard work to come up with alternative policies, not rail into historical models
proven wrong as to long term interests and goals of society. A path not to venture into,
against instinct.
That makes for a fine world, while it lasts, and is upended by another cycle. The empty
drum feeling in the head of most is stuffed with images and sound-bites that makes for a life
behind a velvet curtain(Apple´s i-phone).
There is very little cognitive difference between the individuals at the top and the
glorious bottom undesirables, they both like the sniff of the glue.
Donald Trump's election (which was not supposed to be allowed to happen) forced into public
view, the existence of a Deep State that's been in existence for more than 75 years. Although
not widely recognized as such, JFK'S election accomplished the same thing, but to an even
greater extent. Leaving me puzzled as to why Trump has been allowed to remain in office as
long as he has without the Deep State subjecting him to a similar fate.
With one logical
explanation being that, at this point in time, it would become obvious, even to the brain
dead, who's actually in control of the US government.
"... Earlier in Stone's legal process his lawyers filed a motion to try to prove that Russia did not hack the DNC and Podesta emails. The motion revealed that CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC and Clinton campaign, never completed its report, and only gave a redacted draft to the FBI blaming Russia. The FBI was never allowed to examine the DNC server itself. ..."
"... Faced now with a criminal investigation into how the Russiagate conspiracy theory originated intelligence officers and their accomplices in the media and in the Democratic Party are mounting a defense by launching an offensive in the form of impeachment proceedings against Trump that is based on an allegation of conducting routine, corrupt U.S. foreign policy. ..."
Earlier in Stone's legal process his lawyers filed a motion to try to prove that Russia
did not hack the DNC and Podesta emails. The motion
revealed that CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC and Clinton campaign,
never completed its report, and only gave a redacted draft to the FBI blaming Russia. The FBI
was never allowed to examine the DNC server itself.
In the end, though, it doesn't matter if it were a hack or a leak by an insider. That's
because the emails WikiLeaks released were accurate. When documents check out it is
irrelevant who the source is. That's why WikiLeaks set up an anonymous drop box, copied
by big media like The Wall Street
Journal and others
. Had the emails been counterfeit and disinformation was inserted into a U.S. election by a
foreign power that would be sabotage. But that is not what happened.
The attempt to stir up the thoroughly discredited charge of collusion appears to be part of
the defense strategy of those whose reputations were thoroughly discredited by maniacally
pushing that false charge for more than two years. This includes legions of journalists. But
principal among them are intelligence agency officials who laundered this "collusion"
disinformation campaign through the mainstream media.
Faced now with a criminal
investigation into how the Russiagate conspiracy theory originated intelligence officers
and their accomplices in the media and in the Democratic Party are mounting a defense by
launching an offensive in the form of impeachment proceedings against Trump that is based on an
allegation of conducting
routine, corrupt U.S. foreign policy.
Stone may be just a footnote to this historic partisan battle that may scar the nation for a
generation. But he has the personality to be the poster boy for the Democrats' lost cause.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent
forThe Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe,Sunday Timesof London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at[email protected]and
followed on Twitter @unjoe .
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of
power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984
“The trouble [with injustice] is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And
once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking
out. There is no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable.” -- Arundhati Roy --
Arundhati Roy
people are doing things in banks that they shouldn't be doing
Welcome to the We Tortured Some Folks School of Minimization, where you too can learn
to master the deceptive art of manipulative psychological abuse!
I see you, Holder, how you're trying to lie people into believing the bankster crimes
are the same kind of petty theft as hungry people stealing food. That's some straight up
evil shit, man.
We did torture some folks and according to the guy who scanned every page of the torture
memos it was much worse than we were led to believe. There is a video coming out soon about
the torture report and it's findings. I don't remember where I read that and saw the trailer,
but if I find it again I will post it.
Remember that the CIA broke into congress' computer files to see what was there and no one
was held accountable for it. DiFi made a big deal of looking outraged, but.... yeah, we
tortured some folks. The thing is that we still are.
—
America is a pathetic nation; a fascist state fueled by the greed, malice, and
stupidity of her own people.
- strife delivery
"... "The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame after the 9/11 attacks. ..."
"... Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff, described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East – and in D.C. – certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision." ..."
"... Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. ..."
"... To a great degree American foreign policy no longer operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the obsessions inherited from Old Europe. ..."
From what I have read, I gather that the FBI in the Mueller / Comey era has made extensive
use of "perjury traps". They then threaten charges to get someone to "flip" on someone
bigger, in this case Trump. Flynn wouldn't flip even when they threatened to go after Flynn's
son. So they decided to "F" him, as stated by Andrew McCabe.
The FBI has been thoroughly disgraced, and Wray is incapable of cleaning it up. He just
wants to keep the dirt under the rug. It is too late for that, it is all coming out. US
citizens deserve to know how dirty our FBI and CIA are - they are criminal organizations.
I am reminded of Susan MacDougall in the Clinton Whitewater case, decades ago -she claimed
"they' were trying to make her flip too - can't remember who was on which side, but was it
also government prosecutors against a vulnerable individual who they had hope to break to get
the goods they decided they wanted? If so, I guess we need generational reminders of the
awesome and terrifying powers of an overly powerful "government".
Factorum,
re: I guess we need generational reminders of the awesome and terrifying powers of an
overly powerful "government".
I'd put it more precise - "the awesome and terrifying powers of ANY overly powerful
"government".
If it's an Obama FBI crew getting after you or a Trump FBI crew - it must be very bad
every time, guilty of anything or not. A classic case of how really bad it can get is Brazil's evangelical Bolsonaro. Iirc a
Brazilian TV station had reported that his son was likely deeply involved in the
murder of a left politician or reporter in Brazil, a deed done by former Brazilian cops who
also happened to call Bolsonaro's house.
Bolsonaro simply freaked out and was not interested at all in any investigation. or the
question whether the report was accurate. He simply threatened the TV station that, when
reelected, he would nullify their media license. He showed no interest in any reality or facts but was just trying to brutally silence and
intimidate the media outlet he doesn't like. He also suggested that his son should become Brazil's ambassador to the US. Probably a
perfect job since Trump doesn't have any problems with the Saudi murder prince MbS as
well.
K.T. McFarland (whose name comes up every now and then in this matter)
has some pertinent thought to on how the government used its power against Flynn: "KT McFarland
speaks for first time about Michael Flynn" , Fox News interview, 2019-11-05
Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and
Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins. Could it be my Russian paranoia. Nah, I am being
unreasonable--those people never had a bad feeling towards Trump's attempts to boost
Russian-American relations with Michael Flynn spearheading this effort. Jokes aside, however,
I can only imagine how SVR and GRU are enjoying the spectacle. I can only imagine how many
"free" promotions and awards can be attach to this thing as a free ride.
Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within
the American administration.
I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the
more hawkish elements in US politics. I thought it had been an American Admiral. I had no
luck finding a reference so I googled it. Still no joy with the American admiral, but the
list thrown up had near the top of it this informative quote from Patrick Bahzad.
"The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown
member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who
had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame
after the 9/11 attacks.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff,
described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House
with his Southern sense of humor, adding that they had become almost overnight what was
henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East
– and in D.C. – certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that
period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the
policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision."
Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to
positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been
uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. Or, to put
it more soberly, form part of the neocon wing of those administrations. Though I, as an
outside observer, might be prejudiced here because I happen not to get on very well with
Brzezinski and his copious output.
Allowing for that prejudice, which I confess runs very deep, I still think that to an
extent American foreign policy has been hijacked by Eastern European emigres who themselves
retain some of the prejudices and mindset of another age and place.
Looking at it from afar, the influence of some Eastern European emigres on American foreign
policy has been uniformly deleterious. And that from a long way back and no matter whether
those emigres are in Washington or Tel Aviv.
It cannot but help be distorting, that influence. It's not merely that unexamined
Russophobia is embedded in the DNA of many Eastern Europeans. There's a narrow minded focus
on aggressive Machtpolitik, bred from centuries of violent territorial disputes with
neighbors.
That, transferred to the world stage as it must be when it infects the foreign policy of
the United States - because that is a country that cannot but help be at the centre of the
world stage - distorts US foreign policy. To a great degree American foreign policy no longer
operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the
obsessions inherited from Old Europe.
In the most famous of his speeches Churchill spoke of the time when, as he hoped, "the New
World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the
old."
Let the historians dispute as they will, that is what happened. And continued to happen
for half a century and more. But there was a price few noticed. The New World might have
stepped forward to rescue the old, but it carried back from that old world a most destructive
freight.
If all of this corruption were carried out to entrap or thwart a liberal Democrat instead of
Trump and his associates, we all know the MSM would be banging a drum of utter outrage, 24/7.
We'd never hear the end of a story such as this -- that the FBI misidentified the authors of
Flynn's interview notes. Unbelievable.
A while back, I recall reading about a sexual discrimination or harassment case involving
FBI's Andrew McCabe in which Gen. Flynn intervened on behalf of the female accuser, and it
was thought by some that the bogus charge against the general was in part an act of revenge
on McCabe's behalf. There are so many dots out there, unconnected, because the MSM is doing
its best to suppress the truth.
How long can they continue to hear, see and speak no evil if the you-know-what hits the
fan? I guess we're going to find out.
How do you know the FBI/DOJ and our wonderful allies never did this to a Democratic
politician before? Keeping them in office and subject to extortion to get favorable policies
in place would be far more effective than removing someone from office. Perhaps we should ask
Jeffrey Epstein just what those politicians and businessmen were doing on that island, that
manions in NYC or the one in Paris.....
Is this just a situation where the DoJ are giving the judge an easy way out to throw the case
for a technical reason?
This would leave Flynn high and dry without his innocence having been proved having just
got off on a technicality. Also the DoJ would not be exposed to having to produce all the
damning stuff that the Honey Badger wants out in public.
Very interesting to see which way Judge Sullivan goes now. Wonder if he wants another
Powell book.
Which country are you from where people have to prove innocence rather than prosecutors
prove guilt? A technicality - do you mean that as a joke since this is obviously criminal
misconduct by the FBI/DOJ; or do you really believe they made a mistake that went
undiscovered through the entire Mueler probe, congressional testimony and a couple years
worth of legal discovery by defense counsel?
The manner in which Comey and his select team of officials engineered the Flynn 'interview'
was contemptible, but not surprising. The group had been steeping in politics from the moment
Comey agreed to the Clinton e-mail case under the conditions he did. The special organization
he created, an FBI within the FBI operating out of HQ, the administering of 'blood oaths',
etc, only made matters worse, or better, depending on one's political point of view. The only
thing lacking was secret hand shakes.
In my now outdated experience, the charge of lying to the FBI was viewed as B.S., period; it
was never even contemplated as as a stand alone charge. Separated from a substantive charge,
it is worse than B.S.
There are several things wrong about the Flynn interview. Among them: if there was indeed a
reason for a strategy session to deceive Flynn about his possibly requiring a lawyer, that
reason to the fair minded person meant there should have been no need for a strategy session:
the interview required telling Flynn that he had the right to a lawyer; he should have been
told the purpose of the interview, ie what it was he was suspected of having done wrong and
that the import of his answers was sufficiently serious that if he didn't tell the truth he
could be charged with lying; if there was uncertainty whether Flynn had told the truth, as
apparently there was because the 302 was subjected to editing and reediting, itself highly
irregular, the proper way to have resolved any question would have been to reinterview Flynn,
not tailor the paperwork to support the charge; if in fact Flynn did lie, what was the harm
caused by the lie, or put another way, what would have been the outcome if Flynn had told the
truth.
On the subject of recorded interviews, I am of uncertain mind. There is a before interview;
there is an after interview. Electronics change the dynamics of the interview itself, and it
may be to the advantage of the person interviewed and it may be to his or her disadvantage.
If an interview is fairly played, there should be no need to record it; if the interview is
intent on something other than fair play, he will find some way to game the electronics.
Electronics are no panacea to instilling integrity where integrity is not otherwise to be
found.
The 'honey badger' was a species unknown to me, but having looked that animal up, it seems
an apt comparison.
Indeed, at the risk of being frivolous, I am tempted to quote the Kipling refrain about
the 'female of the species' being 'deadlier than the male.' It seems to me quite likely that
people at the FBI, and elsewhere, are still finding it difficult to grasp what has hit
them.
Something which interests me greatly is the possible knock-on effects of Ms. Powell's
breakthroughs in exposing the conspiracy to frame Michael Flynn on other cases, notably those
in which Ty Clevenger and Steven S. Biss are involved.
The pair are representing Ed Butowsky and Devin Nunes, and also, crucially, Svetlana
Lokhova, in her case against the 'ratfucker' – the term used in the 'Complaint' –
Stefan Halper and some of the MSM organisations who have collaborated in his 'dirty
tricks.'
In all of these cases, material freely available on the 'Courtlistener' site is a mine of
fascinating information.
Of particular interest at the moment, I think, are the efforts of Clevenger to 'prise
open' the cover-up over the role over Seth Rich in leaking the materials from the DNC which
the conspirators falsely alleged were hacked by the Russians, and that about the
circumstances of his murder.
These efforts have been aided by a remarkable 'hostage to fortune' given by Deborah Sines,
a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in D.C. who was assigned to the Rich case.
The 'supplemental evidence' in question appeared back in July in Episode 5 of the podcast
'Conspiracyland' which Michael Isikoff produced for 'Yahoo! News'. In this, Ms. Sines
recycled the familiar disinformation from Andrew McCabe to the effect that it had been
established that there was no connection between Rich and Wikileaks.
She then suggested that the FBI had indeed examined his computer, but solely because
someone had been trying to 'invade his Gmail account and set up a separate account after Seth
was murdered.' The supposed purpose of this activity, by a 'foreign hacker', was 'so they
could dump false information in there.'
As Clevenger pointed out, this claim is rather hard to reconcile with the FBI's insistence
that it has no records pertaining to Rich, and makes the Bureau's refusal to search its
Computer Analysis Response Team ("CART") for relevant records, and the Washington Field
Office for email records, look even more suspicious than it already did.
From the 'Courtlistener' pages it also appeared that, following a telephone conference,
Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom ruled that the statement by Ms. Sines did not rise to the 'level
of bad faith' required to justify the 'discovery' that Clevenger sought, on the basis of
it.
Also freely available on 'Courtlistener', however, is an 'Unopposed motion for stay' which
Clevenger filed on 30 November. From this, we learn that Judge Bloom had 'noted that Ms.
Sines' statements were not made under oath, further suggesting that the Plaintiff might try
to obtain a sworn statement from Ms. Sines.'
In response, Clevenger made clear that he intended to subpoena that lady for a deposition,
in the relation to the defamation cases brought against Michael Gottlieb et al, and also
David Folkenflik et al, where he is representing Ed Butowsky.
Accordingly, he asked the Court to stay his own case 'until the deposition of Ms. Sines
can be arranged and the transcripts can be produced.' Apparently, there was no objection from
the DOJ, FBI, and NSA.
In addition, Clevenger asked the court to take 'judicial notice' of the fact that, in her
reply dated 24 October to the lawyers for the USG, 'attorney Sidney Powell laid out damning
evidence that high-ranking FBI officials systematically tampered with records and hid
exculpatory evidence for the purpose of framing the defendant, retired General Mike
Flynn.'
So it looks as though what the 'honey badger' has been digging out in relation to Flynn
may help in the burrowing efforts of others in related matters – who may be in a
position to return the favour.
Increasingly, it seems not entirely unthinkable that the cumulative effect of of the cases
in which Powell, Clevenger and Biss are involved may blow open the whole conspiracy against
the Constitution, irrespective of whether or not Horowitz, Barr and Durham are prepared to go
substantially beyond a 'limited hangout.'
Another important, and neglected, aspect here relates to the cases still ongoing against
Steele and Orbis in London – that brought by Aleksej Gubarev, and that by the Alfa
oligarchs. It is material that libel laws on this side are noticeably less favourable to
defendants than on yours – not least in that the 'fair report privilege' retains its
original narrower construction here.
Unfortunately, we do not have here any equivalent to 'PACER' and 'Courtlistener.' The last
I heard about the Gubarev case was in the spring, when his American lawyers suggested that it
should come to court before Xmas.
It would not at all surprise me if it was postponed. Ironically, however, I now think that
it may be quite likely that his British lawyers see delay as being in Gubarev's
interests.
A critical point is that Steele is making no attempt to defend the accuracy of the claims
about the involvement of Gubarev and his companies in hacking in the final memorandum in the
dossier.
It seems quite likely that what is coming to light as the result of the lawsuits on your
side may make it materially more difficult to mount any credible case that these were not
very seriously defamatory.
There have been repeated attempts to locate the dossier attributed to Steele in another
version of a familiar 'Russophobic' narrative, suggesting that he was deliberately fed
disinformation by his Russian contacts as part of an 'active measures' campaign.
In my view, these are largely BS. However, a possible partial exception has to do with the
claims about Gubarev, which follow on from the those made in Company Report 2016/086, which
is dated 26 July 2015.
My suspicion has long been that the sloppy misdating – 2016 is clearly meant –
reflected the fact that the document was part of a panic-stricken response to the murder of
Rich, which had taken place on 10 July. What I may well have happened is that FBI
cybersecurity people, who had been cultivating sources among their FSB counterparts, put out
an urgent request, which generated material that went into the dossier.
If that was the case however, it would have been likely that some of their informants were
playing a 'double game.' And my suspicion is that, when a further request was put in,
following Trump's election victory, those making it were fed a 'baited hook' about Gubarev,
very likely cast in the hope of producing something like the outcome that materialised.
I noted with interest that both Devin Nunes and Lee Smith are now expressing scepticism
about the notion that Steele's role was in actually authoring the dossier, rather than taking
ownership of a compendium essentially produced within Fusion GPS.
Another ground for believing this was put into sharp focus with the publication by
'Judicial Watch' in September of – heavily redacted – versions of reports from
Steele circulated in the State Department prior to the dossier.
These clarify a matter which has long puzzled me about the memoranda. Normally, one would
expect the product of a serious business intelligence company to be properly presented, on
headed stationery, without elementary errors. And one would not expect a numbering which
suggests that the documents made public are part of a much larger series.
A document dated 13 June 2014, headline 'RUSSIA-UKRAINE CRISIS: Kremlin Emboldened to
Challenge USG Sanctions and Anti-Russian Leverage On Financial Markets', which is labelled
'Report ID: 2014/130a', suggests that we are actually dealing with a format used in an
information service sent out to a large number of clients. Precisely what this would not
contain was material attributed to highly sensitive sources.
So the clumsy imitation of this formatting in the dossier gives further reason to believe
that it was produced by people other than Steele, who were trying to attribute authorship to
him.
A further implication is that Steele may have ended up left facing libel charges in
relation to claims for which he was not actually responsible.
In addition to those about Gubarev, the use of the transliteration 'Alpha' instead of
'Alfa' for the Fridman/Aven/Khan group makes me think that the author of the relevant
memorandum was not a native English speaker, but someone used to thinking in Russian and/or
Ukrainian.
If so, the memorandum may be part of 'Ukrainegate', which, unlike 'Russiagate', looks like
being a real story.
And here, of course, the question of what became of Seth Rich's laptop, and what
information the FBI is concealing about it, is again critical.
It would not in the least surprise me if the kind of traces described by Ms. Sines are
actually really present on some hard drive.
If however they are, a quite likely explanation is that Alperovitch and his Ukrainian
'partners-in-crime' organised a hack, after the leak was discovered, as part of the more
general attempt to obfuscate the truth.
Why does the media and virtually every pundit commenting on the Ukrainian phone call
intentionally avoid any mention of Trump's Crowdstrike "favor" request?
From what I have read, I gather that the FBI in the Mueller / Comey era has made extensive
use of "perjury traps". They then threaten charges to get someone to "flip" on someone
bigger, in this case Trump. Flynn wouldn't flip even when they threatened to go after Flynn's
son. So they decided to "F" him, as stated by Andrew McCabe.
The FBI has been thoroughly disgraced, and Wray is incapable of cleaning it up. He just
wants to keep the dirt under the rug. It is too late for that, it is all coming out. US
citizens deserve to know how dirty our FBI and CIA are - they are criminal organizations.
I am reminded of Susan MacDougall in the Clinton Whitewater case, decades ago -she claimed
"they' were trying to make her flip too - can't remember who was on which side, but was it
also government prosecutors against a vulnerable individual who they had hope to break to get
the goods they decided they wanted? If so, I guess we need generational reminders of the
awesome and terrifying powers of an overly powerful "government".
Factorum,
re: I guess we need generational reminders of the awesome and terrifying powers of an
overly powerful "government".
I'd put it more precise - "the awesome and terrifying powers of ANY overly powerful
"government".
If it's an Obama FBI crew getting after you or a Trump FBI crew - it must be very bad
every time, guilty of anything or not.
A classic case of how really bad it can get is Brazil's evangelical Bolsonaro.
Iirc a brazilian tv station had reported that his son was likely deeply involved in the
murder of a left polician or reporter in Brazil, a deed done by former brazilian cops who
also happened to call Bolsonaro's house.
Bolsonaro simply freaked out and was not interested at all in any investigation or the
question whether the report was accurate. He simply threatened the tv station that, when
reelected, he would nullify their media license.
He showed no interrest in any reality or facts but was just trying to brutally silence and
intimidate the media outlet he doesn't like.
He also suggested that his son should become Brazil's ambassador to the US. Probably a
perfect job since Trump doesn't have any problems with the Saudi murder prince MbS as
well.
Fred, Thank goodness the German government has never done anything like this ?
Please enlighten me, I am curious and must have missed it - and I live in Germany.
If you want to go back to Attila, Genghis Khan, Adolf or Honnecker - please spare me since
about all of that happened long before I was born (and two of those are huns or mongols) and
is utterly irrelevant here.
Bolsonaro-isms on the other hand "happen right now" and are an example of pretty obvious
abuse of power to cover up crimes like political murder and to permanently silence critics
and/or inconvenient media.
There has been plenty of abuse of government power and it doesn't all require a bullet in
the back or investigators/prosecutors making false claims. I'm on the road but will write
something up about that over the weekend.
K.T. McFarland (whose name comes up every now and then in this matter)
has some pertinent thoughta on how the government used its power against Flynn: "KT McFarland
speaks for first time about Michael Flynn" , Fox News interview, 2019-11-05
Is it just me (wink, wink) but I find it completely coincidental that both Strzok (100%) and
Pientka (likely) are of Polish origins. Could it be my Russian paranoia. Nah, I am being
unreasonable--those people never had a bad feeling towards Trump's attempts to boost
Russian-American relations with Michael Flynn spearheading this effort. Jokes aside, however,
I can only imagine how SVR and GRU are enjoying the spectacle. I can only imagine how many
"free" promotions and awards can be attach to this thing as a free ride.
Your comment brings to mind the outdated Russophobia of many in positions of influence within
the American administration.
I couldn't remember who coined the term "the crazies in the basement" as applied to the
more hawkish elements in US politics. I thought it had been an American Admiral. I had no
luck finding a reference so I googled it. Still no joy with the American admiral, but the
list thrown up had near the top of it this informative quote from Patrick Bahzad.
"The "crazies in the basement" is an expression that was coined originally by some unknown
member of George W's administration. It used to designate the small clique of Neo-Cons who
had found their way into Bush junior's team of advisors, before they rose to dubious fame
after the 9/11 attacks. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, at the time Colin Powell's chief of staff,
described their status enhancement from "lunatic fringe" to top executives in the White House
with his Southern sense of humour, adding that they had become almost overnight what was
henceforth called the Cheney "Gestapo". And what happened over the weekend in the Middle-East
– and in D.C. – certainly looked like a distant but distinct reminder of that
period in the early 2000s when "crazies" coming right out of a dark basement took over the
policy agenda on questions that would require adult supervision."
Both in Canada and the States men and women of Eastern European background have risen to
positions of influence in the respective administrations. I'd argue that that has not been
uniformly beneficial. Not when those men and women enlist under the crazy banner. Or, to put
it more soberly, form part of the neocon wing of those administrations. Though I, as an
outside observer, might be prejudiced here because I happen not to get on very well with
Brzezinski and his copious output.
Allowing for that prejudice, which I confess runs very deep, I still think that to an
extent American foreign policy has been hijacked by Eastern European emigres who themselves
retain some of the prejudices and mindset of another age and place.
Looking at it from afar, the influence of some Eastern European emigres on American foreign
policy has been uniformly deleterious. And that from a long way back and no matter whether
those emigres are in Washington or Tel Aviv.
It cannot but help be distorting, that influence. It's not merely that unexamined
Russophobia is embedded in the DNA of many Eastern Europeans. There's a narrow minded focus
on aggressive Machtpolitik, bred from centuries of violent territorial disputes with
neighbours.
That, transferred to the world stage as it must be when it infects the foreign policy of
the United States - because that is a country that cannot but help be at the centre of the
world stage - distorts US foreign policy. To a great degree American foreign policy no longer
operates in the interests of the broad mass of the American people. It too often plays to the
obsessions inherited from Old Europe.
In the most famous of his speeches Churchill spoke of the time when, as he hoped, "the New
World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the
old."
Let the historians dispute as they will, that is what happened. And continued to happen
for half a century and more. But there was a price few noticed. The New World might have
stepped forward to rescue the old, but it carried back from that old world a most destructive
freight.
Very well put. No better example, apart from being utter academic failure, expected from
"white board" theorists with zero understanding of power, exists of this than late Zbig. Only
blind or sublime to the point of sheer idiocy could fail to see that Brzezinski's loyalties
were not with American people, but with Poland and old Polish, both legitimate and false,
anti-Russian grievances. He dedicated his life to settling whatever scores he had with
historic Russia using the United States merely as a vehicle. So do many, as you correctly
stated, Eastern European immigrants to the United States. They bring with them passions, of
which Founding Fathers warned, and then infuse them into the American political discourse. It
finally reached it peak of absurdity and, as I argue constantly, utter destruction of the
remnants of the Republic.
I wrote what follows before reading Andrei's response to EO, but do not see much reason to
change what I had written.
When in 1988 I ended up working at BBC Radio 'Analysis' programme because it was
impossible to interest any of my old television colleagues in the idea that one might go to
Moscow and talk to some of the people involved in the Gorbachev 'new thinking', my editor,
Caroline Anstey, was an erstwhile aide to Jim Callaghan, the former Labour Prime
Minister.
As a result of his involvement with the Trilateral Commission, she had a fascinating
anecdote about what one of his fellow members, the former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt,
said about another, Zbigniew Brzezinski: that he could never work out which of his country's
two traditional enemies his Polish colleague hated most.
Almost a generation after hearing her say this, in December 2013, I read an article
Brzezinski published in the 'Financial Times, headlined 'Russia, like Ukraine, will become a
real democracy.'
Unfortunately, it is behind a subscription wall, but it clearly expresses its author's
fundamental belief that after all those years of giving Russia the 'spinach' treatment
– to use Victoria Nuland's term – it would finally 'knuckle under', and become a
quiescent satellite of the West.
An ironic sidelight on this is provided in a recent article by a lady called Anna
Mahjar-Barducci on the 'MEMRI' site – which actually has some very useful material on
matters to do with Russia for those of us with no knowledge of the language – headlined
'Contemporary Russian Thinkers Series – Part I – Renowned Russian Academic Sergey
Karaganov On Russia And Democracy.'
Its subject, who I remember well from the days when he was very much one of the 'new
thinkers', linked to it on his own website, clearly pleased at what he saw as an accurate and
informed discussion of his ideas.
There is an obvious risk of succumbing to facetiousness, but sometimes what one thinks are
essential features of an argument can be best brought out at the risk of caricaturing it.
It seems to me that some of the central themes of Karaganov's writing over the past few
years – doubly interesting, because his attacks on conventional Western orthodoxies are
very far from silly, and because he is a kind of 'panjandrum' of a significant section of the
Russian foreign policy élite – may be illuminated in this way.
So, attempting to link his Russian concerns to British and American ones, some central
contentions of his writings might be put as follows:
'"Government of the people, by the people, for the people' looked a lovely idea, back in
1989. But if in practice "by the people" means a choice of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump,
Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn, how can it be "for the people?"
'Moreover, it turned out that our "deplorables" were always right, against us
'intellectuals', in grasping that, with "Russophobes" running Western policy, a "real
democracy" would simply guarantee that we remained as impotent and humiliated as people like
Brzezinski clearly always wanted us to be.
'Our past, and our future, both in terms of alliances and appropriate social and political
systems, are actually "Eurasian": a 'hybrid' state, whose potential greatest advantage
actually should be seen as successfully synthesising different inheritances.
'As the need for this kind of synthesis is a normal condition, with which most peoples
have to reckon, this gives us a very real potential advantage over people in the West, who,
like the communists against whom I rebelled, believe that there is one path along which all
of humanity must – and can – go.'
At the risk of over-interpreting, I might add the following conclusion:
'Of course, precisely what this analysis does not mean is that we are anti-European
– simply that we cannot simply come to Europe, Europe come some way to meet us.
'Given time, Helmut Schmidt's fellow countrymen, as also de Gaulle's, may very well
realise that their future does not lie in an alliance with a coalition of people like
Brzezinski and traditional "Russophobes" from the "Anglosphere".
'And likewise, it does not lie with the kind of messianic universalist "liberalism"
– and, in relation to some of the SJC and LGBT obsessions, one might say "liberalism
gone bonkers" – which Putin criticised in his interview with the "Financial Times" back
in June.
An obvious possibility implicit in the argument is that, if indeed the continental
Europeans see sense, then the coalition of traditional 'Anglophobes' and the 'insulted and
injured' or the 'borderlands' may find itself marginalised, and indeed, on the 'dustbin of
history' to which Trotsky once referred.
Of course, I have no claims to be a Russianist, and my reading of Karaganov may be quite
wrong.
But I do strongly believe that very superficial readings of what was happening when I was
working in the 'Analysis' office, back in 1988-9, have done an immense disservice alike to
Britain and the United States.
David, Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. But the events of two days ago with
Putin and Lavrov being personally present at the unveiling of the monument to Evgenii
Primakov in a front of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs speaks, in fact screams, volumes.
You know of Primakov's Doctrine. It is being fully implemented as I type this and it means
that the West "lost" (quotation marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose) Russia
and it can be "thankful" for that to a so called Russia Studies field in the West which was
primarily shaped and then turned into the wasteland, in large part thanks to influx of East
European "scholars" and some "Russian" dissidents which achieved their objectives by drawing
a caricature. They succeeded and Russia had it with the West.
DH, appreciate your comment. Haven't read the MEMRI paper yet. Scanned the first page though.
Karaganov is an opportunist, granted a smart one. ... You know of Primakov's Doctrine.
It is being fully implemented as I type this and it means that the West "lost" (quotation
marks are intentional--Russia was not West's to lose)
Well, two things sticked out for me during Tumps reelection campain.
1) on the surface he stated, he wanted closer relations to Russia. Looked at more closely, as
should be expected, maybe. They were ambigous. If I may paraphrase it colloguially: I meet
them and, believe me, if I don't get that beautiful deal, i'll be out of the door the next
second.
2) he promised to be enigmatic, compared to earlier American administrations. In other words,
hard to read or to predict. Guess one better is as dealmaker. But in the larger intelligence
field? Enigmatic may well be a commonplace. No?
Otherwise, Andrei, I would appreciate your further elaboration on Karaganov as
opportunist.
Andrei: Strzok and Pientka come from Galicia -- the westernmost portion of what is now
Ukraine -- that was acquired by Empress Maria Theresa in the mid - 18th century.
I have been curious about precisely where both Srzok and Pientka came from, but have not
had time to do any serious searches.
What is the actual evidence that they have Galician origins?
And, if they do, what are these?
I would of course automatically tend to assume that Polish names mean that their origins
are Polish.
But then, if this is so, why are they enthusiastically collaborating with 'Banderista'
Ukrainians?
It has long been a belief of mine that one of Stalin's great mistakes was to attempt to
incorporate Galicia into the empire he was creating.
Had he returned it to Poland, the architects of the Volhynia massacres of Poles – as
also of the massacres of Jews in Lviv/Lvov/Lemberg – could have gone back to their old
habits of assassinating Polish policemen.
I first picked up the Galician connection in an article by Scott Humor: " North America is
a land run by Galician zombies " -- published by The Saker on July 4, 2018. It seems that
Galicians, especially those that arrived after WWII, migrate into security positions such as
ICE / FBI / NSA etc. It may have to do with a family history of work in the Austro-Hungarian
Empire.
Regrettably, I am not from Eastern Europe and cannot help you further about the Bortnicks,
the Gathkes, Buchtas, and so on.
If all of this corruption were carried out to entrap or thwart a liberal Democrat instead of
Trump and his associates, we all know the MSM would be banging a drum of utter outrage, 24/7.
We'd never hear the end of a story such as this -- that the FBI misidentified the authors of
Flynn's interview notes. Unbelievable.
A while back, I recall reading about a sexual discrimination or harassment case involving
FBI's Andrew McCabe in which Gen. Flynn intervened on behalf of the female accuser, and it
was thought by some that the bogus charge against the general was in part an act of revenge
on McCabe's behalf. There are so many dots out there, unconnected, because the MSM is doing
its best to suppress the truth.
How long can they continue to hear, see and speak no evil if the you-know-what hits the
fan? I guess we're going to find out.
How do you know the FBI/DOJ and our wonderful allies never did this to a Democratic
politician before? Keeping them in office and subject to extortion to get favorable policies
in place would be far more effective than removing someone from office. Perhaps we should ask
Jeffrey Epstein just what those politicians and businessmen were doing on that island, that
manions in NYC or the one in Paris.....
Is this just a situation where the DoJ are giving the judge an easy way out to throw the case
for a technical reason?
This would leave Flynn high and dry without his innocence having been proved having just
got off on a technicality. Also the DoJ would not be exposed to having to produce all the
damning stuff that the Honey Badger wants out in public.
Very interesting to see which way Judge Sullivan goes now. Wonder if he wants another
Powell book.
Which country are you from where people have to prove innocence rather than prosecutors
prove guilt? A technicality - do you mean that as a joke since this is obviously criminal
misconduct by the FBI/DOJ; or do you really believe they made a mistake that went
undiscovered through the entire Mueler probe, congressional testimony and a couple years
worth of legal discovery by defense counsel?
The manner in which Comey and his select team of officials engineered the Flynn 'interview'
was contemptible, but not surprising. The group had been steeping in politics from the moment
Comey agreed to the Clinton e-mail case under the conditions he did. The special organization
he created, an FBI within the FBI operating out of HQ, the administering of 'blood oaths',
etc, only made matters worse, or better, depending on one's political point of view. The only
thing lacking was secret hand shakes.
In my now outdated experience, the charge of lying to the FBI was viewed as B.S., period; it
was never even contemplated as as a stand alone charge. Separated from a substantive charge,
it is worse than B.S.
There are several things wrong about the Flynn interview. Among them: if there was indeed a
reason for a strategy session to deceive Flynn about his possibly requiring a lawyer, that
reason to the fair minded person meant there should have been no need for a strategy session:
the interview required telling Flynn that he had the right to a lawyer; he should have been
told the purpose of the interview, ie what it was he was suspected of having done wrong and
that the import of his answers was sufficiently serious that if he didn't tell the truth he
could be charged with lying; if there was uncertainty whether Flynn had told the truth, as
apparently there was because the 302 was subjected to editing and reediting, itself highly
irregular, the proper way to have resolved any question would have been to reinterview Flynn,
not tailor the paperwork to support the charge; if in fact Flynn did lie, what was the harm
caused by the lie, or put another way, what would have been the outcome if Flynn had told the
truth.
On the subject of recorded interviews, I am of uncertain mind. There is a before interview;
there is an after interview. Electronics change the dynamics of the interview itself, and it
may be to the advantage of the person interviewed and it may be to his or her disadvantage.
If an interview is fairly played, there should be no need to record it; if the interview is
intent on something other than fair play, he will find some way to game the electronics.
Electronics are no panacea to instilling integrity where integrity is not otherwise to be
found.
The 'honey badger' was a species unknown to me, but having looked that animal up, it seems
an apt comparison.
Indeed, at the risk of being frivolous, I am tempted to quote the Kipling refrain about
the 'female of the species' being 'deadlier than the male.' It seems to me quite likely that
people at the FBI, and elsewhere, are still finding it difficult to grasp what has hit
them.
Something which interests me greatly is the possible knock-on effects of Ms. Powell's
breakthroughs in exposing the conspiracy to frame Michael Flynn on other cases, notably those
in which Ty Clevenger and Steven S. Biss are involved.
The pair are representing Ed Butowsky and Devin Nunes, and also, crucially, Svetlana
Lokhova, in her case against the 'ratfucker' – the term used in the 'Complaint' –
Stefan Halper and some of the MSM organisations who have collaborated in his 'dirty
tricks.'
In all of these cases, material freely available on the 'Courtlistener' site is a mine of
fascinating information.
Of particular interest at the moment, I think, are the efforts of Clevenger to 'prise
open' the cover-up over the role over Seth Rich in leaking the materials from the DNC which
the conspirators falsely alleged were hacked by the Russians, and that about the
circumstances of his murder.
These efforts have been aided by a remarkable 'hostage to fortune' given by Deborah Sines,
a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in D.C. who was assigned to the Rich case.
The 'supplemental evidence' in question appeared back in July in Episode 5 of the podcast
'Conspiracyland' which Michael Isikoff produced for 'Yahoo! News'. In this, Ms. Sines
recycled the familiar disinformation from Andrew McCabe to the effect that it had been
established that there was no connection between Rich and Wikileaks.
She then suggested that the FBI had indeed examined his computer, but solely because
someone had been trying to 'invade his Gmail account and set up a separate account after Seth
was murdered.' The supposed purpose of this activity, by a 'foreign hacker', was 'so they
could dump false information in there.'
As Clevenger pointed out, this claim is rather hard to reconcile with the FBI's insistence
that it has no records pertaining to Rich, and makes the Bureau's refusal to search its
Computer Analysis Response Team ("CART") for relevant records, and the Washington Field
Office for email records, look even more suspicious than it already did.
From the 'Courtlistener' pages it also appeared that, following a telephone conference,
Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom ruled that the statement by Ms. Sines did not rise to the 'level
of bad faith' required to justify the 'discovery' that Clevenger sought, on the basis of
it.
Also freely available on 'Courtlistener', however, is an 'Unopposed motion for stay' which
Clevenger filed on 30 November. From this, we learn that Judge Bloom had 'noted that Ms.
Sines' statements were not made under oath, further suggesting that the Plaintiff might try
to obtain a sworn statement from Ms. Sines.'
In response, Clevenger made clear that he intended to subpoena that lady for a deposition,
in the relation to the defamation cases brought against Michael Gottlieb et al, and also
David Folkenflik et al, where he is representing Ed Butowsky.
Accordingly, he asked the Court to stay his own case 'until the deposition of Ms. Sines
can be arranged and the transcripts can be produced.' Apparently, there was no objection from
the DOJ, FBI, and NSA.
In addition, Clevenger asked the court to take 'judicial notice' of the fact that, in her
reply dated 24 October to the lawyers for the USG, 'attorney Sidney Powell laid out damning
evidence that high-ranking FBI officials systematically tampered with records and hid
exculpatory evidence for the purpose of framing the defendant, retired General Mike
Flynn.'
So it looks as though what the 'honey badger' has been digging out in relation to Flynn
may help in the burrowing efforts of others in related matters – who may be in a
position to return the favour.
Increasingly, it seems not entirely unthinkable that the cumulative effect of of the cases
in which Powell, Clevenger and Biss are involved may blow open the whole conspiracy against
the Constitution, irrespective of whether or not Horowitz, Barr and Durham are prepared to go
substantially beyond a 'limited hangout.'
Another important, and neglected, aspect here relates to the cases still ongoing against
Steele and Orbis in London – that brought by Aleksej Gubarev, and that by the Alfa
oligarchs. It is material that libel laws on this side are noticeably less favourable to
defendants than on yours – not least in that the 'fair report privilege' retains its
original narrower construction here.
Unfortunately, we do not have here any equivalent to 'PACER' and 'Courtlistener.' The last
I heard about the Gubarev case was in the spring, when his American lawyers suggested that it
should come to court before Xmas.
It would not at all surprise me if it was postponed. Ironically, however, I now think that
it may be quite likely that his British lawyers see delay as being in Gubarev's
interests.
A critical point is that Steele is making no attempt to defend the accuracy of the claims
about the involvement of Gubarev and his companies in hacking in the final memorandum in the
dossier.
It seems quite likely that what is coming to light as the result of the lawsuits on your
side may make it materially more difficult to mount any credible case that these were not
very seriously defamatory.
There have been repeated attempts to locate the dossier attributed to Steele in another
version of a familiar 'Russophobic' narrative, suggesting that he was deliberately fed
disinformation by his Russian contacts as part of an 'active measures' campaign.
In my view, these are largely BS. However, a possible partial exception has to do with the
claims about Gubarev, which follow on from the those made in Company Report 2016/086, which
is dated 26 July 2015.
My suspicion has long been that the sloppy misdating – 2016 is clearly meant –
reflected the fact that the document was part of a panic-stricken response to the murder of
Rich, which had taken place on 10 July. What I may well have happened is that FBI
cybersecurity people, who had been cultivating sources among their FSB counterparts, put out
an urgent request, which generated material that went into the dossier.
If that was the case however, it would have been likely that some of their informants were
playing a 'double game.' And my suspicion is that, when a further request was put in,
following Trump's election victory, those making it were fed a 'baited hook' about Gubarev,
very likely cast in the hope of producing something like the outcome that materialised.
I noted with interest that both Devin Nunes and Lee Smith are now expressing scepticism
about the notion that Steele's role was in actually authoring the dossier, rather than taking
ownership of a compendium essentially produced within Fusion GPS.
Another ground for believing this was put into sharp focus with the publication by
'Judicial Watch' in September of – heavily redacted – versions of reports from
Steele circulated in the State Department prior to the dossier.
These clarify a matter which has long puzzled me about the memoranda. Normally, one would
expect the product of a serious business intelligence company to be properly presented, on
headed stationery, without elementary errors. And one would not expect a numbering which
suggests that the documents made public are part of a much larger series.
A document dated 13 June 2014, headline 'RUSSIA-UKRAINE CRISIS: Kremlin Emboldened to
Challenge USG Sanctions and Anti-Russian Leverage On Financial Markets', which is labelled
'Report ID: 2014/130a', suggests that we are actually dealing with a format used in an
information service sent out to a large number of clients. Precisely what this would not
contain was material attributed to highly sensitive sources.
So the clumsy imitation of this formatting in the dossier gives further reason to believe
that it was produced by people other than Steele, who were trying to attribute authorship to
him.
A further implication is that Steele may have ended up left facing libel charges in
relation to claims for which he was not actually responsible.
In addition to those about Gubarev, the use of the transliteration 'Alpha' instead of
'Alfa' for the Fridman/Aven/Khan group makes me think that the author of the relevant
memorandum was not a native English speaker, but someone used to thinking in Russian and/or
Ukrainian.
If so, the memorandum may be part of 'Ukrainegate', which, unlike 'Russiagate', looks like
being a real story.
And here, of course, the question of what became of Seth Rich's laptop, and what
information the FBI is concealing about it, is again critical.
It would not in the least surprise me if the kind of traces described by Ms. Sines are
actually really present on some hard drive.
If however they are, a quite likely explanation is that Alperovitch and his Ukrainian
'partners-in-crime' organised a hack, after the leak was discovered, as part of the more
general attempt to obfuscate the truth.
Why does the media and virtually every pundit commenting on the Ukrainian phone call
intentionally avoid any mention of Trump's Crowdstrike "favor" request?
"... The Democratic establishment is deeply and widely imbued with rancid Russophobic attitudes. Most telling was (and remains) a core "Russiagate" allegation that "Russia attacked American democracy during the 2016 presidential election" on Trump's behalf -- an "attack" so nefarious it has often been equated with Pearl Harbor. ..."
"... We have also learned that the heads of America's intelligence agencies under President Obama, especially John Brennan of the CIA and James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, felt themselves entitled to try to undermine an American presidential candidacy and subsequent presidency, that of Donald Trump. ..."
"... We also learned that, contrary to Democratic dogma, the mainstream "free press" cannot be fully trusted to readily expose such abuses of power. ..."
"... Opponents of Barr's investigation into the origins of Russiagate say it is impermissible or unprecedented to "investigate the investigators." But the bipartisan Church Committee, based in the US Senate, did so in the mid-1970s. It exposed many abuses by US intelligence agencies, particularly by the CIA, and adopted remedies that it believed would be permanent. Clearly, they have not been. ..."
"... However well-intentioned Barr may be, he is Trump's attorney general and therefore not fully credible. As I have also argued repeatedly, a new Church Committee is urgently needed. It's time for honorable members of the Senate of both parties to do their duty. ..."
Almost daily for three years, Democrats and their media have told us very bad things about
Donald Trump's life, character, and presidency. Some of them are true. But in the process, we
have also learned some lamentable, even alarming, things about the Democratic Party
establishment, including self-professed liberals. Consider the following:
The Democratic establishment is deeply and widely imbued with rancid Russophobic
attitudes. Most telling was (and remains) a core "Russiagate" allegation that "Russia
attacked American democracy during the 2016 presidential election" on Trump's behalf -- an
"attack" so nefarious it has often been equated with Pearl Harbor. But there was no
"attack" in 2016, only, as I have
previously explained , ritualistic "meddling" of the kind that both Russia and America
have undertaken in the other's elections for decades. Little can be more phobic than the
allegation or belief that one has been "attacked by a hostile" entity. And yet this myth and
its false narrative persist in the Democratic Party's discourse, campaigning, and
fund-raising. We have also learned that the heads of America's intelligence agencies
under President Obama, especially John Brennan of the CIA and James Clapper, director of
National Intelligence, felt themselves entitled to try to undermine an American presidential
candidacy and subsequent presidency, that of Donald Trump. Early on, I termed this
operation " Intelgate ," and it has
since been well documented by other writers, including
Lee Smith in his new book . Intel officials did so in tacit alliance with certain
leading, and equally Russophobic, members of the Democratic Party, which had once opposed
such transgressions. This may be the most alarming revelation of the Trump years: Trump will
leave power, but these self-aggrandizing intelligence agencies will remain. We also
learned that, contrary to Democratic dogma, the mainstream "free press" cannot be fully
trusted to readily expose such abuses of power. Indeed, what the mainstream media --
leading national newspapers and two cable news networks, in particular -- chose to cover and
report, and chose not to cover and report, made the abuses and consequences of Russiagate
allegations possible. Even now, exceedingly influential publications such as The New York
Times seem
eager to delegitimize the investigation by Attorney General William Barr and
his appointed special investigator John Durham into the origins of Russiagate. Barr's
critics accuse him of fabricating a "conspiracy theory" on behalf of Trump. But the real, or
grandest, conspiracy theory was the Russiagate allegation of "collusion" between Trump and
the Kremlin, an accusation that was -- or should have been -- discredited by the Robert
Mueller report. And we have learned, or should have learned, that for all the talk by
Democrats about Trump as a danger to US national security, it is their Russiagate allegations
that truly endanger it. Consider two examples. Russia's new "hyper-sonic" missiles, which can
elude US missile-defense systems, make new nuclear arms negotiations with Moscow imperative
and urgent. If only for the sake of his legacy, Trump is likely to want to do so. But even if
he is able to, will Trump be entrusted enough to conduct negotiations as successfully as did
his predecessors in the White House, given the "Putin puppet" and "Kremlin stooge"
accusations still being directed at him? Similarly, as I have asked repeatedly, if confronted
with a US-Russian Cuban missile–like crisis -- anywhere Washington and Moscow are
currently eyeball-to-eyeball militarily, from the Baltic region and Ukraine to Syria -- will
Trump be as free politically as was President John F. Kennedy to resolve it without war? Here
too there is an inconvenient truth: To the extent that Democrats any longer seriously discuss
national security in the context of US-Russian relations, it mostly involves vilifying both
Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. (Recall also that previous presidents were free to
negotiate with Russia's Soviet communist leaders, even encouraged to do so, whereas the
demonized Putin is an anti-communist, post-Soviet leader.)
The current state of US-Russian relations is unprecedentedly dangerous, not only due to
reasons cited here -- a new Cold War fraught with the possibility of hot war. Whether President
Trump serves one or two terms, he must be fully empowered to cope with the multiple
possibilities of a US-Russian military confrontation. That requires ridding him and our nation
of Russiagate allegations -- and that in turn requires learning how such allegations
originated.
Opponents of Barr's investigation into the origins of Russiagate say it is impermissible
or unprecedented to "investigate the investigators." But the bipartisan Church Committee, based
in the US Senate, did so in the mid-1970s. It exposed many abuses by US intelligence agencies,
particularly by the CIA, and adopted remedies that it believed would be permanent. Clearly,
they have not been.
However well-intentioned Barr may be, he is Trump's attorney general and therefore not
fully credible. As I have also argued repeatedly, a new Church Committee is urgently needed.
It's time for honorable members of the Senate of both parties to do their duty.
"... 'Where a charity is providing education in respect of a controversial issue it must do so in a way that allows the people being educated to make up their own minds.' ..."
"... Institute of Statecraft. ..."
"... Integrity Initiative, ..."
"... Institute of Statecraft, ..."
"... Integrity Initiative ..."
"... Open Information Partnership ..."
"... Institute of Statecraft ..."
"... Media Diversity Institute ..."
"... Institute of Statecraft ..."
"... Moon of Alabama ..."
"... Integrity Initiative ..."
"... Integrity Initiative. ..."
"... Integrity Initiative ..."
"... Institute of Statecraft ..."
"... Institute of Statecraft ..."
"... Institute of Statecraft ..."
"... Integrity Initiative ..."
"... 'Where a charity is providing education in respect of a controversial issue it must do so in a way that allows the people being educated to make up their own minds.' ..."
james @ 4 opined;"
thanks b... i don't understand why so much hate is directed at russia... is this due some
need to find someone to demonize, an outgrowth of christianity or god knows what? or is it
purely to generate more money into the industrial military complex"
I'm with ya' james, this demonization of Russia, and any countries that refuse the
empire's beck and call, is around to stay I'm afraid.
And yes, it's all of the above, but, mostly about the $.
'i don't understand why so much hate is directed at russia... is this due some need to
find someone to demonize, an outgrowth of christianity or god knows what? or is it purely to
generate more money into the industrial military complex? what is the rationale?...'
They're the nuclear rival that don't import many of the u.s.'s consumer products.
otherwise, it'd either be china, or both...
plus, of course, there's all them cold war memes that can be triggered in a sizable
portion of the population's heads...
I suspect the the antipathy to Russia and the extensive disinformation campaign stems from
a 'Five Eyes' project and strategy ... with the malign Uncle as its director.
@james #4 "i don't understand why so much hate is directed at russia..."
Same motivation as all forgotten empires had. Even our cat want some of it, staring down on
his employees from his basket high up on the fridge with that evil look on his face. We call
it his World Domination Command Centre, WDCC for short. Global domination is what they crave.
Kill the competition, loot its resources, more power, more money. America has been looted,
devastated. Time for the locusts to move on to greener pastures. Russia is the promised land,
the next wild west new world to colonize. Problem is, as always, the natives.
I am hopeful that more and more of the population are realising that if an organisation is
promoted by any western government as a source of information, then that organisation will
provide disinformation by default. There are few, if any, journalists anywhere that are not
part of the empirical disinformation program. Those that are not will be independent and,
therefore, by alternate default, extremely wary of western government/government-funded/NGO
sources. All the hegemon and it's vassals can do now is double-down and hope that the
populations will go back to sleep.
As with all things evil, the British oligarchy began in the 1830s targeting Russia as a
threat to its autocratic interests, in this case "defending" the Ottoman Empire against
Russia.
The Brits were further scared out of their wits when the 1917 Russian Revolution was on
the verge of establishing an anti-capitalist system. So they, along with a ragtag bag of
co-conspirators including the United States, launched a military invasion of Russia.
That's right, U.S. troops landed at two places in Russia and fought against Russian
soldiers. The Brits/U.S/et. al. suffered a humiliating defeat, leaving so quickly that U.S.
dead soldiers were left behind buried in Soviet soil, to be repatriated years later.
But it's Russia that is the threat to "us", right?
@ Trisha | Nov 4 2019 21:22 utc | 16
___________________________________________
Thanks for your informative comment. I'd started to reply to James that Russia has been a
default "boogie-man" and Western scapegoat since the 19th Century, but that sounded
unhelpfully circular-- and I didn't have the ambition to refresh my understanding with actual
historical facts. ;)
The fact that a sort of Western "coalition of the willing" invaded Russia after the 1917
revolution is still a well-kept secret! It was never mentioned in my (US) school courses,
from parochial school through the "Honors Survey of Western Civilization" course I took in
college.
At the end of last year some enterprising 'anonymous' person
released papers of the British Integrity Initiative. As we
reported at that time:
The British government financed Integrity Initiative is tasked with spreading
anti-Russian propaganda and thereby with influencing the public, military and governments of
a number of countries. What follows is an contextual analysis of the third batch of the
Initiative's internal papers which were
dumped by an anonymous yesterday.
Christopher Nigel Donnelly (CND) is the co-director of The Institute for Statecraft and founder of its offshoot
Integrity Initiative . The
Initiative claims to "Defend Democracy Against Disinformation".
Both, the Institute as well as the Initiative, claim to be independent Non-Government
Organizations. Both are financed by the British government, NATO and other state donors.
That plans seems to have been the blueprint for the
March 2018 mass expulsion of Russian diplomats during the Skripal affair. Several of the
other measures Donnelly and his ilk planned
have since been implemented.
The Institute of Statecraft was registered as a charity under Scottish law. After
the release of its papers the Scottish charity regulator OSCR investigated the status of the
Institute . Unsurprisingly the OSCR
found (pdf) that its shady behavior and its running of anti-Russian disinformation
campaigns did not justify its status:
In the course of our inquiry we found that the charity was not meeting the charity test
required for continuing registration as a charity in Scotland because:
its purposes were not entirely charitable
one of its most significant activities, a project known as Integrity Initiative, did
not provide public benefit in furtherance of the charity's purposes
private benefit to charity trustees was not incidental to the charity's activities that
advance its charitable purpose
The purpose of the charity was purportedly to educate the public. But the regulator found
that the Integrity Initiative did not educate but only spread its own version of
'reality' i.e. disinformation. The charity lacked neutrality:
In addition, our Meeting the Charity Test guidance states that:
'Where a charity is providing education in respect of a controversial issue it must do
so in a way that allows the people being educated to make up their own minds.'
OSCR's view is that the Integrity Initiative expressed a particular perspective intended
to persuade the public to a specific point of view and, given the nature of the subject
matter, it was not sufficiently neutral to advance education.
The crocks who were running the charity were filling their own pockets with the public money
the 'charity' received:
To pass the charity test any private benefit must be incidental to the organisation's
activities that advance its purposes, that is, it must be a necessary result or by-product of
the organisation's activities and not an end in itself.
We were concerned at the level of private benefit that a number of the charity's trustees
were gaining from the exercise of its functions.
There was no clear explanation as to why the salaries being paid to charity trustees were
considered reasonable and necessary, and we had concerns about the charity trustees'
decision-making process around these payments. We do not consider that this private benefit
was incidental to the organisation's activities that advanced its purposes.
The regulator also noted a lack of record keeping and a lack of documentation of decision
making by the Institute's trustees.
Unfortunately the charity regulator will not close down the Institute of
Statecraft. It accepted that it rectified its behavior by taking a number of measures:
the charity has ceased to undertake any activity related to the Integrity initiative,
and this is now undertaken by a non-charitable entity having no legal connection to the
charity
the charity has ceased to remunerate any of its charity trustees
the charity is taking external guidance on governance
some charity trustees are to stand down as soon as replacement charity trustees can be
identified
The Integrity Initiative, as paid for by the British Foreign Office, Ministry of
Defense, NATO and other such entities, will live on as a non-charitable entity with even less
transparency. Its website, as well as that of Institute of Statecraft, is down. That
it will now have to live in total secrecy will make it more difficult for it to recruit foreign
journalist to spread its propaganda.
On 3rd April, Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) minister Alan Duncan revealed his
department's 'Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme' - which bankrolls the
Institute for Statecraft and its Integrity Initiative subsidiary - was funding a new
endeavour, Open Information
Partnership (OIP).
The announcement, buried in a response to a written parliamentary question, was supremely
light on detail - Duncan merely said the effort would "respond to manipulated information in
the news, social media and across the public space". Official fanfare was also unforthcoming
- there was no accompanying press release, briefing document, or even mention of the launch
by any government minister or department via social media channels.
The original proposal for
the Open Information Partnership , as
released by 'anonymous' , included the Institute of Statecraft , a Media
Diversity Institute , Bellingcat , DFR Lab (i.e. the Atlantic Council)
and some others in a so called ZINC Network . On the current OIP website the Institute of
Statecraft 'charity' is no longer named.
---
Previous Moon of Alabama reports on the issue:
At the end of last year some enterprising 'anonymous' person
released papers of the British Integrity Initiative. As we reported
at that time:
The British government financed Integrity Initiative is tasked with spreading
anti-Russian propaganda and thereby with influencing the public, military and governments
of a number of countries. What follows is an contextual analysis of the third batch of the
Initiative's internal papers which were
dumped by an anonymous yesterday.
Christopher Nigel Donnelly (CND) is the co-director of The Institute for Statecraft and founder of its
offshoot Integrity
Initiative . The Initiative claims to "Defend Democracy Against Disinformation".
Both, the Institute as well as the Initiative, claim to be independent Non-Government
Organizations. Both are financed by the British government, NATO and other state
donors.
That plans seems to have been the blueprint for the
March 2018 mass expulsion of Russian diplomats during the Skripal affair. Several of the
other measures Donnelly and his ilk planned
have since been implemented.
The Institute of Statecraft was registered as a charity under Scottish law. After
the release of its papers the Scottish charity regulator OSCR investigated the status of the
Institute . Unsurprisingly the OSCR
found (pdf) that its shady behavior and its running of anti-Russian disinformation
campaigns did not justify its status:
In the course of our inquiry we found that the charity was not meeting the charity test
required for continuing registration as a charity in Scotland because:
its purposes were not entirely charitable
one of its most significant activities, a project known as Integrity Initiative, did
not provide public benefit in furtherance of the charity's purposes
private benefit to charity trustees was not incidental to the charity's activities
that advance its charitable purpose
The purpose of the charity was purportedly to educate the public. But the regulator found
that the Integrity Initiative did not educate but only spread its own version of
'reality' i.e. disinformation. The charity lacked neutrality:
In addition, our Meeting the Charity Test guidance states that:
'Where a charity is providing education in respect of a controversial issue it must
do so in a way that allows the people being educated to make up their own minds.'
OSCR's view is that the Integrity Initiative expressed a particular perspective intended
to persuade the public to a specific point of view and, given the nature of the subject
matter, it was not sufficiently neutral to advance education.
The crocks who were running the charity were filling their own pockets with the public
money the 'charity' received:
To pass the charity test any private benefit must be incidental to the organisation's
activities that advance its purposes, that is, it must be a necessary result or by-product
of the organisation's activities and not an end in itself.
We were concerned at the level of private benefit that a number of the charity's
trustees were gaining from the exercise of its functions.
There was no clear explanation as to why the salaries being paid to charity trustees
were considered reasonable and necessary, and we had concerns about the charity trustees'
decision-making process around these payments. We do not consider that this private benefit
was incidental to the organisation's activities that advanced its purposes.
The regulator also noted a lack of record keeping and a lack of documentation of decision
making by the Institute's trustees.
Unfortunately the charity regulator will not close down the Institute of
Statecraft. It accepted that it rectified its behavior by taking a number of
measures:
the charity has ceased to undertake any activity related to the Integrity initiative,
and this is now undertaken by a non-charitable entity having no legal connection to the
charity
the charity has ceased to remunerate any of its charity trustees
the charity is taking external guidance on governance
some charity trustees are to stand down as soon as replacement charity trustees can
be identified
The Integrity Initiative, as paid for by the British Foreign Office, Ministry of
Defense, NATO and other such entities, will live on as a non-charitable entity with even less
transparency. Its website, as well as that of Institute of Statecraft, is down. That
it will now have to live in total secrecy will make it more difficult for it to recruit
foreign journalist to spread its propaganda.
On 3rd April, Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) minister Alan Duncan revealed his
department's 'Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme' - which bankrolls the
Institute for Statecraft and its Integrity Initiative subsidiary - was funding a new
endeavour, Open
Information Partnership (OIP).
The announcement, buried in a response to a written parliamentary question, was
supremely light on detail - Duncan merely said the effort would "respond to manipulated
information in the news, social media and across the public space". Official fanfare was
also unforthcoming - there was no accompanying press release, briefing document, or even
mention of the launch by any government minister or department via social media
channels.
The original proposal
for the Open Information Partnership , as
released by 'anonymous' , included the Institute of Statecraft , a Media
Diversity Institute , Bellingcat , DFR Lab (i.e. the Atlantic Council)
and some others in a so called ZINC Network . On the current OIP website the Institute of
Statecraft 'charity' is no longer named.
---
Previous Moon of Alabama reports on the issue:
Thanks, B. It's a pity the people of the UK have no foreseeable recourse to stop shadow
government operations like this that exist to disinform the people of the UK.
At Kit Klarenberg's Twitter ,
there's a long tweet thread further detailing what b has written above. I can't help be
wonder how the Monty Python troop would have portrayed the Institute for Statecraft and its
parent the Integrity Initiative. It appears that the governments of the English speaking
nations became addicted to lying to their citizens @1900 and are unable to kick the habit and
instead have actually deepened their addiction. Elsewhere on the planet, it seems that people
are learning it's easier to talk straight and transparently with other people and to pool
resources and combine efforts to form a community of nations and humanity to better one and
all. Seems simple enough to determine which is functional and which isn't.
thanks b... i don't understand why so much hate is directed at russia... is this due some
need to find someone to demonize, an outgrowth of christianity or god knows what? or is it
purely to generate more money into the industrial military complex? what is the rationale? i
agree with @ 1 - noyk - it is unfortunate the uk people are used as guinea pigs on such a
regular basis.. i suspect a similar exercise is in operation in canada and the west, although
it seems the msm fulfills this role here...
"CIA, FBI Informant Was Washington Post Source For Russiagate Smears."
The article details a segment of Russiagate's overall unraveling and outs WaPost's David
Ignatius as part of Operation Mockingbird. And I see no reason to dispute the item's
conclusion:
"These close connections between the Washington Post's Ignatius and individuals connected
to the American and British intelligence communities, and the false reporting that has taken
place over the last three-plus years, raise grave concerns that the warfare of the soft coup
aimed at President Trump includes using the media to push propaganda."
The longer the above conclusion's denied, the wider the polarization becomes between those
guided by facts and those following media fantasies.
james @ 4 opined;"
thanks b... i don't understand why so much hate is directed at russia... is this due some
need to find someone to demonize, an outgrowth of christianity or god knows what? or is it
purely to generate more money into the industrial military complex"
I'm with ya' james, this demonetization of Russia, and any countries that refuse the
empire's beck and call, is around to stay I'm afraid.
And yes, it's all of the above, but, mostly about the $.
'i don't understand why so much hate is directed at russia... is this due some need to
find someone to demonize, an outgrowth of christianity or god knows what? or is it purely to
generate more money into the industrial military complex? what is the rationale?...'
they're the nuclear rival that don't manufacture many of the u.s.'s consumer products.
otherwise, it'd either be china, or both...
plus, of course, there's all them cold war memes that can be triggered in a sizable
portion of the population's heads...
The OSCR report includes the Institute for Statecraft's own description of its purposes, but
nothing about its actual operations, other than the ones now being deemed unsatisfactory
under the charities law.
So now that the Institute has committed not to run the Integrity Initiative, and
not to enrich its trustees, what are its legitimate "charitable" activities that OSCR
is kindly allowing it to continue with?
I suspect the the antipathy to Russia and the extensive disinformation campaign stems from
a 'Five Eyes' project and strategy ... with the malign Uncle as its director.
As an Irish citizen, I think the British deep state - the original deep state -have been very
successful at demonising the enemies of 'freedom' and 'civilisation', the Irish yes, also the
Indians, Africans, Germans, french, Spanish, Muslims and now the Russians. Our enemies are
not each other rather the deep state. Let's recognise who our real enemy is
@james #4 "i don't understand why so much hate is directed at russia..."
Same motivation as all forgotten empires had. Even our cat want some of it, staring down on
his employees from his basket high up on the fridge with that evil look on his face. We call
it his World Domination Command Centre, WDCC for short. Global domination is what they crave.
Kill the competition, loot its resources, more power, more money. America has been looted,
devastated. Time for the locusts to move on to greener pastures. Russia is the promised land,
the next wild west new world to colonize. Problem is, as always, the natives.
I am hopeful that more and more of the population are realising that if an organisation is
promoted by any western government as a source of information, then that organisation will
provide disinformation by default. There are few, if any, journalists anywhere that are not
part of the empirical disinformation program. Those that are not will be independent and,
therefore, by alternate default, extremely wary of western government/government-funded/NGO
sources. All the hegemon and it's vassals can do now is double-down and hope that the
populations will go back to sleep.
@8 ben / @ 9 semiconscious / @ 11 chet380.. yes, there is that too, but is that it? money as
ben says rings true for me mostly... that is mostly how i see this...the agencies seem to be
a front for western oligarchs.. the kleptomaniacs want access to all russian resources and
have yet to be successful in getting it.. they succeeded in ukraine for the most part in
having the kleptos gain control over much of ukraine.. the 2014 coop was meant to solidify
more of that and poke russia in the eye too..
@ 13 joost... i would watch out for your cat! alas, we all seem to agree it is about
wanting to loot russia... we share a similar viewpoint.. it is really sick how so many are
ignorant pawns, or worse in all of this.. no wonder i make next to no money working in the
music industry... i am in the wrong game and don't share a lack of ethics on such display
with all these losers..
As with all things evil, the British oligarchy began in the 1830s targeting Russia as a
threat to its autocratic interests, in this case "defending" the Ottoman Empire against
Russia.
The Brits were further scared out of their wits when the 1917 Russian Revolution was on
the verge of establishing an anti-capitalist system. So they, along with a ragtag bag of
co-conspirators including the United States, launched a military invasion of Russia.
That's right, U.S. troops landed at two places in Russia and fought against Russian
soldiers. The Brits/U.S/et. al. suffered a humiliating defeat, leaving so quickly that U.S.
dead soldiers were left behind buried in Soviet soil, to be repatriated years later.
But it's Russia that is the threat to "us", right?
Reading through the OCSR's document at the PDF link in B's post, I am surprised (should I
be?) that during the entire decade-long period when the Institute of Statecraft was
registered as a charity, the OCSR did not see fit at any time to remind the organisation of
its responsibilities to keep proper records of its activities and decision-making, to provide
a proper formal and transparent structure for its activities that could be shown to
demonstrate a public benefit, and to have proper formal structures generally for its
day-to-day running and governance activities. The Scottish public have every right to hold
the OCSR to much higher standards of being a regulatory organisation making sure that
charities are run properly as charities and not simply accept those charities' word that they
will improve their operations when they have spent 10 long years taking money (some of it
taxpayers' money) and misusing it.
@ Trisha | Nov 4 2019 21:22 utc | 16
___________________________________________
Thanks for your informative comment. I'd started to reply to James that Russia has been a
default "boogie-man" and Western scapegoat since the 19th Century, but that sounded
unhelpfully circular-- and I didn't have the ambition to refresh my understanding with actual
historical facts. ;)
The fact that a sort of Western "coalition of the willing" invaded Russia after the 1917
revolution is still a well-kept secret! It was never mentioned in my (US) school courses,
from parochial school through the "Honors Survey of Western Civilization" course I took in
college.
@ 20..lol.. that is true... can't ver ask too many questions! and, it has been a repeat of
mccarthyism.. it's bizarre to see so many otherwise intelligent people swallow this crap.. i
think of emptywheel and how i used to think she was smart.. she is so busy looking at the
trees, she's incapable of seeing the forest..
@16 trisha... thanks... as i have mentioned here at moa numerous times, the book 'paris 1918'
by Margaret Macmillan is an excellent book that gives an overview and discusses exactly what
you are talking about.. i can't recommend the book enough.. https://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/1135/Paris-1919
I ploughed through the Kit Klarenberg piece on Sputnik that b linked to and would have wept
at the Orwellian inversions of truth in the OIP's 'mission statment' if I'd had any tears
left after enduring the recent decades of lies and projection of the Empire's propaganda
machine. The Mighty Wurlitzer at corporate-speak indeed. In fact all I could do was laugh
like Group Captain Mandrake in Dr Strangelove when confronted with the madness of
General Ripper.
Tragically, the opening paragraph of their statement sounded like something Caitlin
Johnstone might pen, urging our side to be wary and vigilant of the propaganda of
them .
"Democracy cannot thrive without honest, accurate and freely available information about
the world around us We need to know where our information is coming from, we need to know
the motives (good, bad or neither) of those providing the information, and be in the habit
of thinking critically about everything we read and hear. Every one of us has the right to
be properly informed – that knowledge gives us strength. Every one of us shares
responsibility for informed engagement and critical thinking, to challenge the powerful and
uncover the truth An engaged population, equipped with clarity and the truth, is the
foundation for a world where we can all enjoy greater equality and greater peace."
"critical thinking"
"challenge the powerful"
"uncover the truth"
They are taking the tools that we need to deal with their perfidy, and
pretending that they need to use them to "challenge the powerful and uncover the
truth". I found this Orwellian inversion of the truth so chilling that I could only
laugh.
In all seriousness, I can only presume that they actually believe their own lies.
The Wolfowitz Doctrine (1992) states that Russia should remain America's main enemy for the
forseeable future because it inherited the USSR's nuclear arsenal. At least this is the
official rationale.
But there may be another reason. Courtesy from Pepe Escobar's facebook page:
@22 James ... thanks for the "Paris 1919" book reference, luckily it's available at my local
library. For a detailed history of (sadly) another in a long list of America's criminal acts
of aggressive war, I highly recommend Russian
Sideshow: America's Undeclared War, 1918-1920 by Robert L. Willett.
they are attacking Russia because they know that only military force can stop the collapse
the fake Dollar & all the Jewish printed wealth which goes with it. "yes, the Dollar is
our money, but, it is your problem" sort of imposed doctrine of the last half-century is
coming to an end & no naval carriers could stop its fall.
"CIA, FBI Informant Was Washington Post Source For Russiagate Smears."
The article details a segment of Russiagate's overall unraveling and outs WaPost's David
Ignatius as part of Operation Mockingbird. And I see no reason to dispute the item's
conclusion:
"These close connections between the Washington Post's Ignatius and individuals
connected to the American and British intelligence communities, and the false reporting
that has taken place over the last three-plus years, raise grave concerns that the warfare
of the soft coup aimed at President Trump includes using the media to push propaganda."
The longer the above conclusion's denied, the wider the polarization becomes between
those guided by facts and those following media fantasies.
In today's world, the phrase "conspiracy
theory" is pejorative and has a negative connotation.
To many people, a conspiracy theory
is an irrational, over-imaginative idea endorsed by people looking for attention and not supported
by the mainstream media or government.
History shows, though, that there have been many times when governments or individuals
have participated in conspiracies.
It would be naïve to think that intelligence agencies,
militaries, government officials, and politicians don't sometimes cooperate in covert, secretive
ways.
Following are five instances when it's been proven that the government engaged in a
conspiracy.
THE GULF OF TONKIN RESOLUTION
On August 4, 1964, Captain John J. Herrick, the commander of the USS Maddox, a US Navy vessel
that was on an intelligence-gathering mission in the Gulf of Tonkin, reported to the White House
and Pentagon that North Vietnamese patrol boats had fired torpedoes at his ship, and, so, the
Maddox had fired back.
Two days later, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara testified to the Congress that he was
certain that the Maddox had been attacked. On August 7, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed,
the Congressional act that allowed President Johnson free reign to commence war; Johnson
immediately ordered air strikes on North Vietnam and the Vietnam War -- which would eventually kill
fifty-eight thousand Americans and two million Asians -- was underway.
Since then, it has been shown and proven that no North Vietnamese boats ever fired on the
Maddox, and that McNamara had been untruthful when he testified before Congress. According to the
official publication of the Naval Institute,
once-classified documents and tapes released in the past several years, combined with
previously uncovered facts, make clear that high government officials distorted facts and
deceived the American public about events that led to full US involvement in the Vietnam War."
In the weeks prior to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, South Vietnamese ships had been attacking
posts in North Vietnam in conjunction with the CIA's Operation 34A. According to many inside
sources, the Johnson administration wanted a full-scale war in Vietnam and through Operation 34A
was trying to provoke North Vietnam into an attack that would give Johnson an excuse to go to war.
But when McNamara was asked by the Congress on August 7 if these South Vietnam attacks had anything
to do with the US military and CIA, McNamara lied and said no.
Within hours after reporting that the Maddox had been attacked, Captain Herrick was retracting
his statements and reporting to the White House and Pentagon that "in all likelihood" an over-eager
sonar man had been mistaken and that the sonar sounds and images that he originally thought were
enemy torpedoes were actually just the beat of the Maddox's own propellers.
Herrick reported that there was a good probability that there had been no attack on the Maddox,
and suggested
"complete reevaluation before any action is taken."
McNamara saw these new, updated reports and discussed them with President Johnson early in the
afternoon of August 4. Even though this was so, on the evening of August 4, President Johnson went
on national television and announced to the American public that North Vietnam had engaged in
"unprovoked aggression" and, so, the US military was retaliating.
A few days after the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Johnson remarked,
"Hell, those damn stupid
sailors were just shooting at flying fish."
Recently, new documents related to the Gulf of Tonkin incident have been declassified and
according to Robert Hanyok, a historian for the National Security Agency, these documents show that
the NSA deliberately "distorted intelligence" andand "altered documents" to make it appear that an
attack had occurred on August 4.
When President Lyndon Johnson misrepresented to the American public and said he knew that North
Vietnam had attacked a US ship, and when Defense Secretary Robert McNamara lied to the Congress and
said he was sure that the Maddox had been attacked and that the CIA had nothing to do with South
Vietnam aggression, and when NSA officials falsified information to make it appear that there had
been an attack on the Maddox, that was a government conspiracy.
OPERATION NORTHWOODS
In 1962, the most powerful and highest ranking military officials of the US government, the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, felt strongly that the communist leader Fidel Castro had to be removed from
power and, so, came up with a plan to justify an American invasion of Cuba.
The plan, entitled Operations Northwoods, was presented to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
on March 13, 1962, and was signed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lyman L. Lemnitzer.
Operations Northwoods was a proposal for a false flag operation, a plan in which a military
organizes an attack against its own country and then frames and blames the attack on another
country for the purpose of the purpose of initiating hostilities and declaring war on that country.
The proposal was originally labeled Top Secret but was made public on November 18, 1997, by the
John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board. The complete Operation Northwoods paper was
published online by the National Security Archive on April 30, 2001, and this once-secret
government document can now be read by anyone.
The actions that General Lemnitzer and the other chiefs wanted to d to take under Operations
Northwoods are shocking. According to the plan, CIA and military personnel and hired provocateurs
would commit various violent acts and these acts would be blamed on Castro to "create the necessary
impression of Cuban rashness and irresponsibility" and "put the United States in the apparent
position of suffering defensible grievances."
One of the most ambitious plans of Operation Northwoods was to blow up a plane in midflight. The
strategy was to fill a civilian airplane with CIA and military personnel who were registered under
fake ID's; an exact duplicate plane -- an empty military drone aircraft -- would take off at the same
exact time.
The plane of fake passengers would land at a military base but the empty drone plane would fly
over Cuba and crash in the ocean, supposedly a victim of Cuban missiles.
"Casualty lists in US
newspapers"
and conducting
"fake funerals for mock-victims"
would cause "a helpful
wave of national indignation" in America.
The Operation Northwoods proposal also states: "We could blow up a US ship and blame Cuba."
Whether the ship was to be empty or full of US soldiers is unclear. The document also says:
"Hijacking attempts against US civil air and surface craft should be encouraged."
Some of the recommendations of Operation Northwoods would have surely led to serious injuries
and even deaths of Cuban and American civilians. The plan suggests:
We could sink a boatload of Cubans on route to Florida (real or simulated)."
And:
We could foster attempts on lives of anti-Castro Cubans in the United States even to the
extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized We could explode a few bombs in
carefully chosen spots."
Lemnitzer and the chiefs wanted many of these staged terrorist attacks to be directed at the
Guantanamo Bay United States Naval Base in Cuba. The plans were:
"Start riots near the entrance to the base"
"lob mortar shells from outside the base to inside the base"
"blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires"
"burn aircraft on airbase (sabotage)"
"sabotage ship in harbor; large fires -- napalm."
When Secretary of Defense McNamara was presented with the Operation Northwoods plan, he either
stopped and rejected the plan himself or passed it on to President Kennedy and JFK then rejected
it. But if Kennedy and McNamara had agreed with the plan, then the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted to
begin enacting Operation Northwoods
"right away, within a few months."
Even though Operation Northwoods was never initiated, when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff and the other highest-ranking military officials of the United States Government planned to
organize violent attacks on Americans and anti-Castro Cuban citizens, knowing those attacks could
severely injure and kill those citizens, and when they planned to blame those attacks on Cuba and
then use that as an excuse to invade Cuba, that was a government conspiracy.
FBI AND THE MAFIA
In March 1965, the FBI had the house of New England organized crime boss Raymond Patriarca
wiretapped and overheard two mobsters, Joseph Barboza and Vincent Flemmi, asking Patriarca for
permission to kill another gangster, Edward Deegan. Two days later, Deegan's blood-soaked body was
found dead in a Boston alley.
Within days, an official FBI report confirmed that Joseph Barboza and three other mobsters were
the murderers. Instead of those men going to prison for murder, though, three years later a man
named Joseph Salvati was brought to trial for the murder of Edward Deegan. At that trial Joseph
Barboza testified and lied that Salvati was one of the murderers. On the basis of Barboza's
testimony, Joseph Salvati was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
At that time, in the mid 1960s, the FBI was being pressured more and more to do something to
stop organized crime. The bureau began using members of the mafia -- criminals and murderers -- to inform
against fellow mafia members. Joseph Barboza was one of these FBI-protected, paid informants. The
FBI didn't want Barboza to go to prison for the murder of Deegan because they wanted him to
continue infiltrating the mafia and testifying against other mafia members.
The bureau, apparently, did want a conviction in the Deegan murder case, though, and, so, let
Barboza lie under oath and let a man they knew to be innocent, Joseph Salvati, go to prison.
The Witness Protection Program was first created for Joseph Barboza, and Barboza was the first
mafia informant to be protected under the program. After helping to convict a number of mobsters,
Barboza was sent off to live in California. While under the Witness Protection Program, Barboza
committed at least one more murder, and probably more.
On trial for a murder in California, FBI officials showed up for Joseph Barboza's trial and
testified on his behalf, helping Barboza to get a light sentence.
Joseph Salvati ended up serving thirty years in prison for a murder that he was innocent of.
During that thirty-year period, lawyers for Salvati requested documents from the FBI that would
have proved Salvati's innocence, but the bureau refused to release them.
Finally, in 1997, other evidence came forth suggesting Salvati's innocence and the governor of
Massachusetts, William Weld, granted Salvati's release. A few years later, the FBI was ordered to
release all its reports on the case; hundreds of documents showed the FBI knew that Barboza was a
murderer, that he had murdered Edward Deegan, and that Joseph Salvati had had nothing to do with
the crime.
Salvati was exonerated in a court of law, and was eventually awarded millions of dollars in a
civil lawsuit against the government. (Three other defendants were also exonerated. At the 1968
trial, Joseph Barboza had testified that three other men -- men who were also not guilty -- had
participated in Deegan's murder. These three innocent men were, with Salvati, also sent to prison.)
Perhaps the most shocking thing that the FBI documents showed, though, was that FBI Director J.
Edgar Hoover himself knew Salvati was innocent and that Barboza had killed Deegan.
Hoover was working closely, almost daily, with the agents handling Joseph Barboza, and it was
probably Hoover directing the operation. The congressional committee that investigated the case was
the House Committee on Government Reform and Congressman Dan Burton was the chairman.
When asked by CBS's 60 Minutes journalist Mike Wallace
"Did J. Edgar Hoover know all this?
"
Burton replied:
"Yes . . . It's one of the greatest failures in the history of American justice J. Edgar
Hoover knew Salvati was innocent. He knew it and his name should not be emblazoned on the FBI
headquarters. We should change the name of that building."
Congressman Burton claimed there was evidence that there were more cases when the FBI did the
same sorts of things they did in the Joseph Salvati case; when Burton and his committee requested
the files on these cases, the Attorney General and the White House refused to release them.
When FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and top FBI officials let a known murderer lie and perjure
himself in a courtroom, when they let four men they knew to be innocent suffer in the hell of a
prison cell for thirty years, and when they deliberately covered that up for decades, that was a
government conspiracy.
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
In 1939, Albert Einstein and two other European physicists sent a letter to President Franklin
Roosevelt informing Roosevelt that the German government was working on developing the science that
could lead to the creation of a nuclear bomb. FDR immediately formed a committee to look into the
idea of the US government making an atomic bomb.
In 1942, the Manhattan Project, the United States program to build a nuclear bomb, headed by
General Leslie R. Groves of the US Army Corps of Engineers, was formed.
The program existed from 1942–1946, spent two billion dollars, had plants and factories in
thirty cities, and employed 130,000 workers. But virtually no one knew about it. The Manhattan
Project is considered the
"Greatest Secret Ever Kept."
The US government wanted to keep the Project a secret lest Germany or one of America's other
enemies found out about it and built -- more quickly -- a larger, better bomb. In the early 1940s, when
American scientists began working on splitting atoms and nuclear fission, US government officials
asked the scientists to not publish any reports on the work in scientific journals. The work was
kept quiet.
In 1943, when newspapers began reporting on the large Manhattan Project construction going on in
a few states, the newly formed United States Government Office of Censorship asked newspapers and
broadcasters to avoid discussing "atom smashing, atomic energy, atomic fission . . . the use for
military purposes of radium or radioactive materials" or anything else that could expose the
project. The press kept mum. The government didn't talk about the Manhattan Project, the press
didn't report on it, and the public knew nothing about it.
Not even the 130,000 Manhattan Project laborers knew they were building an atom bomb.
In 1945, a Life magazine article wrote that before Japan was attacked with a-bombs, "probably no
more than a few dozen men in the entire country knew the full meaning of the Manhattan Project, and
perhaps only a thousand others even were aware that work on atoms was involved."
The workers were told they were doing an important job for the government, but weren't told what
the job was, and didn't understand the full import of the mysterious, daily tasks they were doing.
The laborers were warned that disclosing the Project's secrets was punishable by ten years in
prison, and a hefty financial fine.
Whole towns and cities were built where thousands of Manhattan Project workers lived and worked
but these thousands didn't know they were helping to build nuclear bombs.
The Manhattan Project finally became known to the public on August 6, 1945, when President Harry
Truman announced that America had dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
Truman, himself, had not been informed of the Manhattan Project until late April 1945.
When the government kept the purpose of the Manhattan Project a secret from the press, from the
public, from America's enemies, from Harry Truman, and even from the 130,000 laborers who worked
for the Manhattan Project, that was a government conspiracy.
THE CHURCH COMMITTEE INVESTIGATION
In the early 1970s, after the Watergate affair and investigative reports by the New York Times,
it became apparent that the CIA and other US intelligence agencies might be engaging in
inappropriate and illegal activities. In 1975, the Church Committee, named after the Committee's
chairman Senator Frank Church, was formed to investigate abuses by the CIA, NSA, FBI, and IRS.
The Church Committee reports are said to constitute the most extensive investigations of
intelligence activities ever made available to the public. Many disturbing facts were revealed.
According to the final report of the Committee, US intelligence agencies had been engaging in
"unlawful or improper conduct" and "intelligence excesses, at home and abroad" since the
administration of President Franklin Roosevelt.
The report added that
"intelligence agencies have undermined the Constitutional rights of
citizens"
and
"checks and balances designed by the framers of the Constitution to assure
accountability have not been applied."
One of the most well-known revelations of the Committee was the CIA's so-called "Family Jewels,"
a report that detailed the CIA's misdeeds dating back to Dwight Eisenhower's presidency. The
committee also reported on the NSA's SHAMROCK and MINARET programs; under these programs the NSA
had been intercepting, opening, and reading the telegrams and mail of thousands of private
citizens.
The Church Committee also discovered and exposed the FBI's COINTELPRO program, the bureau's
program to covertly destroy and disrupt any groups or individuals that J. Edgar Hoover felt were
bad for America. Some of the movements and groups that the FBI tried to discredit and destroy were
the Civil Rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, and individuals such as Martin Luther King Jr.
The most alarming thing that the Church Committee found, though, was that the CIA had an
assassination program. It was revealed that the CIA assassinated or had tried to assassinate Dinh
Diem of Vietnam, Raphael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, General Rene Schneider of Chile, Fidel
Castro, Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, and other political leaders throughout the world.
The Committee learned about the different ways the CIA had developed to kill and assassinate
people: inflicting cancer, inflicting heart attacks, making murders look like suicides, car
accidents, boating accidents, and shootings. At one point, CIA Director William Colby presented to
the Committee a special "heart attack gun" that the CIA had created. The gun was able to shoot a
small poison-laden dart into its victim. The dart was so small as to be undetectable; the victim's
death from the poison would appear to be a heart attack, so no foul play would be suspected.
In response to the Church Committee report, in 1976 President Gerald Ford signed Executive Order
11,905, which forbade employees of the US government from engaging in or conspiring to engage in
political assassinations.
In that same year, the Senate approved Senate Resolution 400, which established the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, the committee responsible for providing vigilant oversight over
the intelligence agencies.
Many former CIA employee-whistleblowers and other people, though, claim that US intelligence
agencies are still acting in improper ways. In 2008, it was revealed that the CIA had hired
Blackwater, a private company made up of ex-Navy Seals, to track down and assassinate suspected
terrorists.
Later in the 2000s, when the Congress formed a committee to investigate if CIA waterboarding and
other methods of interrogation constituted torture, congressmen complained that they couldn't get
to the bottom of the matter because CIA officials and the CIA director were lying to the
congressional committee.
Forty-five years after the revelations of the Church Committee, it seems US intelligence
agencies are still engaging in covert and improper conduct.
When US intelligence agencies and the CIA plot to influence the affairs of foreign nations, when
the CIA plots assassinations and assassinates foreign leaders and political dissidents, when the
CIA develops new ways to kill and assassinate and interrogate and torture, and when the CIA keeps
all that from Congress, the press, and the public, that's a government conspiracy.
* * *
If these five instances of government engaging in conspiracies have been proven to be
true -- and they have been -- isn't it logical to assume that government agencies may have engaged in
other conspiracies? It is the very nature of intelligence agencies and militaries to act in
secretive, conspiratorial ways.
The phrase "conspiracy theory" shouldn't have a negative connotation. Politics always plays out
with backroom handshakes. It is the suggestion of American Conspiracies and Cover-Ups that
government agencies and officials and the special interests that influence them are often engaging
in conspiratorial actions, and that conspiracies have been behind some of the most iconic and
important events of American history.
A conspiracy theorist was regaling a friend with one conspiracy theory after another. Finally,
the friend interrupted and said,
"I bet I know what would happen if God Himself appeared out of
the sky right now, looked down at us, and said, 'There is no conspiracy.' I bet you would look up
and say, 'So the conspiracy goes higher than we thought.'"
Perhaps if the Almighty appeared to inform us that politicians and governments and government
officials don't act in secretive, covert, conspiratorial ways, then we could accept that.
But when the evidence indicates otherwise .
Theories questioning if multiple people might have shot at JFK, or if interior bombs brought
down the World Trade Center, or if somebody was able to rig the 2000 and 2004 presidential
elections can make for dramatic, sensational storytelling.
But it is not the purpose of American Conspiracies and Cover-Ups to be sensational; the
purpose of this book is to talk about "conspiracy realities" that can hopefully give us a deeper
and more meaningful understanding of politics.
If elements in the intelligence agencies participated in assassinating President Kennedy, then
how can the intelligence agencies be better controlled? If elements in the government allowed or
caused 9/11 to happen to give us an excuse to go to war in the Middle East, then how much of the
War on Terror is disinformation and propaganda?
If presidential elections can be rigged, then how can we have fairer, uncorrupted elections? If
secretive influences behind the scenes, a Deep State, are controlling our social, political, and
financial systems for their own selfish purposes, then it would benefit us to expose who and what
these secretive influences are.
American Conspiracies and Cover-Ups may give us a glimpse into the way that government
and politics work.
Petri Krohn's comment @37 "ERIC CIARAMELLA IS NOT A WHISTLEBLOWER - HE IS A SUSPECT"
Little mentioned is the server in Ukraine which was brought up in the phone call. Barr's
investigation has become a criminal investigation and interested in a server in Ukraine.
The impeachment farce is trying to put the focus on Biden, but the server may be what they
are trying to protect.
This impeachment show looks to be a rearguard or defensive action to try and stop the Barr
criminal investigation into russiagate.
"... The Task Force also could carry out other covert actions, such as information operations. A nice sounding euphemism for propaganda, and computer network operations. There has been some informed speculation that Guccifer 2.0 was a creation of this Task Force. ..."
The average American has no idea how alarming is the news that former CIA Director John
Brennan reportedly created and staffed a CIA Task Force in early 2016 that was named, Trump
Task Force, and given the mission of spying on and carrying out covert actions against the
campaign of candidate Donald Trump.
This was not a simple gathering of a small number of disgruntled Democrats working at the
CIA who got together like a book club to grouse and complain about the brash real estate guy
from New York. It was a specially designed covert action to try to destroy Donald Trump.
A "Task Force" is a special bureaucratic creation that provides a vehicle for bring case
officers and analysts together, along with admin support, for a limited term project. But it
also can be expanded to include personnel from other agencies, such as the FBI, DIA and NSA.
Task Forces have been used since the inception of the CIA in 1947. Here's a recently
declassified memo outlining the considerations in the creation of a task force in 1958. The
author, L.K. White, talks about the need for a coordinating Headquarters element and an
Operational unit "in the field", i.e. deployed around the world.
A Task Force operates independent of the CIA " Mission Centers
" (that's the jargon for the current CIA organization chart).
So what did John Brennan do? I am told by an knowledgeable source that Brennan created a
Trump Task Force in early 2016. It was an invitation only Task Force. Specific case officers
(i.e., men and women who recruit and handle spies overseas), analysts and admin personnel were
recruited. Not everyone invited accepted the offer. But many did.
This was not a CIA only operation. Personnel from the FBI also were assigned to the Task
Force. We have some clues that Christopher Steele's FBi handler, Michael Gaeta, may have been
detailed to the Trump Task Force ( see here
).
So what kind of things would this Task Force do? The case officers would work with foreign
intelligence services such as MI-6, the Italians, the Ukrainians and the Australians on
identifying intelligence collection priorities. Task Force members could task NSA to do
targeted collection. They also would have the ability to engage in covert action, such as
targeting George Papadopoulos. Joseph Mifsud may be able to shed light on the CIA officers who
met with him, briefed on operational objectives regarding Papadopoulos and helped arrange
monitored meetings. I think it is highly likely that the honey pot that met with George
Papadopoulos, a woman named Azra Turk, was part of the CIA Trump Task Force.
The Task Force also could carry out other covert actions, such as information
operations. A nice sounding euphemism for propaganda, and computer network operations. There
has been some informed speculation that Guccifer 2.0 was a creation of this Task
Force.
In light of what we have learned about the alleged CIA whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, there
should be a serious investigation to determine if he was a part of this Task Force or, at
minimum, reporting to them.
When I described this to one friend, a retired CIA Chief of Station, his first response was,
"My God, that's illegal." We then reminisced about another illegal operation carried out under
the auspices of the CIA Central American Task Force back in the 1980s. That became known to
Americans as the Iran Contra scandal.
I sure hope that John Durham and his team are looking at this angle. If true it marks a new
and damning indictment of the corruption of the CIA. Rather than spying on genuine foreign
threats, this Task Force played a critical role in creating and feeding the meme that Donald
Trump was a tool of the Russians and a puppet of Putin.
"... It gets funny, this shallow analysis of the deep state that is currently big news. There's something ghoulish about it, perfectly timed for Halloween and masked jokers. What was once ridiculed by the CIA and its attendant lackeys in the media as the paranoia of "conspiracy theorists" is now openly admitted in reverent tones of patriotic fervor. But with a twisted twist. ..."
"... The Council on Foreign Relations ..."
"... Foreign Affairs, ..."
"... Linguistic mind control is insidious like the slow drip of a water faucet. After a while you don't hear it and just go about your business, even as your mind, like a rotting rubber washer, keeps disintegrating under propaganda's endless reiterations. ..."
"... To think that the deep state is government employees just doing their patriotic duty is plain idiocy and plainer propaganda. ..."
It gets funny, this shallow analysis of the deep state that is currently big news.
There's something ghoulish about it, perfectly timed for Halloween and masked jokers. What
was once ridiculed by the CIA and its attendant lackeys in the media as the paranoia of
"conspiracy theorists" is now openly admitted in reverent tones of patriotic fervor. But with
a twisted twist.
The corporate mass-media has recently discovered a "deep state" that they claim to be not
some evil group of assassins who work for the super-rich owners of the country and murder
their own president (JFK) and other unpatriotic dissidents (Malcom X, MLK, RK, among others)
and undermine democracy home and abroad, but are now said to be just fine upstanding American
citizens who work within the government bureaucracies and are patriotic believers in
democracy intent on doing the right thing.
This redefinition has been in the works for a few years, and it shouldn't be a surprise
that this tricky treat was being prepared for our consumption a few years ago by The
Council on Foreign Relations . In its September/October 2017 edition of its journal
Foreign Affairs, Jon D. Michaels, in "Trump and the Deep State: The Government
Strikes Back," writes:
Furious at what they consider treachery by internal saboteurs, the president and his
surrogates have responded by borrowing a bit of political science jargon, claiming to be
victims of the " deep state ," a
conspiracy of powerful, unelected bureaucrats secretly pursuing their own agenda. The
concept of a deep state is valuable in its original context, the study of developing
countries such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey, where shadowy elites in the military and
government ministries have been known to countermand or simply defy democratic directives.
Yet it has little relevance to the United States, where governmental power structures are
almost entirely transparent, egalitarian, and rule-bound.
The White House is correct to perceive widespread resistance inside the government to
many of its endeavors. But the same way the administration's media problems come not from
"fake news" but simply from news, so its bureaucratic problems come not from an insidious,
undemocratic "deep state" but simply from the state -- the large, complex hive of people
and procedures that constitute the U.S. federal government.
Notice how in these comical passages about U.S. government transparency and
egalitarianism, Michaels slyly and falsely attributes to Trump the very definition –
"unelected bureaucrats" – that in the next paragraph he claims to be the real deep
state, which is just the state power structures. Pseudo-innocence conquers all here as there
is no mention of the Democratic party, Russiagate, etc., and all the machinations led by the
intelligence services and Democratic forces to oust Trump from the day he was elected. State
power structures just move so quickly, as anyone knows who has studied the speed with which
bureaucracies operate. Ask Max Weber.
Drip by drip over the past few years, this "state bureaucracy" meme has been introduced by
the mainstream media propagandists as they have gradually revealed that the government
deep-staters are just doing their patriotic duty in trying openly to oust an elected
president.
Many writers have commented on the recent New York Times article, Trump's
War on the 'Deep State' Turns Against Him" asserting that the Times has finally admitted
to the existence of the deep state, which is true as far as it goes, which is not too far.
But in this game of deceptive revelations – going shallower to go deeper – what
is missing is a focus on the linguistic mind control involved in the changed definition.
In a recent article by Robert W. Merry, whose intentions I am not questioning –
"New York
Times Confirms: It's Trump Versus the Deep State" – originally published at The
American Conservative and widely reprinted , the lead-in to the article proper
reads: "Even the Gray Lady admits the president is up against a powerful bureaucracy that
wants him sunk." So the "powerful bureaucracy" redefinition, this immovable force of
government bureaucrats, is slipped into public consciousness as what the deep state
supposedly is. Gone are CIA conspirators and evil doers. In their place we find career civil
servants doing their patriotic duty.
Then there is The New York Times' columnist James Stewart who, appearing on the
Today Show recently, where he was promoting his new book, told Savannah Guthrie
that:
Well, you meet these characters in my book, and the fact is, in a sense, he's [Trump]
right. There is a deep state there is a bureaucracy in our country who has pledged to
respect the Constitution, respect the rule of law. They do not work for the President. They
work for the American people. And, as Comey told me in my book, 'thank goodness for that,'
because they are protecting the Constitution and the people when individuals – we
don't have a monarch, we don't have a dictator – they restrain them from crossing the
boundaries of law. What Trump calls the deep state in the United States is protecting the
American people and protecting the Constitution. It's a positive thing in this sense.
So again we are told that the deep-state bureaucracy is defending the Constitution and
protecting the American people, as James Comey told Stewart, "in my book, 'thank goodness for
that,'" as he put it so eloquently. These guys talk in books, of course, not person to
person, but that is the level not just of English grammar and general stupidity, but of the
brazen bullshit these guys are capable of.
This new and shallow deep state definition has buried the old meaning of the deep state as
evil conspirators carrying out coup d'états, assassinations, and massive media
propaganda campaigns at home and abroad, and who, by implication and direct declaration,
never existed in the good old U.S.A. but only in countries such as Egypt, Turkey, and
Pakistan where shadowy elites killed and deposed leaders and opponents in an endless series
of coup d'états. No mention in Foreign Affairs , of course, of the American
support for the ruthless leaders of these countries who have always been our dear allies when
they obey our every order and serve as our servile proxies in murder and mayhem.
Even Edward Snowden , the courageous whistleblower in exile in Russia, in a recent
interview
with Joe Rogan , repeats this nonsense when he says the deep state is just "career government
officials" who want to keep their jobs and who outlast presidents. From his own experience,
he should know better. Much better. Interestingly, he suggests that he does when he tells
Rogan that "every president since Kennedy" has been successfully "feared up" by the
intelligence agencies so they will do their bidding. He doesn't need to add that JFK, for
fearlessly refusing the bait, was shot in the head in broad daylight to send a message to
those who would follow.
Linguistic mind control is insidious like the slow drip of a water faucet. After a while
you don't hear it and just go about your business, even as your mind, like a rotting rubber
washer, keeps disintegrating under propaganda's endless reiterations.
To think that the deep state is government employees just doing their patriotic duty is
plain idiocy and plainer propaganda.
It is a trick, not the treat it is made to seem.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to
your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the
Centre for Research on Globalization. Visit the author's website
here .
"... We drove for hours through the desert, towards the Iraqi border. Approx. 20-30 kilometers from the border, there really was nothing. First of all no war. There were armored vehicles and tanks, burned-out long ago. The journalist left the bus, splashed the contents of the cans on the vehicles. We had Iraqi soldiers with us as an escort, with machine guns, in uniform. You have to imagine: tanks in a desert, burned out long ago, now put on fire. Clouds of smoke. And there the journalists assemble their cameras. ..."
"... So I gathered courage and asked one of the reporters: 'I understand one thing, they are great pictures, but why are they ducking all the time? ' ..."
"... I'll finish, because I am not here to make satire today. I just want to say that this was my first experience with truth in journalism and war reporting. ..."
"... Then a certain type of reporting is expected. Which one? Forget my newspaper, this applies in general. At the start of the trip, the journalist gets a memo – today it is electronic – in his hand. If you are traveling abroad, it is info about the country, or the speeches that will be held. This file contains roughly what will happen during this trip. In addition there are short conversations, briefings with the politician's press manager. He then explains to you how one views this trip. Naturally, you should see it the same way. No one says it in that way. But is is approximately what one would have reported. ..."
"... He explained that a recruitment board from the intelligence services had participated. But I had no idea that the seminar Introduction to Conflict Studies was arranged by the defense forces and run by the foreign intelligence service BND, to have a closer look at potential candidates among the students, not to commit them. They only asked if they, after four such seminars, possibly could contact me later, in my occupation. ..."
"... Two persons from BND came regularly to the paper, to a visiting room. And there were occasions when the report not only was given, but also that BND had written articles, largely ready to go, that were published in the newspaper under my byline. ..."
"... But a couple of journalists were there, they told about it. Therefore I repeat: Merkel invited the chief editors several times, and told them she didn't want the population to be truthfully and openly informed about the problems out there. For example, the background for the financial crisis. If the citizens knew how things were, they would run to the bank and withdraw their money. So beautifying everything; everything is under control; your savings are safe; just smile and hold hands – everything will be fine. ..."
"... From one hour 18 minutes onwards, Ulfkotte details EU-Inter-State Terror Co-operation, with returning IS Operatives on a Free Pass, fully armed and even Viktor Orban had to give in to the commands of letting Terrorists through Hungary into Germany & Austria. ..."
"... Everybody who works in the MSM, without exception, are bought and paid for whores peddling lies on behalf of globalist corporate interests. ..."
"... Udo's voice (in the form of his book) was silenced for a reason – that being that he spoke the truth about our utterly and completely corrupt Western fantasy world in which we in the West proclaim our – "respect international law" and "respect for human rights." His work, such as this interview and others he has done, pulled the curtain back on the big lie and exposed our oligarchs, politicians and the "journalists" they hire as simply a cadre of professional criminals whose carefully crafted lies are used to soak up the blood and to cover the bodies of the dead, all in order to hide all that mayhem from our eyes, to insure justice is an impossibility and to make sure we Western citizens sleep well at night, oblivious to our connection to the actual realities that are this daily regime of pillage and plunder that is our vaunted "neoliberal order." ..."
"... "The philosopher Diogenes (of Sinope) was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, 'If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.' To which Diogenes replied, 'Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king"." ..."
"... So Roosevelt pushed Hitler to attack Stalin? Hitler didn't want to go East? Revisionism at it most motive free. ..."
"... Pushing' is synonymous for a variety of ways to instigate a desired outcome. Financing is just one way. And Roosevelt was in no way the benevolent knight history twisters like to present him. You are outing yourself again as an easliy duped sheep. ..."
"... Lebensraum was first popularized in 1901 in Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum Hitler's "Mein Kampf" ( 1925) build on that: he had no need for any American or other push, it was intended from the get go. ..."
"... This excellent article demonstrates how the Controlling Elite manipulates the Media and the Message for purposes of misdirecting attention and perception of their true intentions and objective of securing Global Ownership (aka New World Order). ..."
"... Corporate Journalism is all about corporatism and the continuation of it. If the Intelligence Community needs greater fools for staffing purposes in the corporate hierarchy they look for anyone that can be compromised via inducements of whatever the greater fools want. ..."
"... Bought & paid for corporate Journalists are controlled by the Intelligence Agencies and always have been since at least the Second World War. The CIA typically runs bribery & blackmail at the state & federal level so that when necessary they have instant useless eaters to offer up as political sacrifice when required via state run propaganda, & impression management. ..."
"... Assuming that journalism is an ethical occupation is naïve and a fools' game even in the alternative news domain as all writers write from bias & a lack of real knowledge. Few writers are intellectually honest or even aware of their own limits as writers. The writer is a failure and not a hero borne in myth. Writers struggle to write & publish. Bought and paid for writers don't have a struggle in terms of writing because they are told what to write before they write as automatons for the Intelligence Community knowing that they sold their collective souls to the Prince of Darkness for whatever trinkets, bobbles, or bling they could get their greedy hands on at the time. ..."
"... Once pond scum always pond scum. ..."
"... It is a longer process in which one is gradually introduced to ever more expensive rewards/bribes. Never too big to overwhelm – always just about what one would accept as 'motivation' to omit aspects of any issue. Of course, omission is a lie by any other name, but I can attest to the life style of a journalist that socializes with the leaders of all segments of society. ..."
"... Professional whoring is as old as the hills and twice as dusty. Being ethical is difficult stuff especially when money is involved. Money is always a prime motivator but vanity works wonders too. Corporatists will offer whatever inducements they can to get what they want. ..."
"... All mainstream media voices are selling a media package that is a corporatist lie in and of itself. Truth is less marketable than lies. Embellished news & journalistic hype is the norm ..."
In 2014, the German journalist and writer Udo Ulfkotte published a book that created a big stir, describing how the journalistic
profession is thoroughly corrupt and infiltrated by intelligence services.
Although eagerly anticipated by many, the English translation of the book, Bought Journalists , does not seem to be forthcoming
anytime soon.
So I have made English subtitles and transcribed this still very relevant 2015-lecture for those that are curious about Ulfkotte's
work. It covers many of the subjects described in the book.
Udo Ulfkotte died of a heart attack in January 2017, in all likelihood part of the severe medical complications he got from his
exposure to German-made chemical weapons supplied to Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.
Transcription
[Only the first 49 minutes are translated; the second half of the lecture deals mostly with more local issues]
Introducer Oliver: I am very proud to have such a brave man amongst us: Udo Ulfkotte
Udo Ulfkotte: Thanks Thanks for the invitation Thanks to Oliver. I heard to my great surprise from Oliver that he didn't
know someone from the intelligence services (VVS) would be present. I wish him a warm welcome. I don't mean that as a joke, I heard
this in advance, and got to know that Oliver didn't know. If he wants – if it is a man – he can wave. If not? no? [laughter from
the audience]
I'm fine with that. You can write down everything, or record it; no problem.
To the lecture. We are talking about media. we are talking about truth. I don't want to sell you books or such things. Each one
of us asks himself: Why do things develop like they do, even though the majority, or a lot of people shake their heads.
The majority of people in Germany don't want nuclear weapons on our territory. But we have nuclear weapons here. The majority
don't want foreign interventions by German soldiers. But we do.
What media narrates and the politicians say, and what the majority of the population believes – seems often obviously to be two
different things.
I can tell you this myself, from many years experience. I will start with very personal judgments, to tell you what my experiences
with 'The Lying Media' were – I mean exactly that with the word 'lying'.
I was born in a fairly poor family. I am a single child. I grew up on the eastern edge of the Ruhr-area. I studied Law, Political
Science and Islamic Studies. Already in my student years, I had contact with the German Foreign Intelligence, BND. We will get back
to that later.
From 1986 to 2003, I worked for a major German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), amongst other things as a war
reporter. I spent a lot of time in Eastern and African countries.
Now to the subject of lying media. When I was sent to the Iran-Iraq war for the first time, the first time was from 1980 to July
1986, I was sent to this war to report for FAZ. The Iraqis were then 'the good guys'.
I was bit afraid. I didn't have any experience as a war reporter. Then I arrived in Baghdad. I was fairly quickly sent along in
a bus by the Iraqi army, the bus was full of loud, experienced war reporters, from such prestigious media as the BBC, several foreign
TV-stations and newspapers, and me, poor newbie, who was sent to the front for the first time without any kind of preparation. The
first thing I saw was that they all carried along cans of petrol. And I at once got bad consciousness, because I thought: "oops,
if the bus gets stuck far from a petrol station, then everyone chips in with a bit of diesel'. I decided to in the future also carry
a can before I went anywhere, because it obviously was part of it.
We drove for hours through the desert, towards the Iraqi border. Approx. 20-30 kilometers from the border, there really was nothing.
First of all no war. There were armored vehicles and tanks, burned-out long ago. The journalist left the bus, splashed the contents
of the cans on the vehicles. We had Iraqi soldiers with us as an escort, with machine guns, in uniform. You have to imagine: tanks
in a desert, burned out long ago, now put on fire. Clouds of smoke. And there the journalists assemble their cameras.
It was my first experience with media, truth in reporting.
While I was wondering what the hell I was going to report for my newspaper, they all lined up and started: Behind them were flames
and plumes of smoke, and all the time the Iraqis were running in front of camera with their machine guns, casually, but with war
in their gaze. And the reporters were ducking all the time while talking.
So I gathered courage and asked one of the reporters: 'I understand one thing, they are great pictures, but why are they ducking
all the time? '
'Quite simply because there are machine guns on the audio track, and it looks very good at home.'
That was several decades ago. It was in the beginning of my contact with war. I was thinking, the whole way back:'Young man, you
didn't see a war. You were in a place with a campfire. What are you going to tell?'
I returned to Baghdad. There weren't any mobile phones then. We waited in Hotel Rashid and other hotels where foreigners stayed,
sometimes for hours for an international telephone line. I first contacted my mother, not my newspaper. I was in despair, didn't
know what to do, and wanted to get advice from an elder person.
Then my mother shouted over the phone: 'My boy, you are alive!' I thought: 'How so? Is everything OK?'
'My boy, we thought ' 'What's the matter, mother?' 'We saw on TV what happened around you' TV had already sent lurid stories, and I tried to calm my mother down, it didn't happen like that. She thought I had lost my mind
from all the things that had happened in the war – she saw it with her own eyes!
I'll finish, because I am not here to make satire today. I just want to say that this was my first experience with truth in journalism
and war reporting.
That is, I was very shocked by the first contact, it was entirely different from what I had experienced. But it wasn't an exceptional
case.
In the beginning, I mentioned that I am from a fairly poor family. I had to work hard for everything. I was a single child, my
father died when I was young. It didn't matter further on. But, I had a job, I had a degree, a goal in life.
I now had the choice: Should I declare that the whole thing was nonsense, these reports? I was nothing, a newbie straight out
of uni, in my first job. Or if I wanted to make money, to continue, look further. I chose the second option. I continued, and that
for many years.
Over these years, I gained lots of experience. When one comes from university to a big German newspaper – everything I say doesn't
only apply to FAZ, you can take other German or European media. I had contact with other European journalists, from reputable media
outlets. I later worked in other media. I can tell you: What I am about to tell you, I really discovered everywhere.
What did I experience? If you, as a reporter, work either in state media financed by forced license fees, or in the big private
media companies, then you can't write what you want yourself, what you feel like. There are certain guidelines.
Roughly speaking: everyone knows that you won't, for example in the Springer-newspapers – Bild, die Welt – get published articles
extremely critical of Israel. They stand no chance there, because one has to sign a statement that one is pro-Israel, that one won't
question the existence of the state of Israel or Israeli points of view, etc.
There are some sort of guidelines in all the big media companies. But that isn't all: I learned very fast that if one doesn't
– I don't mean this negatively – want to be stuck in the lower rungs of editors, if one wants to rise; for me this rise was that
I was allowed to travel with the Chancellor, ministers, the president and politicians, in planes owned by the state; then one has
to keep to certain subjects. I learned that fast.
That is, if one gets to follow a politician – and this hasn't changed to this day – I soon realized that when I followed the president
or Chancellor Helmut Kohl etc, one of course isn't invited because your name is Udo Ulfkotte, but because you belong to the newspaper
Frankfurter Allgemeine.
Then a certain type of reporting is expected. Which one? Forget my newspaper, this applies in general. At the start of the trip,
the journalist gets a memo – today it is electronic – in his hand. If you are traveling abroad, it is info about the country, or
the speeches that will be held. This file contains roughly what will happen during this trip. In addition there are short conversations,
briefings with the politician's press manager. He then explains to you how one views this trip. Naturally, you should see it the
same way. No one says it in that way. But is is approximately what one would have reported.
All the time you no one tells you to write it this or that way but you know quite exactly that if you DON'T write it this or that
way,then you won't get invited next time. Your media outlet will be invited, but they say 'we don't want him along'. Then you are
out.
Naturally you want to be invited. Of course it is wonderful to travel abroad and you can behave like a pig, no one cares. You
can buy what you want, because you know that when you return, you won't be checked. You can bring what you want. I had colleagues
who went along on a trip to the US.
They brought with them – it was an air force plane – a Harley Davidson, in parts. They sold it when they were back in Germany,
and of course earned on it. Anyway, just like the carpet-affair with that development minister, this is of course not a single instance.
No one talks about it.
You get invited if you have a certain way of seeing things. Which way to see things? Where and how is this view of the world formed?
I very often get asked: 'Where are these people behind the curtain who pulls the wires, so that everything gets told in a fairly
similar way?'
In the big media in Germany – just look yourself – who sit in the large transatlantic think-tanks and foundations,the foundation
The Atlantic Bridge, all these organizations, and how is one influenced there? I can tell from my own experience.
We mustn't talk only theoretically. I was invited by the think-tank The German Marshall Fund of the United States as a fellow.
I was to visit the United States for six weeks. It was fully paid. During these six weeks I could this think-tank has very close
connections to the CIA to this day, they acquired contacts in the CIA for me and they got me access to American politicians, to everyone
I wanted. Above all, they showered me with gifts.
Already before the journey with German Marshall Fund, I experienced plenty of bought journalism. This hasn't to do with a particular
media outlet. You see, I was invited and didn't particularly reflect over it, by billionaires, for example sultan Quabboos of Oman
on the Arabian peninsula.
When sultan Qabboos invited, and a poor boy like me could travel to a country with few inhabitants but immense wealth, where the
head of state had the largest yachts in the world, his own symphony orchestra which plays for him when he wants – by the way he bought
a pub close to Garmisch-Patenkirchen, because he is a Muslim believer, and someone might see him if he drank in his own country,
so he rather travels there. The place he bought every day fly in fresh lamb from Ireland and Scotland with his private jet. He is
also the head of an environmental foundation.
But this is a digression. If such a person, who is so incredibly rich, invites someone like me, then I arrive first class. I had
never traveled first class before. We arrive, and a driver is waiting for me. He carries your suitcase or backpack. You have a suite
in the hotel. And from the very start, you are showered with gifts. You get a platinum or gold coin. A hand-weaved carpet or whatever.
I interviewed the sultan, several times. He asked me what I wanted. I answered among other things a diving course. I wanted to
learn how to dive. He flew in a PADI-approved instructor from Greece. I was there for two weeks and got my first diving certificate.
On later occasions, the sultan flew me in several times, and the diving instructor. I got a certificate as rescue diver, all paid
for by the sultan. You see, when one is attended to in such a way, then you know that you are bought. For a certain type of journalism.
In the sultan's country, there is no freedom of the press.
There are no human rights. It is illegal to import many writings, because the sultan does not wish so. There are reports about
human rights violations, but my eyes are blind. I reported, like all German media when they report about the Sultanate of Oman, to
this day, only positive things. The great sultan, who is wonderful. The fantastic country of the fairy tale prince, overshadowing
everything else – because I was bought.
Apart from Oman, many others have bought me. They also bought colleagues. I got many invitations through the travel section in
my big newspaper. 5-star. The reportage never mentioned that I was bought, by country A or B or C. Yemenia, the Yemeni state airline,
invited me to such a trip.
I didn't report about the dirt and dilapidation in the country, because I was influenced by this treatment, I only reported positively,
because I wanted to come back. The Yemenis asked me when I had returned to Frankfurt what I wished In jest, I said "your large prawns,
from the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean, they were spectacular.", from the seaport of Mocha (Mocha-coffee is named after it). Two
days later, Yemenia flew in a buffet for the editorial office, with prawns and more.
Of course we were bought. We were bought in several ways. In your situation: when you buy a car or something else, you trust consumer
tests. Look closer. How well is the car tested? I know of no colleagues, no journalists, who do testing of cars, that aren't bribed
– maybe they do exist.
They get unlimited access to a car from the big car manufacturers, with free petrol and everything else. I had a work car in my
newspaper, if not, I might have exploited this. I had a BMW or Mercedes in the newspaper. But there are, outside the paper, many
colleagues who only have this kind of vehicle all year round. They are invited to South Africa, Malaysia, USA, to the grandest travels,
when a new car is presented.
Why? So that they will write positively about the car. But it doesn't say in these reports "Advertisement from bought journalists".
But that is the reality. You should also know – since we are on the subjects of tests – who owns which test magazines? Who owns
the magazine Eco-test? It is owned by the Social Democrats. More than a hundred magazines belong to the Social Democrats. It isn't
about only one party, but many editorial rooms have political allegiance. Behind them are party political interests.
I mentioned the sultan of Oman and the diving course, and I have mentioned German Marshall Fund. Back to the US and the German
Marshall Fund. There one told me, they knew exactly, 'hello, you were on a diving course in Oman ' The CIA knew very precisely. And
the CIA also gave me something: The diving gear. I received the diving gear in the United States, and I received in the US, during
my 6-week stay there, an invitation from the state of Oklahoma, from the governor. I went there. It was a small ceremony, and I received
an honorary citizenship.
I am now honorary citizen of an American state. And in this certificate, it is written that I will only cover the US positively.
I accepted this honorary citizenship and was quite proud of it. I proudly told about it to a colleague who worked in the US. He said
'ha, I already have 31 of these honorary citizenships!'
I don't tell about this to be witty, today I am ashamed, really.
I was greedy. I accepted many advantages that a regular citizen at my age in my occupation doesn't have, and shouldn't have. But
I perceived it – and that is no excuse – as entirely normal, because my colleagues around me all did the same. But this isn't normal.
When journalists are invited to think-tanks in the US, like German Marshall Fund, Atlantic Bridge, it is to 'bring them in line',
for in a friendly way to make them complicit, naturally to buy them, to grease them with money.
This has quite a few aspects that one normally doesn't talk about. When I for the first time was in Southern Africa, in the 80s,
Apartheid still existed in South Africa, segregated areas for blacks and whites. We didn't have any problems with this in my newspaper,
we received fully paid journeys from the Apartheid regime to do propaganda work.
I was invited by the South-African gold industry, coal industry, tourist board. In the first invitation, this trip was to Namibia
– I arrived tired to the hotel room in Windhoek and a dark woman lay in my bed. I at once left the room, went down to the reception
and said 'excuse me, but the room is already occupied' [laughter from the audience]
Without any fuss I got another room.
Next day at the breakfast table, this was a journalist trip, my colleagues asked me 'how was yours?' Only then I understood what
had happened. Until then, I had believed it was a silly coincidence.
With this I want to describe which methods are used, maybe to film journalists in such situations, buy, make dependent. Quite
simply to win them over to your side with the most brutal methods, so that they are 'brought in line'.
This doesn't happen to every journalist. It would be a conspiracy theory if I said that behind every journalist, someone pulls
the wires.
No. Not everyone has influence over the masses. When you – I don't mean this negatively – write about folk costume societies or
if you work with agriculture or politics, why should anyone from the upper political spheres have an interest in controlling the
reporting? As far as I know, this doesn't happen at all.
But if you work in one of the big media, and want up in this world, if you want to travel with politicians, heads of state, with
CEOs, who also travel on these planes, then it happens. Then you are regularly bought, you are regularly observed.
I said earlier that I already during my study days had contact with the intelligence services.
I will quickly explain this to you, because it is very important for this lecture.
I studied law, Political Science and Islamology, among other places in Freiburg. At the very beginning of my study, just before
end of the term, a professor approached me. Professors were then still authority figures.
He came with a brochure, and asked me: 'Mr. Ulfkotte, what are your plans for this vacation?'
I couldn't very well say that I first planned to work a bit at a building site, for then to grab my backpack and see the ocean
for the first time in my life, to Italy, 'la dolce vita', flirting with girls, lie on the beach and be a young person.
I wondered how I would break it to him. He then came with a brochure [Ulfkotte imitating professor]: 'I have something for
you a seminar, Introduction to Conflict Studies, two weeks in Bonn I am sure you would want to participate!'
I wondered how I would tell this elderly gentleman that I wanted to flirt with girls on the beach. Then he said 'you will get
20 Marks per day as support, paid train journey, money for books 150 Marks You will naturally get board and lodging.' He didn't stop
telling me what I would receive.
It buzzed around in my head that I had to achieve everything myself, work hard. I thought 'You have always wanted to participate
in a seminar on Introduction to Conflict Studies!'
So I went to Bonn from Freiburg, and I saw other students who had this urge to participate in this seminar. There were also girls
one could flirt with, about twenty people. The whole thing was very strange, because we sat in a room like this one, there were desks
and a lectern, and there sat some older men and a woman, they always wrote something down. They asked us about things; What we thought
of East Germany, we had to do role play.
The whole thing was a bit strange, but it was well paid. We didn't reflect any further. It was very strange that in this house,
in Ubierstraße 88 in Bonn, we weren't allowed to go to the second floor. There was a chain over the stairs, it was taboo.
We were allowed to go to the basement, there were constantly replenished supplies of new books that we were allowed to get for
free. Ebay didn't exist then, but we could still sell them used. Anyway, it was curious, but at the end of the fortnight, we were
allowed to go up these stairs, where we got an invitation to a continuation course in Conflict Studies.
After four such seminars, that is, after two years, someone asked me 'you have probably wondered what we are doing here'.
He explained that a recruitment board from the intelligence services had participated. But I had no idea that the seminar Introduction
to Conflict Studies was arranged by the defense forces and run by the foreign intelligence service BND, to have a closer look at
potential candidates among the students, not to commit them. They only asked if they, after four such seminars, possibly could contact
me later, in my occupation.
They gave me a lot of money. My mother has always taught me to be polite. So I said 'please do', and they came to me. I was then
working in the newspaper FAZ from 1986, straight after my studies.
Then the intelligence services came fairly soon to me. Why am I telling you this? The newspaper knew very soon. It is also written in my reference, therefore I can say it loud and clear. I had very close contact with the intelligence service BND.
Two persons from BND came regularly to the paper, to a visiting room. And there were occasions when the report not only was given,
but also that BND had written articles, largely ready to go, that were published in the newspaper under my byline.
I highlight certain things to explain them. But if I had said here: 'There are media that are influenced by BND', you could rightly
say that 'these are conspiracy theories, can you document it?'
I CAN document it. I can say, this and that article, with my byline in the paper, is written by the intelligence services, because
what is written there, I couldn't have known. I couldn't have known what existed in some cave or other in Libya, what secret thing
were there, what was being built there. This was all things that BND wanted published. It wasn't like this only in FAZ.
It was like this also in other media. I told about it. If we had rule of law, there would now be an investigation commission.
Because the political parties would stand up, regardless of if they are on the left, in the center or right, and say: What this Ulfkotte
fella says and claims he can document, this should be investigated. Did this occur in other places? Or is it still ongoing?'
I can tell you: Yes it still exists. I know colleagues who still have this close contact. One can probably show this fairly well
until a few years ago. But I would find it wonderful if this investigation commission existed.
But it will obviously not happen, because no one has an interest in doing so. Because then the public would realize how closely
integrated politics, media, and the secret services are in this country.
That is, one often sees in reporting, whether it is from the local paper, regional papers, TV-channels, national tabloids and
so-called serious papers.
Put them side by side, and you will discover that more than 90% looks almost identical. A lot of subjects and news, that are not
being reported at all, or they are – I claim reported very one-sided. One can only explain this if one knows the structures in the
background, how media is surrounded, bought and 'brought onboard' by politics and the intelligence services; Where politics and intelligence
services form a single unity. There is an intelligence coordinator by the Chancellor.
I can tell you, that under the former coordinator Bernd Schmidbauer, under Kohl, I walked in and out of the Chancellery and received
stacks of secret and confidential documents, which I shouldn't have received.
They were so many that we in the newspaper had own archive cabinets for them. Not only did I receive these documents,but Schmidbauer
should have been in jail if we had rule of law. Or there should have been a parliamentary commission or an investigation, because
he wasn't allowed
For example if I couldn't bring along the documents if the case was too hot, there was another trick. They locked me in a room.
In this room were the documents, which I could look through. I could record it all on tape, photograph them or write them down. When
I was done, I could call on the intercom, so they could lock me out. There were thousands of these tricks. Anonymous documents that
I and my colleagues needed could be placed in my mail box.
These are of course illegal things. BUT, you ONLY get them if you 'toe the line' with politics.
If I had written that Chancellor Helmut Kohl is stupid, a big idiot, or about what Schmidbauer did, I would of course not have
received more. That is, if you today, in newspapers, read about 'soon to be revealed exposures, we will publish a big story based
on material based on intelligence', then none of these media have dug a tunnel under the security services and somehow got hold of
something secret. It is rather that they work so well with intelligence services, with the military counterespionage, the foreign
intelligence, police intelligence etc, that if they have got hold of internal documents, it is because they cooperate so well that
they received them as a reward for well performed service.
You see, in this way one is in the end bought. One is bought to such a degree that at one point one can't exit this system anymore.
If I describe how you are supplied with prostitutes, bribed with cars, money; I tried to write down everything I received in gifts,
everything I was bribed with. I stopped doing so several years ago, more than a decade ago.
It doesn't make it any better, but today I regret everything. But I know that it goes this way with many journalists.
It would make me very happy if journalists stood up and said they won't participate in this any longer, and that they think this
is wrong.
But I see no possibility, because media corporations in any case are doing badly. Where should a journalist find work the next
day? It isn't so that tens of thousands of employers are waiting for you. It is the other way round. Tens of thousands of journalists
are looking for work or commissions.
That is, from pure desperation one is happy to be bribed. If a newsroom stands behind or not an article that in reality is advertising,
doesn't matter, one goes along. I know some, even respected journalists, who want to leave this system.
But imagine if you are working in one of the state channels, that you stand up and tell what you have received. How will that
be received by your colleagues? That you have political ulterior motives etc.
September 30 [2015], a few days ago, Chancellor Merkel invited all the directors in the state channels to her in the Chancellery.
I will claim that she talked with them about how one should report the Chancellors politics. Who of you [in the audience] heard about
this incident? 3-4-5? So a small minority. But this is reality. Merkel started already 6 years ago, at the beginning of the financial
crisis, to invite chief editors ..she invited chief editors in the large media corporations, with the express wish that media should
embellish reality, in a political way. This could have been only claims, one could believe me or not.
But a couple of journalists were there, they told about it. Therefore I repeat: Merkel invited the chief editors several times,
and told them she didn't want the population to be truthfully and openly informed about the problems out there. For example, the background for the financial crisis. If the citizens knew how things were, they would run to the bank and withdraw
their money. So beautifying everything; everything is under control; your savings are safe; just smile and hold hands – everything
will be fine.
In such a way it should be reported. Ladies and gentlemen, what I just said can be documented. These are facts, not a conspiracy
theory.
I formulated it a bit satirically, but I ask myself when I see how things are in this country: Is this the democracy described
in the Constitution? Freedom of speech? Freedom of the press?
Where one has to be afraid if one doesn't agree with the ruling political correctness, if one doesn't want to get in trouble.
Is this the republic our parents and grandparents fought for, that they built?
I claim that we more and more – as citizens – are cowards 'toeing the line', who don't open our mouths.
It is so nice to have plurality and diversity of opinions.
But it is at once clamped down on, today fairly openly.
Of my experiences with journalism, I can in general say that I have quit all media I have to pay for, for the reasons mentioned.
Then the question arises, 'but which pay-media can I trust?'
Naturally there are ones I support. They are definitely political, I'll add. But they are all fairly small. And they won't be
big anytime soon. But I have quit all big media that I used to subscribe to, Der Spiegel, Frankfurter Allgemeine, etc. I would like
to not having to pay the TV-license fee, without being arrested because I won't pay fines. But maybe someone here in the audience
can tell me how to do so without all these problems?
Either way, I don't want to financially support this kind of journalism. I can only give you the advice to get information from
alternative, independent media and all the forums that exist.
I'm not advertising for any of them. Some of you probably know that I write for the publishing house Kopp. But there are so many
portals. Every person is different in political viewpoint, culturally etc. The only thing uniting us, whether we are black or white,
religious or non-religious, right or left, or whatever; we all want to know the truth. We want to know what really happens out there,
and exactly in the burning political questions: asylum seekers, refugees, the financial crisis, bad infrastructure, one doesn't know
how it will continue. Precisely with this background, is it even more important that people get to know the truth.
And it is to my great surprise that I conclude that we in media, as well as in politics, have a guiding line.
To throw more and more dust in the citizens' eyes to calm them down. What is the sense in this? One can have totally different
opinions on the subject of refugees with good reasoning.
But facts are important for you as citizens to decide the future. That is, how many people will arrive? How will it affect my
personal affluence? Or will it affect my affluence at all? Will the pensions shrink? etc. Then you can talk with people about this,
quite openly. But to say that we should open all borders, and that this won't have any negative consequences, is very strange. What
I now say isn't a plug for my books. I know that some of them are on the table in front.
I'm not saying this so that you will buy books. I am saying this for another reason that soon will be clear. I started to write
books on certain subjects 18 years ago. They have sold millions. It is no longer about you buying my books. It is important that
you hear the titles, then you will see a certain line throughout the last ten years. One can have different opinions about this line,
but I have always tried to describe, based on my subjective experiences, formed over many years in the Middle East and Africa.
That there will be migration flows, from people from culture areas that are like; if one could compare a cultural area with an
engine, that one fills petrol in a diesel engine then everyone knows what will happen, the engine is great, diesel is great, but
if there too much petrol, then the engine starts to splutter and stop.
I have tried to make you aware of this, with drastic and less drastic words. What we can expect, and ever faster. The book titles
are SOS Occident; Warning Civil War; No Black,Red, Yellow [the colors in the German flag], Holy War in Europe; Mecca Germany.
I just want to say, when politicians and media today claim no one could have predicted it, everything is a complete surprise;
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is not at all surprising. The migration flows, for years warnings have been coming from international
organizations, politicians, experts, exactly about what happened and it is predictable, if we had a map over North Africa and the
Middle East..
If the West continues to destabilize countries like Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, country by country, Iraq when we toppled Saddam
Hussein, Afghanistan. We as Europeans and Germans have spent tens of billions on a war where we allegedly defend peace and liberty,
at the mountain range Hindu Kush [in Afghanistan]. And here, in front of our own door, we soon have Hindu Kush.
We have no stabilization in Afghanistan. Dozens of German soldiers have lost their lives for nothing. We have a more unstable
situation than ever.
You can have your own opinions. I am only saying that these refugee flows didn't fall from the sky. It is predicable, that if
I bomb and destabilize a country, that people – it is always so in history – it hasn't anything to do with the Middle East or North
Africa. I have seen enough wars in Africa. Naturally they created refugee flows.
But all of us didn't want to see this. We haven't prepared. And now one is reacting in full panic, and what is most disconcerting
with this, is when media and politicians, allegedly from deepest inner conviction, say: 'this was all a complete surprise!'
Are they drunk? What are they smoking? What sort of pills are they eating? That they behave this way?
End transcription
The transcription has been edited for clarity, and may differ from the spoken word. The subtitles and transcription are for the
first 49 minutes of the lecture only. Subtitled and transcribed by Terje Maloy. This article is Creative Commons 4.0 for non-commercial
purposes.
Terje Maloy (
Website ) is a Norwegian citizen, with roots north of the Arctic Circle. Nowadays, he spends a lot of time in Australia, working
in the family business. He has particular interests in liberty, global justice, imperialism, history, media analysis and what Western
governments really are up to. He runs a blog , mostly in Norwegian,
but occasionally in English. He likes to write about general geopolitical matters, and Northern Europe in particular, presenting
perspectives that otherwise barely are mentioned in the dominant media (i.e. most things that actually matter).
Tim Jenkins
From 1:18 minutes, Ulfkotte reveals without question, that the EU Political 'elite's' combined intelligence services work with
& propagate . . .
Terror, Terrorists & Terrorism / a conscious organised Politics of FEAR ! / Freedom of Movement, of fully armed IS Agents
Provocateurs & with a Secret Services get out of jail free card, 'Hände Weg Nicht anfassen', it's 'Hammertime', "U Can't
Touch this", we're armed state operatives travelling to Germany & Austria, " don't mess with my operation !" & all journalists'
hands tied, too.
The suggestions & offers below to translate fully, what Ulfkotte declares publicly, make much sense. It is important to understand
that even an 'Orban' must bow occasionally, to deep state Security State Dictators and the pressures they can exert in so many
ways. Logic . . . or else one's life is made into hell, alive or an 'accidental' death: – and may I add, it is a curiously depressing
feeling when you have so many court cases on the go, that when a Gemeinde/Municipality Clerk is smiling, celebrating and telling
you, (representing yourself in court, with only independent translator & recorder), "You Won the Case, a superior judge has over-ruled
" and the only reply possible is,
"Which case number ?"
life gets tedious & time consuming, demanding extreme patience. Given his illness, surely Ulfkotte and his wife, deserve/d
extra credit & 'hot chocolate'. Makes a change to see & read some real journalism: congrats.@OffG
Excellent Professional Journalism on "Pseudo-Journalist State Actors & Terrorists". If you see a terrorist, guys, at
best just reason with him or her :- better than calling
INTERPOL or Secret Services @theguardian, because you wouldn't want a member of the public, grassing you up to your boss, would
you now ? ! Just tell the terrorist who he really works for . . . Those he resents ! Rather like Ulfkotte had to conclude,
with final resignation. My condolences to his good wife.
Wilmers31
Very good of you to not forget Ulfkotte. If I did not have sickness in the house, I would translate it. Maybe I can do one chapter
and someone else can do another one? What's the publisher saying?
You wouldn't say that if you could speak German, my friend ! ?
From one hour 18 minutes onwards, Ulfkotte details EU-Inter-State Terror Co-operation, with returning IS Operatives on
a Free Pass, fully armed and even Viktor Orban had to give in to the commands of letting Terrorists through Hungary into Germany
& Austria.
But, don't let that revelation bother you, living under a Deep State 'Politic of Fear' in the West and long unedited speeches
gets kinda' boring now, I know a bit like believing in some kinda' dumbfuk new pearl harbour, war on terror &&& all phoney propaganda
fairy story telling, just like on the 11/9/2001, when the real target was WTC 7, to hide elitist immoral endeavours, corruption
& the missing $$$TRILLIONS$$$ of tax payers money, 'mislaid' by the D.o.D. announced directly the day before by Rumsfeld, forgotten
? Before ramping the Surveillance States abilities in placing & employing "Parallel Platforms" on steroids, so that our secret
services can now employ terror & deploy terrorists at will .., against us, see ?
Plus ca change....
I remember on a similar note a 60 Minutes piece just prior to Clinton's humanitarian bombing of Serbian civilian infrastructure
(and long ago deleted, I'm sure) on a German free-lancer staging Kosovo atrocities in a Munich suburb, and having the German MSM
eating it up and asking for more. (WWII guilt assuagement at work, no doubt).
mark
Everybody who works in the MSM, without exception, are bought and paid for whores peddling lies on behalf of globalist corporate
interests.
That is their job.
That is what they do.
They have long since forfeited all credibility and integrity.
They have lied to us endlessly for decades and generations, from the Bayonetted Belgian Babies and Human Bodies Turned Into Soap
of WW1 to the Iraq Incubator Babies and Syrian Gas Attacks of more recent times.
You can no longer take anything at face value.
The default position has to be that every single word they print and every single word that comes out of their lying mouths is
untrue.
If they say it's snowing at the North Pole, you can't accept that without first going there and checking it out for yourself.
You can't accept anything that has not been independently verified.
This applies across the board.
All of the accepted historical narrative, including things like the holocaust.
And current Global Warming "science."
We know we have been lied to again and again and again.
So what else have we been lied to without us realising it?
mark
Come to think of it, I need to apologise to sex workers.
I have known quite a few of them who have quite high ethical and moral standards, certainly compared to the MSM.
And they certainly do less damage.
Vert few working girls have blood on their hands like the MSM.
Compared to them, working girls are the salt of the earth and pillars of the community.
Seamus Padraig
Compared to them, working girls are the salt of the earth and pillars of the community.
I heartily agree. Even if one disapproves morally of prostitution, how can it possibly be worse to sell your body than to sell
your soul?
Oliver
Quite. Checking things out for yourself is the way to go. Forget 'Peer Reviews', just as bent as the journalism Ulfkotte described.
DIY.
Mortgage
So natural, all it seems
Part II:
Bought Science
Part III:
Bought Health Services
mapquest directions
The video you shared with great info. I really like the information you share.
boxnovel
Gary Weglarz
I knew we were in dangerous new territory regarding government censorship when after waiting several years for Ulfkotte's best
selling book to finally be available in English – it suddenly, magically, disappeared completely – a vanishing act – and I couldn't
get so much as a response from, much less an explanation from, the would be publisher. Udo's book came at a time when it could
have made a difference countering the fact-free complete and total "fabrication of reality" by the U.S. and Western powers as
they have waged a brutal and ongoing neocolonial war on the world's poor under the guise of "fighting terrorism."
Udo's voice (in the form of his book) was silenced for a reason – that being that he spoke the truth about our utterly and
completely corrupt Western fantasy world in which we in the West proclaim our – "respect international law" and "respect for human
rights." His work, such as this interview and others he has done, pulled the curtain back on the big lie and exposed our oligarchs,
politicians and the "journalists" they hire as simply a cadre of professional criminals whose carefully crafted lies are used
to soak up the blood and to cover the bodies of the dead, all in order to hide all that mayhem from our eyes, to insure justice
is an impossibility and to make sure we Western citizens sleep well at night, oblivious to our connection to the actual realities
that are this daily regime of pillage and plunder that is our vaunted "neoliberal order."
Ramdan
After watching the first 20 min I couldn't help but remembering this tale:
"The philosopher Diogenes (of Sinope) was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who
lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, 'If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have
to live on lentils.'
To which Diogenes replied, 'Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king"."
which is also the reason why such a large part of humanity lives in voluntary servitude to power structures, living the dream,
the illusion of being free..
Ramdan
"English Translation of Udo Ulfkotte's "Bought Journalists" Suppressed?" at Global Research 2017!!
Just rechecked Amazon. Journalists for Hire: How the CIA Buys the News
by Udo Ulfkotte PH.D. The tag line reads.
Hard cover – currently unavailable; paperback cover – currently unavailable; Kindle edition – ?
Book burning anyone?
nottheonly1
No translation exists for this interview with Udo Ulfkotte on KenFM, the web site of Ken Jebsen. Ken Jebsen has been in the cross
hairs of the CIA and German agencies for his reporting of the truth. He was smeared and defamed by the same people that Dr. Ulfkotte
had written extensively about in his book 'Gekaufte Journalisten' ('Bought Journalists').
The reason why I add this link to the interview lies in the fact that Udo Ulfkotte speaks about an important part of Middle
Eastern and German history – a history that has been scrubbed from the U.S. and German populations. In the Iraq war against Iran
– that the U.S. regime had pushed for in the same fashion the way they had pushed Nazi Germany to invade the U.S.S.R. – German
chemical weapons were used under the supervision of the U.S. regime. The extend of the chemical weapons campaign was enormous
and to the present day, Iranians are born with birth defects stemming from the used of German weapons of mass destruction.
Dr. Ulfkotte rightfully bemoans, that every year German heads of state are kneeling for the Jewish victims of National socialism
– but not for the victims of German WMD's that were used against Iran. He stresses that the act of visual asking for forgiveness
in the case of the Jewish victims becomes hypocrisy, when 40 years after the Nazis reigned, German WMD's were used against Iran.
The German regime was in on the WMD attack on Iran. It was not something that happened because they had lost a couple of thousand
containers with WMDs. They delivered the WMD's to Iraq under U.S. supervision.
Ponder that. And there has never been an apology towards Iran, or compensations. Nada. Nothing. Instead, the vile rhetoric
and demagogery of every U.S. regime since has continued to paint Iran in the worst possible ways, most notably via incessant psychological
projection – accusing Iran of the war crimes and crimes against humanity the U.S. and its Western vassal regimes are guilty of.
Here is the interview that was recorded shortly before Udo Ulfkotte's death:
If enough people support the effort, I am willing to contact KenFM for the authorization to translate the interview and use
it for subtitles to the video. However, I can't do that on my own.
nottheonly1
Correction: the interview was recorded two years before his passing.
Antonym
the U.S. regime had pushed for in the same fashion the way they had pushed Nazi Germany to invade the U.S.S.R.
So Roosevelt pushed Hitler to attack Stalin? Hitler didn't want to go East? Revisionism at it most motive free.
nottheonly1
It would help if you would use your brain just once. 'Pushing' is synonymous for a variety of ways to instigate a desired
outcome. Financing is just one way. And Roosevelt was in no way the benevolent knight history twisters like to present him. You
are outing yourself again as an easliy duped sheep.
But then, with all the assaults by the unintelligence agencies, it does not come as a surprise when facts are twisted.
Antonym
Lebensraum was first popularized in 1901 in Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum
Hitler's "Mein Kampf" ( 1925) build on that: he had no need for any American or other push, it was intended from the
get go. The timing of operation Barbarossa was brilliant though: it shocked Stalin into a temporary limbo as he had
his own aggressive plans.
Casandra2
This excellent article demonstrates how the Controlling Elite manipulates the Media and the Message for purposes of misdirecting
attention and perception of their true intentions and objective of securing Global Ownership (aka New World Order).
This approach has been assiduously applied, across the board, over many years, to the point were they now own and run everything
required to subjugate the 'human race' to the horrors of their psychopathic inclinations. They are presently holding the global
economy on hold until their AI population (social credit) control system/grid is in place before bringing the house down.
Needless to say, when this happens a disunited and frightened Global Population will be at their mercy.
If you wish to gain a full insight of what the Controlling Elite is about, and capable of, I recommend David Icke's latest
publication 'Trigger'. I know he's been tagged a 'nutter' over the past thirty years, but I reckon this book represents the 'gold
standard' in terms of generating awareness as a basis for launching a united global population counter-attack (given a great strategy)
against forces that can only be defined as pure 'EVIL'.
MASTER OF UNIVE
Corporate Journalism is all about corporatism and the continuation of it. If the Intelligence Community needs greater fools
for staffing purposes in the corporate hierarchy they look for anyone that can be compromised via inducements of whatever the
greater fools want. Engaging in compromise allows both parties to have complicit & explicit understanding that corruption
and falsehood are the tools of the trade. To all-of-a-sudden develop a conscience after decades of playing the part of a willing
participant is understandable in light of the guilt complex one must develop after screwing everyone in the world out of the critical
assessment we all need to obtain in order to make decisions regarding our futures.
Bought & paid for corporate Journalists are controlled by the Intelligence Agencies and always have been since at least
the Second World War. The CIA typically runs bribery & blackmail at the state & federal level so that when necessary they have
instant useless eaters to offer up as political sacrifice when required via state run propaganda, & impression management.
Assuming that journalism is an ethical occupation is naïve and a fools' game even in the alternative news domain as all
writers write from bias & a lack of real knowledge. Few writers are intellectually honest or even aware of their own limits as
writers. The writer is a failure and not a hero borne in myth. Writers struggle to write & publish. Bought and paid for writers
don't have a struggle in terms of writing because they are told what to write before they write as automatons for the Intelligence
Community knowing that they sold their collective souls to the Prince of Darkness for whatever trinkets, bobbles, or bling they
could get their greedy hands on at the time.
Developing a conscience late in life is too late.
May all that sell their souls to the Intel agencies understand that pond scum never had a conscience to begin with.
Once pond scum always pond scum.
MOU
nottheonly1
What is not addressed in this talk is the addictive nature of this sort of public relation writing. Journalism is something different
altogether. I know that, because I consider myself to be a journalist at heart – one that stopped doing it when the chalice was
offered to me. The problem is that one is not part of the cabal one day to another.
It is a longer process in which one is gradually introduced to ever more expensive rewards/bribes. Never too big to overwhelm
– always just about what one would accept as 'motivation' to omit aspects of any issue. Of course, omission is a lie by any other
name, but I can attest to the life style of a journalist that socializes with the leaders of all segments of society.
And I would also write a critique about a great restaurant – never paying a dime for a fantastic dinner. The point though is
that I would not write a good critique for a nasty place for money. I have never written anything but the truth – for which I
received sometimes as much as a bag full of the best rolls in the country.
Twisting the truth for any form of bribes is disgusting and attests of the lowest of any character.
MASTER OF UNIVE
Professional whoring is as old as the hills and twice as dusty. Being ethical is difficult stuff especially when money is
involved. Money is always a prime motivator but vanity works wonders too. Corporatists will offer whatever inducements they can
to get what they want.
All mainstream media voices are selling a media package that is a corporatist lie in and of itself. Truth is less marketable
than lies. Embellished news & journalistic hype is the norm.
If the devil offers inducements be sure to up the ante to outsmart the drunken sot.
While true whistleblowers pay the heavy price for their courage, neoliberal Democrats and corrupt to the core neoliberal MSM lionize
a CIA leaker because he justifies their impeachment crusade.
Why couldn't this CIA asset not simply report through regular channels? He wasn't blowing whistle on the CIA itself so no risk there.
Notable quotes:
"... The whole impeachment charade, and that's what it is, rests on the paradoxical and ahistorical assertions that 1) the president's phone call with Ukraine's leader is Trump's worst crime, and 2) the "liberal" press has always supported government whistleblowers. Both are absurd claims, though fitting for this partisan political moment. ..."
"... The inconvenient reality is that Trump and both his predecessors have committed far worse crimes against the Constitution by engaging in illegal wars. ..."
"... The only reason the Left -- which historically has distrusted U.S. intelligence activities -- has canonized this anonymous CIA whistleblower is that he or she, and the entire clandestine apparatus, has implicated Trump, the reflexive archenemy of the liberal elite. Trump's actual crime, contrary to the prevailing yarn, was not his overriding of Congress on war policies (which he largely copied from Obama and Bush II), but that he dared to attack a longtime Democratic insider: Joe Biden. ..."
"... Notice that the Democratic leadership in Congress has declined to investigate the fact that this president, and others before him, overrode congressional authority to wage all sorts of military operations outside the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed after 9/11, including the current assistance we are giving Saudi Arabia in its attacks on Yemen. ..."
"... President Obama, for example, dropped 26,171 bombs on at least seven countries using an AUMF that has been extended well beyond those who attacked America on 9/11. He even executed American citizens overseas without due process . ..."
"... Meanwhile, Trump abets legitimate war crimes in Yemen to the tune of 100,000-plus dead -- without evident remorse. But Obama started that war , providing U.S. aerial refueling, targeting support, and deadly munitions to the Saudis back in 2015. So the Democratic leadership stands down on the issue of Yemen, not wanting to implicate their hero in the process of impeaching The Donald. ..."
"... Mainstream liberal hypocrisy runs even deeper, unfortunately. I'm just old enough to remember when the Left railed against the CIA, NSA, and spooks in general. ..."
"... Suddenly every Obama- and Bush-era national security staffer and intelligence super-sleuth -- John Brennan, James Clapper, Michael Hayden, etc. -- was regularly appearing on CNN and MSNBC to attack Trump and pine for the status quo of U.S. military hyper-interventionism. ..."
"... Even the language is instructive. They aren't "leakers," "traitors," or "criminals," but whistleblowers , surging with moral courage and exposing ostensibly unthinkable presidential wrongdoing. That's funny: where were these folks when other, far more profound whistleblowers uncovered criminality during the Bush and Obama years? Either crickets or pejorative attacks were all they proffered back then. ..."
"... Meanwhile, Obama utilized the archaic 1917 Espionage Act to prosecute more whistleblowers than all previous presidents combined. The liberal press and most Democratic legislators barely made a peep. Barack was their guy , one of their own -- the "leakers" must have been in the wrong, enemies, so to speak, of the people. ..."
"... So while Trump is by no means without serious flaws, the Beltway elites and media personalities stuffing impeachment down our throats are hypocritical and dishonest enough to make one believe in a "deep state." ..."
"... Trump's crime is he's an outsider and the CIA did not expect him to win. His very existence is a threat to them. ..."
"... Can he clean up the mess? I doubt it. Imagine what would happen, the screams and agony, were he to eliminate all government secrecy. Imagine what the CIA would claim if the Black Budget became transparent. If Trump tried to eliminate the CIA it would simply reconstitute and shape-shift within other agencies or outside government. ..."
Few see the irony in the corporate mainstream media's love affair with the anonymous whistleblower in President Trump's alleged
Ukraine-gate affair. Yet everyone should. Few see the irony in the corporate mainstream media's love affair with the anonymous whistleblower
in President Trump's alleged Ukraine-gate affair. Yet everyone should.
The whole impeachment charade, and that's what it is, rests on the paradoxical and ahistorical assertions that 1) the president's
phone call with Ukraine's leader is Trump's worst crime, and 2) the "liberal" press has always supported government whistleblowers.
Both are absurd claims, though fitting for this partisan political moment.
The inconvenient reality is that Trump and
both his predecessors have committed
far worse crimes against the Constitution by engaging in illegal wars. Certainly this is more serious than the shady Ukraine/Biden
incident. And the mainstream media has a rather poor track record when it comes to whistleblowers, often demonizing leakers who expose
nefarious government actions. The only reason the Left -- which historically has distrusted U.S. intelligence activities -- has
canonized this anonymous CIA whistleblower is that he or she, and the entire clandestine apparatus, has implicated Trump, the reflexive
archenemy of the liberal elite. Trump's actual crime, contrary to the prevailing yarn, was not his overriding of Congress
on war policies (which he largely copied from Obama and Bush II), but that he dared to attack a longtime Democratic insider: Joe
Biden.
Sure, Trump's apparent threat to use aid as a cudgel to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden, and his son Hunter,
is a serious matter. Far be it for me, or anyone else, to dispute that. Whether that meets the threshold for impeachment is debatable
-- and by the way, Hunter Biden's $50,000 a month, unqualified position on a foreign corporate gas company's board while his father
was vice president doesn't exactly pass the smell test either. But I'll table that for now.
Notice that the Democratic leadership in Congress has declined to investigate the fact that this president, and others before
him, overrode congressional authority to wage all sorts of military operations outside the Authorization for Use of Military Force
(AUMF) passed after 9/11, including the current assistance we are giving Saudi Arabia in its attacks on Yemen.
President Obama, for example,
dropped
26,171 bombs on at least seven countries using an AUMF that has been extended well beyond those who attacked America on 9/11.
He even executed American citizens overseas
without
due process .
Meanwhile, Trump abets legitimate
war crimes in Yemen to the
tune of 100,000-plus dead -- without evident remorse. But Obama
started that war , providing
U.S. aerial refueling, targeting support, and deadly munitions to the Saudis back in 2015. So the Democratic leadership stands down
on the issue of Yemen, not wanting to implicate their hero in the process of impeaching The Donald.
Mainstream liberal hypocrisy runs even deeper, unfortunately. I'm just old enough to remember when the Left railed against
the CIA, NSA, and spooks in general. And
rightfully so . That, however,
was before Mr. Trump shocked coastal elites and got himself elected president of their America. It was impressive watching
media and Democratic insiders immediately turn on a dime.
Suddenly every Obama- and Bush-era national security staffer and intelligence super-sleuth -- John Brennan, James Clapper,
Michael Hayden, etc. -- was regularly appearing on CNN and MSNBC to attack Trump and pine for the status quo of U.S. military hyper-interventionism.
It was as though all their sins -- mass surveillance, drone assassination, illegal rendition, torture -- had been collectively
pushed down the memory hole, the entire intel apparatus born again as agents of truth and honor. The whole masquerade was bizarre,
and beyond duplicitous.
The final insult was the recent canonization of the anonymous Ukraine-gate whistleblower(s). Even the language is instructive.
They aren't "leakers," "traitors," or "criminals," but whistleblowers , surging with moral courage and exposing ostensibly
unthinkable presidential wrongdoing. That's funny: where were these folks when other, far more profound whistleblowers uncovered
criminality during the Bush and Obama years? Either crickets or pejorative attacks were all they proffered back then.
... ... ...
Meanwhile, Obama utilized the archaic 1917 Espionage Act to
prosecute more whistleblowers than all previous presidents combined. The liberal press and most Democratic legislators barely
made a peep. Barack was their guy , one of their own -- the "leakers" must have been in the wrong, enemies, so to speak, of
the people. So while Trump is by no means without serious flaws, the Beltway elites and media personalities stuffing impeachment
down our throats are hypocritical and dishonest enough to make one believe in a "deep state." Ultimately it will amount to nothing.
Each side remains entrenched.
Either the Dem elites will hand Trump a second term with this impeachment charade, or, maybe just as likely, President Biden will
take the helm. When he does, whistleblowers will revert, once again, to being traitors.
So while Trump is by no means without serious flaws, the Beltway elites and media personalities stuffing impeachment down
our throats are hypocritical and dishonest enough to make one believe in a "deep state."
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army Major whose writing has appeared in The American Conservative, Harper's, the Los Angeles
Times, The Nation and Tom Dispatch. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history
at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq war,
Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers,
Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet
.
The problem with designating this CIA officer a whistleblower, while denigrating the actual whistleblowers as something other,
as criminals, is obvious enough, or should be: in the cases of the latter, they were exposing the crimes of the intel establishment,
and punished for it, the 'protections' of the law notwithstanding; in other words, the intel establishment got its way; in the
case of the former, the intel establishment is getting its way in its campaign to undermine the administration, notwithstanding
Trump's incompetence and corruption, for which he deserves censure, impeachment, whatever.
Heads, they won; tails, we lose.
The problem, in other words, is that we - collectively, as a nation - get to choose only the modality of how our institutions
and norms are degraded, not whether they will be degraded. Pick your poison.
The CIA and the intelligence services operate black budgets. They kill, steal, run drugs, bribe leaders at home as well as
abroad, arrange accidents like the airplane crashes that have killed several Democrats who danced out of tune, have operatives
placed in government including state governments, the courts and Congress. Who owns your favorite candidate? The CIA. Who controls
the media including the New York Times? The CIA. Bribery, threats, blackmail, control files, setups. The chicanery we tolerate
and celebrate in the name of National Security abroad has come home. Secrecy works wonders for control.
Trump's crime is he's an outsider and the CIA did not expect him to win. His very existence is a threat to them.
Can he clean up the mess? I doubt it. Imagine what would happen, the screams and agony, were he to eliminate all government
secrecy. Imagine what the CIA would claim if the Black Budget became transparent. If Trump tried to eliminate the CIA it would
simply reconstitute and shape-shift within other agencies or outside government.
That, however, was before Mr. Trump shocked coastal elites and got himself elected president of their America.
That, for the elitist Left (and Right), is Donald Trump's real and only crime. He got himself elected president of their America.
But to get right to the heart of it, he didn't get himself elected as much as the American people got him elected. This is about
us..all about us..not about him. Any subsequent attacks on him are in fact attacks on the American electorate.
"... "To any rational person," says Nunes, "it looks like they were scheming to produce a get-out-of-jail-free card -- for the president and anyone else in the White House. They were playing Monopoly while the others were playing with fire. Now the Obama White House was in the clear -- sure, they had no idea what Comey and Brennan and McCabe and Strzok and the rest were up to." ..."
"... Meanwhile, Obama added his voice to the Trump-Russia echo chamber as news stories alleging Trump's illicit relationship with the Kremlin multiplied in the transition period. He said he hoped "that the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia." ..."
"... After refusing to act while the Russian election meddling was actually occurring, Obama responded in December. He ordered the closing of Russian diplomatic facilities and the expulsion of thirty- five Russian diplomats. The response was tepid. The Russians had hacked the State Department in 2014 and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2015. And now Obama was responding only on his way out. ..."
"... Even Obama partisans thought it was weak. "The punishment did not fit the crime," said Michael McFaul, Obama's former ambassador to Russia. "The Kremlin should have paid a much higher price for that attack." ..."
"... But the administration wasn't retaliating against Russia for interfering in a US election; the action was directed at Trump. Obama was leaving the president-elect with a minor foreign policy crisis in order to box him in. Any criticism of Obama's response, never mind an attempt to reverse it, would only further fuel press reports that Trump was collaborating with the Russians. ..."
"... Obama's biggest move against Trump was to order CIA director John Brennan to conduct a full review of all intelligence relating to Russia and the 2016 elections. He requested it on December 6 and wanted it ready by the time he left office on January 20. But the sitting president already knew what the intelligence community assessment (ICA) was going to say, because Brennan had told him months before. ..."
"... Brennan's handpicked team of CIA, FBI, and NSA analysts had started analyzing Russian election interference in late July. In August, Brennan had briefed Harry Reid on the dossier and may have briefed Obama on it, too. Earlier in August, Brennan sent a "bombshell" report to Obama's desk. ..."
AFTER DONALD TRUMP was elected forty-fifth president of the United States, the operation designed to undermine his campaign transformed.
It became an instrument to bring down the commander in chief. The coup started almost immediately after the polls closed.
Hillary Clinton's communications team decided within twenty-four hours of her concession speech to message that the election was
illegitimate, that Russia had interfered to help Trump.
Obama was working against Trump until the hour he left office. His national security advisor, Susan Rice, commemorated it with
an email to herself on January 20, moments before Trump's inauguration. She wrote to memorialize a meeting in the White House two
weeks before.
On January 5, following a briefing by IC leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election, President Obama
had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office. Vice
President Biden and I were also present.
President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is
handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities "by the book." The President stressed that he is not asking about,
initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed
as it normally would by the book.
From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming
team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia. . . .
The President asked Comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified
information with the incoming team. Comey said he would.
The repetition of "by the book" gave away the game -- for there was nothing normal about any of it.
Rice wrote an email to herself. It commemorated a conversation from two weeks before. The conversation was about the FBI's investigation
of the man who was about to move into the White House -- an investigation from which Obama was careful to distance himself. During
the conversation, the outgoing president instructed his top aides to collect information ("ascertain") regarding the incoming administration's
relationship with Russia.
"To any rational person," says Nunes, "it looks like they were scheming to produce a get-out-of-jail-free card -- for the
president and anyone else in the White House. They were playing Monopoly while the others were playing with fire. Now the Obama White
House was in the clear -- sure, they had no idea what Comey and Brennan and McCabe and Strzok and the rest were up to."
Boxing Trump in on Russia
Meanwhile, Obama added his voice to the Trump-Russia echo chamber as news stories alleging Trump's illicit relationship with
the Kremlin multiplied in the transition period. He said he hoped "that the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia."
The outgoing president was in Germany with Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss everything from NATO to Vladimir Putin. Obama said
that he'd "delivered a clear and forceful message" to the Russian president about "meddling with elections . . . and we will respond
appropriately if and when we see this happening."
After refusing to act while the Russian election meddling was actually occurring, Obama responded in December. He ordered
the closing of Russian diplomatic facilities and the expulsion of thirty- five Russian diplomats. The response was tepid. The Russians
had hacked the State Department in 2014 and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2015. And now Obama was responding only on his way out.
Even Obama partisans thought it was weak. "The punishment did not fit the crime," said Michael McFaul, Obama's former ambassador
to Russia. "The Kremlin should have paid a much higher price for that attack."
But the administration wasn't retaliating against Russia for interfering in a US election; the action was directed at Trump.
Obama was leaving the president-elect with a minor foreign policy crisis in order to box him in. Any criticism of Obama's response,
never mind an attempt to reverse it, would only further fuel press reports that Trump was collaborating with the Russians.
Spreading Intelligence to Spring Leaks
In the administration's last days, it disseminated intelligence throughout the government, including the White House, Capitol
Hill, and the intelligence community (IC). Intelligence was classified at the lowest possible levels to ensure a wide readership.
The White House was paving the way for a campaign of leaks to disorient the incoming Trump team.
The effort, including the intended result of leaks, was publicly acknowledged in March 2017 by Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy
assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration.
Obama's biggest move against Trump was to order CIA director John Brennan to conduct a full review of all intelligence relating
to Russia and the 2016 elections. He requested it on December 6 and wanted it ready by the time he left office on January 20. But
the sitting president already knew what the intelligence community assessment (ICA) was going to say, because Brennan had told him
months before.
Brennan's handpicked team of CIA, FBI, and NSA analysts had started analyzing Russian election interference in late July.
In August, Brennan had briefed Harry Reid on the dossier and may have briefed Obama on it, too. Earlier in August, Brennan sent a
"bombshell" report to Obama's desk.
When Brennan reassembled his select team in December, it was to have them reproduce their August findings: Putin, according to
Brennan, was boosting the GOP candidate. And that's why only three days after Obama ordered the assessment in December, the Washington
Post could already reveal what the intelligence community had found.
"The CIA," reported the December 9 edition of the Post , "has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in
the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system."
The story was the first of many apparently sourced to leaks of classified information that were given to the Post team
of Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima, and Greg Miller. The reporters' sources weren't whistle-blowers shedding light on government corruption
-- rather, they were senior US officials abusing government resources to prosecute a campaign against the newly elected commander
in chief. The article was the earliest public evidence that the coup was under way. The floodgates were open, as the IC pushed more
stories through the press to delegitimize the president-elect.
A Wave of Leak-Sourced Stories All Saying the Same Thing
The same day, a New York Times article by David E. Sanger and Scott Shane echoed the Post 's piece. According to
senior administration officials, "American intelligence agencies have concluded with 'high confidence' that Russia acted covertly
in the latter stages of the presidential campaign to harm Hillary Clinton's chances and promote Donald J. Trump."
A December 14 NBC News story by William M. Arkin, Ken Dilanian, and Cynthia McFadden reported that "Russian President Vladimir
Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence
officials told NBC News."
The ICA that Obama ordered gave political operatives, the press, and his intelligence chiefs a second shot at Trump. They'd used
the Steele Dossier to feed the echo chamber and obtain surveillance powers to spy on the Trump campaign. The dossier, however, had
come up short. Trump had won.
But now, on his way out of the White House, Obama instructed Brennan to stamp the CIA's imprimatur on the anti-Trump operation.
As Fusion GPS's smear campaign had been the source of the preelection press campaign, the ICA was the basis of the postelection media
frenzy. It was tailored to disrupt the peaceful transition of power and throw the United States into chaos.
Because Trump hadn't been elected by the US public, according to the ICA, but had been tapped by Putin, he was illegitimate. Therefore,
the extraconstitutional and illegal tactics employed by anti-Trump officials were legitimate. The ultimate goal was to remove Trump
from office.
"If it weren't for President Obama," said James Clapper, "we might not have done the intelligence community assessment . . . that
set off a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today."
Nunes agrees. "The ICA," he says, "was Obama's dossier."
Changing the Intelligence Assessment
Nunes is sitting in his office in the Longworth House Office Building along with his communications director, Jack Langer, a forty-six-year-old
former book editor and historian with a PhD from Duke University.
"The social media attacks on Devin began shortly after the election," Langer remembers. "They're all hinting at some vast conspiracy
involving Russia that the chairman of the Intelligence Committee is part of. And we have no idea what they're talking about."
Nunes points out that his warnings about Russia fell on deaf ears for years. "And all of a sudden I'm a Russian agent," says the
congressman.
Now Langer and Nunes see that the attacks were first launched because the congressman had been named to Trump's transition team.
"I put forward [Mike] Pompeo for CIA director," says Nunes. "He came from our committee."
The attacks on Nunes picked up after the December 9 Washington Post article. The assessment provided there was not what
the HPSCI chairman had been told. The assessment had been altered, and Nunes asked for an explanation. "We got briefed about the
election around Thanksgiving," he says. "And it's just the usual stuff, nothing abnormal. They told us what everyone already knew:
'Hey, the Russians are bad actors, and they're always playing games, and here's what they did.'"
By providing that briefing, the IC had made a mistake. When it later changed the assessment, the November briefing was evidence
that Obama's spy chiefs were up to no good. "I bet they'd like to have that back," says Nunes. "They briefed us before they could
get their new story straight."
'They Kept Everyone Else Away from It'
Nunes acknowledges that he was caught off guard by many things back then. "We still thought these guys were on the up and up,"
he says. "But if we knew, we'd have nailed them by mid-December, when they changed their assessment. 'Wait, you guys are saying this
now, but you said something else just a few weeks ago. What's going on?'"
After the Post story, Nunes wanted an explanation. "We expressed deep concern, both publicly and privately," says Langer.
"We demanded our own briefing to try to determine whether that Post story was true or false. They refused to brief us. They
said, 'We're not going to be doing that until we finish the ICA.'"
Nunes says the fact that the IC conducted an assessment like that was itself unusual. "I don't know how many times they'd done
that in the past, if ever," he says. "But if the IC is operating properly, when someone says what can you tell me on X or Y or Z,
they have it ready to pull up quickly. The tradecraft is reliable, and the intelligence products are reliable." That was not the
case with the ICA. There were problems with how the assessment had been put together.
"If you really were going to do something like an assessment from the intelligence community, then you'd get input from all our
seventeen agencies," says Nunes. "They did the opposite. It was only FBI, CIA, NSA, and DNI. They siloed it, just like they had with
Crossfire Hurricane. They kept everyone else away from it so they didn't have to read them in."
'Manipulation of Intelligence for Political Purposes'
Nunes released several statements in the middle of December. The HPSCI majority, read a December 14 statement, wanted senior Obama
intelligence officials "to clarify press reports that the CIA has a new assessment that it has not shared with us. The Committee
is deeply concerned that intransigence in sharing intelligence with Congress can enable the manipulation of intelligence for political
purposes."
After the statements warned of political foul play in the IC's assessments, the social media attacks on Nunes became more regular.
"They were constant," says Langer.
Anti-Trump operatives recognized that Nunes was going to be a problem. The HPSCI chair had previously called out the IC for politicizing
intelligence. "They said that we had defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria," says Nunes, "and I knew that wasn't true. Then they withheld
the Osama bin Laden documents to conceal that Al Qaeda worked with Iran, because the administration was protecting the Iran deal.
So when I saw them changing this assessment of the 2016 election in midstream, I knew it was the same old trick: they were politicizing
intelligence."
The speed with which Brennan's handpicked analysts produced the ICA and then got a version of it declassified for public consumption
was another sign that something wasn't right. "All throughout Obama's two terms, his IC chiefs aren't paying attention to Russian
actions," says Nunes. "We give them more money for Russia, which they don't use. But now they know so much about Putin that they
manage to produce a comprehensive assessment of Russian intentions and actions regarding election interference in a month -- at Christmastime,
when everything slows down. And then they produce a declassified version in a manner of weeks. None of this is believable."
Three different versions of the ICA were produced: an unclassified version, a top secret one, and another highly compartmentalized
version. According to a January 11, 2017, Washington Post story by Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima, and Karen DeYoung, an annex
summarizing the dossier was attached to the versions that were not declassified.
'Designed to Have a Political Effect'
The FBI had been working from Steele's reports for more than half a year. Including the dossier along with the ICA would provide
Comey with ammunition to take on the president-elect. Both he and Brennan were manipulating intelligence for political purposes.
"A lot of the ICA is reasonable," says Nunes. "But those parts become irrelevant due to the problematic parts, which undermine
the entire document. It was designed to have a political effect; that was the ICA's sole purpose."
The assessment's methodological flaws are not difficult to spot. Manufacturing the politicized findings that Obama sought meant
not only abandoning protocol but also subverting basic logic. Two of the ICA's central findings are that:
Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.
Putin and the Russian government aspired to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary
Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.
To know preferences and intentions would require sources targeting Putin's inner circles -- either human sources or electronic
surveillance. As Nunes had previously noted, however, US intelligence on Putin's decision-making process was inadequate.
But even if there had been extensive collection on precisely that issue, it would be difficult to know what was true. For instance,
the closest you can get to Putin's inner circle is Putin himself. But even capturing him on an intercept saying he wanted to elect
Trump might prove inconclusive. It is difficult to judge intentions because it is not possible to see into the minds of other people.
How would you know that Putin was speaking truthfully? How would you know that the Russian president didn't know his communications
were under US surveillance and wasn't trying to deceive his audience?
Quality control of information is one of the tasks of counterintelligence -- to discern how you know what you know and whether
that information is trustworthy. There was no quality control for the Trump-Russia intelligence. For instance, Crossfire Hurricane
lead agent Peter Strzok was the FBI's deputy assistant director of counterintelligence. Instead of weeding out flawed intelligence
on Russia, the Crossfire Hurricane team was feeding Steele's reports into intelligence products. Yet the ICA claimed to have "high
confidence" in its assessment that "Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President- elect Trump." What
was the basis of that judgment?
According to the ICA:
Putin most likely wanted to discredit Secretary Clinton because he has publicly blamed her since 2011 for inciting mass protests
against his regime in late 2011 and early 2012, and because he holds a grudge for comments he almost certainly saw as disparaging
him.
"Most likely" and "almost certainly" are rhetorical hedges that show the assessment could not have been made in "high confidence."
Putin may have held a grudge against Clinton, but there is no way of knowing it.
The supporting evidence deteriorates more the farther the ICA purports to reach into Putin's mind.
Beginning in June, Putin's public comments about the US presidential race avoided directly praising President-elect Trump,
probably because Kremlin officials thought that any praise from Putin personally would backfire in the United States.
This is absurd. Part of the evidence that Putin supported Trump is that he avoided praising Trump. It is difficult enough to determine
intentions by what someone says. Yet the ICA claims to have discerned Putin's intentions by what he did not say.
There is no introductory philosophy class in logic where reasoning like that would pass muster. Yet Brennan's handpicked group
used it as the basis of its assessment that Putin had helped Trump.
Moscow also saw the election of President-elect Trump as a way to achieve an international counterterrorism coalition against
the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
This may be an accurate description of how Putin saw Trump. But Trump's predecessor also wanted to coordinate anti- ISIS operations
with Moscow. On this view, Trump would have represented a continuation of Obama's ISIS policy. Why would this make Trump's victory
suspicious to Obama's intelligence chiefs?
Curious Inaccuracies about Russia's RT Network
The ICA also pointed to documentary evidence of Putin's intentions: English-language media owned by the Russian government, the
news site Sputnik, and the RT network, were critical of Clinton.
State-owned Russian media made increasingly favorable comments about President-elect Trump as the 2016 US general and primary
election campaigns progressed while consistently offering negative coverage of Secretary Clinton.
Curiously, just days before the election, the informant the US government sent after the Trump campaign praised the Democratic
candidate in an interview with Sputnik. "Clinton would be best for US-UK relations and for relations with the European Union," Stefan
Halper told the Kremlin-directed media outlet. "Clinton is well-known, deeply experienced, and predictable. US-UK relations will
remain steady regardless of the winner although Clinton will be less disruptive over time."
The ICA includes a seven-page appendix devoted to RT, the central node, according to the document, of the Kremlin's effort to
"influence politics, fuel discontent in [ sic ] US."
Adam Schiff appeared on RT in July 2013. He argued for "making the FISA court much more transparent, so the American people can
understand what's being done in their name in the name of national security, so that we can have a more informed debate over the
balance between privacy and security."
RT's editor in chief, Margarita Simonyan, is a master propagandist, according to the ICA. The document fails to mention that Simonyan
heads another Moscow-owned media initiative, Russia Beyond the Headlines , a news supplement inserted into dozens of the West's
leading newspapers, including the New York Times . Russia Beyond the Headlines has been delivered to millions of American
homes over the last decade. By contrast, RT's US market share is so small that it doesn't qualify for the Nielsen ratings. Virtually
no one in the United States watches it.
Taking the logic of Brennan's handpicked team seriously would mean that the publishers of the New York Times played a major
role in a coordinated Russian effort to elect Donald Trump.
'It Was an Operation to Bring Down Trump'
Nunes realized even then the purpose of Obama's dossier. "Devin figured out in December what was going on," says Langer. "It was
an operation to bring down Trump."
There was no evidence that any Trump associate had done anything improper regarding the Russians, and Nunes was losing patience.
"We had serious things the committee wanted to do," he says. "With Trump elected, we could do some big stuff, like with China."
Still, it was important for HPSCI to maintain control of the Russia investigation. Otherwise, Democrats and Never Trump Republicans
were likely to get their wish to convene a bipartisan commission to investigate Russian interference -- with the purpose of turning
it on Trump.
"Before they started floating the idea of a special counsel, the big idea was a special commission like the 9/11 Commission,"
says Langer. It was outgoing secretary of state John Kerry who first came forward with the proposal.
The point was to change the power dynamic. "In a normal committee," says Langer, "the majority has the power, and that happened
to be us. They wanted to strip our power and make it fifty-fifty."
"Bipartisan" was a euphemism for "anti-Trump." "It would have been a complete joke," says Nunes. "A combination of partisan hacks
from the left and people who hated Trump on the right."
Democrats led by Schiff and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer were joined by the late John McCain, the most active of the Never
Trump Republicans. After the election, the Arizona senator had instructed his aide David Kramer to deliver a copy of the Steele Dossier
to Comey.
"God only knows who they'd have populated that committee with," says Nunes. "Anyone they could control. It would have been a freak
show."
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan defended HPSCI's independence. On the Senate side, Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr
had only one move. To deflect demands for an independent commission, he effectively ceded control of the Senate investigation to
his vice chair, Democrat Mark Warner.
No Evidence of Collusion Years Later
Still, Nunes believed that all the talk of Trump and Russia was a waste of time. "They kept promising us evidence of collusion,
week after week, and they came up with nothing."
Nunes's disdain for the ICA forced the Crossfire Hurricane team's hand. "Right around the time that they came out with the ICA,
they kept saying that we were waiting on something to show us, something important that was coming in," he says. "They said it was
some significant figure who they couldn't quite track down yet."
But the FBI knew exactly where its missing link was, the piece of evidence that they thought would convince hardened skeptics
like Nunes that collusion was real. They didn't have to chase him down, because he was sitting at home in Chicago. He submitted to
a voluntary interview January 27 and without a lawyer because he had no idea what the FBI had in store for him.
The Crossfire Hurricane team was figuring how they were going to set up the Trump adviser they'd used to open up the investigation
in July 2016: George Papadopoulos. Lee Smith is the media columnist at Tablet.
"... Note this key excerpt from the letter of transmittal: ..."
"... " Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking of testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; serving documents; locating or identifying persons; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to restraint, confiscation, forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the requested state. " ..."
"... The Treaty was reported favourable by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on September 27, 2000, consented to ratification by the Senate on October 18, 2000 and ratified by the President of the United States on January 5, 2001. The Treaty was entered into force on February 27, 2001. Here are the title page of the Treaty and the signature page: ..."
"... With this background and while I don't want to appear to be pro- or anti-Trump, it is very, very clear that the current POTUS was within the law under the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters between the United States and Ukraine when it comes to asking Ukraine to investigate a potential criminal matter. ..."
With the Trump impeachment procedures ongoing and the connection to his conversation about the
Biden family with Ukraine President Zelenskyy, there has been very little coverage of an
important aspect of the relationship between Washington and Kiev. While none of us can speak to
the actual intent of Donald Trump's remarks be it for personal gain or for other reasons, there
is background information that may help illuminate the context of the discussion between the
two world leaders.
In case you haven't read the pertinent section of the transcript of the conversation, here it
is:
" President Zelenskyy: Yes it is very important for me and everything that
you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any
future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the
United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States
and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard
on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him
having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate
even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just
recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we
will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody
but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most
experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you
Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also
plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as
the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly.. That I
can assure you.
President Trump: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good
and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way
they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr.
Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I
would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy
very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that
would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the
people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that.
The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution
and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney
General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you
can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.
President Zelenskyy: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor. First of all,
I understand and I'm knowledgeable about the situation. Since we have won the absolute
majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general will be 100% my person, my candidate,
who will be approved, by the parliament and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or
she will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue.
The issue of the investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the
honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the case. On top
of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional information that you can provide to
us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in
our country with regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall
her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me that she was a bad
ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude towards me was far from the best as she
admired the previous President and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new
President well enough.
President Trump: Well, she's going to go through some things. I will have Mr.
Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get
to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very
badly and he was a very fair prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to
get better and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It's a great country. I have many
Ukrainian friends, their incredible people." (my bolds)
Now, let's look back in time to 1998. On July 22, 1998, a treaty was signed between Ukraine and
Washington.
The Treaty on Mutual Legal
Assistance in Criminal Matters was signed in Kiev on the aforementioned date. Here is an
excerpt from the The original letter of submittal from the Department of State to the
President's office dated October 19, 1999 which states the following:
"I have the honor to submit to you the Treaty between the United States of America and
Ukraine on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters with Annex (``the Treaty''), signed at
Kiev on July 22, 1998. I recommend that the Treaty be transmitted to the Senate for its advice
and consent to ratification. Also enclosed, for the information of the Senate, is an exchange of notes under which the
Treaty is being provisionally applied to the extent possible under our respective domestic
laws, in order to provide a basis for immediate mutual assistance in criminal matters.
Provisional application would cease upon entry into force of the Treaty.
The Treaty covers mutual legal assistance in criminal matters. In recent years, similar
bilateral treaties have entered into force with a number of other countries. The Treaty with
Ukraine contains all essential provisions sought by the United States. It will enhance our
ability to investigate and prosecute a range of offenses.The Treaty is designed to
be self-executing and will not require new legislation." (my bold)
The Treaty was then transmitted by the President of the United States (Bill Clinton) to the
Senate on November 10, 1999 (Treaty Document 106-16 -106th Congress - First Session) as shown
on this letter of
transmittal from Bill Clinton's office:
Note this key excerpt from the letter of transmittal:
" Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking of testimony or
statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; serving
documents; locating or identifying persons; transferring persons in custody for testimony or
other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related
to restraint, confiscation, forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and any
other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the requested state. "
The Treaty was reported favourable by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on September
27, 2000, consented to ratification by the Senate on October 18, 2000 and ratified by the
President of the United States on January 5, 2001. The Treaty was entered into force on
February 27, 2001. Here are the title page of the Treaty and the signature page:
Here are the first two pages of the Treaty which outline the scope of assistance that is to
be offered by both nations as well as the limitations on assistance:
... ... ...
If you wish to read the Treaty in its entirety, please click
here .
With this background and while I don't want to appear to be pro- or anti-Trump, it is very,
very clear that the current POTUS was within the law under the Treaty on Mutual Legal
Assistance in Criminal Matters between the United States and Ukraine when it comes to asking
Ukraine to investigate a potential criminal matter.
re: human rights
The US, as far as I know, is the only country on the world that publishes an annual human
rights report (State Dept) and which regularly comments on what it sees as poor human rights
in other countries. This is despite the fact, as indicated above, that the US has a poor
record of human rights throughout its history, and still does with definite underclasses
separated geographically from the general public and in prison.
Regarding China, quite a few Chinese people were instrumental in building the railroads
that greatly contributed to the settling of the West. Then, after they had been used and
abused, and the tracks laid, Chinese were evicted from the country under the Chinese Exclusion Act which
technically only prohibited immigration, but was also used for eviction. There are many
Chinese descendants currently in Mexicali Mexico as a result. Also the US Border Patrol (now
used against Hispanics mostly) was originally formed to keep Chinese people out. . .China is
probably too polite to bring this up.
"... And there is the real definition, which is using a minority to render the country ungovernble, waving a simplistic banner against corruption and for undefined democracy, which movement leaves the masses unorganized and eschews even a platform lest they organize, in favor of a secret coterie. ..."
"... No matter how you view Trump, it is undeniable that several signs of a color revolution were present in Russiagate (and Ukrainegate, which is, in essence, Russiagate 2.0 -- a counterattack on the attempt by Trump to investigate the origins of Russiagate). ..."
Faustusnotes@43 continues the meltdown, notably forgetting his own list of non-rigid
class societies (nations, ) retreating to the UK and Australia. Reminding everyone of the
widely accepted definition for color revolution would have been useful. There is the propaganda
notion, a vague image of the outraged people rising en masse to throw out the
Communists/Communist-adjacent corrupt (unlike all others of course,) government. Inasmuch as
likbez specifically denied a mass movement, this is still as much a red herring as it was when
first brandished.
And there is the real definition, which is using a minority to render the country
ungovernble, waving a simplistic banner against corruption and for undefined democracy, which
movement leaves the masses unorganized and eschews even a platform lest they organize, in favor
of a secret coterie. Thus when the Astroturf does drive out the current administration,
mirabile dictu! nothing changes except its receptivity to international capital. The
fundamental color revolution mechanism it seems to me is the hiding of the real program, the
true commitment to capital, behind a facade.
Lastly, the idea that likbez just made stuff up is remarkable. If anything, it seems to me
that likbez has been heavily influenced by the thesis of Quinn Slobodian's The Globalists. But
that book may be touted largely as (unread) proof somebody disreputable isn't acceptable in
polite company, not really useful otherwise.
Surprisingly, nastywoman confirms my general impression is really seeing the EU as the
inspiration for a better society, without radicalism, much less revolution. I agree there's
nothing worse than revolution except not having a revolution, which I guess takes us back to
square one. The EU of course is really the Maastricht treaty, the Lisbon treaty, the
announcement that elections can't change policy, technocrats as PM in Italy, Greece, etc. In
short, nastywoman confesses to incoherence. But nastywoman can take joy in correctly spotting
that I'm a disgusting old person too vile to understand rap and can hope I'll be dead soon, and
blight humanity no more.
likbez 10.31.19 at 11:22 pm
(no link)
Faustusnotes 10.30.19 at 2:38 pm @43
'Color revolution ' has a specific meaning and what happened to Lula and Trump ain't
it
You probably never read Gene Sharp, who passed in Feb 2018. Claims of "corruption" and
"unfair" election results (which includes foreign influence on elections) are classic color
revolution methods described in detail in his books.
Participation of intelligence agencies and controlled by them MSM is a distinctive feature
of any color revolution: is it, in essence, a modern, very sophisticated variant of a false
flag operation. Controlled/influenced (often indirectly) by intelligence agencies MSM
essentially serve the role similar to airforce in modern neocolonial wars (and the level of
control is staggering starting from the operation Mockingbird; see Journalists for Hire How
the CIA Buys the News by Dr. Udo Ulfkotte).
No matter how you view Trump, it is undeniable that several signs of a color revolution
were present in Russiagate (and Ukrainegate, which is, in essence, Russiagate 2.0 -- a
counterattack on the attempt by Trump to investigate the origins of Russiagate).
Here is the list adapted from the writings on the topic by former CIA analyst Larry C
Johnson and Colonel Lang (DIA). The latter led intelligence analysis of the Middle East and
South Asia for the Defense Department and world-wide HUMINT activities in a high-level
equivalent to the rank of a lieutenant general. He runs well respected
Sic Semper Tyrannis blog.
Both think that the CIA pulled the main strings. They noted the following:
-- Obama officials efforts in establishing surveillance on Trump campaign on a false
pretext (FICA memo scandal, etc.) ;
-- CrowdStrike false flag operation with DNC -- converting the internal leak into Russian
break-in;
-- MI6 fabrication of Steele dossier using materials from the USA obtained via Fusion GPS
and Brennan and rehashing them as an original British intelligence.
-- Brennan use of Steele dossier to produce "17 intelligence agencies assessment," which
served as the signal of unleashing of Russiagate hysteria in neoliberal MSM and the official
start of Russiagate.
-- Rosenstein gambit with using firing of Comey as a convenient pretext for appointment
Mueller (appointment of the Special Prosecutor was in the cards anyway and was inescapable
for Trump as it was a preplanned action by the plotters, and they controlled all the
necessary strings; this probably was the meaning of the word "insurance" in Strzok-Page text
messages).
-- McCabe's opening of FBI investigation of Trump links to Russia.
-- Alexandra Chalupa machination with getting dirt on Trump and his associates (Manafort)
from Poroshenko government (which was a client state anyway so it is funny that Schiff now
tries to claim that Ukraine can exercise foreign influence; it is a USA controlled entity;
the country in a debt trap ).
-- Systematic attempts to entrap Trump associates with connection to the Russian
government by CIA, MI6 and Italian intelligence (Misfud entrapment operation, Felix Sater
entrapment operation with idea of building of Trump hotel in Moscow, Halper entrapment
attempt, MI6 entrapment operation with Natalia Veselnitskaya visit to Trump tower, etc.).
I think that under the weight of those facts, the picture is more or less clear -- this
was a color revolution.
Eric Ciaramella is connected to Victoria Nuland. IIf this information is true, the entire Impeachment thing is a another phase
of Russiagate. It's the Democrats attempt at a coup d'etat
Ciaramella, who was a Susan Rice protégé and was brought into the White House by H. R. McMaster. Looks like McMaster was a
neocon zealot.
"... Not that this should surprise anyone who is familiar with Operation Mockingbird and The New York Times' part in co-operating with the CIA to plant CIA-origin reports with reporters who were either willing volunteers or unaware innocents or to practise self-censorship to appease the CIA. ..."
"... The Deep State has little to nothing to do with "rule of law." It is simply the law of the jungle: might makes right, exercised behind the scenes by the true power brokers and their minions. It is not partisan. It does use both parties to put on a show to distract the people while owning and using major parts of both ..."
"... It is they who have us in Syria now to steal Syria's oil. It is they who were enraged that Trump, an outsider, won the election contrary to all expectations and predictions. It is they who control most of the media. They are not the friends of the American people; in fact, they are our mortal enemies. ..."
"... They have hijacked our government and our foreign policy, which they operate largely for their own interests and not in the true interests of the American people. ..."
"... They use the media to sell us on what they are doing, appealing to our pride, our patriotism, the project of spreading peace, prosperity, democracy, and freedom to the world, the project of promoting human rights, the project of prosperity--whatever works to convince us that we should be in Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Syria, and Kosovo, and in hundreds of military bases around the world. They equally exploit left and right; thus dividing us, they conquer. ..."
I'm sure I'm not the only person here who sees the headlines B has linked to and other NYT
headlines (and some of the actual articles themselves, if I have the time and patience to
read them) and realised that The New York Times itself is part of the Deep State it initially
denied and now wholeheartedly supports. Not that this should surprise anyone who is
familiar with Operation Mockingbird and The New York Times' part in co-operating with the CIA
to plant CIA-origin reports with reporters who were either willing volunteers or unaware
innocents or to practise self-censorship to appease the CIA.
The Deep State has little to nothing to do with "rule of law." It is simply the law of the
jungle: might makes right, exercised behind the scenes by the true power brokers and their
minions. It is not partisan. It does use both parties to put on a show to distract the people
while owning and using major parts of both.
It is they who have us in Syria now to steal
Syria's oil. It is they who were enraged that Trump, an outsider, won the election contrary
to all expectations and predictions. It is they who control most of the media. They are not
the friends of the American people; in fact, they are our mortal enemies.
They have hijacked
our government and our foreign policy, which they operate largely for their own interests and
not in the true interests of the American people.
They use the media to sell us on what they
are doing, appealing to our pride, our patriotism, the project of spreading peace,
prosperity, democracy, and freedom to the world, the project of promoting human rights, the
project of prosperity--whatever works to convince us that we should be in Iraq, and
Afghanistan, and Syria, and Kosovo, and in hundreds of military bases around the world. They
equally exploit left and right; thus dividing us, they conquer.
Regardless of what do you think about Donald Trump, what intelligence community did was a plain vanilla coup d'état approved by Obama
and coordinated by run by Brennan faction in CIA. With active participation of factions of FBI (Counterintelligence department),
Department of Justice (several highly placed officials) and State Department (which is a real neocon vipers nest so the majority of high level officials,
especially connected with the Ukrainian color revolution participated) eagerly participated in the coup.
They left too many fingerprints in this and now Barr hopefully will brings some individuals to justice for this coup.
Notable quotes:
"... I was fortunate to participate in a forum in August sponsored by the Ron Paul Institute. Here is my presentation on the attempted coup by US Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community. ..."
I was fortunate to participate in
a forum in August sponsored by the Ron Paul Institute. Here is my presentation on the attempted
coup by US Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community.
This implicates State Department in the attempt to run a false flag operation. If we add that the State Department is the
key organization behind for color revolution against Trump that picture becomes even more disturbing. This is really a neocon
vipers nest.
Notable quotes:
"... This was because the public had already been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal of standing US Syria policy, as I noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun. ..."
"... "I was able to predict Douma in 2018 because it happened already almost exactly 1 year prior, at Khan Shaykhun, April 4, 2017," Cox told me on Twitter earlier today. ..."
"... And, like clockwork, on April 7 2018 dozens of civilians in Douma were killed in an incident which was quickly reported as a Syrian government chemical attack by all the usual establishment narrative managers on Syria , with everyone from the White Helmets to Charles Lister to Eliot Higgins to Julian Röpcke loudly flagging it on social media to draw the attention of mainstream news outlets who were slower to pick up the story. ..."
"... Long before any investigation into this suspicious incident could even be begun, much less completed, the US State Department declared it to have been a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, saying "the Assad regime must be held accountable", and that Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for the attack. Which was of course mighty convenient for US geostrategic interests. ..."
"... On the 14th of April 2018, the US, UK and France launched an airstrike on the Syrian government as punishment for using chemical weapons, citing secret "intelligence" which the US government claimed gave them "very high confidence that Syria was responsible." The public has to this day never been permitted to see this intelligence. This all happened before any formal international investigation could take place. ..."
"... The OPCW conducted their investigation, and in July 2018 published an interim report saying that "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties." This ruled out sarin gas, invalidating earlier reports by Syria war pundits like Charles Lister who claimed that sarin had been used, but it didn't rule out chlorine gas. In March of this year the OPCW issued its final report saying forensics were consistent with chlorine gas use and advancing a ballistics report which strongly implicated the Assad government by implying it was an aerial drop (Syrian opposition militias have no air force). The official Twitter account for the UK Delegation to the OPCW tweeted at the time that the report "confirms chemical weapons used, demonstrating the vital importance of OPCW's work. This confirmed chlorine attack was only the latest example of Asad regime's CW attacks on its own population." ..."
"... In May of this year, a leaked internal document from the OPCW investigation was published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media which completely contradicts the findings of the official report published in March. The leaked Engineering Assessment said that "observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest there is a higher probability both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft," which would implicate the forces on the ground in the incident rather than the Assad government. ..."
"... The OPCW indirectly confirmed the document's authenticity by telling the press that its release had been "unauthorised". Climate Audit's Stephen McIntyre published an excellent thread breaking down how the document invalidates the OPCW's claims which you can read by clicking here . Establishment narrative managers had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization's other work. ..."
"... "Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ." ..."
"... "The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing. " ..."
"... "The interpretation of the environmental analysis results is equally questionable. Many, if not all, of the so-called 'smoking gun' chlorinated organic chemicals claimed to be not naturally present in the environment' (para 2.6) are in fact ubiquitous in the background, either naturally or anthropogenically (wood preservatives, chlorinated water supplies etc). The report, in fact, acknowledges this in Annex 4 para 7, even stating the importance of gathering control samples to measure the background for such chlorinated organic derivatives. Yet, no analysis results for these same control samples (Annex 5), which inspectors on the ground would have gone to great lengths to gather, were reported." ..."
"... "One alternative ascribing the origin of the crater to an explosive device was considered briefly but, despite an almost identical crater (understood to have resulted from a mortar penetrating the roof) being observed on an adjacent rooftop, was dismissed because of ' the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristics'. In contrast, explosive fragmentation characteristics were noted in the leaked study ." ..."
"... "Contrary to what has been publicly stated by the Director General of the OPCW it was evident to the panel that many of the inspectors in the Douma investigation were not involved or consulted in the post-deployment phase or had any contribution to, or knowledge of the content of the final report until it was made public . The panel is particularly troubled by organisational efforts to obfuscate and prevent inspectors from raising legitimate concerns about possible malpractices surrounding the Douma investigation." ..."
The Courage Foundation , an international
protection and advocacy group for whistleblowers, has
published the findings of a panel it
convened last week on the extremely suspicious behavior of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in its
investigation of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria last year. After hearing an extensive presentation from a member of the
OPCW's Douma investigation team, the panel's members (including a world-renowned former OPCW Director General)
report that they are "unanimous in expressing
our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus
on 7 April 2018."
I'll get to the panel and its findings in a moment, but first I should provide some historical background so that readers who
aren't intimately familiar with this ongoing scandal can fully appreciate the significance of this new development.
In late March of last year, President Trump
publicly
stated that the US military would soon be withdrawing troops from Syria, causing some with an ear to the ground like
independent US congressional candidate Steve
Cox to predict that there would shortly be a false flag chemical weapons attack in that nation. This was because the public had
already
been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal
of standing US Syria policy, as I
noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun.
"I was able to predict Douma in 2018 because it happened already almost exactly 1 year prior, at Khan Shaykhun, April 4, 2017,"
Cox told me on Twitter earlier
today.
"Khan Shaykhun also occurred within days of the Trump Admin saying we're leaving Syria."
There was immediate skepticism, partly because
acclaimed journalists like Sy Hersh have
been highlighting plot holes in the official story about chemical weapons in Syria since 2013, partly because Assad would stand nothing
to gain and everything to lose by using a banned yet
highly ineffective
weapon in a battle he'd already essentially
won in that region, and partly because the people controlling things on the ground in Douma were the
Al Qaeda-linked
extremist group Jaysh-al Islam and the incredibly shady
narrative management operation known as the White Helmets. Those groups, unlike the Assad government, most certainly would stand
everything to gain by staging a chemical attack in the desperate hope that it would draw NATO powers into attacking the Syrian government
and perhaps saving their necks.
Long before any investigation into this suspicious incident could even be begun, much less completed,
the US State Department declared it to have
been a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, saying "the Assad regime must be held accountable", and that
Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for the attack. Which was of course mighty convenient for US geostrategic interests.
On the 14th of April 2018, the US, UK and France
launched an airstrike on the Syrian government
as punishment for using chemical weapons,
citing secret "intelligence" which the US government claimed gave them "very high confidence that Syria was responsible." The
public has to this day never been permitted to see this intelligence. This all happened before any formal international investigation
could take place.
The OPCW conducted their investigation, and in July 2018
published an interim
report saying that "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental
samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties." This ruled out sarin gas, invalidating earlier reports by Syria war pundits
like Charles Lister who claimed that
sarin had been used, but it didn't rule out chlorine gas. In March of this year the OPCW
issued its final report saying forensics were consistent with chlorine gas use and advancing a ballistics report which strongly
implicated the Assad government by implying it was an aerial drop (Syrian opposition militias have no air force). The official Twitter
account for the UK Delegation to the OPCW tweeted
at the time that the report "confirms chemical weapons used, demonstrating the vital importance of OPCW's work. This confirmed
chlorine attack was only the latest example of Asad regime's CW attacks on its own population."
In May of this year, a leaked
internal document from the OPCW investigation was
published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media which completely contradicts the findings of the official report
published in March. The leaked Engineering Assessment
said that "observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest there is a higher probability
both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft," which would implicate the
forces on the ground in the incident rather than the Assad government.
The OPCW
indirectly confirmed the document's authenticity by telling the press that its release had been "unauthorised". Climate Audit's
Stephen McIntyre published an excellent thread breaking down how the document invalidates the OPCW's claims which you can read by
clicking here . Establishment narrative
managers
had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented
from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications
that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization's other work.
Throughout this time, critical thinkers like myself have been aggressively smeared as deranged conspiracy theorists, war crimes
deniers and genocide deniers for expressing skepticism of the establishment-authorized narrative on Douma. Which takes us to today.
The Courage Foundation panel who met with the OPCW whistleblower consists of former OPCW Director General
José Bustani (whose highly successful peacemongering
once saw the lives of his
children threatened by John Bolton during the lead-up to the Iraq invasion in an attempt to remove him from his position), WikiLeaks
editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson , Professor of
International Law Richard Falk , former British Army
Major General John Holmes , Dr Helmut
Lohrer of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, German professor
Dr Guenter Meyer of the Centre for Research on the Arab
World, and former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East Elizabeth Murray of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity.
So these are not scrubs. These are not "conspiracy theorists" or "Russian propagandists". These are highly qualified and reputable
professionals expressing deep concerns in the opaque and manipulative way the OPCW appears to have conducted its investigation into
the Douma incident. Some highlights from their joint
statement and analytical points are
quoted below, with my own emphasis added in bold:
"Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports,
we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma,
near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical
analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained
conclusion ."
"The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts
and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of
investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing. "
~ Bustani
"A critical analysis of the
final report of the Douma
investigation left the panel in little doubt that conclusions drawn from each of the key evidentiary pillars of the investigation
(chemical analysis, toxicology, ballistics and witness testimonies,) are flawed and bear little relation to the facts. "
From the section on Chemical Analysis:
"The interpretation of the environmental analysis results is equally questionable. Many, if not all, of the so-called 'smoking
gun' chlorinated organic chemicals claimed to be not naturally present in the environment' (para 2.6) are in fact ubiquitous in
the background, either naturally or anthropogenically (wood preservatives, chlorinated water supplies etc). The report, in fact,
acknowledges this in Annex 4 para 7, even stating the importance of gathering control samples to measure the background for such
chlorinated organic derivatives. Yet, no analysis results for these same control samples (Annex 5), which inspectors on the ground
would have gone to great lengths to gather, were reported."
"Although the report stresses the 'levels' of the chlorinated organic chemicals as a basis for its conclusions (para 2.6),
it never mentions what those levels were -- high, low, trace, sub-trace? Without providing data on the levels of these so-called
'smoking-gun' chemicals either for background or test samples, it is impossible to know if they were not simply due to background
presence . In this regard, the panel is disturbed to learn that quantitative results for the levels of 'smoking gun' chemicals
in specific samples were available to the investigators but this decisive information was withheld from the report ."
"The final report also acknowledges that the tell-tale chemicals supposedly indicating chlorine use, can also be generated
by contact of samples with sodium hypochlorite, the principal ingredient of household bleaching agent (para 8.15). This game-changing
hypothesis is, however, dismissed (and as it transpires, incorrectly) by stating no bleaching was observed at the site of investigation.
(' At both locations, there were no visible signs of a bleach agent or discoloration due to contact with a bleach agent' ). The
panel has been informed that no such observation was recorded during the on-site inspection and in any case dismissing the hypothesis
simply by claiming the non -observation of discoloration in an already dusty and scorched environment seems tenuous and unscientific
."
From the section on Toxicology:
"The toxicological studies also reveal inconsistencies, incoherence and possible scientific irregularities. Consultations with
toxicologists are reported to have taken place in September and October 2018 (para 8.87 and Annex 3), but no mention is made of
what those same experts opined or concluded. Whilst the final toxicological assessment of the authors states ' it is not possible
to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical ' (para 9.6) the report nonetheless concludes there
were reasonable grounds to believe chlorine gas was the chemical (used as a weapon)."
"More worrying is the fact that the panel viewed documented evidence that showed other toxicologists had been consulted in
June 2018 prior to the release of the interim report. Expert opinions on that occasion were that the signs and symptoms observed
in videos and from witness accounts were not consistent with exposure to molecular chlorine or any reactive-chlorine-containing
chemical. Why no mention of this critical assessment, which contradicts that implied in the final report, was made is unclear
and of concern. "
From the section on Ballistic Studies:
"One alternative ascribing the origin of the crater to an explosive device was considered briefly but, despite an almost identical
crater (understood to have resulted from a mortar penetrating the roof) being observed on an adjacent rooftop, was dismissed because
of ' the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristics'. In contrast, explosive fragmentation characteristics
were noted in the leaked study ."
From the section titled "Exclusion of inspectors and attempts to obfuscate":
"Contrary to what has been publicly stated by the Director General of the OPCW it was evident to the panel that many of the
inspectors in the Douma investigation were not involved or consulted in the post-deployment phase or had any contribution to,
or knowledge of the content of the final report until it was made public . The panel is particularly troubled by organisational
efforts to obfuscate and prevent inspectors from raising legitimate concerns about possible malpractices surrounding the Douma
investigation."
"... The Democrats are the ones who are twisting the "protocols" regarding private hearings to protect the seditious liars and their lies... To paraphrase the Washington Post : "Democracy Dies In The Darkness"... The Darkness created by the shadowy deep state and those who dwell in it ! ..."
"... Without expressing any opinion on the truth or falsity of Taylor's testimony or any of it, the idea that being a West Point graduate and Vietnam vet is some kind of assurance of probity is a joke. ..."
"... Have you learned nothing from RussiaGate, from the various imperial wars on Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Serbia, etc.? All these were based on flat out lies promoted by cleancut, well dressed, well spoken, impeccably credentialed monsters. Many of them veterans themselves. All of them lying without shame, and lauded for telling lies. ..."
"... You realize that we are an empire, and our institutions act the way that imperial institutions do? Imperial institutions cannot be hindered by things like honesty and "rule of law", because the empire cannot survive if its freedom of action is restrained. ..."
"... Is your anti Russian phobia a product of Slavic racism or of disliking orthodox countries or what? Why do you pro war liberals obsess over Russia so much? I think it is empire envy. ..."
"... I Keep reading about this "aid to ukraine" improperly tied to an investigation of a rival. But this "aid" to Ukraine is really just weapons isn't it? Weapons meant to stoke conflict with a nuclear power. The deep state and the pro war liberals will never let This country move past militarism ..."
I'd like to commend Rep. Gaetz for this very well justified act of 'civil disobedience' to draw attention to this farce of a travesty
of a sham of a mockery of a witchhunt. This so-called "impeachment" is totally consistent with the manufacturing of "evidence"
to justify an "investigation" of Trump's campaign to keep him from being elected as well.
I'm glad we have someone standing up to these corrupt lying leaking Democrat bullies. It would be nice if we could have an
investigation of the actual and documented illegal campaign contributions of Hillary to her attorney to Chris Steele, but that
water has passed under the bridge by now.
But if we're going to go down the rabbit hole of campaign finance law violations, I'd like to propose that the quite obvious
main and only real (non-manufactured) reason for these so-called "impeachment" hearings is to prevent Trump from being re-elected
(as opposed to investigating "corruption").
Thus the Democrats' activities are quite obviously a misappropriation of taxpayer funds and an illegal donation to the political
campaigns of the Democratic party. I demand an investigation. In secret of course.
As you rightfully said, the rule of law is a pain in the butt, after all. The double standard is infuriating.
We are coming to a point in American society where the only meaningful "truth" belongs to whoever wins. If that is true, under
those circumstances, you've got to decide whom you trust more to protect your interests. Is it Adam Schiff or Donald Trump? If
you choose not to decide, you've still made a choice. Or are elections only supposed to have consequences if Democrats win them?
Matt Gaetz is one of those few Republicans in on the fundamental truth of our country: We are an empire in decline and politics
is 100% theatre. And so he puts on one of the best shows on television.
Yeah, he is likely a nihilist, but I can't really call him a grifter any more than you could call Milo or Jacob Wohl grifters.
They are performance artists, dressing up in conservative drag and giving everyone the show of their lifetime, and they are so
dedicated to it they don't break character. In wrestling it is called kayfebe.
If you are in on the joke, these people are amazing, true heroes of late capitalism, exposing the absurdities of our commodified
democracy and news cycle.
The standards for a sitting Congressman representing 800,000 Americans should probably be a bit higher than the standards for
alt-right YouTube dancing bears.
As our country winds down and enters the end of its natural lifespan, and every country has a lifespan, don't fool yourself, because
no human creations last forever, some of the dancing bears we get aren't going to be quite as funny as Matt Gaetz, and there are
only going to be more and more of them coming out of the woodwork.
So I think we should appreciate people like him while we can, who at least elevate the art to something legitimately entertaining,
and are generally pretty harmless. "I love the president so much I may never love another president again." is an amazing line,
for instance, and I'll never understand anyone who doesn't appreciate it. That's something he put care and thought into.
People like entertainment. They elected an entertainer as president for a reason, and he is representing a lot more than 800,000
Americans. But I'm sure those 800,000 Americans are pretty happy with the entertainment they are getting from Gaetz too, even
if they might not appreciate the nuances of his performance and only like that he is "triggering the libs" or somesuch. And maybe
some of them do see how his performance implicates them too and they just don't care because it is such a fun show. I know if
Matt Gaetz were running for president (Against some neo-liberal like Buttigieg, not against someone I like) I'd be tempted to
vote for him just to add fuel to the fire.
The Democrats are the ones who are twisting the "protocols" regarding private hearings to protect the seditious liars and their
lies...
To paraphrase the Washington Post : "Democracy Dies In The Darkness"... The Darkness created by the shadowy deep state and those who dwell in it !
"The seditions liars and their lies"? Bill Taylor is a West Point graduate, decorated Vietnam vet, and was G.W. Bush's appointee
to be Ukraine ambassador. The smears aren't going to stick to him.
Like they didn't stick to Mueller, Comey, Mattis, McCain, Romney, and whoever else is the white knight of the week who will save
liberal decadence from Trump. As if!
He will be down in the mud with the rest of them, loathed by Trump's base and forgotten by the Democrats once the next savior
conservative messiah comes along. Eventually there won't be enough Never Trump zombies in the Bush establishment morgue left to
revive, and what then?
They certainly aren't going to work with the left to concentrate on substance and policy rather than the Trump news cycle,
so I imagine liberals will just all collectively die from despair
Without expressing any opinion on the truth or falsity of Taylor's testimony or any of it, the idea that being a West Point graduate
and Vietnam vet is some kind of assurance of probity is a joke.
Have you learned nothing from RussiaGate, from the various imperial wars on Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Serbia, etc.? All these
were based on flat out lies promoted by cleancut, well dressed, well spoken, impeccably credentialed monsters. Many of them veterans
themselves. All of them lying without shame, and lauded for telling lies.
Not "misspeaking", as if they were merely overenthusiastic in defense of the Freedom, but lying. And their lies killed innocent
people on a hitlerian scale.
You only don't recognize this, because you are fortunate enough to live in America, where you don't have to see your children
droned and your country destroyed because some monster claims to be bringing you the freedom.
You realize that we are an empire, and our institutions act the way that imperial institutions do? Imperial institutions cannot
be hindered by things like honesty and "rule of law", because the empire cannot survive if its freedom of action is restrained.
Is your anti Russian phobia a product of Slavic racism or of disliking orthodox countries or what? Why do you pro war liberals
obsess over Russia so much? I think it is empire envy.
If the Democrats are so concerned with confidentiality then why are the anti-Trump snippets of testimony the only things getting
leaked?
Bill Taylor's testimony was shredded in 90 seconds of cross-examination by a Republican member of the Committee. Funny, that
didn't make the time breathless coverage of the umpteenth bombshell. (Or is it "The Walls Are Closing In!" this week?
By any standard of fairness, Schiff should have recused himself due to a monumental conflict of interest. He had contact with
the main complainant prior to the filing of the complaint. A Dem Senator visited Taylor in the Ukraine several weeks ago. Nothing
to see here.
As Ben Franklin was noted as saying: "Well, Doctor, what have we got -- a Republic or a Monarchy?"
"A Republic, if you can keep it."
Well, we didn't keep it. This is purely Political Kabuki Theater. Both sides deserve to lose. At this point, with the Dems
tilting so hard left, and the Rockefeller Wing (Re-branded as NeoCons for some silly reason) of the Republicans ever-waiting for
their ascendance it remains for most of the country wish both sides could lose - if for nothing else than to just stop the noise.
"A nation is born a stoic and dies an epicurean" Will Durant
I do not trust our "betters" to hold closed door trials. After 2 years of Russia Russia Russia I don't believe a word they say.
Shiff told us he had ironclad evidence of Russian collusion, I saw him say it at the interview. He lied. When a politician says
"trust me" the last thing we should do is trust him. Open hearings, transparency, due process...we should demand
That's what they're afraid of: a veritable conga line of skeletons, loosed from the Trumpian closet, cha-chaing across the Senate
chamber in front of the whole world.
Actually that did involve intelligence NOT an impeachment. Apples and oranges. But thanks for reminding us of the lies and ineptitude
that got American's killed by Obama and Clinton in Libya. They lied and people died.
If Schiff weren't selectively leaking like a sieve, your argument might have some merit.
As it is, easily the best reason to believe they are doing as they are doing is FOR the purpose of only leaking the parts they
want.
And it goes far beyond simply "closed door" - the controls enacted are extreme, at least for the Republicans, yet somehow,
certain *very convenient* bits find their way to the press, time after time. After time. After TIME.
The whole thing is a farce, designed to allow control of the narrative, facts be hanged.
Brilliant comparison to that Animal House scene - thanks for that! The facts on the ground are so devastating to Trump than even
his most lickspittle toadies can't properly defend them, and so they scheme up weak stunts like this. The mind boggles.
I suppose all the Trump supporters would be on this very page defending Barack Obama if he called the Saudi Crown Prince in 2011
and told him that any military aid is contingent on investigating the Bush family and any business ties they have with Saudi Arabia
because Jeb Bush might run in 2012. Totally legal. No problem and nothing to see.
That is not the point. What you write is simply deflection. If any President other than Trump did this, Republicans would be (correctly)
moving to impeach and remove. So I ask again: would it have been OK if Obama called the Saudis and held up military aid until
they provided him information damaging to the Bush family?
The picture is funny, but you're on the wrong side of this, Dreher. I've finally realized why Schiff and his merry men, but especially
Schiff, give me such agita.
Let's pick a date, or an incident: Bork. Since then, long before then, but let's pick a date, the Democrats have stood for
moral anarchy . The only chance they had to show they retained a shred of principle was the Gulf War (both Gulf Wars, actually,
but let's take the second), and there their response was, at least legislatively, muted to say the least (considering their Senatorial
champion was the Lion of Chappaquiddick...) Since then it's been what? Feminism, abortion, and that more abundantly, all LGBTQ
all the time, micro regulation of speech and behavior, race hustling, and--ha ha--more unjust unnecessary wars and the destruction
of the white middle class. The soft totalitarianism we talk about in these boxes--no need to go on. The usual menu of "liberal"
horror.
And this guy is to be impeached because he cusses in public? It's not adding up for me. Schiff's behavior is outrageous (read
Kim Strassel today) but he's getting the job done. You might want to call it soft Leninism.
Not sure why so many conservatives hang their hat on Bork. This man was the guy who committed the Saturday Night Massacre, this
is who you stake your moral ground on?
Conservatives are so angry Dems stopped the guy who tried to shield Nixon from accountability? It's moral anarchy for Congress
to refuse to confirm a president's nomination for the Supreme Court? Congress is supposed to give a president's nominee a hearing
and a vote, not a rubber stamp. Congress if fully within it's constitutional rights to not confirm a president's nominee, and
it's hard to find a less fit man for the Supreme Court than Bork was.
Meanwhile your guys refused to even grant a hearing to President Obama's nominee. I guess that's OK because you don't acknowledge
the rights of Democrats under the Constitution.
You don't really think the Democrats got together to destroy Bork professionally and personally because he signed off on Nixon's
firings, do you? You can't be that dumb. If you'd like to know why, it was keeping Roe v. Wade alive. And that is moral anarchy,
pal.
You know what's moral anarchy? Supporting an immoral character like Bork because you think he's going to help you get rid of
Roe vs Wade. Kind of reminds of the deal you RWers have struck with Trump. You support a man you know is morally debased because
you think he will help you restore a white Christian conservative America.
It just boggles my mind you RWers are mad Democrats refused to confirm a man who help cover up one of the most egregious acts
an American president has ever committed. A person who would commit such an unethical act was not fit for a seat on the Supreme
Court, I shouldn't even have to say this.
And you offer an unsupported calumny. Bork was "morally debased"? By what standard? By whose standard? John Dean's? Elliot Richardson's?
Remember when they rifled through his borrowing habits at Blockbuster and it turned out he was a Fred Astaire fan? They were expecting
maybe Leni Riefenstahl. Or hoping for it. And a conspiracy is usually thought of as somewhat secret. The Lion of Chappaquiddick
was pretty up front about what he didn't like about Bork.
And I think Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus was far worse than anything Nixon did. Have fun with that one, pal.
"The Democrats have offered no plausible and persuasive rationale for holding these proceedings in secret and keeping the evidence
and testimony behind closed doors."
Other than that they're simply following the rules established by a previous Republican congress.
Below, someone wrote: "By any standard of fairness, Schiff should have recused himself due to a
monumental conflict of interest. He had contact with the main
complainant prior to the filing of the complaint."
Using that standard, Barr should have recused himself a thousand times over, no?
Coined by a Randian objectivist fantasy author. It is absolute truth, but knowing the source will become the utmost irony because
for some, it will be personal proof of it.
People will believe a lie because they're afraid it might be true, or because they want it to be true.
The Trump candidacy and tenure in office is a non-stop series of examples proving this.
Yet again, I note Rod, that there is more than one explanation over this hysterical impeach Trump nonsense.
This 'aid' is actually 'US military assistance'. Did it ever occur to you 'impeachers' that Trump may have deliberately been
avoiding such a meeting with his top 4 warmongers precisely so as to avoid US 'aid' escalating the military tension betwen Ukraine
and Russia? (and getting the US firmly tied into that fight?)
Trump was elected in part on a platform of no more foreign wars, and he seems genuinely committed to that (at least when he
thinks he can). Maybe the withheld 'aid' was all just leverage for a Biden investigation, but it may also be Trump trying not
to get pressured and bullied into more conflicts (which all prior Presidents were happy to go along with) in the face of a deep
state totally committed to a condition of forever war.
As an anti-war activist who campaigned against the Afghan and Iraq wars, in Trump's shoes I would also have tried to avoid
fueling an existing dangerous conflict that brings no benefit to my nation (other than a few arms sales) but may drag us into
a war with major nations. Same situation repeating right now in Syria - no major benefit to US in staying, and staying may drag
US into conflict between Turks and Kurds and Syria & Russia.
Not saying Trump has acted lawfully always - just that he may have been trying to avoid military escalation (at the same time
as getting dirt on Biden). Lets not jump to obvious conclusions when they may not be so obvious.
Thugs disrupting a Constitutional and legal proceeding doing the people's business in order to protect their Dear Leader -- that's
not frat-boy stuff. There's a much better "f" word to label that.
If these people were testifying in public, I'm sure the Trumpists would find a reason to oppose that as well. But I hope they
are ready for the public phase when they will need to defend Trump on the substance rather than voice procedural complaints. And
calling people like Taylor never-Trumpist "human scum" (what a classy president we have) is not going to cut it.
Democrats say these House Intelligence Committee procedures
aren't official hearings, but rather the equivalent of depositions,
meant to gather facts that will later be examined and argued over in
public hearings.
If that's the case they shouldn't be characterizing themselves as having an "impeachment inquiry." This is not in any legal
sense an impeachment. It's an inquiry without a cause...political games. The abberant activities of Dems trying to remove the
US President where there are no crimes justifies abberant reactions from the opposition. Since they are going to abuse the House
of Representatives and pursue unprincipled and unprecedented antagonism of a co-equal branch of government, why should the GOP
be idealistic and proper under such circumstances? I find Schiff to be a lot more of a problem than Gaetz.
No, it's the first stage of an inquiry. They're gathering evidence -- and Republican reps are there to question too -- that will
be used in open impeachment hearings.
Concerning Republican reps on the committee...apparently they're not getting all the evidence. If they're not it's not bi-partisan,
and it's irregular. Also, Schiff did not notify Republicans on the committee of an intelligence official who came to one of his
aides with concerns about President Trump before filing a whistleblower complaint. If that's true he's withholding evidence. I'm
sure he has a good reason for that...if you know what I mean.
October 18, 2019 By Chrissy Clark
All nine GOP members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence penned a letter to Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.,
lambasting him for hiding documents related to Democrats' impeachment inquiry.
"We are concerned that the Majority is knowingly withholding Committee documents related to your so-called 'impeachment
inquiry' from the Minority," the letter reads. " it has come to our attention that the Majority is not uploading (or providing
physical copies of) certain
Committee documents related to your 'impeachment inquiry' to its document repository, thus withholding the existence of such
documents from the Minority."
I think you don't like the Republicans playing by the same rules and tricks Democrats do. Looks different when the shoe is on
the other foot, huh? Think KFC eating and setting all night on the senate floor.
"The Democrats have offered no plausible and persuasive rationale for holding these proceedings in secret and keeping the evidence
and testimony behind closed doors. Given the character of the people in question, it is safe to assume that their reasons for
doing so are corrupt and motivated by narrowly calculated political self-interest. "
That's a heck of a leap in logic there, Kevin. And kind of incredible in light of Kevin McCarthy previously admitting on national
television that the Benghazi Select Committee's purpose was to tank Clinton's poll numbers. Would Kevin agree that committee was
corrupt then, I guess?
These are depositions, not hearings. Public hearings come later, once depositions are complete, and there's no more opportunity
for deposed subjects to coordinate details. Then a Senate trial after that, where Trump gets all the "due process" he has been
disingenuously complaining about.
It's amusing to me how it seems to be lost in all of this, that half of the people sitting in on these depositions are REPUBLICANS.
I Keep reading about this "aid to ukraine" improperly tied to an investigation of a rival. But this "aid" to Ukraine is really
just weapons isn't it? Weapons meant to stoke conflict with a nuclear power. The deep state and the pro war liberals will never
let This country move past militarism
If you supported the Schiff parody-as-truth from the other week but this bothers you, then you are an anti-Trump partisan. Conversely,
if you support this but had a problem with Schiff, you are a pro-Trump partisan. And that is okay because impeachment is a political
act. Just don't dress it up and pretend your side follows the rule of law and the other side doesn't. Both sides are engaging
in politics to convince the public. And we'll be just fine as long as both sides stick with that, and obey the constitutional
rules for impeachment. We'll only get in serious trouble if folks decide to go extra constitutional:
The picture is funny, but you're on the wrong side of this, Dreher. I've finally realized why Schiff and his merry men, but especially
Schiff, give me such agita.
Let's pick a date, or an incident: Bork. Since then, long before then, but let's pick a date, the Democrats have stood for
moral anarchy . The only chance they had to show they retained a shred of principle was the Gulf War (both Gulf Wars, actually,
but let's take the second), and there their response was, at least legislatively, muted to say the least (considering their Senatorial
champion was the Lion of Chappaquiddick...) Since then it's been what? Feminism, abortion, and that more abundantly, all LGBTQ
all the time, micro regulation of speech and behavior, race hustling, and--ha ha--more unjust unnecessary wars and the destruction
of the white middle class. The soft totalitarianism we talk about in these boxes--no need to go on. The usual menu of "liberal"
horror.
And this guy is to be impeached because he cusses in public? It's not adding up for me. Schiff's behavior is outrageous (read
Kim Strassel today) but he's getting the job done. You might want to call it soft Leninism.
Yet again, I note Rod, that there is more than one explanation over this hysterical impeach Trump nonsense.
This 'aid' is actually 'US military assistance'. Did it ever occur to you 'impeachers' that Trump may have deliberately been
avoiding such a meeting with his top 4 warmongers precisely so as to avoid US 'aid' escalating the military tension betwen Ukraine
and Russia? (and getting the US firmly tied into that fight?)
Trump was elected in part on a platform of no more foreign wars, and he seems genuinely committed to that (at least when he
thinks he can). Maybe the withheld 'aid' was all just leverage for a Biden investigation, but it may also be Trump trying not
to get pressured and bullied into more conflicts (which all prior Presidents were happy to go along with) in the face of a deep
state totally committed to a condition of forever war.
As an anti-war activist who campaigned against the Afghan and Iraq wars, in Trump's shoes I would also have tried to avoid
fueling an existing dangerous conflict that brings no benefit to my nation (other than a few arms sales) but may drag us into
a war with major nations. Same situation repeating right now in Syria - no major benefit to US in staying, and staying may drag
US into conflict between Turks and Kurds and Syria & Russia.
Not saying Trump has acted lawfully always - just that he may have been trying to avoid military escalation (at the same time
as getting dirt on Biden). Lets not jump to obvious conclusions when they may not be so obvious.
"The Democrats have offered no plausible and persuasive rationale for holding these proceedings in secret and keeping the evidence
and testimony behind closed doors. Given the character of the people in question, it is safe to assume that their reasons for
doing so are corrupt and motivated by narrowly calculated political self-interest. "
That's a heck of a leap in logic there, Kevin. And kind of incredible in light of Kevin McCarthy previously admitting on national
television that the Benghazi Select Committee's purpose was to tank Clinton's poll numbers. Would Kevin agree that committee was
corrupt then, I guess?
These are depositions, not hearings. Public hearings come later, once depositions are complete, and there's no more opportunity
for deposed subjects to coordinate details. Then a Senate trial after that, where Trump gets all the "due process" he has been
disingenuously complaining about.
It's amusing to me how it seems to be lost in all of this, that half of the people sitting in on these depositions are REPUBLICANS.
I Keep reading about this "aid to ukraine" improperly tied to an investigation of a rival. But this "aid" to Ukraine is really
just weapons isn't it? Weapons meant to stoke conflict with a nuclear power. The deep state and the pro war liberals will never
let This country move past militarism
If you supported the Schiff parody-as-truth from the other week but this bothers you, then you are an anti-Trump partisan. Conversely,
if you support this but had a problem with Schiff, you are a pro-Trump partisan. And that is okay because impeachment is a political
act. Just don't dress it up and pretend your side follows the rule of law and the other side doesn't. Both sides are engaging
in politics to convince the public. And we'll be just fine as long as both sides stick with that, and obey the constitutional
rules for impeachment. We'll only get in serious trouble if folks decide to go extra constitutional:
My intent here is not to summarize Snowden's entire interview. I want to focus on some
points he made that I found especially revealing, pertinent, and insightful.
Without further ado, here are 12 points I took from this interview:
1. People who reach the highest levels of government do so by being risk-averse. Their
goal is never to screw-up in a major way. This mentality breeds cautiousness, mediocrity, and
buck-passing. (I saw the same in my 20 years in the U.S. military.)
2. The American people are no longer partners of government. We are subjects. Our rights
are routinely violated even as we become accustomed (or largely oblivious) to a form of
turnkey tyranny.
3. Intelligence agencies in the U.S. used 9/11 to enlarge their power. They argued that
9/11 happened because there were "too many restrictions" on them. This led to the PATRIOT Act
and unconstitutional global mass surveillance, disguised as the price of being kept "safe"
from terrorism. Simultaneously, America's 17 intelligence agencies wanted most of all not to
be blamed for 9/11. They wanted to ensure the buck stopped nowhere. This was a goal they
achieved.
4. Every persuasive lie has a kernel of truth. Terrorism does exist - that's the kernel of
truth. Illegal mass surveillance, facilitated by nearly unlimited government power, in the
cause of "keeping us safe" is the persuasive lie.
5. The government uses classification
("Top Secret" and so on) primarily to hide things from the American people, who have no "need
to know" in the view of government officials. Secrecy becomes a cloak for illegality.
Government becomes unaccountable; the people don't know, therefore we are powerless to rein
in government excesses or to prosecute for abuses of power.
6. Fear is the
mind-killer (my expression here, quoting Frank Herbert's Dune ). Snowden spoke much about
the use of fear by the government, using expressions like "they'll be blood on your hands"
and "think of the children." Fear is the way to cloud people's minds. As Snowden put it, you
lose the ability to act because you are afraid.
7. What is true patriotism? For Snowden, it's about a constant effort to do good for the
people. It's not loyalty to government. Loyalty, Snowden notes, is only good in the service
of something good.
8. National security and public safety are not synonymous. In fact, in the name of
national security, our rights are being violated. We are "sweeping up the broken glass of our
lost rights" in today's world of global mass surveillance, Snowden noted.
9. We live naked before power. Companies like Facebook and Google, together with the U.S.
government, know everything about us; we know little about them. It's supposed to be the
reverse (at least in a democracy).
10. "The system is built on lies." James Clapper, the director of national intelligence,
lies under oath before Congress. And there are no consequences. He goes unpunished.
11. We own less and less of our own data. Data increasingly belongs to corporations and
the government. It's become a commodity. Which means we are the commodity. We are being
exploited and manipulated, we are being sold, and it's all legal, because the powerful make
the policies and the laws, and they are unaccountable to the people.
12. Don't wait for a hero to save you. What matters is heroic decisions. You are never
more than one decision away from making the world a better place.
In 2013, Edward Snowden made a heroic decision to reveal illegal mass surveillance by the
U.S. government, among other governmental crimes. He has made the world a better place, but as
he himself knows, the fight has only just begun against turnkey tyranny.
Governments using fear for control is nothing new.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous
to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them
imaginary.
Sorry folks. In time you will see that Snowden was, is, and always will be CIA (black
hat). The whistle blowing was a CIA attempt to shut down the NSA (white hat) leaving no one
to watch over the black hats whilst they conduct thier drug running and regime changing, and
MK ultra operations. Ask Kennedy. Oh wait CIA and daddy Bush blew his head off.
Snowden, in my opinion, is a limited hangout. Not necessarily aware of it, he could just
be a convenient dupe.
If there's this much surveillance, how in the Hell did he exfiltrate that much data AND be
able to leave the country? Why did it take so long to track him down and revoke his passport?
It makes no sense. Why didn't he go to Wikileaks, who has a proven and reliable track record
but instead went to MSM?
I think he is probably genuine in his beliefs, but still see him as a limited hangout.
He has made the world a better place
How? Uncle Scam still has all it's capabilities. That big *** data center in Utah.
Nothing's changed except we were told about it- again. Remember Drake, Wiebe and Binney
spilled the beans in 2004.
And how does a guy go from CIA janitor to effectively an NSA systems admin? Seriously, not
to **** on janitors, but how in the actual **** does that happen?
All your questions are answered in his book. Wkileaks wasn't an option because they
release en masse without any vetting. He didn't want people to die from release of some of
the docs he had.
They are just now getting to the point where they have the tech to effectively sort and
search through all that data. Plus. He tapped it from the source.
The real shame is how little resulted from the exposure. Nothing changed, no one was held
to account, and we the people did nothing. We are a nation of contented slaves, for now.
"Intelligence agencies in the U.S. used 9/11 to enlarge their power. "
And their power was supposed to be limited to foreign actors. The skinny, jug-eared, gay
guy and his acolytes thought up sinister illegal ways to extend that power to private US
citizens and the gay guy's political enemies.
Most of these problems were predicted centuries ago when the founders feared a standing
army that could be turned against the people. Now we have standing armies, and civilian
paramilitaries in every county and big city, local cops, city cops, state police. We have
ATF, FBI, CIA, NSA, IRS, and dozens of other armed alphabet soup agencies.
With We THE People are gonna regain our country again and many people will die again, and
with luck all the traitors will hang by the neck until dead.
The elites who think it is their birthright to lord over us need to be reminded that they
serve us. All the communist democrats are in need of reminders and quick drop at the end of a
rope.
It's heartening to know Snowden is a martial alumni..
And speaking of tyranny, we came across a gem, a most enlightening gem thus..
"If you take me down, I'll come after you with everything I've got It will become my
life's mission."
"These are the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to newspaper publisher Arnon
Mozes in a recording that has become central evidence in a corruption case against Netanyahu,
as revealed Saturday by Channel 13 journalist Raviv Drucker.."
So why have we brought this to your attention?
So you may understand that Liberty is not for the lily livered. If Jefferson and Co had
been squeamish, Americans would still be serfs..
If MLK had been squeamish, negros would not be free today, to be in position to advocate
for rights..
And if Cesar Chavez had adopted cowardice, then Latinos would have no mojo to
advocate..
And if Hugo Chavez had not given his life to Venezuela, it's doubtful that Maduro would
have had a leg to stand on..
And yet, Lula is imprisoned..just like Nelson Mandela, for the best years of his
life..
My friends, mortality eventually ends, that's a certainty..what you do with yours, is
consequential, for good or ill..
When the depraved hurl threats, it means they're afraid, and in that event, increase the
artillery barrage of truth..cheers...
The digital world has become disturbingly invasive and the source of the data the
governments uses against us.
Abstain.
Get off of social media, limit net time, encrypt communications, leave our mobile devices
at home and use cash.
Anything that leaves a digital footprint is being tracked.
The loss of our privacy is the loss of our freedom.
To return democracy to the people we need to do the following:
-Term limits of 8 years at any one level of government for the politicians, diplomats,
bureaucrats and senior civil servants. If our legislators know they will spend the majority
of their working lives in the private sector they will not pass laws that solely benefit the
public sector.
-Recall legislation to hold our legislators accountable.
-Balance budget laws that require referendums to amend or repeal.
-Zero tax increase laws that require referendums to amend or repeal.
We need to return democracy to the people and we do that by demanding change at the
grassroots levels.
These days , The Shang Dynasty's moral decay quickly comes to mind, as outlined in
The Art of War : lies, deceit and diffusion were the norm; unaccountable leaders
immersed themselves in debauchery, orgies and lavish self-profiting (today's
Epsteinism in full-swing); brutally-enforced high taxes & wage thefts levied on
citizens; government's increased violence against state residents, particularly those brave
enough to resist widespread tyranny; escalated harmful interference in the country's
agricultural operations; and knee-jerked, violent responses with heavy-handed, inhuman
punishments (like SWAT teams blowing away innocents -- women & children -- over minor,
inconsequential infractions), especially violation of peoples' guaranteed civil liberties, as
well as their sovereign dignities and property rights, under the guise of ridiculously
concocted "boogeymen" nonsense.
It's also interesting that this area has more millionaires per capita than anywhere else
in America. It's not a high tech area, no manufacturing, and no big agriculture. Sucking the
tit of our taxes.
"... If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge. ..."
"... There is a third possibility. What if Trump wasn't supposed to become President, according to the CIA's plans? This seems plausible to me, because during the 2016 election, it seemed to me at least that almost nobody in the US political and media establishments took Trump's candidacy seriously. Clinton was so sure she could easily beat Trump that she used her influence with the media to get Trump media coverage, in order to weaken the "serious" Republicans, one of whom everyone thought would get the nomination, like Jeb Bush. ..."
As we know from Wayne Madsen's little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama
has been a CIA asset since he was a suckling babe.
If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA
(via Arkansas drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we
conclude about Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge.
There is a third possibility. What if Trump wasn't supposed to become President,
according to the CIA's plans? This seems plausible to me, because during the 2016 election,
it seemed to me at least that almost nobody in the US political and media establishments took
Trump's candidacy seriously. Clinton was so sure she could easily beat Trump that she used
her influence with the media to get Trump media coverage, in order to weaken the "serious"
Republicans, one of whom everyone thought would get the nomination, like Jeb Bush.
I know you believe that Trump was somehow exactly what the US deep state needed. I don't
agree, but even if you are right, are you really sure that the CIA and the rest of the deep
state were smart enough to understand and agree that they needed someone like Trump?
"... On February 2 Shokin confiscated four large houses Zlochevsky owned plus a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a "Knott 924-5014 trainer". (Anyone know what that is?) Ten days later Biden goes into overdrive to get him fired. Within one week he personally calls Poroshenko three times with only one major aim: to get Shokin fired. ..."
"... Zlochevsky had hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for at least $50,000 per month. In 2015 Shokin started to investigate him in two cases. During the fall of 2015 Joe Biden's team begins to lobby against him. On February 2 Shokin seizes Zlochevsky's houses. Shortly afterwards the Biden camp goes berserk with Biden himself making nearly daily phonecalls. Shokin goes on vacation while Poroshenko (falsely) claims that he resigned. When Shokin comes back into office Biden again takes to the phone. A week later Shokin is out. ..."
"... Biden got the new prosecutor general he wanted. The new guy made a bit of show and then closed the case against Zlochevsky. ..."
"... Is the "conspiracy theory" about Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election really "debunked"? It is, of course, not. The facts show that the interference happened. It was requested by the Democratic National Committee and was willingly provided by Ukrainian officials. ..."
"... Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found. ..."
"... A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia , according to people with direct knowledge of the situation. ..."
"... In March 2016 Chalupa went to the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC and requested help from the Ukrainian ambassador to go after Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort. In August 2016 the Ukrainians delivered a secret "black ledger" that allegedly showed that Manafort had illegally received money for his previous work for the campaign of the former Ukrainian president Yanukovych. ..."
"... Serhin A. Leshchenko, the member of the Ukrainian parliament who published the dubious ledger, was rabidly anti-Trump. Shortly after providing the "secret ledger" he talked with the Financial Times and promised to continue to meddle in the U.S. election. The FT headline emphasized the fact: ..."
"... insisting on innocence of Biden will have a political cost. ..."
"... That term "conspiracy theory" has been so widely abused that, to me at least, it now means something that the author wishes were not true but almost certainly is. ..."
"... Joe Biden needs to STFU, and go away. He and his ilk are part of the problem, not the solution. The rulers of America insist on pushing this sycophant for the empire down our throats. And, he can take HRC and her crowd with him. It's high time for some new blood, IF, TPTB, will even allow that to happen, which I very much doubt.... ..."
"... If you were referring to Trump's convo with Zelensky specifically, reasonable people might disagree over whether that was an abuse of power or sleazy and dumb (in being unnecessary)--which of course shouldn't mean the Bidens get a pass here, which none of these young journalists are suggesting. ..."
"... Well, there you have it--proof that BigLie Media indeed specializes in publishing Big Lies that ought to reduce such outlets to the status of Tabloids. Of course, the media is free to lie all it wants within the limits of slander and libel, but most people don't like being lied to particularly over matters of importance. ..."
"... Larry Johnson has a piece at SST on a CIA task force set up to compromise Trump and prevent him becoming president. That Trump avoided all the traps set for him (even the Mueller investigation could pin nothing on Trump) and won the election says a bit for Trump ..."
"... Alexandra Chalupa's connection to the thinktank The Atlantic Council should be borne in mind in the developing discussion in the comments forum. Her sister Irena is or has been a non-resident Senior Fellow there. Irena Chalupa has also been a senior editor at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. ..."
"... Also the founder and CEO of the Crowdstrike company in charge of cybersecurity for the DNC during the 2016 presidential election campaign was Dmitri Alperovich who is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council. It was Crowdstrike who came up with the idea that Trump had to be under the Kremlin's thumb and from there the hysterical witch-hunt and associated actions known as Russiagate began. ..."
"... I'm surprised that at this point in time, Bellingcat has not been included in digging up "dirt" on Trump ..."
"... Lee Stranahan of Radio Sputnik has been reporting on Alexandra Chalupa's role for a number of years now. I hope he gets proper credit as this story comes out. ..."
"... It seems some corners are coming unglued if the ZH link below is any indication: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-entrapped-flynn-manipulated-evidence-clapper-allegedly-issued-kill-shot-order ..."
"... The take away quote from a Matt Taibbi twit "LOL. Barack Obama is going to love this interview his former DIA James Clapper just gave to CNN about the Durham probe: "It's frankly disconcerting to be investigated for having done... what we were told to do by the president of the United States." ..."
"... Prescient observation by Aaron Mate : "When CNN & MSNBC now cover the criminal inquiry into conduct of intel officials in Russia probe, they are literally covering their employees -- John Brennan (MSNBC); James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, James Baker (CNN). I avoid the term, but it's appropriate here: Deep State TV." ..."
"... The take away quote: "Joe Biden intervened at least two times on matters his son Hunter's firms was being paid to lobby on, according to government records reviewed by the Washington Examiner." ..."
"... Indeed, the guilty are hiding in plain sight. It appears sinister, and is, but I think its a positive development of late, as it would suggest that big media are scrambling to preserve the status quo by legitimising these deep state actors. ..."
"... Obama orchestrated the regime change operation in Ukraine. As we know from Wayne Madsen's little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama has been a CIA asset since he was a suckling babe. To promote containment of the Russian menace, the US got in bed with Ukrainian fascists and successfully exploited political tensions in that country resulting in the removal of the duly elected Yanukovitch. A right wing billionaire then took the reigns and Putin orchestrated a referendum in Crimea in retaliation that resulted in its return to Russia. The Crimeans were and continue to be happy, happier than the rest of Ukrainians under Kiev neo-fascist free market exploitation. ..."
"... It is natural that neo-fascist Ukrainians would express their disapproval of Trump, who was making nice with Putin. No matter what his motives were, he was bucking US anti-Russian policy. I liked Trump at that time for this willingness to end a Cold War policy sponsored by the US military industrial complex. You can cal it "deep state" if you like. It's not deep and it's not a shadow government. It's the war party. It's the elite profiting from weapons manufacture. Trump has no principles except expedience and his pro-Russian stance is likely owing to the money laundering he's been doing for Russian criminals since he is such a lousy business man. ..."
"... The general charge against Trump is that he was "digging up dirt" on opponents. Well laddy-dah. So what. Welcome to Politics 101. ..."
"... Empires don't act on facts: they are all-powerful, so they sculpt reality as they see fit. What determines this is class struggle: the inner contradictions of a society that results in a given consensus, thus forming a hegemony. ..."
"... Again, not surprised at all. Pro-democratic/anti-Trump media write articles (obviously made-to-order) to whitewash already badly discredited Biden, and present all the arguments in favor of his dark connections with Ukraine as a kind of "conspiracy theory". This is a common practice. Not having sufficient competence to reasonably refute the arguments of opponents, MSM (as well as all sorts of "experts") immediately mark the position of opponents with "conspiracy theory" (there are also other options to choose from: "Putin's agent", "Putin's useful idiot", "Kremlin's agent", "pro-Russian propaganda", etc.). It is assumed that this makes unnecessary/optional (and even "toxic") all further conversations with the opponent (that is, there is no need to answer him, to prove something with facts, etc.), because his position is a "conspiracy theory". ..."
"... Western MSM are actively using this simplest propaganda technique of information warfare. For example, this was the case when reporting on events in Syria - those journalists, the media, experts who did not agree with the lie of MSM about Assad's use of the chemical weapons were declared "conspiracy theorists" (and also "Assad apologists"). This method was also used to cover "the Skripal case" - those who questioned the British authorities' version of the "Novichok poisoning" were declared "conspiracy theorists". ..."
"... This is the way the controlled media works. They provide half a story, half truths, straw-man facts, selective quotes and 'expert' comment, opinion and unwarranted assumption presented as fact that all together cover the spectrum from black to white, spread across the many titles. ..."
"... They also disseminate a fine dusting of lies and actual truth here and there. The result is the public have a dozen 'truths' to pick from, none of which are real, while the outright lies and actual truths get dismissed as not credible and the half-truths and straw-man truths appear to carry some validity. ..."
"... If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge. ..."
"... as Caitlin Johnstone lets to say - who gets to decide what the narrative is here? i don't have an answer for this, but those who appear to be taking a side in all of this - including you with the quote i make - seem to think that it has to be the issue of trumps extortion of Ukraine, verses what appears to me the CIA - Dem party extortion of the ordinary USA persons mind... ..."
"... Has mccarthyism version 2 come to life since the advent of what happened in the Ukraine from 2014 onward?? is the issue of a new cold war with Russia been on the burner for at least 5 or more years here and began before trump was even considered a potential candidate for the republican party? did Russia take back Crimea, which wasn't supposed to happen? is this good for military industrial complex sales? and etc. etc. ..."
"... i am sure biden is small potatoes in the bigger picture here, but if taking a closer examination of what took place in ukraine leading into 2014, with the victoria nulands and geoffrey pyatts and etc. etc. of usa diplomatic corps, usa dept of state and etc. could lead to a better understanding of how the usa has went down the road it has for the past 60 years of foreign policy on the world stage, it would be a good start... so, to me - it ain't about trump.. it is about usa foreign policy and how it has sucked the big one on the world stage for at least since the time of vietnam when i was a teenager.. ..."
Several mainstream media have made claims that Joe Biden's intervention in the Ukraine and
the Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election are "conspiracy theories" and "debunked". The
public record proves them wrong. By ignoring or even contradicting the facts the media create
an opening for Trump to rightfully accuse them of providing "fake news".
[In late 2018], Giuliani began speaking to current and former Ukrainian officials about the
Biden conspiracy theory, and meeting with them repeatedly in New York and Europe. Among those
officials was Viktor Shokin, a former top Ukrainian prosecutor who was sacked in March, 2016,
after European and U.S. officials, including Joe Biden, complained that he was lax in curbing
corruption. Shokin claimed that he had lost his powerful post not because of his poor
performance but rather because Biden wanted to stop his investigation of Burisma, in order to
protect his son. The facts didn't back this up. The Burisma investigation had been dormant
under Shokin.
Several other
media outlets also made the highlighted claim to debunk the "conspiracy theory". But is it
correct?
We have looked into the claim that Shorkin's investigation against Burisma owner Zlochevsky
was dormant, as the New Yorker says, and found it to be false :
The above accounts are incorrect. Shokin did go after Zlochevsky. He opened two cases against
him in 2015. After he did that Biden and his crew started to lobby for his firing. Shokin was
aggressively pursuing the case. He did so just before Biden's campaign against him went into
a frenzy.
... On February 2 Shokin confiscated four large houses Zlochevsky owned plus a Rolls-Royce
Phantom and a "Knott 924-5014 trainer". (Anyone know what that is?) Ten days later Biden goes
into overdrive to get him fired. Within one week he personally calls Poroshenko three times
with only one major aim: to get Shokin fired.
... Zlochevsky had hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for at least $50,000 per month. In 2015 Shokin
started to investigate him in two cases. During the fall of 2015 Joe Biden's team begins to
lobby against him. On February 2 Shokin seizes Zlochevsky's houses. Shortly afterwards the
Biden camp goes berserk with Biden himself making nearly daily phonecalls. Shokin goes on
vacation while Poroshenko (falsely) claims that he resigned. When Shokin comes back into
office Biden again takes to the phone. A week later Shokin is out.
Biden got the new prosecutor general he wanted. The new guy made a bit of
show and then closed the case against Zlochevsky.
It is quite astonishing that the false claims, that Shokin did not go after Burisma owner
Zlochevsky, is repeated again and again despite the fact that the public record , in form of a report
by Interfax-Ukraine , contradicts it.
On Thursday Buzzfeed Newswrote
about a different Ukrainian prosecutor who in early 2019 was approached to set up meetings
with President Donald Trump's private lawyer Rudy Giuliani:
[Gyunduz] Mamedov's role was key. He was an intermediary in Giuliani's efforts to press
Ukraine to open investigations into former vice president Joe Biden and the debunked
conspiracy theory about the country's interference in the 2016 presidential election , a
collaboration between BuzzFeed News, NBC News, and the Organized Crime and Corruption
Reporting Project (OCCRP) can reveal.
The OCCRP is funded by the
UK Foreign Office, the US State Dept, USAID, Omidyar Network, Soros' Open Society, the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund and others. Most of these entities were involved in the 2014 coup
against the elected government of the Ukraine.
Is the "conspiracy theory" about Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election really
"debunked"? It is, of course, not. The facts show that the interference happened. It was requested by
the Democratic National Committee and was willingly provided by Ukrainian officials.
As Politico reported shortly after Trump had won the election, it was the Democratic
Party organization, the DNC, which had asked the
Ukrainians for dirt that could be used against the campaign on Donald Trump:
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly
questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump
aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after
the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his
advisers, a Politico investigation found.
A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee
met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties
between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia , according to people with direct
knowledge of the situation.
The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort's resignation
and advancing the narrative that Trump's campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine's foe to
the east, Russia.
The Ukrainian-American who was the go between the DNC and the government of Ukraine had
earlier worked for the Clinton administration:
Manafort's work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named
Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the
Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for
Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to
Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that
time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC's arm for engaging expatriate Democrats
around the world.
In March 2016 Chalupa went to the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC and requested help from
the Ukrainian ambassador to go after Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort. In August 2016 the
Ukrainians delivered
a secret "black ledger" that allegedly showed that Manafort had illegally received money
for his previous work for the campaign of the former Ukrainian president Yanukovych.
Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr.
Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to
Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the
disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included
election officials.
"Paul Manafort is among those names on the list of so-called 'black accounts of the Party
of Regions,' which the detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine are
investigating," the statement said. "We emphasize that the presence of P. Manafort's name in
the list does not mean that he actually got the money, because the signatures that appear in
the column of recipients could belong to other people."
The provenance of the ledger is highly dubious. It was allegedly found in a burned out
office of Yanukovych's old party:
The papers, known in Ukraine as the "black ledger," are a chicken-scratch of Cyrillic
covering about 400 pages taken from books once kept in a third-floor room in the former Party
of Regions headquarters on Lipskaya Street in Kiev.
...
The accounting records surfaced this year, when Serhiy A. Leshchenko, a member of Parliament
who said he had received a partial copy from a source he did not identify, published line
items covering six months of outlays in 2012 totaling $66 million. In an interview, Mr.
Leshchenko said another source had provided the entire multiyear ledger to Viktor M. Trepak,
a former deputy director of the domestic intelligence agency of Ukraine, the S.B.U., who
passed it to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Anti-corruption groups in Ukraine said the black ledger detailing payments was probably
seized when protesters ransacked the Party of Regions headquarters in February 2014.
The pages from the ledger, which had come from anonymous sources probably
supported by John Brennan's CIA , were never proven to be genuine. But the claims were
strong enough to get Manafort fired as campaign manager for Donald Trump. He was later
sentenced for unrelated cases of tax evasion.
Serhin A. Leshchenko, the member of the Ukrainian parliament who published the dubious
ledger, was rabidly anti-Trump. Shortly after providing the "secret ledger" he talked with the
Financial Times and promised to continue to meddle in the U.S. election. The FT
headline emphasized the fact:
The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine's arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming
leader of the country's biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev's wider
political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene,
however indirectly, in a U.S. election.
...
Mr. Leshchenko and other political actors in Kiev say they will continue with their efforts
to prevent a candidate - who recently suggested Russia might keep Crimea, which it annexed
two years ago - from reaching the summit of American political power.
"A Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy," Mr
Leshchenko, an investigative journalist turned MP, told the Financial Times. "For me it was
important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he is [a] pro-Russian candidate
who can break the geopolitical balance in the world."
...
If the Republican candidate loses in November, some observers suggest Kiev's action may have
played at least a small role.
A Democratic Party operative asked the Ukrainian ambassador to find dirt on Trump's campaign
manger Paul Manafort. A few month later a secret "black ledger" emerges from nowhere into the
hands of dubious Ukrainian actors including a 'former' domestic intelligence director.
The ledger may or may not show that Manafort received money from Yanukovych's party. It was
never verified. But it left Trump no choice but to fire Manafort. Ukrainian figures who were
involved in the stunt openly admitted that they had meddled in the U.S. election, promised to
do more of it and probably did.
The Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election is well documented. How the Buzzfeed
News author can claim that it is a "debunked conspiracy theory" is beyond me.
1. The Contracting States shall provide mutual assistance, in accordance with the provisions
of this Treaty, in connection with the investigation, prosecution, and prevention of
offenses, and in proceedings related to criminal matters.
2. Assistance shall include: (a) taking the testimony or statements of persons; (b)
providing documents, records, and other items; (c) locating or identifying persons or items;
(d) serving documents; (e) transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes;
(f) executing searches and seizures; (g) assisting in proceedings related to immobilization
and forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and (h) any other form of
assistance not prohibited by the laws of the Requested State.
3. Assistance shall be provided without regard to whether the conduct that is the subject
of the investigation, prosecution, or proceeding in the Requesting State would constitute an
offense under the laws of the Requested State.
When Trump
asked the current Ukrainian President Zelensky to help with an investigation into the above
matters he acted well within the law and within the framework of the treaty. It was certainly
not illegitimate to do that.
But when mainstream media deny that Biden's interference in Ukraine's prosecutor office is
suspect, or claim that the Ukraine did not interfere in the U.S. elections, they make it look
as if Trump did something crazy or illegal. He does plenty of that but not in this case. To use
it a basis of an 'impeachment inquiry' is political bullshit.
Making these false claims will come back to haunt those media outlets. Sooner or later the
public will recognize that those claims are false. It will lessen the already low trust in the
media even more.
Posted by b on October 26, 2019 at 17:51 UTC |
Permalink
"Sooner or later the public will recognize that those claims are false. It will lessen the
already low trust in the media even more."
More precisely, there exit Trump-friendly media with millions of followers, so insisting
on innocence of Biden will have a political cost. Not to mention leftist media reminiscing
how Senator Biden championed the cause of MBNA (credit cart giant) when it was also a
generous employer of his dear son. Of course, given the size of Delaware, it could be just a
coincidence.
Thanks b for providing the nitty gritty details of this sorry saga. That term "conspiracy
theory" has been so widely abused that, to me at least, it now means something that the
author wishes were not true but almost certainly is.
What is certain is that if Biden is selected as the Dem candidate and ends up as President,
the GOP (if it retains influence in Congress) will open an investigation into his actions on
behalf of his son. Russia-gate is the gift that keeps on giving!
Thanks b, for the reality check.
Joe Biden needs to STFU, and go away. He and his ilk are part of the problem, not the
solution. The rulers of America insist on pushing this sycophant for the empire down our
throats. And, he can take HRC and her crowd with him. It's high time for some new blood, IF, TPTB, will even allow that to happen, which I very
much doubt....
Thanks for another informative and insightful commentary, B. It's like a drink of cool, clean
water after staggering through a volcanic landscape full of fumaroles belching sulfurous
plumes of superheated gas.
Sometimes my hobby horses merrily hop along under me without any effort on my part. I just
hang onto the reins and howl. So: it's bad enough that the US mass-media
consent-manufacturers, aka the CIA/Deep State's "Mighty Wurlitzer", gin up endless propaganda
to discredit the facts you mention; their mission is to fool enough of the public that
there's no "there" there, and prop up Biden's presidential campaign in the bargain.
But what increasingly bugs me is so-called "alternative" news outlets and independent
journalists buying into the spin that Trump and his associates are using the pretext of
investigating corruption as a means to illegally and illicitly "dig up dirt on political
rivals". Put the other way around, they concede that Biden and other Team Obama honchos are
indeed "dirty", and that their Ukraine adventure was reprehensibly illicit or illegal and
self-serving-- but they return to faulting Trump for impermissibly exploiting these
circumstances in order to gain political advantage.
It doesn't surprise me that talented but co-opted journalists like Matt Taibbi are careful
to affirm that Trump et al 's conduct is manifestly an abuse of power. But, sadly,
even journalists like Aaron Maté, Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, and Michael Tracey have
echoed this rote condemnation.
My guess is that this arises from two acronyms: incipient TDS, which compels even
"alternative" US journalists to regard Trump as the "heel" in the staged
"professional"-wrestling scam of US electoral politics. Also, CYA; I suspect that these
relatively young, professionally vulnerable journalists are terrified of coming off as
"defending" or "excusing" Trump, lest they trigger wrathful excoriation from their peers and
the hordes of social-media users whose custom they cultivate.
This is why I appreciate your clarity and forthrightness on this fraught topic.
Rereading your post, and agreeing with some it, I find I disagree less with its conclusions
than on first reading.
If you were referring to Trump's convo with Zelensky specifically, reasonable people might
disagree over whether that was an abuse of power or sleazy and dumb (in being
unnecessary)--which of course shouldn't mean the Bidens get a pass here, which none of these
young journalists are suggesting.
But where I would disagree is if you were suggesting that Taibbi, Mate and Blumenthal are
making obligatory objections to Trump more generally, in order to curry favour with their
peers. I think each of them would readily reel off lists of things (more substantive than
Ukrainegate -- and probably not including Russia collusion) that they think Trump should be
castigated, impeached and perhaps prosecuted for.
Well, there you have it--proof that BigLie Media indeed specializes in publishing Big Lies
that ought to reduce such outlets to the status of Tabloids. Of course, the media is free to
lie all it wants within the limits of slander and libel, but most people don't like being
lied to particularly over matters of importance.
Larry Johnson has a piece at SST on a CIA task force set up to compromise Trump and prevent
him becoming president.
That Trump avoided all the traps set for him (even the Mueller investigation could pin
nothing on Trump) and won the election says a bit for Trump. He definitely is more than the
twitter reality TV persona that he puts up as a public face.
With the Barr investigation, it looks like the non Trump section of the swamp will be drained
in the near future.
Possibly an irrelevant point, but Shokin's replacement Lutsenko was the prosecutor who
resurrected the "deceased", self declared journalist, Arkady Babchenko. The story was full of
plot twists, involving a Boris German/Herman, who was Russian. B kept Us regaled with events.
I'd post a link, but have witnessed too many thread expansions too risk it.
I think a lot of people give the MSM too much credit. Of course editorials etc. can influence
people's thinking but the media, and journalists in general, are loathed by the people who
voted for Trump. It's a big reason he was elected.
Ort @ 8 said;"It doesn't surprise me that talented but co-opted journalists like Matt Taibbi
are careful to affirm that Trump et al's conduct is manifestly an abuse of power."
Co-Opted, or truthful, depending on what you believe. You, have every right to your
opinion, but, when push comes to shove, think I'll give my opinion being swayed or not, by
giving more credibility to the five names you've decided to "shade".
DJT has a record of behavior, and so do the five you've mentioned. My choice is clear,
I'll believe the five..
Alexandra Chalupa's connection to the thinktank The Atlantic Council should be borne in mind
in the developing discussion in the comments forum. Her sister Irena is or has been a
non-resident Senior Fellow there. Irena Chalupa has also been a senior editor at Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty.
Also the founder and CEO of the Crowdstrike company in charge of cybersecurity for the DNC
during the 2016 presidential election campaign was Dmitri Alperovich who is a Senior Fellow
at The Atlantic Council. It was Crowdstrike who came up with the idea that Trump had to be
under the Kremlin's thumb and from there the hysterical witch-hunt and associated actions
known as Russiagate began.
I'm surprised that at this point in time, Bellingcat has not been included in digging up
"dirt" on Trump, Manafort or anyone Manafort supposedly had connections with who is also
mentioned in the "black ledger" but maybe that's because with the garbage that Bellingcat has
so delivered, Eliot Higgins and company can't be trusted any more. Their masters should have
known though, that when you give your subordinates base material to work with, they can only
come up with base results: garbage in, garbage out.
Thanks for your ongoing documentation of the political criminality in the US b. The recent events are playing out like a two-bit soap opera rerun in a nursing home for
America's brainwashed. Maybe Trump could start a new TV game show called Apprentice Corruption and instead of
saying "Your Fired!" it could be "Your Guilty!"
As an American it is difficult to watch the country that I was taught such good things
about in school be exposed as a criminal enterprise running cover for the elite cult that
owns global private finance and manipulates Western not-so-civilized culture.
I hope all this BS we are going through wakes up enough of the semi-literate public to
overthrow the criminal sect and restore the Founding Fathers motto and concept of E Pluribus
Unum.
Lee Stranahan of Radio Sputnik has been reporting on Alexandra Chalupa's role for a number of
years now. I hope he gets proper credit as this story comes out.
Given the fact that she got a first hand look at the Outlaw US Empire's injustice system and
its tie-in with BigLie Media, the comments by the now back in Russia Maria Butina carry some legitimate weight that're
worth reading: "'I believe that the Americans are wonderful people, but they have lost their legal
system,' Butina said. 'What is more, they are routinely losing their country. They will lose
it unless they do something'.... "'I am very proud of my country, of my origin,' Butina stressed. 'And I come to realize it
more and more.'"
Should I bold the following, maybe make the lettering red, and put it in all caps:
"They are routinely losing their country."
I know this is an international bar, but the general focus has long been on the Outlaw US
Empire. IMO, Maria Butina is 100% correct. The topic of this thread is just further proof of
that fact. As I tirelessly point out, the federal government has routinely violated its own
fundamental law daily since October 1945. The media goes along with it robotically. And aside
from myself, I know of no other US citizen that's raised the issue--not Chomsky, not Zinn,
not anyone with more credentials and public accessibility than I. I sorta feel like Winston
Smith: Am I the only one who sees and understands what's actually happening?! Well, I've
shared what I know, so I'm no longer alone. But that's not very satisfying, nor is it
satisfactory.
The take away quote from a Matt Taibbi twit
"LOL. Barack Obama is going to love this interview his former DIA James Clapper just gave to
CNN about the Durham probe: "It's frankly disconcerting to be investigated for having done...
what we were told to do by the president of the United States."
"
Prescient observation by Aaron Mate :
"When CNN & MSNBC now cover the criminal inquiry into conduct of intel officials in
Russia probe, they are literally covering their employees -- John Brennan (MSNBC); James
Clapper, Andrew McCabe, James Baker (CNN). I avoid the term, but it's appropriate here: Deep
State TV."
Sure, he sees it, many of us barflies see it, but it's the public within the Outlaw US
Empire that must see and understand this dynamic. If they don't or won't, then
Butina's words are even more correct--They are losing their country.
The take away quote:
"Joe Biden intervened at least two times on matters his son Hunter's firms was being paid to
lobby on, according to government records reviewed by the Washington Examiner."
The merry-go-round scenario you post would indicate a broken state. Biden's been in office
for 43 years, Trump 3 yrs... the potential for dirt is large, mix it with even larger GOP
vengeance should that scenario arise and this will drag on through the decades.
Part and parcel of democracy. Western style democracy at least. Perhaps others can set
theirs up better, though allways, the achilles heel of democracy is information, or media.
Who oversees ensuring voters recieve accurate information.
It took complaints from the public and investigated them. They did not have power to bring
charges, but for a time findings were made public. Once it got onto a money trail it would
keep following and that would lead to other money trails. It was a state agency and had to
stop at state borders but most money trails led to federal politics. It was defanged when
they came too close to federal politics.
Something like this in a countries constitution could work though it could be corrupted the
same as anything else.
Indeed, the guilty are hiding in plain sight. It appears sinister, and is, but I think its a
positive development of late, as it would suggest that big media are scrambling to preserve
the status quo by legitimising these deep state actors.
It wasn't so long ago these deep state types would rather steer clear of the media. Now
they are out there earning bread driving the narrative. Are these deep state media faces a
tactical last resort...?
Obama orchestrated the regime change operation in Ukraine. As we know from Wayne Madsen's
little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama has been a CIA asset since he was a
suckling babe. To promote containment of the Russian menace, the US got in bed with Ukrainian
fascists and successfully exploited political tensions in that country resulting in the
removal of the duly elected Yanukovitch. A right wing billionaire then took the reigns and
Putin orchestrated a referendum in Crimea in retaliation that resulted in its return to
Russia. The Crimeans were and continue to be happy, happier than the rest of Ukrainians under
Kiev neo-fascist free market exploitation.
It is natural that neo-fascist Ukrainians would express their disapproval of Trump, who was making nice with Putin. No
matter what his motives were, he was bucking US anti-Russian policy. I liked Trump at that time for this willingness to end a
Cold War policy sponsored by the US military industrial complex. You can cal it "deep state" if you like. It's not deep and
it's not a shadow government. It's the war party. It's the elite profiting from weapons manufacture. Trump has no principles
except expedience and his pro-Russian stance is likely owing to the money laundering he's been doing for Russian criminals
since he is such a lousy business man. Putin and other Russian kleptocrats saved Trump boy's bacon. So it's very
confusing when bed actors do good things.
Biden is no doubt quite corrupt. But that's got little to do with Trumps quid pro quo with
Ukraine. You say that Ukrainian interference in US elections is well documented. You don't
offer any documents, b. Anti-Putin Ukrainians were naturally anti-Trump. So what? Where's the
beef? Show me how that little piss ant country that can't even pay its fuel bills and gave
the world Chernobyl, interfered in US elections.
Your defense of Trump is getting tiresome. He's a criminal with no respect for the US
Constitution and he deserves to be impeached. This is not to say that Joe Biden or his drug
addict son are not also shit stains. I am just dismayed that you, an ostensibly intelligent
independent commentator would go to bat for an ignoramus like Trump.
The general charge against Trump is that he was "digging up dirt" on opponents. Well
laddy-dah. So what. Welcome to Politics 101.
President Harry Truman probably received as much flak as any politician ever did,
especially after he canned war-hero General MacArthur. But Truman wasn't a candy-ass current
politician complaining about dirt-digging. No, he gave back more than he got, in spades.
What was "give-em-hell" Harry Truman's attitude? Some Truman quotes:
--"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell."
--"It's the fellows who go to West Point and are trained to think they're gods in uniform
that I plan to take apart"
--"I didn't fire him [General MacArthur] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he
was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them
would be in jail."
-- "I'll stand by [you] but if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen ."
That's what Trump is doing and will probably continue to do with fake news. (And he coined
the phrase.)
I'll repeat what I posted here some days ago: this is not a battle between truth vs lies, but
between which is the truth that will guide the USA for the forseeable future.
Empires don't act on facts: they are all-powerful, so they sculpt reality as they see fit.
What determines this is class struggle: the inner contradictions of a society that results
in a given consensus, thus forming a hegemony.
It's not that the liberals deny Biden did what he did, but that they disagree with Trump's
interpretation over what he did. This is what the doctrine of the vital center is all about:
some facts are more facts than others, prevailing the one which maintains the cohesion of the
empire.
There's a battle for America's soul; the American elite is in flux: Russia or China?
In 1984 , the narrative was now 100% in your face and everything had to be
manipulated to match it, which apparently hadn't been needed previously. But we aren't told
if that was done as a "last resort." I would think not given continuing polls showing ongoing
distrust of media, thus the difficulty of manufacturing consent. Look at the great popularity
enjoyed by Sanders amongst 18-30 year-olds who get most of their information online or via
social media and the measures being taken to try and manipulate those realms. Then there're
efforts to counter the misinformation and manipulation by numerous activists, many of which
get cited here.
Another thought: They're out front now because the Establishment's deemed the fight to
control the narrative's being lost, and they've been drafted to rectify the situation. If
correct, they ought to keep failing.
The international nature of this bar and its many flies is that mostly (from what I read)
they have an immense respect for the rule of law. It is this singular concept that we trust
will transcend religion and the quasi religiosity of political allegiances.
The rule of law is a deity-like singularity that embraces all beings equally, or
should. Assaulting that legitimate expectation of the law applying equally is what confronts us
daily in so many ways and when it is observed being assaulted by the highest office bearers
in political and corporate life that we barflies get mighty annoyed. The gross vista of assumed immunity demonstrated by Nixon is equaled by the antics of the
Clinton foundation and its Directors. Each and every one of them.
But it is far worse than that as the assault on the rule of law is daily carried out by
the mafias that infest our societies, the corrupt and violent police that cant/wont protect
our citizens, the international warmongering criminal classes that propagandise us to accept
warring as a legitimate exercise of power even though we recognise it as a crime against
humanity.
So when we see the deplorable state of media and jurisprudence and fairness we can only
think as Maria Butina does "that we are routinely losing our countries" and I would add our
civil societies. The latter is vastly more concerning than the former IMO.
Again, not surprised at all. Pro-democratic/anti-Trump media write articles (obviously
made-to-order) to whitewash already badly discredited Biden, and present all the arguments in
favor of his dark connections with Ukraine as a kind of "conspiracy theory". This is a common
practice. Not having sufficient competence to reasonably refute the arguments of opponents,
MSM (as well as all sorts of "experts") immediately mark the position of opponents with
"conspiracy theory" (there are also other options to choose from: "Putin's agent", "Putin's
useful idiot", "Kremlin's agent", "pro-Russian propaganda", etc.). It is assumed that this
makes unnecessary/optional (and even "toxic") all further conversations with the opponent
(that is, there is no need to answer him, to prove something with facts, etc.), because his
position is a "conspiracy theory".
Western MSM are actively using this simplest propaganda technique of information warfare.
For example, this
was the case when reporting on events in Syria - those journalists, the media, experts
who did not agree with the lie of MSM about Assad's use of the chemical weapons
were declared "conspiracy theorists" (and also "Assad apologists"). This method was
also used to cover "the Skripal case" - those who questioned the British authorities'
version of the "Novichok poisoning" were declared "conspiracy
theorists".
When I see words like "conspiracy theory" in the headlines and see what media use them,
then, you know, it's all clear. No chance for such articles/media to be taken seriously.
@32 jadan quote "Show me how that little piss ant country that can't even pay its fuel
bills...." are you familiar with the name porkoshenko, or any other one of the numbers of
kleptomaniacs in positions of power in the ukraine? how do you think they got their, if
''that little piss ant country' can't even pay it's bills? i am sure you are capable of
adding 2 + 2...
b isn't defending trump here.. he's highlighting how corrupt the msm is! it looks like you
missed that.. check the headline..
This is the way the controlled media works. They provide half a story, half truths, straw-man
facts, selective quotes and 'expert' comment, opinion and unwarranted assumption presented as
fact that all together cover the spectrum from black to white, spread across the many titles.
They also disseminate a fine dusting of lies and actual truth here and there. The result is
the public have a dozen 'truths' to pick from, none of which are real, while the outright
lies and actual truths get dismissed as not credible and the half-truths and straw-man truths
appear to carry some validity. If you look for it you can find it applying in almost every
bit of 'news', if it is in any way controversial, whether it is partisan politics, Climate
Change or Brexit to give examples.
As we know from Wayne Madsen's little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama
has been a CIA asset since he was a suckling babe.
If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas
drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about
Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge.
Ukraine was just one hell of a honey pot that too many couldn't resist visiting.
Kind of like Russia (Uranium One and HRC) or China (Biden for a start).
Giulani is going to be very busy - he still hasn't produced anything that wasn't already
published, but I bet he has much more.
... smart enough to understand and agree that they needed someone like Trump?
Yes, I do think they are smart enough and agreed to act in their collective best interest.
Kissinger first wrote of MAGA in a WSJ Op-Ed in August 2014. Trump entered the race in June
2015, IIRC.
Do you think that Trump - who failed at multiple businesses - just woke up one day and
became a political and geopolitical genius? As a candidate he said he'd "take the oil" and
now, more than 3 years later, he has! LOL.
And JUST AFTER the Mueller investigation formally ends, Trump ONCE AGAIN solicits a
foreign power to interfere in a US election. The biggest beneficiary? Deep State BIDEN! Who
now gets all the media attention.
FYI Wm Gruff makes your same point often: that Deep State mistakes demonstrate that they
couldn't possible pull of a Trump win (if that's what they wanted). I disagree.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
I very much doubt that anyone will go to jail - or serve any meaningful jail time if they
do - over the Deep State shenanigans. Nor will people 'wake up' and see how they've been
played anytime soon. Even the smarter, more savvy denizens of the moa bar have much
difficulty connecting dots. Dots that they don't want to see.
If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas
drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about
Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge
Trump at first threw down the gauntlet to the spies and proclaimed his autocratic
prerogative when God held off the rain for his inauguration (!) but now he would gladly get
on his knees between Gina Haspel's legs if the CIA would only help him stay in power.
What
distinguishes Obama from other presidents is the degree to which he was manufactured. He made
it to the WH without much of a political base. Control of the political context, media and
process, launched Obama to the top. It was fulfillment of the liberal American dream. It was
a great coup. Talk about the "deep state"! It's staring us all in the face.
Oh, but Deep State DID interfere.
FACT: Deep Stater Hillary colluded with DNC against Sanders. ( But she would NEVER
participate in collusion that caused her to lose an election./sarc LOL)
And now pro-Trump people say Clapper, Brennan, and Comey interfered in the 2016 election
OR committed treason by trying to unseat the President!
So we can talk about Deep State interference . . . as long as it follows the partisan
narrative that's been established for us.
I have news for you. USA Presidents use strong coercive persuasive arguments or means of
speech ALL THE TIME. And always have. Sometimes they can be subtle and allude to an action
that might make them happy and sometimes they can be blunt. Its a presidential thing. It is
what statespeople do when they 'negotiate' for their desired outcome.
It is not illegal or corrupt. It is power nakedly exercised. Just because Biden is a
candidate for the same presidential role does not confer immunity for Biden's graft in favor
of his son a few years back. You make a mockery of your position.
One USA President visited Australia once and when confronted with a roadblock of
demonstrators seeking peace in Vietnam demanded of the Australian Premier to "drive over the
bastards". That didn't happen but the President continued to drive all over the Vietnamese
innocents.
Trump may be a grifter and a scumbag but there are warmongers well ahead of him in the cue
for justice. Take Hillary Clinton for example. She is a ruthless killer and the greatest
breach of USA national Security ever with her Secretary of State emails held on an unsecured
server in her closet.
The same powers some call "deep state," are the same powers that have given us ALL modern day
presidents, probably from FDR on.
IMO, they are nothing more, nothing less than the "captains of commerce", who, through the
vast accumulation of wealth by monopoly, buy our "representatives" to legislate rules and
regulations to benefit themselves.
Our so-called "leaders" work for them, with very few exceptions, and transcends all
political parties, and now also the Supreme Court.
$ has been ruled speech, unlimited $ is allowed to be given to politicians for elections.
How could anything but massive corruption take place under this kind of system?
they make it look as if Trump did something crazy or illegal. He does plenty of that but not
in this case.
You suffer from TDS. What on Earth are you talking about here? Plenty of that? Say what?
Why do you undercut your entire point in your article with this little piece of utter
nonsense?
Name one thing that Trump that has done that is illegal. Name one thing that is crazy. Stop apologizing to the crazies by denigrating Trump. Your entire article was all about
how none of the bs is true. And then you put your own brand of bs in there at the end. Cut it
out.
@ 54 jadan... thanks for your comments... i am feeling more philosophical tonight, as i don't
have a gig and have some time to express myself a bit more here.. first off, i don't like any
of these characters - trump, biden, and etc. etc.. i have no horse in the game here, and it
sounds like you don't either.. your comment- "The issue is Trump's extortion of Ukraine, not
Biden's extortion of Ukraine." i can go along with that until i reflect back onto what
increasingly looks like an agenda to get trump even prior to when he was elected, at which
point i want to say why are we only examining trump in all of this? who gets to decide what
the issue is, or as Caitlin Johnstone lets to say - who gets to decide what the narrative is
here? i don't have an answer for this, but those who appear to be taking a side in all of
this - including you with the quote i make - seem to think that it has to be the issue of
trumps extortion of Ukraine, verses what appears to me the CIA - Dem party extortion of the
ordinary USA persons mind...
let me back up... Has mccarthyism version 2 come to life since the advent of what happened
in the Ukraine from 2014 onward?? is the issue of a new cold war with Russia been on the
burner for at least 5 or more years here and began before trump was even considered a
potential candidate for the republican party? did Russia take back Crimea, which wasn't
supposed to happen? is this good for military industrial complex sales? and etc. etc..
so, i don't think it is fair to only consider the latest boneheaded thing trump did when i
consider the bigger picture unfolding here.. now, maybe you think i am a trump apologist... i
am just saying what the backdrop looks like to me here.. i am sure biden is small potatoes in
the bigger picture here, but if taking a closer examination of what took place in ukraine
leading into 2014, with the victoria nulands and geoffrey pyatts and etc. etc. of usa
diplomatic corps, usa dept of state and etc. could lead to a better understanding of how the
usa has went down the road it has for the past 60 years of foreign policy on the world stage,
it would be a good start... so, to me - it ain't about trump.. it is about usa foreign policy
and how it has sucked the big one on the world stage for at least since the time of vietnam
when i was a teenager..
i suppose it depends on the time frame one wants to take.. my time frame will be
considered an evasion of the moment to some, but it is how i see it.. sure, trump is scum,
but the bigger issue to me is the usa's foreign policy agenda.. anything that can pull back
the covers on that would be an extremely good thing... now, perhaps this is the straw that
broke trumps back and the deep state will not tolerate being scrutinized.. that i could
understand, but i am not going to be putting it all on trump as the reason the covers have to
remain on all the shit the usa has been responsible for on the world stage to date and
especially the past 10 years.. i am not able to blame trump for all of that.. and as you can
see, i would prefer to get down to the nitty gritty of who is zooming who here... the msm for
all intensive purposes is complicit in duping the american public.. that to me is the gist of
b's comment here, not that he is cheer-leading for trump.. i just don't see it that way...i'm
definitely not!
"... "What they did was treasonous, OK? It was treasonous," he told author Doug Wead for his upcoming book, " Inside Trump's White House: The Real Story of His Presidency." ..."
President Trump has ratcheted up his claim that the Obama White House spied on his 2016 campaign, charging in a new book that
it was a "treasonous" act by the former Democratic president.
"The interesting thing out of all of this is that we caught them spying on the election. They were spying on my campaign. So you
know? What is that all about?" said Trump.
"I have never ever said this, but truth is, they got caught spying. They were spying," said Trump who then added, "Obama."
In 2017, Trump tweeted that he felt the Obama White House "had my wires tapped" in Trump Tower. He later said he didn't mean it
literally but that he felt his campaign was being spied on.
Attorney General William Barr earlier this year said he was looking into whether "improper surveillance" may have occurred in
2016.
He has tasked a prosecutor to look into Obama officials and other officials who sparked the Russia collusion investigation into
Trump after a report showed no collusion. New reports on that investigation described it as "criminal" in nature.
"It turned out I was right. By the way," Trump told Wead in excerpts provided to Secrets.
"In fact, what I said was peanuts compared to what they did. They were spying on my campaign. They got caught and they said,
'Oh we were not spying. It was actually an investigation.' Can you imagine an administration investigating its political opponents?"
said the president.
In the book, Trump said that the Russia investigation undercut his presidency.
" Anybody else would be unable to function under the kind of pressure and distraction I had. They couldn't get anything done.
No other president should ever have to go through this. But understand, there was no collusion. They would have had to make something
up," he said.
Technically, it was sedition, unless Trump can show that Obama was acting for a foreign power. There definitely were foreign
powers involved, the question is who was in charge?
The attempt to circumvent democracy and ensure Hillary's victory in the elections with falsified Russian collusion allegations
along with a constant communist media bombardment to discredit Trump, absolutely constitutes treason. What you need to understand
is that socialist progressives serve a different god - lucifer - and a different nation - Israel; that they do not have your best
interests at heart is a given.
Everything they do is to undermine traditional morality and the moral fabric that holds civilization together. Ordo Ab Cao.
Flynn's story became a classic story of FBI entrapment...
Notable quotes:
"... The Federalist ..."
"... According to the 37-page motion , a team of " high-ranking FBI officials orchestrated an ambush-interview of the new president's National Security Advisor, not for the purpose of discovering any evidence of criminal activity -- they already had tapes of all the relevant conversations about which they questioned Mr. Flynn -- but for the purpose of trapping him into making statements they could allege as false ." ..."
"... Notably, Lisa Page lied to the DOJ, saying that she didn't recall whether she took part in editing Flynn's 302 form . ..."
"... Then, quoting from a sealed statement by Strzok, Powell reveals that over next two weeks, there were "many meetings" between Strzok and [FBI Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe to discuss "whether to interview [] National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and if so, what interview strategies to use." ..."
"... Another startling claim in Powell's filing references a purported conversation between former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Washington Post reporter David Ignatius, which claims Clapper told the reporter "words to the effect of 'take the kill shot on Flynn,' after Ignatius reportedly obtained the transcript of Flynn's phone calls. ..."
"... Lastly, Powell's filing also notes that US District Judge Rudolph Contreras, who recused himself after accepting Flynn's guilty plea, had a personal relationship with Peter Strzok , according to text messages. ..."
FBI Entrapped Flynn With Manipulated Evidence As Clapper Allegedly Issued 'Kill Shot' Order: Court Docs by
Tyler Durden Sat, 10/26/2019 - 11:30 0 SHARES
A bombshell court filing from Michael Flynn's new legal team alleges that FBI agents altered a '302' form - the official record
of the former national security adviser's interview - that resulted in the DOJ charging him with lying to investigators.
Early last week Flynn attorney Sidney Powell filed a sealed reply to federal prosecutors' claims that they have satisfied their
requirements for turning over evidence in the case. A
minimally redacted copy of the
reply brief was made public late last week, revealing the plot to destroy Flynn , as reported by
The Federalist 's Margot Cleveland.
According to the 37-page motion , a team of " high-ranking FBI officials orchestrated an ambush-interview of the new president's
National Security Advisor, not for the purpose of discovering any evidence of criminal activity -- they already had tapes of all
the relevant conversations about which they questioned Mr. Flynn -- but for the purpose of trapping him into making statements they
could allege as false ."
At the heart of the matter is the 302 form 'documenting' an FBI interview in which Flynn was asked about his conversations with
former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Powell alleges that FBI lawyer Lisa Page edited her lover Peter Strzok's account of the
interview - texting him, "I made your edits."
"On February 10, 2017, the news broke -- attributed to 'senior intelligence officials' -- that Mr. Flynn had discussed sanctions
with Ambassador Kislyak, contrary to what Vice President Pence had said on television previously." Following this leak, "overnight,"
Flynn's 302 was changed -- and substantively so. " Those changes added an unequivocal statement that 'FLYNN stated he did not'
-- in response to whether Mr. Flynn had asked Kislyak to vote in a certain manner or slow down the UN vote."
" This is a deceptive manipulation " Powell highlighted, " because, as the notes of the agents show, Mr. Flynn was not even
sure he had spoken to Russia/Kislyak on this issue . He had talked to dozens of countries." The overnight changes to the 302 also
included the addition of a line, indicating Flynn had been question on whether "KISLYAK described any Russian response to a request
by FLYNN."
But the agent's notes do not include that question or answer, Powell stressed, yet it was later made into the criminal offense
charges against Flynn . And "the draft also shows that the agents moved a sentence to make it seem to be an answer to a question
it was not ," Powell added.
Here's Powell describing how they know the 302 form was altered:
Notably, Lisa Page lied to the DOJ, saying that she didn't recall whether she took part in editing Flynn's 302 form .
Laying the groundwork
Leading up to the interview with Flynn, the text messages reveal that the FBI wanted to capitalize on news of the 'salacious and
unverified' Steele dossier - and whether they "can use it as a pretext to go interview some people," Strzok texted Page.
Then, quoting from a sealed statement by Strzok, Powell reveals that over next two weeks, there were "many meetings" between
Strzok and [FBI Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe to discuss "whether to interview [] National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and
if so, what interview strategies to use." And "on January 23, the day before the interview, the upper echelon of the FBI met to
orchestrate it all . Deputy Director McCabe, General Counsel James Baker, Lisa Page, Strzok, David Bowdich, Trish Anderson, and
Jen Boone strategized to talk with Mr. Flynn in such a way as to keep from alerting him from understanding that he was being interviewed
in a criminal investigation of which he was the target."
Next came "Comey's direction to 'screw it' in contravention of longstanding DOJ protocols," leading McCabe to personally call
Flynn to schedule the interview . Yet none of Comey's notes on the decision to interview Flynn were turned over to defense. Even
Obama-holdover "Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates candidly opined that the interview 'was problematic' and ' it was not always
clear what the FBI was doing to investigate Flynn ," Powell stressed. Yet again, the prosecution did not turn over Yates' notes,
but only "disclosed a seven-line summary of Ms. Yates statement six months after Mr. Flynn's plea."
-The Federalist
'Kill Shot'
Another startling claim in Powell's filing references a purported conversation between former Director of National Intelligence
James Clapper and Washington Post reporter David Ignatius, which claims Clapper told the reporter "words to the effect of 'take the
kill shot on Flynn,' after Ignatius reportedly obtained the transcript of Flynn's phone calls.
Clapper's spokesman told Fox News that he "absolutely did not say those words to David Ignatius," adding "It's absolutely
false" and "absurd."
Powell claims that Ignatius was given the Flynn-Kislyak call transcripts by a Pentagon official who was also Stefan Halper's "handler."
Halper - who was
paid over $1 million by the Obama administration - was one of many spies the FBI sent to infiltrate the Trump campaign.
Halper, in 2016, contacted several members of the Trump campaign including former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos
and former aides Carter Page and Sam Clovis.
"The evidence the defense requests will eviscerate any factual basis for the plea and reveal the conduct so outrageous --
if there is not enough already -- to mandate dismissal of this prosecution for egregious government misconduct ," Powell wrote.
-
Fox News
Lastly, Powell's filing also notes that US District Judge Rudolph Contreras, who recused himself after accepting Flynn's
guilty plea, had a personal relationship with Peter Strzok , according to text messages.
"The government knew that well in advance of Mr. Flynn's plea that Judge Contreras was a friend of Peter Strzok and his recusal
was even discussed in an exchange of multiple texts," writes Powell, referencing Strzok-Page texts discussing Strzok and Contreras
speaking "in detail" about anything "meaningful enough to warrant recusal."
"The government knew that well in advance of Mr. Flynn's plea that Judge Contreras was a friend of Peter Strzok and his recusal
was even discussed in an exchange of multiple texts."
The USA is a real leader in technology and arm production. This is the country that created
PC, Internet and smartphones, which changed the world. So technical supremacy paves the way to
imperial behaviour.
CIA is one of the most powerful tools of the empire, the force that is instrumental in
peeking the USA on globalist path now (looks at Russiagate) .
The path of U.S.-Israeli arrogance and domination, with its various dimensions, and with
its direct and indirect extensions and alliances, which is witnessing military defeats and
political failures, reflected successive defeats for the American strategies and plans, one
after the other. All this has led [the U.S.] to a state of indecision, retreat, and inability
to control the progress of events in our Arab and Islamic world. There is a broader
international context for this – a context that, in its turn, helps to expose the
American crisis, and the decline of the [U.S.] unipolar hegemony, in the face of pluralism,
the characteristics of which are yet to be stabilized.
"The crisis of the arrogant world order is deepened by the collapse of U.S. and
international stock markets, and by the confusion and powerlessness of the American economy.
This reflects the height of the structural crisis of the model of capitalist arrogance.
Therefore, it can be said that we are in the midst of historic transformations that foretell
the retreat of the USA as a hegemonic power, the disintegration of the unipolar hegemonic
order, and the beginning of the accelerated historic decline of the Zionist entity.
After World War II, the U.S. has adopted the leading, central hegemonic project. At its
hands, this project has witnessed great development of the means of control and unprecedented
subjugation. It has benefited from an accumulation of multi-faceted accomplishments in
science, culture, technology, knowledge, economy, and the military, which was supported by an
economic political plan that views the world as nothing but open markets subject to the laws
of [the U.S.].
"The most dangerous aspect of Western logic of hegemony in general, and the American logic
of hegemony in particular, is their basic belief that they own the world, and have the right
to hegemony due to their supremacy in several fields. Thus, the Western, and especially
American, expansionist strategy, when coupled with the enterprise of capitalist economy, has
become a strategy of a global nature, whose covetous desires and appetite know no bounds.
The barbaric capitalism has turned globalism into a means to spread disintegration, to sow
discord, to destroy identities, and to impose the most dangerous form of cultural, economic,
and social plunder. Globalization reached its most dangerous phase, when it was transformed
into military globalization by the owners of the Western hegemony enterprise, the greatest
manifestation of which was evident in the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Iraq, to
Palestine, and to Lebanon.
There is no doubt that American terrorism is the source of all terrorism in the world. The
Bush administration has turned the U.S. into a danger threatening the whole world, on all
levels. If a global opinion poll were held today, the United States would emerge as the most
hated country in the world.
The most important goal of American arrogance is to take control of the peoples
politically, economically, and culturally, and to plunder their resources.
Battle of Blair... on Thu, 10/24/2019 - 7:10pm The same media that can't stop
chanting Russian interference, has completely ignored
this bombshell.
A recent investigation from independent news outlet Middle East Eye (9/30/19) uncovered
that a senior Twitter executive is, in fact, an officer in the British Army's 77th Brigade, a
unit dedicated to psychological operations (psyops), propaganda and online warfare.
I had to take note that later down the article it also read:
In September, Twitter suspended multiple accounts belonging to Cuban state media. And
along with Facebook and YouTube, it also suspended hundreds of Chinese accounts it claimed
were attempting to "sow political discord in Hong Kong" by "undermining the legitimacy" of
the protest movement. These social media giants have already deleted thousands of Venezuelan,
Russian and Iranian accounts and pages that were, in their own words, "in line with" those
governments' positions. The message is clear: Sharing opinions that do not fall in line with
official US doctrine will not be tolerated online .
I found this quite interesting because I was just permanently banned from Twitter for saying
to a propagandist media writer that "corporate whores gotta corporate whore."
"... All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire, pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world. ..."
"... That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners," and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security." ..."
"... The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans. That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap. ..."
"... There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism. A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist foreign policy to our land. ..."
The chaos arising from U.S. interventionism in Syria provides an excellent opportunity to explore the interventionist mind.
Consider the terminology being employed by interventionists: President Trump's actions in Syria have left a "power vacuum," one
that Russia and Iran are now filling. The United States will no longer have "influence" in the region. "Allies" will no longer be
able to trust the U.S. to come to their assistance. Trump's actions have threatened "national security." It is now possible that
ISIS will reformulate and threaten to take over lands and even regimes in the Middle East.
This verbiage is classic empire-speak. It is the language of the interventionist and the imperialist.
Amidst all the interventionist chaos in the Middle East, it is important to keep in mind one critically important fact: None of
it will mean a violent takeover of the U.S. government or an invasion and conquest of the United States. The federal government will
go on. American life will go on. There will be no army of Muslims, terrorists, Syrians, ISISians, Russians, Chinese, drug dealers,
or illegal immigrants coming to get us and take over the reins of the IRS.
Why is that an important point? Because it shows that no matter what happens in Syria or the rest of the Middle East, life will
continue here in the United States. Even if Russia gets to continue controlling Syria, that's not going to result in a conquest of
the United States. The same holds true if ISIS, say, takes over Iraq. Or if Turkey ends up killing lots of Kurds. Or if Syria ends
up protecting the Kurds. Or if Iran continues to be controlled by a theocratic state. Or if the Russians retake control over Ukraine.
It was no different than when North Vietnam ended up winning the Vietnamese civil war. The dominoes did not fall onto the United
States and make America Red. It also makes no difference if Egypt continues to be controlled by a brutal military dictatorship. Or
that Cuba, North Korea, and China are controlled by communist regimes. Or that Russia is controlled by an authoritarian regime. Or
that Myanmar (Burma) is controlled by a totalitarian military regime. America and the federal government will continue standing.
America was founded as a limited government republic, one that did not send its military forces around the world to slay monsters.
That's not to say that bad things didn't happen around the world. Bad things have always happened around the world. Dictatorships.
Famines. Wars. Civil wars. Revolutions. Empires. Torture. Extra-judicial executions. Tyranny. Oppression. The policy of the United
States was that it would not go abroad to fix or clear up those types of things.
All that changed with the conversion of the federal government to a national-security state and with the adoption of a pro-empire,
pro-intervention foreign policy. When that happened, the U.S. government assumed the duty to fix the wrongs of the world.
That's when U.S. officials began thinking in terms of empire and using empire-speak. Foreign regimes became "allies," "partners,"
and "friends." Others became "opponents," "rivals," or "enemies." Events thousands of miles away became threats to "national security."
That's when U.S. forces began invading and occupying other countries, waging wars of aggression against them, intervening in foreign
wars, revolutions, and civil wars, initiating coups, destroying democratic regimes, establishing an empire of domestic and foreign
military bases, and bombing, shooting, killing, assassinating, spying on, maiming, torturing, kidnapping, injuring, and destroying
people in countries all over the world.
The results of U.S. imperialism and interventionism have always been perverse, not only for foreigners but also for Americans.
That's how Americans have ended up with out-of-control federal spending and debt that have left much of the middle class high and
dry, unable to support themselves in their senior years, unable to save a nest egg for financial emergencies, and living paycheck
to paycheck. Empire and interventionism do not come cheap.
The shift toward empire and interventionism has brought about the destruction of American liberty and privacy here at home. That's
what the assassinations, secret surveillance, torture, and indefinite detentions of American citizens are all about -- to supposedly
protect us from the dangers produced by U.S. imperialism and interventionism abroad. One might call it waging perpetual war for freedom
and peace, both here and abroad.
There is but one solution to all this chaos and mayhem -- the dismantling, not the reform, of the Pentagon, the military-industrial
complex, the vast empire of foreign and domestic military bases, and the NSA, along with an immediate end to all foreign interventionism.
A free, peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society necessarily entails the restoration of a limited-government republic and a non-interventionist
foreign policy to our land.
"... The main take away for me came towards the end where Snowden outlines the special legal conditions and laws that the US government enforces to control presentation of evidence in these cases. These same 'servant' thugs who are stepping into the now 3rd-world UK court system and pulling the strings on Australia's Assange. The same crew that Snowden worked with and blew the whistle on (apparently). ..."
"... Snowden makes great bravado about being willing to go back to the USA and face the music -- if only he could say in court why he did it (something the legal Act prohibits apparently). In this, and a few other matters of history, I find him less than genuine. Is/was he a plant? .... I'm still out with the jury on that. ..."
Indeed Orwell's "1984" referred to the UK as "Airstrip One" and this Brexit fiasco surely
proves that Outside Influences not only run the Judiciary when necessary, but also plant
poison on doorknobs when it suits them.
The ever servile Australian government to the empire du jour does nothing to honor their
passport pledge. We would have to assume it qualifies as Orwell's "Airstrip Two"
In contrast to Assange's predicament (and Manning I assume), the main point of this post
is to mention the recent Joe Rogan interview of Edward Snowden (touting his book) --
http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/edward-snowden
Nearly three hours of mostly Snowden rambling on. I stayed with it to the end. A few items
of interest but mostly just noise. I found him initially somewhat suspicious -- by the end I
was more neutral. However, what a display of American arrogance and ingratitude. The Russian
government has saved his bacon and has given him refuge with great freedoms he would not have
in the USA -- or Airstrip One ... or, HK, or any South American backyard colony. And yet he
makes no attempt to thank them and even virtually panders to the American anti-Russian meme.
He has even dabbled in Russian opposition politics via local newspaper comments. What an
ungrateful guest! (Or still an agent @ work?) I would entirely understand the Russians
putting him on a plane back to the USA tomorrow. Ungrateful little character, imo. And says a
lot about the way Americans treat the external world from inside their little fishbowl.
Simply a doormat for convenience.
The main take away for me came towards the end where Snowden outlines the special legal
conditions and laws that the US government enforces to control presentation of evidence in
these cases. These same 'servant' thugs who are stepping into the now 3rd-world UK court
system and pulling the strings on Australia's Assange. The same crew that Snowden worked with
and blew the whistle on (apparently).
Snowden makes great bravado about being willing to go back to the USA and face the music
-- if only he could say in court why he did it (something the legal Act prohibits
apparently). In this, and a few other matters of history, I find him less than genuine.
Is/was he a plant? .... I'm still out with the jury on that.
"... This is when it became clear it wasn't just political operatives pushing fake news about Russian influence, but that "respected" mass media would be leading the charge for them. The rest is pretty much history. MSNBC, CNN, The Washington Post, etc have been spewing outlandish Russiagate nonsense for three years straight, and despite the complete failure of special counsel Robert Mueller to find any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, these agents of empire refuse to stop. ..."
"... Americans like to sneer at more transparently unfree societies around the world, but when you think about the disturbing implications of former spooks delivering news to the public, one can't help but conclude that mass media in 2019 looks like a gigantic propaganda campaign targeting U.S. citizens. Moreover, as can be seen by the recent attacks by Clinton and her allies in the media on Gabbard, they aren't easing up. ..."
"... Comey was a senior vice president for Lockheed Martin before returning to Washington ..."
"... Excuse me, the voting going on up there for sanctions on Russia for various bogus things has been pretty much unanimous and bipartisan. ..."
The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their
wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.
– Arundhati Roy
Last week, Hillary Clinton called Tulsi Gabbard (and Jill Stein) Russian agents on a podcast. More
specifically :
"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on someone who's currently in the Democratic primary and
are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She's the favorite of the Russians," said Clinton, apparently referring to Rep.
Gabbard, who's been accused of receiving support from Russian bots and the Russian news media. "They have a bunch of sites and
bots and other ways of supporting her so far." She added: "That's assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because
she's also a Russian asset. Yeah, she's a Russian asset -- I mean, totally. They know they can't win without a third-party candidate.
So I don't know who it's going to be, but I will guarantee you they will have a vigorous third-party challenge in the key states
that they most needed."
Tulsi subsequently responded to this slanderous accusation with a series of devastating blows.
Her tweets set off a firestorm, and even if you're as disillusioned by presidential politics as myself, you couldn't help but
cheer wildly that someone with a major political platform finally stated without any hint of fear or hesitation exactly what so many
Americans across the ideological spectrum feel.
Of course, this has far wider implications than a high profile feud between these two. The "let's blame Russia for Hillary's loss"
epidemic of calculated stupidity driven by Ellen-Democrats and their mouthpieces across corporate mass media began immediately after
the election. I know about it on a personal level because this website was an early target of the neoliberal-led new McCarthyism
courtesy of a ridiculous and libelous smear in the Washington Post over Thanksgiving weekend 2016 (see:
Liberty Blitzkrieg Included on Washington Post Highlighted Hit List of "Russian Propaganda" Websites) .
This is when it became clear it wasn't just political operatives pushing fake news about Russian influence, but that "respected"
mass media would be leading the charge for them. The rest is pretty much history. MSNBC, CNN, The Washington Post, etc have been
spewing outlandish Russiagate nonsense for three years straight, and despite the complete failure of special counsel Robert Mueller
to find any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, these agents of empire refuse to stop. The whole charade seems more akin to an intelligence
operation than journalism, which shouldn't be surprising given the proliferation of former intelligence agents throughout mass media
in the Trump era.
Former CIA Director
John Brennan
(2013-17) is the latest superspook to be reborn as a TV newsie. He just
cashed in at
NBC News as a "senior national security and intelligence analyst" and served his first expert views on last Sunday's edition of
Meet the Press .
The Brennan acquisition seeks to elevate NBC to spook parity with CNN, which employs former Director of National Intelligence
James Clapper and former CIA Director
Michael Hayden
in a similar capacity.
Other, lesser-known national security veterans thrive under TV's grow lights. Almost too numerous to list, they include
Chuck Rosenberg
, former acting DEA administrator, chief of staff for FBI Director James B. Comey, and
counselor to former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III;
Frank Figliuzzi , former chief of FBI counterintelligence;
Juan Zarate , deputy national security adviser under Bush, at NBC; and
Fran
Townsend , homeland security adviser under Bush, at CBS News.
CNN's bulging roster also includes former FBI agent Asha Rangappa
; former FBI agent James Gagliano
; Obama's former deputy national security adviser
Tony Blinken ; former House
Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers ; senior
adviser to the National Security Council during the Obama administration
Samantha Vinograd ; retired CIA operations officer
Steven L. Hall; and
Philip Mudd , also retired from the CIA.
Americans like to sneer at more transparently unfree societies around the world, but when you think about the disturbing implications
of former spooks delivering news to the public, one can't help but conclude that mass media in 2019 looks like a gigantic propaganda
campaign targeting U.S. citizens. Moreover, as can be seen by the recent attacks by Clinton and her allies in the media on Gabbard,
they aren't easing up.
Which brings us to the crux of the issue. Why are they doing this? Why is Clinton, with zero evidence whatsoever, falsely calling
a sitting U.S. Congresswoman, a veteran with two tours in Iraq, and someone polling at only 2% in the Democratic primary a "Russian
asset." Why are they so afraid of Tulsi Gabbard?
It's partly personal. Tulsi was one of only a handful of congressional Democrats to set aside fears of the Clintons and their
mafia-like network to endorse Bernie Sanders early in 2016. In fact, she
stepped
down from her position as vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee to do so. This is the sort of thing a petty narcissist
like Hillary Clinton could never forgive, but it goes further.
Tulsi's mere presence on stage during recent debates has proven devastating for the Ellen Degeneres wing of the Democratic party.
She effectively ended neoliberal darling Kamala Harris' chances by simply telling the truth about her horrible record, something
no one else in the race had the guts to do.
In other words, Tulsi demolished Kamala Harris and put an end to her primary chances by simply telling the truth about her on
national television. This is how powerful the truth can be when somebody's actually willing to stand up and say it. It's why the
agents of empire -- in charge of virtually all major institutions -- go out of their way to ensure the American public is exposed
to as little truth as possible. It's also why they lie and scream "Russia" instead of debating the actual issues.
But this goes well beyond Tulsi Gabbard. Empire requires constant meddling abroad as well as periodic regime change wars to ensure
compliant puppets are firmly in control of any country with any geopolitical significance. The 21st century has been littered with
a series of disastrous U.S. interventions abroad, while the country back home continues to descend deeper into a neo-feudal oligarchy
with a hunger games style economy. As such, an increasing number of Americans have begun to question the entire premise of imperial
foreign policy.
To the agents of empire, dominant throughout mainstream politics, mega corporations, think-tanks and of course mass media, this
sort of thought crime is entirely unacceptable. In case you haven't noticed, empire is a third-rail of U.S. politics. If you dare
touch the issue, you'll be ruthlessly smeared, without any evidence, as a Russian agent or asset. There's nothing logical about this,
but then again there typically isn't much logic when it comes to psychological operations. They depend on manipulation and triggering
specific emotional responses.
There's a reason people like Hillary Clinton and her minions just yell "Russia" whenever an individual with a platform criticizes
empire and endless war. They know they can't win an argument if they debate the actual issues, so a conscious choice was made to
simply avoid debate entirely. As such, they've decided to craft and spread a disingenuous narrative in which anyone critical of establishment
neocon/neoliberal foreign policy is a Russia asset/agent/bot. This is literally all they've got. These people are telling you 2+2=5
and if you don't accept it, you're a traitorous, Putin-loving nazi with a pee pee tape. And these same people call themselves "liberal."
Importantly, it isn't just a few trollish kooks doing this. It's being spread by some of the most powerful people and institutions
in the country, including of course mass media.
This inane verbal vomit is considered "liberal" news in modern America, a word which has now lost all meaning. Above, we witness
a collection of television mannequins questioning the loyalty of a U.S. veteran who continues to serve in both Congress and the national
guard simply because she dared call out America's perpetually failing foreign policy establishment.
To conclude, it's now clear dissent is only permitted so long as it doesn't become too popular. By polling at 2% in the primary,
it appears Gabbard became too popular, but the truth is she's just a vessel. What's really got the agents of empire concerned is
we may be on the verge of a tipping point within the broader U.S. population regarding regime change wars and empire. This is why
debate needs to be shut down and shut down now. A critical mass of citizens openly questioning establishment foreign policy cannot
be permitted. Those on the fence need to be bullied and manipulated into thinking dissent is equivalent to being a traitor. The national
security state doesn't want the public to even think about such topics, let alone debate them.
Ultimately, if you give up your capacity for reason, for free-thought and for the courage to say what you think about issues of
national significance, you've lost everything. This is what these manipulators want you to do. They want you to shut-up, to listen
to the "experts" who destroy everything they touch, and to be a compliant subject as opposed to an active, empowered citizen. The
answer to such a tactic is to be more bold, more informed and more ethical. They fear truth and empowered individuals more than anything
else. Stand up tall and speak your mind. Pandering to bullies never works.
* * *
Liberty Blitzkrieg is now 100% ad free. To make this a successful, sustainable thing consider the following options. You can become
a Patron . You can visit the
Support Page to donate via PayPal, Bitcoin
or send cash/check in the mail.
For those of us who grew up during the Cold War going to Russia is intense. I have never been so scared in my life as when
that plane touched down at Pulkovo 2. And I though Dulles was a shithole.
Russians love art and they have fantastic museums and fantastic architecture. Food is a bit sketchy but you can make do. No
fat women there that I saw. In fact, you will see some of the most beautiful women in the world there. Trust me on that.
Pelosi is smart enough to know that all roads lead to Putin. But is she smart enough to know that're not just American and
its 'allied' Western 'roads', but now its all the roads in the world.
Because the world finally understands that Putin is the only peacemaker on the scene. And that most of the disputes the international
community is saddled with are a direct result of American foreign policy and the excesses of its economy.
The world is tired of being dragged through Hell at the whim of a handful of American neocon devotees of Paul Wolfowitz and
the fallacious Wolfowitz Doctrine which was credited with having won the Cold War for the West and has been in effect ever since.
Except there seems to be some doubt now who actually won the Cold War with America scrambling to get out of Syria, leaving
behind a symbolic force of a couple of thousand troops.
That's the reason for everything that's going on America today. Russia, under Putin, has turned the tables on Congress, the
neocons, the warmongers, and those politicians and elite who want the Middle East and its vast reserves of oil to continue to
be destabilized by intranational, neighborly hatreds, by terrorism and by America's closest ally, Israel to continue to expand
its borders with its policy of settlements. This problematic situation is scrupulously avoided in America and the West's MSM,
and can only be seen in foreign media. Which brings us back to Putin.
Is he following the strategies of Sun Tzu, who advises you to
'appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak.'
'all warfare is based on deception'
'victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first then try to win.'
Hillary Clinton is obviously testing the waters for a last-minute, swoop-in candidacy. She sees Biden deflating and realizes
there's nobody to keep the Democratic nomination firmly in corporate hands. She wants them to beg her, though.
Without Russia, ASSAD would be long gone and IRAN would have been bombed to oblivion, and Greater Israhell would have been
fulfilled and ruling over the MidEast.
In other words, Russia bashing by Jewish-controlled politicians and in Jewish-controlled Western media
is simply PAYBACK .
I am a Russian Agent. Well, not formally but act as one. Only in elections though as Russia forbids (after losing 30 million
dead in WW2) any military or violent interference. Agent may be too strong a word as my actions reflect the beauty of Russian
literature, music and philosophy. (qv Kropotkin, Rimsky Korsakoff etc. etc.) Maybe a spokesman?
In this coming election vote for the agent of your choice. Gabbard, Trump, (Cackles, hang on and wait for this one) or Biden
( on whom we await a conversion). This agency stuff is fun. Can't wait.
The quid pro quo for many Deep State bureaucrats comes after they are no longer in office as typified by jobs as "experts"
with the corrupt news networks. Comey was a senior vice president for Lockheed Martin before returning to Washington.
Trump is outing them all and they are out to destroy him.
If the Russians are so bad, why did we give them our Uranium? Hillary and corrupt Washington Swamp dwellers in action. How
many in Congress opposed the deal? We need Trump to be reelected to Make America Great Again.
I remember in the 80's Democrats would mercilessly lampoon and make fun of Conservatives for their (at the time) hard-line
stance against the Soviet Union and how we should just get over it: peace, love and b*llsh*t. My how times have changed.
You need a scorecard to keep track these days. Barry lampooned Mitt for speaking against the Russians, like they were the 'good
guys' (ahem, 'tell Vlad' and Kills power reset button) Make up your ******* minds people.
Thank you for bringing my attention to Russia. Had it not been for your constant denunciations, I probably would never have
investigated that nation to the extent that I have, and that would have been my loss. Allow me to explain.
As a permanent student of human history and culture, I've traveled to, and studied many different nations, from Japan, China
and Thailand, to Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, but somehow I managed to completely miss Russia. Of course I was familiar
with the Western narrative concerning communism and the USSR - I grew up with that - but I never fully understood Russian culture
until, by your actions, you forced me to look into it.
I've since studied their history intently, and have studied their language to the point where I can at least make myself understood.
I've spoken to Russian expats, read numerous books, watched their TV shows, listened to their music, and have kept a close eye
on current events, including the coup in Ukraine and Russia's response to that event. At this point I feel well enough prepared
to travel to Russia and I'm looking forward to my upcoming trip with great anticipation.
I operate on the basic premise that I'm nobody special - that there are thousands of people just like me with a deep interest
in human affairs, who, like myself, have been prompted to investigate a culture that, for various reasons, has been largely overlooked
in the West. So, on my own and their behalf I thank you for providing the impetus to focus our attention in that regard. It's
probably not what you intended, but it is what it is. Thanks to you, many hundreds, if not thousands of people have now undertaken
a study of Russia and her people, and that can only be a good thing, as the more we know about each other, the less we have to
fear, and the less likely we are to come into conflict with one another.
Bravo well written and right on the mark. If Tulsi wasn't a gun grabber and openly supported the 2nd Amendment she would be
a front runner, only a few steps behind Trump. And by the way, don't trust those 2% Polls. We all know the polls are pure ********.
When one Colonel Gary Powers was shot down in his USAF U2 spy plane in 1960 and captured alive he was asked by his then KGB
interrogators what the difference was between the Republican and Democratic parties.......and he admitted to being at a loss to
explain that there was any fundamental difference at all.
Therein lies the root problem with the American political system. All through the process it arrives at the same outcomes and
it doesnt matter who you vote for.
It could be argued that it is in effect a one party system as both are indistinguishable from each other ultimately as they
push the America PLC agenda.
The entire system is held captive by secretive and "invisible" unelected groups who call the shots and if you push too hard
they have you killed one way or another.....all the esoteric secret societies of any significance are represented.
The question therefore is this; Is America any different to China other than the wallpaper coverings?
To paraphrase Mark Twain; If voting really mattered they wouldn't let you do it.
Those on the fence need to be bullied and manipulated into thinking dissent is equivalent to being a traitor
This is true with Trumptards on this comments board. They unquestionably follow lies, manipulative, and hollow Trump doctrine
without thinking.
Just yesterday there was and idiot spewing out that 'Assange was treasonous' before engaging his cerebral matter to realise
you cannot be a traitor against a country that's not yours.
Easy ;-) Weaken the Deep State (aka drain the swamp). Remove three factors driving
impeachment: Obama mafia, Clintons mafia and Brennan mafia. Neutralizing them probably mean
(imperfect but workable) vaccine against impeachment derangement.
The author does not understand that neoliberal coup d'état against Trump is driven by
the burning desire to kick the can down the road and ignore the crisi of neoliberalism that led
to Trump election (as well as Brexit and Orban in Europe)
Notable quotes:
"... The idea that Americans are steps away from squaring off across the field at Gettysburg is something that should only exist in satire. It would be hilarious, except that such fantasizing is influencing the actual future of our country. We have crossed a line where rationality is in the rearview mirror. Most of us have lost track of the constitutional crises that have never actually happened since the first one was declared, over the non-issue of Trump losing the popular vote in 2016. ..."
"... What was it last week? Sharpiegate? Or the hotel in Scotland? Or an impeding war with Iran/North Korea/China? Or treason? Or something about security clearances? The Kurds were a thing in 2017 and again now. Paul Krugman of the New York Times first declared that Trump was going to destroy the economy in 2016 , and has written the same article regularly ever since, most recently just last week . It doesn't seem to matter that none of these things have actually proven to be true. Learned people are saying them again and again. ..."
"... It wasn't supposed to be this way. The fantasy was to use Robert Mueller's summer testimony about Trump being a literal Russian asset to stir up the masses -- Mueller Time, Baby! Congress would go home for August recess to be bombarded by cries for impeachment, and then autumn would feature hearings and revelations amplified by the Blue Check harpies leading up to, well, something big. ..."
"... Desperation makes for poor strategy. Think back just two weeks and no one had heard of any of this. Yet Dems and the media took America from zero to 100 nearly overnight as if this was another 9/11. With the winter caucuses approaching, Dems in search of a crime groped at something half slipped under the door and half bundled up by clever lawyers to be slipped under the door. Mueller was a lousy patsy so a better one needed to be found in the shallow end of the Deep State pool. It wasn't much but it was going to have to be made good enough. ..."
"... The details will come out and they will stink. The first whistleblower had some sort of prior working relationship with a current 2020 Democrat. Given that he is a CIA analyst, that suggests a member of Vice President Biden's White House team, Cory Booker's Committee on Foreign Relations, or maybe Kamala Harris's Select Committee on Intelligence. ..."
"... The so-called second whistleblower appears to actually be one of the sources for the first whistleblower. That's a feedback loop , an old CIA trick where you create the appearance of a credible source by providing your own confirming source. It was tried with the Steele Dossier where the original text given to the FBI appeared to be backed up by leaks filtered through the media and John McCain's office. ..."
"... It is easy to lose one's sense of humor over all this. It is easy to end up like Ginsberg at the end of his poem, muttering to strangers at what a mess this had all become: "Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! To solitude!" But me, I don't think it's funny at all. ..."
"... And of course MSNBC hires Brennan whose CIA spied on Congress when it was investigating torture. No principles here at all. ..."
"... When they put State power brokers over the will of the people and love of country, it equals Ideology. What they really worship is the ideology itself. All of the various actors are just tools in service of that cause. ..."
"... a lot of the call was about Crowd Strike, not that anyone noticed ..."
"... The Democrats are doing the impossible by making Trump look good by comparison. ..."
"... As I think we all have come to understand, the Swamp is disconnected from mainstreet, [it is] a world all its own. Point being, neither side realizes most Americans have tuned this whole issue out. Two years of Russia gate led to exhaustion. My bigger concern going forward after Americans get a chance to vote in 2020, is, is this how we are destined to be governed ? ..."
"... Bush, Obama, and Trump have all committed vastly larger crimes and in our twisted political culture these don’t matter. Remember when centrist liberals claimed to care about torture and war under false pretenses? ..."
"... And all these former intelligence goons like Brennan are embraced on the liberal cable networks, even if the now beloved intelligence community tortured prisoners, lied about it, and spied on Congress. ..."
"... Had DT used withheld military aid to strong-arm Ukraine to do something in the national interest, then it would have been business as usual. Everyone expects a President to wheel, deal, lie and cheat for the nation. ..."
"... The public knew what Trump was about from the very beginning. That he was bumptious, impetuous, always shooting from the hip and often saying stupid things. And yet he was nominated by one of the two major parties, then turned around and beat the candidate of the other major party. What does that say about this country, other than its citizens elected a real estate businessman turned TV star with no political experience whatsover as president ..."
"... It's all a diversion (among many others) from what we should all be talking and doing something about anyway. It's all part of a sick game the global elites entertain and enrich themselves with. ..."
"... 'Once intelligent people are talking about actual civil war in America' - Peter van Buren, Oct 14, 2019 'We should have a revolution in this country!' - Donald Trump, Nov 6th, 2012 ..."
Can any of the Democratic candidates pull America back from this
madness?
Once intelligent people are talking about actual civil war in America. This
began after Trump
retweeted a pastor saying impeachment would cause a "civil war-like fracture in this
Nation." Never mind that it was a retweet, and never mind that the original statement used
"like" to make a comparison. The next headline was
set: Trump Threatens Civil War If He's Impeached. Newsweek
quoted a Harvard Law professor saying that the "threat" alone made Trump impeachable.
Another
headline asked: "If Trump's Rage Brings Civil War, Where Will the Military Stand?"
Blowing up some online nonsense into a declaration of war tracks with the meme that Trump
will
refuse to leave office if defeated in 2020, or will declare himself
the winner even if he loses, sending coded messages
to armed minions. "Trump Is Going to Burn Down Everything and Everyone," reads the headline
from a NASDAQ-listed media
outlet . "Before Trump will allow himself to be chased from the temple, he'll bring it
down,"
wroteTheNew York Times.
That's just what the MSM is saying; it gets worse the further off the
road you drive . "Trump
is going to try everything, Fox is going to try everything, and they're going to both further
the injuring of societal reality and inspire dangerous individuals to kill and maim," Jared
Yates Sexton, a well-known academic, tweeted on
September 28 . "There's a vast number of people in this, people who have been taught their
whole lives that they might need to kill in case of a coup or corrupt takeover," he continued.
"Trump and Republicans signal to them constantly. They're more than ready to see this as the
occasion."
The idea that Americans are steps away from squaring off across the field at Gettysburg
is something that should only exist in satire. It would be hilarious, except that such
fantasizing is influencing the actual future of our country. We have crossed a line where
rationality is in the rearview mirror. Most of us have lost track of the constitutional crises
that have never actually happened since the first one was declared, over the non-issue of Trump
losing the popular vote in 2016.
What was it last week? Sharpiegate? Or the hotel in Scotland? Or an impeding war with
Iran/North Korea/China? Or treason? Or something about security clearances? The Kurds were a
thing in
2017 and again now. Paul Krugman of the New York Times first declared that Trump was going
to destroy the economy in
2016 , and has written the same article regularly ever since, most recently just last
week . It doesn't seem to matter that none of these things have actually proven to be true.
Learned people are
saying them again and again.
Those who oppose Trump have convinced themselves they must impeach for something , and if
all of Russiagate (remember that? It's like Aunt Edna's brief failed marriage, only not
mentioned at the dinner table) wasn't enough, then Democrats will impeach over a phone call to
a minor world leader.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. The fantasy was to use Robert Mueller's summer
testimony about Trump being a literal Russian asset to stir up the masses -- Mueller Time,
Baby! Congress would go home for August recess to be bombarded by cries for impeachment, and
then autumn would feature hearings and revelations amplified by the Blue Check harpies leading
up to, well, something big.
Were rationality still in vogue, it would be hard to imagine that Democrats would consider
the Ukraine call impeachable. But they closed out Russiagate like the OJ Simpson murder trial,
certain Trump had gotten away with so much that they had to catch him at something else to make
it even.
Desperation makes for poor strategy. Think back just two weeks and no one had heard of
any of this. Yet Dems and the media took America from zero to 100 nearly overnight as if this
was another 9/11. With the winter caucuses approaching, Dems in search of a crime groped at
something half slipped under the door and half
bundled up by clever lawyers to be slipped under the door. Mueller was a lousy patsy so a
better one needed to be found in the shallow end of the Deep State pool. It wasn't much but it
was going to have to be made good enough.
The details will come out and they will stink. The
first whistleblower had some sort of prior working relationship with a current 2020
Democrat. Given that he is a CIA analyst, that suggests a member of Vice President Biden's
White House team, Cory Booker's Committee on Foreign Relations, or maybe Kamala Harris's Select
Committee on Intelligence.
The so-called
second whistleblower appears to actually be one of the sources for the first whistleblower.
That's a
feedback loop , an old CIA trick where you create the appearance of a credible source by
providing your own confirming source. It was tried with the
Steele Dossier where the original text given to the FBI appeared to be backed up by leaks
filtered through the media and John McCain's office.
So forget everything about this cooked-to-order crisis except the actual thing impeachment
would turn on: the transcript of Trump's call. It does not matter what one, two, or 200
whistleblowers, former Obama officials, or talking heads "
think " about the call. There it is, the actual words, all pink and naked on the Internet
for everyone to read. Ukraine did not investigate Biden. Trump did not withhold aid. The
attorney general was
not involved. DOJ ruled there was
no violation of the law. It has little to do with Pompeo or Pence (though Pompeo was
on the call ). You and the Congress pretty much have it all in the transcript. It's
bathroom reading,
five pages .
Only a few months ago, the Democrats' drive to the White House began with the loftiest of
ideals, albeit a hodgepodge from trans toilet "rights" to a 100 percent makeover of the health
care system. It is now all about vengeance, clumsy and grossly partisan at that, gussied up as
"saving democracy." Our media is dominated by angry Hillary refighting 2016 and "joking" about
running again, with Adam Schiff now the face of the party for 2020. The war of noble intentions
has devolved into Pelosi's March to the Sea. Any chance for a Democratic candidate to reach
into the dark waters and pull America to where she can draw breath again and heal has been
lost.
Okay, deep breath myself. A couple of times a week, I walk past the café where Allen Ginsberg, the Beat
poet, often wrote. His most famous poem, Howl , begins, "I saw the best minds of my generation
destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked." The walk is a good leveler, a reminder that
madness (Trump Derangement in modern terminology) is not new in politics.
But Ginsberg wrote in a time when one could joke about coded messages -- before the Internet
came into being to push tailored ticklers straight into people's brains. I'll take my relief in
knowing that almost everything Trump and others write, on Twitter and in the Times ,
is designed simply to get attention and getting our attention today requires ever louder and
crazier stuff. What will get us to look up anymore? Is that worth playing with fire over?
It is easy to lose one's sense of humor over all this. It is easy to end up like
Ginsberg at the end of his poem, muttering to strangers at what a mess this had all become:
"Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade
farewell! They jumped off the roof! To solitude!" But me, I don't think it's funny at
all.
You are the idiot if you think Peter doesn't know what the Mem-Con was. He was one of the
first to explain exactly how the process works. It's as close to an actual recording as it
gets and all parties sign off on the "Memo Of Communication" stating it's accurate before
it's saved.The idiots are the ones who think it's not accurate, grasping at straws doesn't
help you. But it does serve to make a point, YOU like bobbleheaded Shift realize that the
Transcript, as it stands, does not point to anything illegal so you like Shift make stuff up.
Each and every time you guys make the claim that it's not a real transcript it's a
admission that even YOU don't think what's in the call is illegal. Think about that one for a
second.
OH and you can claim that he did it to "punish his political opponents" all you like,
that's just spin, just as anyone can much more easily spin this as Trump's duty to find out.
Anything that requires mindreading isn't actual evidence and the "spin" in this case is
exactly that. Unless you crawl into his head you don't know if he did it to hurt Biden or
Help America, so either way we are left with his call as the only real evidence, the one you
yourself think was altered to the point where it no longer shows wrongdoing.
It’s clear that you are suffering from the Impeachment Derangement Virus as mentioned
in the article.
The President’s calls to world leaders were being leaked all throughout the
beginning of his presidency. That is a national security issue and so they added an extra
layer of security using a password protected system that had been used by previous
administrations. Your fantasy about the contents “alarming staffers” is absolute
nonsense because even in the “whistleblower” statement it states that other calls
to world leaders were also being put into this secured system. The fact that other calls are
being put into this system shows just how delusional your fantasy about this call being
special in some way, truly is.
As for the texts, as the author stated the opinion of what a diplomat THINKS is the
motivation is proof of absolutely nothing especially when that diplomat is told point blank
in the next text that his opinion is not factual.
Rational people understand all this. Those with Impeachment Derangement Virus do not.
DT is a populist, in an age where politics is all about withholding from the people what they
most want, because the people's instincts are deemed by the liberal consensus to be too
"deplorable" to follow.
Another great example is Brexit. The elite made the foolish mistake of asking the people of
the country what they wanted, and have spent 3 years tying things in ridiculous knots to
avoid the outcome the people voted to have.
Trump won the game according to the game's rules, but if you're gonna start opining about
what "The People" want, it kinda seems like you need to at least start by addressing the part
where millions more of The People voted for Trump's opponent.
Trump is not a populist, he is an opportunist and a nationalist who wants everyone to
recognize his greatness.
He is using the rubes to that end, he doesn’t care what happens to you.
DT ran as a populist and is unpopular. HC ran as a technocrat and her political machine
broke. Therefore both lost in 2016, in ways most personally humiliating to each.
This cloak and dagger nonsense is all about trying to give an air of authority to this
ridiculous plot to impeach Trump. This issue does however show just how disturbingly far left
the USA has become, when leftists worship spy chiefs as the ultimate authority figures.
To all the leftists here that think that people like Clapper or Brennan are in any way
respected or in any way seen as legitimate, think again.
Broadly speaking the Left doesn't trust the intelligence community or the police any further
it can throw them. It says something about the sad state of affairs we are in that the Left
is now supporting its traditional enemy in order to save the Republic from the traitorous
ra*ist the Right has put in the White House.
Sorry, but no. Trump is a terrible human being, but that broad left you speak of is composed
of mainstream centrist liberals and various people further left. Centrist liberals have
demonstrated no moral consistency on the crimes committed by the intelligence community or
the interventionist state in general.
They claimed to be outraged by such things during the
Bush era, then forgot about them or even switched sides when Obama came in. They
wouldn’t dream of impeaching Bush for war crimes ( and become furious when
Obama’s are pointed out) but they think Trump’s use of the office to obtain dirt
on Biden is a matter of principle. Think about that. War crimes are trivial. Look forward,
not back. The use of Trump’s powers to obtain dirt against Biden— not acceptable.
And of course MSNBC hires Brennan whose CIA spied on Congress when it was investigating
torture. No principles here at all.
How many times did you hear "seventeen intelligence agencies proven it! ZOMG!" while the
RussiaGate conspiracy theory was au courant?
For that matter, I was frequently treated to the spectacle of Team D partisans insisting
that any questioning of "our intelligence community" was ipso facto "treason".
As if it were our patriotic duty to unquestioningly accept anonymous statements from
perjurers (NSA), torturers (CIA) and entrapment artists (FBI) all with a long track record of
lying and talking about supposed evidence that we are not allowed to see.
When they put State power brokers over the will of the people and love of country, it equals
Ideology. What they really worship is the ideology itself. All of the various actors are just
tools in service of that cause.
Laughing Well,
you might want to actually read those messages . . . seeing them is one thing reading them
is another. If i were a democratic supporter --- you bet i would be alarmed.
The cat is getting of the bag and the cat is covered in unsavory behavior by the state
department and the supporters of the Ukrainian revolution against a democratic state and ally
of the US.
A cabal that nearly sent the Ukraine into a complete civil war ----- encourage and
participated in by the previous admin. under the direct leadership of the Sec of State, Madam
Hillary Clinton.
Its very damning but who is damned was not in office at the time.
Quiz for the day:
Does this “whistleblower” even exist? Or is it a composite creation of the
CIA, Schiff and Co?
Did Schiff and friends turn ghostly white when Trump called their bluff by releasing the
transcript?
Is Pelosi’s new found reticence a result of her self annoyance that she let herself
get talked into this new debacle and payback is to let Schiff shift in the wind dangling over
the thought that no one in the CIA wants to walk the plank for him?
Do the Democrats and their allies in the deep state increasingly look like the Keystone
Kops?
What is referred to commonly as the “transcript” is a U.S. government memorandum
of conversation. Over the course of my 24 years at the State Department I saw and wrote many
of them as the official record of conversations. At the White House level, voice recognition
software is used to help transcribe what is being said, even as one or more trained note
takers are at work. Afterwards the people who listened to the call have to sign off on the
accuracy and completeness of the document. It is the final word on what was said in that
call.
though in a less forward manner the policies of candidates, including foreign policies and
their implications are always at issue regarding selection.
It may be unseemly to have it brazenly broadcast, but illegal -- not. The real question
here is whether members of the democratic and republican party solicit, incite, encourage a
violent revolution in the Ukraine against a democratic ally of the US and in so doing,
encourage and engage in graft, theft or illegal influence, such as demanding the removal of a
prosecutor attempting to regain some stability and investigative power into how that
incitement corrupted and disrupted Ukrainian politics. In otherwords, have member of the US
colluded with certain forces in the Ukraine to over throw a democratically elected
government, that the international community and the Ukrainians indicated was fair. This
activity goes well beyond supplying weapons and post posters, but involved bribing, and
removing government officials. Unlike the consideration in Iran, which was an inside coupe,
the Ukrainnian affair seems to have been led and run by the US and Europeans, political,
economic and intelligence members. And it seems to include a company that used similar
tactics in the US to incite suspcion by using falsified computer data, accuasations of
hacking in an attempt to falsey accuse the US candidate of colluding with the Russians
because part of his agenda was to reduce tensions in between, the Ukraine, Russia and the
US.
And peaceful negotiations threatened to uncover those violations of international law by
members of the US and Eurpoean communities in which US citizens used the unstable environment
in the Ukraine which they fostered to engage in graft.
Could not have said it better myself. We are truly in bizzaro-World.
The Bidens are scooping
up as much IMF (read American) cash as they can in Ukraine with some more on the side in
China, and all the shrieking is about Trump who asked the leader of a country, to cooperate
in investigating an ongoing criminal investigation (a lot of the call was about Crowd Strike,
not that anyone noticed).
We have a treaty with Ukraine which obligates exactly that. The
Biden's activity is about as bald a case of corruption and bribe-taking as one could imagine.
Barr is investigating the nauseating deep-state origins of Russia-gate, but in today's World
I'm not that confident that the truth will ever come out. Trump is stupid, but his enemies
are far, far worse.
The rabid drivel dripping from the mouths of the lib-Dem-media regarding Trump's supposed
existential threat to the universe -- complete with idiotic hysteria about refusing to leave
office and so forth -- is yet another example of their habit of projection, namely accusing
others of tactics and threats that they themselves routinely employ.
They're the ones who refused to accept the results of the 2016 election, after their
criminal attempt to subvert the campaign of one of the candidates, and they've put us through
three years of what Peter Van Buren correctly calls "madness" ever since -- like 3-year olds
rolling on the floor kicking and screaming because they didn't get their way.
They've got the media, the Ruling Class, the Deep State, and most of the power brokers on
their side, and yet laughably portray themselves as victims and targets of oppression. They
are doing serious damage to this country and they are worthy of contempt, which is what I
feel for them.
The Democrats are doing the impossible by making Trump look good by comparison. When Trump
finally wakes up to the fact that his opponents will never relent until he is in jail, along
with his family, he will respond in ways that will abrogate what little remains of this
constitutional democracy. Many will support him because of the opposition's overreach. Will
it rise to the level of a civil war? Will millions take to the streets if Adam Schiff is
jailed for treason? I doubt it. That's the hole the Democrats are digging for themselves and
the country.
As I think we all have come to understand, the Swamp is disconnected from mainstreet, [it is] a
world all its own. Point being, neither side realizes most Americans have tuned this whole
issue out. Two years of Russia gate led to exhaustion. My bigger concern going forward after
Americans get a chance to vote in 2020, is, is this how we are destined to be governed ?
I think that in the desire to attack this column about Ukrainegate, people ignored the
earlier point, which is that some liberals are unhinged. Go back and read it. I think that
part is right.
I also think Trump tried to use his office to obtain dirt on a political foe, which is
impeachable imo. But here is my problem.
Bush, Obama, and Trump have all committed vastly
larger crimes and in our twisted political culture these don’t matter. Remember when
centrist liberals claimed to care about torture and war under false pretenses? That is long
gone. Bush is a lovable figure now. Centrist liberals never did care about Obama’s
crimes—drone strikes, Yemen, arming terrorists in Syria. They are more likely to
despise whistleblowers like Snowden than care about mass surveillance. Trump’s war in
Yemen was ignored by most liberals until Khashoggi’s murder and then many of them
seriously seem to think Trump started it. It still doesn’t interest them that much. You
can’t impeach Trump for complicity in genocide without looking at what other Presidents
have done, so best focus on Ukrainegate.
And all these former intelligence goons like Brennan are embraced on the liberal cable
networks, even if the now beloved intelligence community tortured prisoners, lied about it,
and spied on Congress.
Oh, I forgot one thing. As shoddy as Trump’s behavior is, notice how we just accept
that we should be arming yet another side in what is in part a civil war in the Ukraine.
That’s just what we do.
I am not defending conservatives. Most conservatives, with some honorable exceptions, are
worse. But the whole political system is run by competing morally repugnant factions.
Excuse me,
a little integrity is in order here ----- The current president inherited these wars, and while he must take responsibility for them
during his tenure, they aren't his.
And oddly enough as much as I opposed the previous executive, They weren't a part of his
agenda until he chose interventionists as part his admin. He owns them lock stock and barrel
-- he should have declined to add Sec Clinton and her interventionists.
The issue with outsiders is that in attempts to placate insiders derails their agenda.
Which, if it's even true, is germane to a blatant attempt to leverage and extort them into doing so... why?
"Trump did not withhold aid."
Trump absolutely did withhold aid, until conspicuously releasing that hold for unstated reasons a couple of days after
learning of the whistleblower communicating with Congress. I guess his concerns about "corruption" just suddenly evaporated,
said the ostrich to the hole.
"The attorney general was not involved."
That remains to be seen, though...
"DOJ ruled there was no violation of the law."
...he still has plenty of ways to try and shield his client. I like how you offer this, like Bill Barr's DOJ has a shred of
credibility for objective application of the law right now.
"It has little to do with Pompeo or Pence (though Pompeo was on the call)."
How on Earth do you know this? There's growing evidence that Pence absolutely WAS in-the-know to some extent, and Pompeo is
actively assisting with the WH attempts to stonewall the unambiguous, Constitutionally granted impeachment powers of the
House, by telling his employees not to respect lawful subpoenas for testimony and documents.
It must give TAC writers like Larison heartburn to see Peter's terrible arguments so prominently displayed on the website
every week.
What this article fails to appreciate is that the majority of Americans are suffering from
Trumpzaustion. We are tired of the daily barrage of tweets, corruption, graft,
patronage, incompetence, incivility, lies, emoluments, edicts by Tweet, destruction of
alliances, lies, racism, sexism, obstinacy, impulsive executive decisions that turn sour,
disregard for science and expertise generally, lies, nepotism, narcissism, vulgarity,
hypocrisy, and did I mention lies?
This administration is annoying, costing many of us time and treasure, and like a migraine
headache, we just want it to go away.
Yes, the media and Democrats want to degrade any Republican Politician's powers by any means
necessary. They have done that to all past Republican Presidents going back to Nixon.
On the other hand, Trump gives them all of the ammo that they need to promote their
narrative. He is a caricature of the narcissistic, corrupt, crony capitalist Republican that
the media loves to sell to the public.
For crying out loud, the very next day after the Mueller probe ended, Trump appeared to
try to pressure a foreign nation to help him get reelected. If you don't recognize that Trump
gives his enemies ammo by his own reckless behaviour, then you may be in denial.
Had DT used withheld military aid to strong-arm Ukraine to do something in the national
interest, then it would have been business as usual. Everyone expects a President to
wheel, deal, lie and cheat for the nation. But the favors he extorted from Ukraine were personal . That's not in the unwritten rules.
Trump is being impeached for doing the wrong quid pro quo. This is the world we
live in.
The public knew what Trump was about from the very beginning. That he was bumptious,
impetuous, always shooting from the hip and often saying stupid things. And yet he was
nominated by one of the two major parties, then turned around and beat the candidate of the
other major party. What does that say about this country, other than its citizens elected a
real estate businessman turned TV star with no political experience whatsover as president.
A
"cri de coeur?" Perhaps. This thing of ours doesn't work anymore . There are a lot of things
wrong with this country but one thing seems increasingly and disturbingly clear: our system
of government, which was put into place via a document written in the late 18th century is
not responsive to the needs of the 21st. So much needs to be changed, starting with:
1.) De-emphasizing the office of Presidency, which has increasingly become more a source
of entertainment rather than enlightenment (to the extent that ANY president has ever been
"enlightened"). There was a very good reason why the first article of the US Constitution
refers to the legislature and not to the executive (or, for that matter, to the
judiciary).
2.) Instituting a multi-party system rather than the current farce--which has long since
become archaic.
Perhaps the time has at last come for a second Constitutional Convention, because the
rules no longer fit the game. A constitution prepared in 1787 when the US was still an
agrarian society consisting of 13 states from Maine to Florida and from the Atlantic seaboard
to the Alleghenies with a total population of less than 4 million may simply not be
responsive to the US of 2019, an advanced, information based, society consisting of 330
million (and counting) situated on a land mass of nearly 3.8 million square miles. Either we
may have to re-think what it means to govern ourselves in the 21st century or--and I shudder
at the thought-- perhaps the concept of what we call "the United States of America" may no
longer be tenable.
It was, after all is said and done, only meant to be an experiment.
"So forget everything about this cooked-to-order crisis except the actual thing impeachment
would turn on: the transcript of Trump’s call. It does not matter what one, two, or 200
whistleblowers, former Obama officials, or talking heads “think” about the call.
There it is, the actual words, all pink and naked on the Internet for everyone to read.
Ukraine did not investigate Biden. Trump did not withhold aid. The attorney general was not
involved. DOJ ruled there was no violation of the law. It has little to do with Pompeo or
Pence (though Pompeo was on the call). You and the Congress pretty much have it all in the
transcript. It’s bathroom reading, five pages."
How dare you suggest reality be considered on this matter. And it may be more ironic than
what went on before --- but there are plenty of places and reasons to find humor --
even if the humor is the result of tragedy.
"“Before Trump will allow himself to be chased from the temple, he’ll bring it
down,” wrote The New York Times."
Laughing.
Now there's an interesting reference --- Samson in the Temple ---
I couldn't give a bucket of methane emitting cow dung whether Trump is impeached or not. It's all a diversion (among many
others) from what we should all be talking and doing something about anyway. It's all part of a sick game the global elites entertain and enrich themselves with.
Have a gander at this recent interview by Greg Hunter and Dr. Paul Craig Roberts -
https://usawatchdog.com/oli... - I may not agree with all of the conclusions the good Dr.
has drawn but a lot of what he says does have a ring of truth to it based on my own
independent research into a various aspects of our so-called civilization.
Unfortunately for the Dems, not one of them has one tenth of Trump's charisma and ability to
campaign. He doesn't need to be right all the time, his personality will carry him through,
and the more the Dems plot, the smaller they look. Is there anyone in world to put him in the
shade?
'Once intelligent people are talking about actual civil war in America' - Peter van Buren,
Oct 14, 2019
'We should have a revolution in this country!' - Donald Trump, Nov 6th, 2012
"... Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018, was hired in February, while Sean Misko, an NSC aide until 2017, joined Schiff's committee staff in August, the same month the whistleblower submitted his complaint . ..."
"... The whistleblower was an NSC official who worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and who has expertise in Ukraine, the Washington Examiner has reported . ..."
"... later emerged that a member of his staff had spoken to the whistleblower before his complaint was submitted on Aug. 12. The Washington Post concluded that Schiff "clearly made a statement that was false. ..."
"... Schiff was essentially running an illegal spy operation against the White House, recruiting his staffers, having them recruit their whistleblowers, grooming them up, changing the rules so they could file their complaints, and then lying that they knew anything about the lunatic efforts to get President Trump impeached. See, they were just standing there, minding their own business when all this stuff happened. Everything that did happen was just...a coincidence. ..."
"... Trump's been having a bad time with public opinion in the wake of the Schiff operation orchestrating the media coverage as well. But the facts on the ground suggest it was all an illegal spying operation on the president. ..."
"... It's an abuse of his office, for sure, given that Schiff is supposed to be focused on intelligence ..."
"... Image credit: Caricature by Donkey Hotey via Flickr , CC BY-SA 2.0 . ..."
"... Schiff was essentially running an illegal spy operation against the White House, recruiting his staffers, having them recruit their whistleblowers, grooming them up, changing the rules so they could file their complaints, and then lying that they knew anything about the lunatic efforts to get President Trump impeached. See, they were just standing there, minding their own business when all this stuff happened. Everything that did happen was just...a coincidence. ..."
Seems every day brings a new revelation about Democratic efforts to rig an impeachment of
the president. The false claims and astonishing conflicts of interest being thrown out there
are piling up fast.
The latest, from the San Francisco Examiner, exposes House Intelligence Committee chairman
Adam Schiff's choice of staffers, who it turns out were
two disgruntled Deep-Staters from the White House
who had actually worked with the
so-called "whistleblower":
Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018,
was hired in February,
while Sean Misko, an NSC aide until 2017, joined Schiff's
committee staff in August, the same month the whistleblower submitted
his
complaint
.
The whistleblower was an NSC official who worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and
who has expertise in Ukraine,
the Washington Examiner has reported
.
A career CIA analyst with Ukraine expertise, the whistleblower aired his concerns about a
phone conversation
between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to
a House Intelligence Committee aide on Schiff's staff. He had previously informed the CIA's
legal counsel's office.
Schiff
initially denied
he knew anything about the complaint before it was filed, stating on
Sep. 17: "We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to."
But it
later emerged that a member of his staff
had spoken to
the whistleblower before his complaint was submitted on Aug. 12. The
Washington Post
concluded that
Schiff "clearly made a statement that was false.
"
Grace, 36,
was hired
to help Schiff's committee investigate the Trump White House. That month, Trump
accused Schiff
of
"stealing people who work at White House." Grace
worked at the NSC
from 2016 to 2018 in
U.S.-China relations and
then briefly
at the Center for a New American
Security think tank, which
was founded by
two former senior Obama administration officials.
So these people were all buddies beforehand, and this would explain why the so-called
whistleblower had been sneaking around with Schiff's staff before he made his whistleblower
complaint.
And that came only after someone with influence was able to get the inspector general of the
Intelligence Community (IGIC) to change the rules about whistleblowers needing no firsthand
knowledge about the wrongdoing they were supposedly reporting. Once that rules change was put
into place, the whistleblower got going.
More and more, this sounds like a pre-planned setup. One Trump operative has a very good
summary of what seems to have been really going on as these anything but exculpatory stories
mount:
Schiff was essentially running an illegal spy operation against the White House, recruiting
his staffers, having them recruit their whistleblowers, grooming them up, changing the rules so
they could file their complaints, and then lying that they knew anything about the lunatic
efforts to get President Trump impeached. See, they were just standing there, minding their own
business when all this stuff happened. Everything that did happen was just...a coincidence.
Experienced intelligence operatives, and apparently this Trump operative has this sort of
background, like to say there are no coincidences.
As facts continue to roll out, it's getting more and more obvious that Schiff's operation
was to orchestrate this impeachment scenario all along, going into high gear with the flame-out
of the Mueller investigation.
Trump's been having a bad time with public opinion in the wake of the Schiff operation
orchestrating the media coverage as well. But the facts on the ground suggest it was all an
illegal spying operation on the president.
It's an abuse of his office, for sure, given that Schiff is supposed to be focused on
intelligence
, not on being one of those creepy secret police characters in The Lives of
Others . It's also an outrageous misuse of taxpayer dollars. In light of this Schiff spy
operation, and if Democrats don't want some backatcha next time there's a Dem in office with a
Republican House, it really ought to be every last one of them signed up to that Biggs
list.
Image credit:
Caricature by Donkey Hotey via
Flickr
,
CC BY-SA
2.0
.
Seems every day brings a new revelation about Democratic efforts to rig an
impeachment of the president. The false claims and astonishing conflicts of interest being
thrown out there are piling up fast.
The latest, from the San Francisco Examiner, exposes House Intelligence Committee chairman
Adam Schiff's choice of staffers, who it turns out were
two disgruntled Deep-Staters from the White House
who had actually worked with the
so-called "whistleblower":
Abigail Grace, who worked at the NSC until 2018,
was hired in February,
while Sean Misko, an NSC aide until 2017, joined Schiff's
committee staff in August, the same month the whistleblower submitted
his
complaint
.
The whistleblower was an NSC official who worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and
who has expertise in Ukraine,
the Washington Examiner has reported
.
A career CIA analyst with Ukraine expertise, the whistleblower aired his concerns about a
phone conversation
between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to
a House Intelligence Committee aide on Schiff's staff. He had previously informed the CIA's
legal counsel's office.
Schiff
initially denied
he knew anything about the complaint before it was filed, stating on
Sep. 17: "We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to."
But it later emerged that a member of his staff
had spoken to
the whistleblower before his complaint was submitted on Aug. 12. The
Washington Post
concluded that
Schiff "clearly made a statement that was false."
Grace, 36,
was hired
to help Schiff's committee investigate the Trump White House. That month, Trump
accused Schiff
of
"stealing people who work at White House." Grace
worked at the NSC
from 2016 to 2018 in
U.S.-China relations and
then briefly
at the Center for a New American
Security think tank, which
was founded by
two former senior Obama administration officials.
So these people were all buddies beforehand, and this would explain why the so-called
whistleblower had been sneaking around with Schiff's staff before he made his whistleblower
complaint.
And that came only after someone with influence was able to get the inspector general of the
Intelligence Community (IGIC) to change the rules about whistleblowers needing no firsthand
knowledge about the wrongdoing they were supposedly reporting. Once that rules change was put
into place, the whistleblower got going.
More and more, this sounds like a pre-planned setup. One Trump operative has a very good
summary of what seems to have been really going on as these anything but exculpatory stories
mount:
Schiff was essentially running an illegal spy operation against the White House,
recruiting his staffers, having them recruit their whistleblowers, grooming them up, changing
the rules so they could file their complaints, and then lying that they knew anything about the
lunatic efforts to get President Trump impeached. See, they were just standing there, minding
their own business when all this stuff happened. Everything that did happen was just...a
coincidence.
Experienced intelligence operatives, and apparently this Trump operative has this sort of
background, like to say there are no coincidences.
As facts continue to roll out, it's getting more and more obvious that Schiff's operation
was to orchestrate this impeachment scenario all along, going into high gear with the flame-out
of the Mueller investigation.
Trump's been having a bad time with public opinion in the wake of the Schiff operation
orchestrating the media coverage as well. But the facts on the ground suggest it was all an
illegal spying operation on the president.
And that's a far more concrete crime than anything Trump is accused of committing. Right
now, Schiff has 109 congressional representatives
signed on to GOP rep. Andy
Biggs of Arizona's
call to condemn and censure Schiff for this sick little illegal
freelance operation to spy on Trump.
It's an abuse of his office, for sure, given that Schiff is supposed to be focused on
intelligence, not on being one of those creepy secret police characters in
The Lives of
Others
. It's also an outrageous misuse of taxpayer dollars. In light of this Schiff spy
operation, and if Democrats don't want some backatcha next time there's a Dem in office with a
Republican House, it really ought to be every last one of them signed up to that Biggs
list.
"... inspector general of the Intelligence Community (IGIC) to change the rules about whistleblowers needing no firsthand
knowledge about the wrongdoing they were supposedly reporting. Once that rules change was put
into place, the whistleblower got going." Doesn't that beg the question IF Atkinson had any past
relationships with any of these people in his former position? I believe I read somewhere that
Atkinson somehow was involved in the Steele Dossier from his former job.
Our government has always operated this way. Nothing new here. It only seems "run worse" because the results are out in the
open for all to see. Whereas, the same thing could be done in secret and you'd never know
about it (the changes in the rules).
Which do you prefer? The sloppy American way, or the secretive Chinese way?
I'm sorry to say we have only these two choices. The sloppy American way is preferable to
me because it's the better part of our openly democratic republic and our Constitution.
The current problems and distractions we are dealing with are the result of Biden,
Schiff, and the Democrat's attempts to be secretive about what they're doing. So, we have to
wonder why these people don't want their actions to be known.
We should delight in seeing such illegitimate secrets exposed.
"...The sloppy American way, or the secretive Chinese way?"
What difference does it make if the criminals
are never indicted? The fact that I know of don't know makes no difference. We know
politicians are dirty scum, anyway..
But I think it's not good enough to just accept rampant corruption, surely things
could be better than this?
Also, it's not so much the Dems in question but the entire system.
And I see little evidence that the system is changing.
Though as you point out, one big shift is that more of us have become aware of how
bad it is.
And as you point out, it's always been that way, going back at least to 1913... but
more like forever and with all systems.
And if it is forever and all systems, then maybe it's better we DON'T get to see
all the dirty laundry all the time, including that nothing is done about it. Maybe
better not to know! Maybe that's the only way to make the country 'great' again!?
Only a few months ago, the Democrats' drive to the White House began with the loftiest of ideals, albeit a hodgepodge from trans
toilet "rights" to a 100 percent makeover of the health care system. It is now all about vengeance, clumsy and grossly partisan at
that, gussied up as "saving democracy." Our media is dominated by angry Hillary refighting 2016 and "joking" about running again,
with Adam Schiff now the face of the party for 2020. The war of noble intentions has devolved into Pelosi's March to the Sea. Any
chance for a Democratic candidate to reach into the dark waters and pull America to where she can draw breath again and heal has
been lost.
Okay, deep breath myself. A couple of times a week, I walk past the
café where Allen Ginsberg, the Beat poet, often wrote.
His most famous poem, Howl , begins, "I saw the best minds of my generation
destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked." The walk is a good leveler, a reminder that madness (Trump Derangement in modern
terminology) is not new in politics.
But Ginsberg wrote in a time when one could joke about coded messages -- before the Internet came into being to push tailored
ticklers straight into people's brains. I'll take my relief in knowing that almost everything Trump and others write, on Twitter
and in the Times , is designed simply to get attention and getting our attention today requires ever louder and crazier stuff.
What will get us to look up anymore? Is that worth playing with fire over?
It is easy to lose one's sense of humor over all this. It is easy to end up like Ginsberg at the end of his poem, muttering
to strangers at what a mess this had all become: "Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells!
They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! To solitude!" But me, I don't think it's funny at all.
www.aejmc.org
/home/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Journalism-Quarterly-1973-Donohue-652-9.pdfofmassmedia as interdependent
parts of a total social system in which they share facets of controlling, and being controlled by, other subsystems. A major purpose
of this paper is to relate the subsystems of massmedia to the total pattern of social organization and social control
and to point up the crucial nature of
Massmedia are media forms designed
to reach the largest audience possible. They include television, movies, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, records, video games
and the internet. Many studies have been conducted in the past century to measure the effects of massmedia on the
population in order to discover the best techniques to influence it.
https://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/CIA_influence_on_public_opinion
The Central Intelligence Agency has made use of massmedia assets, both foreign and domestic, for its covert operations.
In 1973, the Washington Star-News reported that CIA had enlisted more than thirty Americans working abroad as journalists, citing
an internal CIA inquiry ordered by CIA director William E. Colby.
Bill Barr: This is not decay. This is organized
destruction. Schiff was essentially running an illegal spy operation against the White House. Trade Deal With China Is a Blockbuster
"... When propaganda is cleverly engineered, people don't even recognize it as propaganda: welcome to the USSR, the United States of Suppression and Repression. The propaganda in the U.S. has reached such a high state that the majority of people accept it as "Pravda" (truth), even as their limbic system's BS detector is sensing there is a great disturbance in the Force. ..."
"... To give some examples: healthcare is over 18% of the nation's GDP, yet it makes up only 8.7% of the Consumer price Index. Hundreds of thousands of families have to declare bankruptcy as a result of crushing healthcare bills, but on the CPI components chart, it's a tiny little sliver just a bit more than recreation (5.7%). ..."
"... "Facts" are a funny thing when the data sources and massaging of that data are all purposefully opaque. Again, inflation is a lived-world example of how "official facts" are clearly massaged to support an essential narrative -- that inflation is so low it's basically signal noise, while in the real world it has impoverished the bottom 95% to a startling (but unmentionable) degree. ..."
"... This is what happened to this site in the bogus PropOrNot propaganda campaign of 2016, in which every alternative-media website that questioned the "approved narratives" was labeled "fake news" in a classic propaganda trick of labeling dissenters as propagandists to misdirect the citizenry from the actual propaganda (PropOrNot), which by the way was heavily promoted on page one by Jeff Bezos' propaganda mouthpiece, The Washington Post . (Who's your daddy, WP "journalists"?) ..."
"... Fake news, indeed. Those individuals who support the "approved narratives" and orthodoxies win gold stars, and so virtue-signaling is now the nation's most passionate hobby. (Shades of the Stasi...) ..."
"... In the wake of the 1976 Church Committee revelations on the institutional lawlessness and corruption of the FBI and CIA, the idea that former CIA propagandists and spy masters would be on TV as "commentators" would have been laughed off as a bad joke. Yet here are Clapper, Brennan et al, the "most likely to lie, obfuscate, rendition and propagandize" individuals in the nation welcomed as "experts" who we should all accept as trustworthy Big Brother. (Ahem) ..."
"... Welcome to the USSR: the United States of Suppression and Repression , where your views are welcome as long as they parrot "approved narratives" and the corporate-state's orthodoxies. "Facts" are only welcome if they lend credence to the "approved narratives" and orthodoxies. ..."
We're all against "fake news," right? Until your content is deemed "fake news" in a "fake news" indictment without any evidence,
trial or recourse.
When propaganda is cleverly engineered, people don't even recognize it as propaganda: welcome to the USSR, the United States
of Suppression and Repression. The propaganda in the U.S. has reached such a high state that the majority of people accept it as
"Pravda" (truth), even as their limbic system's BS detector is sensing there is a great disturbance in the Force.
Inflation is a good example. The official (i.e. propaganda) inflation rate is increasingly detached from the real-world declines
in the purchasing power of the bottom 80%, yet the jabbering talking heads on TV repeat the "low inflation" story with such conviction
that the dissonance between the "official narrative" and the real world must be "our fault"--a classic technique of brainwashing.
To give some examples: healthcare is over 18% of the nation's GDP, yet it makes up only 8.7% of the Consumer price Index.
Hundreds of thousands of families have to declare bankruptcy as a result of crushing healthcare bills, but on the CPI components
chart, it's a tiny little sliver just a bit more than recreation (5.7%).
Then there's education, which includes the $1.4 trillion borrowed by student debt-serfs--which is only part of the tsunami of
cash gushing into the coffers of the higher-education cartel. Yet education & communication (which presumably includes the Internet
/ mobile telephone service cartel's soaring prices) is another tiny sliver of the CPI, just 6.6%, a bit more than fun-and-games recreation.
As for housing costs, former Soviet apparatchiks must be high-fiving the Federal agencies for their inventive confusion of reality
with magical made-up "statistics." To estimate housing costs, the federal agency in charge of ginning up a low inflation number asks
homeowners to guess what their house would rent for, were it being rented--what's known as equivalent rent.
Wait a minute--don't we have actual sales data for houses, and actual rent data? Yes we do, but those are verboten because they
reflect skyrocketing inflation in housing costs, which is not allowed. So we use some fake guessing-game numbers, and the corporate
media dutifully delivers the "pravda" that inflation is 1.6% annually--basically signal noise, while in the real world (as measured
by the Chapwood Index) is running between 9% and 13% annually. How
the Chapwood Index is calculated )
As the dissonance between the real world experienced by the citizenry and what they're told is "pravda" by the media reaches extremes,
the media is forced to double-down on the propaganda , shouting down, marginalizing, discrediting, demonetizing and suppressing dissenters
via character assassination, following the old Soviet script to a tee.
(Clearly, the CIA's agitprop sector mastered the Soviet templates and has been applying what they learned to the domestic populace.
By all means, start by brainwashing the home audience so they don't catch on that the "news" is a Truman Show simulation.)
In 2014, Peter Pomerantsev, a British journalist born in the Soviet Union, published
Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia which drew on his years working in Russian
television to describe a society in giddy, hysterical flight from enlightenment empiricism. He wrote of how state-controlled Russian
broadcasting "became ever more twisted, the need to incite panic and fear ever more urgent; rationality was tuned out, and Kremlin-friendly
cults and hatemongers were put on prime time."
Now, he's written a penetrating follow-up,
This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality that is partly an effort to make sense of how the disorienting
phenomena he observed in Russia went global. The child of exiled Soviet dissidents, Pomerantsev juxtaposes his family's story
-- unfolding at a time when ideas, art and information seemed to challenge tyranny -- with a present in which truth scarcely appears
to matter.
"During glasnost, it seemed that the truth would set everybody free," he writes. "Facts seemed possessed of power; dictators
seemed so afraid of facts that they suppressed them. But something has gone drastically wrong: We have access to more information
and evidence than ever, but facts seem to have lost their power."
"Facts" are a funny thing when the data sources and massaging of that data are all purposefully opaque. Again, inflation is
a lived-world example of how "official facts" are clearly massaged to support an essential narrative -- that inflation is so low
it's basically signal noise, while in the real world it has impoverished the bottom 95% to a startling (but unmentionable) degree.
This is the reality as inflation has eaten up wages' purchasing power:
Families
Go Deep in Debt to Stay in the Middle Class Wages stalled but costs haven't, so people increasingly rent or finance what their
parents might have owned outright Median household income in the U.S. was $61,372 at the end of 2017, according to the Census
Bureau. When inflation is taken into account, that is just above the 1999 level.
We're all against "fake news," right? Until your content is deemed "fake news" in a "fake news" indictment without any evidence,
trial or recourse. This is what happened to this site in the bogus PropOrNot propaganda campaign of 2016, in which every alternative-media
website that questioned the "approved narratives" was labeled "fake news" in a classic propaganda trick of labeling dissenters as
propagandists to misdirect the citizenry from the actual propaganda (PropOrNot), which by the way was heavily promoted on page one
by Jeff Bezos' propaganda mouthpiece, The Washington Post . (Who's your daddy, WP "journalists"?)
Meanwhile, back in reality, the primary source of data here on oftwominds.com is 1) the Federal Reserve data base (FRED) 2) IRS
data and 3) content and charts posted by the cream of the U.S. corporate media Foreign Affairs, Wall Street Journal and the New York
Times.
Fake news, indeed. Those individuals who support the "approved narratives" and orthodoxies win gold stars, and so virtue-signaling
is now the nation's most passionate hobby. (Shades of the Stasi...)
In the wake of the 1976 Church Committee revelations on the institutional lawlessness and corruption of the FBI and CIA, the
idea that former CIA propagandists and spy masters would be on TV as "commentators" would have been laughed off as a bad joke. Yet
here are Clapper, Brennan et al, the "most likely to lie, obfuscate, rendition and propagandize" individuals in the nation welcomed
as "experts" who we should all accept as trustworthy Big Brother. (Ahem)
What if every employee in the corporate media who was paid (or coerced) by the FBI, NSA, CIA etc. had to wear a large colorful
badge that read, "owned by the FBI/CIA"? Would that change our view of the validity of the "approved narratives"?
Welcome to the USSR: the United States of Suppression and Repression , where your views are welcome as long as they parrot
"approved narratives" and the corporate-state's orthodoxies. "Facts" are only welcome if they lend credence to the "approved narratives"
and orthodoxies.
For example, corporate earnings are rising. Never mind estimates were slashed, that was buried in footnotes a month ago. What
matters is Corporate America will once again "beat estimates" by a penny, or a nickel, or gasp, oh the wonderment, by a dime, on
earnings that were slashed by a dollar when "nobody was looking." Meanwhile, back in reality, the bottom 95% have been losing ground
for two decades. But don't say anything, you'll be guilty of "fake news."
"... It's a major unanticipated consequence of the digital "revolution." It has gotten us stuck looking backward at events, obsessively replaying them, while working overtime to spin them favorably for one team or the other, at the expense of actually living in real time and dealing with reality as it unspools with us. If life were a ballgame, we'd only be watching jumbotron replays while failing to pay attention to the action on the field. ..."
"... The stupendous failure of the Mueller Investigation only revealed what can happen when extraordinary bad faith, dishonesty, and incompetence are brought to this project of reinventing "truth" -- of who did what and why -- while it provoked a counter-industry of detecting its gross falsifications. ..."
"... Perhaps you can see why unleashing the CIA, NSA, and the FBI on political enemies by Mr. Obama and his cohorts has become such a disaster. When that scheme blew up, the intel community went to the mattresses, as the saying goes in Mafia legend and lore. The "company" found itself at existential risk. Of course, the CIA has long been accused of following an agenda of its own simply because it had the means to do it. It had the manpower, the money, and the equipment to run whatever operations it felt like running, and a history of going its own way out of sheer institutional arrogance, of knowing better than the crackers and clowns elected by the hoi-polloi. The secrecy inherent in its charter was a green light for limitless mischief and some of the agency's directors showed open contempt for the occupants of the White House. Think: Allen Dulles and William Casey. And lately, Mr. Brennan. ..."
Here's one big reason that America is driving itself batshit crazy : the explosion of computerized records, emails, inter-office
memos, Twitter trails, Facebook memorabilia, iPhone videos, YouTubes, recorded conversations, and the vast alternative universe of
storage capacity for all this stuff makes it seem possible to constantly go back and reconstruct reality. All it has really done
is amplified the potential for political mischief to suicide level.
It's a major unanticipated consequence of the digital "revolution." It has gotten us stuck looking backward at events, obsessively
replaying them, while working overtime to spin them favorably for one team or the other, at the expense of actually living in real
time and dealing with reality as it unspools with us. If life were a ballgame, we'd only be watching jumbotron replays while failing
to pay attention to the action on the field.
Before all this, history was left largely to historians, who curated it from a range of views for carefully considered introduction
to the stream of human culture, and managed this process at a pace that allowed a polity to get on with its business at hand in the
here-and-now -- instead of incessantly and recursively reviewing events that have already happened 24/7. The more electronic media
has evolved, the more it lends itself to manipulation, propaganda, and falsification of whatever happened five minutes, or five hours,
or five weeks ago.
This is exactly why and how the losing team in the 2016 election has worked so hard to change that bit of history. The stupendous
failure of the Mueller Investigation only revealed what can happen when extraordinary bad faith, dishonesty, and incompetence are
brought to this project of reinventing "truth" -- of who did what and why -- while it provoked a counter-industry of detecting its
gross falsifications.
This dynamic has long been systematically studied and applied by institutions like the so-called "intelligence community," and
has gotten so out-of-hand that its main mission these days appears to be the maximum gaslighting of the nation -- for the purpose
of its own desperate self-defense. The "Whistleblower" episode is the latest turn in dishonestly manipulated records, but the most
interesting feature of it is that the release of the actual transcript of the Trump-Zelensky phone call did not affect the "narrative"
precooked between the CIA and Adam Schiff's House Intel Committee. They just blundered on with the story and when major parts of
the replay didn't add up, they retreated to secret sessions in the basement of the US capitol.
Perhaps you can see why unleashing the CIA, NSA, and the FBI on political enemies by Mr. Obama and his cohorts has become
such a disaster. When that scheme blew up, the intel community went to the mattresses, as the saying goes in Mafia legend and lore.
The "company" found itself at existential risk. Of course, the CIA has long been accused of following an agenda of its own simply
because it had the means to do it. It had the manpower, the money, and the equipment to run whatever operations it felt like running,
and a history of going its own way out of sheer institutional arrogance, of knowing better than the crackers and clowns elected by
the hoi-polloi. The secrecy inherent in its charter was a green light for limitless mischief and some of the agency's directors showed
open contempt for the occupants of the White House. Think: Allen Dulles and William Casey. And lately, Mr. Brennan.
The recently-spawned NSA has mainly added the capacity to turn everything that happens into replay material, since it is suspected
of recording every phone call, every email, every financial transaction, every closed-circuit screen capture, and anything else its
computers can snare for storage in its Utah Data Storage Center. Now you know why the actions of Edward Snowden were so significant.
He did what he did because he was moral enough to know the face of malevolence when he saw it. That he survives in exile is a miracle.
As for the FBI, only an exceptional species of ineptitude explains the trouble they got themselves into with the RussiaGate fiasco.
The unbelievable election loss of Mrs. Clinton screwed the pooch for them, and the desperate acts that followed only made things
worse. The incompetence and mendacity on display was only matched by Mr. Mueller and his lawyers, who were supposed to be the FBI's
cleanup crew and only left a bigger mess -- all of it cataloged in digital records.
Now, persons throughout all these agencies are waiting for the hammer to fall. If they are prosecuted, the process will entail
yet another monumental excursion into the replaying of those digital records. It could go on for years. So, the final act in the
collapse of the USA will be the government choking itself to death on replayed narratives from its own server farms.
In the meantime, events are actually tending in a direction that will eventually deprive the nation of the means to continue most
of its accustomed activities including credible elections, food distribution, a reliable electric grid, and perhaps even self-defense.
This is coup d'état, no question about it. What is the level of connection of Adam
Schiff and the CIA?
Notable quotes:
"... Why did the "whistleblower" write an 800+ word memo describing President Trump and President Zelensky's call based on second-hand information gleaned from a conversation that lasted just a few minutes? ..."
"... Why didn't the "whistleblower" just give his memo to the Inspector General, instead of a seven page complaint dressed up with extraneous citations and media references? ..."
"... What work did the “whistleblower” do with a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate? ..."
1. Why did the "whistleblower" write an 800+ word memo describing President Trump and
President Zelensky's call based on second-hand information gleaned from a conversation that
lasted just a few minutes?
2. Why did the "whistleblower" wait 18 days to file the complaint after describing the call
as "frightening" in their memo?
3. Why and when did the "whistleblower" communicate with Rep Adam Schiff's staff before
filing the complaint?
4. Why did the "whistleblower" hide from the ICIG that they met with Rep Adam Schiff's staff
by not checking the box on the whistleblower form indicating they had spoken to Congress?
5. Why didn't Rep Adam Schiff tell us his staff had met with the "whistleblower?"
6. Why didn't the "whistleblower" just give his memo to the Inspector General, instead
of a seven page complaint dressed up with extraneous citations and media references?
7. Why is Rep Adam Schiff holding hearings, depositions, and interviews behind closed
doors?
8. Why won't Rep Adam Schiff release the transcripts of these interviews, instead of leaking
cherry-picked information that fits his narrative?
9. Why won't Rep Adam Schiff take questions from the press after these interviews, like
Republicans have done?
10. Why does Speaker Pelosi think we need to “strike while the iron is hot,”
instead of taking time for serious and thorough investigative fact-finding?
11. Why is Speaker Pelosi scared to have a vote to open an official impeachment inquiry like
it’s been done every other time?
12. Why do Democrats keep making up the rules as they go along, instead of following a fair
process?
13. What work did the “whistleblower” do with a 2020 Democratic presidential
candidate?
14. Why do Democrats and the media keep falsely claiming President Trump pressured Ukraine?
President Zelensky has repeatedly said that he wasn't pushed.
15. Why don't Democrats trust the American people to choose the President? The election is
less than 13 months away.
16. Why won't Democrats focus on helping the country, instead of attacking the President
with this unfair and partisan process?
17. Why won't the media ask these questions to Rep Adam Schiff or Speaker Pelosi?
Dems not troubled by truth. Their mind control media believes in itself as the new God
that the morons bow down to and will abandon their children for. Their brainwashed radical
left will trample their own mothers to get into a fight to the death for their demonic cause
of grabbing power for the furtherance of their selfish sponsors.
This is the train of darkness that unwittingly delivered the first people POTUS reaction.
The train drivers are very powerful and are long established as the puppet masters. They are
scheming 24/7 on multiple fronts to distract their enemy called democracy and further embed
themselves within every internal organ and nerve fiber. But they are not immutable.
The capture of democracy is a goal that they must achieve. The attack is obviously
coordinated and multi-faceted. The tool of brainwashing will target the children, like the
Nazi program called "Hitler Youth" but with a neolibic dogma.
One man stands alone against the deep state and its swamp and media and mind control and
infiltration. Can he trust anyone to watch his back?
This is really a travesty. Every day we hear about this. The President is being tried by
the press - with only one side being heard. How the hell is this fair?
to most on this thread democrats want to take all they can via taxes, then borrow what
they can't raise in taxes, democrats will cause widespread poverty, sickness and will sponsor
**** educational standards, encourage perversion and pay minorities taxpayer dollars to buy
their votes - even though minorities are no more special than any social grouping (other than
the perverts in the lbGTQ++ community who are special in a mentally retarded way) democrats
sponsor criminal behavior by refusing to punish it and so on and so forth,
trump at least promotes reward for effort, by giving back some taxes to individuals and
makes American corporate tax rates consistent with global corporate tax rates, has shitcanned
the stealth taxes on healthy people via Obamacare, and inspires people left behind by the
constant march to socialism that the US has endured for the last fifty years (via welfare
benefits, scholastic indoctrination, social housing programs, medicare/medicaid programs that
taxpayers could have got for half the price they paid - and half the debt liabilities run up
in trust funds.
so..has trump got the federal government completely out of peoples lives? no, but he at
least wants taxes on the country to 18% of GDP and not the 40% targeted by the howler monkeys
on the left.
it is not a choice of two equal evils. it is the choice between YOU paying 18% of your
income or 40%.
Finally, if RAF Croughton were an annex to the US Embassy and if Mr Sacoolas were a
diplomat, the cars of both he and his wife would have diplomatic CD plates. Mrs Sacoolas was
not driving a diplomatic car – an obviously vital fact in this case, again omitted from
all mainstream media reporting.
... ... ...
This fake "diplomatic immunity" needs to be challenged in court, but I am not sure anyone
except Harry Dunn's family has the locus to do this. Their son was killed by the wife of a spy
and to avoid political embarrassment about his activities, the government has falsely connived
at a status of diplomatic immunity and then pretended to be trying to get Mrs Sacoolas back.
That is an awful lot to take in for people in a terrible state of grief. After losing a son,
the cognitive dissonance involved in uncovering state secrets, and learning that the state is
malevolent and senior ministerial office holders are liars, is a huge hurdle to surmount. The
Dunn family have first to summon the will to fight it, and then to avoid the attempts to hug
them in the suffocating embrace of an establishment lawyer – believe me the powers that
be will be covertly thrusting one at them – who will advise them they are most likely to
make progress if they rock no boats.
The only people I know of who effectively enjoy secret diplomatic immunity are spies from
CIA/NSA like Jonathon Sacoolas or from Mossad like Shai Masot . There are not any other
categories of pretend diplomats having immunity, and the elaborate charade to pretend that
there are is a nonsense. It must not distract from the fact that the claim that the government
can grant US and Israeli intelligence agencies diplomatic immunity at will is a lie. The
government is acting illegally here. There is no legislation that covers Raab in allowing Mrs
Sacoolas to kill – albeit accidentally – with impunity.
I pray both the government and Mrs Sacoolas will be brought to account. I hope Mr and Mrs
Dunn find what peace they can with their loss, and are able to remember with due warmth the
eighteen wonderful years that I am sure they had with their son.
* * *
Unlike our adversaries including the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, Bellingcat, the
Atlantic Council and hundreds of other warmongering propaganda operations, Craig's blog has no
source of state, corporate or institutional finance whatsoever. It runs entirely on voluntary
subscriptions from its readers – many of whom do not necessarily agree with the every
article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate. Subscriptions to
keep Craig's blog going are gratefully received .
This is deep state operation, Russiagate II, pure and simple
Stephen Miller proved to be formidable debater. His jeremiad against the Deep State at 12:55 was brilliant. Former South
Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy says people have stopped sharing information with the House Intelligence Committee because
Chair Adam Schiff is the most deeply partisan member who is "leaking like a sieve"
The problem with Pelosi bold move is that she does not have votes for impeachment, but the dirt uncovered might sink any
Democrat changes for 2020
Notable quotes:
"... Stephen Miller is amazing at wrestling and smacking down this Democratic Operative Chris Wallace ..."
"... Wallace is a minion of the globalists. ..."
"... Stephen Miller is CORRECT -- there is no more integrity and confidence in government affairs when it can be turned into ammunition against the President of the United States. Chris Wallace really ought to work for CNN. ..."
"... Chris Wallace Incorrect. We have the Docs that expose the corruption on the part of the Biden. We have his legal team basically threatening the new prosectutor saying in lawyer speak "Hey you saw how we got the last prosecutor fired? I'd suggest you cooperate with us or you will get fired next" .450 pages from Biden's son legal team at Burisma, Ukrainian Embassy Official Docs and State Department Docs. ..."
"... Also last time I checked Donald Trump is the head of the executive branch he can direct anyone to go find anything, and I haven't seen one person show me where he can't. ..."
Stephen Miller is CORRECT -- there is no more integrity and confidence in government
affairs when it can be turned into ammunition against the President of the United States.
Chris Wallace really ought to work for CNN.
Chris Wallace Incorrect. We have the Docs that expose the corruption on the part of the
Biden. We have his legal team basically threatening the new prosectutor saying in lawyer
speak "Hey you saw how we got the last prosecutor fired? I'd suggest you cooperate with us or
you will get fired next" .450 pages from Biden's son legal team at Burisma, Ukrainian Embassy
Official Docs and State Department Docs.
Wallace you sir you are a paritsan hack. Anyone can
read the docs too thats whats sad. I'm only 70 pages in and its bad for the Biden's jailtime
bad.
Also last time I checked Donald Trump is the head of the executive branch he can direct
anyone to go find anything, and I haven't seen one person show me where he can't.
Foreign new coverage in modern western societies is controlled by intelligence agencies. There are no exceptions.
Notable quotes:
"... At this stage, any one who still believes in the western propaganda about China is simply too brain-washed and not too smart for any cure. Excuse me, I should say "too dumb for any cure". ..."
"... For example, Nathan Rich's recent video shows how media biased reporting of Hong Kong compare with Ukraine riots. The contrast can't be anymore stark: ..."
"... All these so-called anti communist slant against countries, I suspect, have its origins in the Vatican. People seem to forget that they should bear false witness https://www.youtube.com/embed/yUGPIeE9kMc?feature=oembed ..."
@d
dan " ..media biased Hong Kong reporting ."
How would American cops react to punks tossing Molotov Cocktails at them? Arson is a felony
but there would be no need for a trial just a coroner.
@Godfree Roberts "The
weird result of this enormous, expensive effort is that, while we were busy lying to
ourselves about China "
At this stage, any one who still believes in the western propaganda about China is
simply too brain-washed and not too smart for any cure. Excuse me, I should say "too dumb for
any cure".
For example, Nathan Rich's recent video shows how media biased reporting of Hong Kong
compare with Ukraine riots. The contrast can't be anymore stark:
@Godfree Roberts Here
is a good analysis of how the main stream media (MSM) gang up to give propaganda, and how I
wish they have objective comments about China or any country they do not like.
All these so-called anti communist slant against countries, I suspect, have its origins in
the Vatican. People seem to forget that they should bear false witness
The key question here is: Is Nancy Pelosi a CIA controlled politician who followed Breenan instruction to open the second stage
of the color revolution against Trump. Her long service in House Intelligence Committee suggest that this is a possibility.
Nancy Pelosi just took the biggest gamble of her entire political career. If she is ultimately successful, she will be remembered
as the woman that removed Donald Trump from the White House, and Democrats will treat her like a hero for the rest of her life. But
if she fails and Trump wins in 2020, the backlash that she created when she tried to impeach Trump is likely to be blamed, and she
could potentially lose her leadership role in the House. Of course at that point she probably wouldn't want to remain in the House
much longer, and she would be hated by many Democrats for the rest of her life for subjecting them to four more years of Trump. So
it really is all on the line for Nancy Pelosi, and she never should have gone down this road if she wasn't absolutely certain that
she could deliver.
And at this point, most Americans don't want impeachment proceedings to happen. For example, just check out what a Politico/Morning
Consult poll just found
In the poll -- conducted Friday through Sunday, as stories circled about Trump allegedly pressuring Ukraine to investigate
former Vice President Joe Biden, one of the Democratic candidates hoping to oust him -- 36 percent of respondents said they believe
Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against Trump.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced on Tuesday the opening of a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump in response to the
Ukraine controversy. If it's found that Trump did use his presidential power to force a foreign leader to help take down a political
rival, 55 percent of U.S. adults said they would support removing him from office, according to a recent YouGov survey.
Forty-four percent of those polled said they'd "strongly support" removing Trump if the allegations are true, while another
11 percent said they'd "somewhat support" it.
But as it stands right now, on the national level this is a very unpopular decision by Pelosi, and it could potentially hurt Democrats
among key blocs of voters
Worse yet, impeachment isn't selling where Democrats made their best gains in the midterms. A majority of suburban respondents
oppose starting the impeachment process (35 percent/50 percent), with a wider gap among rural respondents (27/59), while urban
voters are more ambivalent than one might guess (47/35). Impeachment trails by double digits in the South (33/53), Midwest, (36/48),
and even in the Democrat-friendly Northeast (37/48).
Another reason why this is potentially a giant mistake by Nancy Pelosi is the fact that all of this focus on Ukraine is almost
certainly going to damage one of the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination.
All of a sudden, everyone is talking about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and Ukraine. A lot of voters are going to look into what happened,
and they are not going to be pleased. And this comes at a time when Elizabeth Warren is surging in the polls, and real votes will
start to be cast in just a few months.
Up until recently, the Biden campaign had successfully kept the focus off Hunter Biden and Ukraine , and Joe was widely considered
to be the heavy favorite to win the nomination.
But now everything could change thanks to Nancy Pelosi.
And what if this push toward impeachment is not successful? Trump's base is going to be extremely fired up by all of the political
drama over the next several months, and if Trump survives it is going to be a huge boost for his campaign.
All of the recent polls indicated that a Democrat was likely to win in 2020, and there was a very good chance that the Democrats
were going to take the Senate too, but now this could dramatically shift public opinion and change everything.
Nancy Pelosi is rolling the dice, and if she fails it is going to be absolutely disastrous for the Democratic Party. The following
is how
Matthew Walther summarized the situation that she is facing
Pelosi knows this will not be popular. She knows more than that. She knows that it will be a disaster for the Democratic Party,
that it will inflame the president's base and inspire even his most lukewarm supporters with a sense of outrage. She knows that
in states like Michigan, upon which her party's chances in 2020 will depend, the question of impeachment does not poll well. She
knows, further, that Joe Biden will not be able to spend the next 14 or so months refusing to answer questions about the activities
of his son, Hunter, in Ukraine, and that increased scrutiny of the vice president's record in office will not rebound to his credit.
She and her fellow Democratic leaders had better hope that someone like Elizabeth Warren manages to steal the nomination away
from him before this defines his candidacy the way that Hillary Clinton's emails and paid speechmaking did during and after the
2016 primaries.
And it isn't going to be easy for Pelosi to be successful, because she is going to need 67 votes in the Senate to convict Trump,
and right now Democrats only hold 47 seats.
In the end, this is yet another example that proves that America's political system is deeply broken, and we desperately need
a seismic change .
Because no matter what the end result is, this entire episode is going to be a giant stain in the history books.
If future generations of Americans get the chance, they will look back on this entire saga with disgust.
And if our founders could see us today, they would be rolling over in their graves, because this is not what they intended.
"... One of the reasons that I doubt Biden's version of the story stems from my experience in Venezuela. After Chavez took power, Venezuelans told me that he had found that a critical subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA was basically a CIA shop. The names of CIA on the Board of Directors were not just ordinary CIA, but were recognizable figures at the very top. ..."
"... To me this is entirely plausible. Control of oil is critical to US global hegemony. And what better way to control foreign oil than to have trusted American asset sit on the BOD? ..."
One of the reasons that I doubt Biden's version of the story stems from my experience in
Venezuela. After Chavez took power, Venezuelans told me that he had found that a critical
subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA was basically a CIA shop. The names of CIA on
the Board of Directors were not just ordinary CIA, but were recognizable figures at the very
top.
To me this is entirely plausible. Control of oil is critical to US global hegemony. And
what better way to control foreign oil than to have trusted American asset sit on the BOD?
This brings us to Hunter Biden's appointment to Ukrainian energy giant Burisma. After the
coup in 2014, why wouldn't Biden want a trusted asset on the board of the biggest natural gas
producer in Ukraine? IOW it was unpublicized standard operating procedure.
"... CIA decided under Dulles that they were the only ones capable of leading this country, mainly because they wanted it ran their way and no other. Don't take my word for it though, read Arthur B. Darling's "THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, AN INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT TO 1950 copy right 1990 Penn State Press. (This work was classified for quite a long while.) ..."
"... So the first thing that works in CIA et al's favor is politicians who have been in DC long enough to be worn down and thoroughly compromised by blackmail of one sort or another and there fore vulnerable. ..."
It has been my contention that Biden's powerful backers from the
military-industrial-intelligence-media complex are fully aware of his mental state, and that
is precisely why they want him to be president. Why? He would only be a figure-head
president. He would be given a suggested running mate as well as a list of candidates for
cabinet and other appointed positions (as Obama was given) and Biden would follow that in
making appointments. Policies of his administration would be consistent with the interests of
the military-industrial-intelligence-media complex.
robert e williamson jr , September 20, 2019 at 15:19
Kids this is exactly what the intelligence community wants, someone who they can claim
needs to be told what to do or be kept discreetly out of the loop, so currently Joe maybe the
chosen one just as Bill Barr is reported to have told Slick Willy.
We end up where we are at the moment because our security state apparatus is ran by the
intelligence community who do not really want a strong intelligent, clear minded president
who can actually think for himself. Ask Barrack Obama!
For years I've used this analogy, crude as it maybe, that when the newly elected president
is called on for his national security briefing it is always a tense encounter because this
"Newby" is about to have a come to Jesus meeting with this most abusive of all government
entities. The intelligence community. He is "shown the way"he will act because if he doesn't
this community who has relieved him of one his go -- -s will come and relieve him of the
other.
This started as a joke on my part, I'm now convinced it reflects reality.
At some point many here will understand that since around the time of the murder of JFK ,
CIA has framed things in this manner.
CIA decided under Dulles that they were the only ones capable of leading this country,
mainly because they wanted it ran their way and no other. Don't take my word for it though,
read Arthur B. Darling's "THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, AN INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT TO
1950 copy right 1990 Penn State Press. (This work was classified for quite a long
while.)
Doing so will help make your mind more flexible , jeesh what a slog to get through it.
So the first thing that works in CIA et al's favor is politicians who have been in DC
long enough to be worn down and thoroughly compromised by blackmail of one sort or another
and there fore vulnerable.
I figured if Caitlin could say "dog balls " which I think was a great analogy I could say
gonads.
Time to sit down Joe.
Thanks again to Consortium News for their great efforts at informing the masses.
I don't see how he could have handled it better. He was polite and well-spoken, never
flustered or defensive, and the talking heads tumbled over one another in their eagerness to
be properly judgmental, to talk over him and recite their own talking points, and ended up
looking like buffoons. He will be a tough nut to crack, and so far the American regime has
done nothing to convince ordinary people that he is a cowardly traitor. Putting him on
television only makes him look more heroic.
And a US "talking" head, in reply to Snowdon's belief that he would not get a fair trial in
the USA (a US human rights issue, is that not, Mr.Snowdon?) says that criminals and alleged
criminals do not customarily get to determine the terms of their trial: they broke the law
and they face the consequences "
Guilty before proven innocent?
Presumption of innocence: an international human right under the UN Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, Article 11.
Nor, to the best of my recollection, did it have an Abu Ghraib. The United States actually
has a pretty shitty human-rights record if you consider it from the viewpoint of how it treas
others than Americans, and – going further back – only white Americans. The west
always tries to factor in the Holodomor, too, how Russia deliberately starved the Ukrainians
to death, as an example of their horrible human rights record.
I cringed at that one too. But I forgive Edward, because I think he was trying to make a
tactical debating point, namely:
I am not a Russia stooge, I have my criticisms of the Russian regime yada yada, and I
agree with you talking heads that their human rights record is not well received in the West.
And yet they scored a human-rights trifecta when they let me in, when not one single
"democracy" would defend me or give me asylum.
In other words, he would concede, for argumentation purposes, that Russia is bad, only to
stick it to them that Russia did well by him and scored propaganda points against the West.
It's a particular debating tactic, whose Latin name I cannot recall.
Unfortunately, Edward never got to finish his point, because those bitches cut him off
before he could even get to the punchline.
If commissioners for a New York-area Fire Department, which responded to the attacks
called for a new investigation into the events of September 11 then official story is officially dead.
Notable quotes:
"... Evidence continues to mount that the official narrative itself is the irrational narrative of September 11, and it becomes ever more clear that the media remains committed to preventing legitimate questions about that day from receiving the scrutiny they deserve. ..."
"... For instance, in late July, commissioners for a New York-area Fire Department, which responded to the attacks and lost one of their own that day, called for a new investigation into the events of September 11. On July 24, the board of commissioners for the Franklin Square and Munson Fire District, which serves a population of around 30,000 near Queens, voted unanimously in their call for a new investigation into the attacks. ..."
"... Commissioner Christopher Gioia, who drafted and introduced the resolution, told those present at the meeting's conclusion that getting all of the New York fire districts onboard was their plan anyway. ..."
"... "We're a tight-knit community and we never forget our fallen brothers and sisters. You better believe that when the entire fire service of New York State is on board, we will be an unstoppable force," Gioia said. "We were the first fire district to pass this resolution. We won't be the last," he added. ..."
"... While questioning the official conclusions of the first federal investigation into 9/11 has been treated as taboo in the American media landscape for years, it is worth noting that even those who led the commission have said that the investigation was "set up to fail" from the start and that they were repeatedly misled and lied to by federal officials in relation to the events of that day. ..."
"... For instance, the chair and vice-chair of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, wrote in their book Without Precedent that not only was the commission starved of funds and its powers of investigation oddly limited, but that they were obstructed and outright lied to by top Pentagon officials and officials with the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA). ..."
"... Though the official story regarding the collapse of WTC 7 cites "uncontrolled building fires" as leading to the building's destruction, a majority of Americans who have seen the footage of the 47-story tower come down from four different angles overwhelmingly reject the official story, based on a new YouGov poll released on Monday. ..."
"... That poll found that 52 percent of those who saw the footage were either sure or suspected that the building's fall was due to explosives and was a controlled demolition, with 27 percent saying they didn't know what to make of the footage. Only 21 percent of those polled agreed with the official story that the building collapsed due to fires alone. Prior to seeing the footage, 36 percent of respondents said that they were unaware that a third building collapsed on September 11 and more than 67 percent were unable to name the building that had collapsed. ..."
"... Ted Walter, Director of Strategy and Development for Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, told MintPress that the lack of awareness about WTC 7 among the general public "goes to show that the mainstream media has completely failed to inform the American people about even the most basic facts related to 9/11. On any other day in history, if a 47-story skyscraper fell into its footprint due to 'office fires,' everyone in the country would have heard about it." ..."
"... The Americans who felt that the video footage of WTC 7's collapse did not fit with the official narrative and appeared to show a controlled demolition now have more scientific evidence to fall back on after the release of a new university study found that the building came down not due to fire but from "the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building." The extensive four-year study was conducted by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alaska and used complex computer models to determine if the building really was the first steel-framed high-rise ever to have collapsed solely due to office fires. ..."
"... The only reason it remains taboo to ask questions about the official narrative, whose own authors admit that it is both flawed and incomplete, is that the dominant forces in the American media and the U.S. government have successfully convinced many Americans that doing so is not only dangerous but irrational and un-American. ..."
Evidence continues to mount that the official narrative itself is the irrational
narrative of September 11, and it becomes ever more clear that the media remains committed to
preventing legitimate questions about that day from receiving the scrutiny they
deserve.
Today the event that defined the United States' foreign policy in the 21st century, and
heralded the destruction of whole countries, turns 18. The events of September 11, 2001 remains
etched into the memories of Americans and many others, as a collective tragedy that brought
Americans together and brought as well a general resolve among them that those responsible be
brought to justice.
While the events of that day did unite Americans in these ways for a time, the different
trajectories of the official relative to the independent investigations into the September 11
attacks have often led to division in the years since 2001, with vicious attacks or outright
dismissal being levied against the latter.
Yet, with 18 years having come and gone -- and with the tireless efforts from victims'
families, first responders, scientists and engineers -- the tide appears to be turning, as new
evidence continues to emerge and calls for new investigations are made. However, American
corporate media has remained largely silent, preferring to ignore new developments that could
derail the "official story" of one of the most iconic and devastating attacks to ever occur on
American soil.
For instance, in late July, commissioners for a New York-area Fire Department, which
responded to the attacks and lost one of their own that day,
called for a new investigation into the events of September 11. On July 24, the board of
commissioners for the Franklin Square and Munson Fire District, which serves a population of
around 30,000 near Queens, voted unanimously in their call for a new investigation into the
attacks.
While the call for a new investigation from a NY Fire Department involved in the rescue
effort would normally seem newsworthy to the media outlets who often rally Americans to "never
forget," the commissioners' call for a new investigation was met with total silence from the
mainstream media. The likely reason for the dearth of coverage on an otherwise newsworthy vote
was likely due to the fact that the resolution that called for the new investigation contained
the following clause:
Whereas, the overwhelming evidence presented in said petition demonstrates beyond any
doubt that pre-planted explosives and/or incendiaries -- not just airplanes and the ensuing
fires -- caused the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings, killing the vast
majority of the victims who perished that day;"
In the post-9/11 world, those who have made such claims, no matter how well-grounded their
claims may be, have often been derided and attacked as "conspiracy theorists" for questioning
the official claims that the three World Trade Center buildings that collapsed on September 11
did so for any reason other than being struck by planes and from the resulting fires. Yet, it
is much more difficult to launch these same attacks against members of a fire department that
lost a fireman on September 11 and many of whose members were involved with the rescue efforts
of that day, some of whom still suffer from chronic illnesses as a result.
Rescue workers climb on piles of rubble at the World Trade Center in New York, Sept. 13,
2001. Beth A. Keiser | AP
Another likely reason that the media monolithically avoided coverage of the vote was out of
concern that it would lead more fire departments to pass similar resolutions, which would make
it more difficult for such news to avoid gaining national coverage. Yet, Commissioner
Christopher Gioia, who drafted and introduced the resolution, told those present at the
meeting's conclusion that getting all of the New York fire districts onboard was their plan
anyway.
"We're a tight-knit community and we never forget our fallen brothers and sisters. You
better believe that when the entire fire service of New York State is on board, we will be an
unstoppable force," Gioia said. "We were the first fire district to pass this resolution. We
won't be the last," he added.
While questioning the official conclusions of the first federal investigation into 9/11 has
been treated as taboo in the American media landscape for years, it is worth noting that even
those who led the commission have said that the investigation was "set up to fail" from the
start and that they were repeatedly misled and lied to by federal officials in relation to the
events of that day.
For instance, the chair and vice-chair of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton,
wrote in their book Without
Precedent that not only was the commission starved of funds and its powers of
investigation oddly limited, but that they were obstructed and outright lied to by top Pentagon
officials and officials with the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA). They and other commissioners
have outright said
that the "official" report on the attacks is incomplete, flawed and unable to answer key
questions about the terror attacks.
Despite the failure of American corporate media to report these facts, local legislative
bodies in New York, beginning with the fire districts that lost loved ones and friends that
day, are leading the way in the search for real answers that even those that wrote the
"official story" say were deliberately kept from them.
Persuasive scientific evidence continues to roll in
Not long after the Franklin Square and Munson Fire District called for a new 9/11
investigation, a groundbreaking university study added even more weight to the commissioners'
call for a new look at the evidence regarding the collapse of three buildings at the World
Trade Center complex. While most Americans know full well that the twin towers collapsed on
September 11, fewer are aware that a third building -- World Trade Center Building 7 -- also
collapsed. That collapse occurred seven hours after the twin towers came down, even though WTC
7, or "Building 7," was never struck by a plane.
It was not until nearly two months after its collapse that reports revealed that the CIA
had a "secret office" in WTC 7 and that, after the building's destruction, "a special CIA team
scoured the rubble in search of secret documents and intelligence reports stored in the
station, either on paper or in computers." WTC 7 also housed offices for the Department of
Defense, the Secret Service, the New York Mayor's Office of Emergency Management and the bank
Salomon Brothers.
Though the official story regarding the collapse of WTC 7 cites "uncontrolled building
fires" as leading to the building's destruction, a majority of Americans who have seen the
footage of the 47-story tower come down from four different angles overwhelmingly reject
the official story, based on a new
YouGov poll released on Monday.
That poll found that 52 percent of those who saw the footage were either sure or suspected
that the building's fall was due to explosives and was a controlled demolition, with 27 percent
saying they didn't know what to make of the footage. Only 21 percent of those polled agreed
with the official story that the building collapsed due to fires alone. Prior to seeing the
footage, 36 percent of respondents said that they were unaware that a third building collapsed
on September 11 and more than 67 percent were unable to name the building that had
collapsed.
Ted Walter, Director of Strategy and Development for Architects and Engineers for 9/11
Truth, told MintPress that the lack of awareness about WTC 7 among the general public
"goes to show that the mainstream media has completely failed to inform the American people
about even the most basic facts related to 9/11. On any other day in history, if a 47-story
skyscraper fell into its footprint due to 'office fires,' everyone in the country would have
heard about it."
The fact that the media chose not to cover this, Walter asserted, shows that "the mainstream
media and the political establishment live in an alternative universe and the rest of the
American public is living in a different universe and responding to what they see in front of
them," as reflected by the results of the recent YouGov poll.
Another significant finding of the YouGov poll was that 48 percent of respondents supported,
while only 15 percent opposed, a new investigation into the events of September 11. This shows
that not only was the Franklin Square Fire District's recent call for a new investigation in
line with American public opinion, but that viewing the footage of WTC 7's collapse raises more
questions than answers for many Americans, questions that were not adequately addressed by the
official investigation of the 9/11 Commission.
The Americans who felt that the video footage of WTC 7's collapse did not fit with the
official narrative and appeared to show a controlled demolition now have more scientific
evidence to fall back on after the release of a new university study found that the building
came down not due to fire but from "the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the
building." The extensive four-year study was conducted by the Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering at the University of Alaska and used complex computer models to
determine if the building really was the first steel-framed high-rise ever to have collapsed
solely due to office fires.
The study, currently available as a draft , concluded that "uncontrolled building fires"
did not lead the building to fall into its footprint -- tumbling more than 100 feet at the rate
of gravity free-fall for 2.5 seconds of its seven-second collapse -- as has officially been
claimed. Instead, the study -- authored by Dr. J. Leroy Hulsey, Dr. Feng Xiao and Dr. Zhili
Quan -- found that "fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11, contrary to the
conclusions of NIST [National Institute of Standards and Technology] and private engineering
firms that studied the collapse," while also concluding "that the collapse of WTC 7 was a
global [i.e., comprehensive] failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of every column in
the building."
This "near-simultaneous failure of every column" in WTC 7 strongly suggests that explosives
were involved in its collapse, which is further supported by the statements made by
Barry Jennings, the then-Deputy Director of Emergency Services Department for the New York City
Housing Authority. Jennings
told a reporter the day of the attack that he and Michael Hess, then-Corporation Counsel
for New York City, had heard and seen explosions in WTC 7 several hours prior to its collapse
and later repeated those claims to filmmaker Dylan Avery. The first responders who helped
rescue Jennings and Hess also claimed to have heard explosions in WTC 7. Jennings died in 2008,
two days prior the release of the official NIST report blaming WTC 7's collapse on fires. To
date, no official cause of death for Jennings has been given.
Still "crazy" after all these years?
Eighteen years after the September 11 attacks, questioning the official government narrative
of the events of those days still remains taboo for many, as merely asking questions or calling
for a new investigation into one of the most important events in recent American history
frequently results in derision and dismissal.
Yet, this 9/11 anniversary -- with a new study demolishing the official narrative on WTC 7,
with a new poll showing that more than half of Americans doubt the government narrative on WTC
7, and with firefighters who responded to 9/11 calling for a new investigation -- is it still
"crazy" to be skeptical of the official story?
Firefighters hose down the smoldering remains of 7 World Trade Center Tuesday, Sept. 18,
2001, in New York. Ryan Remiorz | AP
Even in years past, when asking difficult questions about September 11 was even more "off
limits," it was often first responders, survivors and victims' families who had asked the most
questions about what had really transpired that day and who have led the search for truth for
nearly two decades -- not wild-eyed "conspiracy theorists," as many have claimed.
The only reason it remains taboo to ask questions about the official narrative, whose own
authors admit that it is both flawed and incomplete, is that the dominant forces in the
American media and the U.S. government have successfully convinced many Americans that doing so
is not only dangerous but irrational and un-American.
However, as evidence continues to mount that the official narrative itself is the irrational
narrative, it becomes ever more clear that the reason for this media campaign is to prevent
legitimate questions about that day from receiving the scrutiny they deserve, even smearing
victims' families and ailing first responders to do so. For too long, "Never Forget" has been
nearly synonymous with "Never Question."
Yet, failing to ask those questions -- even when more Americans than ever now favor a new
investigation and discount the official explanation for WTC 7's collapse -- is the ultimate
injustice, not only to those who died in New York City on September 11, but those who have been
killed in their names in the years that have followed.
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to
several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute
and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and
is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in
Journalism.
Leroy Hulsey et al. of the University of Alaska Fairbanks released their draft report on WTC7
on September 3rd. These are the major findings and conclusions:
" The principal conclusion of our study is that fire did not cause the collapse of WTC
7 on
9/11, contrary to the conclusions of NIST and private engineering firms that studied the
collapse. The secondary conclusion of our study is that the collapse of WTC 7 was a global
failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building.
This conclusion is based primarily upon the finding that the simultaneous failure of
all
core columns over 8 stories followed 1.3 seconds later by the simultaneous failure of all
exterior columns over 8 stories produces almost exactly the behavior observed in videos of
the collapse, whereas no other sequence of failures that we simulated produced the observed
behavior."
So World Trade Tower 7 was an engineered demolition. This is something that the 9/11
"conspiracy theorists" believed all along. Now a major engineering study confirms it.
...The infuriating thing about 9/11 and the multitude of lesser false flags which both
preceded and followed it is that, although most Americans know it was as phoney as a three
and a half dollar fed reserve note, everyone seems content to put up with the extremely
phoney "war on terror" it was designed to create and which has already destroyed a hand full
of countries in the world, caused the murder of upwards of two million people, mostly using
U.S. military, and turned the U.S. into a ruthlessly insane police state wherein everyone is
made to obey patently unlawful statutes in the name of "emergency" while the ruling elite has
quit obeying any laws at all while gathering a massive military presence to cow the now
restless and resentful public. – See more at:Christopher Bollyn: The Man Who Solved
9/11
@The Alarmist An aerospace engineer. Good for you. Maybe you need a refresher course with
some architects and building engineers. Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth is a good
place to start.
As for steel losing 90% of its strength at half its melting temperature -- that does not
imply that heat not will stack on steel. The whole building was a steel radiator. And the
fires in building 7 were very small so just how do small fires get to half the melting
temperature of steel when the radiator effect is bleeding what little heat these fires have
from a certain spot.
Lets see the steel buildings you claim were demolished by fires, because I have heard many
architects and engineers say the number is zero. We are talking a total collapse of the
buildings not just a partial collapse. Let's see them.
Eighteen years after the September 11 attacks, questioning the official government
narrative of the events of those days still remains taboo for many
This topic illustrates a few things about humans and their societies that many of us do
not realize, or are too afraid to realize. It's bigger than just the cognitive dissonance,
though this is part of it. Admittedly it is uncomfortable for most people to think about such
things Ignorance is bliss, and it is much easier to follow the herd.
But
Humans have been selectively bred and conditioned for obedience to authority for at least
the last 10,000 years. Stanley Milgram made the ramifications of this clear when he showed us
some of the dangers this fact presents for our world. Couple Milgram's findings with those of
Solomon Asch's conformity experiments and it starts becoming clear why a large part, about
30%, of the population will never be able to question the official orthodoxy regarding this
"New Pearl Harbor".
Many people simply do not have the mental ability to question those in a perceived
position of authority. These people are used to following orders. They are trained very well.
These are the people who will electrocute a stranger just because a man in a white coat says
to. These are the people who will throw a grenade into your babies crib while storming your
home in the middle of the night because some junkie informant told them they bought drugs
there in exchange for cash or a lighter sentence. These are the people who will not believe
their lying eyes when it contradicts the words of their masters or if it risks going against
the apparent consensus of a group of strangers.
I call them authoritarian followers. They love punishing members of the outgroup. They
love following rules no matter how arbitrary, nonsensical or detrimental. They expect others
to follow too.
We all know September 11, 2001, was an inside/outside job. Cui bono? The axis of kindness.
The U.S./Nato, Saudi Arabia and Israel committed the events of September 11, 2001 so they
could escalate their wars in the middle east to redraw the map for Greater Israel while
securing the oil in the middle east and the trillions in minerals in Afghanistan. The
military industrial complex needs endless wars to justify their one trillion plus dollar
annual budget and all the power that comes with it. Some people, like lucky Larry
Silverstein, made billions off the transaction. There is plenty of profiteering and graft
that comes with waging forever war.
The same people who profited from the event are the same people who planned and executed
the event. They are also the people who had the tools to make it happen. Fortunately for the
criminals who committed the crimes of that day a large part of the population will line up to
ridicule anyone who has the audacity to question the official narrative.
So buy police brutality bonds and pay your victory tax. Your work will set you free.
@Adam Smith It's so unbelievably rare to run into a sincere description of the average
fellow. Because one cam't lie to himself about the others less than he does about himself (he
can't know the others more than he can know himself), so usually evident features of people
(thus of mainstream culture, history, journalistic narratives, ) must he denied because
evident features of the self must be denied.
It's co-operation.
And then, aren't they a social species? You have surely observed that a group of them
functions in ways very close to the ant colony, the bee hive, and so on. So many more billion
neurons but what rules the mind is still so close to what rules it in the other social
species.
The thing to consider is that for God knows how many thousands of years in mankind's
history, whenever two differently sized came to a confrontation, belonging in the largest
equated survival, in the smallest death.
Then there is the intragroup confrontations and dangers: here flattering the pack leaders
best equated to better chances of survival + a more comfortable life. On the other hand,
injuring their sense of power had the same outcome that it has for the ordinary bee or ant to
do the same to the colony's or hive's leader.
This has embedded a couple of instincts, which truth and fairness can't be where they are,
at the deepest level of the regular human mind.
Some minds are different, but they don't matter, first of all they don't matter
numerically.
So official accounts of historic events are no more and no less truth-free of the accounts
people make-up of their own lives' essential events.
If you assess the average divorce-asking woman's narrative on her marriage and why she wants
to break it up and the average account of, say, World War 2 in the average school book, the %
of untruth will be circa the same.
What happens at the higher levels follows from the nature of the majority.
They love following rules no matter how arbitrary, nonsensical or detrimental. They
expect others to follow too.
Following rules as long as nobody above them tells them to make an exception.
They expect not all others, but only those below them in the power pole, to follow rules.
If they see/realize/know someone above them has broken a rule, they are awesomely good at,
wbile they have seen/realized/learned the fact, not having seen/realized/learned it.
This kind of mind can't afford unity and individuality, of course. There are always
inconsistencies, and even contradictory things believed at the same time.
And boy, how do the other authorities/authoritarian followers (depending whom they are
dealingwith) who make up the psych professions praise that kind of person! How do they master
selective blindness/forgetfulness/ignorance.
It's obvious from most reader comments that the educational systems in America (and
elsewhere) have completely decayed. "Cognitive dissonance" is just another cowardly way of
accepting lies as truths Most of you are lying to yourselves and expecting others to buy into
hype and bullshit.
Anyone who's worked with cutting steel plate knows that 5 inch thick steel plating (as
used in most lower columns of the towers) requires a perfect mixture of acetylene and oxygen
just to get the cutting area hot enough to apply the oxygen burst that cuts along the line.
Any cooling of the plate and it's no cigar. There is no way air craft fuel (kerosene) and
normal building materials can get anywhere near the melting point of steel, much less cause
complete structural failure of a perfectly engineered steel beamed structure.
Christopher Bollyn and many other dedicated journalists have connected all the relevant
dots, yet the unwashed continue to hide behind their collage degrees and talk complete
nonsense.
The first and second laws of thermodynamics should be mastered before graduating from
eighth grade People need to quit lying about the efficacy of truth
I am an agnostic on whether the twin towers were brought down by supplemental explosives. My
question is, what is gained by actually bringing the buildings down? If the attacks were to
serve as a pretext for war in the middle east, wouldn't the acts of hijacking the planes and
crashing them have been sufficient without the risks involved in planting explosives and
being being detected?
The only reasons I can offer are financial, such as the insurance payments, voided
contracts, shorting stocks etc. and perhaps destruction of evidence in criminal or civil
cases.
What is interesting is the 9/11 Commission's conclusion regarding the financing of 9/11: "
the U.S. government has not been able to determine the origin of the money used for the 9/11
attacks. Ultimately the question is of little practical significance."
Then why do we have all the financial transaction laws?
US authorities usually do not allow such staff for people why really want to hurt. They couple easily put his girlfriend
on "nofly" list, if they wanted.
In the interview, timed to coincide with the release of his book titled Permanent Record,
Snowden said he and Mills, who later moved to him in Russia, married two years ago at a private
ceremony ... ... ... One of world's most beautiful countries
According to Snowden, people in the West often have no information about the beauty of
Russian nature and hospitality of Russians.
"I've been to St. Petersburg, I've been to Sochi. I love travelling and I still do, even
though I can't cross borders now," he said.
"One of the things that is lost in all the problematic politics of the Russian government is
the fact this is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. The people are friendly. The
people are warm," he continued. "And when I came here I did not understand any of this. I was
terrified of this place because, of course, they were the great fortress of the enemy, which is
the way a CIA agent looks at Russia."
According to Snowden, "What people don't realize about Russia is that basically you can get
all the same things you can get in the United States." "The only thing they don't have in
Russia is Taco Bell," he added.
He said it was never his plan to reside in Russia, but, "with time, with open eyes you can
see that our presumptions of a place are almost always different from the reality."
Noble
cause
According to Snowden, his book was intended not only to inform reader of his life in the US
and Russia, but also to draw attention to serious challenges the modern society is now
facing.
"We have moved into a time where people care much more deeply about feelings than they do
about facts. And this is a dangerous moment for democracy, because people believe that once
we have achieved and established a free and open society it will remain that way, it will
always be there. But the reality is: things can backslide very quickly," Snowden said when
asked how dangerous, in his opinion, Trump's rise to power was.
The whistleblower believes that people should be informed of infringements on their freedom
and of acute problems, such as climate change or advanced mass surveillance technologies used
by various governments.
"We need people to recognize these problems, to understand these problems and then to be
willing to give something up to change that problem," he said. "But it's not enough to believe
in something. You have to be ready to stand for something if you want it to change. And so that
is what I hope this book will help people come to decide for themselves: are you ready to this
change."
Snowden's case
In June 2013, Snowden leaked classified information to journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura
Poitras, which revealed global surveillance programs run by US and British intelligence
agencies. He explained the move by saying that he wanted to tell the world the truth because he
believed such large-scale surveillance on innocent citizens was unacceptable and the public
needed to know about it.
The Guardian and The Washington Post published the first documents concerning the US
intelligence agencies' spying on Internet users on June 6, 2013. According to the documents,
major phone companies, including Verizon, AT&T and Sprint Nextel, handed records of their
customers' phone conversations over to the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
who also had direct access to the servers of Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Skype,
YouTube, Paltalk, AOL and Apple. In addition, Snowden's revelations showed that a secret
program named PRISM was aimed at collecting audio and video recordings, photos, emails and
information about users' connections to various websites.
After leaking classified information, Snowden flew to Hong Kong and then to Moscow, arriving
in Russia on June 23, 2013. He applied for political asylum to more than 20 countries while
staying in the transit zone at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. On July 16, he applied for a
temporary asylum in Russia, accepting Moscow's condition to refrain from activities aimed
against the US.
The NSA and the Pentagon claim that Snowden stole about 1.7 mln classified documents
concerning the activities of US intelligence services and US military operations. He is charged
with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information
and willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an
unauthorized person. He is facing up to ten years in prison on each charge.
This article raises serious questions about
Snowden's authenticity. Although the level of damage he has done make suggestion that he is apart of CIA operation
against NSA much less plausible. He did some damage by publicizing operations like Prism. No question about it.
And it is diffuclt to treat Snowden like another variation of Lee Harvey Oswald defection
to the USSR.
But it is true that several steps that he took after supposed exfiltration of the documents were highly suspicious: As author pointed out WaPo
and Guardian are essentially intelligence agencies controlled outlets, so there is no chance that publication can't be completely blocked.
Another good point is that in any large corporation there is system of logs and they suppoedly are analysed, althout the level
of qualification in doing so varies greatly.
And if reports are created automatically that not not mean that they are ver read. Another valid point is that even if you are system administrator, you have
great powers over all your users. But at the same time your power is compartmentalized: you have access only to few selected computer that constitute the set of servers you manage.
And you usually access then via special jumpserver, which logs everything you do. In no way you have access to any server and any
database in the organization; you
might not even know that some servers exist. Actually access to critical databases is very tightly controlled.
The author also pointed to an interesting question about difficulties of exfiltration of data on encrypted Windows computers. I
think that copy to the UCB drive from encrypted drive to SD or USB drive might still be permitted for sysadmins, as it might be required for some operations.
But SD accepted might be special, issued by NSA, not retai and they should be accounted for. Still the point that Yvonne Lorenzo raised is very interesting: how you bypass existing protections on you computer to copy information
of SD card ?
On another issue, why did Snowden provide his files to known house organs of Intelligence Agencies, specifically the Washington
Post and The Guardian, and not give them to Wikileaks?
Notable quotes:
"... How many reading my words work at a large entity, not necessarily government, let us say a Fortune 1000 or higher? Do you have the ability to copy data unimpeded onto any external device? Can you surf the Internet at will? Or is everything you do on the computer network under constant, real-time scrutiny? ..."
"... Edward Snowden would have us believe that the Eye of Sauron didn't notice he was looking at gigabytes of data unrelated to his job function and using his computer to copy the data to external devices over a lengthy period of time. Are his supporters alleging he is so clever he could disappear from the "Eye of Sauron's" view and be unnoticed? If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you in Crimea. ZeroHedge reported " IRS Agent Charged In Leak Of Michael Cohen Transactions To Michael Avenatti ." ..."
"... However, don't believe it takes nine months to identify such an unauthorized intrusion. Don't think every keystroke isn't monitored in real-time. So my question is: would the NSA, which has much more sensitive data (especially compromising information on the governing class) than tax returns and financial transactions have inferior capabilities than the IRS as to maintaining data security? Are we to believe the NSA lacks a "digital trail" when it comes to classified documents? ..."
"... On another issue, why did Snowden provide his files to known house organs of Intelligence Agencies, specifically the Washington Post and The Guardian, and not give them to Wikileaks to allow a publicly available searchable database? ..."
"... While other outlets -- such as the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post and the New York Times -- also possess much (though not all) of the archive, the Intercept was the only outlet with the (full) archive that had continued to publish documents, albeit at a remarkably slow pace, in recent years. In total, fewer than 10 percent of the Snowden documents have been published since 2013. Thus, the closing of the publication's Snowden archive will likely mean the end of any future publications, unless Greenwald's promise of finding "the right partner that has the funds to robustly publish" is fulfilled ..."
"... Do you believe Putin's intelligence agencies don't communicate to him how Washington "organized crime" really operates, as Whitney Webb has disclosed, now on the pages of Unz.com ? What difference does any compromised President make to the policies and goals of the occupational government of the United States (obvious to any reader of this and similar websites)? ..."
"... Why is an alleged humanitarian such a Russophobe? ..."
"... Has Snowden ever challenged the September 11 narrative, ludicrous as it is, and him being an "engineer?" ..."
"... STO equals Special Technical Operations It's highly unlikely Mr. Snowden had any access to these. ..."
"... ECI = Exceptionally Controlled Information. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these ECI controlled networks). VRK = Very Restricted Knowledge. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these VRK controlled networks. ..."
"... So what they did, is they took a few documents and they downgraded [he classification level of the documents] – just a few – and gave them to them to placate this basic whitewash investigation. ..."
"... Journalist Margie Burns asked some good questions back in June that have not yet been answered. She wondered about the 29-year old Snowden who had been a U.S. Army Special Forces recruit, a covert CIA operative, and an NSA employee in various capacities, all in just a few, short years. Burns asked "How, exactly, did Snowden get his series of NSA jobs? Did he apply through regular channels? Was it through someone he knew? Who recommended him? Who were his references for a string of six-figure, high-level security jobs? Are there any safeguards in place so that red flags go up when a subcontractor jumps from job to job, especially in high-level clearance positions?" ..."
"... In December, whistleblower Sibel Edmonds broke the news that Omidyar's Paypal Corporation was implicated in the as-yet-unreleased NSA documents from Snowden. Moreover, Edmonds had allegedly been contacted by an NSA official who alleged that "a deal was made in early June, 2013 between the journalists involved in this recent NSA scandal and U.S. government officials, which was then sealed by secrecy and nondisclosure agreements by all parties involved." ..."
"... No, no one is accusing Wikileaks of conspiring with Russia, just Robert Mueller. I really appreciate Snowden calling Julian Assange a liar, for he has consistently denied there was a "state actor." ..."
"... "Terrorism is a real problem" Snowden said. Is it credible that Snowden, who presented himself as donating funds to Ron Paul, has never read any alternative news sites? Is it credible that Snowden believes that terrorists and this would include the good "moderate terrorists" in Syria are armed and act on their own initiative, and is ignorant of the role of the governments of America, Israel, and Saudi Arabia in using them to achieve their ends as proxy armies? ..."
"... Does Snowden then think this report, " America Created Al-Qaeda and the ISIS Terror Group" is false? Does that mindset make Snowden a champion for liberty or a tool for more control of the American population? For example, is it credible that this alleged genius supports the narrative of the September 11 attacks World Trade Center attacks? ..."
"... Tor lists on its own website sponsors that include Google, the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, ONR via Naval Research Laboratory (past sponsor) and DARPA. ..."
"... Perhaps Snowden is only a Soros and Hillary Clinton supporting liberal -- but then why would he have done what he did? His character is of any government employee of the "surface state" who swallows false narratives whole. ..."
"... The logging of user and information accessed is sure added to the file. But real time supervision? No. A eye of sauron? Please. The system isnt there to prevent crime, its to track down the criminal and deeds later. And yes everything takes a very long time on the public side. ..."
"... 'Edward Snowden' who first 'leaked' to the CIA's Washington Post, in fact to Bush VP Dick Cheney's biographer Bart Gellman then the Deep State realised that was too stupid, so they switched to Rothschild employee & ex-gay-pornography-seller Glenn Greenwald, former proprietor of 'hairystuds', at the Guardian, an intel-agency rag which lies about nearly everything ..."
"... NeonRevolt once floated the theory that Snowden was an FBI or CIA plant who whistleblew solely because he had the mission to undermine NSA operations by exposing their equipment/techniques and turning public opinion against them. ..."
"... inter-service rivalry and sabotage between spy agencies is absolutely a thing, and reviewing the inconsistencies of Snowden's stunt, its aftermath, and his personal views with that potential background in mind suddenly makes things make much more sense, in my mind at least. ..."
"... If we accept the later, that he's a plant, then it raises a further question: was the short term loss, associated with his revelations, ie highlighting the utterly disturbing degree of Gov surveillance over US citizens (etc) worth the long term profit of having an established, authoritive psy-op's agent able to influence/distort etc any debate or narrative concerning the US State /elites. On this side the author notes Snowmen's views on Tor, 9/11, Russia etc which clearly advantage the US State's own views on these subjects. ..."
"... Consider that nothing Snowden revealed was news. It was all old hat for anyone who'd been paying attention, and for up to ten years. Sure Snowden made it mainstream for what good it did but nothing he said was a secret anymore. In fact, I thought even at the time his actions were nothing less than a 'threat and warning' from the intel services that they had this much on everyone. Just imagine all those national leaders, politicians from all states being pout on notice. All your secrets are ours! What a powerful global message to deliver and in such a loud and clear fashion. ..."
"... The lack of deviation from official bullshit on 9/11 is on its own however reason enough to toss this guy out. ..."
"... To my mind "9/11, attitude to", is a sort of touch-stone for telling genuine dissidents from fake and both Snowden and Assange fail on that test ..."
"... Snowden is not a classic defector so it makes sense for him to keep his distance from Russian society so as not to be inadvertently compromised or used by their intelligence services. He's obviously under surveillance there, I know we all are but he's much more aware of it, so that doesn't make it easy for him but he's definitely safer there than he'd be in France or Germany. I just don't think he planned well ahead when he became a whistle-blower or was clear about what he was trying to achieve. He's not the top level type of spy we're accustomed to reading about who betray their country for money or to serve another they believe in more than their own. If he has been on active duty as a CIA asset all along I can't see that he has achieved much of use to them other than in some inter-agency rivalry game. But it's natural for Russians to be suspicious of him – they're suspicious by nature – and rightly so, but it doesn't make his life easy there. ..."
"... 9/11 is the "litmus test" and it appears that both Assange and Snowden have failed it. ..."
"... Snowden keeping "distance" to Russia, and not openly defending them seems reasonable to me. You can imagine the smear campaign back home if he would side with Russia against the U.S. on almost anything. "The Russians got to him" or "He was always their man". ..."
"... He is trying to keep his neutrality and credibility and his target audience isn't the average Unz reader, but rather some mainstream educated middle/upper class blokes. Easily scared away from his views if they become too controversial and too far from the established narrative. ..."
"... If I had been in the position like 'Snowden', after first having been granted asylum, my priority would have been to study the language. I would gtuess that he can order food or drink, do basic greetings, and not much else. ..."
"... I agree. Shilling for the Israelis regarding 911 is a deal breaker for me. They had me going about these 2 guys for a while, but when I heard that they had ridiculed 911 truthers I smelled a rat. And after this article I agree they are shills for the status quo. Reasonable people can not doubt that 911 was a false flag operation. There's just too much bullshit there. ..."
"... I think the idea Snowden is a "plant" is a bit far out there. If he is; the real purpose of the exercise is what exactly? ..."
"... I also don't get why some commenters think Julian Assange isn't who he claims to be. His Wikileaks has published great volume of highly embarrassing material for the U.S. The embassy cables come to mind – bringing to light evidence contrary to Washington narrative on many events. ..."
"... There is another thing; Just after he established Wikileaks he came to Iceland and met with journalists and few politicians. The result from that visit was he met one Kristinn Hrafnsson, long time journalist in Iceland with excellent track record and credibility. Since Assange got in trouble, accused of sexual harassment from Swedish woman and finally escaped into the Ecuador embassy in London, Hrafnsson has been spokesman for Wikileaks. ..."
"... "It all comes down to 9/11.Everything that has happened has happened based on a lie . Everyone in Government ; everyone in the media , in entertainment , in organized religion , in the public ,in the public eye who accepts and promotes the official story is either a traitor or a tool . Everyone who does not stand forth and speak truth to power is a coward , a liar and complicit in mass-murder . Everyone everywhere can be measured by this Litmus Test ." ..."
Have you ever had the pleasure of dealing with an agent of the Federal government? For example, have you been audited by the IRS?
Did you notice what the "Agent" does to gain access to his (or her) computer -- by inserting a "Smart ID" into a slot? Did you ask
how your personal information is protected from disclosure or theft? What is to prevent the Agent from copying files to a thumb drive
and taking them home?
Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12), issued by President George W. Bush on August 27, 2004, mandated the
establishment of a standard for identification of Federal government employees and contractors. HSPD-12 requires the use of
a common identification credential for both logical and physical access to federally controlled facilities and information systems.
The Department of Commerce and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) were tasked with producing a standard for
secure and reliable forms of identification. In response, NIST published Federal Information Processing Standard Publication
201 (FIPS 201), Personal Identity Verification (PIV) of Federal Employees and Contractors, issued on February 25, 2005, and a
number of special publications that provide more detail on the implementation of the standard.
Both Federal agencies and enterprises have implemented FIPS 201-compliant ID programs and have issued PIV cards. The FIPS
201 PIV card is a smart card with both contact and contactless interfaces that is now being issued to all Federal employees and
contractors
Additional information about FIPS 201 can be found on the Government Identity/Credentialing Resources page, from NIST, and
from the Secure Technology Alliance Access Control Council.
If you engage the IRS employee in conversation, remembering the adage you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, you'll
learn the computer cannot be compromised -- all data on the device are encrypted; the only access to it is via the Smart ID. Data
can be copied to an external "thumb drive" but everything copied will be encrypted; any file on that thumb drive is only readable
by that specific device. Wouldn't this be true of NSA devices as well? Why does Snowden never discuss dealing with such encryption:
how would it be possible?
In the Oliver Stone movie Snowden , as well as in any of Snowden's descriptions of how he accessed the NSA computers, did
you note either the depiction or reference to this universal Smart ID? How could Snowden be exempt from its requirement? Why wasn't
its use, which is public knowledge, shown or discussed? Per the above, the Smart ID is deployed in all government agencies: there
are no exceptions. And while the financial portion (think of all those Goldman Sachs alumni at the U.S. Department of the Treasury)
is likely the most powerful part of the financial-military-industrial-media-congressional complex that is the central power of the
federal government, do you think that IRS systems are different and superior in security to what was employed by a contractor working
for Booze-Allen Hamilton at the NSA?
How many reading my words work at a large entity, not necessarily government, let us say a Fortune 1000 or higher? Do you
have the ability to copy data unimpeded onto any external device? Can you surf the Internet at will? Or is everything you do on the
computer network under constant, real-time scrutiny?
Did Edward Snowden, who has publicly criticized Google, mention Google is deployed as a search engine throughout the federal "intranet"?
And can he catch a link to the Washington Post on the NSA homepage too? Or would he testify and can it be verified that NSA does
not use Google (for example to obtain the PowerPoint he revealed) for searching for internal documents and procedures? Can anyone
reading my words answer the questions I've posed so far and answer accurately and honestly with confirmatory evidence?
Edward Snowden would have us believe that the Eye of Sauron didn't notice he was looking at gigabytes of data unrelated to
his job function and using his computer to copy the data to external devices over a lengthy period of time. Are his supporters alleging
he is so clever he could disappear from the "Eye of Sauron's" view and be unnoticed? If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell
you in Crimea. ZeroHedge reported "
IRS Agent Charged In Leak Of Michael Cohen Transactions To Michael Avenatti ." From the article:
John C. Fry, an analyst in the San Francisco IRS office who had worked for the agency since 2008, was charged with disclosing
Cohen's Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) – nine months after we reported that it wouldn't be difficult to track down the leaker
due to a digital trail left behind from accessing the system.
However, don't believe it takes nine months to identify such an unauthorized intrusion. Don't think every keystroke isn't
monitored in real-time. So my question is: would the NSA, which has much more sensitive data (especially compromising information
on the governing class) than tax returns and financial transactions have inferior capabilities than the IRS as to maintaining data
security? Are we to believe the NSA lacks a "digital trail" when it comes to classified documents?
On another issue, why did Snowden provide his files to known house organs of Intelligence Agencies, specifically the Washington
Post and The Guardian, and not give them to Wikileaks to allow a publicly available searchable database? As Roger Stone has
noted, the odious Nixon was taken down principally by the CIA media front The Washington Post because he sought detente with Russia
and another presidential assassination would have been too obvious. Notice the situation regarding the Snowden treasure trove as
investigative journalist Whitney Webb writes about it here: "
Silencing the Whistle: The Intercept Shutters
Snowden Archive, Citing Cost ."
According to a timeline of events written by Poitras that was shared and published by journalist and former Intercept columnist
Barrett Brown, both Scahill and Greenwald were intimately involved in the decision to close the Snowden archive.
While other outlets -- such as the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post and the New York Times -- also possess much (though
not all) of the archive, the Intercept was the only outlet with the (full) archive that had continued to publish documents, albeit
at a remarkably slow pace, in recent years. In total, fewer than 10 percent of the Snowden documents have been published since
2013. Thus, the closing of the publication's Snowden archive will likely mean the end of any future publications, unless Greenwald's
promise of finding "the right partner that has the funds to robustly publish" is fulfilled
Yet, as Poitras pointed out, the research department accounted for a minuscule 1.5 percent of First Look Media's budget. Greenwald's
claim that the archive was shuttered owing to its high cost to the company is also greatly undermined by the fact that he, along
with several other Intercept employees -- Reed and Scahill among them -- receive massive salaries that dwarf those of journalists
working for similar nonprofit publications.
Greenwald, for instance, received $1.6 million from First Look Media, of which Omidyar is the sole shareholder, from 2014 to
2017. His yearly salary peaked in 2015, when he made over $518,000. Reed and Scahill both earn well over $300,000 annually from
First Look. According to journalist Mark Ames, Scahill made over $43,000 per article at the Intercept in 2014. Other writers at
the site, by comparison, have a base salary of $50,000, which itself is higher than the national average for journalists.
And what about Snowden himself, the pontificator, the man who can speak on television or to the media with evidence of training?
Practice yourself -- see how well you can answer questions and speak publicly to a TV camera. How did he get his training? Who trained
him? Why? How is it that the legacy media, which
applauds
the slow, painful execution of Julian Assange , be in rapture over Snowden's new book tour and provide ample coverage? Is Assange
being murdered in part to prevent his providing exculpatory evidence that Russia never hacked the DNC and it was a leak?
I have provided two videos below for the reader to consider and compare.
Look at how Bill Binney, a true techno-nerd speaks and compare the difference between him with the polished interviews given by
Snowden who borders on pomposity. Also, to his favor Binney is doing his best to debunk the Russia hacking narrative of the DNC;
Snowden makes his thoughts about Russia and Russians clear
in his latest interview with Der Spiegel promoting his new book about himself:
DER SPIEGEL: Do you have Russian friends?
Snowden: I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life
with basically the English-speaking community. I'm the president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. And, you know, I'm
an indoor cat. It doesn't matter where I am -- Moscow, Berlin, New York -- as long as I have a screen to look into.
DER SPIEGEL: Western authorities accuse the Russian government on a regular basis of being one of the biggest disrupters
in the digital world. Are they right?
Snowden: Russia is responsible for a lot of negative activity in the world, you can say that right and fairly. Did Russia
interfere with elections? Almost certainly. But do the United States interfere in elections? Of course. They've been doing
it for the last 50 years. Any country bigger than Iceland is going to interfere in every crucial election, and they're going to
deny it every time, because this is what intelligence services do. This is explicitly why covert operations and influence divisions
are created, and their purpose as an instrument of national power is to ask: How can we influence the world in a direction that
improves our standing relative to all the other countries?
I am pleased to have played a small role in getting Stephen F. Cohen's work published on Unz.com. He and others have effectively
debunked Russian involvement in the manipulation of America elections and the conclusions of the Mueller report. To paraphrase a
point Professor Cohen made in his most recent article posted here, which is simply common sense: We are to believe Trump is Putin's
puppet yet Putin simultaneously encouraged the preparation of a dossier to destroy him. Does that make sense to any one with half
a brain? Do you believe Putin's intelligence agencies don't communicate to him how Washington "organized crime" really operates,
as Whitney Webb has disclosed, now on the pages of Unz.com
? What difference does any compromised President make to the policies and goals of the occupational government of the United States
(obvious to any reader of this and similar websites)?
Do you notice how Snowden never challenges any government narrative, whether it's on Russia as a villain, and not as a victim
of war initiated by Washington? Why is an alleged humanitarian such a Russophobe? Is this how he repays the nation that
granted him asylum? Has he only compassion in the abstract, and is a genius but too stupid to consider the consequences of America
going to war with Russia and in fact exacerbating the tension by his false and inflammatory statements about Russian conduct in the
2016 elections, for which there are no facts and evidence?
And then there's the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings. Of course Snowden at NSA had no access to information on
how and why it was done, but as Dmitri Orlov has written:
I suppose I am a "conspiracy theorist" too. Whenever I write something that questions the veracity of some official narrative,
someone (probably a troll) pops up and asks me what I think of 9/11. Here is what I typically reply:
I totally believe that it was possible to knock down three steel-framed buildings using two flying aluminum cans loaded
with kerosene, luggage and meat. I have proven that this is possible by throwing two beer cans at three chain-link fences.
All three fences were instantly swallowed up by holes in the ground that mysteriously opened up right under them and in which
they were instantaneously incinerated into fine oxide powder that coated the entire neighborhood. Anybody who does not believe
my experimental results is obviously a tin-foil-hat crackpot conspiracy theorist.
Lots of people read this and ran away bleating; a few people bust a gut laughing because this is (trust me on this!) actually
quite funny. Some people took offense at someone ridiculing an event in which thousands of people died. (To protect their tender
sensibilities they should consider emigrating to a country that isn't run by a bunch of war criminals.)
But if you do see the humor in this, then you may be up to the challenge, which is to pull out a useful signal (a typical
experimentalist's task) out of a mess of unreliable and contradictory data. Only then would you be in a position to persuasively
argue -- not prove, mind you! -- that the official story is complete and utter bullshit.
Note that everything beyond that point, such as arguing what "the real story" is, is strictly off-limits. If you move beyond
that point you open yourself up to well-organized, well-funded debunking. But if all you produce is a very large and imposing
question mark, then the only way to attack it is by producing certainty -- a very tall order! In conspiracy theory, as in
guerrilla warfare, you don't have to win. You just have to not lose long enough for the enemy to give up.
Has Snowden ever challenged the September 11 narrative, ludicrous as it is, and him being an "engineer?" And this last
point is the reason I'm writing these words: I don't have to come up with the "real story" on who Edward Snowden is and what his
true motives are. I am asking questions that point out the discrepancies in Snowden's statements and conduct and his alleged sanctity.
In this article, "
EXCLUSIVE REPORT: NSA Whistleblower: Snowden Never Had Access to the JUICIEST Documents Far More Damning "
WASHINGTON'S BLOG: Glenn Greenwald – supposedly, in the next couple of days or weeks – is going to disclose, based on NSA documents
leaked by Snowden, that the NSA is spying on all sorts of normal Americans and that the spying is really to crush dissent. [Background
here, here and here.]
Does Snowden even have documents which contain the information which you've seen?
RUSSELL TICE: The answer is no.
WASHINGTON'S BLOG: So you saw handwritten notes. And what Snowden was seeing were electronic files ?
RUSSELL TICE: Think of it this way. Remember I told you about the NSA doing everything they could to make sure that the
information from 40 years ago – from spying on Frank Church and Lord knows how many other Congressman that they were spying on
– was hidden?
Now do you think they're going to put that information into PowerPoint slides that are easy to explain to everybody what
they're doing?
They would not even put their own NSA designators on the reports [so that no one would know that] it came from the NSA.
They made the reports look like they were Humint (human intelligence) reports. They did it to hide the fact that they were NSA
and they were doing the collection. That's 40 years ago. [The NSA and other agencies are still doing "parallel construction",
"laundering" information to hide the fact that the information is actually from mass NSA surveillance.]
Now, what NSA is doing right now is that they're taking the information and they're putting it in a much higher security level.
It's called "ECI" – Exceptionally Controlled Information – and it's called the black program which I was a specialist in, by the
way.
I specialized in black world – DOD and IC (Intelligence Community) – programs, operations and missions in "VRKs", "ECIs", and
"SAPs", "STOs". SAP equals Special Access Program. It's highly unlikely Mr. Snowden had any access to these. STO equals Special
Technical Operations It's highly unlikely Mr. Snowden had any access to these.
Now in that world – the ECI/VRK world – everything in that system is classified at a higher level and it has its own computer
systems that house it. It's totally separate than the system which Mr. Snowden was privy to, which was called the "JWICS": Joint
Worldwide Intelligence Communications System. The JWICS system is what everybody at NSA has access to. Mr Snowden had Sys Admin
[systems administrator] authority for the JWICS.
And you still have to have TS/SCI clearance [i.e. Top Secret/ Sensitive Compartmented Information – also known as "code word"
– clearance] to get on the JWICS. But the ECI/VRK systems are much higher [levels of special compartmentalized clearance] than
the JWICS. And you have to be in the black world to get that [clearance].
ECI = Exceptionally Controlled Information. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these ECI controlled networks).
VRK = Very Restricted Knowledge. I do not believe Mr. Snowden had any access to these VRK controlled networks.
These programs typically have, at the least, a requirement of 100 year or until death, 'till the person first being "read in"
[i.e. sworn to secrecy as part of access to the higher classification program] can talk about them. [As an interesting sidenote,
the Washington Times reported in 2006 that – when Tice offered to testify to Congress about this illegal spying – he was informed
by the NSA that the Senate and House intelligence committees were not cleared to hear such information.]
It's very compartmentalized and – even with stuff that they had – you might have something at NSA, that there's literally 40
people at NSA that know that it's going on in the entire agency.
When the stuff came out in the New York Times [the first big spying story, which broke in 2005] – and I was a source of information
for the New York Times – that's when President Bush made up that nonsense about the "terrorist surveillance program." By the way,
that never existed. That was made up.
There was no such thing beforehand. It was made up to try to placate the American people.
The NSA IG (Inspector General) – who was not cleared for this – all of a sudden is told he has to do an investigation on this;
something he has no information or knowledge of.
So what they did, is they took a few documents and they downgraded [he classification level of the documents] – just a
few – and gave them to them to placate this basic whitewash investigation.
Snowden's Failure To Understand the Most Important Documents
RUSSELL TICE: Now, if Mr. Snowden were to find the crossover, it would be those documents that were downgraded to the NSA's
IG.
The stuff that I saw looked like a bunch of alphanumeric gobbledygook. Unless you have an analyst to know what to look for
– and believe me, I think that what Snowden's done is great – he's not an intelligence analyst. So he would see something like
that, and he wouldn't know what he's looking at.
But that would be "the jewels". And the key is, you wouldn't know it's the jewels unless you were a diamond miner and you knew
what to look for. Because otherwise, there's a big lump of rock and you don't know there's a diamond in there.
I worked special programs. And the way I found out is that I was working on a special operation, and I needed information from
NSA from another unit. And when I went to that unit and I said "I need this information", and I dealt with [satellite spy operations],
and I did that in the black world. I was a special operations officer. I would literally go do special missions that were in the
black world where I would travel overseas and do spooky stuff.
Did we really need Snowden to have told us that the Internet, federally controlled, does not allow anyone a modicum of privacy
and the government after implementing the Patriot Act considers ordinary Americans the enemy?
Journalist Margie Burns asked some good questions back in June that have not yet been answered. She wondered about the
29-year old Snowden who had been a U.S. Army Special Forces recruit, a covert CIA operative, and an NSA employee in various capacities,
all in just a few, short years. Burns asked "How, exactly, did Snowden get his series of NSA jobs? Did he apply through regular
channels? Was it through someone he knew? Who recommended him? Who were his references for a string of six-figure, high-level
security jobs? Are there any safeguards in place so that red flags go up when a subcontractor jumps from job to job, especially
in high-level clearance positions?"
Five months later, journalists Mark Ames and Yasha Levine investigated some of the businesses in which Greenwald's benefactor
Omidyar had invested. They found that the actual practices of those businesses were considerably less humanitarian than the outward
appearance of Omidyar's ventures often portray. The result was that Omidyar took down references to at least one of those businesses
from his website.
In December, whistleblower Sibel Edmonds broke the news that Omidyar's Paypal Corporation was implicated in the as-yet-unreleased
NSA documents from Snowden. Moreover, Edmonds had allegedly been contacted by an NSA official who alleged that "a deal was made
in early June, 2013 between the journalists involved in this recent NSA scandal and U.S. government officials, which was then
sealed by secrecy and nondisclosure agreements by all parties involved."
It would appear that Snowden's whistleblowing has been co-opted by private corporate interests. Are those involved with privatization
of the stolen documents also colluding with government agencies to frame and direct national discussions on domestic spying and
other serious matters?
The possibilities are endless, it seems. Presenting documents at a measured rate could be a way to acclimate citizens to
painful realities without stirring the public into a panic or a unified response that might actually threaten the status quo.
And considering that the number of documents has somehow grown from only thousands to nearly two million, it seems possible
that those in control could release practically anything, thereby controlling national dialogue on many topics.
Please read the final paragraph above twice and think about the points raised about acclimating citizens and controlling national
dialog. Is Snowden as much of a "Pied Piper" as QAnon? How did Snowden describe the nature of the CIA and NSA
in this earlier interview with Der Spiegel ?
DER SPIEGEL: But those people see you as their biggest enemy today.
Snowden: My personal battle was not to burn down the NSA or the CIA. I even think they actually do have a useful role in
society when they limit themselves to the truly important threats that we face and when they use their least intrusive means.
**
Snowden: It wasn't that difficult. Everybody is currently pointing at the Russians.
DER SPIEGEL: Rightfully?
Snowden: I don't know. They probably did hack the systems of Hillary Clinton's Democratic Party, but we should have proof
of that. In the case of the hacking attack on Sony, the FBI presented evidence that North Korea was behind it. In this case
they didn't, although I am convinced that they do have evidence. The question is why?
DER SPIEGEL: Mike Pompeo, the new head of the CIA, has accused WikiLeaks, whose lawyers helped you, of being a mouthpiece for
the Russians. Is that not harmful to your image as well?
Snowden: First, we should be fair about what the accusations are. I don't believe the U.S. government or anybody in the
intelligence community is directly accusing Julian Assange or WikiLeaks of working directly for the Russian government. The
allegations I understand are that they were used as a tool basically to wash documents that had been stolen by the Russian government.
And, of course, that's a concern. I don't see that as directly affecting me because I'm not WikiLeaks and there is no question
about the provenance of the documents that I dealt with.
DER SPIEGEL: Currently, there's another American guy out there who is accused of being too close to Putin.
Snowden: Oh (laughs).
DER SPIEGEL: Your president. Is he your president?
Snowden: The idea that half of American voters thought that Donald Trump was the best among us, is something that I struggle
with. And I think we will all be struggling with it for decades to come.
DER SPIEGEL: But isn't there reason to fear terrorism?
Snowden: Sure there is. Terrorism is a real problem. But when we look at how many lives it has claimed in basically
any country that is outside of war zones like Iraq or Afghanistan, it is so much less than, say, car accidents or heart attacks.
Even if Sept. 11 were to happen every single year in the U.S., terrorism would be a much lower threat than so many other things.
No, no one is accusing Wikileaks of conspiring with Russia, just Robert Mueller. I really appreciate Snowden calling Julian Assange
a liar, for he has consistently denied there was a "state actor."
"Terrorism is a real problem" Snowden said. Is it credible that Snowden, who presented himself as donating funds to Ron Paul,
has never read any alternative news sites? Is it credible that Snowden believes that terrorists and this would include the good "moderate
terrorists" in Syria are armed and act on their own initiative, and is ignorant of the role of the governments of America, Israel,
and Saudi Arabia in using them to achieve their ends as proxy armies?
Does Snowden then think this report, "
America Created
Al-Qaeda and the ISIS Terror Group" is false? Does that mindset make Snowden a champion for liberty or a tool for more control
of the American population? For example, is it credible that this alleged genius supports the narrative of the September 11 attacks
World Trade Center attacks? Whom do you trust, the contributors to these very pages or Edward Snowden?
The Tor Project – a private nonprofit known as the "NSA-proof" gateway to the "dark web," turns out to be almost "100% funded
by the US government" according to documents obtained by investigative journalist and author Yasha Levine.
In a recent blog post, Levine details how he was able to obtain roughly 2,500 pages of correspondence via FOIA requests while
performing research for a book. The documents include strategy, contract, budgets and status updates between the Tor project and
its primary source of funding; a CIA spinoff known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which "oversees America's foreign
broadcasting operations like Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe."
By following the money, I discovered that Tor was not a grassroots. I was able to show that despite its indie radical
cred and claims to help its users protect themselves from government surveillance online, Tor was almost 100% funded by three
U.S. National Security agencies: the Navy, the State Department and the BBG. Following the money revealed that Tor was not
a grassroots outfit, but a military contractor with its own government contractor number. In other words: it was a privatized
extension of the very same government that it claimed to be fighting.
The documents conclusively showed that Tor is not independent at all. The organization did not have free reign to do
whatever it wanted, but was kept on a very short leash and bound by contracts with strict contractual obligations. It was also
required to file detailed monthly status reports that gave the U.S. government a clear picture of what Tor employees were developing,
where they went and who they saw. -Yasha Levine
The FOIA documents also suggest that Tor's ability to shield users from government spying may be nothing more than hot air.
While no evidence of a "backdoor" exists, the documents obtained by Levine reveal that Tor has "no qualms with privately tipping
off the federal government to security vulnerabilities before alerting the public, a move that would give the feds an opportunity
to exploit the security weakness long before informing Tor users."
Interestingly, Edward Snowden is a big fan of Tor – even throwing a "cryptoparty" while he was still an NSA contractor where
he set up a Tor exit node to show off how cool they are.
In a 2015 interview with The Intercept's (Wikileaks hating) Micah Lee, Snowden said:
LEE: What do you think about Tor? Do you think that everyone should be familiar with it, or do you think that it's only a use-it-if-you-need-it
thing?
SNOWDEN: I think Tor is the most important privacy-enhancing technology project being used today.
"Tor Browser is a great way to selectively use Tor to look something up and not leave a trace that you did it. It can also
help bypass censorship when you're on a network where certain sites are blocked. If you want to get more involved, you can volunteer
to run your own Tor node, as I do, and support the diversity of the Tor network."
Tor lists on its own website sponsors that include Google,
the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, ONR via Naval Research Laboratory (past sponsor) and DARPA.
When Julian Assange was taken from the Ecuadoran embassy, he was carrying a copy of Gore Vidal: History of the National Security
State & Vidal on America. As an older article on Vidal in The Guardian noted, "
Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit
in 9/11 ."
Isn't it odd by doing what he did with Vidal's book Assange makes the point the legitimacy of Washington must be challenged, but
Snowden never does, other than offering suggestions for tinkering at the margins, perhaps advising we use DuckDuckGo instead of Google
to give us the illusion of privacy? Did Snowden, for someone who is in front of a computer screen for most of the day, make public
the facts obtained by Whitney Webb in her piece "
How the CIA, Mossad and 'the Epstein Network' Are Exploiting Mass Shootings to Create an Orwellian Nightmare " posted on Unz.com
which goes in depth into the Orwellian hell we are facing, for as Webb concludes:
With companies like Carbyne -- with its ties to both the Trump administration and to Israeli intelligence -- and the Mossad-linked
Gabriel also marketing themselves as "technological" solutions to mass shootings while also doubling as covert tools for mass
data collection and extraction, the end result is a massive surveillance system so complete and so dystopian that even George
Orwell himself could not have predicted it.
Following another catastrophic mass shooting or crisis event, aggressive efforts will likely follow to foist these "solutions"
on a frightened American public by the very network connected, not only to Jeffrey Epstein, but to a litany of crimes and a
frightening history of plans to crush internal dissent and would-be dissenters in the United States.
There is the concept of willful blindness that I think applies to much of what Snowden has done, if not something altogether more
nefarious -- distorations, misrepresenations, and outright lies, in addition to hubris. What is the point I'm making? Perhaps Snowden
is only a Soros and Hillary Clinton supporting liberal -- but then why would he have done what he did? His character is of any government
employee of the "surface state" who swallows false narratives whole.
I only wish the reader fairly and intelligently consider the questions I have raised. For I am encouraging you to think very carefully
before you trust the statements, purpose, motives, and truthfulness of the secular saint, Edward Snowden.
Yvonne Lorenzo makes her home in New England in a house full to bursting with books, including works on classical Greece.
Her interests include gardening, mythology, ancient history, The Electric Universe, and classical music, especially the compositions
of Handel, Mozart, Bach, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, and the Bel Canto repertoire. She is the author of the novels the
Son of Thunder and
The Cloak of Freya and has contributed to LewRockwell.com and TheSaker.IS.
Edward Snowden is a typical American fachidiot who, despite their protestations is a striver and bootlick for the Empire.
I genuinely believe that he is puzzled as to why it has turned against him. He deserves his destiny of forever languishing in
political purgatory.
Several years later, practically nobody remembers him here in the US, and possible elsewhere (save for when it is convenient
for the media). Julian Assange was a far more daring, more insightful figure.
(As an aside, I am curious about the author's liking of bel canto . Lot of birdbrain music to my ears; I prefer Wagner,
Strauss, Schreker, and Berg. Also, the older I get, the more I realize that Schoenberg was by far the greater genius than Mahler.)
The logging of user and information accessed is sure added to the file. But real time supervision? No. A eye of sauron? Please.
The system isnt there to prevent crime, its to track down the criminal and deeds later. And yes everything takes a very long time
on the public side.
You know, 16:00 hours the mouse just drops dead from the hand. Public servants don't give a damn if a job is made fast or efficient,
only that procedure if followed and that it is eventually done. Unless priorities are reassigned, stuff left halfway undone in
disarray is no problem when reassigned.
Just as keeping secret private archives of more or less job related data is all standard procedure. That is keep a load of
data in your personal folders and move those into whatever form desired. Security is not very tight. Only in the sense that eventually
every person with hours and access point etc data can be recovered if so ordered to.
So stealing data out of that system shouldn't be terribly hard. Just email it to a private email. Or store on something else
and transport out. For one Hillary was doing the same thing for ages. In that case though "what difference does it make"
There was an interview with Edward in the German magazine Der Spiegel this month, Nr. 18. In it, we get the tale, he copied material
on SD cards, and smugeled them in his mouth, or inside a "magic cube" out of the base on Hawaii, passing "guards". A cube, the
occult symbol, how blatant, just mocking the profane.
On the technical side, I got a story from a German BMW factory. A bunch
of guys on nightshift plugged a USB Harddisk into a PC to watch a movie. Minutes later they received a call from the IT, it had
been recognized remotely. What a charade. It has the taste of Jewish tales, smuggling stuff, tricking guards of an evil system.
Nice to have a piece helping point to the truth, that Glenn Greenwald & Edward Snowden are CIA frauds, as every major government
knows
'Edward Snowden' who first 'leaked' to the CIA's Washington Post, in fact to Bush VP Dick Cheney's biographer Bart Gellman
then the Deep State realised that was too stupid, so they switched to Rothschild employee & ex-gay-pornography-seller Glenn Greenwald,
former proprietor of 'hairystuds', at the Guardian, an intel-agency rag which lies about nearly everything
Despite the Snowden-Assange mutual sniping in their media-star rivalry, Julian Assange is also a CIA-Mossad asset, as Bibi
Netanyahu himself has boasted to Israeli media, regarding aggressively pro-Zionist, anti-Palestinian Julian, equally anti-9-11-truth
along with Eddie Snowden
As loyal CIA assets, neither Assange and Snowden dare to mention USA Virginia fed judge bribery files that have blocked other
extraditions, tho these files would make their own extraditions impossible, if these CIA fakers really cared about their own 'defence'
Zbigniew Brzezinski on 29 Nov 2010, on the US public television PBS News Hour, also admitted Assange was intel, his Wikileaks
'selected'
People trusting Assange are dead, Peter W Smith, Seth Rich; others jailed
You will notice that Assange & Snowden both got famous via CIA – MI6 media, NY Times, UK Guardian, who are never interested
in real dissidents
Assange shared lawyer with Rothschilds, Rothschild sister-in-law posted Assange bail, Assange has ties to George Soros too
Early on, Assange helped Rothschilds destroy rival bank Julius Baer that is 'progressive Wiki-leaking' for you
Assange had a weird childhood with Aussie mind-control cult 'the Family'
Things like 'Assange living at Ecuador Embassy' – 'now in Belmarsh prison' – easily faked, Assange moved in & out for photos
by MI5 MI6, police under national security orders 'Snowden' is not necessarily in Russia either
Assange & Snowden de-legitimise real dissidents, because people say, 'Wikileaks – NY Times – UK Guardian would cover it if
it was true'
NeonRevolt once floated the theory that Snowden was an FBI or CIA plant who whistleblew solely because he had the mission to undermine
NSA operations by exposing their equipment/techniques and turning public opinion against them.
I completely understand if people are leery of the theorycrafting of a Q tracker, but I do believe that this suggestion is plausible.
Setting aside attempts at placing it in context of a Deep State war, inter-service rivalry and sabotage between spy agencies is
absolutely a thing, and reviewing the inconsistencies of Snowden's stunt, its aftermath, and his personal views with that potential
background in mind suddenly makes things make much more sense, in my mind at least.
Interesting, thought-provoking article.
It asks us to balance up competing interests & advantages.
On the one hand we can assume Snowden is "real" or not. That is, he's a genuine whistle blower, or he's a government psy-op's
plant.
If we accept the later, that he's a plant, then it raises a further question: was the short term loss, associated with his revelations,
ie highlighting the utterly disturbing degree of Gov surveillance over US citizens (etc) worth the long term profit of having
an established, authoritive psy-op's agent able to influence/distort etc any debate or narrative concerning the US State /elites.
On this side the author notes Snowmen's views on Tor, 9/11, Russia etc which clearly advantage the US State's own views on these
subjects.
I don't know the answer -- except that this article raises serious questions, suspicions , about
Snowden's authenticity.
Never for a moment considered Snowden any sort of secular saint.
Snowden for the most part only confirmed the downward trajectory of the formerly at least interesting filmmaker, Oliver Stone.
If JFK was worth a laugh (and evidently did get a few people thinking about the phoniness of Dallas '63 for the first time),
Snowden was total chloroform on screen. Sad to see Ollie hit such lows.
This bit is interesting:
When Julian Assange was taken from the Ecuadoran embassy, he was carrying a copy of Gore Vidal: History of the National
Security State & Vidal on America. As an older article on Vidal in The Guardian noted, "Gore Vidal claims 'Bush junta' complicit
in 9/11."
As batty as Vidal may have been, it is a fact he was the first American with any sort of national recognition to speak out
against the National Security State, starting in the Eisenhower years. His fury was partly stoked by their meddling in Central
America, but he stayed at it. Even gave it a mention in a movie he had a gag role in, Bob Roberts , 1992.
His favorite line (variously rendered) was "Harry Truman signed the United States of America into oblivion in February, 1949"
which was when the NSA papers were drawn up, giving us the security state, the CIA and the whole shebang. Anytime before, any
US citizen could demand accounting of any government project, no matter what. Afterward, the rule by secrecy applied.
Vidal had been a WWII veteran and deplored all that came about after. Credit is due for that.
Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you are being watched and recorded. The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows
it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested
without targeting. If I wanted to see your emails or your wife's phone calls, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get
your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards. – Edward Snowden
Snowden, exiled and isolated in Russia, is some sort of USG crypto-agent or something?
I suppose that if you're going to look for outside-the-box commentary and analysis, you're going to get some of this sort of
nonsense. I guess you can't expect to hit a home run every time.
"Edward Snowden is a typical American fachidiot who, despite their protestations is a striver and bootlick for the Empire.
I genuinely believe that he is puzzled as to why it has turned against him. He deserves his destiny of forever languishing
in political purgatory."
And yet this "striver and bootlick for the Empire" is exiled in Russia. So some guy sacrifices an enjoyable and secure life
to go live in Russia and all you can say is that "he deserves his destiny?"
"Several years later, practically nobody remembers him here in the US"
And this is a reflection on him or on the rest of us?
Comfortable living in Moscow, vs. Belmarsh, makes all the difference in the world.
You might be right about Snowden, you might not be, but were Assange living in a Russian city, far out of reach of NeoconiaDC,
Bill Blaney would show him greater respect believe me.
@Horst G Boy howdy, a Rubik's
Cube is now magical, profane, occult, and eerily symbolic, because it's cubical! And geometry class is a satanic false
flag op of oppressive propaganda taught by crypto-Jews! Who else could be interested in IRRATIONAL numbers like π? PYTHAGORAS
WAS A MOSSAD AGENT!
And yet this "striver and bootlick for the Empire" is exiled in Russia. So some guy sacrifices an enjoyable and secure life
to go live in Russia and all you can say is that "he deserves his destiny?"
His "sacrifice" was inadvertent and involuntary. The fact that he seems not to appreciate the sanctuary offered to him by Russia
-- has he not repeatedly expressed the desire to go elsewhere? -- says a lot. From everything I have read about him, it would
appear that he regards his exile not as something to be borne with dignity, but as something to pout over as does a child who
unexpectedly did not get his way.
Julian Assange, on the other hand, sacrificed much more and did so willingly and courageously. He had no illusions about the
consequences that he would face for his beliefs and actions.
And this is a reflection on him or on the rest of us?
Both. Nobody remembers anything here in the US anyway, least of all people and events which do not flatter the national mythos.
In the case of this would-be patriot -- the scion of a family that grew fat at the government teat, and who himself has made a
tidy profit from his exile -- his unofficial damnatio memoriæ is deserved.
Maybe you ought to give Snowden some credit for his military service too. Fair is fair.
Snowden enlisted in the United States Army Reserve on May 7, 2004, and became a Special Forces candidate through its 18X
enlistment option.[39] He did not complete the training.[12] After breaking both legs in a training accident,[40] he was discharged
on September 28, 2004.[41]
@Brabantian Is Seth Rich dead
? OpDeepState.com : "The 'murder' of Seth Rich – Everything we thought we knew is wrong !" by Lisa Phillips . "The MOSSAD infiltrated
Clinton's campaign with a Sayanim contractor – Seth Rich – this OP took Hillary right out of the race ."
Tor is a great tool, if you know how to use it correctly. The US gov't know people don't know how to use it correctly, and sets
up exit nodes to spy on idiots, like this:
In 2007 Egerstad set up just five Tor exit nodes and used them to intercept thousands of private emails, instant messages
and email account credentials.
Amongst his unwitting victims were the Australia, Japanese, Iranian, India and Russia embassies, .
Dan Egerstad proved then that exit nodes were a fine place to spy on people and his research convinced him in 2007, long
before Snowden, that governments were funding expensive, high bandwidth exit nodes for exactly that purpose.
Tor is a fine security project and an excellent component in a strategy of defence in depth but it isn't (sadly) a cloak
of invisibility.
Exit nodes, just like fake Wi-Fi hotspots, are an easy and tempting way for attackers to silently insert themselves into
a network.
By running an exit node they can sit there as an invisible man-in-the-middle on a system that people choose when
they want extra privacy and security.
Well, this is refreshing. I agree wholeheartedly about Snowden and have the same reservations. My feelings about Assange, however,
aren't much different. Julian has not challenged the 9/11 narrative either to be fair. I am inclined to see them both as limited
hangouts. Snowden's 'revelations' were all old news to anyone who'd been paying attention for 10 years before his appearance.
Even other whistleblowers, none of whom got any media coverage, had spoken of much of it previously. I see them both as pied pipers
and nothing more. I think Russian intelligence services are perfectly well aware of what Snowden is and have kept him at arms
length themselves. Not much they could do but play along but nothing suggests they ever saw him as any sort of 'coup'
Anyone who still plays along with the 9/11 bullshit narrative isn't worth a damn anyway.
@animalogicConsider that nothing
Snowden revealed was news. It was all old hat for anyone who'd been paying attention, and for up to ten years. Sure Snowden made
it mainstream for what good it did but nothing he said was a secret anymore. In fact, I thought even at the time his actions were
nothing less than a 'threat and warning' from the intel services that they had this much on everyone. Just imagine all those national
leaders, politicians from all states being pout on notice. All your secrets are ours! What a powerful global message to deliver
and in such a loud and clear fashion.
The lack of deviation from official bullshit on 9/11 is on its own however reason enough to toss this guy out. Snowden NEVER
impressed me for a moment and honestly, nor has Assange. I believe they're both working for the other side still. By the way,
Julian Assange has actually denigrated 9/11 truthers a number of times.
@anon It's in the magazine, page
82, quote "Zauberwürfel". Presented by me, for you to get the picture. Maybe you haven't seen enough cubes around, to get that
humor. In real life, copying material on devices will be followed by arrest, no interview, no journey to some exile. This whole
tale is not funny, it's evil on many levels. Your sarcasm is disturbing.
Several years later, practically nobody remembers him here in the US, and possible elsewhere (save for when it is convenient
for the media). Julian Assange was a far more daring, more insightful figure.
I disagree, there are plenty of people who remember him. The problem is they don't care, most Americans would rather watch
America's Got Talent or Dancing With The Stars than do something about our corrupt political system.
2013 Edward Snowden 'leaked stolen documents' (1) 'Leaked' to Dick Cheney friend at CIA WashPost, Rothschild employee Greenwald
(2) Anti-9-11-truth (3) Nothing really new beyond more than 5+ previous NSA whistleblowers (4) Has CIA lawyers, worked with Brzezinski
son, promoted by Brzezinski daughter, fake CV history (5) Known as fake to all major gov intel agencies
@Johnny Walker ReadThis is
absolutely dynamite material, it blows to smithereens any notion that Edward Snowden is anything other than a fraud, a CIA disinfo
op.
So now we can place him alongside Julian Assange and Wikileaks in the rogue's gallery of professional liars. This report
also exposes several other media outlets as being under CIA control, something we have known for some time
I don't know the answer -- except that this article raises serious questions, suspicions , about
Snowden's authenticity.
To my mind "9/11, attitude to", is a sort of touch-stone for telling genuine dissidents from fake and both Snowden and Assange
fail on that test. I don't have a reference for it, but I saw it in correspondence on this site. There was a video of a lecture
given by Assange, where someone asked him about 9/11. He looked extremely embarrassed and then replied that he thought that it
was "not very important" (Sic!) and changed the subject.
I am less sure of this but I think I saw something similar in an interview with Snowden. Perhaps someone else can remind me
of exact references?
This is the same government whose leaders secure their laptops with the secret code "pas$word" and require the producers of computers
to give them full access via day one exploits along with tailor fitted programs that are easier to hack.
That Snowden got away with what he did is not that shocking.
These days Snowden has become a generic term for whistleblowing on the Deep State tech spying, like xerox for copying. I suppose someone here wants to remind us that this was _really_ the first copier, patented in 1879:
The truth or falsity of the original "myth" becames moot at some point.
The Deep State is spying. They do have hardware and software and monkey in the middle hacks. They do trade intelligence with
other spy agencies, domestic and foreign. They lie about it through the Mockingbird media.
_That_ is what is important.
Snowden's bona fides are "inside baseball", and minor league baseball at that.
.gov IT security is a joke–millions of pages of regulations, proclamations, millions of hours of management meetings, goals,
powerpoint slides–ultimately easily outmatched by any determined hackers (whether in mom's basement or an intelligence agency's
basement).
If he was a sys admin, that probably meant he had the rights to install, remove, enable, and disable the various safety guards
and security checks discussed in this article.
@Jonathan Revusky Yvonne Lorenzo
paper suggest suspect issues exist to support Snowden's story but finds Assange's saga to be
based in epic, consistent, continued resistance to the organized forces at work in governments and high profile international
corporations and agencies to keep secret things which expose officials as criminals.
<=the difference is consistency, scope and finger points. Assange has been consistent.. always seeking to make available as
much as he could, always with as much clarity as possible; making the point where he could, that much of what he exposed seems
to be in the domain of organized crime. Assange often exposes high profile persons and tags them with evidence to connect them
to prior and current organized crime or obviously corrupt activities. Assange shows these persons or governments or agencies are
involved in secret diplomatic activities, the secrecy of which seem always to be protected by judicial and legal processes
The Assange story paints a picture that suggest globally organized crime has come into possession and now manages and controls
many well armed domestic governments and that selected agencies of government have been enabling selected private enterprises.
Assange exposes intelligence services of many different nations to be a bank, corporation, and agency inter connects that coordinate
infrastructure destruction, invasion, regime change, and war, and that these events are often followed by opportunistic privatization.
Snowden merely says a few things are wrong and should be corrected. in time the government will fix its own mistakes. I do
not know if Snowden is a Trojan, but nothing Assange has done suggest he is and governments have treated Assange as anything but
one of them. My opinion.
@Nicolás Palacios Navarro I agree
that Assange has suffered much more than Snowden, but why hold that against the latter?
Snowden took a risk to publicize what he thought was important information indicating a dangerous trend in US policy. He wasn't
willing to offer himself up as a lamb to the slaughter, so it's true that his sacrifice is not perhaps the ultimate one. He seems
to have thought he could remain in Hong Kong but didn't realize that China was never going to compromise relations with the US
to protect him. Putin wouldn't have either except that the US was so imperious in demanding his return that Putin really couldn't
save face and give him up, and no doubt he was rankled by US hypocrisy, knowing that had Snowden been a Russian, the US would
never have considered sending him back.
But Snowden DID take action which is more than most of us do. I find your complete lack of empathy kind of weird, to be honest.
Even if Assange is the more virtuous or if one disagrees with Snowden's actions, he has paid a price for principle.
What does his family background have to do with anything?
I'm not inclined to sneer at him, and I don't see how you get to "he deserves what he gets."
So Pamela Anderson lied about visiting Assange in the embassy? If they're faking it, wherever he is he isn't in the public
eye walking down the street or sitting in a Starbucks, so he's leading a prison life anyway behind closed doors somewhere. I suppose
a dedicated agent would do something like that for Queen and country or whatever, but I doubt he's the type. I gather veterans
today are trying to cast Assange as a Mossad agent but then they're the Journal of the Clandestine Community, whatever that is.
Snowden is not a classic defector so it makes sense for him to keep his distance from Russian society so as not to be inadvertently
compromised or used by their intelligence services. He's obviously under surveillance there, I know we all are but he's much more
aware of it, so that doesn't make it easy for him but he's definitely safer there than he'd be in France or Germany. I just don't
think he planned well ahead when he became a whistle-blower or was clear about what he was trying to achieve. He's not the top
level type of spy we're accustomed to reading about who betray their country for money or to serve another they believe in more
than their own. If he has been on active duty as a CIA asset all along I can't see that he has achieved much of use to them other
than in some inter-agency rivalry game. But it's natural for Russians to be suspicious of him – they're suspicious by nature –
and rightly so, but it doesn't make his life easy there.
Good stuff. Snowden was outed by Gordon Duff years ago. Although I'll have to come back to finish this article, it generally appears
to agree with Duff's analysis that none of it adds up. If I may paraphrase Edward Bernays, To read the Washington Post and Guardian or watch TV news is to see America and Western Civilization through the eyes of its
enemy.
The owners of the media own the public forum in America and through it the formation of men's attitudes and the outcome of
elections. The left vs right, CNN vs Fox News, MAGA vs socialism and other contrived theater serves the interests of the media
owners and no other.
Assange tried to destroy the "system", which would have furthered the conditions for completing the ongoing, global
Cultural Marxist Revolution Mao Zedong on steroids.
Snowden, on the other hand, wanted something much less extreme. He wanted to fix and save the "system" by exposing
its excesses in order to bring it back within a quasi-legal, democratic framework.
In response, the "system" was satisfied to teach Snowden a lesson. They were willing to slap Snowden's hand by exiling him
to Western Russia, which is better than rotting in a Siberian labor camp or "max" prison in the United States.
Assange, on the other hand, is a reincarnated, digital version of Che Guevara. They want his scalp, recognizing that Assange
(like Che Guevara) will brook no compromise in his revolutionary agitation.
Good article. Snowden and Assange are agents of disinformation
"I'm constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence
of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud."
@9/11 Inside job Well, the
Real Litmus Test ™ is eternal security vs. conditional salvation. Don't fail, or everything else you've ever said must be
summarily dismissed. Answer well, friendo .
Splitting (also called black-and-white thinking or all-or-nothing thinking) is the failure in a person's thinking to bring
together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self and others into a cohesive, realistic whole. It
is a common defense mechanism.
The problem is they don't care, most Americans would rather watch America's Got Talent or Dancing With The Stars than do
something about our corrupt political system.
It appears the author of this piece has not read Snowden's book, Permanent Record . If she had, she would not have asked
questions which are answered, in detail, in Snowden's book. Here are some of the most obvious points.
1. "Why does Snowden never discuss dealing with such encryption: how would it be possible?"
Answer: In his book, Snowden describes the layers of encryption that he used when copying the files from NSA. He also describes
the extraordinary level of access he had as a systems engineer. Further, he mentions his surprise at finding that the NSA did
not practice widespread encryption, in contrast to his experience at CIA, where the hard drives were not only encrypted, but removed
from the computers and placed in a safe each night.
2. "In the Oliver Stone movie Snowden, as well as in any of Snowden's descriptions of how he accessed the NSA computers, did
you note either the depiction or reference to this universal Smart ID? How could Snowden be exempt from its requirement?"
Answer: Movies omit details. In his book, Snowden describes working in the one-person Information Sharing department. As part
of that work, he brought an older, "obsolete" system to his office under the cover story of "compatibility testing" and used this
older system to copy the data.
3. "Did Edward Snowden, who has publicly criticized Google, mention Google is deployed as a search engine throughout the federal
"intranet"?"
Answer: Yes, as a matter of fact, in his book, Snowden does mention that Google provides a custom internal version of their
search engine to the intelligence community.
4. "Edward Snowden would have us believe that the Eye of Sauron didn't notice he was looking at gigabytes of data unrelated
to his job function and using his computer to copy the data to external devices over a lengthy period of time."
Answer: In his book, Snowden describes how he created a "readboard" that collected the documents as part of his work in the
Information Sharing department. He also describes how another systems administrator did notice, and how he addressed this attention
by providing access to his "readboard" to the other administrator, and explained its purpose and value to users. In other words,
the "gigabytes of data" he was looking at were directly related to his job function.
5. "On another issue, why did Snowden provide his files to known house organs of Intelligence Agencies, specifically the Washington
Post and The Guardian, and not give them to Wikileaks to allow a publicly available searchable database?"
Answer: Snowden also discusses this topic in his book. According to Snowden, he did not want to simply release the information,
he wanted the media to remove anything that might cause harm.
6. "And what about Snowden himself, the pontificator, the man who can speak on television or to the media with evidence of
training? Practice yourself -- see how well you can answer questions and speak publicly to a TV camera. How did he get his training?
Who trained him? Why?"
Answer: After 6 years of media attention, it seems reasonable he would gain some expertise in dealing with the media.
My purpose in providing the answers above is not to defend or attack Snowden. Rather, these examples just show that the author
of this piece is a sloppy amateur who did not do her homework. I suspect the author is also woefully ignorant of computer technology.
Anyone curious about these topics should read Permanent Record and decide for themselves.
Your opinion stands. Snowden has de facto been compromised. Being in Russia, and not in control of his environment. Whether
he was from the start, could be. The Tor browser bull- *** t speaks against him all the way. His conventional career start, and
youth also. He is more Macron then a Galloway.
Assange was in for the long term, had thorough knowledge of affairs digital, his youth, his physical courage(there must be
a point where selling out was a possibility) were exemplary all along the (long) and still ongoing slug.
Even his ego, fronting Wikileaks seems to be proportionate as compared to the conventional Jerks &, as Pompeo, Hillary, Trump,
Obama. If one sees how many personnel is dedicated to steer elections and governance public opinion, he certainly looks like a
lonely giant on the civil disobedience, organizational, knowledgeable, energy spent and resilience side. A true example of what
White, and Western European descend stands for. Enlightenment, in system, style, and function. Relevancy, long term goals, dare,
does not come better then that.
@Oscar Peterson I don't have "Agree/Disagree/Etc"
privileges so I say here that I agree with you.
Some of the pompous ingrates trashing Snowden for the flimsiest of reasons still seem to have a high opinion of Thomas Drake,
William Binney, or Kirk Wiebe. They might read this:
Three NSA Veterans Speak Out on Whistleblower
The author, interestingly enough, isn't I.T. professional, but, has very definite opinions about IT security. Dumb.
Just email it to a private email.
Well, firewall logs could reveal your connection to some email server outside ..
Or store on something else and transport out.
Yep. Hehe the girl doesn't actually get how that "encryption" thing works. OSI layers etc.
And, what people really don't get: all security is as good as an average person using it.
As hehe you pointed out:
Hillary was doing the same thing for ages.
Insider doesn't need to tackle technology. All he/she needs is to tackle is a dumb employee.
Anyway .
I could make my home systems quite secure, even against Five Eyes. That would create another set of even worse problems, but
let's leave it out for now.
The problem is my wife and her browsing/computer use habits. Hehe makes sense?
Snowden keeping "distance" to Russia, and not openly defending them seems reasonable to me. You can imagine the smear campaign
back home if he would side with Russia against the U.S. on almost anything. "The Russians got to him" or "He was always their
man".
He is trying to keep his neutrality and credibility and his target audience isn't the average Unz reader, but rather some mainstream
educated middle/upper class blokes. Easily scared away from his views if they become too controversial and too far from the established
narrative.
Last but not least, he is playing very dangerous game, probably without much security from his host country. This probably
limits what he can do, TPTB could probably get to him if they wanted it badly enough.
@PetrOldSack > The Tor browser
bull- *** t speaks against him all the way
No, your stupid bull- *** t lack of understanding about Tor speaks against you all the way. It's not encryption, like you probably
think it is. It's simply a way to use another IP address without having to drive to the nearest Starbucks to use their wifi. You
treat Tor just like any "free" wifi, assuming that your data is being sniffed and collected. If you're going to message, use Signal
(or Telegram.) Always force HTTPS. Use encryption. All Tor does is obfuscate your IP location, which is exactly what Snowden states,
"All Tor does is obfuscate your IP location .
"[Tor] allows you to disassociate your physical location ."
And now Brave Browser has it built in! So easy. Try it. Just don't do anything on Tor that you wouldn't do with a Starbuck's
free wifi in Foggy Bottom.
@Republic How he got taken down
is here
, and it started with the name-fag using his Real Name while e-begging for help to run illegal websites, and ended up with a half-dozen
FBI agents tailing him at his arrest. Even then, Tor made it harder for the FBI to track him, just not impossible.
Tor only does one thing, obfuscate your physical location. That's it. It's not magic. It's a virtual way to sit at the Starbucks
cafe and use their free wifi. Just assume the exit node is owned by the Feds, looking for criminal morons who don't understand
it and think it's "secure" or "encrypted." It's not. Use encryption too.
Stuff like this just confirms Qanon. He said years ago Snowden was a CIA plant in the NSA to reveal this information about their
mass surveillance on purpose. Why ? Maybe it relates to what Michael Hoffman describes as revelation of the method – a process
of revealing the crimes being committed against us by "they" so it breeds apathy and despair in the population when nothing comes
from
The revelation of the crimes
An allegedly very high iq high school from a family with drop out Snowden's tried to join special forces and failed jump school,
he failed a polygraph, got accepted to the CIA though not as a field agent despite his lack of a degree, and was bounced from
the CIA and then got a job with Dell as an outside contractor on the basis of his still intact security clearance, the contractors
were not compartmentalised in the way government employees were.
Then he went to work for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton,
at an NSA facility in Hawaii. In subsequent interview with journalists, Snowden lied about his doing undercover work for the CIA,
salary and seniority at Booz Allen, being able to spy on the the emails and phone calls of President Obama. Oh, and suffering broken
bones in special forces jump school, he just had shin splints It is very clear how he got access, and why most of the people who
gave him it did not own up.
https://nypost.com/2013/11/08/snowden-duped-coworkers-to-get-passwords/
Snowden duped co-workers to get passwords A handful of agency employees who gave their login details to Snowden were identified,
questioned and removed from their assignments, said a source close to several U.S. government investigations into the damage
caused by the leaks.
Snowden may have persuaded between 20 and 25 fellow workers at the NSA regional operations center in Hawaii
to give him their logins and passwords by telling them they were needed for him to do his job as a computer systems administrator,
a second source said.
Are we to believe the NSA lacks a "digital trail" when it comes to classified documents?
It's only difficult to believe if you think NASA (like the CIA and FBI once were) are only guarded in relation to external
rather than internal security breaches
[A] frightening history of plans to crush internal dissent and would-be dissenters in the United States.
Why would they bother? Those dissenters cannot change anything, while they are whiling away their free time on the internet.
Such activity cannot change anything at all, and so it is to be encouraged from the point of view of any establishment as open
dissent on the net wards off the allegation of totalitarian state. Talk is cheap.
I'm not going to comment on the person or their agenda, rather the process-broadly.
Can you copy encrypted files without knowledge and smuggle them out?
Short answer:
Yes, with a second device and some standard hardware stuff.
They can see the second device if it is plugged in, but they have to look for it.
There is no need to try and copy from the source, copy the output to a second machine that can interpret.
ought to give Snowden some credit for his military service too.
Hell, I'd give the guy credit for his quick sprinting at the NSA. But we haven't established if he was a wiz kid or a plant.
Vidal went into the US Army after Pearl Harbor, at age 17. Even though he'd been his high school representative for the America
First Committee, trying to keep the US out of the war. Due to hypothermia working on army transport ships in the Aleutians, he
was initially misdiagnosed as arthritic and, not being caught in time, ended up first with a titanium leg replacement years later,
then in a wheelchair.
I remain sort of impressed when a young man opposes a fight, then for patriotic reasons, serves anyway (and pays a steep price).
I'm sure we'll get the full story on Snowden sooner or later.
@Saggy A stupid girl who is completely
unfamiliar with the Snowden history. For example, she asks this, "why did Snowden provide his files to The Guardian?"
Because he needed immediate press coverage. He didn't have weeks or even days, he had at most a few hours. His story
had to be in the press the next morning. Both Greenwald and the Guardian reporter were with him at the hotel, worried that
Snowden might even be assassinated if caught by US forces, and worked to get immediate press coverage of his plight to save his
life. Plus, he was in constant contact with Wikileaks'Julian Assange, which she conveniently ignores to promote her lie-based
conspiritard theory.
Without his story getting into the press within a few hours, and without Wikileaks' Julian Assange helping Snowden, he'd be
in prison now, at best, possibly dead.
I say, give the guy a fair trial. He has asked for a fair trial. But the US Gov't has refused to allow his motive to
be considered in the trial. Amazing, isn't it? Since when is motive to not be considered in a criminal trial?
For Snowden, a fair trial means allowing the jury to consider his motivations rather than simply deciding the case
on whether a law was broken.
"They want the jury strictly to consider whether these actions were lawful or unlawful, not whether they were right or wrong,"
Snowden said. "And I'm sorry, but that defeats the purpose of a jury trial."
Tor may still be a good tool, it certainly was, I had great fun using it to troll and set off edit wars on English Wikipedia for
a year or two mid-last decade. One of those edit wars lasted for about three days. I just watched after starting it (but I meant
what I said in the comment that set it off, but not always in the trolling(^-^)v).
In any case, the English-language WP has been madly tracking Tor exit nodes and banning them since about early '07.
Fun while it lasted.
As for the wrong way to use it, that basically means making a connection to any other site, without Tor, while using Tor. I
slipped up on that once or twice when slightly drunk.
I don't even know if using Tor is even legal in Japan now. I do love, however, how Wikipedia is aggressively supressing it.
Some politicians in ruling party were moving to make it illegal a couple of years ago, our polity is so nonsensical that I
have to checck Japanese wiki to see the result.
Any fule knows that Tor original is a U.S.N. programme,
Rappaport started my thinking and I bookmarked his pages long ago and to my horror found the site was taken down. I wonder
why? Glad for this archive. Thank you.
It appears the author of this piece has not read Snowden's book, Permanent Record. If she had, she would not have asked
questions which are answered, in detail, in Snowden's book. Here are some of the most obvious points.
1. "Why does Snowden never discuss dealing with such encryption: how would it be possible?"
Answer: In his book, Snowden describes the layers of encryption that he used when copying the files from NSA. He also describes
the extraordinary level of access he had as a systems engineer. Further, he mentions his surprise at finding that the NSA did
not practice widespread encryption, in contrast to his experience at CIA, where the hard drives were not only encrypted, but
removed from the computers and placed in a safe each night.
2. "In the Oliver Stone movie Snowden, as well as in any of Snowden's descriptions of how he accessed the NSA computers,
did you note either the depiction or reference to this universal Smart ID? How could Snowden be exempt from its requirement?"
Answer: Movies omit details. In his book, Snowden describes working in the one-person Information Sharing department. As
part of that work, he brought an older, "obsolete" system to his office under the cover story of "compatibility testing" and
used this older system to copy the data.
No, I haven't read the book–yet.
As part of a forensic analysis, which none of you were observant enough to understand, the subject is interviewed without knowledge
of the questions in advance. His answers would be evaluated based on facts, for which a forensic IT team with no connections to
government contractors would be part of and gain access to NSA systems. Thus, testimony is considered but it must be verified.
Rand Paul might be one to open an investigation into the inadequacy of NSA security but government investigating itself is suspect.
No such investigation will ever take place.
Note there has been no calls, that I am aware of, for any GAO study of NSA vulnerabilities.
Second, the critics miss the point: providing files to CIA-Five Eye fronts like Guardian and CIA Washington Post is suspect.
As per what I wrote, no one now has access to this data.
I suspect Snowden leaked legitimate information to con the Russians to be on their soil and conduct malfeasance. Prior to Putin
providing S-300s to Syria, Israel had better relations with Russia. I suspect Q is also coordinated by Intel agency friendly to
Likud. Note his mention of John Perry Barlow before his death. He warned of Snowden being sent deliberately to Russia and hence
my concern for CIA doing something stupid.
As to his comments on not supporting Russia, no support is necessary. If he were a decent human being he could simply have
stated, "Election interference notwithstanding the U.S. should pursue non-aggressive posture against Russia. There was no 'Second
Pearl Harbor.' The risk of nuclear war is great and I agree with President Trump to reduce tensions, although I disagree with
his politics."
Instead, see his Tweets supporting the Pussy Hats and "We came, we saw, he died" Hillary Clinton.
In the event, Snowden is irrelevant. The end of Empire is imminent.
Read Martyanov's post on the recent threats America made to Russia here.
I have compassion for Snowden. His end will likely be as Skripals was: disappearance by Western IC which he supports and blame
placed on Russia.
We are free to disagree with one another. I trust nothing a supporter of Empire says.
As to September 11 I wasn't aware of Assange's remarks. This is the touchstone as others have said. Snowden enlisted because
of September 11 false flag. Yeah, right, he is an idiot savant.
Even Ed Asner who no longer wins Emmy awards and is blackballed had the courage to do this video. Trust Snowden? I think not.
Y. Lorenzo (this site will not allow me to post under my name)
p.s. Ron uses Gmail. The nearest military base is a long, long way from my location. A helicopter outfitted with surveillance
bubbles overflew after I submitted this piece.. Coincidence, right?
I will fight for the truth. I receive no compensation for my work and expect none. I support the cause of peace and not Empire.
Thanks for the intelligent supportive comments. Ad hominem attacks mean nothing. Thanks to Ron for posting though he disagrees.
...re. 'Smowden"when he was constantly whining about Russia, getting hhs pole-dancing gf to join him there must have
been a major effort, but he has no gratitude for it.
Really strange. At the time, I thought that Putin's comment 'he is a strange young man' had to do only with questions of loyalty and betrayal,
of course, it was lilekely deeper and more suspicious than that. If I had been in the position like 'Snowden', after first having been granted asylum, my priority would have been to study
the language. I would gtuess that he can order food or drink, do basic greetings, and not much else.
@Republic Snowden's wife is a
former pole dancer, those are for good for something, but its not marrying. Everything about him suggests immaturity, from his
toying with the idea of being a model to his trying to go from frail civilian with a youth spent 24/7 gaming to passing jumps
school. He stole vastly more than he could ever have read, much of it having no bearing on privacy so he has no idea what he might
have compromised. Quoth he:
There is a secrecy agreement, but there is also an oath of service. An oath of service is to support and defend, not an
agency, not even the president, it is to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies
– direct quote – foreign and domestic. And this begs the question, what happens when our obligations come into conflict.
If you have meaningful values (ie those that do not charge to suit your personal aggrandisement) you resign, I but instead
of doing that he deliberately got another job contracting with the NSA all the better to steal data.
.In the event, Snowden is irrelevant. The end of Empire is imminent. Read Martyanov's post on the recent threats America made to Russia here .
That was fast, even for this pub.
Ad hominem attacks mean nothing.
You mean being positive about you UNABLE to visualize a byte from a "keypress" moving all the way to the LAN cable with each
timer "click"? You know, buffers, busses, microcode/firmware, interrupts, stack/heap, closed source, encryption/decryption layer
of the OSI stack etc. That's for technology.
As for people, unaware of an average idiot user in any environment using IT, Governments in particular, and the role and power
of sysadmins in such environments?
But confident to write articles what can and can not be done re IT security?
Yeah .
@anon Not sure about Pythagoras,
but there are (very unfortunately) people who might have
fun from combining "Rubik's Cube and highly classified information".
And not necessarily in reality.
You mean being positive about you UNABLE to visualize a byte from a "keypress" moving all the way to the LAN cable with
each timer "click"? You know, buffers, busses, microcode/firmware, interrupts, stack/heap, closed source, encryption/decryption
layer of the OSI stack etc. That's for technology.
Rand Paul might be one to open an investigation into the inadequacy of NSA security but government investigating itself
is suspect. No such investigation will ever take place.
Yes, Rand Paul who while cutting his lawn provoked his own retired doctor neighbor in a gated community into a maddened vicious
rib dislocating attack that cost Paul part of his lung What a brilliant choice to annoy the government.
His end will likely be as Skripals was: disappearance by Western IC which he supports and blame placed on Russia
Skirpal is in America. The British got Skirpal out of Russia, but Russia could have killed him any time because he was homesick
and meeting people from the Russian Embassy. In my opinion the Russians were trying to kill Skirpal's daughter along with him.
They knew she was coming and timed the nerve agent attack so as to 'accidentally' kill her along with the traitor. The knowledge
that you will go after their families is the ultimate deterrent. Unless you are a narcissistic dick like Snowden, who hardly mentions
anything his family did for him except getting a second phone line so he could play some stupid internet game. Snowden actually
says in his book that the internet raised him. It did not get him a job in the CIA despite him having no degree, that was his
mom's NSA and her father's Pentagon connections. Aldrich Ames's father worked for the CIA .
Edward Snowden is a great man – a great American. (Will a Dem president pardon him?) I recently viewed a video on how a poor immigrant family hid Snowden before he secured a flight out of Hong Kong. (He is working
to get them out of Hong Kong, to Canada.) I am curious as to how he got the flight out to Russia?????
This will be my final comment.
My issue is one regarding Snowden's character and integrity, especially as the collapsing Empire under FUBAR Trump is waging
war on the world. Come on, none of the CIA trolls here have read The Saker with Orlov on the fate of the mass murdering Empire?
At this point it is important to explain what exactly a "final collapse" looks like. Some people are under the very mistaken
assumption that a collapsed society or country looks like a Mad Max world. This is not so. The Ukraine has been a failed state
for several years already, but it still exists on the map. People live there, work, most people still have electricity (albeit
not 24/7), a government exists, and, at least officially, law and order is maintained. This kind of collapsed society can go
on for years, maybe decades, but it is in a state of collapse nonetheless, as it has reached all the 5 Stages of Collapse as
defined by Dmitry Orlov in his seminal book "The Five Stages of Collapse: Survivors' Toolkit" where he mentions the following
5 stages of collapse:
Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost.
Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that "the market shall provide" is lost.
Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that "the government will take care of you" is lost.
Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that "your people will take care of you" is lost.
Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in "the goodness of humanity" is lost.
Sound familiar? Read it and weep. Your pensions are toast.
Or read Chris Hedges America The Farewell Tour.
Snowden's character is proven by his interview with Brian Roberts.
Now, although only 14% of U.S. TLAMs got past Syrian air defenses, hear him was rhapsodic on the "beautiful missiles."
And Snowden is happy to talk to this creep? And asks Rothschild-Kravis puppet Macron to ex-filtrate him to France?
It was in this milieu that he met Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis, in their residence on Park Avenue in New York [1]. The Kravis
couple, unfailing supporters of the US Republican Party, are among the great world fortunes who play politics out of sight
of the Press. Their company, KKR, like Blackstone and the Carlyle Group, is one of the world's major investment funds.
" Emmanuel's curiosity for the 'can-do attitude' was fascinating – the capacity to tell yourself that you can do anything
you set your mind to. He had a thirst for knowledge and a desire to understand how things work, but without imitating or copying
anyone. In this, he remained entirely French ", declares Marie-Josée Drouin (Mrs. Kravis) today [2].
Snowden's revelations about his aspirations for asylum outside of Russia come just days ahead of the upcoming release of
his new memoir which is expected to hit the shelves on US Constitution Day.
Famous American whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the man responsible for exposing a number of global
surveillance programs run by the US agency, has recently revealed that he would like to obtain asylum in France.
Call it female intuition, Snowden creeps me out.
Those who want to bow before his altar, be my guest. You have free will.
Just realized, isn't this creature the only female author here?
A female creature is writing, as an author, on alt-whatever site, about things she has never been professionally involved in.
With certain hahaha style.
Hahaha ..oh my.
So, what have we got:
1. Unz finally collapsed under "diversity" pressure?
2. There is, sort of a hidden, message here.
@Sean True true .mea culpa. Female
stuff, that is, in general.
Style, though, is unique for the creature here.
Butthurt
whoo-hoo..
Go wave your flag
.CIA trolls here
Read it and weep. Your pensions are toast .
.creep .creeps me out
I mean hahaha .when reading those things it's, almost, as written by a certain type of commentators here. Almost as one of
them, actually. Same "footprint". Especially the first two.
I mean, having that from an author here is, really, a new low for sure.
This is the first time I've seen something like that, and my attitude was mild in this thread compared to some in other threads.
I mean, I was quite hard on some authors here, and never, so far that. "Butthurt" ."whoo-hoo"
I've quite offended a couple of authors here and they never replied with any rude word. And ..my God "whoo-hoo". Haha crazy.
New "quality" seeping here, apparently. Hehe getting with times, I guess. And program.
Understandable.
I've been on this site for quite some time. Read, on average, 20 % of articles and similar number of comments in those articles.
I can't, really, recollect ONE case when an AUTHOR, here, in a comments exchange with a commentator, used the words
"butthurt" and "whoo-hoo". Not once from the, say, authors from the West. Born and raised there, that is. Cultural
thing, I guess.
@foolisholdmanI agree. Shilling
for the Israelis regarding 911 is a deal breaker for me. They had me going about these 2 guys for a while, but when I heard that
they had ridiculed 911 truthers I smelled a rat. And after this article I agree they are shills for the status quo. Reasonable
people can not doubt that 911 was a false flag operation. There's just too much bullshit there.
I think the idea Snowden is a "plant" is a bit far out there. If he is; the real purpose of the exercise is what exactly?
I also don't get why some commenters think Julian Assange isn't who he claims to be. His Wikileaks has published great volume
of highly embarrassing material for the U.S. The embassy cables come to mind – bringing to light evidence contrary to Washington
narrative on many events.
There is another thing; Just after he established Wikileaks he came to Iceland and met with journalists and few politicians.
The result from that visit was he met one Kristinn Hrafnsson, long time journalist in Iceland with excellent track record and
credibility. Since Assange got in trouble, accused of sexual harassment from Swedish woman and finally escaped into the Ecuador
embassy in London, Hrafnsson has been spokesman for Wikileaks.
Since I am familiar with Hrafnsson work for decades, I would be very surprised if he worked with Assagne all this time, and
even took over his job, so to speak, as head of Wikileaks if Assagne wasn't genuine. Hrafnsson has struck me as smart guy and
honest and it's extremely unlikely he would continue if something didn't smell right at Wikileaks. I also want to point out Wikileaks
has been working with, what I consider the few remaining NEWS outlets in Europe. (Including The Guardian before it was bought
few years ago and became worthless).
To Assagne credit he booted Icelandic polititian, one Birgitta Jónsdóttir; who tried to visit him in U.K. prison – and wanted
nothing to do with her. She has been trying to make international name for herself as fighter for human rights and peacemaker
and against corruption and so forth. Unfortunately she is a bag full of hot air and thinks SHE is the center of the universe.
It's all about her and therefore she is of no use for any cause. Julian was right to send her packing.
I can't imagine what the CIA or NSA or other tentacles of the Empire would gain by running Wikileaks. It makes absolutely no
sense to me.
@2stateshmustate "9/11 is the
Litmus Test " By Smoking – Mirrors.Com :
"It all comes down to 9/11.Everything that has happened has happened based on a lie . Everyone in Government ; everyone in
the media , in entertainment , in organized religion , in the public ,in the public eye who accepts and promotes the official
story is either a traitor or a tool . Everyone who does not stand forth and speak truth to power is a coward , a liar and complicit
in mass-murder . Everyone
everywhere can be measured by this Litmus Test ."
"... As for Falun Gong's potential affiliations with the CIA and NED that's another quite plausible storyline altogether. ..."
"... One surely wondered (until how) how Falun Gong can fund The Epoch Times using the same business model that Sheldon Adelson uses to fund a pro-Netanyahu newspaper "Israel Hayom" in Israel that Netanyahu himself endorses and which he or other people in the Israeli government might privilege with news of events that the rest of the Israeli news media has no access to. In this way "Israel Hayom", offered for free in Israel, poses a threat to other Israeli newspapers which have no rich patron to fund their activities and pay their staff but must rely on people buying their papers or regularly subscribing to them. ..."
Some of Mr Li's pronouncements are certainly unconventional, some would say just plain strange.
He believes aliens walk the Earth and he has reportedly said he can walk through walls and make himself invisible.
Mr Li says that he is a being from from a higher level who has come to help humankind from the destruction it could face as
the result of rampant evil.
In 1999 the cult attempted to gain political power in China. The government shut it down for pushing its followers to not use
medical therapies. Li Hongzhi and some of his followers moved to the United States. As the cult is strongly anti-communist the U.S.
government used it to put pressure on China. Some institutions and companies related to Falun Gong are openly funded with U.S. government
money.
The main media outlet of the Falun Gong organization is the Epoch Times . NBC reports of its
astonishing growth as a pro-Trump social media force:
By the numbers, there is no bigger advocate of President Donald Trump on Facebook than The Epoch Times.
The small New York-based nonprofit news outlet has spent more than $1.5 million on about 11,000 pro-Trump advertisements in
the last six months, according to data from Facebook's advertising archive -- more than any organization outside of the Trump
campaign itself, and more than most Democratic presidential candidates have spent on their own campaigns.
Those video ads -- in which unidentified spokespeople thumb through a newspaper to praise Trump, peddle conspiracy theories
about the "Deep State," and criticize "fake news" media -- strike a familiar tone in the online conservative news ecosystem. The
Epoch Times looks like many of the conservative outlets that have gained followings in recent years.
...
In April, at the height of its ad spending, videos from the Epoch Media Group, which includes The Epoch Times and digital video
outlet New Tang Dynasty, or NTD, combined for around 3 billion views on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, ranking 11th among all
video creators across platforms and outranking every other traditional news publisher.
...
The Epoch Times brought in $8.1 million in revenue in 2017 -- double what it had the previous year -- and reported spending $7.2
million on "printing newspaper and creating web and media programs." Most of its revenue comes from advertising and "web and media
income," according to the group's annual tax filings, while individual donations and subscriptions to the paper make up less than
10 percent of its revenue.
New Tang Dynasty's 2017 revenue, according to IRS records, was $18 million, a 150 percent increase over the year before. It
spent $16.2 million.
XXX
The NBC report says it is not clear where the "web and media" money that gets invested in pro-Trump advertisement actually
comes from. I didn't realize it was the same Epoch Times that did a good job covering Russia-Gate:
"The Democrats could up their game by taking a deeper look into this issue." you mean the CIA democrats like Mark Warner? the
US has nothing to offer the world except war, which is why the people of the US must destroy this country. there is 1000% bipartisan
agreement on the war drive against both china & russia. both parties spend their days yelling at each other about who is the most
commie, like moscow mitch or comrade nancy, b/c they are unified in their war drive. as they are on anything else that matters.
this country exists to wage war, as the platform for projection of power, against competitors. nothing else. the illusion that
any of the operators w/in the system, any of them at all, are doing anything but crafting a persona in relation to power for self-aggrandizement,
not challenging power in the slightest, is not helpful.
Thanks for the info on Shen Yun.
In the Bay Area, it seems there are at least 3 or 4 permanent Shen Yun advertising billboards at any given time. Just yesterday,
I passed one advertising tickets for 2020!
The Epoch Times is also very widespread in distribution, although unclear on the actual readers. It seems that every 2nd SF Weekly
box has an Epoch Times one next to it, although my personal experience is mostly downtown where the large Cantonese speaking population
is.
Falun Gong is kinda like Scientology crossed with Amway. Get rich quick while simultaneously healing your goiters. In its best
days it was a terrible scam. Now it is just a blunt instrument that the US State Department uses to try and beat China with.
The Epoch Times' Jeff Carlson has been in the thick of uncovering the broad Democratic Party coup (in league with transnational
intelligence assets) against the Trump Presidency. Thus b's depiction here of the Dems potentially acting in the role of white
knight subverts mountains of evidence. As for Falun Gong's potential affiliations with the CIA and NED that's another quite
plausible storyline altogether.
Perhaps experience affords one the possibility of rapidly discerning the underbelly of an organized grouping like Falun Gong.
Early in its manifestations on streets in Europe it became as apparent as the nose on one's face that it was a well financed propaganda
tool for the gullible and naive. In short, its a ridiculous novelty, a con job and a rip off for all who are taken in by such
preposterous pretensions when its plainly so assuming in its virulent hatred. Anyone who protests their disturbing, illegal and
unacceptable behavior best be prepared to be bitten.. Like various other cults they are not what they appear. Rather they are
a mish-mash of absurd fantasies and hypnotic imaginations. Finally, such groups can seem innocent enough and yet become highly
dangerous to others. But ask around and expect the response they are nice, gentle, kind and harmless or other such understanding
expressions. Don't be taken in by the setup folks!
Thanks B for an excellent survey covering Falun Gong's business activities and cybersecurity connections with the US government
and its agencies.
One surely wondered (until how) how Falun Gong can fund The Epoch Times using the same business model that Sheldon Adelson
uses to fund a pro-Netanyahu newspaper "Israel Hayom" in Israel that Netanyahu himself endorses and which he or other people in
the Israeli government might privilege with news of events that the rest of the Israeli news media has no access to. In this way
"Israel Hayom", offered for free in Israel, poses a threat to other Israeli newspapers which have no rich patron to fund their
activities and pay their staff but must rely on people buying their papers or regularly subscribing to them.
Also, when the sources of most news about prisoners having organs forcibly removed from them by the Chinese government go back
to Falun Gong itself, one has to wonder about the veracity of such claims. If after 20, 30 years of such claims, there is still
no independent verification of the claims of forced organ removals and transplants (and the British design firm Forensic Architecture
hasn't yet been approached to create its 3D Bellingcrap-style visual recreations of the horrific surgery theatres in which the
operations supposedly take place), then we must regard these claims with all the scepticism and scorn they may deserve.
In 2013, Edward Snowden was an IT systems expert working under contract for the National
Security Agency when he traveled to Hong Kong to provide three journalists with thousands of
top-secret documents about U.S. intelligence agencies' surveillance of American citizens.
To Snowden, the classified information he shared with the journalists exposed privacy abuses
by government intelligence agencies. He saw himself as a whistleblower. But the U.S. government
considered him a traitor in violation of the
Espionage Act .
After meeting with the journalists, Snowden intended to leave Hong Kong and travel -- via
Russia -- to Ecuador, where he would seek asylum. But when his plane landed at Moscow's
Sheremetyevo International Airport, things didn't go according to plan.
"What I wasn't expecting was that the United States government itself ... would cancel my
passport," he says.
Snowden was directed to a room where Russian intelligence agents offered to assist him -- in
return for access to any secrets he harbored. Snowden says he refused.
"I didn't cooperate with the Russian intelligence services -- I haven't and I won't," he
says. "I destroyed my access to the archive. ... I had no material with me before I left Hong
Kong, because I knew I was going to have to go through this complex multi-jurisdictional
route."
Snowden spent 40 days in the Moscow airport, trying to negotiate asylum in various
countries. After being denied asylum by 27 nations, he settled in Russia, where he remains
today.
"People look at me now and they think I'm this crazy guy, I'm this extremist or whatever.
Some people have a misconception that [I] set out to burn down the NSA," he says. "But that's
not what this was about. In many ways, 2013 wasn't about surveillance at all. What it was about
was a violation of the Constitution."
Snowden's 2013 revelations led to changes in the laws and standards governing American
intelligence agencies and the practices of U.S. technology companies, which now encrypt much of
their Web traffic for security. He reflects on his life and his experience in the intelligence
community in the memoir Permanent Record.
On Sept. 17, the U.S. Justice Department filed suit to recover all proceeds from the book,
alleging that Snowden violated nondisclosure agreements by not letting the government review
the manuscript before publication; Snowden's attorney, Ben Wizner, said in a statement that the
book contains no government secrets that have not been previously published by respected news
organizations, and that the government's prepublication review system is under court
challenge.
"... Kinzer notes that the top-secret nature of Gottlieb's work makes it impossible to measure the human cost of his experiments. "We don't know how many people died, but a number did, and many lives were permanently destroyed," he says. Ultimately, Gottlieb concluded that mind control was not possible. Ultimately, Gottlieb concluded that mind control was not possible. After MK-ULTRA shut down, he went on to lead a CIA program that created poisons and high-tech gadgets for spies to use. Kinzer writes about Gottlieb and MK-ULTRA in his new book, Poisoner in Chief. ..."
"... Sidney Gottlieb, can now be seen as the man who brought LSD to America. He was the unwitting godfather of the entire LSD counterculture. ..."
"... In the early 1950s, he arranged for the CIA to pay $240,000 to buy the world's entire supply of LSD. He brought this to the United States, and he began spreading it around to hospitals, clinics, prisons and other institutions, asking them, through bogus foundations, to carry out research projects and find out what LSD was, how people reacted to it and how it might be able to be used as a tool for mind control. ..."
"... Whitey Bulger was one of the prisoners who volunteered for what he was told was an experiment aimed at finding a cure for schizophrenia. As part of this experiment, he was given LSD every day for more than a year. He later realized that this had nothing to do with schizophrenia and he was a guinea pig in a government experiment aimed at seeing what people's long-term reactions to LSD was. Essentially, could we make a person lose his mind by feeding him LSD every day over such a long period? ..."
"... Bulger wrote afterward about his experiences, which he described as quite horrific. He thought he was going insane. He wrote, "I was in prison for committing a crime, but they committed a greater crime on me." ..."
"... And towards the end of his life, Bulger came to realize the truth of what had happened to him, and he actually told his friends that he was going to find that doctor in Atlanta who was the head of that experiment program in the penitentiary and go kill him. ..."
"... The CIA mind control project, MK-ULTRA, was essentially a continuation of work that began in Japanese and Nazi concentration camps. Not only was it roughly based on those experiments, but the CIA actually hired the vivisectionists and the torturers who had worked in Japan and in Nazi concentration camps to come and explain what they had found out so that we could build on their research. ..."
"... For example, Nazi doctors had conducted extensive experiments with mescaline at the Dachau concentration camp, and the CIA was very interested in figuring out whether mescaline could be the key to mind control that was one of their big avenues of investigation. So they hired the Nazi doctors who had been involved in that project to advise them. ..."
"... CIA officers in Europe and Asia were capturing enemy agents and others who they felt might be suspected persons or were otherwise what they called "expendable." They would grab these people and throw them into cells and then test all kinds of, not just drug potions, but other techniques, like electroshock, extremes of temperature, sensory isolation -- all the meantime bombarding them with questions, trying to see if they could break down resistance and find a way to destroy the human ego. So these were projects designed not only to understand the human mind but to figure out how to destroy it. And that made Gottlieb, although in some ways a very compassionate person, certainly the most prolific torturer of his generation. ..."
"... [Gottlieb] operated almost completely without supervision. He had sort of a checkoff from his titular boss and from his real boss, Richard Helms, and from the CIA director, Allen Dulles. But none of them really wanted to know what he was doing. This guy had a license to kill. He was allowed to requisition human subjects across the United States and around the world and subject them to any kind of abuse that he wanted, even up to the level of it being fatal -- yet nobody looked over his shoulder. He never had to file serious reports to anybody. I think the mentality must have been [that] this project is so important -- mind control, if it can be mastered, is the key to global world power. ..."
"... The end of Gottlieb's career came in 1972, when his patron, Richard Helms, who was then director of the CIA, was removed by [President Richard] Nixon. Once Helms was gone, it was just a matter of time until Gottlieb would be gone, and most important was that Helms was really the only person at the CIA who had an idea of what Gottlieb had been doing. So as they were both on their way out of the CIA, they agreed that they should destroy all records of MK-ULTRA ..."
"... Gottlieb actually drove out to the CIA records center and ordered the archives to destroy boxes full of MK-ULTRA records. ... However, it turns out that there were some [records] found in other places; there was a depot for expense account reports that had not been destroyed, and various other pieces of paper remain. So there is enough out there to reconstruct some of what he did, but his effort to wipe away his traces by destroying all those documents in the early '70s was quite successful. ..."
CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb headed up the agency's secret MK-ULTRA program, which was charged with developing a mind control drug
that could be weaponized against enemies.
Courtesy of the CIA
During the early period of the Cold War, the CIA became convinced that communists had discovered a drug or technique that would allow
them to control human minds. In response, the CIA began its own secret program, called MK-ULTRA, to search for a mind control drug
that could be weaponized against enemies.
MK-ULTRA, which operated from the 1950s until the early '60s, was created and run by
a chemist named Sidney Gottlieb. Journalist Stephen Kinzer, who spent several years investigating the program, calls the operation
the "most sustained search in history for techniques of mind control."
Some of Gottlieb's experiments were covertly funded at universities and research centers, Kinzer says, while others were conducted
in American prisons and in detention centers in Japan, Germany and the Philippines. Many of his unwitting subjects endured psychological
torture ranging from electroshock to high doses of LSD, according to Kinzer's research.
"Gottlieb wanted to create a way to seize control of people's minds, and he realized it was a two-part process," Kinzer says.
"First, you had to blast away the existing mind. Second, you had to find a way to insert a new mind into that resulting void. We
didn't get too far on number two, but he did a lot of work on number one."
Kinzer notes that the top-secret nature of Gottlieb's work makes it impossible to measure the human cost of his experiments.
"We don't know how many people died, but a number did, and many lives were permanently destroyed," he says. Ultimately, Gottlieb
concluded that mind control was not possible.
Ultimately, Gottlieb concluded that mind control was not possible. After MK-ULTRA shut down, he went on to lead a CIA program
that created poisons and high-tech gadgets for spies to use.
Kinzer writes about Gottlieb and MK-ULTRA in his new book, Poisoner in Chief.
As part of the search for drugs that would allow people to control the human mind, CIA scientists became aware of the existence
of LSD, and this became an obsession for the early directors of MK-ULTRA. Actually, the MK-ULTRA director, Sidney Gottlieb, can
now be seen as the man who brought LSD to America. He was the unwitting godfather of the entire LSD counterculture.
In the early 1950s, he arranged for the CIA to pay $240,000 to buy the world's entire supply of LSD. He brought this to the
United States, and he began spreading it around to hospitals, clinics, prisons and other institutions, asking them, through bogus
foundations, to carry out research projects and find out what LSD was, how people reacted to it and how it might be able to be used
as a tool for mind control.
Now, the people who volunteered for these experiments and began taking LSD, in many cases, found it very pleasurable. They told
their friends about it. Who were those people?
Ken Kesey ,
the author of One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest , got his LSD in an experiment sponsored by the CIA by MK-ULTRA, by Sidney Gottlieb. So did Robert Hunter,
the lyricist for the Grateful Dead, which went on to become a great purveyor of LSD culture.
Allen Ginsberg , the poet who preached the
value of the great personal adventure of using LSD, got his first LSD from Sidney Gottlieb. Although, of course, he never knew that
name.
So the CIA brought LSD to America unwittingly, and actually it's a tremendous irony that the drug that the CIA hoped would be
its key to controlling humanity actually wound up fueling a generational rebellion that was dedicated to destroying everything that
the CIA held dear and defended.
On how MK-ULTRA experimented on prisoners, including crime boss
Whitey Bulger
Whitey Bulger was one of the prisoners who volunteered for what he was told was an experiment aimed at finding a cure for
schizophrenia. As part of this experiment, he was given LSD every day for more than a year. He later realized that this had nothing
to do with schizophrenia and he was a guinea pig in a government experiment aimed at seeing what people's long-term reactions to
LSD was. Essentially, could we make a person lose his mind by feeding him LSD every day over such a long period?
Bulger wrote afterward about his experiences, which he described as quite horrific. He thought he was going insane. He wrote,
"I was in prison for committing a crime, but they committed a greater crime on me."
And towards the end of his life, Bulger came to realize the truth of what had happened to him, and he actually told his friends
that he was going to find that doctor in Atlanta who was the head of that experiment program in the penitentiary and go kill him.
On the CIA hiring Nazi doctors and Japanese torturers to learn methods
The CIA mind control project, MK-ULTRA, was essentially a continuation of work that began in Japanese and Nazi concentration camps.
Stephen Kinzer, author of 'Poisoner in Chief'
The CIA mind control project, MK-ULTRA, was essentially a continuation of work that began in Japanese and Nazi concentration
camps. Not only was it roughly based on those experiments, but the CIA actually hired the vivisectionists and the torturers who had
worked in Japan and in Nazi concentration camps to come and explain what they had found out so that we could build on their research.
For example, Nazi doctors had conducted extensive experiments with mescaline at the Dachau concentration camp, and the CIA
was very interested in figuring out whether mescaline could be the key to mind control that was one of their big avenues of investigation.
So they hired the Nazi doctors who had been involved in that project to advise them.
Another thing the Nazis provided was information about poison gases like sarin, which is still being used. Nazi doctors came to
America to Fort Detrick in Maryland, which was the center of this project, to lecture to CIA officers to tell them how long it took
for people to die from sarin.
On the more extreme experiments Gottlieb conducted overseas
Gottlieb and the CIA established secret detention centers throughout Europe and East Asia, particularly in Japan, Germany and
the Philippines, which were largely under American control in the period of the early '50s, and therefore Gottlieb didn't have to
worry about any legal entanglements in these places. ...
CIA officers in Europe and Asia were capturing enemy agents and others who they felt might be suspected persons or were otherwise
what they called "expendable." They would grab these people and throw them into cells and then test all kinds of, not just drug potions,
but other techniques, like electroshock, extremes of temperature, sensory isolation -- all the meantime bombarding them with questions,
trying to see if they could break down resistance and find a way to destroy the human ego. So these were projects designed not only
to understand the human mind but to figure out how to destroy it. And that made Gottlieb, although in some ways a very compassionate
person, certainly the most prolific torturer of his generation.
On how these experiments were unsupervised
This guy [Sidney Gottlieb] had a license to kill. He was allowed to requisition human subjects across the United States and around
the world and subject them to any kind of abuse that he wanted, even up to the level of it being fatal -- yet nobody looked over
his shoulder.
Stephen Kinzer
[Gottlieb] operated almost completely without supervision. He had sort of a checkoff from his titular boss and from his real
boss, Richard Helms, and from the CIA director, Allen Dulles. But none of them really wanted to know what he was doing. This guy
had a license to kill. He was allowed to requisition human subjects across the United States and around the world and subject them
to any kind of abuse that he wanted, even up to the level of it being fatal -- yet nobody looked over his shoulder. He never had
to file serious reports to anybody. I think the mentality must have been [that] this project is so important -- mind control, if
it can be mastered, is the key to global world power.
On how Gottlieb destroyed evidence about his experiments when he left the CIA
The end of Gottlieb's career came in 1972, when his patron, Richard Helms, who was then director of the CIA, was removed by
[President Richard] Nixon. Once Helms was gone, it was just a matter of time until Gottlieb would be gone, and most important was
that Helms was really the only person at the CIA who had an idea of what Gottlieb had been doing. So as they were both on their way
out of the CIA, they agreed that they should destroy all records of MK-ULTRA.
Gottlieb actually drove out to the CIA records center and ordered the archives to destroy boxes full of MK-ULTRA records.
... However, it turns out that there were some [records] found in other places; there was a depot for expense account reports that
had not been destroyed, and various other pieces of paper remain. So there is enough out there to reconstruct some of what he did,
but his effort to wipe away his traces by destroying all those documents in the early '70s was quite successful.
Sam Briger and Thea Chaloner produced and edited the audio of this interview. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan
Sullivan adapted it for the Web.
Correction Sept. 9, 2019
A previous photo caption incorrectly referred to the CIA's MK-ULTRA program as MS-ULTRA.
"... The United States is seeking all proceeds earned by Snowden for the book, the Justice Department said. The lawsuit also names the "corporate entities" behind the book's publication as nominal defendants. ..."
"... Ben Wizner, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Snowden, said the lawsuit was without merit. "This book contains no government secrets that have not been previously published by respected news organizations," he said in a statement, adding that Snowden would have submitted it for review if he thought the government would review it in good faith. ..."
The United States filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked
secret documents about U.S. telephone and internet surveillance in 2013, saying his new book violates non-disclosure agreements.
The Justice Department said Snowden published his memoir, "Permanent Record," without submitting it to intelligence agencies for
review, adding that speeches given by Snowden also violated nondisclosure agreements. In 2013, Snowden wrote "Everything You Know
about the Constitution is Wrong."
The United States is seeking all proceeds earned by Snowden for the book, the Justice Department said. The lawsuit also names
the "corporate entities" behind the book's publication as nominal defendants.
Ben Wizner, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Snowden, said the lawsuit was without merit.
"This book contains no government secrets that have not been previously published by respected news organizations," he said in a
statement, adding that Snowden would have submitted it for review if he thought the government would review it in good faith.
Representatives for the book's publisher, Macmillan Publishers, and its unit Henry Holt & Co, did not immediately respond to requests
for comment.
Snowden has lived in Russia since he revealed details of U.S. intelligence agencies' secret surveillance programs.
Though he is viewed by some as a hero, U.S. authorities want him to stand in a criminal trial over his disclosures of classified
information.
Speaking by video link at an event in Berlin to promote the book, Snowden said that while he had signed a non-disclosure agreement
to maintain secrecy, he had also sworn an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution.
"You've told the government you're not going to talk to journalists. You've told them you're not going to write a book," Snowden
said. "At the same time you have an oath to defend the Constitution. And the secret that you are asked to protect is that the government
is violating that Constitution and the rights of people around the world."
Reporting by Makini Brice; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington and Paul Carrell in Berlin; Editing by Marguerita
Choy and Lisa Shumaker Our Standards: The Thomson
Reuters Trust Principles.
"... The source was said to be responsible for the reporting used by the former director of the CIA, John Brennan, in making the case that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered Russian intelligence services to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election for the purpose of tipping the scales in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump. ..."
"... On closer scrutiny, however, this aspect of the story falls apart, as does just about everything CNN, The New York Times ..."
"... "And Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free," John 8:32, is etched into the wall of the main lobby of the Old CIA Headquarters Building. ..."
"... Every Russian diplomat assigned to the United States is screened to ascertain his or her susceptibility for recruitment. The FBI does this from a counterintelligence perspective, looking for Russian spies. The CIA does the same, but with the objective of recruiting a Russian source who can remain in the employ of the Russian government, and thereby provide the CIA with intelligence information commensurate to their standing and access. Turning a senior Russian diplomat is difficult; recruiting a junior Russian diplomat like Oleg Smolenkov less so. Someone like Smolenkov would be viewed not so much by the limited access he provided at the time of recruitment, but rather his potential for promotion and the increased opportunity for more essential access provided by such. ..."
"... The reality is, however, that the CIA and the FBI have different goals and objectives when it comes to the Russians they recruit. As such, Smolenkov's recruitment was most likely a CIA-only affair, run by NR but closely monitored by the Russian Operations Group of the Agency's Central Eurasia Division, who would have responsibility for managing Smolenkov upon his return to Moscow. ..."
"... But his job as foreman of the Rossotrudnichestvo coop was not the kind of job a Maurive Thorez graduate gets; Smolenkov had to have felt slighted. He allegedly turned to drink, and his marriage was on the rocks; his colleagues spoke of a man who believed his salary was too low. ..."
"... The enticements of money and future opportunity -- the CIA's principle recruitment ploys -- more than likely were a factor in convincing this dissatisfied diplomat to defect. ..."
"... the fact is, sometime in 2007-2008, Smolenkov was recruited by the CIA. ..."
"... He was granted a "second-level" security clearance, which allowed him to handle top secret information. ..."
"... Moscow Station, however, was having trouble carrying out its clandestine tasks. In the fall of 2011, the CIA's chief of station in Moscow, Steven Hall, had been approached by his counterpart in the Russian Federal Security Service (the FSB, Russia's equivalent of the FBI) and warned that the CIA should stop trying to recruit agents from within the FSB ranks; the FSB had detected several of these attempts, which it deemed inappropriate given the ongoing cooperation between the intelligence services of the two countries regarding the war on terrorism. ..."
"... The loss of Hall at this very sensitive time created a problem for both the CIA and Smolenkov. Smolenkov's new assignment was a dream come true for the CIA -- never before had the agency managed to place a controlled agent into the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation. ..."
"... With communications down, and the chief of station evicted, Smolenkov was left in a state of limbo while the CIA trained up new case officers capable of operating in Moscow and sought a replacement for Hall. ..."
"... "To put it mildly," Ushakov said, "it is surprising that this extremely crude, clumsy attempt at recruitment took place in a situation where both President Obama and President Putin have clearly stated the importance of more active cooperation and contacts between the special services of the two countries." ..."
"... As a senior aide to Ushakov, Smolenkov was ideally positioned to gather intelligence about the Russian response. If he was able to communicate this information to the CIA, it would have provided Obama and his advisers time to prepare a response to the Russian letter. The situation meant that Smolenkov may have been reporting on events related to the expulsion of Hall, one of the CIA officers specifically trained to manage his reporting. ..."
"... Smolenkov's success was directly linked to the work of his boss, Ushakov. In June 2015, Ushakov was put in charge of establishing a high-level working group in the fuel and energy sector for the purpose of improving bilateral cooperation with Azerbaijan. The reporting Smolenkov would have been able to provide on the work of this group would have been of tremendous assistance to those in the Obama administration working on U.S. energy policy, especially as it related to countering Russian moves in the former Soviet Republics. ..."
"... Ushakov's 10-year tenure as Russia's ambassador to the U.S. gave him unprecedented insight into U.S. decision making, experience and expertise Putin increasingly relied upon as he formulated and implemented responses to U.S. efforts to contain and punish Russia on the international stage. ..."
"... While Ushakov's meetings with Putin were conducted either in private, or in small groups of senior advisers, meaning Smolenkov was not present, Smolenkov was able to collect intelligence on the periphery by photographing itineraries and working papers, as well as overhearing comments made by Ushakov, that collectively would provide U.S. policymakers with important insight into Putin's thinking. ..."
"... According to the FSB, the Russians were adept at identifying CIA officers working under State Department cover and would subject these individuals to extensive surveillance. ..."
"... In addition to the decimation of its staff, Moscow Station was experiencing an alarming number of its agents being discovered by the FSB and arrested. While the Russians were circumspect about most of these cases, on several occasions they indicated that they had uncovered a spy by intercepting the electronic communications between him and the CIA. This meant that the Russians were aware of, and actively pursuing, the Google-based internet-based system used by the CIA to communicate with its agents in Russia. ..."
"... Sometime in early August 2016, a courier from the CIA arrived at the White House carrying a plain, unmarked white envelope. Inside was an intelligence report from Smolenkov that CIA Director Brennan considered to be so sensitive that he kept it out of the President's Daily Brief, concerned that even that restrictive process was too inclusive to adequately protect the source. The intelligence was to be read by four people only -- Obama, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Deputy National Security Advisor Avril Haines and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough. The document was to be returned to the courier once it had been read. ..."
"... The contents of the report were alarming -- Putin had personally ordered the cyber attack on the Democratic National Committee for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election in favor of the Republican candidate, Donald Trump. ..."
"... The White House found the Smolenkov report so convincing that in September 2016, during a meeting of the G-20 in China, Obama pulled Putin aside and told him to stop meddling in the U.S. election. Putin was reportedly nonplussed by Obama's intervention. ..."
"... It is not publicly known what prompted the report from Smolenkov which Brennan found so alarming. Was it received out of the blue, a target of opportunity which Smolenkov exploited? Was it based upon a specific tasking submitted by Smolenkov's CIA handlers in response to a tasking from above? Or was it a result of the intervention of the CIA director, who tasked Smolenkov outside normal channels? In any event, once Brennan created his special analytical unit, Smolenkov became his dedicated source. If Smolenko was in this for the money, as appears to be the case, he would have been motivated to come up with the "correct" answer to Brennan's tasking for information on Putin's role. By late 2016, Western media had made quite clear what kind of answer Brennan wanted. ..."
"... Brennan took the extraordinary measure of sequestering the source from the rest of the Intelligence Community. He also confronted the head of the Russian FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, about the risks involved in interfering in U.S. elections. ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Smolenkov's firing occurred right before the Intelligence Community released its much-anticipated assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election ..."
"... Brennan had sold the Smolenkov reporting to both President Obama and President-elect Trump, along with the rest of the intelligence community, as "high-quality information." It was, at best, nothing more than uncorroborated rumor or, at worst, simple disinformation. This reporting, which was parroted by an unquestioning mainstream media that accepted it as fact, created an impression amongst the American public that Vladimir Putin had personally ordered and directed a Russian interference campaign during the 2016 election designed "to help President-elect Trump's election chances when possible," according to the ICA. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... Concerned that Smolenkov could be arrested by the Russians and, in doing so, have control over the narrative of Russian interference transfer to Moscow, the CIA once again approached Smolenkov to defect to the United States. This time the Russian agent agreed. ..."
"... Sometime in June 2018, Smolenkov and his wife bought a home worth nearly $1 million in northern Virginia. The couple used their real names. They were not afraid. ..."
"... I can only speculate as to the circumstances that led to Smolenkov's firing by secret decree. Normally, Russians charged with transmitting classified material to the intelligence services of a foreign state are arrested, placed on trial and given lengthy prison sentences, or worse. This did not happen to Smolenkov. ..."
"... In any case, the Smolenkov report in the white envelope represented a level of access that would have significantly deviated from what one could expect from a person in his position and which suggests he may have been telling the CIA what he knew Brennan wanted to hear. ..."
"... The third scenario is that Smolenkov, a low-level failure of a diplomat with drinking issues, marital problems and monetary frustrations, was recruited by the CIA, but only with the complicity of the Russian security services. ..."
"... The same red flags that the CIA looks for when recruiting agents are also looked at by Russian counterintelligence. At what point in the recruitment process the Russians stepped in is unknown (if they did at all.) ..."
"... Moreover, this muddling diplomat whose questionable behavioral practices scream "recruit me" is, within three years of returning to Moscow, given a significant promotion that enables him to follow Ushakov into the Presidential Administration–a posting which would require extensive vetting by the Russian security services. Smolenkov's promotion pattern is enough, in and of itself, to raise red flags within the counterintelligence offices tasked with monitoring such things. The fact that it did not indicates that the quality and quantity of reporting being provided by Smolenkov was deemed by the Americans too important to interfere with. ..."
"... In this scenario, Smolenkov would have been playing to a script written by the Russian security services. Since he, technically, had broken no laws by serving as a double agent, he would not be subjected to arrest and trial. But once his existence became the fodder of the U.S. media via inference and speculation, his services as a double agent were no longer needed. He was fired from his position, via a secret Presidential proclamation, and set free to live his life as he saw fit. ..."
"... In my view, if one assumes that the Smolenkov July 2016 report at the center of this drama was not a result of serendipity, but rather a product derived from a specific request from his CIA managers to find out how high up in the Russian decision-making chain the authorization went for what U.S. intelligence agencies were already publicly pushing as an alleged DNC cyber attack, then the answer I believe becomes clear–the Russians knew the U.S. had an intelligence deficit. ..."
"... In my view, the CIA, Russia and Smolenkov were happy to maintain the status quo, with Smolenkov living in comfortable retirement with his family, the CIA continuing to accuse Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election, and Russia denying it. ..."
"... Trump's instructions to Barr are linked to a desire on the part of the president to hold to account those responsible for creating the narrative of possible collusion. Reports indicate that Barr is particularly interested in finding out how and why the CIA concluded that Putin personally ordered the Russian intelligence services to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. ..."
"... Seen in this light, the timing of the CNN and New York Times reports about the "exfiltration" of the CIA's "sensitive source" seems to be little more than a blatant effort by Brennan and his allies in the media to shape a narrative before Barr uncovers the truth. ..."
"... A few days following Smolenkov's "outing" by the U.S. media, the Russian government filed a request with Interpol for an investigation into how someone who had gone missing in Montenegro was now living in the United States. ..."
"... The only person at risk from this entire sordid affair is Brennan, whose reputation and potential livelihood is on the line. At best, Brennan is guilty of extremely poor judgement; at worst, he actively conspired to use the office of Director of the CIA to interfere in the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. Neither option speaks well of the U.S. Intelligence Community and those in Congress charged with oversight of its operations. ..."
"... Watch Scott Ritter discussing this article on ..."
"... Consortium News does not necessarily endorse the views of its authors. ..."
"... If you value this original article, please consider ..."
"... making a donation ..."
"... to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one. ..."
"... Before commenting please read Robert Parry's ..."
"... Allegations unsupported by facts, gross or misleading factual errors and ad hominem attacks, and abusive language toward other commenters or our writers will be removed. If your comment does not immediately appear, please be patient as it is manually reviewed. ..."
"... And under the third scenario, with Smolenkov a double agent all along, Ritter writes: "But once his existence became the fodder of the U.S. media via inference and speculation, his services as a double agent were no longer needed. He was fired from his position, via a secret Presidential proclamation, and set free to live his life as he saw fit." ..."
"... That doesn't make sense to me. In fact I see the opposite: if he had been a successfully run double agent all that time, then when his usefulness had ended he would have been decently pensioned off – not simply cut loose to fend for himself – but *not* allowed to travel abroad unimpeded (with his whole family, no less) where he would have the opportunity to cause mischief. ..."
"... In the extremely sophisticated world of high grade intelligence I have repeatedly said that the Brennan, Clapper, Comey trio were lead-footed imbeciles ..."
"... Read The CIA as Organized Crime and Strength of the Wolf and Strength of the Pack by Douglas Valentine. ..."
"... "Kiriakou also notes that the way Smolenkov's intelligence was handled raises echoes of the CIA's manipulation of intelligence to help justify the Iraq war. The information from Smolenkov was handled personally by then-CIA Director John Brennan. Brennan reportedly sidelined other CIA analysts and kept the Smolenkov information out of the Presidential Daily Briefing – instead delivering it personally to President Obama and a small group of officials." ..."
"... More like a Le Carre' film. The CIA was originally sold as an intelligence gathering and analysis organization, and was not supposed to be involved in operations. Thus, it was founded on lies and the lies have only grown since. ..."
"... Even the former communist state governments in Europe and the Soviet Union rued the day that they unleashed their secret police from accountability, and thereby became subservient to their power. ..."
"... I suspect Scott was provided a great deal of the reporting in this fascinating article from a disgruntled insider, or former insider. Knowledge of Brennan's break with protocol to form a select 'stand alone fusion cell' that reported only to him is something that I haven't seen reported before. In any case this story adds another red flag to the entire Russiagate hoax. ..."
"... Just as Mueller failed to interview Julian Assange or Christopher Steele for his report -- obvious red flags -- we should now watch the conduct of Barr's investigation. Will Barr's investigators interview Smolenkov? ..."
"... ( ) the timing of the CNN and New York Times reports about the "exfiltration" of the CIA's "sensitive source" seems to be little more than a blatant effort by Brennan and his allies in the media to shape a narrative before Barr uncovers the truth. ..."
"... "If Smolenkov was a spy, he could have delivered important insights about Russia's foreign policy thinking and planning to U.S. intelligence. But if he was the source for the U.S. intelligence community's certainty that Putin personally orchestrated a covert interference campaign, that certainty rests on a weak foundation. Smolenkov served the wrong boss in the Kremlin to get reliable information about such ventures." ..."
OPINION: Scott Ritter probes Oleg Smolenkov's role as a CIA asset and the use of his data by
the director of the CIA to cast doubt over the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
By Scott Ritter Special to Consortium News
Reports that the CIA conducted an emergency exfiltration of a long-time human intelligence
source who was highly placed within the Russian Presidential Administration sent shock waves
throughout Washington, D.C.
The source was said to be responsible for the reporting used by the
former director of the CIA, John Brennan, in making the case that Russian President Vladimir
Putin personally ordered Russian intelligence services to interfere in the 2016 U.S.
presidential election for the purpose of tipping the scales in favor of then-candidate Donald
Trump.
According to CNN's Jim Sciutto, the decision to exfiltrate the source was driven in part
by concerns within the CIA over President Trump's cavalier approach toward handling classified
information, including his willingness to share highly classified intelligence with Russia's
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a controversial visit to the White House in May 2017.
On closer scrutiny, however, this aspect of the story falls apart, as does just about
everything CNN, The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets have reported.
There was a Russian spy whose information was used to push a narrative of Russian
interference in the 2016 presidential election; this much appears to be true. Everything else
that has been reported is either a mischaracterization of fact or an outright fabrication
designed to hide one of the greatest intelligence failures in U.S. history -- the use by a CIA
director of intelligence data specifically manipulated to interfere in the election of an
American president.
The consequences of this interference has deleteriously impacted U.S. democratic
institutions in ways the American people remain ignorant of -- in large part because of the
complicity of the U.S. media when it comes to reporting this story.
This article attempts to set the record straight by connecting the dots presented by
available information and creating a narrative shaped by a combination of derivative analysis
and informed speculation. At best, this article brings the reader closer to the truth about
Oleg Smolenkov's role as a CIA asset; at worst, it raises issues and questions that will help
in determining the truth.
"And Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free," John 8:32, is etched into
the wall of the main lobby of the Old CIA Headquarters Building.
The Recruit
Oleg Smolenkov
In 2007, Oleg Smolenkov was living the life of a Russian diplomat abroad, serving in the
Russian embassy in Washington. At 33 years of age, married with a 1-year old son, Smolenkov was
the picture of a young diplomat on the rise. A protégé of Russian Ambassador Yuri
Ushakov, Smolenkov worked as a second secretary assigned to the Russian Cultural Center, a
combined museum and exhibition hall operated by the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of
Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation
(better known by its common Russian name, Rossotrudnichestvo), an autonomous government agency
operating under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In addition to hosting Russian artists and musicians, Rossotrudnichestvo oversaw a program
where it organized all-expense paid cultural exchanges for young Americans to travel to Russia,
where they were accommodated in luxury hotels and met with Russian officials. Smolenkov's boss,
Yegeny Zvedre, would also tour the United States, speaking at public forums where he addressed
U.S.-Russian cooperation. As for Smolenkov himself, life was much more mundane -- he served as
a purchasing agent for Rossotrudnichestvo, managing procurement and contract issues for a store
operating out of the Rossotrudnichestvo building, which stood separate from the main embassy
compound.
Rossotrudnichestvo had a darker side: the FBI long suspected that it operated as a front to
recruit Americans to spy for Russia, and as such every Russian employee was viewed as a
potential officer in the Russian intelligence service. This suspicion brought with it a level
of scrutiny which revealed much about the character of the individual being surveilled,
including information of a potentially compromising nature that could be used by the American
intelligence services as the basis of a recruitment effort.
Every Russian diplomat assigned to the United States is screened to ascertain his or her
susceptibility for recruitment. The FBI does this from a counterintelligence perspective,
looking for Russian spies. The CIA does the same, but with the objective of recruiting a
Russian source who can remain in the employ of the Russian government, and thereby provide the
CIA with intelligence information commensurate to their standing and access. Turning a senior
Russian diplomat is difficult; recruiting a junior Russian diplomat like Oleg Smolenkov less
so. Someone like Smolenkov would be viewed not so much by the limited access he provided at the
time of recruitment, but rather his potential for promotion and the increased opportunity for
more essential access provided by such.
The responsibility within the CIA for recruiting Russian diplomats living in the United
States falls to the National Resources Division, or NR, part of the Directorate of Operations,
or DO -- the clandestine arm of the CIA. In a perfect world, the CIA domestic station in
Washington, D.C., would coordinate with the local FBI field office and develop a joint approach
for recruiting a Russian diplomat such as Smolenkov.
The reality is, however, that the CIA and
the FBI have different goals and objectives when it comes to the Russians they recruit. As
such, Smolenkov's recruitment was most likely a CIA-only affair, run by NR but closely
monitored by the Russian Operations Group of the Agency's Central Eurasia Division, who would
have responsibility for managing Smolenkov upon his return to Moscow.
The precise motive for Smolenkov to take up the CIA's offer of recruitment remains unknown.
He graduated from one of the premier universities in Russia, the Maurice Thorez Moscow State
Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, and he married his English language instructor.
Normally a graduate from an elite university such as Maurice Thorez has his or her pick of jobs
in the Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Defense or the security services. Smolenkov was hired by
the Foreign Ministry as a junior linguist, assigned to the Second European Department, which
focuses on Great Britain, Scandinavia and the Baltics, before getting assigned to the embassy
in Washington.
Felt Underpaid
But his job as foreman of the Rossotrudnichestvo coop was not the kind of job a Maurive
Thorez graduate gets; Smolenkov had to have felt slighted. He allegedly turned to drink, and
his marriage was on the rocks; his colleagues spoke of a man who believed his salary was too
low.
The enticements of money and future opportunity -- the CIA's principle recruitment ploys --
more than likely were a factor in convincing this dissatisfied diplomat to defect. Did the CIA
compromise him by dangling the temptation of contract-based embezzlement? Or did the FBI
uncover some sort of personal or financial impropriety that made the Russian diplomat
vulnerable to recruitment? Only the CIA and Smolenkov know the precise circumstances behind the
Russian's decision to betray his country. But the fact is, sometime in 2007-2008, Smolenkov
was recruited by the CIA.
After Smolenkov accepted the CIA's offer, there was much work to be done -- the new agent
had to be polygraphed to ascertain his reliability, trained on covert means of intelligence
collection, including covert photography, as well as on how to securely communicate with the
CIA in order to transmit information and receive instructions. Smolenkov was also introduced to
his "handler," a CIA case officer who would be responsible for managing the work of Smolenkov,
including overseeing the bank account where Smolenkov's CIA "salary" would be deposited.
Various contingencies would be prepared for, including procedures for reestablishing
communications should the existing means become unavailable, emergency contact procedures and
emergency exfiltration plans in case Smolenkov became compromised.
Took Away His Name, and Gave Him a Code
The recruitment of a diplomat willing to return to Moscow and be run in place is a rare
accomplishment, and Smolenkov's identity would become a closely guarded secret within the ranks
of the CIA. Smolenkov's true identity would be known to only a few select individuals; to
everyone else who had access to his reporting, he was simply a codename, comprised of a
two-letter digraph representing Russia (this code changed over time), followed by a word chosen
at random by a CIA algorithm (for example, Adolf Tolkachev, the so-called "billion dollar spy,"
was known by the codename CKSPHERE, with CK being the digraph in use for the Soviet Union at
the time of his recruitment.) Because the specific details from the information provided by
Smolenkov could compromise him as the source, the Russian Operations Group would "blend" his
reporting in with other sources in an effort to disguise it before disseminating it to a wider
audience.
Smolenkov followed Ambassador Ushakov when the latter departed the United States for Moscow
in the summer of 2008; soon after arriving back in Moscow, Smolenkov and his wife divorced.
Ushakov took a position as the deputy chief of the Government Staff of the Russian Federation
responsible for international relations and foreign policy support. Part of the Executive
Office of the Government of the Russian Federation, Ushakov coordinated the international work
of the prime minister, deputy prime ministers and senior officials of the Government Executive
Office. Smolenkov took up a position working for Ushakov, and soon found himself moving up the
ranks of the Russian Civil Service, being promoted in 2010 to the rank of state advisor to the
Russian Federation of the Third Class, a second-tier rank that put him on the cusp of joining
the upper levels of the Russian government bureaucracy. He was granted a "second-level"
security clearance, which allowed him to handle top secret information.
Moscow Station
Ukashov, r. with Putin (Kremlin photo)
In 2013 Ushakov received a new assignment, this time to serve in the Presidential Executive
Office as the aide for international relations. Smolenkov joined Ushakov as his staff manager.
Vladimir Putin was one year into his second stint as president and brought Ushakov, who had
advised him on foreign relations while Putin was prime minister, to continue that service.
Ushakov maintained an office at the Boyarsky Dvor (Courtyard of the Boyars), on 8 Staraya
Square.
The Boyarsky Dvor was physically separate from the Kremlin, meaning neither Ushakov nor
Smolenkov had direct access to the Russian president. Nevertheless, Smolenkov's new job had to
have pleased his CIA masters. In the five years Smolenkov worked at the Executive Office of the
Government, he was not privy to particularly sensitive information. His communications with CIA
would most likely have been administrative in nature, with the CIA more interested in
Smolenkov's growth potential than immediate value of any intelligence he could produce.
Smolenkov's arrival in the Presidential Administration coincided with a period of
operational difficulty for the CIA in Moscow. First, the CIA's internet-based covert
communications system, which used Google's email platform as the foundation for accessing
various web pages where information was exchanged between the agent and his CIA handlers, had
been globally compromised. Smolenkov had been trained on this system, and it provided his
lifeline to the CIA. The compromise first occurred in Iran, and then spread to China; in both
countries, entire networks of CIA agents were rounded up, with many being subsequently
executed . China is believed to have shared the information on how to detect the covert
communication-linked web pages with Russia; fortunately for Moscow Station, they were able to
make the appropriate changes in the system to safeguard the security and identity of its
agents. In the meantime, communications between the CIA and Smolenkov were cut off until the
CIA could make contact using back-up protocols and re-train Smolenkov on the new communications
procedures.
Moscow Station, however, was having trouble carrying out its clandestine tasks. In the
fall of 2011, the CIA's chief of station in Moscow, Steven Hall, had been approached by his
counterpart in the Russian Federal Security Service (the FSB, Russia's equivalent of the FBI)
and warned that the CIA should stop trying to recruit agents from within the FSB ranks; the FSB
had detected several of these attempts, which it deemed inappropriate given the ongoing
cooperation between the intelligence services of the two countries regarding the war on
terrorism.
But Hall had his orders, and after a year-long pause to review its operating procedures,
Moscow Station resumed its targeting of FSB officers. Things went real bad real fast. In
January 2013, a CIA officer named Benjamin Dillon was arrested by the FSB as he tried to
recruit a Russian agent, declared persona non grata, and expelled from Russia. Then in May 2013
the FSB arrested another CIA officer, Ryan Fogle. Fogle was paraded before television cameras
together with his spy paraphernalia, and like Dillon before him, expelled from the country.
Moreover, the Russians, in condemning the CIA actions, revealed the identity of the CIA's
Moscow chief of station (Hall), who because of the public disclosure was compelled to depart
Russia.
A CIA Dream
Steve Hall (CNN/YouTube)
The loss of Dillon and Fogle was a serious blow to Moscow Station, but one from which the
CIA could recover. But the near simultaneous loss of two case officers and the chief of
station was a different matter altogether. Hall was one of the few people in the CIA who had
been "read in" on the recruitment of Smolenkov, and as such was involved in the overall
management of the Russian agent. The loss of Hall at this very sensitive time created a
problem for both the CIA and Smolenkov. Smolenkov's new assignment was a dream come true for
the CIA -- never before had the agency managed to place a controlled agent into the
Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation.
But while Smolenkov had been able to provide evidence of access, by way of photographs of
presidential documents, the CIA needed to confirm that Smolenkov hadn't been turned by the
Russians and was not being used to pass on disinformation designed to mislead those who used
Smolenkov's reporting. Normally this was done by subjecting the agent to a polygraph
examination -- a "swirl," in CIA parlance. This examination could take place at an improvised
covert location in Russia, or in a more controlled environment outside of Russia, if Smolenkov
was able to exit on work or during vacation. But arranging the examination required close
coordination between the CIA and its agent, as well as a healthy degree of trust between the
agent and those directing him. With communications down, and the chief of station evicted,
Smolenkov was left in a state of limbo while the CIA trained up new case officers capable of
operating in Moscow and sought a replacement for Hall.
One of the ironies surrounding the arrest and expulsion of CIA officer Fogle, and the
subsequent outing and eviction of Hall, was that Smolenkov was ideally positioned to provide an
inside perspective on how the Russian leadership reacted to the incident. Smolenkov's boss,
Ushakov, was tasked with overseeing Russia's diplomatic response. In a statement given to the
Russian media, Ushakov expressed surprise at the timing of the incident. "To put it mildly,"
Ushakov said, "it is surprising that this extremely crude, clumsy attempt at recruitment took
place in a situation where both President Obama and President Putin have clearly stated the
importance of more active cooperation and contacts between the special services of the two
countries."
Ushakov coordinated closely with the head of Putin's Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev,
regarding the content of a letter Putin was planning to send in response to a previous
communication from Obama. While the original text focused on missile defense issues, Ushakov
and Patrushev inserted language about the Fogle incident. As a senior aide to Ushakov,
Smolenkov was ideally positioned to gather intelligence about the Russian response. If he was
able to communicate this information to the CIA, it would have provided Obama and his advisers
time to prepare a response to the Russian letter. The situation meant that Smolenkov may have
been reporting on events related to the expulsion of Hall, one of the CIA officers specifically
trained to manage his reporting.
The Center
Amid the operational challenges and opportunity provided by Smolenkov's new position within
the Russian Presidential Administration, the CIA underwent a radical reorganization which
impacted how human agents, and the intelligence they produced, would be managed. The past
practice of having intelligence operations controlled by insular regional divisions, which
promoted both a physical and philosophical divide between the collectors and their analytical
counterparts in the respective regional division within the Directorate of Intelligence, or DI,
was discontinued by Brennan, who had taken over as director of the CIA in May 2013.
To replace what he viewed as an antiquated organizational structure, Brennan created what he
called "Mission Centers," which combined analytical, operational, technical and support
expertise under a single roof. For Moscow Station and Smolenkov, this meant that the Russia and
Eurasia Division, with its Russian Operations Group, no longer existed. Instead, Moscow Station
would take its orders from a new Europe and Eurasia Mission Center headed by an experienced CIA
Russia analyst named Peter Clement.
Clement, who had earned a PhD in Russian history from Michigan State University, had a
diverse resumé with the CIA which included service as the director for Russia on the
National Security Council and as the CIA representative to the U.S. Mission to the United
Nations. Clement served as the director of the Office of Russian and Eurasian Analysis and as
the CIA's Russia issue manager from 1997 to 2003; as the President's Daily Brief (PDB) briefer
for Vice President Dick Cheney from 2003-2004, and from 2005-2013, as the deputy director for
intelligence for analytic programs. In 2015 Brennan appointed Clement to serve as the deputy
assistant director of CIA for Europe and Eurasia, where he directed the activities of the newly
created Europe and Eurasia Mission Center. If one was looking for the perfect candidate to
manage the fusion of operational, analytical and technical experience into a singular,
mission-focused entity, Peter Clement was it.
Peter Clement (C-Span)
As Clement got on with the business of whipping the Europe and Eurasia Mission Center into
shape, Smolenkov was busy establishing himself as an intelligence source of some value. Smolenkov's success was directly linked to the work of his boss, Ushakov. In June 2015,
Ushakov was put in charge of establishing a high-level working group in the fuel and energy
sector for the purpose of improving bilateral cooperation with Azerbaijan. The reporting
Smolenkov would have been able to provide on the work of this group would have been of
tremendous assistance to those in the Obama administration working on U.S. energy policy,
especially as it related to countering Russian moves in the former Soviet Republics.
Another project of interest was Russia's sale of advanced Mi-35 helicopters to Pakistan in
support of their counterterrorism efforts. Coming at a time when U.S.-Pakistani relations were
floundering, the Russian sale of advanced helicopters was viewed with concern by both the
Department of State and the Department of Defense. Again, Smolenkov's reporting on this issue
would have been well received by critical policymakers in both departments.
But the most critical role played by Ushakov was advising Putin on the uncertain state of
relations between the U.S. and Russia in the aftermath of the 2014 crisis in Ukraine, and
Russia's annexation of Crimea. Ushakov's 10-year tenure as Russia's ambassador to the U.S.
gave him unprecedented insight into U.S. decision making, experience and expertise Putin
increasingly relied upon as he formulated and implemented responses to U.S. efforts to contain
and punish Russia on the international stage.
While Ushakov's meetings with Putin were conducted either in private, or in small groups
of senior advisers, meaning Smolenkov was not present, Smolenkov was able to collect
intelligence on the periphery by photographing itineraries and working papers, as well as
overhearing comments made by Ushakov, that collectively would provide U.S. policymakers with
important insight into Putin's thinking.
Managing an important resource like Smolenkov was one of the critical challenges faced by
Clement and the Europe and Eurasia Mission Center. Smolenkov's reporting continued to be
handled using special HUMINT procedures designed to protect the source. However, within the
Center knowledge of Smolenkov's work would have been shared with analysts who worked side by
side with their operational colleagues deciding how the intelligence could best be used, as
well as coming up with follow-up questions for Smolenkov regarding specific issues of
interest.
Given the unique insight Smolenkov's reporting provided into Putin's thinking, it would be
logical that intelligence sourced from Smolenkov would frequently find itself briefed to the
president and his inner circle via the PDB process, which was exacting in terms of vetting the
accuracy and reliability of any intelligence reporting that made it onto its pages. As a
long-time Russia expert with extensive experience in virtually every aspect of how the CIA
turned raw reporting into finished intelligence, Clement was ideally suited to making sure his
Center handled the Smolenkov product responsibly, and in a manner which maximized its
value.
Meanwhile, Moscow Station continued to exhibit operational problems. By 2015 the CIA had
managed to rebuild its stable of case officers operating from the U.S. embassy. But the FSB
always seemed to be one step ahead. According to the FSB, the Russians were adept at
identifying CIA officers working under State Department cover and would subject these
individuals to extensive surveillance. As if to prove the Russian's point, in short order
the FSB rounded up the newly assigned case officers, along with the deputy chief of station,
declared them persona non grata, and expelled them from Russia. To make matters worse, the FSB
released surveillance video of all these officers, who in some cases were joined by their
spouses, as they engaged in elaborate ruses to evade Russian surveillance in order to carry out
their covert assignments.
Moscow Station's string of bad luck continued into 2016, when one of its officers, having
been detected by the FSB during a meeting, fled via taxi to the U.S. embassy, only to be
tackled by a uniformed FSB officer as he tried to enter the compound. In the scuffle that
followed, the CIA officer managed to make entry into the embassy building, compelling the FSB
guard to release him once jurisdiction was lost. The CIA officer, who suffered a separated
shoulder during the incident, left Russia shortly thereafter, together with a female colleague
who had also been detected by the FSB while engaged in clandestine activities and subsequently
declared persona non grata.
FSB Headquarters in the Lubyanka Building, Moscow.
The FSB indicated, at the time these two officers were being expelled, that it had evicted
three other CIA officers during the year. In addition to the decimation of its staff, Moscow
Station was experiencing an alarming number of its agents being discovered by the FSB and
arrested. While the Russians were circumspect about most of these cases, on several occasions
they indicated that they had uncovered a spy by intercepting the electronic communications
between him and the CIA. This meant that the Russians were aware of, and actively pursuing, the
Google-based internet-based system used by the CIA to communicate with its agents in
Russia.
Meanwhile, Smolenkov continued to send his reports to his CIA handlers unabated, using the
same internet-based system. Under normal circumstances, an exception to compromise would raise
red flags within the counterintelligence staff that evaluated an agent's reporting and
activity. But by the summer of 2016, nothing about the work of the CIA, and in particular the
Europe and Eurasia Mission Center could be considered "normal" when it came to the Russian
target.
Little White Envelope
Sometime in early August 2016, a courier from the CIA arrived at the White House carrying
a plain, unmarked white envelope. Inside was an intelligence report from Smolenkov that CIA
Director Brennan considered to be so sensitive that he kept it out of the President's Daily
Brief, concerned that even that restrictive process was too inclusive to adequately protect the
source. The intelligence was to be read by four people only -- Obama, National Security Advisor
Susan Rice, Deputy National Security Advisor Avril Haines and White House Chief of Staff Denis
McDonough. The document was to be returned to the courier once it had been read.
Brennan in Oval Office where he had envelope delivered. (White House photo/Pete Souza)
The contents of the report were alarming -- Putin had personally ordered the cyber attack
on the Democratic National Committee for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential
election in favor of the Republican candidate, Donald Trump.
The intelligence report was not a product of Clement's Europe and Eurasia Mission Center,
but rather a special unit of handpicked analysts from the CIA, NSA and FBI who were brought
together under great secrecy in late July and reported directly to Brennan. These analysts were
made to sign non-disclosure agreements protecting their work from their colleagues.
This new analytical unit focused on three new sensitive sources of information -- the
Smolenkov report, additional reporting provided by a former MI6 officer named Christopher
Steele, and a signals intelligence report provided by a Baltic nation neighboring Russia. The
Steele information was of questionable provenance, so much so that FBI Director James Comey
could not, or would not, vouch for its credibility. The same held true for the NSA's assessment
of the Baltic SIGINT report. By themselves, the Steele reporting and Baltic SIGINT report were
of little intelligence value. But when viewed together, they were used to corroborate the
explosive contents of the Smolenkov intelligence. The White House found the Smolenkov report
so convincing that in September 2016, during a meeting of the G-20 in China, Obama pulled Putin
aside and told him to stop meddling in the U.S. election. Putin was reportedly nonplussed by
Obama's intervention.
It is extraordinarily difficult for a piece of intelligence to be deemed important and
reliable enough to be briefed to the president of the United States. The principal forum for
such a briefing is the Presidential Daily Brief, which prior to 2004 was a product produced
exclusively by the CIA. When the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act was signed
into law in 2004, the responsibility for the PDB was transferred to the Office of the Director
of National Intelligence (ODNI), a newly created entity responsible for oversight and
coordination of the entire Intelligence Community, or IC. The PDB is considered to be an IC
product, the production of which is coordinated by ODNI's PDB staff in partnership with the CIA
Directorate of Intelligence (DI)'s President's Analytic Support Staff.
Since he began reporting about his work in the Russian Presidential Administration in 2013,
Smolenkov had, on numerous occasions, produced intelligence whose content and relevance was
such that it would readily warrant inclusion in the PDB. After 2015, the decision to submit a
Smolenkov-sourced report for inclusion in the PDB would be made by Clement and his staff. For a
report to be nominated, it would have to pass an exacting quality control review process which
evaluated it for accuracy, relevance and reliability.
U.S. Embassy Moscow ( Wikimedia Commons)
Sometime in the leadup to August 2016, this process was halted. Oleg Smolenkov was a
controlled asset of the CIA. While he was given certain latitude on what information he could
collect, generally speaking Smolenkov worked from an operations order sent to him by his CIA
controllers which established priorities for intelligence collection based upon information
provided by Smolenkov about what he could reasonably access. Before tasking Smolenkov, his CIA
handlers would screen the request from an operational and counterintelligence perspective,
conducting a risk-reward analysis that weighed the value of the intelligence being sought with
the possibility of compromise. Only then would Smolenkov be cleared to collect the requested
information.
It is not publicly known what prompted the report from Smolenkov which Brennan found so
alarming. Was it received out of the blue, a target of opportunity which Smolenkov exploited?
Was it based upon a specific tasking submitted by Smolenkov's CIA handlers in response to a
tasking from above? Or was it a result of the intervention of the CIA director, who tasked
Smolenkov outside normal channels? In any event, once Brennan created his special analytical
unit, Smolenkov became his dedicated source. If Smolenko was in this for the money, as appears
to be the case, he would have been motivated to come up with the "correct" answer to Brennan's
tasking for information on Putin's role. By late 2016, Western media had made quite clear what
kind of answer Brennan wanted.
Every intelligence report produced by a controlled asset is subjected to a
counterintelligence review where it is examined for any evidence of red flags that could be
indicative of compromise. One red flag is the issue of abnormal access. Smolenkov did not
normally have direct contact with Putin, if ever. His intelligence reports would have been
written from the perspective of the distant observer. His report about Putin's role in
interfering in the 2016 election, however, represented a whole new level of access and trust.
Under normal circumstances, a report exhibiting such tendency would be pulled aside for
additional scrutiny; if the report was alarming enough, the CIA might order the agent to be
subjected to a polygraph to ensure he had not been compromised.
This did not happen. Instead, Brennan took the extraordinary measure of sequestering the
source from the rest of the Intelligence Community. He also confronted the head of the Russian
FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, about the risks involved in interfering in U.S. elections.
Whether Brennan further tasked Smolenkov to collect on Putin is not known. Nor is it known
whether Smolenkov produced more than that single report about Putin's alleged direct role in
ordering the Russian intelligence services to intervene in the 2016 U.S. presidential
elections.
Despite Brennan's extraordinary effort to keep the existence of a human source within the
Russian Presidential Administration a closely-held secret, by December 2016 both The
Washington Post and The New York Times began quoting their sources about the
existence of a sensitive intelligence source close to the Russian president. The timing of
these press leaks coincided with Smolensky being fired from his job working for the
Presidential Administration; the method of firing came in the form of a secret decree. When the
CIA found out, they desperately tried to convince Smolenkov to agree to extraction, fearing for
his safety should he remain in Moscow. This Smolenkov allegedly refused to do, prompting the
counterintelligence-minded within the CIA to become concerned that Brennan and his coterie of
analysts had been taken for a ride by a Russian double agent.
Trump and Barr on Feb. 14, 2019. (Wikimedia Commons)
Smolenkov's firing occurred right before the Intelligence Community released its
much-anticipated assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election . Like the special
analytical unit created by Brennan to handle the intelligence about Putin ordering the Russian
intelligence services to intervene in favor of Trump in the 2016 election, Brennan opted to
produce the Russian interference assessment outside the normal channels. Usually, when the IC
opts to produce an assessment, there is a formal process which has a national intelligence
officer (NIO) from within the National Intelligence Council take the lead on coordinating the
collection and assessment of all relevant intelligence. The NIO usually coordinates closely
with the relevant Mission Centers to ensure no analytical stone was left unturned in the
pursuit of the truth.
The 2016 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) was produced differently -- no Mission
Center involvement, no NIO assigned, no peer review. Just Brennan's little band of sequestered
analysts.
Smolenkov's information took top billing in the ICA, "Assessing Russian Activities and
Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections," published on Jan. 6, 2017. "We assess," the unclassified
document stated, "Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed
at the U.S. presidential election. Russia's goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S.
democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential
presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for
President-elect Trump." Smolenkov's reporting appears to be the sole source for this
finding.
The ICA went on to note, "We have high confidence in these judgments." According to the
Intelligence Community's own definition, "high confidence'" generally indicates judgments based
on high-quality information, and/or the nature of the issue makes it possible to render a solid
judgment. A "high confidence" judgment is not a fact or a certainty, however, and still carries
a risk of being wrong.
The same day the ICA was published, Brennan, accompanied by Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper, and Admiral Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security
Agency, met with President-elect Trump in Trump Tower, where he was briefed on the classified
information behind the Russian ICA. Included in this briefing was the intelligence from "a
top-secret source" close to Putin which sustained the finding of Putin's direct
involvement.
Brennan had sold the Smolenkov reporting to both President Obama and President-elect
Trump, along with the rest of the intelligence community, as "high-quality information." It
was, at best, nothing more than uncorroborated rumor or, at worst, simple disinformation. This
reporting, which was parroted by an unquestioning mainstream media that accepted it as fact,
created an impression amongst the American public that Vladimir Putin had personally ordered
and directed a Russian interference campaign during the 2016 election designed "to help
President-elect Trump's election chances when possible," according to the ICA.
As CIA director, Brennan understood very well the role played by intelligence in shaping the
decisions of key policy makers, and the absolute need for those who brief the president and his
key advisers to ensure only the highest quality information and derived assessments are
briefed. In this, Brennan failed.
Coming in From the Cold
Tivat, Montenegro
After being fired from his position within the Presidential Administration, Smolenkov
continued to live in Moscow, very much a free man. By this time he was the father of three
children, his new wife having given birth to two daughters. Following Trump's inauguration on
Jan. 20, 2017, Brennan resigned as CIA director. By May, Brennan was testifying before Congress
about the issue of Russian interference. Increasingly, attention was being drawn to the
existence of a highly-placed source near Putin, with both The New York Times and The
Washington Post publishing surprisingly detailed reports.
Concerned that Smolenkov could be arrested by the Russians and, in doing so, have control
over the narrative of Russian interference transfer to Moscow, the CIA once again approached
Smolenkov to defect to the United States. This time the Russian agent agreed.
In July 2017, Smolenkov, accompanied by his wife and three children, travelled to Montenegro
on vacation. They arrived in the resort city of Tivat, flying on a commercial air flight from
Moscow. The CIA took control of the family a few days later, spiriting them away aboard a yacht
that had been moored at the Tivat marina. Upon his arrival in the U.S., Smolenkov and his
family were placed under the control of the CIA's resettlement unit.
According to the Russian media, Smolenkov's disappearance was discovered in September 2017.
The FSB opened an investigation into the matter, initially suspecting foul play. Soon, however,
the FSB reached a different conclusion -- that Smolenkov and his family had defected to the
United States.
Normally a defector would be subjected to a debriefing, inclusive of a polygraph, to confirm
that he or she had not been turned into a double agent. Smolenkov had, over the course of a
decade of spying, accumulated a considerable amount of money which the CIA was holding in
escrow. This money would be released to Smolenkov upon the successful completion of his
debriefing. In the case of Smolenkov, however, there doesn't seem to have been a detailed,
lengthy debriefing. His money was turned over to him. Sometime in June 2018, Smolenkov and
his wife bought a home worth nearly $1 million in northern Virginia. The couple used their real
names. They were not afraid.
I can only speculate as to the circumstances that led to Smolenkov's firing by secret
decree. Normally, Russians charged with transmitting classified material to the intelligence
services of a foreign state are arrested, placed on trial and given lengthy prison sentences,
or worse. This did not happen to Smolenkov.
But this does not mean the Russian authorities were ignorant of his activities. This raises
another possibility, that Smolenkov could have been turned by the Russian security services
before he had compromised any classified information, and that he operated as a double agent
his entire CIA career. Since the only classified information he transferred would, in this
case, be approved for release by the Russian security services, he would not have technically
committed a crime. If Smolenkov was working both sides, it could have been a Russian vehicle to
create distrust between the U.S. intelligence community and Trump.
Smolenkov was fired, and left to his own devices, once his utility to Russia had expired.
Having escaped being arrested as a spy, Smolenkov believed he might be able to live a normal
life in Moscow. But when the potential for compromise arose due to leaks to the press, I assess
that it was in the CIA's interest to bring Smolenkov in, if for no other reason than to control
the narrative of Russian interference.
Three Scenarios
Old CIA building in Langely, Virginia.
There are three scenarios that could be at play regarding Smolenkov's bone fides as a human
intelligence source for the CIA. First, that this was a solid recruitment, that Smolenkov was
the high-level asset the CIA and Brennan claim he was, and the information he provided
regarding the involvement of Putin was unimpeachable. Mitigating against this is the fact that
when Smolenkov was fired from his position in late 2016, he was not arrested and put on trial
for spying.
Russia is fully capable of conducting secret trials, and controlling the information that is
made available about such a trial. Moreover, Russia is a vindictive state–persons who
commit treason are not tolerated. As Putin himself noted in comments made in March 2018,
"Traitors will kick the bucket. Trust me. These people betrayed their friends, their brothers
in arms. Whatever they got in exchange for it, those thirty pieces silver they were given, they
will choke on them." The odds of Smolenkov being fired for committing treason, and then being
allowed to voluntarily exit Russia with his family and passports, are virtually nil.
The second scenario is a variation of the first, where Smolenkov starts as a solid
recruitment, with his reporting commensurate with his known level of access–peripheral
contact with documents and information pertaining to the work of the aide to President Putin on
international relations. Sometime in July 2016 Smolenkov produces a report that catches the
attention of DCI Brennan, who flags it and pulls Smolenkov out of the normal operational
channels for CIA-controlled human sources, and instead creating a new, highly-compartmentalized
fusion cell to handle this report, and possibly others.
Three questions emerge from the second scenario. First, was Smolenkov responding to an
urgent tasking from Brennan to find out how high up the Russian chain of command went the
knowledge of the alleged DNC cyber attack, or did Smolenkov produce this report on his own
volition? Was Brennan arranging evidence to show that there was indeed a Russian hack. After
all, all the FBI had to go by was a draft of a report by the virulently anti-Russian private
security firm CrowdStrike. The FBI never examined the DNC server itself.
In any case, the Smolenkov report in the white envelope represented a level of access
that would have significantly deviated from what one could expect from a person in his position
and which suggests he may have been telling the CIA what he knew Brennan wanted to hear. As
such, normal counterintelligence procedures should have mandated an operational pause while the
intelligence report in question was scrubbed to ensure viability. Under no circumstances would
a report so flagged be allowed to be put into the Presidential Daily Brief. However, by pulling
the report from the control of the Europe and Eurasian Mission Center, turning it over to a
stand-alone fusion cell, and bypassing the PDB process to brief the president and a handful of
advisors, there would be no counterintelligence concerns raised. This implies that Brennan had
a role in the tasking of Smolenkov, and was waiting for the report to come in, which Brennan
then took control of to preclude any counter-intelligence red flags being raised.
The third scenario is that Smolenkov, a low-level failure of a diplomat with drinking
issues, marital problems and monetary frustrations, was recruited by the CIA, but only with the
complicity of the Russian security services.
The same red flags that the CIA looks for when recruiting agents are also looked at by
Russian counterintelligence. At what point in the recruitment process the Russians stepped in
is unknown (if they did at all.) But it is curious that this professional failure was
suddenly transferred from running a co-op to being the right hand man of one of the most
influential foreign policy experts in Russia–Yuri Ushakov.
Moreover, this muddling diplomat whose questionable behavioral practices scream "recruit
me" is, within three years of returning to Moscow, given a significant promotion that enables
him to follow Ushakov into the Presidential Administration–a posting which would require
extensive vetting by the Russian security services. Smolenkov's promotion pattern is enough, in
and of itself, to raise red flags within the counterintelligence offices tasked with monitoring
such things. The fact that it did not indicates that the quality and quantity of reporting
being provided by Smolenkov was deemed by the Americans too important to interfere
with.
In this scenario, Smolenkov would have been playing to a script written by the Russian
security services. Since he, technically, had broken no laws by serving as a double agent, he
would not be subjected to arrest and trial. But once his existence became the fodder of the
U.S. media via inference and speculation, his services as a double agent were no longer needed.
He was fired from his position, via a secret Presidential proclamation, and set free to live
his life as he saw fit.
The most pressing question that emerges from this possibility is why? Why would the Russian
security services want to cook the books, so to speak, in a manner which made the Russians look
guilty of the very thing they were publicly denying?
In my view, if one assumes that the Smolenkov July 2016 report at the center of this
drama was not a result of serendipity, but rather a product derived from a specific request
from his CIA managers to find out how high up in the Russian decision-making chain the
authorization went for what U.S. intelligence agencies were already publicly pushing as an
alleged DNC cyber attack, then the answer I believe becomes clear–the Russians knew the
U.S. had an intelligence deficit.
I am speculating here, but if the Russians provided an answer guaranteed to attract
attention at a critical time in the U.S. presidential election process, it would inject the CIA
and its reporting into the democratic processes of the United States, and thereby politicize
the CIA and the entire intelligence community by default. This would suppose, however, that the
agencies did not have their own motives for wanting to stop Trump.
Rogers, Comey, Clapper and Brennan all in a row.
In this scenario, the Russians would have been in control of when to expose the CIA's
activities–all they had to do was fire Smolenkov, which in the end they did, right as
Smolenkov's report was front and center in the post-election finger-pointing that was taking
place regarding the allegation of Russian interference. The best acts of political sabotage are
done subtlety, where the culprit remains in the shadows while the victims proceed, unaware that
they have been played.
For the Russians, it didn't matter who won the election, even if they may have favored
Trump; simply getting President Obama to commit to the bait by confronting Putin at the G20
meeting in September 2016 would have been a victory, because I assess that at that point the
Russians knew that they were driving the American narrative. When the President of the United
States acts on intelligence that later turns out to be false, it is an embarrassment that
drives a wedge between the intelligence community and the Executive Branch of government. I
have no solid evidence for this. But in my speculation on what may have happened, this was the
Russian objective–to drive that wedge.
An Idyllic Truce
In my view, the CIA, Russia and Smolenkov were happy to maintain the status quo, with
Smolenkov living in comfortable retirement with his family, the CIA continuing to accuse Russia
of interfering in the 2016 presidential election, and Russia denying it. As well, Russia
seems to have brushed off the sanctions that resulted from this alleged "interference." This
idyllic truce started to unravel in May 2019, when Trump ordered Attorney General William Barr
to "get to the bottom" of what role the CIA played in initiating the investigation into
allegations of collusion between Trump's campaign and the Russians that led to the appointment
of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller's investigation concluded earlier this year, with a
400-plus page report being published which did not find any evidence of active collusion
between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.
Trump's instructions to Barr are linked to a desire on the part of the president to hold
to account those responsible for creating the narrative of possible collusion. Reports indicate
that Barr is particularly interested in finding out how and why the CIA concluded that Putin
personally ordered the Russian intelligence services to interfere in the 2016 presidential
election.
Barr's investigation will inevitably lead him to the intelligence report that was hand
couriered to the White House in early August 2016, which would in turn lead to Smolenkov, and
in doing so open up the can of worms of Smolenkov's entire history of cooperation with the CIA.
Not only could the entire foundation upon which the intelligence community has based its
assessment of Russian interference collapse, it could also open the door for potential charges
of criminal misconduct by Brennan and anyone else who helped him bypass normal vetting
procedures and, in doing so, allowed a possible Russian double agent to influence the decisions
of the president of the United States.
Seen in this light, the timing of the CNN and New York Times reports about the
"exfiltration" of the CIA's "sensitive source" seems to be little more than a blatant effort by
Brennan and his allies in the media to shape a narrative before Barr uncovers the
truth.
At the end of the day, Smolenkov and his family are not at risk. If the Russian government
wanted to exact revenge for his actions, it would have done so after firing him in late 2016.
In any event, Smolenkov and his family would never have been allowed to leave Russia had he
been suspected or accused of committing crimes against the state. A few days following
Smolenkov's "outing" by the U.S. media, the Russian government filed a request with Interpol
for an investigation into how someone who had gone missing in Montenegro was now living in the
United States.
The only person at risk from this entire sordid affair is Brennan, whose reputation and
potential livelihood is on the line. At best, Brennan is guilty of extremely poor judgement; at
worst, he actively conspired to use the office of Director of the CIA to interfere in the
outcome of a U.S. presidential election. Neither option speaks well of the U.S. Intelligence
Community and those in Congress charged with oversight of its operations.
Watch Scott Ritter discussing this article on CN Live! Episode 9.
Consortium News does not necessarily endorse the views of its authors.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet
Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm,
and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.
If you value this original article, please considermaking a donationto Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
Before commenting please read Robert Parry'sComment Policy.Allegations unsupported by facts, gross or misleading factual errors and ad hominem attacks,
and abusive language toward other commenters or our writers will be removed. If your comment
does not immediately appear, please be patient as it is manually reviewed.
Linda Wood , September 17, 2019 at 00:34
Brennan may have written the white envelope report and attributed it to Smolenkov, who may
or may not have been a double agent. The Russian interference story is not just something
Brennan wanted to hear, it's what the military industrial complex needs us to believe.
Dan Anderson , September 16, 2019 at 22:09
I trust Scott Ritter. Had we listened to him, the USA would not have invaded Iraq over
WMDs.
Reading the piece added to my distrust of our intelligence community, remembering this
haunting exchange on live TV.
January 3, 2017 – Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer:
"Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday to
get back at you. So, even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he is being
really dumb to do this."
Rachel Maddow:
"What do you think the intelligence community would do if they were motivated to?"
Schumer: "I don't know, but from what I am told, they are very upset with how he has
treated them and talked about them," -- The Rachel Maddow Show Jan 3, 2017
David G , September 16, 2019 at 18:32
I'm surprised Scott Ritter thinks it likely that Russia engineered the "Putin meddled"
narrative – that just seems unbelievable to me. There are enough moving parts here that one doesn't have to commit to one of Ritter's
three scenarios: numerous variations are possible. For instance, Smolenkov may have been fired for some mundane mix of reasons going to
performance and reliability. He may have been considered dubious without Russian
counterintelligence having fingered him as a U.S. agent.
And under the third scenario, with Smolenkov a double agent all along, Ritter writes: "But once his existence became the fodder of the U.S. media via inference and speculation,
his services as a double agent were no longer needed. He was fired from his position, via a
secret Presidential proclamation, and set free to live his life as he saw fit."
That doesn't make sense to me. In fact I see the opposite: if he had been a successfully
run double agent all that time, then when his usefulness had ended he would have been
decently pensioned off – not simply cut loose to fend for himself – but *not*
allowed to travel abroad unimpeded (with his whole family, no less) where he would have the
opportunity to cause mischief.
Were it not so powerful militarily and financially, the United States would be the
laughingstock of the world. This entire business is just another avenue travelled in America's nonstop Russophobia
lunatic wanderings. The DNC material was not hacked as a number of true experts have told us, including the
key one now languishing in a British prison. Putin had no plan because nothing ever happened.
Nothing. And I think we've all seen that when Putin plans something, it happens. The article is interesting for its laying out of elaborate security procedures –
kind of a high-level almost academic "police procedural" – but I do feel in the end it
is not that helpful, much as I respect Mr Ritter.
When nothing has happened, it does seem a bit odd to scrutinize every piece of fiber and
bit of dust and to construct a massive scenario of "what ifs."
Meanwhile, the murder of Seth Rich, a genuine and meaningful event, goes virtually
uninvestigated.
No wonder you are in so much trouble, America, and no wonder you make so much trouble for
others.
Anonymot , September 16, 2019 at 15:16
In the extremely sophisticated world of high grade intelligence I have repeatedly said
that the Brennan, Clapper, Comey trio were lead-footed imbeciles. That has been the CIA
tradition since Dulles left. All of those in our intelligence racket have led us to the
trough of poisoned water and all of our Presidents drank. They have all become very rich, but
not from book sales nor from consulting fees.
It says a lot about the entire echelon of those who decide our fates. There is no way to
know whether it stems from ignorance or incompetence, but those with the Deep State mindset
like each other, hire each other, and have been in some sort of daisy chain since university.
We not only need to describe How it happens as this article does very well, but even more
importantly Why. Only then can we start to do something about it, although it is probably far
too late – it would be like taking the shell off of an egg and leaving that delicate
interior membrane just inside the shell intact.
Clods like these (add the Clintons) should have their post-employment millions confiscated
and put on trial.
Sorry, but "Big Intelligence" is always a failure, and on many levels. It is not a matter of any "clods." It is a matter of the very nature of the institution and the nature of the people who use
its output. The CIA only has a good record at doing bad things. I refer to its operations side and the havoc and violence they have released through the
decades. It is an army of richly-equipped thugs without uniforms interfering in the business of
others, "lying, cheating, and stealing."
I find it maddening that we "puppet proles" are treated like stupid fools, lied to
constantly, and nothing happens to stop the mad lying/false flag garbage that keeps on. Now,
today, after Bolton departure, out of the weirdness comes Pompous Pompeo spewing even worse
madness that could tip "us" into attacking Iran! Saudis are insane, Netanyahu faces his
electorate tomorrow, and we should believe MbS and cronies? Trump is nothing but a
stooge!
Maricata , September 16, 2019 at 19:28
Read The CIA as Organized Crime and Strength of the Wolf and Strength of the Pack by Douglas
Valentine.
Please, CN, have Mr. Valentine on your livc broadcast
Jeff Harrison , September 16, 2019 at 14:36
It occurs to me that this may have an inappropriate title. Plausibly Mr. Ritter has pegged
what Smolenkov was eventually – a double agent. In which case I would probably call him
pretty successful.
hetro , September 16, 2019 at 13:06
Also published yesterday, this Aaron Mate interview with John Kiriakou on Smolenkov:
"Kiriakou also notes that the way Smolenkov's intelligence was handled raises echoes of
the CIA's manipulation of intelligence to help justify the Iraq war. The information from
Smolenkov was handled personally by then-CIA Director John Brennan. Brennan reportedly
sidelined other CIA analysts and kept the Smolenkov information out of the Presidential Daily
Briefing – instead delivering it personally to President Obama and a small group of
officials."
"That is a highly highly unusual thing to do, but I think [Brennan] did it because he knew
that the source wasn't well placed, he knew that the source was lying about his access to
Putin -- or information coming from Putin -- and I think that for whatever reason John
Brennan really wanted the president to run with this narrative that the Russians were trying
to somehow impact the 2016 election, when the intelligence just simply wasn't there,"
Kiriakou says.
When Trump campaigned against the bloody foreign policies of the duopoly he was also
campaigning against an out of control, coup making, drug running, blackmailing, imperial CIA.
my comment to The Brennan wanted to 'get' Trump to save his own hide, the CIA, and the
duopoly from further embarrassment.
If Smolenkov is missing from his Virginia home (Chancellor below at 9.15.19 at 23:40)
hopefully he is in hiding to assure he can tell a Grand Jury about any instructions or
suggestions he may have received from Brennan, or others regarding the election of Donald
Trump.
Zhu , September 16, 2019 at 05:25
Re John 8:32, people forget Pilate's remark, "what is truth"?
Igor Bundy , September 16, 2019 at 04:29
The next report from the CIA will be from hogwarts and how the measter is concatenating a
secret potion on how to turn dykes into donkeys.. This is especially impotent to the CIA and
such.. to hide in plain sight..
Imagine them trying to make a bond movie from this. Or more of Bourne.. But now it makes
sense of all the shows that show the CIA as protector of humanity and the good guys.. There
are no righteous intelligence agencies anywhere, only how evil and their limits.. Why their
powers should be limited and their actions also limited to a small sphere. Because where does
it stop? Once given the power to shape reality, then the entire world is shaped according to
a few with psychopathic tendencies. Which normal person would want to control everyone
according to their own reality? When you cant control your very own family, you have to be
one heck of a control freak to do it globally and to force everyone to do as told. But these
are the dreams and aspirations of an ape.. To remake the world in his own image.. and the
prize is the banana..
John Wright , September 16, 2019 at 15:11
More like a Le Carre' film. The CIA was originally sold as an intelligence gathering and analysis organization, and
was not supposed to be involved in operations. Thus, it was founded on lies and the lies have
only grown since.
Neither the CIA nor the FBI are salvageable at this point. They need to be abolished,
their functions reconsidered and new institutions which adhere to the Constitution created.
Of course, the entire military intelligence complex needs to be dismantled, starting with the
DHS, but that will require a revolution in this country.
Even the former communist state governments in Europe and the Soviet Union rued the day
that they unleashed their secret police from accountability, and thereby became subservient
to their power.
Chancellor , September 15, 2019 at 23:40
"But his job as foreman of the Rossotrudnichestvo coop was not the kind of job a Maurive
(sic) Thorez graduate gets;"
Of course it isn't, because that was never really his job. My guess is that his real job
all along was to be recruited by the CIA, when, in fact, he was always a double agent. The
rumors that he drank too much, was dissatisfied with his pay, and so on, strike me as too
obvious a come-on to an over-confident CIA. If Mr. Ritter knows that this is the type of
individual the CIA looks for, then the Russian security services know this as well. After
all, they tagged every American on the Moscow Station. Clearly, they have excellent
tradecraft.
The final coup by the Russian security services was to create a situation where Smolenkov
would have to be extracted by the CIA, although the Russians probably didn't think it would
take so long. Now it appears that Smolenkov is missing from the Virginia home that he
purchased openly under his own name. I wouldn't be surprised if he is living comfortably
somewhere back in Russia–this time having been "extracted" by the Russians, since his
cover as a CIA asset was finally blown.
Clearly this is speculation, but no more so than the scenarios Mr. Ritter posits.
Fabrizio Zambuto , September 16, 2019 at 14:11
Third scenario seems possible. He starts to drink, he shows how unsatisfied he is, knows
Americans will target him.
Meanwhile he gets spoonfed the intel he will have to share with the CIA.
According to Lavrov, he was a employee with little access to the echelons.
Last but not least: Putin said traitors will be punished but they don't get killed,
they're sent to Prison and handed years like Skripal which managed to go to UK thanks to a
swap.
Overall I like the article but too much Hollywood in the story. Why was he fired?
John Wright , September 15, 2019 at 23:38
[The Chinese play Go, the Russians Chess and the Americans Poker (badly)]
I think it's pretty clear that Mr. Ritter's third scenario is the correct interpretation
of the facts. I wouldn't even be surprised if the Russians surreptitiously got the U.S. media
to out their double agent. Timing is everything, after all, and now he's Langley's problem to
deal with.
The Russians know that the corrupt Anglo-American Deep State will work against any
relationship which is beneficial to Russia, so they have absolutely nothing to lose by
feeding the Deep State a narrative that can potentially wreak havoc within it.
Having Smolenkov feed this narrative into the bowels of the CIA clearly helped advance the
Deep State's rather obvious operation to create the appearance of collusion between the Trump
campaign and Russia, all the more reason for Brennan and company to swallow it hook, line and
sinker.
So Deep State tool Obama bites on the interference narrative, confronts Putin and takes
illegal actions that, if exposed, have the potential to seriously damage his legacy and the
presidency. This plausible result would cause Americans to lose even more faith in their
increasingly corrupt and dysfunctional government and affect world opinion.
We now see that if Barr actually does his job as mandated by the Constitution, then this
becomes a very distinct possibility.
Had the rabid neocon Clinton won, her administration would've undoubtedly buried Obama's
unconstitutional indiscretion, but fingerprints would've lingered for a future Republican to
possibly uncover and cause chaos with. It's even possible that Smolenkov would've remained in
place and continued to feed even more poisonous disinformation to the U.S. intelligence
morass, setting Clinton up for who knows what.
However, the unstable, narcissistic and easily played Trump miraculously wins. He's
immediately and continuously hit with RussiaGate. Trump reacts predictably by fanning the
flames of distraction when he calls out the Deep State and keeps punching back. The Executive
Branch is divided against itself, Congress and the electorate are further polarized and a
significant amount of energy is tied up with unproductive domestic political
machinations.
Almost three years of noise and crisis worked to increase Trump's natural dysfunction
while the Russians and Chinese quietly manage their coordinated effort to transform the
global power structure in their favor.
Will this Russian gift keep on giving?
Will Barr, or someone else if Trump fires him, dig into the entire RussiaGate mess and
expose all the lies and blatant illegality potentially causing a serious national crisis,
further damaging the reputation and credit worthiness of the U.S. ?
Or will Barr remain a faithful Deep State fixer, convince Trump that taking down Obama
would not be good for the economic health of the country (and his re-election), and carefully
steer everything he can down the memory hole?
Are those vodka glasses I hear clinking in Beijing?
[I'm just left wondering who will produce the deliciously embarrassing (to the U.S.) film
that this would make.]
Taras77 , September 15, 2019 at 19:42
Remarkable detail on the recruitment and control of agents by the CIA. In this case, it
would appear that Brennan has been played big time. IMO, to see Smolenkov walk away with his
loot in the bank, there can not be any other conclusion.
Hence, the obvious panic by brennan to use the likely suspects, NYT and wapo, to cast more
haze on the story. If there were treason, I doubt Smolenkov would be walking because the
Russians do not take that lightly. Actually, they have acted and are acting with competence
and confidence in the face of the bumbling, fumbling bombast and threats of the group around
trump which passes themselves off as diplomats and security advisors.
Brennan in his obsession to interfere with the political process prob contributed to his
malfeasance and a possible crime-I am no legal expert but it certainly seems that he
committed crimes.
Of course, this raises the question as to whether barr et al will act accordingly and
bring him to justice-I have strong doubts about barr taking on the cia as they will certainly
close ranks to protect him. My doubts about barr, however, go well beyond this particular
issue vis-a-vis the cia.
SilentPartner , September 15, 2019 at 18:58
I suspect Scott was provided a great deal of the reporting in this fascinating article
from a disgruntled insider, or former insider. Knowledge of Brennan's break with protocol to
form a select 'stand alone fusion cell' that reported only to him is something that I haven't
seen reported before. In any case this story adds another red flag to the entire Russiagate
hoax.
Just as Mueller failed to interview Julian Assange or Christopher Steele for his report --
obvious red flags -- we should now watch the conduct of Barr's investigation. Will Barr's
investigators interview Smolenkov? This should be an important metric to determine how
serious his investigation is. Another metric for Barr will be whether Ghislaine Maxwell is
indicted and arrested in the Jefferey Epstein affair. If not, we will soon know just how deep
goes the corruption of the ruling class.
Sam F , September 15, 2019 at 18:28
Many thanks to Scott Ritter for this information and cogent argument.
However it is not clear how Russia would expect to benefit by allowing Smolenkov to
deceive the CIA that Putin directly ordered interference in the US election. While later
discrediting of the US "Russia-gate" nonsense would make the US IC look bad, it is unclear
that this could be done, and it would have been done by now to reduce political tensions, but
still has not been done. Putin himself denied the accusations as nonsense.
So something is missing: if that was not the plan, Smolenkov was not asked to do that, and
he would not have been viewed as harmless when fired for that. If he had other incriminating
info on decision makers there, he would not have been allowed to leave, and having escaped,
he would have concealed his new location. Perhaps his superiors ill-advisedly asked him to
make false statements, for which he was not blamed.
Anon , September 16, 2019 at 07:09
I agree. The logic of "embarrassing" the CIA and dividing them from the president by
passing inflammatory information seems a stretch. On the other hand, I agree there do appear
a number of "red flags."
I'm wondering about the merit of the idea that this guy cooked up the story himself,
though I'm not sure that works either. It just seems to me something is missing.
Ojkelly , September 16, 2019 at 12:00
I thought the idea was that a Brennan minion planted or asked for the "Putin is
interfering " report, or even made it up and attributed it to a minor asset.
Brendan , September 15, 2019 at 15:00
( ) the timing of the CNN and New York Times reports about the "exfiltration" of the
CIA's "sensitive source" seems to be little more than a blatant effort by Brennan and his
allies in the media to shape a narrative before Barr uncovers the truth.
That's very likely to be true, but I think there's more to it than just getting Brennan's
version of events published before anyone elses. If you want to implant your narrative in the
public's mind it certainly does help to get your story out first, but in this case there's an
additional motive for leaking the spy story.
One effect of the leak was that Smolenko suddenly disappeared. His family apparently fled
their house in a hurry, leaving belongings lying around according to media reports.
Normally the CIA would never 'out' a valued asset, even a used one, because that would
discourage potential informers. And CNN and the NYT would not reveal details that would
identify a Russian defector – as happened in this case when Russian Kommersant
identified Smolenkov. American mainstream media would first check that it was OK to publish
those details.
This looks far too unusual to be simply a result of incompetence by Americans. A much
better explanation is that some powerful people were really desperate to make Smolenko
disappear. And the reason is that he knew too much. And now he has gone into hiding,
supposedly to escape vengeance from Putin. What is most significant is that he does not face
as many questions about his role in Russiagate.
A general search for Intel on google doesn't yield an abundance of articles that mention
its move to Israel in 1974, but I discovered it when the Spectre/Meltdown (intentional
Israeli processor security flaws, I mean "features") became known in 2018. "Nothing is ever
impossible, in this life" except for a computer that's not infested with the US-Israeli
partnership. We are also not surprised that Intel was not on Donald Trump's list of American
companies to bring back to the US.
Mike from Jersey , September 15, 2019 at 14:23
Good article. This is the kind of analysis you will not find in the New York Times or the Washington
Post. This is why I come to the Consortium News.
hetro , September 15, 2019 at 13:46
If I'm following properly, the white paper from Smolenkov is at the heart of the January
6, 2017, "assessments" that the case would be made–Trump as dupe of Putin.
Recall, too, that these "assessments" differed. Brennan's and Comey's were "high";
Clapper's was "moderate."
And, as Scott Ritter points out, they were "estimates" not based on hard proof; they were
essentially "guesses."
Why the discrepancy? (Related: William Binney says this "moderate" from Clapper means the
NSA knows Russia did not hack the DNC.)
I think this discrepancy question is important. How could a (supposedly) verifiable report
via white paper from a verifiable double agent Smolenkov be anything but a slam dunk
(unanimous) "high" for the major intelligence agencies?
The other question is Scott's WHY the Russian intelligence apparatus, with Putin
complicit, would set out to embarrass the US intelligence agencies with a cooked up
story–that made Putin look bad?
Of course, they could not know back at that time how the story would cook and proliferate
across US mainstream media with all the glee of Russia-bashing run amok and its TDS.
This view would also suggest a belief that somewhere in the US justice system was the
integrity to dig everything out and expose the fraud.
nwwoods , September 15, 2019 at 17:56
I believe that it was NSA which declared "moderate confidence", so no, not Clapper.
Clapper, in my opinion, was in on the gambit, a witting confederate of ringleader
Brennan.
hetro , September 16, 2019 at 11:30
Yes. Technically Clapper resigned as head of the NSA in 2016, and it was Mike Rogers, the
new head in 2017 who declared the assessment "moderate." Clapper had been involved with
Brennan and Comey in forming the January 6, 2017 assessment.
The question still remains: why the discrepancy in this "assessment" at the very beginning
of Trump's presidency, with its powerful impact.
JP McEvoy , September 15, 2019 at 12:33
One thing is for sure, if anything bad happens to the mole, it's won't be the Russians who did it.
Watch your back Mr. Skrip – er – I mean Smolenkov.
Robert Emmett , September 15, 2019 at 11:25
Damn! Please allow me to toss the "curveball" too. What's that? The real one or the fake,
you say? Ha ha. Yes, exactly! O, Vaunted sacred screed of PDB where the truth shall set you
free to prime the pump with lies. (hint: to spare your soul don't look into their eyes)
I haven't exactly been able to figure out what's wrong with Brennan's face, 'til I just
got it. He's been double-yoked! His own plus Barrack's (truer sp.). Egg that just won't wash
off! So you have to wear it everywhere, every day. Talk about serviceable villains hiding in
plain sight. Hey, Clapper! Don't get any on ya! Haha. Too late!
Carroll Price , September 15, 2019 at 10:43
Another example of checker champions competing with chess masters.
CortesKid , September 15, 2019 at 10:33
Brilliant and thorough. As I was reading Mr. Ritter's analysis, an overwhelming impression
was building, analogous to the third scenario, that Smolenkov , indeed, was a lure perfectly
placed to catch an intelligence agency or three. As I've watched and read many Russian
official's communications, especially their diplomatic efforts, it has become obvious to me
that, on average, they are some of the few "adults in the room." In broadstrokes, they are
playing chess, while the whole of the West, with its increasingly senile elites, is at the
Checkers table.
And in even broader strokes, I believe that at the heart of all of these shenanigans, is a
foundational turning away from a matured-and-deflating West, to an energized and expanding
Eurasia (Brezhinki's nightmare). As you know, changes on the scale of hegemon are never easy.
"Dying empires don't lay down, they double-down."
And I don't necessarily think Smolenkov and family are safe–from, for instance,
"Novichok" delivered via some American ally's secret service–as a pretense for further
demonization of Russia.
Brendan , September 15, 2019 at 07:51
Sorry but the theory that's proposed above is a bit too convoluted to be believable
– that Russia manipulated the CIA with the fake hacking story from Smolenkov and then
the CIA chief Brennan used it to manipulate Obama who then unwittingly revealed to Putin that
the USA was fooled by the story.
I'd rather follow Occam's razor and go for a simpler scenario. Brennan and the CIA
persuaded Smolenkov to invent the story (that he had inside knowledge that Putin ordered the
hacking of the DNC).
Not only that, but Obama suspected that the story was fake, since it was passed on to him
outside the normal channels and was investigated in a similar unconventional way. It's hard
to believe that Obama was easily hoodwinked and simply accepted the story as fact without any
convincing evidence.
The Democratic Party's fingerprints are all over the Russiagate story. The DNC
commissioned the Steele dossier and Steele met officials in the Obama administration's State
Department before the 2016 election. We're expected to believe that this all went on behind
President Obama's back.
We're also expected to believe that Obama innocently believed Smolenkov's report, as if
the CIA and FBI would never tell a lie. He's not completely stupid – at the very least
he must have had serious doubts about the allegations, or he could even have been in on the
Russiagate fabrication himself.
Maricata , September 16, 2019 at 19:34
It is more and more difficult to ascertain reality from fantasy, certainty from
assumptions. And this all plays into the hands of the ruling elites and their international
and national pratorean guards.
Americans do not ask questions. They prefer to believe than to know and thus the {swirl}
will yield nothing.
F. G. Sanford , September 15, 2019 at 07:05
Putin must surely have smirked. The little white envelope worked.
The debate made it plain he had pulled Brennan's chain,
And behind the scene subterfuge lurked!
Only four people went to the meeting. Connections might prove rather fleeting.
The "puppet" rebuke at the time seemed a fluke,
No one dared claim that Clinton was cheating!
Brennan's confidence level was high. He had sources and methods to spy.
He had top secret stuff that he claimed was enough,
But no evidence he'd specify!
Then Clinton claimed Russian subversion. In retrospect, not a diversion.
She must have been tipped by somebody loose lipped,
And she ran with the Putin incursion!
Strzok and Page were kept out of the loop. They didn't get insider poop.
They found no 'there' there, Comey's cupboard looked bare,
Brennan's spy had not yet flown the coop.
The durable lie picked up traction. Their spook would require extraction.
How could Clinton be sure that the blame would endure,
And the Steele Dossier would get action?
The 'Agent in Place' was a double. He didn't get in any trouble.
Hillary's pride had some hubris to hide,
In the end it would burst Brennan's bubble!
The big secret meeting was leaked. On the stage, "He's a puppet!" she shrieked.
Perhaps Susan Rice was inclined to be nice,
And her duty to Hillary peaked!
So now, they blame Trump for the outing. But it's over except for the shouting.
The 'insurance' is void, the illusion destroyed,
And poor Hillary just keeps on pouting!
David Otness , September 14, 2019 at 23:41
Scott -- so glad I got the head's-up on this via the CN Live show. I just now finished it
and am putting it into perspective. Well-researched, and well-written -- it's truly a web so
very reminiscent of what should have remained Cold War 1.0 finis.
And Episode Nine of CN Live is showing us where this internet platform can go with the
assembled experience and talent exhibited. The tech glitches were too bad, but the audio was
quite good enough.
Thanks for this travel guide to the heart of the labyrinth. Hopefully good things come of it.
I do worry about Barr's too many allegiances to his CIA incubator though, especially with all
of the ongoing coverups of the Epstein fiasco (engineered or not,) that complicate and
obfuscate the twin scandals that both end up under Barr's purview.
Ya done good, nonetheless. Thank you.
Abe , September 14, 2019 at 22:07
"After the U.S. reports came out, an anonymous, well-informed Russian Telegram channel,
The Ruthless PR Guy, reported that the asset was Kremlin official Oleg Smolenkov. On Tuesday
(10 September 2019] morning, the Moscow daily Kommersant published a story confirming that it
was him based on anonymous sources and some pretty convincing circumstantial evidence. [
]
"If Smolenkov was a spy, he could have delivered important insights about Russia's foreign
policy thinking and planning to U.S. intelligence. But if he was the source for the U.S.
intelligence community's certainty that Putin personally orchestrated a covert interference
campaign, that certainty rests on a weak foundation. Smolenkov served the wrong boss in the
Kremlin to get reliable information about such ventures."
Mr Ritter, Very lightly done. " Curveball made me do it" is the defense.
Brennan, well,I am not knowledgeable , but tight with Barry, unprofessional to my view, has
an issue. He made the most outrageous statements, Commander believing his own BS, NYT
magazine. Imagine going around saying that Trump was a Russian agent . Did incomparable
harm.And Morrell endorsing Hillary Clinton :beyond the pale , Professional members of the
agency must've been? Shocked appalled, whatever.
Jeff Harrison , September 14, 2019 at 21:52
Whooof! Obviously the MSM won't touch any of this stuff. I also don't have a lot of
confidence in the US government's ability to clean up the mess it has made. Amusingly, I've
watched the US's ham handed operations around the world and wondered when somebody would
return the complement. If Mr. Ritter is to be believed, it seems the Russians have started.
As Mr. Lawrence pointed out on CN live, Americans need to dispense with the notion that we
are exceptional. That's a weakness as it leads to complacency. How many more bricks of trust
in our government will we have to see broken before the entire edifice collapses? I would
also like to point out that we wouldn't be having these kind of problems if we weren't hell
bent on being the global hegemon.
Clark M Shanahan , September 14, 2019 at 22:54
"If Mr. Ritter is to be believed"
Jeffrey, I've followed Mr Ritter.
You can believe what he is stating, he's a good man.
my bad: Ritter starts at 48 minutes, before Nixon & Maupin
Jeff Harrison , September 15, 2019 at 17:43
I'm hip, Clark. I said that simply because I have no other collaborating commentary.
Ritter had my vote when he stood up to Shrub over Iraq's WMDs. But you do have to keep the
realization that you could be wrong so if Mr. Ritter is to be believed. I think that the odds
that Ritter is wrong are in the general vicinity of the odds that the US will start acting
like a normal nation.
When the ideology collapses like neoliberalism collapsed in 2008 defections and leaks from the intelligence agencies became more
prominent and higher level. Just before the USSR collapsed there were several high level officers of KGB that changed sides including
at least one general of KGB.
We can probably view Snowden and Manning as signs of similar process which started in the USA after the collapse of neoliberalism.
They suggest that loyalty to the USA in CIA or NSA is on low level not became of some external factors, but due to lack of conviction
in the sanity of the current social system in the USA (aka neoliberal society). So "protest defections" will probably continues unabated.
Of course, dealing with intelligence agencies is tricky as Snowden revelation might just be a limited revenge of CIA to NSA.
But in any case it is undisputable that while few Snowden files were published the mere fact of exfiltration of so much highly sensitive
information did some damage to military industrial complex. That makes is less pausible that he operates as CIA mole, which several
commenters below suggest.
At the same time in this interview Snowden sounds like a naive and disoriented person: " I try to keep a distance between myself
and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with basically the English-speaking community." English
speaking community in Russia probably has highest in the world percentage of intelligence officers of Western countries including CIA
officers.
Another somewhat suspicious fact is that very few files that Snowden files were released. So the whole story now looks like "Too
much ado about nothing." Unlike Wikileaks that published Manning materials.
Notable quotes:
"... He describes the 18 years since the September 11 attacks as "a litany of American destruction by way of American self-destruction, with the promulgation of secret policies, secret laws, secret courts and secret wars". ..."
"... Snowden also said: " The greatest danger still lies ahead, with the refinement of artificial intelligence capabilities, such as facial and pattern recognition. ..."
"... " An AI-equipped surveillance camera would be not a mere recording device, but could be made into something closer to an automated police officer ." - The Guardian ..."
"... You have to remember, in the beginning I didn't even know mass surveillance was a thing because I worked for the CIA, which is a human intelligence organization. But when I was sent back to NSA headquarters and my very last position to directly work with a tool of mass surveillance, there was a guy who was supposed to be teaching me . And sometimes he would spin around in his chair, showing me nudes of whatever target's wife he's looking at. And he's like: "Bonus!" ..."
"... The most important part of the Rubik's cube was actually not as a concealment device, but a distraction device. I had to get things out of that building many times. I really gave Rubik's cubes to everyone in my office as gifts and guards saw me coming and going with this Rubik's cube all the time. So I was the Rubik's cube guy . ..."
"... When you're doing this for the first time, you're just going down the hallway and trying not to shake. And then, as you do it more times, you realize that it works. You realize that a metal detector won't detect an SD card because it has less metal in it than the brackets on your jeans. ..."
"... I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with basically the English-speaking community . I'm the president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. And, you know, I'm an indoor cat. It doesn't matter where I am -- Moscow, Berlin, New York -- as long as I have a screen to look into. ..."
"... 16 June 2013 The revelations expand to include the UK, with news that GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications during the 2009 G20 summit in London, and that the British spy agency has also tapped the fibre-optic cables carrying much of the internet's traffic. ..."
"... 3 July 2013 While en route from Moscow, Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, is forced to land in Vienna after European countries refuse his plane airspace, suspecting that Snowden was on board. It is held and searched for 12 hours. ..."
"... December 2016 Oliver Stone releases the movie Snowden featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson, Zachary Quinto and a cameo by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. ..."
"... When he originally contacted Glenn Greenwald, I was suspicious. I said then, nothing will come of this, and nothing did, because WE NEVER GOT TO SEE all the files he had and what was on them. ..."
"... Read in Reuters that he's requested asylum in France. ..."
"... It will be common knowledge soon that it was the NSA (Admiral Rogers) that first detected the coup against Trump and the illegal surveillance. Remember friends, the FISA warrants were a cover for the illegal spying the Obama administration was ALREADY doing on Trump, Cruz, and others. ..."
"... I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with basically the English-speaking community. ..."
"... What an ungrateful twat. Russia saved his bacon and yet he wants to know nothing of the country and its people and maybe begin to understand WHY they would offer to help him...even if he doesnt like the Russain government, he CHOOSES to know nothing of the Russian people. What a loser! ..."
"... Maybe he doesn't know how to speak Russian, seeing as how getting stuck in Russia was not exactly his original plan. He just happened to be in a Russian airport when the USA happened to revoke his passport, making it impossible for him to leave. ..."
"... There is also the other angle, that perhaps he might be working as a CIA agent even now, and that his predicament is actually all entirely pre-meditated by the USA. Russia might take his getting friendly with the locals as being a bit impolite if he is doing spy work for the USA while living in Russia. ..."
"... He doesnt need to be "palsy-walsy" with Russians, he has NO knowledge of the country he lives in and its people and doesn't want to. That is ungrateful to the nth degree. ..."
"... If Russia wanted to they could shut down his ability to give video-conferences etc. They don't, they continue to show him a hospitality that he seems willing to spit on! ..."
"... Serious damage? I fear Snowden and Assange wasted their lives upon the American people. Was Snowden wrong morally? He fought the totalitarian giant and for this the people sit back in their arm chairs and moralize whether it was right or wrong. We don't deserve to be "free.". ..."
"... Why and how has Greenwald been able to "sit on" countless info files but never released them? If that is true then why haven't US authorities gone after him as well? Way too many strange aspects to Snowden's cover story and how he's allowed by the Russian's to make public statements about their local political landscape. ..."
"... It's not just that. Greenwald lives full time in Brazil for a very good reason--Brazil has no extradition treaty with the US. He's relatively safe there, although his boyfriend was stupid enough to go to London briefly and nearly got the Assange treatment... ..."
"... What I hate is that Snowden gave all those documents to Greenwald who said he was going to publish them and once he went to the Intercept under Omadyar...nothing but silence on those files. To my mind he betrayed Snowden. ..."
"... Book tour, Docudrama and T-Shirt? ..."
"... That part of the narrative does seem a bit odd, doesn't it? She's allowed to come and go as she pleases in the USA, yet is married to this guy wanted by the US authorities? Hmm. Nothing suspicious about that. ..."
"... Can anybody name something that Snowfen revealed that wasn't common knowledge? ..."
Meeting with both
The Guardian and
Spiegel Online in Moscow as part of its promotion, the infamous whistleblower spent nearly five hours with the two media
outlets - offering a taste of what's in the book, details on his background, and his thoughts on artificial intelligence, facial
recognition, and other intelligence gathering tools coming to a dystopia near you.
While The Guardian interview is 'okay,' scroll down for the far more interesting Spiegel interview, where Snowden
goes way deeper into his cloak-and-dagger life, including thoughts on getting suicided.
First, The Guardian :
Snowden describes in detail for the first time his background, and what led him to leak details of the secret programms being
run by the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK's secret communication headquarters,
GCHQ .
He describes the 18 years since the September 11 attacks as "a litany of American destruction by way of American self-destruction,
with the promulgation of secret policies, secret laws, secret courts and secret wars".
Snowden also said: " The greatest danger still lies ahead, with the refinement of artificial intelligence capabilities,
such as facial and pattern recognition.
" An AI-equipped surveillance camera would be not a mere recording device, but could be made into something closer
to an automated police officer ." -
The Guardian
Snowden secretly married his partner, Lindsay Mills, two years ago in a Russian courthouse. They met when he was 22 (14 years
ago) on the internet site "Hot or Not," where he rated her a 10 out of 10 and she rated him a (generous) eight.
He freely moves around Moscow, riding the metro, visiting art galleries or the ballet, and meeting with friends in cafes and
restaurants.
The 36-year-old lives in a two-bedroom flat on the outskirts of Moscow, and derives most of his income (until now) from speaking
fees - mainly to students, civil rights activists and others abroad via video chat.
Snowden is an "indoor cat by choice," who is "happiest sitting at his computer late into the night, communicating with campaigners
and supporters."
At a training school for spies, Snowden was nicknamed "the Count" after the Sesame Street character.
The Der Spiegel interview, meanwhile, is way more interesting ... For example:
" If I Happen to Fall out of a Window, You Can Be Sure I Was Pushed. "
Meeting Edward Snwoden is pretty much exactly how children imagine the grand game of espionage is played.
But then, on Monday, there he was, standing in our room on the first floor of the Hotel Metropol, as pale and boyish-looking
as the was when the world first saw him in June 2013 . For the last six years, he has been living in Russian exile. The U.S. has
considered him to be an enemy of the state, right up there with Julian Assange, ever since he revealed, with the help of journalists,
the full scope of the surveillance system operated by the National Security Agency (NSA).
For quite some time, though, he remained silent about how he smuggled the secrets out of the country and what his personal
motivations were. -
Spiegel Online
Select excerpts via Der Spiegel (emphasis ours):
***
DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Snowden, you always said: "I am not the story." But now you've written 432 pages about yourself. Why?
Edward Snowden: Because I think it's more important than ever to explain systems of mass surveillance and mass manipulation
to the public. And I can't explain how these systems came to be without explaining my role in helping to build them.
DER SPIEGEL: Wasn't it just as important four or even six years ago?
Snowden: Four years ago, Barack Obama was president. Four years ago, Boris Johnson wasn't around and the AfD ( Germany's
right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany ) was still kind of a joke. But now in 2019, no one is laughing. When you look
around the world, when you look at the rising factionalization of society, when you see this new wave of authoritarianism sweeping
over many countries: Everywhere political classes and commercial classes are realizing they can use technology to influence the world
on a new scale that was not previously available. We are seeing our systems coming under attack.
DER SPIEGEL: What systems?
Snowden: The political system, the legal system, the social system. And we have the proclivity to think that if we get rid of
the people we don't like, the problem is solved. We go: "Oh, it's Donald Trump. Oh, it's Boris Johnson. Oh, it's the Russians" But
Donald Trump is not the problem. Donald Trump is the product of the problem.
***
DER SPIEGEL: While writing, did you discover any truths about yourself that you didn't like?
Snowden: The most unflattering thing is to realize just how naïve and credulous I was and how that could make me into a
tool of systems that would use my skills for an act of global harm . The class of which I am a part of, the global technological
community, was for the longest time apolitical. We have this history of thinking: "We're going to make the world better."
***
DER SPIEGEL: Was that your motivation when you entered the world of espionage?
Snowden: Entering the world of espionage sounds so grand. I just saw an enormous landscape of opportunities because the
government in its post-9/11 spending blitz was desperate to hire anybody who had high-level technical skills and a clearance. And
I happened to have both. It was weird to be just a kid and be brought into CIA headquarters, put in charge of the entire Washington
metropolitan area's network .
DER SPIEGEL: Was it not also fascinating to be able to invade pretty much everybody's life via state-sponsored hacking?
Snowden: You have to remember, in the beginning I didn't even know mass surveillance was a thing because I worked for
the CIA, which is a human intelligence organization. But when I was sent back to NSA headquarters and my very last position to directly
work with a tool of mass surveillance, there was a guy who was supposed to be teaching me . And sometimes he would spin around in
his chair, showing me nudes of whatever target's wife he's looking at. And he's like: "Bonus!"
***
DER SPIEGEL: You became seriously ill and fell into depression. Have you ever had suicidal thoughts?
Snowden: No! This is important for the record. I am not now, nor have I ever been suicidal. I have a philosophical objection
to the idea of suicide, and if I happen to fall out of a window, you can be sure I was pushed.
***
DER SPIEGEL: You write that you sometimes smuggled SD memory cards inside a Rubik's cube .
Snowden: The most important part of the Rubik's cube was actually not as a concealment device, but a distraction device.
I had to get things out of that building many times. I really gave Rubik's cubes to everyone in my office as gifts and guards saw
me coming and going with this Rubik's cube all the time. So I was the Rubik's cube guy . And when I came out of the tunnel with
my contraband and saw one of the bored guards, I sometimes tossed the cube to him. He's like, "Oh, man, I had one of these things
when I was a kid, but you know, I could never solve it. So I just pulled the stickers off." That was exactly what I had done -- but
for different reasons.
DER SPIEGEL: You even put the SD cards into your mouth.
Snowden:When you're doing this for the first time, you're just going down the hallway and trying not to shake. And
then, as you do it more times, you realize that it works. You realize that a metal detector won't detect an SD card because it has
less metal in it than the brackets on your jeans.
***
DER SPIEGEL: You describe your arrival in Moscow as a walk in the park. You say you refused to cooperate with the Russian
intelligence agency FSB and they let you go. That sounds implausible to us.
Snowden: I think what explains the fact that the Russian government didn't hang me upside down my ankles and beat me with
a shock prod until secrets came out was because everyone in the world was paying attention to it. And they didn't know what to do.
They just didn't know how to handle it. I think their answer was: "Let's wait and see."
DER SPIEGEL: Do you have Russian friends?
Snowden: I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my
life with basically the English-speaking community . I'm the president of the Freedom of the Press Foundation. And, you know, I'm
an indoor cat. It doesn't matter where I am -- Moscow, Berlin, New York -- as long as I have a screen to look into.
***
Read the rest of Der Spiegel' s interview with Edward Snowden
here .
Meanwhile, The Guardian provides an interesting 'Snowden Timeline':
Snowden's timeline
21 June 1983 Edward Joseph Snowden is born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, US.
2006-2013 Initially at the CIA, and then as a contractor for first Dell and then Booz Allen Hamilton, Snowden spends years
working in cybersecurity on projects for the US National Security Agency (NSA).
20 May 2013 Edward Snowden arrives in Hong Kong, where a few days later he meets with Guardian journalists, and shares with
them a cache of top secret documents he has been downloading and storing for some time.
5 June 2013 The Guardian begins reporting the Snowden leaks, with revelations about the NSA storing the phone records of millions
of Americans, and the agency's claim its Prism programme had "direct access" to data held by Google, Facebook, Apple and other
US internet giants.
7 June 2013 The US president, Barack Obama, is forced to defend the programmes, insisting that they are adequately overseen
by the courts and Congress.
9 June 2013 Snowden goes public as the source of the leaks in a video interview.
16 June 2013 The revelations expand to include the UK, with news that GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications
during the 2009 G20 summit in London, and that the British spy agency has also tapped the fibre-optic cables carrying much of
the internet's traffic.
21 June 2013 The US files espionage charges against Snowden and requests Hong Kong detain him for extradition.
23 June 2013 Snowden leaves Hong Kong for Moscow. Hong Kong claims that the US got Snowden's middle name wrong in documents
submitted requesting his arrest meaning they were powerless to prevent his departure.
1 July 2013 Russia reveals that Snowden has applied for asylum. He also expresses an interest in claiming asylum in several
South American nations. Eventually Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Venezuela offer permanent asylum.
3 July 2013 While en route from Moscow, Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, is forced to land in Vienna after European countries
refuse his plane airspace, suspecting that Snowden was on board. It is held and searched for 12 hours.
1 August 2013 After living in an airport for a month, Snowden is granted asylum in Russia.
21 August 2013 The Guardian reveals that the UK government ordered it to destroy the computer equipment used for the Snowden
documents.
December 2013 Snowden is a runner-up to Pope Francis as Time's Person of the Year, and gives Channel 4's "Alternative Christmas
Message".
May 2015 The NSA stops the bulk collection of US phone calling records that had been revealed by Snowden.
December 2016 Oliver Stone releases the movie Snowden featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson, Zachary
Quinto and a cameo by former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.
January 2017 Snowden's leave to remain in Russia is extended for three more years.
June 2018 Snowden says he has no regrets about his revelations, saying: "The government and corporate sector preyed on our
ignorance. But now we know. People are aware now. People are still powerless to stop it but we are trying."
March 2019 Vanessa Rodel, who sheltered Snowden in Hong Kong, is granted asylum in Canada.
September 2019 Snowden remains living in an undisclosed location in Moscow as he prepares to publish his memoirs.
There's really no way to know that for sure if this guy is legit. If he is part of an operation, let's hope it's for something
good. When he originally contacted Glenn Greenwald, I was suspicious. I said then, nothing will come of this, and nothing
did, because WE NEVER GOT TO SEE all the files he had and what was on them.
Just what this man is up to we will likely never know. These kinds of operations can take years to set up.
My guess is Snowden is the Decoy, the distraction. There is likely someone else or something else that all of this camouflages.
Things go both ways in a surveillance environment. Snowden will be exposed in time as a CIA operative. The NSA has everything
including Hillary's private emails. Obama and many in his regime were also using private email servers, and the NSA has them all.
Snowden was trying to destroy the NSA, when they are what was needed to take down the CIA, FBI, and the Deep State. I don't
like the NSA being in existence, but this will help in prosecuting the criminals.
So what is the NSA waiting for? The statute of limitations to expire? LOL. Snowden wasn't trying to do anything except educate
people on what their government is doing. You obviously hate truth and knowledge. You work for the NSA?
I don't believe a damned thing about anything published about any of the alphabet agencies - good, bad, neutral, doesn't matter
it's all clown show bs.
Any other critical thinkers notice the CIA activated their asset again finally ? A predictable programmed book really ? Just
imagine what kind of juicy already known statecraft he will reveal. Lol. America loves their confabulated mythical pseudo-hero's
& cucked political demigods full of bovine scat don't they.
The UberMensch hero who somehow miraculously survived the 'enkryptonite' where other HVT can't. Amazing. Need to hurl makes
me gag reflex & gut retch.
Snowden is still CIA and his mission was to throw the NSA under the bus.
It will be common knowledge soon that it was the NSA (Admiral Rogers) that first detected the coup against Trump and the
illegal surveillance. Remember friends, the FISA warrants were a cover for the illegal spying the Obama administration was ALREADY
doing on Trump, Cruz, and others.
I try to keep a distance between myself and Russian society, and this is completely intentional. I live my life with
basically the English-speaking community.
What an ungrateful twat. Russia saved his bacon and yet he wants to know nothing of the country and its people and maybe
begin to understand WHY they would offer to help him...even if he doesnt like the Russain government, he CHOOSES to know nothing
of the Russian people. What a loser!
Just how is he to know who is undercover security services and who is just plain good and interesting?
Maybe he doesn't know how to speak Russian, seeing as how getting stuck in Russia was not exactly his original plan. He
just happened to be in a Russian airport when the USA happened to revoke his passport, making it impossible for him to leave.
There is also the other angle, that perhaps he might be working as a CIA agent even now, and that his predicament is actually
all entirely pre-meditated by the USA. Russia might take his getting friendly with the locals as being a bit impolite if he is
doing spy work for the USA while living in Russia.
He doesnt need to be "palsy-walsy" with Russians, he has NO knowledge of the country he lives in and its people and doesn't
want to. That is ungrateful to the nth degree.
If Russia wanted to they could shut down his ability to give video-conferences etc. They don't, they continue to show him
a hospitality that he seems willing to spit on!
No, really, I met people there who were deep and friendly and sensitive. Lots critical of what's not right with their own society,
and yet not traitors to their country.
I agree with you vasilievich....I am looking forward to visiting Russia next spring in time for the V-Day and the Immortal
Regiment, then spend a month visiting Russian and hopefully getting to interact with Russians "on the street".
One of the differences with Russia and the "West" is that Putins hours long live "conversations" with Russians and the way
he gets his government to follow up up problems, which he himself follows up on to insure actions are taken, ensure that people
have that freedom to be critical of their own society. Such an opposite to what happens to critics in the "west"
My take on Snowden is he's basically a decent guy who did some serious damage. Was he wrong legally? Hell yes! Was he wrong
morally? Possibly. Would I put the guy in prison if I could? Yeah for about 30 days because the bottom line of what he did was
to expose **** that needed to be exposed.
It's complicated but occasionally a guy like this is needed to stir the pot.
Serious damage? I fear Snowden and Assange wasted their lives upon the American people. Was Snowden wrong morally? He fought
the totalitarian giant and for this the people sit back in their arm chairs and moralize whether it was right or wrong. We don't
deserve to be "free.".
There is still more and something very fishy about Snowden.....if he really did so much so called "damage" to the US why do
US authorities never mention him? Why do they never pressure Russia to send him back?
Why and how has Greenwald been able to "sit on" countless info files but never released them? If that is true then why
haven't US authorities gone after him as well? Way too many strange aspects to Snowden's cover story and how he's allowed by the
Russian's to make public statements about their local political landscape.
It's not just that. Greenwald lives full time in Brazil for a very good reason--Brazil has no extradition treaty with the
US. He's relatively safe there, although his boyfriend was stupid enough to go to London briefly and nearly got the Assange treatment...
What I hate is that Snowden gave all those documents to Greenwald who said he was going to publish them and once he went
to the Intercept under Omadyar...nothing but silence on those files. To my mind he betrayed Snowden.
That part of the narrative does seem a bit odd, doesn't it? She's allowed to come and go as she pleases in the USA, yet
is married to this guy wanted by the US authorities? Hmm. Nothing suspicious about that.
How does what I wrote translate into an integrity issue?
Been married twice, fully faithful. But at his age particularly, would not recommend it to a guy who is in an unstable situation
anyway. (not to mention the girl originally rejected him when the going got rough).
Live a little, enjoy your youth, and enjoy the infamy!
Essentially neoliberal MSM were hijacked. Which was easy to do. The current anti-Russian campaign is conducted under
the direct guidance of MI6 and similar agencies
Notable quotes:
"... committee minutes note the secretary saying: "The Guardian was obliged to seek advice under the terms of the DA notice code." The minutes add: "This failure to seek advice was a key source of concern and considerable efforts had been made to address it." ..."
"... These "considerable efforts" included a D-Notice sent out by the committee on 7 June 2013 – the day after The Guardian published the first documents – to all major UK media editors, saying they should refrain from publishing information that would "jeopardise both national security and possibly UK personnel". It was marked "private and confidential: not for publication, broadcast or use on social media". ..."
"... "The FT [Financial Times] and The Times did not mention it [the initial Snowden revelations] and the Telegraph published only a short". It continued by noting that only The Independent "followed up the substantive allegations". It added, "The BBC has also chosen to largely ignore the story." ..."
"... The British security services had carried out more than a "symbolic act". It was both a show of strength and a clear threat. The Guardian was then the only major newspaper that could be relied upon by whistleblowers in the US and British security bodies to receive and cover their exposures, a situation which posed a challenge to security agencies. ..."
"... The increasingly aggressive overtures made to The Guardian worked. The committee chair noted that after GCHQ had overseen the smashing up of the newspaper's laptops "engagement with The Guardian had continued to strengthen". ..."
"... But the most important part of this charm and threat offensive was getting The Guardian to agree to take a seat on the D-Notice Committee itself. The committee minutes are explicit on this, noting that "the process had culminated by [sic] the appointment of Paul Johnson (deputy editor Guardian News and Media) as a DPBAC [i.e. D-Notice Committee] member". ..."
"... The Guardian's deputy editor went directly from the corporation's basement with an angle-grinder to sitting on the D-Notice Committee alongside the security service officials who had tried to stop his paper publishing. ..."
"... In November 2016, The Guardian published an unprecedented "exclusive" with Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, Britain's domestic security service. The article noted that this was the "first newspaper interview given by an incumbent MI5 chief in the service's 107-year history". It was co-written by deputy editor Paul Johnson, who had never written about the security services before and who was still sitting on the D-Notice Committee. This was not mentioned in the article. ..."
"... The MI5 chief was given copious space to make claims about the national security threat posed by an "increasingly aggressive" Russia. Johnson and his co-author noted, "Parker said he was talking to The Guardian rather than any other newspaper despite the publication of the Snowden files." ..."
"... Just two weeks before the interview with MI6's chief was published, The Guardian itself reported on the high court stating that it would "hear an application for a judicial review of the Crown Prosecution Service's decision not to charge MI6's former counterterrorism director, Sir Mark Allen, over the abduction of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his pregnant wife who were transferred to Libya in a joint CIA-MI6 operation in 2004". ..."
"... The security services were probably feeding The Guardian these "exclusives" as part of the process of bringing it onside and neutralising the only independent newspaper with the resources to receive and cover a leak such as Snowden's. They were possibly acting to prevent any revelations of this kind happening again. ..."
"... The Guardian's coverage of anti-Semitism in Labour has been suspiciously extensive, compared to the known extent of the problem in the party, and its focus on Corbyn personally suggests that the issue is being used politically. While anti-Semitism does exist in the Labour Party, evidence suggests it is at relatively low levels. Since September 2015, when Corbyn became Labour leader, 0.06% of the Labour membership has been investigated for anti-Semitic comments or posts. In 2016, an independent inquiry commissioned by Labour concluded that the party "is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism. Further, it is the party that initiated every single United Kingdom race equality law." ..."
"... A former Guardian journalist similarly told us: "It is significant that exclusive stories recently about British collusion in torture and policy towards the interrogation of terror suspects and other detainees have been passed to other papers including The Times rather than The Guardian." ..."
"... The Guardian had gone in six short years from being the natural outlet to place stories exposing wrongdoing by the security state to a platform trusted by the security state to amplify its information operations. A once relatively independent media platform has been largely neutralised by UK security services fearful of being exposed further. Which begs the question: where does the next Snowden go? DM ..."
The Guardian, Britain's leading liberal newspaper with a global reputation for independent and critical journalism, has been
successfully targeted by security agencies to neutralise its adversarial reporting of the 'security state', according to newly released
documents and evidence from former and current Guardian journalists.
The UK security services targeted The Guardian after the newspaper started publishing the contents of secret US government documents
leaked by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in June 2013.
Snowden's bombshell revelations continued for months and were the largest-ever leak of classified material covering the NSA and
its UK equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters. They revealed programmes of
mass surveillance
operated by both agencies.
According to minutes of meetings of the UK's Defence and Security Media Advisory
Committee, the revelations caused alarm in the British security services and Ministry of Defence.
" This event was very concerning because at the outset The Guardian avoided engaging with the [committee] before publishing the
first tranche of information," state
minutes of a 7 November
2013 meeting at the MOD.
The DSMA Committee, more commonly known as the D-Notice Committee, is run by the MOD, where it meets every six months. A small
number of journalists are also invited to sit on the committee. Its
stated purpose is to "prevent inadvertent public disclosure
of information that would compromise UK military and intelligence operations". It can issue "notices" to the media to encourage them
not to publish certain information.
The committee is currently chaired by the MOD's director-general of security policy Dominic Wilson, who was
previously director of security and intelligence
in the British Cabinet Office. Its secretary is Brigadier Geoffrey Dodds OBE, who
describes himself as an "accomplished, senior
ex-military commander with extensive experience of operational level leadership".
The D-Notice system describes itself as voluntary ,
placing no obligations on the media to comply with any notice issued. This means there should have been no need for the Guardian
to consult the MOD before publishing the Snowden documents.
Yet committee minutes note the secretary saying: "The Guardian was obliged to seek advice under the terms of the DA notice code." The minutes
add: "This failure to seek advice was a key source of concern and considerable efforts had been made to address it."
' Considerable efforts'
These "considerable efforts" included a D-Notice sent out by the committee on 7 June 2013 – the day after The Guardian published
the first documents – to all major UK media editors, saying they should refrain from publishing information that would "jeopardise
both national security and possibly UK personnel". It was
marked "private and confidential: not
for publication, broadcast or use on social media".
Clearly the committee did not want its issuing of the notice to be publicised, and it was nearly successful. Only the right-wing
blog Guido Fawkes made it public.
At the time, according to the committee
minutes , the "intelligence
agencies in particular had continued to ask for more advisories [i.e. D-Notices] to be sent out". Such D-Notices were clearly seen
by the intelligence services not so much as a tool to advise the media but rather a way to threaten it not to publish further Snowden
revelations.
One night, amidst the first Snowden stories being published, the D-Notice Committee's then-secretary Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Vallance
personally called Alan Rusbridger, then editor of The Guardian. Vallance "made clear his concern that The Guardian had failed to
consult him in advance before telling the world",
according to a Guardian journalist who interviewed Rusbridger.
Later in the year, Prime Minister David Cameron again used the D-Notice system as a threat to the media.
" I don't want to have to use injunctions or D-Notices or the other tougher measures," he
said
in a statement to MPs. "I think it's much better to appeal to newspapers' sense of social responsibility. But if they don't
demonstrate some social responsibility it would be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act."
The threats worked. The Press Gazette reported
at the time that "The FT [Financial Times] and The Times did not mention it [the initial Snowden revelations] and the Telegraph
published only a short". It continued by noting that only The Independent "followed up the substantive allegations". It added, "The
BBC has also chosen to largely ignore the story."
The Guardian, however, remained uncowed.
According to the committee
minutes , the fact
The Guardian would not stop publishing "undoubtedly raised questions in some minds about the system's future usefulness". If the
D-Notice system could not prevent The Guardian publishing GCHQ's most sensitive secrets, what was it good for?
It was time to rein in The Guardian and make sure this never happened again.
GCHQ and laptops
The security services ratcheted up their "considerable efforts" to deal with the exposures. On 20 July 2013, GCHQ officials
entered The Guardian's offices at King's Cross in London, six weeks after the first Snowden-related article had been published. At the request of the government and security services, Guardian deputy editor Paul Johnson, along with two others, spent
three hours destroying the laptops containing the Snowden documents.
The Guardian staffers, according to one of the newspaper's reporters,
brought "angle-grinders, dremels – drills with revolving bits – and masks". The reporter added, "The spy agency provided
one piece of hi-tech equipment, a 'degausser', which destroys magnetic fields and erases data."
Johnson
claims
that the destruction of the computers was "purely a symbolic act", adding that "the government and GCHQ knew, because we
had told them, that the material had been taken to the US to be shared with the New York Times. The reporting would go on. The episode
hadn't changed anything."
Yet the episode did change something. As the D-Notice Committee
minutes for November
2013 outlined: "Towards the end of July [as the computers were being destroyed], The Guardian had begun to seek and accept D-Notice
advice not to publish certain highly sensitive details and since then the dialogue [with the committee] had been reasonable and improving."
The British security services had carried out more than a "symbolic act". It was both a show of strength and a clear threat. The
Guardian was then the only major newspaper that could be relied upon by whistleblowers in the US and British security bodies to receive
and cover their exposures, a situation which posed a challenge to security agencies.
The increasingly aggressive overtures made to The Guardian worked. The committee chair
noted that after
GCHQ had overseen the smashing up of the newspaper's laptops "engagement with The Guardian had continued to strengthen".
Moreover, he added
, there were now "regular dialogues between the secretary and deputy secretaries and Guardian journalists". Rusbridger later
testified to the Home Affairs Committee that Air Vice-Marshal Vallance of the D-Notice committee and himself "collaborated"
in the aftermath of the Snowden affair and that Vallance had even "been at The Guardian offices to talk to all our reporters".
But the most important part of this charm and threat offensive was getting The Guardian to agree to take a seat on the D-Notice
Committee itself. The committee minutes are explicit on this,
noting that "the
process had culminated by [sic] the appointment of Paul Johnson (deputy editor Guardian News and Media) as a DPBAC [i.e. D-Notice
Committee] member".
At some point in 2013 or early 2014, Johnson – the same deputy editor who had smashed up his newspaper's computers under the watchful
gaze of British intelligence agents – was approached to take up a seat on the committee. Johnson attended his first meeting in
May 2014 and was
to remain on it until
October 2018
.
The Guardian's deputy editor went directly from the corporation's basement with an angle-grinder to sitting on the D-Notice Committee
alongside the security service officials who had tried to stop his paper publishing.
A new editor
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger withstood intense pressure not to publish some of the Snowden revelations but agreed to Johnson
taking a seat on the D-Notice Committee as a tactical sop to the security services. Throughout his tenure, The Guardian continued
to publish some stories critical of the security services.
But in March 2015, the situation changed when the Guardian
appointed a new editor, Katharine Viner, who had less experience than Rusbridger of dealing with the security services. Viner
had started out on fashion and entertainment magazine Cosmopolitan and had no history in national security reporting. According
to insiders, she showed much less leadership during the Snowden affair than Janine Gibson in the US (Gibson was another
candidate
to be Rusbridger's successor).
Viner was then editor-in-chief of Guardian Australia, which was
launched just two weeks before the first Snowden
revelations were published. Australia and New Zealand comprise two-fifths of the so-called
"Five Eyes" surveillance alliance exposed by Snowden.
This was an opportunity for the security services. It appears that their seduction began the following year.
In November 2016, The Guardian
published an unprecedented "exclusive" with Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, Britain's domestic security service. The article
noted that this was the "first newspaper interview given by an incumbent MI5 chief in the service's 107-year history". It was co-written
by deputy editor Paul Johnson, who had never written about the security services before and who was still sitting on the D-Notice
Committee. This was not mentioned in the article.
The MI5 chief was given
copious space to make claims about the national security threat posed by an "increasingly aggressive" Russia. Johnson
and his co-author noted, "Parker said he was talking to The Guardian rather than any other newspaper despite the publication of the
Snowden files."
Parker told the two reporters, "We recognise that in a changing world we have to change too. We have a responsibility to talk
about our work and explain it."
Four months after the MI5 interview, in March 2017, the Guardian
published another unprecedented "exclusive", this time with Alex Younger, the sitting chief of MI6, Britain's external
intelligence agency. This exclusive was awarded by the Secret Intelligence Service to The Guardian's investigations editor, Nick
Hopkins, who had been appointed 14 months previously.
The interview was the first Younger had given to a national newspaper and was again softball.
Titled "MI6 returns to 'tapping up' in an effort to recruit black and Asian officers", it focused almost entirely on the
intelligence service's stated desire to recruit from ethnic minority communities.
" Simply, we have to attract the best of modern Britain," Younger told Hopkins. "Every community from every part of Britain should
feel they have what it takes, no matter what their background or status."
Just two weeks before the interview with MI6's chief was published, The Guardian itself
reported on the high court stating that it would "hear an application for a judicial review of the Crown Prosecution Service's
decision not to charge MI6's former counterterrorism director, Sir Mark Allen, over the abduction of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his pregnant
wife who were transferred to Libya in a joint CIA-MI6 operation in 2004".
None of this featured in The Guardian article, which did, however, cover discussions of whether the James Bond actor Daniel Craig
would qualify for the intelligence service. "He would not get into MI6," Younger told Hopkins.
More recently, in August 2019, The Guardian was
awarded yet another exclusive, this time with Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Neil Basu, Britain's most senior
counter-terrorism officer. This was Basu's " first major interview since taking up his post" the previous year and resulted in a
three-part series of articles, one of which was
entitled "Met police examine Vladimir Putin's role in Salisbury attack".
The security services were probably feeding The Guardian these "exclusives" as part of the process of bringing it onside and neutralising
the only independent newspaper with the resources to receive and cover a leak such as Snowden's. They were possibly acting to prevent
any revelations of this kind happening again.
What, if any, private conversations have taken place between Viner and the security services during her tenure as editor are not
known. But in 2018, when Paul Johnson eventually left the D-Notice Committee, its chair, the MOD's Dominic Wilson,
praised Johnson who, he said, had been "instrumental in re-establishing links with The Guardian".
Decline in critical reporting
Amidst these spoon-fed intelligence exclusives, Viner also oversaw the breakup of The Guardian's celebrated investigative team,
whose muck-racking journalists were told to apply for other jobs outside of investigations.
One well-placed source
told the Press Gazette at the time that journalists on the investigations team "have not felt backed by senior
editors over the last year", and that "some also feel the company has become more risk-averse in the same period".
In the period since Snowden, The Guardian has lost many of its top investigative reporters who had covered national security issues,
notably Shiv Malik, Nick Davies, David Leigh, Richard Norton-Taylor, Ewen MacAskill and Ian Cobain. The few journalists who were
replaced were succeeded by less experienced reporters with apparently less commitment to exposing the security state. The current
defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh,
started
at The Guardian as head of media and technology and has no history of covering national security.
" It seems they've got rid of everyone who seemed to cover the security services and military in an adversarial way," one current
Guardian journalist told us.
Indeed, during the last two years of Rusbridger's editorship, The Guardian published about 110 articles per year tagged as MI6
on its website. Since Viner took over, the average per year has halved and is decreasing year by year.
" Effective scrutiny of the security and intelligence agencies -- epitomised by the Snowden scoops but also many other stories
-- appears to have been abandoned," a former Guardian journalist told us. The former reporter added that, in recent years, it "sometimes
seems The Guardian is worried about upsetting the spooks."
A second former Guardian journalist added: "The Guardian no longer seems to have such a challenging relationship with the intelligence
services, and is perhaps seeking to mend fences since Snowden. This is concerning, because spooks are always manipulative and not
always to be trusted."
While some articles critical of the security services still do appear in the paper, its "scoops" increasingly focus on issues
more acceptable to them. Since the Snowden affair, The Guardian does not appear to have published any articles based on an intelligence
or security services source that was not officially sanctioned to speak.
The Guardian has, by contrast,
published a steady stream of exclusives on the major official enemy of the security services, Russia, exposing Putin,
his friends and the work of its intelligence services and military.
In the Panama Papers leak in April 2016, which revealed how companies and individuals around the world were using an offshore
law firm to avoid paying tax, The Guardian's front-page launch scoop was authored by Luke Harding, who has received many security
service
tips focused on the "Russia threat", and was
titled "Revealed:
the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin".
Three sentences into the piece, however, Harding notes that "the president's name does not appear in any of the records" although
he insists that "the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured
without his patronage".
There was a much
bigger story
in the Panama Papers which The Guardian chose to downplay by leaving it to the following day. This concerned the father of
the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, who "ran an offshore fund that avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain by hiring a small
army of Bahamas residents – including a part-time bishop – to sign its paperwork".
We understand there was some argument between journalists about not leading with the Cameron story as the launch splash. Putin's
friends were eventually deemed more important than the Prime Minister of the country where the paper published.
Getting Julian Assange
The Guardian also appears to have been engaged in a campaign against the WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who had been a collaborator
during the early WikiLeaks revelations in 2010.
One 2017 story came from investigative reporter Carole Cadwalladr, who writes for The Guardian's sister paper The Observer,
titled "When Nigel Farage met Julian Assange". This concerned the visit of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage to the Ecuadorian embassy
in March 2017,
organised by the radio station LBC, for whom Farage worked as a presenter. Farage's producer at LBC accompanied Farage
at the meeting, but this was not mentioned by Cadwalladr.
Rather, she posited that this meeting was "potentially a channel of communication" between WikiLeaks, Farage and Donald Trump,
who were all said to be closely linked to Russia, adding that these actors were in a "political alignment" and that " WikiLeaks is,
in many ways, the swirling vortex at the centre of everything".
Yet Cadwalladr's one official on-the-record source for this speculation was a "highly placed contact with links to US intelligence",
who told her, "When the heat is turned up and all electronic communication, you have to assume, is being intensely monitored, then
those are the times when intelligence communication falls back on human couriers. Where you have individuals passing information
in ways and places that cannot be monitored."
It seems likely this was innuendo being fed to The Observer by an intelligence-linked individual to promote disinformation to
undermine Assange.
In 2018, however, The Guardian's attempted vilification of Assange was significantly stepped up. A new string of articles began
on 18 May 2018 with
one alleging Assange's "long-standing relationship with RT", the Russian state broadcaster. The series, which has been
closely
documented elsewhere, lasted for several months, consistently alleging with little or the most minimal circumstantial
evidence that Assange had ties to Russia or the Kremlin.
One story, co-authored again by Luke Harding,
claimed that "Russian diplomats held secret talks in London with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they
could help him flee the UK, The Guardian has learned". The former consul in the Ecuadorian embassy in London at this time, Fidel
Narvaez, vigorously denies the existence of any such "escape plot" involving Russia and is involved in a complaint process with The
Guardian for insinuating he coordinated such a plot.
This apparent mini-campaign ran until November 2018, culminating in a front-page
splash , based on anonymous sources, claiming that Assange had three secret meetings at the Ecuadorian embassy with Trump's
former campaign manager Paul Manafort.
This "scoop" failed all tests of journalistic credibility since it would have been impossible for anyone to have entered the highly
secured Ecuadorian embassy three times with no proof. WikiLeaks and others have strongly argued that the story was
manufactured
and it is telling that The Guardian has since failed to refer to it in its subsequent articles on the Assange case. The Guardian,
however, has still not retracted or apologised for the story which remains on its website.
The "exclusive" appeared just two weeks after Paul Johnson had been congratulated for "re-establishing links" between The Guardian
and the security services.
The string of Guardian articles, along with the vilification and smear stories about Assange elsewhere in the British media, helped
create the conditions for
a deal between Ecuador, the UK and the US to expel Assange from the embassy in April. Assange now sits in Belmarsh maximum-security
prison where he faces extradition to the US, and life in prison there, on charges under the Espionage Act.
Acting for the establishment
Another major focus of The Guardian's energies under Viner's editorship has been to attack the leader of the UK Labour Party,
Jeremy Corbyn.
The context is that Corbyn appears to have recently been a target of the security services. In 2015, soon after he was elected
Labour leader, the Sunday Times
reported a
serving general warning that "there would be a direct challenge from the army and mass resignations if Corbyn became prime minister".
The source told the newspaper: "The Army just wouldn't stand for it. The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise
the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul, to prevent that."
On 20 May 2017, a little over two weeks before the 2017 General Election, the Daily Telegraph was
fed the story that "MI5 opened a file on Jeremy Corbyn amid concerns over his links to the IRA". It formed part of a Telegraph
investigation claiming to reveal "Mr Corbyn's full links to the IRA" and was sourced to an individual "close to" the MI5 investigation,
who said "a file had been opened on him by the early nineties".
The Metropolitan Police Special Branch was also said to be monitoring Corbyn in the same period.
Then, on the very eve of the General Election, the Telegraph gave space to an
article from Sir Richard Dearlove, the former director of MI6, under a headline: "Jeremy Corbyn is a danger to this nation.
At MI6, which I once led, he wouldn't clear the security vetting."
Further, in September 2018, two anonymous senior government sources
told The Times that Corbyn had been "summoned" for a "'facts of life' talk on terror" by MI5 chief Andrew Parker.
Just two weeks after news of this private meeting was leaked by the government, the Daily Mail
reported another leak, this time revealing that "Jeremy Corbyn's most influential House of Commons adviser has been barred
from entering Ukraine on the grounds that he is a national security threat because of his alleged links to Vladimir Putin's 'global
propaganda network'."
The article concerned Andrew Murray, who had been working in Corbyn's office for a year but had still not received a security
pass to enter the UK parliament. The Mail reported, based on what it called "a senior parliamentary source", that Murray's application
had encountered "vetting problems".
Murray later heavily suggested that the security services had leaked the story to the Mail. "Call me sceptical if you must, but
I do not see journalistic enterprise behind the Mail's sudden capacity to tease obscure information out of the [Ukrainian security
service]," he wrote
in the New Statesman. He added, "Someone else is doing the hard work – possibly someone being paid by the taxpayer. I doubt
if their job description is preventing the election of a Corbyn government, but who knows?"
Murray told us he was approached by the New Statesman after the story about him being banned from Ukraine was leaked. "However,"
he added, "I wouldn't dream of suggesting anything like that to The Guardian, since I do not know any journalists still working there
who I could trust."
The Guardian itself has run a remarkable number of news and comment articles criticising Corbyn since he was elected in 2015 and
the paper's clearly hostile stance has been widely
noted .
Given its appeal to traditional Labour supporters, the paper has probably done more to undermine Corbyn than any other. In particular,
its massive coverage of alleged widespread anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has helped to disparage Corbyn more than other smears
carried in the media.
The Guardian's coverage of anti-Semitism in Labour has been suspiciously extensive, compared to the known extent of the problem
in the party, and its focus on Corbyn personally suggests that the issue is being used politically. While anti-Semitism does exist in the Labour Party, evidence suggests it is at relatively low levels. Since September 2015, when
Corbyn became Labour leader, 0.06% of the Labour membership has been
investigated for anti-Semitic comments or posts. In 2016, an independent inquiry commissioned by Labour
concluded
that the party "is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism. Further, it is the party that initiated
every single United Kingdom race equality law."
Analysis of two YouGov surveys, conducted in 2015 and 2017,
shows that anti-Semitic views held by Labour voters declined substantially in the first two years of Corbyn's tenure and
that such views were significantly more common among Conservative voters.
Despite this, since January 2016, The Guardian has published 1,215 stories mentioning Labour and anti-Semitism, an average of
around one per day, according to a search on Factiva, the database of newspaper articles. In the same period, The Guardian published
just 194 articles mentioning the Conservative Party's much more serious problem with Islamophobia. A YouGov poll in 2019, for example,
found that nearly half of the Tory Party membership would prefer not to have a Muslim prime minister.
At the same time, some stories which paint Corbyn's critics in a negative light have been suppressed by The Guardian. According
to someone with knowledge of the matter, The Guardian declined to publish the results of a months-long critical investigation by
one of its reporters into a prominent anti-Corbyn Labour MP, citing only vague legal issues.
In July 2016, one of this article's authors emailed a Guardian editor asking if he could pitch an investigation about the first
attempt by the right-wing of the Labour Party to remove Corbyn, informing The Guardian of very good inside sources on those behind
the attempt and their real plans. The approach was rejected as being of no interest before a pitch was even sent.
A reliable publication?
On 20 May 2019, The Times newspaper
reported on a Freedom of Information request made by the Rendition Project, a group of academic experts working on torture
and rendition issues, which showed that the MOD had been "developing a secret policy on torture that allows ministers to sign off
intelligence-sharing that could lead to the abuse of detainees".
This might traditionally have been a Guardian story, not something for the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times. According to one civil
society source, however, many groups working in this field no longer trust The Guardian.
A former Guardian journalist similarly told us: "It is significant that exclusive stories recently about British collusion in
torture and policy towards the interrogation of terror suspects and other detainees have been passed to other papers including The
Times rather than The Guardian."
The Times published its scoop under a strong
headline , "Torture: Britain breaks law in Ministry of Defence secret policy". However, before the article was published,
the MOD fed The Guardian the same documents The Times were about to splash with, believing it could soften the impact of the revelations
by telling its side of the story.
The Guardian
posted its own article just before The Times, with a headline that would have pleased the government: "MoD says revised
torture guidance does not lower standards".
Its lead paragraph was a simple summary of the MOD's position: "The Ministry of Defence has insisted that newly emerged departmental
guidance on the sharing of intelligence derived from torture with allies, remains in line with practices agreed in the aftermath
of a series of scandals following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq." However, an inspection of the documents showed this was clearly
disinformation.
The Guardian had gone in six short years from being the natural outlet to place stories exposing wrongdoing by the security state
to a platform trusted by the security state to amplify its information operations. A once relatively independent media platform has
been largely neutralised by UK security services fearful of being exposed further. Which begs the question: where does the next Snowden
go? DM
The Guardian did not respond to a request for comment.
Daily Maverick will formally launch Declassified – a new UK-focused investigation and analysis organisation run by the
authors of this article – in November 2019.
Matt Kennard is an investigative journalist and co-founder of Declassified . He was previously director of the
Centre for Investigative Journalism in London, and before that a reporter for the Financial Times in the US and UK. He is the author
of two books, Irregular Army and The Racket .
Mark Curtis is a leading UK foreign policy analyst, journalist and the author of six books including Web of
Deceit: Britain's Real Role in the World and Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam .
"... The Inteligence elite mistake their power over people -- and the unspeakable sums of money that are flooded into their agencies -- for success. As you might imagine, that has spelled disaster where ever in the world that they operate. God help the society where they gain the upper hand. Like in the United States, for example. Their minds are broken beyond repair because reality actively lies to them. ..."
Court: FBI Must Destroy Memos Calling Antiwar.com a Threat
Ruling comes after a eight-year battle over secret surveillance of the popular website after
9/11.
By KELLEY BEAUCAR VLAHOS • September 12, 2019
In a major victory for Antiwar.com, free speech and journalism, a federal appeals court has
ruled that the FBI must expunge surveillance memos that agents had drafted about the website's
co-founders Eric Garris and Justin Raimondo in the early years following the 9/11 attacks.
"It's been a long fight and I'm glad we had an outcome that could might affect future FBI
behavior," said Garris, who runs Antiwar.com, based in the San Francisco Bay area. "I just wish
Justin was still here to know that this has happened."
Raimondo, 67, passed away in June from a long bout with cancer. He and Garris had sued the
FBI in 2013 demanding it turn over all the memos and records it was keeping on the two men and
the website, which has been promoting anti-interventionist news and views from a
libertarian-conservative perspective since 1995
They won their case, and in 2017 the FBI agreed to turn over all the memos and settle their
legal fees, $299,000, but the final expungement of two key memos involving intelligence
gathered on the men and Antiwar.com, had yet to be expunged from the agency's record...
It all began when an observant reader brought a heavily redacted 2004 memo to Antiwar.com's
attention in 2011. It was part of a batch of documents the reader had obtained through FOIA
requests. It was clear from the documents' contents that the FBI had been collecting
information and records on Raimondo and Garris for some time. At one point the FBI agent
writing the April 30, 2004 memo on Antiwar.com recommended further monitoring of the website in
the form of opening a "preliminary investigation to determine if [redaction] are engaging in,
or have engaged in, activities which constitute a threat to national security."
Why? Because the website was questioning U.S. war policy ...
Agents noted that Antiwar.com had, or linked to, published counter-terrorism watch lists
(already in the public domain). The FBI noted at least two of Raimondo's columns and wondered
openly, "who are (Antiwar.com's) contributors and what are the funds utilized for?" This, after
acknowledging there was no evidence of any crime being plotted or committed.
Other things noted in the documents::
-- Garris had passed along a threat he received on Sept. 12, 2001 from a Antiwar.com reader
obviously disgruntled with the website's coverage of 9/11. The subject line read, "YOUR SITE IS
GOING DOWN," and proceeded with this missive: "Be warned assholes, ill be posting your site
address to all the hack boards tonight your site is history."
Concerned, Garris forwarded the email to the FBI field office in San Francisco. Garris heard
nothing, but by January 2002, it turned up again, completely twisted around, in a secret FBI
memo entitled, "A THREAT BY GARRIS TO HACK FBI WEBSITE."
It turns out this "threat" went on to justify, at least in part, the FBI's ongoing interest
in monitoring the website.
-- The FBI took interest in Raimondo's writing about a 2001 FBI investigation of five
Israeli nationals who were witnessed smiling and celebrating and taking pictures of the burning
Twin Towers from a rooftop perch across the river from Manhattan in Union City, New Jersey, on
9/11. After witnesses called the police, the individuals, who all worked for a local moving
company, were taken into custody and grilled by FBI and CIA for two months after it was deemed
their work visas had expired. They were eventually deported without charge.
Raimondo, in writing about the case in 2002, linked to an American-generated terror
watchlist (which had been published elsewhere on the Internet) that went out to Italian
financial institutions and included the name of the man who owned the New Jersey moving company
in question.
-- The FBI noted Antiwar.com was cited in an article, the name of the author redacted, about
U.S aid to Israel.
-- They also noted that Raimondo had appeared on MSNBC to talk about his opposition to the
Iraq War.
-- It also cited an article that listed Antiwar.com as a reference was handed out in 2002 at
a "peaceful protest" at a British air base in the U.K.
-- The FBI was watching a member of a domestic neo-Nazi group who had "discussed a website,
Antiwar.com" while encouraging fellow members at a conference to "educate themselves" about the
Middle East conflict.
-- The agency said a special agent's review of hard drives seized during an investigation of
an unnamed subject, revealed that the subject had visited Antiwar.com between July 25, 2002 and
June 15, 2003, "among many other websites."
The FBI acknowledged it searched the Web, as well as Lexis-Nexis, the Universal Index (FBI
central records), the agency's Electronic Case File, Department of Motor Vehicles and Dunn
& Bradsheet (credit reports) for information on Antiwar.com and for "one or more
individuals" working for the website.
Looking back, it's hard to fathom how such tiny (Constitutionally protected) crumbs led the
FBI to the conclusion that Garris and Raimondo, two dedicated activists (Raimondo was also a
prolific author) with decades of time in California's political trenches, might be a "threat to
national security," but there you are...
The case decided on Wednesday revolved around two remaining memos that the FBI had so far
refused to expunge. One involved the call Garris made to the FBI in 2002. The U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Northern California found that the government did not have a
compelling law enforcement reason to keep them.
"Maintenance of a record that describes only First Amendment activity and does not implicate
national security is not pertinent to the FBI's authorized activities," the court
concluded...
Garris said he was relieved and elated that the court was able to end this ugly chapter for
the website...
Not to mention that casual erasures of any part of the Bill of Rights by government are
frickin' scary, as are casual acceptance and rationalization of same by ordinary Americans
(and/or those seeming like ordinary Americans).
In his memoir, True Compass , Ted Kennedy said that LBJ told him that LBJ considered
the FBI culpable in the assassination of JFK, in that the FBI had had its eye on Oswald and
considered him dangerous, but never warned the Secret Service.
Many years later, we have failures by the FBI and CIA to coordinate and act upon intel
involved in 911. They did nothing about reports from citizens of the suspicious activities of
the Saudi assassins while the assassins were in the US, such as taking flying lessons, but
saying they didn't need to learn how to land. Moreover, the FBI and CIA had months of Arab
conversations awaiting translation because of a shortage of translators cause by the FBI's and
CIA's unwillingess to use Arab translators.
Then we have two warnings, not from ordinary citizens, but from the Russian government, that
the Tsarnaevs were a threat. Now, that alone sure sounds to me like probable cause for
surveillance. However, the FBI interviewed them and supposedly was unable to justify doing
anything else.
So, we have culpability in a Presidential assassination AND two terrorist attacks. And that
certainly can't be all before and after 1960. For instance, speaking of JFK, there was the Bay
of Pigs fiasco. On the bright side, that taught JFK to squint at the CIA and the military,
which, in turn, may have avoided nuclear disaster over the Cuban missile "crisis." (When we
place missiles somewhere, it's defense on our part and a deterrent; when another nation,
especially Russia, does the same, it's casus belli , unless some brilliant politicians
can scale it "all the way down" to a "crisis" or a "national emergency." Our hypocrisy
sickens.
BTW, according to the memoir, JFK was questioning our Vietnam involvement and Bobby Kennedy
had flat out become convinced that bombing should stop immediately and peace negotiations
should begin. He volunteered to negotiate the peace himself, but LBJ refused. So, that's
another thing Bobby and Jack had in common. (Interestingly to me, by Ted's own account, he was
the last of the three Kennedy brothers to lose support for the Vietnam War!)
The socially destructive solutions designed by the Intelligence Communities since the
mid-20th century are paying off in one way:
There is now a copious amount of research and data, that once harnessed and put to work,
will clearly demonstrate without doubt how tragic and destructive their outcomes have been.
They have accomplished precisely the opposite of the goal they were reaching for. For example,
apply their social engineering to reduce the number of terrorists in a region, and in less than
a decade the region will be overrun with terrorists.
Use their strategic genius to stop the flow of drugs from hot-spots of the world, and in
another decade, much of the world will be saturated with illegal drugs.
Humanity throughout the world are the losers, and they pay dearly for the blindness of
Nazi-mentored techniques and strategies that are embraced by intelligence agencies and military
intelligence. In the long term, they are bringers of chaos.
The nazis always lose. Ever since we brought them to America after World War II to teach us
their techniques -- the US has lost every war it attempted. The effects of this influence has
turned America into a prison complex.
The Inteligence elite mistake their power over people -- and the unspeakable sums of
money that are flooded into their agencies -- for success. As you might imagine, that has
spelled disaster where ever in the world that they operate. God help the society where they
gain the upper hand. Like in the United States, for example. Their minds are broken beyond
repair because reality actively lies to them.
If you ask them to send a rocket to the moon, they'll wait until the full moon is directly
overhead, then fire the rocket. They are void of subtlety. The failure will be classified and
forgotten.
We need Taoist leaders if we want to solve real world problems.
Though it's easy to imagine the outpouring of fury and wall to wall media coverage --
complete with urgent Congressional hearings -- should such allegations center on any other
foreign country caught spying on the White House (let's say Russia for example), the bombshell
Politico report has barely made a dent in the mainstream media or big cable networks'
coverage.
This is partly because the administration's own reaction has been muted, as the report notes
that "the Trump administration took no action to punish or even privately scold the Israeli
government" after being informed by US intelligence that Israel likely planted the devices.
Politico's sources in most instances held top intelligence and national security posts, who
describe the following of the
recovered spy devices :
The miniature surveillance devices, colloquially known as "StingRays," mimic regular cell
towers to fool cell phones into giving them their locations and identity information .
Formally called international mobile subscriber identity-catchers or IMSI-catchers, they also
can capture the contents of calls and data use .
The devices were likely intended to spy on President Donald Trump, one of the former
officials said, as well as his top aides and closest associates -- though it's not clear
whether the Israeli efforts were successful.
From the moment the report was unveiled early Thursday, Israel's stance has been to
vehemently deny, and to even suggest the accusations are tinged with "anti-Semitism".
The statement from the prime minister's office added, "There is a longstanding
commitment, and a directive from the Israeli government not to engage in any intelligence
operations in the U.S. This directive is strictly enforced without exception."
Uh huh... Sure. So how do you explain Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell then?
Come on readers. Next they'll be saying Israel controls all levels of government through
political donations. Possible from the $2 Billion a year they get? Anybody know how much
total Israeli contributions go to the Pres, Congress etc?
I was hoping to see a comment from Einstein, but cant find him. Wonder where he is. I
guess we will just have to lower our standards and look to ZD1 for the real scoop.
Olson's doubts deepened. In spring 1953, he visited the top-secret Microbiological
Research Establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire, where government scientists were studying
the effects of sarin and other nerve gases. On 6 May, a volunteer subject, a 20-year-old
soldier, was dosed with sarin there, began foaming at the mouth, collapsed into convulsions,
and died an hour later. Afterward, Olson spoke about his discomfort with a psychiatrist who
helped direct the research, William Sargant .
####
That's very unBritish! Not really. This is not the first time that something that has been
declassified in the United States and uncovered British (shameful) secrets. The thing is the
Brits like to see themselves as not 'going as far' as their American cousins and this myth is
perpetuated – a bit like the British sense of 'fairness'. Yet again we discover
that the UK has worked hand in glove in the deepest of sh*t, something that most probably
would have been buried forever under their Secrets Act if it wasn't for the US' relative
openness.
Olson's doubts deepened. In spring 1953, he visited the top-secret Microbiological
Research Establishment at Porton Down in Wiltshire, where government scientists were studying
the effects of sarin and other nerve gases. On 6 May, a volunteer subject, a 20-year-old
soldier, was dosed with sarin there, began foaming at the mouth, collapsed into convulsions,
and died an hour later. Afterward, Olson spoke about his discomfort with a psychiatrist who
helped direct the research, William Sargant .
####
That's very unBritish! Not really. This is not the first time that something that has been
declassified in the United States and uncovered British (shameful) secrets. The thing is the
Brits like to see themselves as not 'going as far' as their American cousins and this myth is
perpetuated – a bit like the British sense of 'fairness'. Yet again we discover
that the UK has worked hand in glove in the deepest of sh*t, something that most probably
would have been buried forever under their Secrets Act if it wasn't for the US' relative
openness.
The fact that Smolenkov purchased house on his name excludes his "extraction" to the USA. He probably legally emigrated
amazing some serious money in Russia
Notable quotes:
"... [Smolenkov] follows Ushakov back to Moscow, where he is a mid-level paper pusher doing administrative support for Ushakov. The CIA gets copies of Putin's itineraries that Smolenkov photographs. He is a big hit, but ultimately produces nothing of vital importance because all truly sensitive information is hand carried by principles, and never seen by administrative staff. Moreover Ushakov advises on international relations, and would not be privy to anything dealing with intelligence. Ushakov, as a long-serving Ambassador to the US, would be asked by Putin to opine on US politics. Smolenkov has access to Ushakov's post-meeting verbal comments, which he turns over to the CIA. ..."
"... The initial reports of the Steele Dossier appeared in June 2016. This coincided with John Brennan ordering Moscow Station to turn up the heat on Smolenkov to gain access to what Putin is thinking. But Smolenkov has no real direct access. Instead, he starts fabricating and/or exaggerating his access to convince his CIA handler that he is on the job and worth every penny he is being paid by US taxpayers. ..."
"... The information Smolenkov creates is passed to his CIA handler via the secure communications channel set up when he was signed up as a spy. But these reports are not handled in the normal way that sensitive human intelligence is treated at CIA Headquarters. Instead, the material is accepted at face value and not vetted to confirm its accuracy. My intel friend, citing a knowledgeable source, indicates that Smolenkov was not polygraphed. ..."
"... This raised red flags in the CIA Counterintelligence staff, especially when Brennan starts briefing the President using the information provided by Smolenkov. Brennan responds by locking most of the CIA's Russian experts out of the loop. Later, Brennan does the same thing with the National Intelligence Council, locking out the National Intelligence Officers who would normally oversee the production of a National Intelligence Assessment. In short, Brennan cooked the books using Smolenkov's intelligence, which had it been subjected to normal checks and balances would never have passed muster. It's Brennan's leaks to the press that eventually prompt the CIA to pull the plug on Smolenkov. ..."
"... The dossier attributed to Steele, it has seemed to me, showed every sign of being the proverbial 'camel produced by a committee.' ..."
"... Although I know that fabricating evidence and corrupting judicial proceedings is part of its supposed author's 'stock in trade', I think it is unclear whether he contributed all that much to the dossier. ..."
"... His prime role, I think, was to contribute a veneer of intelligence respectability to a farrago the actual origins of which could not be acknowledged, so it could be used in support of FISA applications and in briefings to journalists. ..."
"... Although it had started much earlier, the moving into 'high gear' of the conspiracy behind 'Russiagate, of which the dossier was one manifestation, and the phone 'digital forensics' produced by 'Crowdstrike' and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait another, were I think essentially panicky 'firefighting' operations. ..."
"... Part of this involved turning the conspiracy to prevent Trump being elected into a conspiracy to destabilise his Presidency and ensure he did not carry through on any of his 'anti-Borgist' agenda. ..."
A flood of news in the last 24 hours regarding Russiagate. I am referring specifically to
reports that the CIA ex-filtrated Oleg Smolenkov, a mid-level Russian Foreign Ministry
bureaucrat who reportedly hooked himself on the coat-tails of Yuri Ushakov, who was Ambassador
to the US from 1999 through 2008. He was recruited by the CIA (i.e., asked to collect
information and pass it to the U.S. Government via his or her case officer) at sometime during
this period. Smolenkov is being portrayed as a supposedly "sensitive" source. But if you read
either the
Washington Post or
New York Times accounts of this event there is not a lot of meat on this hamburger.
Regardless of the quality of his reporting, Smolenkov is the kind of recruited source that
looks good on paper and helps a CIA case officer get promoted but adds little to actual U.S.
intelligence on Russia. If you understood the CIA culture you would immediately recognize that
a case officer (CIA terminology for the operations officer tasked with identifying and
recruiting human sources) gets rewarded by recruiting persons who ostensibly will have access
to information the CIA has identified as a priority target. In this case, we're talking about
possible access to Vladimir Putin.
If you take time to read both articles you will quickly see that the real purpose of this
"information operation" is to paint Donald Trump as a security threat that must be stopped.
This is conveniently timed to assist Jerry Nadler's mission impossible to secure Trump's
impeachment. But I think there is another dynamic at play--these competing explanations for
what prompted the exfiltration of this CIA asset say more about the incompetence of Barack
Obama and his intel chiefs. John Brennan and Jim Clapper in particular.
A former intelligence officer and friend summarized the various press accounts as the
follows and offered his own insights in a note I received this morning:
[Smolenkov] follows Ushakov back to Moscow, where he is a mid-level paper pusher doing
administrative support for Ushakov. The CIA gets copies of Putin's itineraries that Smolenkov
photographs. He is a big hit, but ultimately produces nothing of vital importance because all
truly sensitive information is hand carried by principles, and never seen by administrative
staff. Moreover Ushakov advises on international relations, and would not be privy to anything
dealing with intelligence. Ushakov, as a long-serving Ambassador to the US, would be asked by
Putin to opine on US politics. Smolenkov has access to Ushakov's post-meeting verbal comments,
which he turns over to the CIA.
The initial reports of the Steele Dossier appeared in June 2016. This coincided with John
Brennan ordering Moscow Station to turn up the heat on Smolenkov to gain access to what Putin
is thinking. But Smolenkov has no real direct access. Instead, he starts fabricating and/or
exaggerating his access to convince his CIA handler that he is on the job and worth every penny
he is being paid by US taxpayers.
The information Smolenkov creates is passed to his CIA handler via the secure communications
channel set up when he was signed up as a spy. But these reports are not handled in the normal
way that sensitive human intelligence is treated at CIA Headquarters. Instead, the material is
accepted at face value and not vetted to confirm its accuracy. My intel friend, citing a
knowledgeable source, indicates that Smolenkov was not polygraphed.
This raised red flags in the CIA Counterintelligence staff, especially when Brennan starts
briefing the President using the information provided by Smolenkov. Brennan responds by locking
most of the CIA's Russian experts out of the loop. Later, Brennan does the same thing with the
National Intelligence Council, locking out the National Intelligence Officers who would
normally oversee the production of a National Intelligence Assessment. In short, Brennan cooked
the books using Smolenkov's intelligence, which had it been subjected to normal checks and
balances would never have passed muster. It's Brennan's leaks to the press that eventually
prompt the CIA to pull the plug on Smolenkov.
There is public evidence that Brennan not only cooked the books but that the leaks of this
supposedly "sensitive" intelligence occurred when he was Director and lying Jim Clapper was
Director of National Intelligence. If Oleg Smolenkov was really such a terrific source of
intel, then where are the reports? It is one thing to keep such reports close hold when the
source is still in place. But he has been out of danger for more than two years. Those reports
should have been shared with the Senate and House Intelligence committees. If there was actual
solid intelligence in those reports that corroborated the Steele Dossier, then that information
would have been leaked and widely circulated. This is Sherlock Holmes dog that did not
bark.Then we have the odd fact that this guy's name is all over the press and he is buying real
estate in true name. What the hell!! If the CIA genuinely believed that Mr. Smolenkov was in
danger he would not be walking around doing real estate deals in true name. In fact, the
sources for both the Washington Post and NY Times pieces push the propaganda that Smolenkov is
a sure fire target for a Russian retaliatory hit. Really? Then why publish his name and confirm
his location.
That leaves me with the alternative explanation--Smolenkov is a propaganda prop and is being
trotted out by Brennan to try to provide public pressure to prevent the disclosure of
intelligence that will show that the CIA and the NSA were coordinating and operating with
British intelligence to entrap and smear Donald Trump and members of his campaign.
I want you to take a close look at the two pieces on this exfiltration (i.e., Washington
Post and NY Times) and note the significant differences
REASON FOR THE EXFILTRATION :
Let's start with the Washington Post:
The exfiltration took place sometime after an Oval Office meeting in May 2017, when
President Trump
revealed highly classified counterterrorism information to the Russian foreign minister and
ambassador, said the current and former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to
discuss the sensitive operation.
What was the information that Trump revealed? He was discussing intel that Israel passed
regarding ISIS in Syria. (See the Washington Post story
here .) Why would he talk to the Russians about that? Because every day, at least once a
day, U.S. and Russian military authorities are sharing intelligence with one another in a phone
call that originates from the U.S. Combined Air Operations Center (aka CAOC) at the Al Udeid
Air Force Base in Qatar. Trump's conversation not only was appropriate but fully within his
right to do so as Commander-in-Chief.
What the hell does this have to do with a sensitive source in Moscow? NOTHING!! Red
Herring.
The NY Times account is more detailed and damning of Obama instead of Trump:
But when intelligence officials revealed the severity of Russia's election interference with
unusual detail later that year, the news media picked up on details about the C.I.A.'s Kremlin
sources.
C.I.A. officials worried about safety made the arduous decision in late 2016 to offer to
extract the source from Russia. The situation grew more tense when the informant at first
refused, citing family concerns -- prompting consternation at C.I.A. headquarters and sowing
doubts among some American counterintelligence officials about the informant's trustworthiness.
But the C.I.A. pressed again months later after more media inquiries. This time, the informant
agreed. . . .
The decision to extract the informant was driven "in part" because of concerns that Mr.
Trump and his administration had mishandled delicate intelligence, CNN reported. But former
intelligence officials said there was no public evidence that Mr. Trump directly endangered the
source, and other current American officials insisted that media scrutiny of the agency's
sources alone was the impetus for the extraction. . . .
But the government had indicated that the source existed long before Mr. Trump took office,
first in formally accusing Russia of interference in October 2016 and then when intelligence
officials declassified parts of their assessment about the interference campaign for public
release in January 2017. News agencies, including NBC, began reporting around that time about
Mr. Putin's involvement in the election sabotage and on the C.I.A.'s possible sources for the
assessment.
Trump played no role whatsoever in releasing information that allegedly compromised this
so-called "golden boy" of Russian intelligence. The NY Times account makes it very clear that
the release of information while Obama was President, not Trump, is what put the source in
danger. Who leaked that information?
WHAT DID THE SOURCE KNOW AND WHAT DID HE TELL US?
But how valuable was this source really? What did he provide that was so enlightening? On
this point the New York Times and Washington Post are more in sync.
First the NY Times:
The Moscow informant was instrumental to the C.I.A.'s most explosive conclusion about
Russia's interference campaign: that President Vladimir V. Putin ordered and orchestrated it
himself . As the American government's best insight into the thinking of and orders from Mr.
Putin, the source was also key to the C.I.A.'s assessment that he affirmatively favored Donald
J. Trump's election and personally ordered the hacking of the Democratic National Committee
.
The Washington Post provides a more fulsome account:
U.S. officials had been concerned that Russian sources could be at risk of exposure as early
as the fall of 2016, when the Obama administration first confirmed that Russia had stolen and
publicly disclosed emails from the Democratic National Committee and the account of Hillary
Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta.
In October 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence said in a joint statement that intelligence agencies were "confident that
the Russian Government directed" the hacking campaign. . . .
In January 2017, the Obama administration published a detailed assessment that unambiguously
laid the blame on the Kremlin, concluding that "Putin ordered an influence campaign" and that
Russia's goal was to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process and harm Clinton's chances
of winning.
"That's a pretty remarkable intelligence community product -- much more specific than what
you normally see," one U.S. official said. "It's very expected that potential U.S. intelligence
assets in Russia would be under a higher level of scrutiny by their own intelligence
services."
Sounds official. But there is no actual forensic or documentary evidence (by that I mean
actual corroborating intelligence reports) to back up these claims by our oxymoronically
christened intelligence community.
Vladimir Putin ordered the hack? Where is the report? It is either in a piece of intercepted
electronics communication and/or in a report derived from information provided by Mr.
Smolenkov. Where is it? Why has that not been shared in public? Don't have to worry about
exposing the source now. He is already in the open. What did he report? Answer--no direct
evidence.
Then there is the lie that the Russians hacked the DNC. They did not. Bill Binney, a former
Technical Director of the NSA, and I have written on this subject previously (
see here ) and there is no truth to this claim. Let me put it simply--if the DNC had been
hacked by the Russians using spearphising (this is claimed in the Robert Mueller report) then
the NSA would have collected those messages and would be able to show they were transferred to
the Russians. That did not happen.
This kind of chaotic leaking about an old intel op is symptomatic of panic. CIA is already
officially denying key parts of the story. My money is on John Brennan and Jim Clapper as the
likely impetus for these reports. They are hoping to paint Trump as a national security threat
and distract from the upcoming revelations from the DOJ Inspector General report on the FISA
warrants and, more threatening, the decisions that Prosecutor John Durham will take in deciding
to indict those who attempted to launch a coup against Donald Trump, a legitimately elected
President of the United States.
As I told LJ yesterday while he was writing this piece I have a slightly different theory
of this matter. It is true that CIA suffered for a long time from a dearth of talent in the
business of recruiting and running foreign clandestine HUMINT assets. This was caused by a
focus by several CIA Directors on technical collection means rather than espionage. This
policy drove many skilled case officers into retirement but the situation has much improved
in the last decade and it must be remembered that an agency only needs a few skilled case
officers with the right access to human targets to acquire some very fine and useful well
placed foreign agents (spies). IMO it is likely that CIA has/had several well placed Russian
assets in Moscow of whom Smolenkov was probably the least useful and the most expendable. It
may well be that Brennan was using the chicken feed provided by Smolenkov to fuel the
conspiracy run by him and Clapper against Trump's campaign and presidency, but Brennan left
office and then the CIA under other management was faced with the problem of a Russian
government which was told in the US press by implication that either the US had deep
penetrations of Russian diplomatic and intelligence communications or that there were deep
penetration moles in Moscow. that being the case it seems likely to me that the Russians
would have been beating the bushes looking for the moles. In that situation the CIA may have
decided to exfiltrate Smolenkov and his wife while leaving enough clues along the way that
would have indicated that he might have been THE MOLE. People do not need a lot of
encouragement to accept thoughts that they want to believe. A point in favor of this theory
is that once CIA had him in the States they quickly lost interest in him, terminated their
relationship with him and paid him his back pay and showed him the door. No new identity, no
resettlement, he was given none of that. Finding himself alone in a strange land, Smolenkov
then bought a house in the suburbs of Washington in HIS OWN NAME. Say what? That would not
have happened if CIA had maintained some sort of relationship with him. And then... someone
in CIA leaked the story of the exfiltration as movie plot to "a former senior intelligence
officer" who gives sit to Sciutto at CNN. Why would they do that? IMO they would have though
that having the story appear in the media would reinfocer Smolenkov's importance in Russian
minds. Well, pilgrims, Clapper fits the bill as the "former blah, blah". He is an employee of
CNN. CNN hates Trump and they quickly broadcast the story far and away. Unfortunately for CNN
the story immediately began to disintegrate even in the eyes of the NY Times. The
Smolenkov/Brennan affair will undoubtedly be part of the road that leads to doom for Brennan
and Clapper but the possible CIA story is equally interesting.
Sir;
The fact that Mr. Smolenkov is out and about in his new home in the West shows that he is a
small fish. As you say, if he was really in danger, he would be living somewhere in the West
now under a new name and maybe a new face. The fact that his 'handlers' allow this lax
security to happen is a sign of how unimportant he is. Unless, my inner cynic prompts, he is
destined to become one of the "honoured dead," perhaps by a false flag 'liquidation.'
How low will Clapper and Brennan et. al. go?
Thanks for keeping this matter front and centre.
So the son of Our Man in Havana went to Moscow. It would make a decent movies if it weren't
for the damage Brennan and company have done to us. Obama, of course, knew nothing......
I have lost hope that anyone--especially Brennan and Clapper--will be held accountable for
their attempt to "launch a coup" (as you put it).
Since their coup attempt ultimately failed, most people will be wanting just to move
on.
As an unimportant citizen liveing in a fly-over state, I feel very angry that my tax
dollars were wasted on these many government hearings and enormously expensive investigations
rather than on actually on governing and improving the governing of our country.
The least we should be able to expect is that people who live off our tax dollars should
be held accountable for all that wasted expense and for the lack of actual governing going on
in The House and The Senate. So many problems that need the attention of our elected
representative and Senators were ignored while elected representatives and representatives
got to capture the spotlight and try to become "media stars" while accomplishing nothing.
I also feel terrible that men have been sent to prison for seemingly nothing and have
their lives ruined for nothing but the chance of some to grand stand and claim they are
really doing the jobs they were sent to do. So many people with no real sense of honor or of
what is right and what is wrong.
Thanks, Larry. You have been consistently one of the good guys. (And I bet you are happy
now that Yosemite Sam Bolton is no longer advising the POTUS.)
"The fact that his 'handlers' allow this lax security to happen is a sign of how unimportant
he is."
It indicates to me that he and any handlers believe that the Russians are OK with it. That
could be for various reasons. But relying on Russian tolerance because he is a "small fish"
seems incredibly trusting. Neither fled agents nor their handlers are known for their
trusting natures. They have had some reasons stronger than that for their unconcern. Whether
those reasons will survive publicity remains to be seen.
Are those CIA agents as stupid, naive & incompetent as you paint them to be?
If that's the case our country is in real danger! You are. Pro Trump
and, you are basically defending him, but Putin do own Donald Trump,whether you like it or
not!
My question is: why did they push this report now? Any way you cut it, the Times and Post are
just providing some trivia and drivel. Without substance, they can accomplish nothing and
substance has been what's been missing all along.
I doubt that Democrats, having been burned once, are eager to explore Brennan's smoke and
mirrors again. It's never been a big concern to voters. And unless Brennan & Co. can do
better than this superficial stuff, voters are never going to be concerned.
Maybe the Times and Post just felt sorry for Brennan, who's been off barking at the moon
for years now.
...Smolenkov is a propaganda prop and is being trotted out by Brennan to try to provide
public pressure to prevent the disclosure of intelligence that will show that the CIA and the
NSA were coordinating and operating with British intelligence to entrap and smear Donald
Trump and members of his campaign...
Well said. Thank you for following this closely and shining the light! You are an amazing
American patriot, Mr. Larry C. Johnson. A glass in your honor!
IMO this scenario is the most plausible, Thanks for the sanity check. That said, given the
desperation by these Sorcerer's Apprentices, I would be on the lookout for Mr. Smolenkov lest
he be 'Skirpal-ed' in the coming weeks.
This whole story convinces now more than ever before that there is a high level spy/mole in
the us administration and intelligence community.The only question is it spying for russia or
china or both.Just a beautiful thing to watch.Those knickers,must surely be in a knot by
now.
Even rocketman had a giggle.
How many CIA Assets have been exposed..Tortured and Murdered During The Barrack Obama
Reign...In May..2014 HE Paid a Surprise Visit to Afghanastan..His White House Bureau Chief
Sent out an email to Reporters with a List of Who would meet With President Obama..It
Contained the NAME of the CIA...Chief of Station in Kabul...Now that is REAL MESSY..
Having been away from base, I have not been able to comment on some very fascinating
recent posts.
Both your recent pieces, and Robert Willman's most helpful update on the state of play
relating to the unraveling of the frame-up against Michael Flynn, have provided a lot to chew
over.
Among other things, they have made me think further about the 302s recording the
interviews with Bruce Ohr produced by Joseph Pientka – a character about whom I think
we need to know more.
On reflection, I think that the picture that emerges of Ohr as an incurious and gullible
nitwit, swallowing whole bucket loads of 'horse manure' fed him by Christopher Steele and
Glenn Simpson, may be a carefully – indeed maybe cunningly – crafted fiction.
The interpretation your former intelligence officer friend puts on the Smolenkov affair,
and also some of what Sidney Powell has to say in the ''Motion to Compel' on behalf of Flynn,
both 'mesh' with what I have long suspected.
The dossier attributed to Steele, it has seemed to me, showed every sign of being the
proverbial 'camel produced by a committee.'
Although I know that fabricating evidence and corrupting judicial proceedings is part of
its supposed author's 'stock in trade', I think it is unclear whether he contributed all that
much to the dossier.
His prime role, I think, was to contribute a veneer of intelligence respectability to a
farrago the actual origins of which could not be acknowledged, so it could be used in support
of FISA applications and in briefings to journalists.
Although it had started much earlier, the moving into 'high gear' of the conspiracy behind
'Russiagate, of which the dossier was one manifestation, and the phone 'digital forensics'
produced by 'Crowdstrike' and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait another, were I think
essentially panicky 'firefighting' operations.
They are likely to have been responses, first, to the realisation that material leaked
from the DNC was going to be published by WikiLeaks, and then the discovery, probably
significantly later, that the source was Seth Rich, and his subsequent murder.
Although the operation to divert responsibility to the Russians which then became
necessary was strikingly successful, it did not have the expected result of saving Hillary
Clinton from defeat.
What I then think may have emerged was a two-pronged strategy.
Part of this involved turning the conspiracy to prevent Trump being elected into a
conspiracy to destabilise his Presidency and ensure he did not carry through on any of his
'anti-Borgist' agenda.
In different ways, both the framing of Flynn, and the final memorandum in the dossier,
dated 13 December 2016, were part of this strategy.
Also required however was another 'insurance policy' – which was what the Bruce Ohr
302s were intended to provide.
The purpose of this was to have 'evidence' in place, should the first prong of the
strategy run into problems, to sustain the case that people in the FBI and DOJ, and Bruce and
Nellie Ohr in particular, were not co-conspirators with Steele and Simpson, but their
gullible dupes.
This brings me to an irony. Some people have tried to replace the 'narrative' in which
Steele was an heroic exposer of a Russian plot to destroy American democracy by an
alternative in which he was the gullible 'patsy' of just such a plot.
In fact there is one strand, and one strand only, in the dossier which smells strongly to
me of FSB-orchestrated disinformation.
Some of the material on Russian cyber operations, including critically the suggestions
about the involvement of Aleksej Gubarev and his company XBT which provoked legal action by
these against BuzzFeed and Steele, look to me as though they could come from sources in the
FSB.
But, if this is so, the likely conduit is not through Steele, but from FSB to FBI cyber
people.
How precisely this worked is unclear, but I cannot quite get rid of the suspicion that
Major Dmitri Dokuchaev just might be serving out his sentence for treason in a comfortable
flat somewhere above the Black Sea. Indeed, I can imagine a lecture to FSB trainees on how to
make 'patsies' of people like the Ohrs.
If this is so, however, it mat also be the case that these are attempting to make
'patsies' of Steele and Simpson.
"... So, this fully-spun story, apparently a mix of fact and fiction, arises at this moment to prop up the Russia-leaked-email hoax? ..."
"... If that's the case, does that mean this story's "authors" release it now to keep at least part of the Russia hoax alive as the Flynn case plods toward charges being dropped or because the Concord case is turning into a cluster f*k? Maybe someone is worried about the DNC-insider-leaked-email story breaking out? We need to talk about Rich? ..."
"... if I am wrong in supposing that a senior Chekist would never, as a question of policy, have been allowed a passport for foreign travel for him and his family. ..."
"... If Oleg Smolenkov reported allegedly "valuable" insider information about Russia's interference in US elections, as they say first hand, then why did Mueller's investigation fail? ..."
"... The New York Times story resurrects the Russia collusion hoax. This time the proof comes from Oleg Smolenkov. The story is identical to what the Steele dossier claimed: Putin personally directed a campaign to interfere in the US presidential elections. ..."
"... Every part of Steele narrative has already been shown to be a hoax and a fabrication. What proves that the Steele dossier is a work of fiction is that it is written from a fly-on-the-wall point of view. Only a person who was sitting in the same room with Putin when he had secret meetings could have written it. So how many moles did the West have sitting on Putin's desk? It seems like the CIA mole and Steele's secret source are one and the same source. But if Oleg Smolenkov was CIA's most tightly guarded secret, how did the information end up in Steele's dossier? ..."
"... Larry Johnson just posted about this on SST, and his take seems much more plausible: Desperation on the part of Clapper and his cabal as the chickens are coming home to roost. This story is chock full of holes, and the media hackery is disintegrating under its own weight. ..."
"... Perhaps someone should advise Smolenskov to stay away from park benches after eating seafood and to not touch doorknob's etc. ..."
"... "For those curious about what's going on with this bizarre Russia 'spy' story: Burr/Durham know Steele was fed obvious disinformation, they know who originated it, they know who peddled it, and it's just a matter of rounding up the whole network." ..."
"... In his third entry, he poses the following question: "So the only two unanswered questions about this particular pre-emptive leak campaign from the usual Russia hoax suspects are 1) why now, and 2) what specific event or official revelation are they trying to get ahead of?" ..."
"... Why the CIA would allow such a spy, once extradited, to live under his real name is beyond me. ..."
"... Because this man has nothing to do with "spies", "secrets" and "special services". He is an ordinary civilian, a former official from Russia. Many Russian ex- lives in abroad, including high-ranking persons. Smolenkov of course had no access to any "secrets", and had no access to entourage of the Russian president. ..."
"... That's the end of Smolenkov's anonymous quiet comfortable lifesyle. It doesn't send out a very reassuring message - that the CIA can publicly expose someone it considers a very useful asset. There must be a good reason why they threw Smolenkov under the bus in that way. ..."
"... It must be a very nice house. A 3-ish acre lot in that neighborhood has an assessment of $140k for the land. But the assessment for improvements for this house is over $900k while others in the neighborhood are more in the $600k range. I was looking at the aerial photos and trying to pick out what seem to be other nice houses, including ones with swimming pools which this one lacks, and which also have big garages (this one has 4 car garage apparently), but couldn't find a neighbor above an assessment in the $600k's. ..."
"... The only way that he's the 'source' of the Steele fiction is if the whole thing was in the style of LeCarre's "The Tailor of Panama" where everyone is lying and inflating what they know and people at the top are paying out good money for this because it suits their little power games. But any Moscow tailor with a couple of important customers would be positioned to run that scam as well as an aide to an aide to a foreign minister. ..."
"... My personal guess, he made his money by the more typical corruption in Russia, which means he was working for an oligarch. He lost his job, possibly during one of Putin's anti-corruption cleanup campaigns. He decided to move to DC with his oligarch money because he'd served 10 years in the embassy there and he liked the area. He is buying property in his own name because he's not part of any sort of witness/spy protection program and nobody in the USG is setting him up with a fake identity. ..."
"... Sergei Skripal was not just an turncoat for UK he also worked for Estonian intelligence. It seems to me the poisoning fits better as an Estonian job, to keep relations in Europe with Russia in very bad shape. It's easy to say that the Russians wouldn't be so incompetent, also goes for the UK, which could have come up with something more compelling if they pre planned it as false flag. ..."
"... Joe Mifsud and Claire Smith of MI6, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, especially FBI special agent Joseph Pientka plus that BIG shot FBI agent (who's name I forget) are the names to remember. Why aren't Misud and Smith extradited to face inquiry? ..."
"... So what is emerging? is Mueller due in court to prosecute the Russian ad agency that has fully shirt fronted him? Is Flynn business about to upend a steaming pot of turds over Mueller and other heads. Is Seth Rich about to be posthumously knighted by some New York monarch for his role in smashing the HRC cart in public? Or is Julian Assange about to be put through more torture for being a journalist and publisher? ..."
And then there is the possibility that CIA extracted a minor source to divert attention
from someone or someones who remain(s) in place. The open purchase of a house in the outer
suburbs of Washington by the extracted would seem to support the possibility that this is
all a diversion. The narrative continues that "a former senior intelligence official" told
Sciutto, an Obama man, at CNN of all this. Clapper is "a former senior intelligence
official" and a CNN "contributor" (employee) is he not? He is dumb enough to have had this
story planted on him.
Double games, triple games ... Spies are so confusing ...
thanks b... i agree about your comment on pls comment - double / triple and etc games can be
played with spies... what seems clear to me is that some in the cia-msm want to frame trump..
this one feel apart fairly quickly... the frame up of russia over skripal has never been
addressed by the usa.. in fact, most folks - using ew as an example - are still drinking the
russia done it koolaid 24/7..
james , Sep 10 2019 18:14 utc |
3casey , Sep 10 2019 18:18 utc |
4
So, this fully-spun story, apparently a mix of fact and fiction, arises at this moment to
prop up the Russia-leaked-email hoax?
If that's the case, does that mean this story's "authors" release it now to keep at least
part of the Russia hoax alive as the Flynn case plods toward charges being dropped or because
the Concord case is turning into a cluster f*k? Maybe someone is worried about the
DNC-insider-leaked-email story breaking out? We need to talk about Rich?
Funny about Lang and his crew. So much practical experience and yet they would make an
interesting case study of extreme psychological compartmentalization as a means of
denial.
Lucky Oleg & Antonina. In Oz a 760 square metre house used be known as having an area of
81 squares (8,172 square feet. In well-maintained condition such a 3-storey house anywhere in
Oz would cost between A$2.5 million and A$3.5 million. Being in AmeriKKA Oleg's house
probably has a basement too. That's another $150,000 minimum if it's damp-proof and
ventilated.
Nice networking by 4 BigLie Media outlets to make certain Russia knows where this man and his
family reside. Maybe it's for an Outlaw US Empire sequel to MI-6's Novochock BigLie to be
sprung as the election heats up. If I were the Smolenskovs, I'd demand an immediate identity
change, sell ASAP and move to Idaho.
If Skripal could live safely under his own name I guess this guy could too. It just makes it
easier for the US to get him in their own time.
I don't really see this guy served any purpose until he was outed. Just a late effort to
pretend that Russiagate had any credibility.
I wish that there was a resident Russian on this site, as there is on Craig Murray's.
That person could then tell me if I am wrong in supposing that a senior Chekist would
never, as a question of policy, have been allowed a passport for foreign travel for him and
his family.
If Oleg Smolenkov reported allegedly "valuable" insider information about Russia's
interference in US elections, as they say first hand, then why did Mueller's investigation
fail?
The New York Times story resurrects the
Russia collusion hoax. This time the proof comes from Oleg Smolenkov. The story is identical
to what the Steele dossier claimed: Putin personally directed a campaign to interfere in the
US presidential elections.
Every part of Steele narrative has already been shown to be a hoax and a fabrication. What
proves that the Steele dossier is a work of fiction is that it is written from a
fly-on-the-wall point of view. Only a person who was sitting in the same room with Putin when
he had secret meetings could have written it. So how many moles did the West have sitting on
Putin's desk? It seems like the CIA mole and Steele's secret source are one and the same
source. But if Oleg Smolenkov was CIA's most tightly guarded secret, how did the information
end up in Steele's dossier?
Larry Johnson just posted about this on SST, and his take seems much more plausible:
Desperation on the part of Clapper and his cabal as the chickens are coming home to roost.
This story is chock full of holes, and the media hackery is disintegrating under its own
weight.
> Obama administration .... Russia had stolen .... Democratic National Committee and .....
John Podesta.
So we have to allege that Podesta's laptop between naked underage girls photos had list of
CIA secret agents in Russian government? What else rid it contain and where did Podesta stole
those lists?
Same question about Paki-managed DNC server. Was managing CIA agents in foreign
governments outsourced to DNC or what?
"Once in the lifetime of yer townfolk! F..en circus! Imbecile clowns! Degenerate tamers!
Deformed strongmen! Dysfunctional acrobats! Don't miss out!"
@2
Diversion is one of the three possibilities that I can think of:
1) clan wars within US special services, particularly in view of the 2020 elections.
2) diversion (as suggested by col. Pat Lang)
3) preparation of the ground to make this guy a "sacrificial lamb" like Scripal, to avoid
any new rapprochement between the US and Russia after the end of the Muller report.
@11 roy g.. this is what i said @3 "what seems clear to me is that some in the cia-msm want
to frame trump.. this one feel apart fairly quickly..." for others who want to read larry
johnsons latest at sst
here...
Interesting
Tweet thread by a Sean M Davis has 5 entries and almost 1000 retweets beginning with
this:
"For those curious about what's going on with this bizarre Russia 'spy' story: Burr/Durham
know Steele was fed obvious disinformation, they know who originated it, they know who
peddled it, and it's just a matter of rounding up the whole network."
In his third entry, he poses the following question: "So the only two unanswered questions about this particular pre-emptive leak campaign from
the usual Russia hoax suspects are 1) why now, and 2) what specific event or official
revelation are they trying to get ahead of?"
The easy answer is the story itself is enough of a distraction as the 1000 retweets
show.
I tend to agree with Larry Johnson (at Pat Lang's) that this guy wasn't that useful back
then. He might have become more useful, had he stayed at the Kremlin and rose further up the
ladder, granted; or Obama's top guys assumed he wouldn't and it wasn't an issue to risk to
burn him.
I tend to agree with Larry Johnson (at Pat Lang's) that this guy wasn't that useful back
then. He might have become more useful, had he stayed at the Kremlin and rose further up the
ladder, granted; or Obama's top guys assumed he wouldn't and it wasn't an issue to risk to
burn him.
This whole story is entirely in the spirit of Hollywood comics.
I had a good laugh when I saw the news about the "valuable spy successfully extracted from
Russia".
Here are some reasons why this is fake/disinformation:
1) The news was published by CNN. I think there's no need to explain whether it is worth taking seriously the "sensations"
published by news outlets with a reputation like CNN.
2) Sorry, but you must be a complete idiot (in the medical sense) to openly declare in the
media that you had a "very valuable spy" in the immediate circle of the president of the
Russian Federation (or any other country). Just because in this way you, by your own hands,
are giving your opponent the reason to "strengthen control", conduct checks and identify
those [other] people who might be able to work for you for a long time and be useful. When this really takes place in real life (the presence of a spy of the highest rank,
close to the head of state), then this becomes public only after many years/decades, when the
'Top Secret' stamp is removed from the documents, you know.
3) V.Putin is a former intelligence officer. To put it mildly, it is very naive to assume
that the presence of an "American spy" (close to Putin) would not be known to a person with
Putin's experience/knowledge/capacity.
4) To be a spy, a member of the inner circle of the President of Russia (or any other
country) and not to be exposed, one need to have extraordinary abilities and competencies.
This is the highest class. In recent years, it seems only the lazy one did not notice and did
not note the monstrous degradation of the American political class. These people do not know
how to behave in a civilized society, do not have the traditions and culture of diplomacy and
communication. The situation is similar in the American defense industry. With this level of decline in the competence of the American elite (political, military,
etc.), to assume that they have such a ultra-high-class spy is at least very strange.
5) The fact that the "valuable spy" in the inner circle of the Russian president is pure
CNN fiction is confirmed in practice. What I mean:
- If Smolenkov is really a "very valuable spy" and had access to "secrets," it's rather
strange that he didn't tell the CIA, for example, about the Crimean operation of the Russian
Federation in 2014. Russia's actions then began for the United States (and not only for the
United States, by the way) a complete surprise. This is some really strange "valuable spy"
who did not know anything about the intentions and actions of the Russian leadership in the
spring of 2014.
- If Smolenkov is really a "very valuable spy," and had access to "secrets," the fact that
he knew nothing and did not tell the CIA about Russia's plans to launch the Syrian campaign
in September 2015 looks unusually strange. Just to remind that the actions of Russia then
became a complete surprise for the United States. They did not know anything about this and
did not expect such a development of events. Within a month before the official start of the
Syrian campaign, Russia transferred equipment and weapons to Syria. This remained a secret
for all intelligence services in the world, no one noticed anything. Even Israel, located in
close proximity to Syria, made a "discovery" about the presence of the Russian military there
only 2 days before the start of Russia's actions in the SAR. A rather strange "valuable spy"
who was completely ignorant of Russia's plans/actions in the Syrian direction.
- If Smolenkov is really a "very valuable spy" and had access to "secrets", it is very
strange that he did not know anything and did not inform the CIA about the development by
Russia of the latest weapons presented by President Putin in the spring of 2018. The
presentation of the latest models of Russian weapons was a real shock for the United States,
and I remember that at first the Americans, smiling, called all this "cartoons." Now they no
longer laugh. The development of these weapons was carried out for many years. It's somehow
strange that a "very valuable spy" never found out about it.
6) Serious Russian experts unequivocally spoke out that all this was fake and that
Smolenkov certainly could not be a spy. In particular, Armen Gasparyan, one of the leading Russian political scientists,
historian, writer (incidentally, who wrote several books on intelligence), spoke quite fully
about this in his recent commentary .
Why the CIA would allow such a spy, once extradited, to live under his real name is
beyond me.
Because this man has nothing to do with "spies", "secrets" and "special services". He is
an ordinary civilian, a former official from Russia. Many Russian ex- lives in abroad,
including high-ranking persons. Smolenkov of course had no access to any "secrets", and had
no access to entourage of the Russian president.
An attempt to present Smolenkov as a "valuable spy" from exactly the same series as the
clumsy attempt by the British government to introduce two Russian civilians (Ruslan Boshirov
and Alexander Petrov) as "GRU agents".
It is hardly reasonable to take this seriously.
That's the end of Smolenkov's anonymous quiet comfortable lifesyle. It doesn't send out a
very reassuring message - that the CIA can publicly expose someone it considers a very useful
asset. There must be a good reason why they threw Smolenkov under the bus in that way.
This guy could not possibly be what the CIS and media are presenting to be. Living under his
own name in Virginia? Could it be any simpler to find him? The Russians do have search
engines, too.
B may be right that this is a double or triple play, but find it hard to see the benefits to
pretending to have had a deep mole in the Kremlin. I also find it implausible that any
Russsian diplomat who has been stationed in DC would not be viewed as potentially
compromised. It would be relatively simple to feed him bullshit and see what filters into DC.
Many thoughtful comments here. My take, as a fan of Le Carre and Mad Magazine's Spy vs Spy
cartoon, is that USA's spy was discovered and turned. He was dismissed, employed somewhere
close by, and fed chicken feed for his CIA masters. When they realized he was a failure, the
CIA got him and his family out with the possible object of turning him into a propaganda
subject. Of course he would have to die first, but CIA could make it look like the Russians
did it.
I'm generally interested in how spies are referred to in corporate media stories.
For instance, we were told constantly that Skirpal was a 'Russian Spy'. This ran contrary
to the normal usage, which would have referred to a British Spy within the Russian government
as a 'British Spy'. If that signaled a general change in language, then Solemenkov, would
also be referred to as a Russian Spy and not as an American Spy. He shares with Skirpal
having a Russian nationality, while he was spying for the Americans. Of course, when the
propagandists are going for an emotional reaction, they can be relied on to use whichever
helps tilt the story in their direction.
Historically, spy agencies aren't really known for their great humanity in pulling out a spy
who is in a useful position just because they fear for that spy's safety. The more common
course of action for Spy Bosses is to keep the spy in place, keep pushing for more, more,
more information from the spy, before perhaps holding a brief moment of silence over their
spy ending up in prison.
Maybe it's for an Outlaw US Empire sequel to MI-6's Novochock BigLie to be sprung as the
election heats up.
That's what I thought as well. Why would the MSM hype a spy other than establishing his
persona in the public eye, to be followed by some event later? Either he's a double agent and
they will kill him and blame it on Russia, or he is not a double agent and they will use him
to announce some "strong evidence" of Trump–Russia connection.
Part of the intention of this farce is to give the CIA and the CIA News Network (CNN) the
opportunity to pretend that they are not knotted together like mating dogs (I leave it up to
the reader to guess which one is the bitch).
1. Smolenkov was the source of the Steele Report, in other words he received a substantial
payment to come up with fictional "dirt" on Trump.
2. With all the publicity about the Steele report, Brennan/Obama/etc. were scared (and
with good reason) that the Russians would figure out that Smolenkov was the source and would
then make a grand show of his confessing to how he had made everything up at the request of
US/UK intelligence agencies.
3. Therefore he was extricated for a very good reason (if you are Obama/Brennan, that
is).
4. His extrication is now being used as an anti-Trump weapon, but also as a pre-emptive
measure to reduce the fallout if (or when) reports emerge that Smolenkov was the source for
Steele.
Be interesting to know what was occurring if Smolenkov was the source for the Steele
report.
Whatever information he was sending, that he just left on holidays makes me think Russian
intel were on the ball and had started feeding him a bit of disinformation.
I don't expect the US--and by US I mean the Current Oligarchy--to save anyone, while
Russia is very busy trying to save its current and future populace--the differences being
quite extreme. Since the US isn't intent on saving anyone, it wants to ensure its populace
thinks other governments act the same way toward their populaces so the US populace doesn't
get any ideas about saving itself from its own viscous government. Busting that narrative is
what keeps us busy--There IS an alternative.
From digging around on the property site (from the link).
It must be a very nice house. A 3-ish acre lot in that neighborhood has an assessment of
$140k for the land. But the assessment for improvements for this house is over $900k while
others in the neighborhood are more in the $600k range. I was looking at the aerial photos
and trying to pick out what seem to be other nice houses, including ones with swimming pools
which this one lacks, and which also have big garages (this one has 4 car garage apparently),
but couldn't find a neighbor above an assessment in the $600k's.
The neighborhood as a whole has had its valuations decline in the 2018 biannual
assessment. Not sure why, but maybe the neighborhood of 20 year old mansions isn't as hot as
some newer developments. The last previous lowering of assessment values occurred during the
Great-Not-A-Depression in the 2008 revaluations. Note, the land is not considered to have
lower values, but all of the homes on the street have had the assessments of the improvements
on the property lowered in the last reassessments.
Hard to tell much about the selling price from neighboring properties. Many of the
neighbors bought their homes direct from the construction company back in the early years of
the century. So not too many direct compares for homes bought in 2018.
A point that appears to have missed by several is that an aide to an aide to the foreign
minister is not likely to have access to Putin's super-top-secret plans to use a few thousand
dollars worth of utube and twit ads to change the course of multi-billion dollar American
election, nor would he have access to information that might be used to blackmail a potential
foreign leader. Both would be closely held secrets and apparently way above his pay grade.
Often the FM wouldn't know of either, and both operations would be compartmentalized into a
close team Putin can trust.
The only way that he's the 'source' of the Steele fiction is if the whole thing was in the
style of LeCarre's "The Tailor of Panama" where everyone is lying and inflating what they
know and people at the top are paying out good money for this because it suits their little
power games. But any Moscow tailor with a couple of important customers would be positioned
to run that scam as well as an aide to an aide to a foreign minister.
My personal guess, he made his money by the more typical corruption in Russia, which means
he was working for an oligarch. He lost his job, possibly during one of Putin's
anti-corruption cleanup campaigns. He decided to move to DC with his oligarch money because
he'd served 10 years in the embassy there and he liked the area. He is buying property in his
own name because he's not part of any sort of witness/spy protection program and nobody in
the USG is setting him up with a fake identity.
House likely bought by CIA and annual upkeep--taxes etc.--also paid by them.
MoA's investigators have fairly well established that Skripal was the most likely
contributor to the Steele Dossier given the overall web of established connections--that was
most certainly an MI-6 operation in league with DNC/HRC officials, not CIA, although CIA was
involved in Russiagate Cover-up.
In examining Russia's foreign policy, where were the compromises generated by this alleged
spy? Aside from the UNSC vote debacle on Libya, I see nothing but a string of successes,
although the Ukraine Coup wasn't debauched. IMO, Outlaw US Empire policy toward Russia has
failed spectacularly, and it is within the US government where I'd expect to find well placed
spies.
@35 turner.. no.. and no one here at moa believes anything out of the western msm either...
see @ 29 william gruff comment for more meaningful lingo on the set up..
Here's a tough problem for a counter-intelligence agent. Find the source of info for a
fictional report.
Normally, after a link, one avenue of investigation would be to check who had access to
the leaked information. But, if the report is completely fictional, then there is no list of
people who had access to information that didn't exist. Everyone or no one had equal access
to the non-existent information. The Tailor of Moscow had the same access to the non-existent
information as did Putin's closest personal aide. Who done it?
Ingérence russe :la CIA disposait d'une source haut-placée au Kremlin.
Russian collusion: CIA had high placed source at the Kremlin.
A lot of commentators see the incongruence of this title and make jokes about
it. Really, when a superpower becomes a source of jokes and ridicule, than the end might be
nigh.
Evidence-free accusations of Russian meddling. Now with extra sauce.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
We don't really know WHY this spy was extracted. Anyone that believes that Russiagate was
deliberately planned as part of the new Cold War is not surprised at yet another attempt to
strengthen the nonexistent case for Russian meddling.
The first report in US Press about Putin personally involved was on Dec 14 2016.
Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that
Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used.
The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the
officials said.
Putin's objectives were multifaceted, a high-level intelligence source told NBC News.
What began as a "vendetta" against Hillary Clinton morphed into an effort to show
corruption in American politics and to "split off key American allies by creating the image
that [other countries] couldn't depend on the U.S. to be a credible global leader anymore,"
the official said.
Notice the source is spies working for US Allies. Remember that the NSA did not sign off on the Russian interference/hacking because they
were concerned that too much critical info rested on intelligence from a single foreign
country.
Sergei Skripal was not just an turncoat for UK he also worked for Estonian intelligence.
It seems to me the poisoning fits better as an Estonian job, to keep relations in Europe with
Russia in very bad shape. It's easy to say that the Russians wouldn't be so incompetent, also
goes for the UK, which could have come up with something more compelling if they pre planned
it as false flag.
Notice how we have some sources saying concern grew after the Trump Putin meeting, where
supposedly Trump gave Israeli intelligence to Putin on Syria, I think they were concerned
Trump would have no problem revealing a spy for another government, much like he was free
with foreign intelligence.
I don't think the exfiltration was the real source but someone to sacrifice, to protect
the real source, who is working for Estonian intelligence. To me this seems like it is
possibly Anton Vaino, Chief of Staff of the Kremlin since August 2016, Deputy Chief of Staff
of Kremlin before that. This is not to say his info is accurate, but is in line with the
foreign policy of Estonia to alienate everyone with Russia.
Just out of curiousity, if what has been reported is true then what reason would Mueller have
to exclude this from his report? The dude is proof of the Russia-did-it!! narrative. Check.The dude has already been extracted. Check. The Russians must have already noticed that he has done a runner. Check.
What would stop Mueller from producing a one-paragraph report that starts with: "we know
the following to be true because for the last decade everything that Putin did was being
relayed to us by an aide to the foreign policy advisor to the Kremlin, since extracted and
now living in the USA".
I call it a red herring, and I bet this sucker has been fully set up. Publicly listed address
and all the indicators are that he is held in reserve to throw to the dogs whenever the
action gets too close to the mongrel perpetrators.
Joe Mifsud and Claire Smith of MI6, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, especially FBI special
agent Joseph Pientka plus that BIG shot FBI agent (who's name I forget) are the names to
remember. Why aren't Misud and Smith extradited to face inquiry?
So what is emerging? is Mueller due in court to prosecute the Russian ad agency that has
fully shirt fronted him? Is Flynn business about to upend a steaming pot of turds over
Mueller and other heads. Is Seth Rich about to be posthumously knighted by some New York
monarch for his role in smashing the HRC cart in public? Or is Julian Assange about to be put
through more torture for being a journalist and publisher?
This poor Russian sod is a patsy for the vicious deep state game that now needs to prey on
him and deliver his carcass to the howling mob and so distract them again. This Friday's
quiet press releases might hold a clue.
This guy will probably be making the rounds on CNN and cable news promoting the Steele
dossier and the Russian collusion hoax as its complete disintegration is now fully evident.
Offer up some turds on a plate, dress it up with a pinch a parsley and the truth will be
avoided.
The whole 2 year media storm of lies on Russian collusion will be avoided by offering up
another turd on a plate. This guy will pull down a few million and the media will never admit
their false reporting.
It would seem that a great deal has certainly changed at the CIA since 2003 when Valerie
Plame was revealed as a spy by a newspaper journalist who was given the information about her
during a phone conversation with someone close to the White House at the time, apparently to
punish her ambassador husband Joseph Wilson for going to Niger to verify if that country had
exported uranium to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Then there was shock and anger at the time that
the cover of a CIA operative had been blown.
Now the CIA doesn't even bother to give Smolenkov and his family new identities and
biographies to explain their living in Washington DC, and even co-operates with the outgoing
Obama administration in 2016 in risking the exposure of one of its own to try to stop Donald
Trump from ensconcing himself in the White House.
Something certainly has changed in the culture of the CIA: while it was always a political
animal, it is becoming an extremely ideological one as well.
The idea that this could be a fake spy is interesting.
Sabine wrote:
fuck are you guys not tired of this bullshit kabuki theatre that you get fed daily in order
to keep you amused and busy?
Only speaking for myself I ignore almost all of it (and actively treat it as propaganda,
deception, and manipulation) and take a lot of breaks. I test the waters (or sewage) from
time to time but I don't expect much and have no right to expect anything either.
However despite such sentiments the last decade seems like it has been an improvement
although too many people (and probably me as well) are searching for "replacements" to
failures when maybe there shouldn't be any: any false choice requires at least two wrong
answers but there could be any number .
In Bulgaria is a spy scandal too.
Reschetnikov is banned for ten years to visit Bulgaria. A reporter from NYT has tried to
interview him before steps are take in Bulgaria to investigate the case. The officials say
the Russians wanted to divert Bulgaria to the asia-project and that money-laundering was used
to finance subversive activities. The case started on 9.09 2019. Today the parliament heard
the statements of the agencies. Nothing new they sayed
Sounds fishy, the whole thing. Of course, when everyone is lying about everything while they
are pretending to fight with each other, it may well get a bit convoluted. CIA outing thrir
own dude on their own propaganda outlet is quite strange though. Also, their dude just
trotting about using his real name (in a publicly listed mansion no less),... ehh... Who
knows...
Of course, they could be trying to 'put him on the spot' to use him for yet another
propaganda push (whether he wants to play along, or not). But, again, the whole thing seems a
bit strange.
i would caution people here on patrick lang's views on this issue. remember he is an
existensialist american "patriot" who stop at nothing and will approve of any warcrime to
held up the mighty american empire. Look at patrick lang's history , he is ex intelligence
and thus never left the "services" even when he is "retired".
Pat lang's hate toward those who criticize american empire is legendary.. just look at his
own comments on SST.
another one to watch is patrick lang's friend called TTG which also US intelligence and it
is not unknown for this guy to post or inject nonsense narrative on SST especially on
intelligence matters concerning russia.
The posts that seems clean of US narrative lies seem to come from Publius Tacitus and
Walrus. But then again never take off your mandatory antipropaganda shield especially on SST
owned by ex spook who love the american empire and military trashing of the world
The following rumor (through sputniknews.com) is sort of educational even if it should
turn out to not be true (its Boolean value is essentially irrelevant which is interesting as
a separate matter as well):
Trump mistrusts spies etc .
It wasn't just shock. Scooter Libby, Cheney's (?) Chief of Staff, broke a federal law when
he exposed Valerie Palme as a CIA operative. He served part of a prison sentence for this.
Joseph Wilson verified that Saddam Hussein did not buy yellow cake. After his report was
ignored, he wrote an article about his findings. I remember reading it in the International
Herald Tribune. It put the WMD narrative in doubt.
David Warner Mathisen definitely know what he is talking about due to his long military career... Freefall speed
is documented and is an embarrassment to the official story, because freefall is impossible for a naturally
collapsing building.
Now we need to dig into the role of Larry Silverstein in the
Building 7 collapse.
Notable quotes:
"... Below is a video showing several film sequences taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen years ago on September 11, 2001. ..."
"... The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative" promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004. ..."
"... Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7 ..."
"... This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001. ..."
"... its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed, as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an interview here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview. ..."
"... the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building ..."
"... Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states). ..."
"... Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day. ..."
"... In addition to these interviews and the Dig Within blog of Kevin Ryan, I would also strongly recommend everybody read the article by Dr. Gary G. Kohls entitled " Why Do Good People Become Silent About the Documented Facts that Disprove the Official 9/11 Narrative? " which was published on Global Research a few days ago, on September 6, 2019. ..."
"... on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept what we already know. ..."
"... Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see here for example, and also here . ..."
"... The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare: ..."
"... David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University. ..."
Below is a video showing several film sequences
taken from different locations and documenting multiple angles of World Trade Center Building 7 collapsing at freefall speed eighteen
years ago on September 11, 2001.
The four words "Building Seven Freefall Speed" provide all the evidence needed to conclude that the so-called "official narrative"
promoted by the mainstream media for the past eighteen years is a lie, as is the fraudulent 9/11 Commission Report of 2004.
Earlier this month, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska
published their draft findings from a five-year investigation into the collapse of Building 7, which was not hit by any airplane
on September 11, 2001, and concluded that fires could not possibly have caused the collapse of that 47-story steel-frame building
-- rather, the collapse seen could have only been caused by the near-simultaneous failure of every support column (43 in number).
This damning report by a team of university engineers has received no attention from the mainstream media outlets which continue
to promote the bankrupt "official" narrative of the events of September 11, 2001.
Various individuals at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) tried to argue that the collapse of Building
7 was slower than freefall speed, but its rate of collapse can be measured and found to be indistinguishable from freefall speed,
as physics teacher David Chandler explains in an
interview
here (and as he eventually forced NIST to admit), beginning at around 0:43:00 in the interview.
Although the collapse of the 47-story steel-beam building World Trade Center 7 into its own footprint at freefall speed is all
the evidence needed to reveal extensive and deliberate premeditated criminal activity by powerful forces that had the ability to
prepare pre-positioned demolition charges in that building prior to the flight of the aircraft into the Twin Towers of the World
Trade Center (Buildings One and Two), as well as the power to cover up the evidence of this criminal activity and to deflect questioning
by government agencies and suppress the story in the mainstream news, the collapse of Building 7 is by no means the only evidence
which points to the same conclusion.
Indeed, the evidence is overwhelming, to the point that no one can any longer be excused for accepting the official story. Certainly
during the first few days and weeks after the attacks, or even during the first few years, men and women could be excused for accepting
the official story (particularly given the level to which the mainstream media controls opinion in the united states).
However, eighteen years later there is simply no excuse anymore -- except for the fact that the ramifications of the admission
that the official story is a flagrant fraud and a lie are so distressing that many people cannot actually bring themselves to consciously
admit what they in fact already know subconsciously.
For additional evidence, I strongly recommend the work of the indefatigable Kevin Robert Ryan , whose blog at Dig Within should be required reading for every man and woman in the united
states -- as well as those in the rest of the world, since the ramifications of the murders of innocent men, women and children on
September 11, 2001 have led to the murders of literally millions of other innocent men, women and children around the world since
that day, and the consequences of the failure to absorb the truth of what actually took place, and the consequences of the
failure to address the lies that are built upon the fraudulent explanation of what took place on September 11, continue to
negatively impact men and women everywhere on our planet.
Additionally, I would also recommend the interviews which are archived at the website of Visibility 9-11 , which includes valuable interviews with Kevin Ryan
but also numerous important interviews with former military officers who explain that the failure of the military to scramble fighters
to intercept the hijacked airplanes, and the failure of air defense weapons to stop a jet from hitting the Pentagon (if indeed a
jet did hit the Pentagon), are also completely inexplicable to anyone who knows anything at all about military operations, unless
the official story is completely false and something else was going on that day.
I would also strongly recommend listening very carefully to the series of five interviews with Kevin Ryan on Guns and Butter with Bonnie Faulkner, which can be found in the
Guns and Butterpodcast archive here . These interviews,
from 2013, are numbered 287, 288, 289, 290, and 291 in the archive.
I would in fact recommend listening to nearly every interview in that archive of Bonnie Faulkner's show, even though I do not
of course agree with every single guest nor with every single view expressed in every single interview. Indeed, if you carefully
read Kevin Ryan's blog which was linked above, you will find a
blog post by Kevin Ryan dated June 24, 2018 in which he
explicitly names James Fetzer along with Judy Woods as likely disinformation agents working to discredit and divert the efforts of
9/11 researchers. James Fetzer appears on Guns and Butter several times in the archived interview page linked above.
That article contains a number of stunning quotations about the ongoing failure to address the now-obvious lies we are being told
about the attacks of September 11. One of these quotations, by astronomer Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996), is particularly noteworthy --
even though I certainly do not agree with everything Carl Sagan ever said or wrote. Regarding our propensity to refuse to acknowledge
what we already know deep down to be true, Carl Sagan said:
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.
We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even
to ourselves, that we've been taken.
This quotation is from Sagan's 1995 text, The Demon-Haunted World (with which I have points of disagreement, but which
is extremely valuable for that quotation alone, and which I might suggest turning around on some of the points that Sagan was arguing
as well, as a cautionary warning to those who have accepted too wholeheartedly some of Sagan's teachings and opinions).
This quotation shows that on some level, we already know we have been bamboozled, even if our conscious mind refuses to accept
what we already know. This internal division is actually addressed in the world's ancient myths, which consistently illustrate that
our egoic mind often refuses to acknowledge the higher wisdom we have available to us through the reality of our authentic self,
sometimes called our Higher Self. Previous posts have compared this tendency of the egoic mind to the blissfully ignorant character
of Michael Scott in the television series The Office (US version): see
here for example,
and also here .
The important author Peter Kingsley has noted that in ancient myth, the role of the prophet was to bring awareness and acknowledgement
of that which the egoic mind refuses to see -- which is consistent with the observation that it is through our authentic self (which
already knows) that we have access to the realm of the gods. In the Iliad, for example, Dr. Kingsley notes that Apollo sends disaster
upon the Achaean forces until the prophet Calchas reveals the source of the god's anger: Agamemnon's refusal to free the young woman
Chryseis, whom Agamemnon has seized in the course of the fighting during the Trojan War, and who is the daughter of a priest of Apollo.
Until Agamemnon atones for this insult to the god, Apollo will continue to visit destruction upon those following Agamemnon.
Until we acknowledge and correct what our Higher Self already knows to be the problem, we ourselves will be out of step with the
divine realm.
If we look the other way at the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children on September 11, 2001, and deliberately
refuse to see the truth that we already know deep down in our subconscious, then we will face the displeasure of the Invisible Realm.
Just as we are shown in the ancient myths, the truth must be acknowledged and admitted, and then the wrong that has been done must
be corrected.
In the case of the mass murder perpetrated on September 11, eighteen years ago, that admission requires us to face the fact that
the "terrorists" who were blamed for that attack were not the actual terrorists that we need to be focusing on.
Please note that I am very careful not to say that "the government" is the source of the problem: I would argue that the government
is the lawful expression of the will of the people and that the government, rightly understood, is exactly what these criminal perpetrators
actually fear the most, if the people ever become aware of what is going on. The government, which is established by the Constitution,
forbids the perpetration of murder upon innocent men, women and children in order to initiate wars of aggression against countries
that never invaded or attacked us (under the false pretense that they did so). Those who do so are actually opposed to our government
under the Constitution and can be dealt with within the framework of the law as established by the Constitution, which establishes
a very clear penalty for treason.
When the people acknowledge and admit the complete bankruptcy of the lie we have been told about the attacks of September 11,
the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate repeal and dismantling of the so-called "USA PATRIOT Act" which was
enacted in the weeks immediately following September 11, 2001 and which clearly violates the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Additionally, the correction of that lie will involve demanding the immediate cessation of the military operations which were
initiated based upon the fraudulent narrative of the attacks of that day, and which have led to invasion and overthrow of the nations
that were falsely blamed as being the perpetrators of those attacks and the seizure of their natural resources.
The imposition of a vast surveillance mechanism upon the people of this country (and of other countries) based on the fraudulent
pretext of "preventing terrorism" (and the lying narrative that has been perpetuated with the full complicity of the mainstream media
for the past eighteen years) is in complete violation of the human rights which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights and which declare:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing
the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
That human right has been grievously trampled upon under the false description of what actually took place during the September
11 attacks. Numerous technology companies have been allowed and even encouraged (and paid, with public moneys) to create technologies
which flagrantly and shamelessly violate "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" and
which track their every move and even enable secret eavesdropping upon their conversation and the secret capture of video within
their homes and private settings, without any probable cause whatsoever.
When we admit and acknowledge that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, which has been falsely used as a supposed
justification for the violation of these human rights (with complete disregard for the supreme law of the land as established in
the Constitution), then we will also demand the immediate cessation of any such intrusion upon the right of the people to "be secure
in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" -- including the cessation of any business models which involve spying on men and
women.
Companies which cannot find a business model that does not violate the Bill of Rights should lose their corporate charter and
the privilege of limited liability, which are extended to them by the people (through the government of the people, by the people
and for the people) only upon the condition that their behavior as corporations do not violate the inherent rights of men and women
as acknowledged in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
It is well beyond the time when we must acknowledge and admit that we have been lied to about the events of September 11, 2001
-- and that we continue to be lied to about the events of that awful day. September 11, 2001 is in fact only one such event in a
long history which stretches back prior to 2001, to other events which should have awakened the people to the presence of a very
powerful and very dangerous criminal cabal acting in direct contravention to the Constitution long before we ever got to 2001 --
but the events of September 11 are so blatant, so violent, and so full of evidence which contradicts the fraudulent narrative that
they actually cannot be believed by anyone who spends even the slightest amount of time looking at that evidence.
Indeed, we already know deep down that we have been bamboozled by the lie of the so-called "official narrative" of September 11.
But until we admit to ourselves and acknowledge to others that we've ignored the truth that we already know, then the bamboozle
still has us .
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog
site, internet forums. etc.
David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne
Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster
Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature
and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.
David Warner Mathisen graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and became an Infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne
Division and the 4th Infantry Division. He is a graduate of the US Army's Ranger School and the 82nd Airborne Division's Jumpmaster
Course, among many other awards and decorations. He was later selected to become an instructor in the Department of English Literature
and Philosophy at West Point and has a Masters degree from Texas A&M University.
The question why the USA intelligence agencies were "unaware" about Epstein activities is an interesting one. Similar question can
be asked about Hillary "activities" related to "Clinton cash".
Actually the way the USA elite deal with scandals is to ostracize any whistleblower and silence any media that tryt to dig the story.
Open repression including physical elimination is seldom used those days as indirect methods are quite effective.
Notable quotes:
"... Either we root out every last source of rot by investigating, indicting and jailing every wrong-doer and everyone who conspired to protect the guilty in the Epstein case, or America will have sealed its final fall. ..."
"... If you doubt this, then please explain how 1) the NSA, CIA and FBI didn't know what Jeffrey Epstein was up to, and with whom; 2) Epstein was free to pursue his sexual exploitation of minors for years prior to his wrist-slap conviction and for years afterward; 3) Epstein, the highest profile and most at-risk prisoner in the nation, was left alone and the security cameras recording his cell and surroundings were "broken." ..."
"... America's ruling class has crucified whistleblowers , especially those uncovering fraud in the defense (military-industrial-security) and financial (tax evasion) sectors and blatant violations of public trust, civil liberties and privacy. ..."
"... Needless to say, a factual accounting of corruption, cronyism, incompetence, self-serving exploitation of the many by the few, etc. is not welcome in America. Look at the dearth of investigative resources America's corporate media is devoting to digging down to the deepest levels of rot in the Epstein case. ..."
Either we root out every last source of rot by investigating, indicting and jailing every wrong-doer and everyone who conspired
to protect the guilty in the Epstein case, or America will have sealed its final fall.
When you discover rot in an apparently sound structure, the first question is: how far has the rot penetrated? If the rot
has reached the foundation and turned it to mush, the structure is one wind-storm from collapse.
How deep has the rot of corruption, fraud, abuse of power, betrayal of the public trust, blatant criminality and insiders protecting
the guilty penetrated America's key public and private institutions? It's difficult to tell, as the law-enforcement and security
agencies are themselves hopelessly compromised.
If you doubt this, then please explain how 1) the NSA, CIA and FBI didn't know what Jeffrey Epstein was up to, and with whom;
2) Epstein was free to pursue his sexual exploitation of minors for years prior to his wrist-slap conviction and for years afterward;
3) Epstein, the highest profile and most at-risk prisoner in the nation, was left alone and the security cameras recording his cell
and surroundings were "broken."
If this all strikes you as evidence that America's security and law-enforcement institutions are functioning at a level that's
above reproach, then 1) you're a well-paid shill who's protecting the guilty lest your own misdeeds come to light or 2) your
consumption of mind-bending meds is off the charts.
How deep has the rot gone in America's ruling elite? One way to measure the depth of the rot is to ask how whistleblowers
who've exposed the ugly realities of insider dealing, malfeasance, tax evasion, cover-ups, etc. have fared.
America's ruling class has crucified whistleblowers , especially those uncovering fraud in the defense (military-industrial-security)
and financial (tax evasion) sectors and blatant violations of public trust, civil liberties and privacy.
Needless to say, a factual accounting of corruption, cronyism, incompetence, self-serving exploitation of the many by the
few, etc. is not welcome in America. Look at the dearth of investigative resources America's corporate media is devoting to digging
down to the deepest levels of rot in the Epstein case.
The closer wrong-doing and wrong-doers are to protected power-elites, the less attention the mass media devotes to them.
... ... ...
Here are America's media, law enforcement/security agencies and "leadership" class: they speak no evil, see no evil and
hear no evil, in the misguided belief that their misdirection, self-service and protection of the guilty will make us buy the narrative
that America's ruling elite and all the core institutions they manage aren't rotten to the foundations.
Either we root out every last source of rot by investigating, indicting and jailing every wrong-doer and everyone who conspired
to protect the guilty in the Epstein case, or America will have sealed its final fall.
"... The "report" was his work. Mueller never looked for anything, never found anything and never wrote anything. ..."
"... The entire charade was part of the "resistance" to straight jacket Trump until the mid term elections, a strategy put in motion by Comey and Brennan, which achieved the desired result: Republicans lost the House. ..."
"... Of course there was "little Russia in Russiagate." The narrative was all disinformation set loose by Crowdstrike and Fusion GPS, paid for by Hillary and the DNC with the blessing of President Obama. Welcome to the tin foil hat brigade as contributor. ..."
Officially, at least in the FBI's version, its operation "Crossfire Hurricane," the
counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign that began in mid-2016 was due to
suspicious remarks made to visitors by a young and lowly Trump aide, George Papadopoulos. This
too is not believable, as I pointed out previously .
Most of those visitors themselves had ties to Western intelligence agencies. That is, the young
Trump aide was being enticed, possibly entrapped, as part of a larger intelligence operation
against Trump. (Papadopoulos wasn't the only Trump associate targeted, Carter Page being
another.)
But the question remains: Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems clear,
by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? A reflexive answer might be
because candidate Trump promised to "cooperate with Russia," to pursue a pro-détente
foreign policy, but this was hardly a startling, still less subversive, advocacy by a would-be
Republican president. All of the major pro-détente episodes in the 20th century had been
initiated by Republican presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan.
So, again, what was it about Trump that so spooked the spooks so far off their rightful
reservation and so intrusively into American presidential politics? Investigations being
overseen by Attorney General William Barr may provide answers -- or not.
... ... ...
It is true, of course, that Barr and Durham, as Trump appointees, are not the ideal
investigators of Intel misdeeds in the Russiagate saga. Much better would be a truly
bipartisan, independent investigation based in the Senate, as was the Church Committee of the
mid-1970s, which exposed and reformed (it thought at the time) serious abuses by US
intelligence agencies. That would require, however, a sizable core of nonpartisan, honorable,
and courageous senators of both parties, who thus far seem to be lacking.
There are also, however, the ongoing and upcoming Democratic presidential debates. First and
foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not
about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in
Russiagate.) At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be
asked about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and
would do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy.
"former special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of "collusion."
Let me unpack that for you, esteemed professor: RM was "special counsel" in name only. The
real boss was Andrew Weissman. The "report" was his work. Mueller never looked for
anything, never found anything and never wrote anything.
The entire charade was part of the "resistance" to straight jacket Trump until the mid
term elections, a strategy put in motion by Comey and Brennan, which achieved the desired
result: Republicans lost the House.
Of course there was "little Russia in Russiagate." The narrative was all disinformation
set loose by Crowdstrike and Fusion GPS, paid for by Hillary and the DNC with the blessing of
President Obama. Welcome to the tin foil hat brigade as contributor.
"everyone in journalism appears completely untroubled by the complete paucity of information
that an organisation which troubles them"
Robert Parry's pieces on perception management. They come up by putting perception
management in the site search at Consortium News. Parry read through the Reagan papers.
"Declassified documents now reveal how extensive Reagan's propaganda project became with
inter-agency task forces assigned to develop "themes" that would push American "hot
buttons.""
But things were about to change. In a Jan. 13, 1983, memo, NSC Advisor Clark foresaw the
need for non-governmental money to advance this cause. "We will develop a scenario for
obtaining private funding," Clark wrote. (Just five days later, President Reagan personally
welcomed media magnate Rupert Murdoch into the Oval Office for a private meeting, according
to records on file at the Reagan library.)
As administration officials reached out to wealthy supporters, lines against domestic
propaganda soon were crossed as the operation took aim not only at foreign audiences but at
U.S. public opinion, the press and congressional Democrats who opposed funding the Nicaraguan
Contras." https://consortiumnews.com/2014/12/28/the-victory-of-perception-management/
The main achievement of neoliberal and imperial (warmongering) propaganda in the USA is that it achieved the complete,
undisputed dominance in MSM
Pot Calling the Kettle Black: "The Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation machine is being unleashed via new platforms and continues to grow in Russia and
internationally. Russia seeks to destroy the very idea of an objective, verifiable set of facts as it attempts to influence opinions
about the United States and its allies. It is not an understatement to say that this new form of combat on the information battlefield
may be the fight of the 21st century."
Notable quotes:
"... Back in the 1960s, the CIA official Cord Meyer said the agency needed to "court the compatible left." ..."
"... The CIA therefore secretly worked to influence American and world opinion through the literary and intellectual elites. ..."
"... Then in 1977, Carl Bernstein wrote a long piece for Esquire – “The CIA and the Media” – naming names of journalists and media (The New York Times, CBS, etc.) that worked hand-in-glove with the CIA, propagandizing the American people and the rest of the world. ..."
Back in the 1960s, the CIA official Cord Meyer said the agency needed to "court the compatible left."
Right-wing and left-wing collaborators were needed to create a powerful propaganda apparatus that would be capable of hypnotizing
audiences into believing the myth of American exceptionalism and its divine right to rule the world.
The CIA therefore secretly worked to influence American and world opinion through the literary and intellectual elites.
Frances Stonor Saunders comprehensively covers this in her 1999 book, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA And The World Of Arts
And Letters, and Joel Whitney followed this up in 2016 with Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers,
with particular emphasis on the complicity between the CIA and the famous literary journal, The Paris Review.
By the mid-1970s, as a result of the Church Committee hearings, it seemed as if the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. had been caught in flagrante
delicto and disgraced, confessed their sins, and resolved to go and sin no more.
Then in 1977, Carl Bernstein wrote a long piece for Esquire – “The CIA and the Media” – naming names of journalists and media
(The New York Times, CBS, etc.) that worked hand-in-glove with the CIA, propagandizing the American people and the rest of the world.
It seemed as if all would be hunky-dory now with the bad boys purged from the American “free” press. Seemed to the most naïve,
that is, by which I mean the vast numbers of people who wanted to re-stick their heads in the sand and believe, as Ronald Reagan’s
team of truthtellers would announce, that it was “Morning in America” again with the free press reigning and the neo-conservatives,
many of whom had been “converted” from their leftist views, running things in Washington.
USAGM provides consistently accurate and compelling journalism that reflects the values of our society: freedom, openness,
democracy, and hope. Our guiding principles—enshrined in law—are to provide a reliable, authoritative, and independent source
of news that adheres to the strictest standards of journalism…
Russian Disinformation. And make no mistake, we are living through a global explosion of disinformation, state propaganda,
and lies generated by multiple authoritarian regimes around the world. The weaponization of information we are seeing today is
real. The Russian government and other authoritarian regimes engage in far-reaching malign influence campaigns across national
boundaries and language barriers.
The Kremlin’s propaganda and disinformation machine is being unleashed via new platforms and continues to grow in Russia and
internationally. Russia seeks to destroy the very idea of an objective, verifiable set of facts as it attempts to influence opinions
about the United States and its allies. It is not an understatement to say that this new form of combat on the information battlefield
may be the fight of the 21st century.
Then research the history of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Voice of America, Radio and Television Marti, etc. You will
be reassured that Lansing’s July testimony was his job interview to head National Propaganda Radio.
Edward Curtin writes, and his writing on varied topics has appeared widely over many years. He writes as a public
intellectual for the general public, not as a specialist for a narrow readership. He believes a non-committal sociology is an
impossibility and therefore sees all his work as an effort to enhance human freedom through understanding. His website is
edwardcurtin.com
From mind control to murder? How a deadly fall revealed the CIA's darkest secrets -
Stephen Kinzer/Guardian
I read about that a year or so ago. In one of the North Korea threads, someone posted some
links to the Erik Olson website, in connection with the use of biological weapons in North
Korea.
If I remember correctly there was a very detailed pdf report, maybe published by or on
behalf of Erik Olson, about Frank Olson's death and the circumstances leading to it.
It was a lot more detailed about some of the areas whitewashed by the Guardian article,
such as connections between his trips to Germany and his realization that germ warfare was
being used in North Korea, and also more about the Porton Down war criminal William
Sargant.
Meet American Empire's 'Doctor Death'
Stephen Kinzer's new book shows how Greatest Generation spooks justified their horrific experiments on
unwitting Americans.
By
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
•
September 10, 2019
In the 1962 film
adaptation of Richard Condon's
The Manchurian Candidate,
a diabolical North Korean doctor named Yen Lo tells Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw to "pass the time with a little
solitaire." These trigger words, accompanied by a Queen of Diamonds playing card, prompts the lanky soldier to get up,
and when instructed, brutally kill two of his own comrades sitting on the stage, both of whom appear under the same
trance as Raymond.
Later, we find out this was not a dream but a real test of Shaw's programming through
elaborate mind control, undertaken before he is sent home to the United States as a sleeper agent for a Communist Party
cell, led by his own mother. "His brain has not only been washed, as they say, but cleaned," declares a gleeful Dr. Lo.
"The Manchurian Candidate" (1962, Universal Artists)
The film
was released when the country was in a state of high Cold War anxiety. The idea that the Communists were deep into
finding a way to brainwash and program individuals to deploy as weapons of war was not new, of course. It was just
finding its way into the increasingly paranoid popular culture. But what Americans did not know was that our own
government was in part responsible for those stories as a cover for their own brainwashing experiments, which were
racing along at the speed of a freight train.
Advertisement
In 1953,
Allen Dulles
told a group of fellow Princeton alumni that the U.S. was far behind the Russians and North Koreans in "brain warfare."
He warned of a mind control gap that would likely grow because "we in the West..have no human guinea pigs to try these
extraordinary techniques."
This was a lie of breathtaking proportions. For several years, his CIA had already
been conducting extreme experiments on unwitting "human guinea pigs" at black sites in France, Germany, and South Korea.
Shortly after he broadcast this cynical lament to the Princeton lads, he approved MK-ULTRA, the most illicit and morally
corrupt intelligence program in American history (that we know of). In it, the CIA tested a stomach roiling variety of
unregulated drugs, electro-shock, sensory deprivation, and other extreme techniques on unwitting souls across the United
States -- in "safe houses," prisons, psychiatric hospitals, doctors' offices -- even in the CIA itself. People died, went
crazy, or withered away in a vegetative state, often with little or no clue of what had happened to them.
In
Poisoner in Chief,
released today, journalist and author Stephen Kinzer makes Dr. Sidney Gottlieb the manifestation of the U.S.
government's Cold War obsession with winning, its warped moral compass, and its utter disregard for the law. From 1951
to the late 1960s, under Dulles' protection, Gottlieb was the principal player in what can only be called a maniacal
mission to find the perfect drug to destroy/control/reprogram the human mind (he believed, though he was never able to
prove, that the drug was LSD).
Gottlieb was also the chief scientist in a CIA program that developed poisons with
which to assassinate world leaders (failed attempts included Cuba's Fidel Castro and Congolese Prime Minister Patrice
Lumumba), tested aerosol-delivered germs and deadly gases, and honed extreme torture techniques. He's been called Dr.
Death, Washington's "official poisoner," and a mad scientist. But "Sidney Gottlieb" never became a household name,
mostly because he never paid for his crimes. Thanks to Deep State politics, statutes of limitations, a great lawyer, and
depressingly weak congressional investigators, Gottlieb was able to take the worst of his secrets to the grave in 1999.
Now, pulling together a trove of existing research, newly unearthed documents, and
fresh interviews, Kinzer puts the fetid corpus of American Empire back under a microscope. It isn't pretty -- but it is
instructive.
"Commitment to a cause provides the ultimate justification for immoral acts.
Patriotism is the most seductive of those causes," Kinzer surmises in an attempt to give context to Gottlieb and Dulles,
and Gottlieb's closest patron and conspirator,
Richard Helms,
who served as CIA chief after
Dulles and during the later years of MK-ULTRA.
"Some do things they know are wrong for what they consider good reasons," Kinzer
continued. "No one else of Gottlieb's generation, however, had the government-given power to do so many things that were
so profoundly and horrifically wrong. No other American -- at least, none that we know of -- ever wielded such terrifying
life-or-death power while remaining so completely invisible."
With so much material to work with,
Poisoner
in Chief
is a parade of outrages. But by the time the twisted calliope falls
silent, two major themes are left to contemplate.
First, Gottlieb did not emerge in a vacuum but in the primordial ooze of moral
justification following World War II. While America was putting its public virtue on display during the
Nuremberg trials
, the army under the Joint Intelligence
Objectives Agency was courting Nazi scientists who had been involved in the most grotesque human experimentation
imaginable during the war. Their expertise in biological warfare and psychoactive drugs was highly prized. The Americans
had to make sure, after all, that the commies didn't get to them first.
So under
Operation
Paperclip
, the army "bleached" their records and brought these men in among several hundred other scientists,
engineers, and technicians who served the Third Reich. Instead of prison, they were settled into comfortable obscurity
in suburban Washington, working for the U.S. government.
For those whose crimes were not so easily scrubbed, the army found ways to collaborate
with them overseas in even less controlled environs. Like
Kurt Blome
, a Nazi scientist who deliberately
infected prisoners with deadly viruses, including the plague, at the Auschwitz concentration camp and other sites. After
saving him from the gallows at Nuremburg, officials quietly installed him in the European Command Intelligence Center at
Oberursel, West Germany -- otherwise known as "Camp King" -- to conduct more experiments, but on our side.
The same went for Japanese scientist
Shiro Ishi,
who was
reportedly responsible for some 10,000 deaths in and around his
Manchurian complex called
Unit 731 during the war. His ghastly activities included everything from slow-roasting test subjects with electricity,
to amputating limbs and dissecting people alive to monitor their slow deaths. At one point, he lined up naked Chinese
women and children to see how long they would live after being struck by shrapnel in the buttocks. He also created tons
of anthrax that was later used to kill thousands of Chinese civilians.
But instead of bringing this monster to justice, U.S. agents granted Ishi and his
Japanese collaborators immunity and obtained all of his research on how toxins affect the body -- including all of the
tissue slides from people whose organs were taken out while they were still alive. "Scientists at Camp Detrick
(Maryland) were delighted," Kinzer writes.
"Thus did the man responsible for directing the dissection of thousands of living prisoners escape punishment," he
adds, noting that Ishi and his minions were deployed to U.S. detention centers in East Asia, where they "helped
Americans conceive and carry out experiments on human subjects that could not legally be conducted in the United States.
Secondly, Kinzer highlights how easily American government officials adopted their
former wartime foes' detached, ruthless approach to human experimentation, embarking without guidance or oversight on
what appears to be a fanatical quest without consequences. At a time when many Americans were zooming to suburbia in
search of "Leave it to Beaver," Gottlieb was hiring people like George White, straight out of
"The Sweet Smell of Success."
White was "a hard charging narcotics detective who lived large in the twilight world
of crime and drugs" writes Kinzer. In 1953 he started setting up "safe houses" in New York and San Francisco where he
would use pay hoodlums and prostitutes in drugs and dough to dose unsuspecting subjects with increasing amounts of LSD
at "parties" while the CIA peeped the action from two-way mirrors outfitted with cameras.
Meanwhile, Gottlieb gave tons of cash and LSD to doctors like Harris Isbell at the
Addiction Research Center in Lexington, Kentucky. "Officially this center was a hospital, but it functioned more like a
prison," writes Kizner. "Most inmates were African American from the margins of society. They were unlikely to complain
if abused."
And abused they were, like most of the test subjects at the prison programs financed
by the CIA. If they were told they were part of a test (agreement was typically in exchange for something, like good
behavior credits or high grade heroin), they weren't told what kind of drugs they were given or how much. Many of the
experiments involved dosing subjects with greater and greater amounts of LSD over long periods of time. Gottlieb wanted
to see at what point the mind would dissolve. "He was pleased to have secured a supply of 'expendables' across the
United States," Kinzer notes.
Certainly his test subjects at the CIA interrogation cites overseas were "expendable."
Kinzer offers a number of cases in which foreign detainees, usually suspected spies, were given massive amounts of
different drugs "to see if their minds could be altered." Others were given electro shock. They were later killed, "and
their bodies burned."
Then there were the seemingly random tragedies. Like art student Stanley Glickman who
was believed to be drugged directly by Gottlieb while at a Paris cafe in 1952, and then taken into a hospital where more
"testing" occurred. It was the end of "his productive life," writes Kinzer. Glickman died alone and mentally ill in New
York city several decades later. Or Frank Olson, a CIA scientist who "fell or jumped" from a Manhattan hotel window
after being unwittingly dosed at a "retreat" hosted by Gottlieb a week earlier. Though his family tried, they were never
able to pin his strange death on Gottlieb or the government.
"A Clockwork Orange" (Warner Bros./1971)
Kinzer shows that sometimes paranoia comes from a very real place -- that Big Brother was
not only watching, but for nearly 20 years he was drugging and testing germs and other toxins on unsuspecting Americans
like they were laboratory animals. And Gottlieb, Dulles, and Helms were no fictional spawn of an over-active
imagination. They were highly respected and powerful men with a combined 105 years of government service. They
were
the
system.
So how do we digest this today? We can start by acknowledging that the ends will
always justify the means because the government always gets away with it. And we are still living with the effects. The
torture techniques set into motion in the 1950's, for example, later surfaced in the dark corners of the
Phoenix Program
in Vietnam, and more recently in the dirty cells of
Abu Ghraib detention center.
Indeed, with a head full of Red Menace and lord knows what else, these so-called
stalwart men of the "Greatest Generation" pounded the earth as though America owned the world. Perhaps it did. American
Empire had many faces during the Cold War, and thanks to Kinzer, Sidney Gottlieb is one you shouldn't forget.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is
e
xecutive
editor at
.
Follow her on Twitter
@Vlahos_at_TAC
Here are just some of the twists and turns in the case, which has gone on for more than
three years.
Flynn's trip to Russia in 2015, where it was claimed Flynn went without the knowledge or
approval of the DIA or anyone in Washington,
was proven not to be true .
Flynn was suspected of being compromised by a supposed Russian agent, Cambridge academic
Svetlana Lokhova, based on allegations from Western intelligence asset Stefan Halper.
This was also proven to be not true.
The very strange post-dated FD-302 form on the FBI's January 2017 interview of Flynn that
wasn't filled out until August 2017, almost seven months afterward, is
revealed in a court filing by Flynn's defense team .
FBI agent Pientka became the
"DOJ's Invisible Man," despite the fact that Congress has repeatedly called for him to
testify. Pientka has remained out of sight and out of mind more than a year and a half since
his name first surfaced in connection with the Flynn case.
Now, it's not that far-fetched of an idea that the Mueller special counsel prosecutors would
hide exculpatory evidence from the Flynn defense team, since they've just admitted to having
done exactly that in another case their
office has been prosecuting .
The defense team for Internet Research Agency/Concord, more popularly known as "the Russian
troll farm case," hasn't been smooth going for the Mueller prosecutors.
Then, in a
filing submitted to the court on Aug. 30, the IRA/Concord defense team alerted Judge
Friedrich that the prosecutors just got around to handing them key evidence the prosecutors had
for the past 18 months. The prosecution gave no explanation whatsoever as to why they hid this
key evidence for more than a year.
It's hard to see at this point how the entire IRA/Concord case isn't tossed out.
What would it mean for Flynn's prosecutors to have been caught hiding exculpatory evidence
from him and his lawyers, even after the presiding judge explicitly ordered them in February to
hand over everything they had?
It would mean that the Flynn case is tossed out, since the prosecution team was caught
engaging in gross misconduct.
Now you can see why Flynn refused to withdraw his guilty plea when Judge Sullivan gave him
the opportunity to do so in late December 2018.
A withdrawal of the guilty plea or a pardon would let the Mueller prosecution team off the
hook.
And they're not getting off the hook.
Flynn hired the best lawyer he possibly could have when it comes to exposing prosecutorial
misconduct. Nobody knows the crafty, corrupt, and dishonest tricks federal prosecutors use
better than Powell, who actually wrote a compelling book about such matters, entitled "
License to Lie: Exposing
Corruption in the Department of Justice ."
Everything this Mueller prosecution team did in withholding exculpatory evidence from
Flynn's defense team -- and continued to withhold even after Judge Sullivan specifically issued
an order about it -- is going to be fully exposed.
Defying a federal judge's Brady order is a one-way ticket to not only getting fired, it's a
serious enough offense to warrant disbarment and prosecution.
If it turns out Mueller special counsel prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence -- not
only in the IRA/Concord case, but also in the cases against Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael
Cohen, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and others -- that will have a huge impact.
If they are willing to withhold exculpatory evidence in one case, why wouldn't they do the
same thing in other cases they were prosecuting? Haven't they have already demonstrated they
are willing to break the rules? Tags
We have become a third-world country. Even throwing Mueller and his entire prosecutors'
team in jail would not be enough to restore confidence in our legal system. But it would be a
start.
On or about December 28, 2016, the Russian Ambassador contacted FLYNN.
c. On or about December 29, 2016, FLYNN called a senior official of the Presidential
Transition Team ("PTT official"), who was with other senior ·members of the
Presidential Transition Team at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to discuss
what, if anything, to communicate to the Russian Ambassador about the U.S. Sanctions. On that
call, FLYNN and 2 Case 1:17-cr-00232-RC Document 4 Filed 12/01/17 Page 2 of 6 the PTT
official discussed the U.S. Sanctions, including the potential impact of those sanctions on
the incoming administration's foreign policy goals. The PIT official and FLYNN also discussed
that the members of the Presidential Transition Team at Mar-a-Lago did not want Russia to
escalate the situation. d. Immediately after his phone call with the PTT official, FLYNN
called the Russian Ambassador and requested that Russia not escalate the situation and only
respond to the U.S. Sanctions in a reciprocal manner. e. Shortly after his phone call with
the Russian Ambassador, FLYNN spoke with the PTT official to report on the substance of his
call with the Russian Ambassador, including their discussion of the U.S. Sanctions. f. On or
about December 30, 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin released a statement indicating
that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in response to the U.S. Sanctions at that
time. g. On or about December 31, 2016, the Russian Ambassador called FLYNN and informed him
that Russia had chosen not to retaliate in response to FL YNN's request. h. After his phone
call with the Russian Ambassador, FLYNN spoke with senior members of the Presidential
Transition Team about FL YNN's conversations with the Russian Ambassador regarding the U.S.
Sanctions and Russia's decision not to escalate the situation.
The coup plot between the international intelligence community (which includes our
FBI-CIA-etc) and their unregistered foreign agents in the multinational corporate media is
slowly being revealed.
Here’s another possibility... elites in the US Gov set on running a soft coup
against a duly elected president and his team made up a whole pile of **** and passed it off
as truth.
The Manafort thing has me totally riled since HRC's "Password" guy and his brother were
PARTNERS with manafort, did the same damn things, and were NOT investigated.
Donald Trump is many things to many people, but is not his social personna to be patient.
He is being VERY patient to let this unfold, to "give a man enough rope" or political party
and its owner, as it may be....
Donna Brazile's book is under-rated: it holds they keys as to who ran the DNC and why
after Obie bailed.
Our local community rag (Vermont) had an opinion piece last week about "The slide towards
Facism", where the author breathlessly stated that she had learned from a MSNBC expose by
Rachel Maddow that the administration was firing researchers at NASA and EPA as well as
cutting back funding for LGBTQ support groups. Oh the horror. The author conveniently forgot
that the same dyke had lied for 2 years about Russia,Russia,Russia but it's still OK to
believe any **** that drops out of her mouth.
This is the level of insanity happening around here. Of course it is Bernie's turf.
People who are so stupid and gullible deserve everything they are gonna get.
Poor Flynn. Rail-roaded by ZOG and Obama and Hillary and Co. I hope beyond hope that the
truth is revealed and that he can sue the **** out of the seditionists/(((seditionists))) who
put him into this mess such that his great-great-grandchildren will never have to work.
I also blame Trump for throwing Flynn under the bus.
If they are willing to withhold exculpatory evidence in one case, why wouldn’t they
do the same thing in other cases they were prosecuting? Haven’t they have already
demonstrated they are willing to break the rules?
Duh! Because it's easy and the media never covers it and AG Barr and FBI director Wray
will cover it all up. America no longer operates under rule of law, and now we all know it.
Never cooperate with them!
flynn didn't rape children, to buzy trying to fight liberators of iraq and afganistan from
invasion... that's his major crime.
I guess, kelly, mattis, mcmaster neither are on the child rape trend. but what can they
do? when the entire cia and doj and fbi are full on controlled and run by the pedos? it's
like when all the cardinals and the pope are pedos, what a bishop to do...
Why would CIA Rothschild'd up puppet Trump pick only the best William Barr?
Who told Acosta to cut no prosecution deal with Epstein? George Bush? Robert Mukasey? or
Bob Mueller?
Trump, Barr, Bush, Mueller all on the same no rule of law national no government
pys op , for Epstein & 9/11 clean op team Poppa Bush, Clinton, &
Mossad.
Barr: CIA operative
It is a sobering fact that American presidents (many of whom have been corrupt) have gone
out of their way to hire fixers to be their attorney generals.
Consider recent history: Loretta Lynch (2015-2017), Eric Holder (2009-2015), Michael
Mukasey (2007-2009), Alberto Gonzales (2005-2007), John Ashcroft (2001-2005),Janet Reno
(1993-2001), **** Thornburgh (1988-1991), Ed Meese (1985-1988), etc.
Barr was a full-time CIA operative, recruited by Langley out of high school, starting
in 1971. Barr’s youth career goal was to head the CIA.
CIA operative assigned to the China directorate, where he became close to powerful CIA
operative George H.W. Bush, whose accomplishments already included the CIA/Cuba Bay of
Pigs, Asia CIA operations (Vietnam War, Golden Triangle narcotics), Nixon foreign policy
(Henry Kissinger), and the Watergate operation.
When George H.W. Bush became CIA Director in 1976, Barr joined the CIA’s
“legal office” and Bush’s inner circle, and worked alongside Bush’s
longtime CIA enforcers Theodore “Ted” Shackley, Felix Rodriguez, Thomas Clines,
and others, several of whom were likely involved with the Bay of Pigs/John F. Kennedy
assassination, and numerous southeast Asian operations, from the Phoenix Program to Golden
Triangle narco-trafficking.
Barr stonewalled and destroyed the Church Committee investigations into CIA
abuses.
Barr stonewalled and stopped inquiries in the CIA bombing assassination of Chilean
opposition leader Orlando Letelier.
Barr joined George H.W. Bush’s legal/intelligence team during Bush’s vice
presidency (under President Ronald Reagan) Rose from assistant attorney general to Chief
Legal Counsel to attorney general (1991) during the Bush 41 presidency.
Barr was a key player in the Iran-Contra operation, if not the most important member of
the apparatus, simultaneously managing the operation while also “fixing” the
legal end, ensuring that all of the operatives could do their jobs without fear of exposure
or arrest.
In his attorney general confirmation, Barr vowed to “attack criminal
organizations”, drug smugglers and money launderers. It was all hot air: as AG, Barr
would preserve, protect, cover up, and nurture the apparatus that he helped create, and use
Justice Department power to escape punishment.
Barr stonewalled and stopped investigations into all Bush/Clinton and CIA crimes,
including BCCI and BNL CIA drug banking, the theft of Inslaw/PROMIS software, and all
crimes of state committed by Bush
Barr provided legal cover for Bush’s illegal foreign policy and war crimes
Barr left Washington, and went through the “rotating door” to the corporate
world, where he took on numerous directorships and counsel positions for major companies.
In 2007 and again from 2017, Barr was counsel for politically-connected international law
firm Kirkland
& Ellis . Among its other notable attorneys and alumni are Kenneth Starr, John
Bolton, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and numerous Trump administration attorneys.
K&E’s clients include sex trafficker/pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and Mitt
Romney’s Bain Capital.
A strong case can be made that William Barr was as powerful and important a figure in the
Bush apparatus as any other, besides Poppy Bush himself.
there is a war on america, and the DoD and men like flynn are too arrogant, dumb, and
proud to admit they have been fucked and conned deeply by men way smarter than them...
we don't need ******* brains, but killers to wage this revolution against the american
pedostate.
and that, what they master, they don't want to do.
if they want money, they should have learned to trade and not kill...
"... Few in the NC commentariat, at least from what I saw, had any problem accepting that the DNC and the Clinton campaign funded the dossier, so I’m wondering why it’s that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing. ..."
https://c.deployads.com/sync?f=html&s=2343&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2018%2F01%2Fcia-bull-glenn-simpsons-russia-shop.html
<img src="http://b.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&c2=16807273&cv=2.0&cj=1" />
The CIA Bull
in Glenn Simpson's Russia Shop Posted on January 22,
2018 by Jerri-Lynn ScofieldBy
John Helmer , the longest
continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct
his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a
professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United
States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy
Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with
Bears
In criminal trials the rule for prosecuting and defending lawyers is the same. Never ask a
witness a question unless you already know the answer. The corollary rule for defending lawyers
is – if the answer to your question will incriminate your client, don't ask it, and hope
the prosecutor fails to do his job.
Glenn Simpson, a former employee of the Wall Street Journal in New York, is currently on
trial in the US for having fabricated a dossier of allegations of Russian misconduct (bribes,
sex, blackmail, hacking) involving President Donald Trump and circulating them to the press;
the objective was to damage Trump's candidacy before the election of November 8, 2016. Simpson
was called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on August 22, 2017; then the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on November 8 and again on November 14, 2017. So
far, Simpson's veracity and business conduct face nothing more than the court of public
opinion. He has not yet been charged with criminal or civil offences. That will happen if the
evidence materializes that Simpson has been lying.
Simpson's collaborator in the dossier and his business partner, Christopher Steele, is
facing trial in the London High Court, charged with libels he and Simpson published in their
dossier. Together, they are material witnesses in two federal US court trials for defamation,
one in Miami and one in New York. If they perjure themselves giving evidence in those cases,
they are likely to face criminal indictments. If they tell the truth, they are likely to face
fresh defamation proceedings; perhaps a civil racketeering suit for fraud; maybe a false
statement prosecution under the US criminal code.
One question for them is as obvious as its answer. Who do an American ex-journalist on US
national security and an ex-British intelligence agent go to for sources on Russian undercover
operations outside Russia in general, the US in particular? Answer -- first, their friends and
contacts from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); second, their friends and contacts from
the Secret Intelligence Service or MI6, as the UK counterpart is known.
Why then did the twenty-two congressmen, the members of the House Intelligence Committee who
subpoenaed Simpson for interview, fail to pursue what information he and Steele received either
directly from the CIA or indirectly through British intelligence?
The answer noone in the US wants to say aloud is the possibility that it was the CIA which
provided Simpson and Steele with names and source materials for their dossier, creating the
evidence of a Russian plot against the US election, and generating evidence of Russian
operations. If that is what happened, then Simpson and Steele were participants in a false-flag
CIA operation in US politics.
This isn't idle speculation. It has been under investigation at the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) since Simpson and Steele decided in mid-2016 to go to the FBI to request an
investigation, and then told American press to get the FBI to confirm it was investigating. At
the fresh request this month from the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the FBI is
still
investigating .
Simpson's appearance at the House Intelligence Committee was the sequel to his testimony
before the Senate Judiciary Committee; for that story, read this .
Simpson's three lawyers from the Washington, DC, firm of Cunningham Levy Muse, who appeared with him at the Senate and House committee hearings. From left to right, Robert Muse; Joshua Levy, and Rachel Clattenburg.
The firm's other name partner, Bryan Cunningham, was a CIA officer specializingin cyber operations.
The transcripts of the House Intelligence Committee were released last Thursday. Simpson's
first appearance was on November 8, and can be read in full here
.
Simpson's lawyers did all the talking; Simpson said nothing, pleading the US Constitution's
Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself.
Although his lawyers repeatedly claimed during the earlier Senate Committee hearing that
Simpson was testifying voluntarily, the House Committee recorded that Simpson was compelled to
testify. "Our record today," the November 8 transcript begins, "will reflect that you have been
compelled to appear today pursuant to a subpoena issued on October 4th, 2017." Simpson then
told the Committee through his lawyers that he would plead the Fifth Amendment and not answer
any questions. The first transcript is a record of debate between Republican and Democratic
members of the Committee.
This resulted in an agreement for Simpson to testify under the subpoena but on terms his
lawyers said would limit the scope of the questions which he would agree to answer.
Steele, according to the November 8 transcript, was also summoned to testify. A British
citizen with home in Berkshire and office in London, he refused and the Committee recorded his
"noncooperation and nontestimony."
Republicans outnumber Democrats on the House Committee, 13 to 9. Just 5 Republican members
were at Simpson's November 14 appearance; 7 Democrats. The Republican committee chairman, Devin
Nunes, was absent. Release of Simpson's transcript was an initiative of the Democrats. In a
statement by their leader on the committee, Adam Schiff, the Democrats claimed
last week "thus far, Committee Republicans have refused to look into this key area and we hope
the release of this transcript will reinforce the importance of these critical questions to our
investigation."
Members of the House Intelligence Committee on the podium at an open hearing inNovember 2017. From left to right: Adam Schiff (D), Michael Conaway (R),and Thomas Rooney (R).
Search the 165 pages of the transcript for the CIA, and you will find many references to the
letters, C, I and A – spe cia lize, so cia l, commer cia l, espe cia lly, asso cia tion,
finan cia l and politi cia n. There were 44 mentions of the Federal Bureau of Intelligence
(FBI); 4 mentions of "British Intelligence" – the spy agency to which Steele belonged ten
years ago – one mention each of the Israeli Mossad, the Chinese and Indian intelligence
services.
According to Simpson, "foreign intelligence services hacking American political operations
is not that unusual, actually, and there's a lot of foreign intelligence services that play in
American elections." He mentioned the Chinese and the Indians, not the Israelis. The Mossad,
Simpson did tell the Committee, was his source for his belief that Russian intelligence has
been operating through the Jewish Orthodox Chabad movement, and the Russian Orthodox Church.
"The Orthodox church is also an arm of the Russian State now the Mossad guys used to tell me
about how the Russians were laundering money through the Orthodox church in Israel, and that it
was intelligence operations."
There are just two references in the Committee transcript to the CIA. One was a passing
remark to imply the Russians cannot "break[ing] into the CIA, [so instead] you are breaking
into, you know, places where, you know, an open society leaves open."
The second was a bombshell. It dropped during questioning by Congressman Thomas Rooney
(right), a 3-term Republican
representative from Florida with a career as an army lawyer. Rooney asked Simpson: "Do you or
anyone else independently verify or corroborate any information in the dossier?"
Simpson replied by saying, "Yes. Well, numerous things in the dossier have been verified.
You know, I don't have access to the intelligence or law enforcement information that I see
made reference to, but, you know, things like, you know, the Russian Government has been
investigating Hillary Clinton and has a lot of information about her."
Then Simpson contradicted himself, disclosing what he had just denied. "When the original
memos came in saying that the Kremlin was mounting a specific operation to get Donald Trump
elected President , that was not what the Intelligence Community was saying. The Intelligence
Community was saying they are just seeking to disrupt our election and our political process,
and that this is sort of kind of just a generally nihilistic, you know, trouble-making
operation. And, you know, Chris turned out to be right, it was specifically designed to elect
Donald Trump President."
How did Simpson know with such confidence what the "Intelligence Community" was "saying",
and who were Simpson's and Steele's sources in the "Intelligence Community"? Rooney failed to
inquire. Instead, he and Simpson exchanged question and answer regarding the approach Simpson
and Steele made to the FBI when they delivered their dossier. In the details of that, Simpson
repeated what he had already told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Rooney then asked what contact had been made with the CIA or "any other intelligence
officials". Simpson claimed he didn't understand the question at first, then he stumbled.
What Simpson was concealing in the two pauses, reported in the transcript as hyphens, Rooney
did not realize. Simpson was implying that noone from Fusion GPS, his consulting company, had
been in contact with the CIA, nor him personally. But Simpson left open that Steele had been in
contact with the CIA. Rooney followed with a question about "anyone", but that was so
imprecise, Simpson recovered his confidence to say "No". That was a cover-up – and the
House Intelligence Committee let it drop noiselessly.
Intelligence community sources and colleagues who know Simpson and Steele say Simpson was
notorious at the Wall Street Journal for coming up with conspiracy theories for which the
evidence was missing or unreliable. He told the Committee that disbelief on the part of his
editors and management had been one of his reasons for leaving the newspaper. "One of the
reasons why I left the Wall Street Journal was because I wanted to write more stories about
Russian influence in Washington, D.C., on both the Democrats and the Republicans eventually the
Journal lost interest in that subject. And I was frustrated that was where I left my journalism
career."
Left: Glenn Simpson reporter for the Wall Street Journal in 1996, promoting his book, Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics. Right: Simpson in Washington in August 2017.
When Simpson was asked "do you – did you find anything to -- that you verified as
false in the dossier, since or during?" Simpson replied: "I have not seen anything – ".
Note the hypthen, the stenographer's signal that Simpson was pausing.
"[Question]. So everything in that dossier, as far as you're concerned, is true or could be
true?"
"MR. SIMPSON: I didn't say that. What I said was it was credible at the time it came in. We
were able to corroborate various things that supported its credibility."
Sources in London are divided on the question of where Steele's sources came from –
CIA, MI6, or elsewhere. What has been clear for the year in which the dossier's contents have
been in public circulation is that the sources the dossier referred to as "Russian" were not.
For details of the
sourcing . The subsequent identification of the Maltese source Joseph Mifsud, and the
Greek-American George Papadopoulos, corroborates their lack of
direct Russian sources. Instead, the sources identified in the dossier were either
Americans, Americans of Russian ethnic origin, or Russians with no direct knowledge repeating
hearsay three or four times removed from source.
So were the allegations of the dossier manufactured by a CIA disinformation unit, and fed
back to the US through the British agent, Steele? Or were they a Simpson conspiracy theory of
the type that failed to pass veracity testing when Simpson was at the Wall Street Journal? The
House Intelligence Committee failed to inquire.
One independent clue is what financial and other links Simpson and Steele and their
consulting firms, Fusion GPS and Orbis Business Intelligence, have had with US Government
agencies other than the FBI, and what US Government contracts they were paid for, before the
Republican and Democratic Party organizations commissioned the anti-Trump job?
The House Committee has subpoenaed business records from Fusion, but Simpson's lawyers say
they will refuse to hand them over. The financial records of Steele's firm are openly
accessible through the UK government company registry, Companies House. Click to read
here .
Because the Trump dossier work ran from the second half of 2015 to November 2016, the
financial reports of Orbis for the financial years ending March 31, 2016, and March 31, 2017,
are the primary sources. For FY 2016 and FY 2017, open this link to read.
The papers reveal that Orbis was a small firm with no more than 7 employees. Steele's
business partner and co-shareholder, Christopher Burrows, is another former MI6 spy. They had
been hoping for MI6 support of their private business, but it failed to materialize, says an
London intelligence source. "Chris Burrows is another from the same background. They all hope
to be Hakluyt [a leading commercial intelligence operation in London] but didn't get the nod on
departure."
Left: Christopher Steele; right, Christopher Burrows.
They do not report the Orbis income. Instead, for 2016 the company filings indicate
£155,171 in cash at the bank, and income of £245,017 owed by clients and
contractors. Offsetting that figure, Orbis owed £317,848 – to whom and for what
purposes is not reported. The unaudited accounts show Orbis's profit jumped from £121,046
in 2015 to £199,223 in 2016, and £441,089 in 2017.
The financial data are complicated by the operation by Steele and Burrows of a second
company, Orbis Business Intelligence International, a subsidiary they created in 2010, a year
after the parent company was formed. Follow its affairs here .
According to British press reports ,
Orbis and Steele were paid £200,000 for the dossier. Simpson told the House Intelligence
Committee the sum was much less -- $160,000 (about £114,000). Simpson's firm, he also
testified, was being paid at a rate of about $50,000 per month for a total of about $320,000.
If the British sources are more accurate than Simpson's testimony, Steele's takings from the
dossier represented roughly half the profit on the Orbis balance-sheet.
British sources also report that a US Government agency paid for Orbis to work on evidence
and allegations of corruption at the world soccer federation, Fédération
Internationale de Football (FIFA). Indictments in this case were issued by the US Department of
Justice in
May 2015 , and the following
December . What role the two-partner British consultancy played in the complex
investigations by teams from the Justice Department, the FBI and also the Internal Revenue
Service is unclear. That Steele, Burrows and Orbis depended on US government sources for their
financial well-being appears to be certain.
Another reported version of the FIFA contract is that Steele, Burrows and Orbis were hired
by the British Football Association to collect materials on FIFA corruption, and provide them
to the FBI and other US investigators, and then to the press. The scheme's objective was
reportedly to advance the British bidding for the World Cup in 2018 or 2022 by discrediting the
rival bids from Russia and Qatar. Click to
read . Were MI6 and CIA sources mobilized by Orbis to feed the FBI with evidence the US
investigators were unable to turn up, or was Orbis the conduit through which disinformation
targeting Russia was fed to make it appear more credible to the FBI, and to the media?
US Congressional investigators have so far failed to notice the similarities between the
FIFA and the Trump dossier operations. Early this month two Republican members of the Senate
Judiciary Committee announced
that they have called for a Justice Department and FBI investigation of Steele for providing
false information to the FBI. The provision of the US code making lying a
federal crime requires the falsehoods occur "within the jurisdiction of the executive,
legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States." Simpson has testified
that when Steele briefed the FBI on the dossier, he did so at meetings in Rome, Italy.
Now then, Part I and this
sequel of the Simpson-Steele story having been read and thoroughly mulled over, what can the
meaning be?
In the short run, this case was a black job assigned by Republican Party candidates for
president, then the Democratic National Committee, for the purpose of discrediting Trump in
favour of Hillary Clinton. It failed on Election Day in 2016; the Democrats are still
trying.
In the long run, the case is a measurement of the life, or the half-life, of truth. Giuseppe
di Lampedusa wrote once that nowhere has truth so short a life as in Sicily. On his clock, that
was five minutes. He didn't know the United States, or shall we say the stretch from Washington
through New York to the North End of Boston. There, truth has an even shorter life. Scarcely a
second.
I pay pretty close attention to this topic and I must say I sometimes wonder if the
Russians haven’t sold the rope to the American political elite. I read all 311 pages of
Simpson’s testimony. I was struck that much of what he was “fed” by Steele
confirmed his “OMG Russia corruption” biases.
And I say “fed to him” when I’m in a generous mood, giving him the
benefit of the doubt, because usually I am of the opinion that he’s either a really
crappy CIA agent posing as a journalist or just a garden variety rat f*!@er. A black job
political operative, stitching together a few almost-believable “facts” and
out-and-out fabrications with squishy words like “collusion” and
“ties.”
London due diligence firms say the record of Simpson’s firm Fusion GPS and
Steele’s Orbis Business Intelligence operations in the US has discredited them in the
due diligence market. The London experts believe the Senate Committee transcript shows
Simpson and Steele were hired for the black job of discrediting the target of their
research, Trump; did a poor job; failed in 2016; and now are engaged in bitter
recriminations against each other to avoid multi-million dollar court penalties.
A source at a London firm which is larger and better known than Steele’s Orbis
says “standard due diligence means getting to the truth. It’s confidential to
the client, and not leaked. There are also black jobs, white jobs, and red jobs. Black
means the client wants you to dig up dirt on the target, and make it look credible for
publishing in the press. White means the client wants you to clear him of the wrongdoing
which he’s being accused of in the media or the marketplace; it’s also leaked
to the press. A red job is where the client pays the due diligence firm to hire a
journalist to find out what he knows and what he’s likely to publish, in order to
bribe or stop him. The Steele dossier on Trump is an obvious black job. Too
obvious.”
I read all 311 pages of Simpson’s testimony. I was struck that much of what he was
“fed” by Steele confirmed his “OMG Russia corruption” biases.
Same here, but not just about what he was fed by Steele. Simpson claimed to have done some
of his own research and said it was consistent with what he got from Steele.
I’m about three-quarters of the way through the transcript of Simpson’s
interrogation by the House Intelligence Committee, and I’ve read all 312 pages of the
Senate Judiciary Committee transcript, which bears little resemblance to what was reported in
the major media – shocking, I know.
Among the “bombshells” the mainstream reported was “proof” that it
wasn’t the dossier that launched the FBI’s investigation of Trump, and therefore
the dossier couldn’t have been used as justification for a FISA warrant. A bigger
bombshell, which of course none of them mentioned, is that Simpson, with his client’s
consent, was secretly briefing Clinton-friendly reporters on information from Steele’s
memos, and they used it to write stories based on “unnamed sources.” He even
admitted that he didn’t verify the information before feeding it to the media, said he
didn’t feel he needed to, because it came from a trustworthy source. Where have we
heard that before?
Few in the NC commentariat, at least from what I saw, had any problem accepting that the
DNC and the Clinton campaign funded the dossier, so I’m wondering why it’s that
much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole thing. It’s
well-established that the State Department often acts as a cover for the CIA, and the agency
under Secretary Clinton had a strong anti-Russia faction that’s on the record as
meddling in Ukraine’s presidential election. And how much doubt could there be that
both Clintons kept the CIA connections they made while in office?
Then there was the whole “Grizzly Steppe” report just before Trump’s
inauguration, presented as a consensus among “17 intelligence agencies” that the
Russians “hacked the election” to help Trump win.
I’m not 100-percent convinced that U.S. intelligence was behind the dossier, but
it’s enough of a possibility that I’m not writing it off as some nutty
“conspiracy theory.”
Few in the NC commentariat, at least from what I saw, had any problem accepting that
the DNC and the Clinton campaign funded the dossier, so I’m wondering why it’s
that much of a stretch to believe that the CIA might have engineered the whole
thing.
FWIW this NC commenter has never had any problem believing that this may be the case. In
fact I am fairly certain that it is the case, although from what I understand the FBI and MI6
were also involved.
Adding: Heh. I posted this before looking at Rev Kev’s link to the Raimondo article,
which comes to the same conclusions. Interesting times!
I believe that Seth Abramson or someone put photographs to the Steele dossier showing
people in the places & at the times delineated in the Steele dossier.
From the very first Steele said he would not & could not reveal his sources. It was from
the first indicated that it would be to the FBI & CIA to discover.
He said he believed that his sources were credible.
When I was studying Intelligence services the CIA was said to be the private army of the CIA.
These days I don’t know exactly who the CIA works for, or answers to.
I certainly don’t think well of the CIA believing they are wrapped up working for their
Front businesses more than focusing on the mission of spying in the interests of the American
people.
Of private intelligence companies I get what I can from IHS Jane’s.
That the CIA lost 20 assets, human beings, in China for incompetent secret communications
methods would lead professionals to withhold as much of identities as possible.
For awhile there I believe Steele was worried about his own health.
David Corn at Mother Jones was reticent to break the story.
So now what I see to look for is what Steele said needed to be done, & that being what
Mueller is doing at the behest of the DOJ.
The US has been at war, albeit Hybrid war since the imposition of sanctions for their
violations of international law as regarded the annexation of Crimea & the attack on the
Ukraine.
Sanctions are Economic Warfare.
That the US feels the right to engage in warfare of any kind Economic or Hot over violations
of International Law leads me to believe that the UN will fail to prevent the apocalyptic
riot.
But that as regards Trump becomes neither here nor there, correct?
William Binney, former NSA technical official and whistleblower, comments on the FISA
memo, that has apparently just been released. Obviously, a major development in
‘Russia-gate’.
If you want a vision of the future, don't imagine "a boot stamping on a human face -- for
ever," as Orwell suggested in 1984 . Instead, imagine that human face staring mesmerized
into the screen of some kind of nifty futuristic device on which every word, sound, and image
has been algorithmically approved for consumption by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ("DARPA") and its
"innovation ecosystem" of "academic, corporate, and governmental partners."
The screen of this futuristic device will offer a virtually unlimited range of
"non-divisive" and "hate-free" content, none of which will falsify or distort the "truth," or
in any way deviate from "reality." Western consumers will finally be free to enjoy an
assortment of news, opinion, entertainment, and educational content (like this Guardian
podcast about a man who
gave birth , or MSNBC's latest bombshell about
Donald Trump's secret Russian oligarch backers ) without having their enjoyment totally
ruined by discord-sowing alternative journalists like Aaron Maté or satirists like
myself.
"Fake news" will not appear on this screen. All the news will be "authentic." DARPA and its
partners will see to that. You won't have to worry about being "influenced" by Russians, Nazis,
conspiracy theorists, socialists, populists, extremists, or whomever. Such Persons of Malicious
Intent will still be able to post their content (because of "freedom of speech" and all that
stuff), but they will do so down in the sewers of the Internet where normal consumers won't
have to see it. Anyone who ventures down there looking for it (i.e., such "divisive" and
"polarizing" content) will be immediately placed on an official DARPA watchlist for "potential
extremists," or "potential white supremacists," or "potential Russians."
Once that happens, their lives will be over (i.e., the lives of the potentially extremist
fools who have logged onto whatever dark web platform will still be posting essays like this,
not the lives of the Persons of Malicious Intent, who never had any lives to begin with, and
who by that time will probably be operating out of some heavily armed, off-the-grid compound in
Idaho). Their schools, employers, and landlords will be notified. Their photos and addresses
will be published online. Anyone who ever said two words to them (or, God help them, appears in
a photograph with them) will have 24 hours to publicly denounce them, or be placed on
DARPA’s watchlist themselves.
"... It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then president, Donald Trump that he "colluded" with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016 presidential election -- and, still more, that Vladimir Putin's regime, "America's No. 1 threat," had compromising material on Trump that made him its "puppet." Or a more fraudulent accusation. ..."
"... Was it plausible, for example, that Trump, a longtime owner and operator of international hotels, would commit an indiscreet act in a Moscow hotel that he did not own or control? Or that, as Steele also claimed, high-level Kremlin sources had fed him damning anti-Trump information even though their vigilant boss, Putin, wanted Trump to win the election? ..."
"... Nor was Russian "meddling" in the election anything akin to a "digital Pearl Harbor," as widely asserted, and it was certainly far less and less intrusive than President Bill Clinton's political and financial "interference" undertaken to assure the reelection of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996. ..."
"... Nonetheless, Russiagate's core allegation persists, like a legend, in American political life -- in media commentary, in financial solicitations by some Democratic candidates for Congress, and, as is clear from my own discussions, in the minds of otherwise well-informed people. The only way to dispel, to excoriate, such a legend is to learn and expose how it began -- by whom, when, and why. ..."
"... Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? ..."
"... the repeatedly hapless Comey seems incapable of having initiated such an audacious operation against a presidential candidate, still less a president-elect. As I have long suggested, John Brennan and James Clapper, head of the CIA and Office of National Intelligence under Obama respectively, are the more likely culprits. ..."
"... First and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in Russiagate.) ..."
"... At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be asked about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and would do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy. ..."
It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic
allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then
president, Donald Trump that he "colluded" with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016
presidential election -- and, still more, that Vladimir Putin's regime, "America's No. 1
threat," had compromising material on Trump that made him its "puppet." Or a more fraudulent
accusation.
Even leaving aside the misperception
that Russia is the primary threat to America in world affairs, no aspect of this allegation has
turned out to be true, as should have been evident from the outset. Major aspects of the now
infamous Steele Dossier, on which much of the allegation was based, were themselves not merely
"unverified" but plainly implausible.
Was it plausible, for example, that Trump, a longtime owner and operator of
international hotels, would commit an indiscreet act in a Moscow hotel that he did not own or
control? Or that, as Steele also claimed, high-level Kremlin sources had fed him damning
anti-Trump information even though their vigilant boss, Putin, wanted Trump to win the
election? Nonetheless, the American mainstream media and other important elements of the
US political establishment relied on Steele's allegations for nearly three years, even
heroizing him -- and some still do, explicitly or implicitly.
Not surprisingly, former special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of "collusion"
between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. No credible evidence has been produced that
Russia's "interference" affected the result of the 2016 presidential election in any
significant way. Nor was Russian "meddling" in the election anything akin to a "digital
Pearl Harbor," as widely asserted, and it was certainly far less and less intrusive than
President Bill Clinton's political and financial "interference" undertaken to assure the
reelection of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996.
Nonetheless, Russiagate's core allegation persists, like a legend, in American political
life -- in media commentary, in financial solicitations by some Democratic candidates for
Congress, and, as is clear from my own discussions, in the minds of otherwise well-informed
people. The only way to dispel, to excoriate, such a legend is to learn and expose how it began
-- by whom, when, and why.
Officially, at least in the FBI's version, its operation "Crossfire Hurricane," the
counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign that began in mid-2016 was due to
suspicious remarks made to visitors by a young and lowly Trump aide, George Papadopoulos. This
too is not believable, as I pointed out previously .
Most of those visitors themselves had ties to Western intelligence agencies. That is, the young
Trump aide was being enticed, possibly entrapped, as part of a larger intelligence operation
against Trump. (Papadopoulos wasn't the only Trump associate targeted, Carter Page being
another.)
But the question remains: Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems
clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? A reflexive answer
might be because candidate Trump promised to "cooperate with Russia," to pursue a
pro-détente foreign policy, but this was hardly a startling, still less subversive,
advocacy by a would-be Republican president. All of the major pro-détente episodes in
the 20th century had been initiated by Republican presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, and
Reagan.
So, again, what was it about Trump that so spooked the spooks so far off their rightful
reservation and so intrusively into American presidential politics? Investigations being
overseen by Attorney General William Barr may provide answers -- or not. Barr has already
leveled procedural charges against James Comey, head of the FBI under President Obama and
briefly under President Trump, but the repeatedly hapless Comey seems incapable of having
initiated such an audacious operation against a presidential candidate, still less a
president-elect. As I have long suggested, John Brennan and James Clapper, head of the CIA and
Office of National Intelligence under Obama respectively, are the more likely
culprits.
The FBI is no longer the fearsome organization it once was and thus not hard to investigate,
as Barr has already shown. The others, particularly the CIA, are a different matter, and Barr
has suggested they are resisting. To investigate them, particularly the CIA, it seems, he has
brought in a veteran prosecutor-investigator, John Durham.
Which raises other questions. Are Barr and Durham, whose own careers include associations
with US intelligence agencies, determined to uncover the truth about the origins of Russiagate?
And can they really do so fully, given the resistance already apparent? Even if so, will Barr
make public their findings, however damning of the intelligence agencies they may be, or will
he classify them? And if the latter, will President Trump use his authority to declassify the
findings as the 2020 presidential election approaches in order to discredit the role of Obama's
presidency and its would-be heirs?
Equally important perhaps, how will mainstream media treat the Barr-Durham investigation and
its findings? Having driven the Russiagate narrative for so long and so misleadingly -- and
with liberals perhaps finding themselves in the incongruous position of defending rogue
intelligence agencies -- will they credit or seek to discredit the findings?
It is true, of course, that Barr and Durham, as Trump appointees, are not the ideal
investigators of Intel misdeeds in the Russiagate saga. Much better would be a truly
bipartisan, independent investigation based in the Senate, as was the Church Committee of the
mid-1970s, which exposed and reformed (it thought at the time) serious abuses by US
intelligence agencies. That would require, however, a sizable core of nonpartisan, honorable,
and courageous senators of both parties, who thus far seem to be lacking.
There are also, however, the ongoing and upcoming Democratic presidential debates. First
and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not
about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in
Russiagate.)
At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be asked
about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and would
do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the
host ofThe John Batchelor Show
. Now in their sixth year, previous installments are atTheNation.com .
Stephen
F. Cohen Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New
York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book
War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback
and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show, now
in their sixth year, are available at www.thenation.com .
Jean Seberg on a phone call during the filming of 'Joan of Arc', directed by
Otto Preminger, in 1957, in London
( AFP/Getty )
T
he circumstances of
Jean Seberg
's death 40 years ago in late August 1979 were squalid and pathetic. The American star's body lay
decomposing in a car on a street in
Paris
for 10 days before the French police discovered it. There was a bottle of barbiturates and a suicide note
beside the corpse. As the press reported, her body had "baked in the sun" and the odour was "unimaginably foul". This
was the actress who, at the start of her career, was described as "so unimaginably fresh" by her colleagues.
Paris
was the city with which Seberg was most closely associated. Every film lover remembers her in
Jean-Luc Godard
's
Breathless
(1960) in her white
New York Herald Tribune
T-shirt, selling newspapers and gallivanting around the streets with her co-star,
Jean-Paul Belmondo.
Seberg had one of the strangest and most contradictory careers of any
Hollywood
star during the postwar years.
"She was so misunderstood. It's not like you need to hero-worship a celebrity, they are just people you want to
look at. The fact that people stared at her and fixated on things that were not real, projections: that really
ultimately destroyed her,"
Kristen Stewart
, who plays her in the new film,
Seberg
, commented recently of the ill-fated actress in a
Vanity Fair
interview. As an actress who has worked on both big Hollywood productions like
Twilight
and in independent French arthouse features, Stewart seems perfectly qualified to play her.
Seberg
, a world premiere at the
Venice film festival
, isn't a straight biopic. Its focus is its subject's deadly entanglement with the
FBI
. Days after her suicide, the FBI admitted that its agents had plotted to ruin her reputation as part of their
counter-intelligence programme, Cointelpro, authorised by FBI founder,
J Edgar Hoover
himself. Seberg's crime, in Hoover's eyes, was her involvement in political causes and her support
of the
Black Panther Party
. In particular, they were suspicious of her close links with Black Power leader, Hakim Jamal
(played in the film by Anthony Mackie).
Kristen Stewart as Jean
Seberg
in Benedict
Andrews's film '
Seberg
'
(Amazon Studios)
In 1970, the FBI planted the false rumour that Seberg was pregnant by a Black Panther Party member in order to
"cause her embarrassment" and "cheapen her image" with the American public. Their plan worked. It was dispiriting but
inevitable that some gossip columnists followed the false leads that the FBI dangled in front of them. From the FBI's
point of view, she was involved in radical politics, had contributed financially to the Black Panthers and was
therefore fair game. The story was picked up by gossip columnist, Joyce Haber, who referred obliquely to it in the
Los Angeles Times
.
Newsweek
also wrote about it and named Seberg.
"Under the ruthless gaze of the FBI, the threads of Jean's life come apart," Benedict Andrews, the director of
Seberg
, pointed out. The assault on her reputation set in motion the events that led to her death a decade
later. At the time of the leak, Seberg had indeed been pregnant. In the wake of reading the false stories about
herself, she went into labour. Her baby was born prematurely and died a few days later.
The woman Hoover set out to crush was the quintessential young American, "the golden sunflower girl" from the
midwest, as she was characterised. A pharmacist's daughter who had grown up in Marshalltown, Iowa, she had won
Hollywood's version of the Lottery by landing the lead role in Otto Preminger's George Bernard Shaw adaptation,
Saint Joan
(1957). The autocratic Preminger had launched a nationwide talent hunt for a new Joan of Arc. A
reported 18,000 girls had sent in pictures and resumes and 3,000 had been given personal auditions. Seberg got the
part. She was the one, as TV show host Ed Sullivan put it, who had "caught lightning in a bottle". It was the
equivalent of Vivien Leigh being cast as Scarlett O'Hara in
Gone With the Wind
(1939).
Seberg
and Jean-Paul
Belmondo
in Jean-Luc
Godard's
'Breathless' (Films Around The World)
Preminger was the perfect gentleman off-set but, when the cameras began to roll, he turned into a bad-tempered
ogre. He used every ruse at his disposal to publicise the film and its new young star. It would have made the perfect
story about overnight stardom if it hadn't been for the fact that the film didn't turn out very well. By her own
admission, Seberg wasn't obvious casting. She talked about being burnt at the stake twice, first in making the movie
and then by the critics. Preminger cast her in a second film,
Bonjour Tristesse
(1958) but then discarded her. "He used me like a Kleenex and then threw me away", is how she
described her treatment at his hands.
The irony is that Preminger had been right all along. Seberg really was a special talent. She had a spontaneity,
mischief and lambent grace on screen that immediately enraptured the young critics and would-be filmmakers from
Cahiers du Cinéma
in France. "When Jean Seberg is on the screen, which is all the time, you can't look at
anything else," Francois Truffaut enthused about her performance in
Bonjour Tristesse
. Godard and Claude Chabrol were equally smitten with her.
In one of the more bizarre transformations in Hollywood history, the midwestern girl-next-door type became the
sacred muse of the French Nouvelle Vague.
Seberg was wryly humorous about the effect she exercised on French male directors. "I was their new Jerry Lewis, I
suppose," she told journalist Rex Reed, comparing herself to the American comedian who made goofy films with Dean
Martin and was treated with near contempt by American critics but revered as "Le Roi du Crazy" by their French
counterparts. "Godard is like a Paul Klee painting, always hiding behind those funny dark glasses," she suggested,
going on to call the French auteurs who worshipped her "very strange little men".
Thanks to
Breathless
, Seberg also became more highly valued back in Hollywood. Director Robert Rossen, who cast her in one
of her greatest roles as the beautiful schizophrenic opposite
Warren Beatty
and
Peter Fonda
in
Lillith
(1964) spoke of her "flawed American girl quality, sort of like a cheerleader who's cracked up". She had
prominent roles in all-star blockbusters like
Airport
(1970) and successfully held her own against such scene-stealers as Lee Marvin and
Clint Eastwood
in
Paint Your Wagon
(1969).
That, though, was the period before Hoover and the FBI set about destroying her just as surely as Otto Preminger
had tried to create her as a star in the late Fifties in the first place.
Preminger and Hoover bookend her career. The media colluded with those two patriarchs, building her up and then
knocking her down.
Elements of Seberg's story are utterly heartbreaking. As Alistair Cooke told British listeners in one of his
Letters from America
broadcasts the week after her death, she took her prematurely born baby's corpse back home
to Iowa "in a glass coffin as a glaring proof that the baby was white – an excessive reaction perhaps but in 1970,
she knew that the FBI could and did destroy hundreds of radicals and non radicals".
On each anniversary of the baby's death, her then-husband Romain Gary later revealed, she had attempted suicide.
Seberg
as the beautiful schizophrenic who starred opposite Warren Beatty and Peter Fonda in '
Lillith
'
(1964) (Glasshouse/Rex)
Seberg continued to work throughout the 1970s, making an experimental film with Philippe Garrel and collaborating
on projects with her third husband, Dennis Berry. She wrote to Ingmar Bergman, the great Swedish director, telling
him that she looked a little like Bibi Andersson, who had starred in Bergman films from
The Seventh Seal
(1957) to
Persona
(1966), and expressing her fervent desire to work with him. The letter is kept in Bergman's archives. He
received it and read it – but didn't deign to reply to it.
If Seberg was feeling marginalised and paranoid in her final years, you could hardly blame her given the FBI
harassment, the upheaval in her private life and the alarming way her career had begun to creak. As her biographer
David Richards notes, she was putting on weight, drinking too much and seemed to be in a state of permanent
"psychological siege". By the late 1970s, she was close to being forgotten. Her death, though, put her right back on
the front pages. The public was reminded of just how abominably she had been treated both by Hollywood and by the
FBI. There was a sense of frustration over talent that had never been properly fulfilled. Then again, as is pointed
out in Mark Rappaport's dramatised documentary,
From The Journals of Jean Seberg
(1995), most of her films may have been "mediocre", but she made one or two
"great ones" and that is more than in most careers. Now, with Stewart portraying her on screen (and already being
talked up for awards), Seberg is likely to be rediscovered all over again
'Seberg' is a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Friday 30 August (labiennale.org). It has its UK premiere
at the London Film Festival on 4 and 5 October (bfi.org.uk)
"... If you enjoyed this original article please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one. ..."
"... Before commenting please read Robert Parry's ..."
"... . Allegations unsupported by facts, gross or misleading factual errors and ad hominem attacks, and abusive language toward other commenters or our writers will be removed. If your comment does not immediately appear, please be patient as it is manually reviewed. ..."
Film 'Official Secrets' is the Tip of a Mammoth Iceberg August 29, 2019 •
37 Comments
A new film depicting the whistleblower Katherine Gun, who tried to stop the Iraq invasion,
is largely accurate, but the story is not over, says Sam Husseini.
T wo-time Oscar nominee Keira Knightley is known for being in "period pieces" such as "Pride
and Prejudice," so her playing the lead in the new film "Official Secrets," scheduled to be
released in the U.S. on Friday, may seem odd at first. That is until one considers that the
time span being depicted -- the early 2003 run-up to the invasion of Iraq -- is one of the most
dramatic and consequential periods of modern human history.
It is also one of the most poorly understood, in part because the story of Katharine Gun,
played by Knightley, is so little known. Having followed this story from the start, I find this
film to be, by Hollywood standards, a remarkably accurate account of what has happened to
date–"to date" because the wider story still isn't over.
Katharine Gun
worked as an analyst for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent
of the secretive U.S. National Security Agency. She tried to stop the impending invasion of
Iraq in early 2003 by exposing the deceit of George W. Bush and Tony Blair in their claims
about that country. For doing that she was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act -- a
juiced up version of the U.S. Espionage Act, which in recent years has been used repeatedly by
the Obama administration against whistleblowers and now by the Trump administration against
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.
Gun was charged for exposing -- around the time of
Colin Powell's infamous testimony to the UN about Iraq's alleged WMDs – a top secret
U.S. government memo showing it was mounting an illegal spying "surge" against other U.N.
Security Council delegations in an effort to manipulate them into voting for an Iraq invasion
resolution. The U.S. and Britain had successfully
forced through a trumped
up resolution, 1441 in November 2002. In early 2003, they were poised to threaten, bribe or
blackmail their way to get formal United Nations authorization for the invasion. [See
recent interview with Gun .]
Katherine Gun The leaked memo, published by the British Observer , was big news in
parts of the world, especially the targeted countries on the Security Council, and helped
prevent Bush and Blair from getting the second UN Security Council resolution they said they
wanted. Veto powers Russia, China and France were opposed as well as U.S. ally Germany.
'Most Courageous Leak' It was the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy,
where I work ( accuracy.org ), Norman
Solomon, as well as Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg who in the U.S. most
immediately saw the importance of what Gun had done. Ellsberg would later comment: "No one else
-- including myself -- has ever done what Katharine Gun did: Tell secret truths at personal
risk, before an imminent war, in time, possibly, to avert it. Hers was the most important --
and courageous -- leak I've ever seen, more timely and potentially more effective than the
Pentagon Papers."
Daniel Ellsberg on the cover of Time after leaking the Pentagon Papers
Gun said: "I went to the local bookshop, and I went into the political section. I found two
books, which had apparently been rushed into publication, one was by Norman Solomon and Reese
Erlich, and it was called Target Iraq . And the
other one was by Milan Rai. It was called War
Plan Iraq . And I bought both of them. And I read them cover to cover that weekend, and
it basically convinced me that there was no real evidence for this war. So I think from that
point onward, I was very critical and scrutinizing everything that was being said in the
media." Thus, we see Gun in "Official Secrets" shouting at the TV to Tony Blair that he's not
entitled to make up facts. The film may be jarring to some consumers of major media who might
think that Donald Trump invented lying in 2017. Gun's immediate action after reading critiques
of U.S. policy and media coverage makes a strong case for trying to reach government workers by
handing out fliers and books and putting up
billboards outside government offices to encourage them to be more critically minded.
Solomon and Ellsberg had debunked Bush administration propaganda in real time. But Gun's
revelation showed that the U.S. and British governments were not only lying to invade Iraq,
they were violating international law to blackmail whole nations to get in line.
Mainstream reviews of "Official Secrets" still seem to not fully grasp the importance of
what they just saw. The trendy AV
Club review leads : "Virtually everyone now agrees that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a
colossal mistake based on faulty (at best) or fabricated (at worst) intelligence." "Mistake" is
a serious understatement even with "colossal" attached to it when the movie details the
diabolical, illegal lengths to which the U.S. and British governments went to get other
governments to go along with it.
Gun's revelations showed before the invasion that people on the inside, whose livelihood
depends on following the party line, were willing to risk jail time to out the lies and
threats.
Portrayal of The Observer
Other than Gun herself, the film focuses on a dramatization of what happened at her work; as
well as her relationship with her husband, a Kurd from Turkey who the British government
attempted to have deported to get at Gun. The film also portrays the work of her lawyers who
helped get the Official Secrets charge against her dropped, as well as the drama at The
Observer , which published the NSA document after much internal debate.
Observer reporter Martin Bright, whose strong work on the original Gun story was
strangely followed by an ill-fated stint at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, has recently noted
that very little
additional work has been done on Gun's case. We know virtually nothing about the apparent
author of the NSA document that she leaked -- one "Frank Koza." Other questions persist, such
is prevalent is this sort of U.S. blackmail of foreign governments to get UN votes or for other
purposes? How is it leveraged? Does it fit in with allegations made by former NSA analyst
Russ
Tice about the NSA having massive files on political people?
Observer reporter Ed Vulliamy is energetically depicted getting tips from former CIA
man Mel Goodman. There do seem to be subtle but potentially serious deviations from reality in
the film. Vulliamy is depicted as actually speaking with "Frank Koza," but that's not what he
originally
reported :
"The NSA main switchboard put The Observer through to extension 6727 at the agency
which was answered by an assistant, who confirmed it was Koza's office. However, when The
Observer asked to talk to Koza about the surveillance of diplomatic missions at the
United Nations, it was then told 'You have reached the wrong number'. On protesting that the
assistant had just said this was Koza's extension, the assistant repeated that it was an
erroneous extension, and hung up."
There must doubtlessly be many aspects of the film that have been simplified or altered
regarding Gun's personal experience. A compelling part of the film -- apparently fictitious or
exaggerated -- is a GCHQ apparatchik questioning Gun to see if she was the source.
Little is known about the reaction inside the governments of Security Council members that
the U.S. spied on. After the invasion, Mexican Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser spoke in blunt
terms about U.S. bullying -- saying it viewed Mexico as its patio trasero , or back yard
-- and was Zinser was compelled to resign by President Vicente Fox. He then,
in 2004 , gave details about some aspects of U.S. surveillance sabotaging the efforts of
the other members of the Security Council to hammer out a compromise to avert the invasion of
Iraq, saying the U.S. was "violating the U.N. headquarters covenant." In 2005, he tragically
died in a car crash
.
Documents
leaked by Edward Snowden and published by The Intercept in 2016 boasted of how the NSA
"during the wind-up to the Iraq War 'played a critical role' in the adoption of U.N. Security
Council resolutions. The work with that customer was a resounding success." The relevant
document specifically cites resolutions 1441 and 1472 and quotes John Negroponte ,
then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations: "I can't imagine better intelligence support
for a diplomatic mission." (Notably, The Intercept has never published a word on "
Katharine Gun ." )
Nor were the UN Security Council members the only ones on the U.S. hit list to pave the way
for the Iraq invasion. Brazilian Jose Bustani, the director-general of the international
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. was ousted in an effective coup by John
Bolton in April of 2002 . Bolton is now national security adviser.
"Official Secrets" director Gavin Hood is perhaps more right than he realizes when he says
that his depiction of the Gun case is like the "tip of an iceberg," pointing to other deceits
surrounding the Iraq war. His record with political films has been uneven until now. Peace
activist David Swanson, for instance, derided his film on drones, " Eye in the Sky ." At a D.C. showing of "Official Secrets,"
Hood depicted those who backed the Iraq war as being discredited. But that's simply untrue.
Keira Knightley appears as Katherine Gun in Official Secrets (Courtesy of Sundance
Institute.)
Leading presidential candidate Joe Biden -- who not only voted for the Iraq invasion, but
presided over rigged
hearings on in 2002 – has recently falsified
his record repeatedly on Iraq
at presidential debates with hardly a murmur. Nor is he alone. Those refusing to be held
accountable for their Iraq war lies include not just Bush and Cheney, but John Kerry and
Nancy
Pelosi .
Biden has actually faulted Bush for not doing enough to get United Nations approval for the
Iraq invasion. But as the Gun case helps show, there was no legitimate case for invasion and
the Bush administration had done virtually everything, both legal and illegal, to get UN
authorization.
Many who supported the invasion try to distance themselves from it. But the repercussions of
that illegal act are enormous: It led directly or indirectly to the rise of ISIS, the civil war
in Iraq and the war in Syria. Journalists who pushed for the Iraq invasion are prosperous and
atop major news organizations, such as Washington Post editorial page editor
Fred Hiatt. The
editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at The
Observer , Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News.
After Gun's identity became known, the Institute for Public Accuracy brought on Jeff Cohen,
the founder of FAIR, to work with program director Hollie Ainbinder to get prominent
individuals to support
Gun . The film -- quite plausibly -- depicts the charges being dropped against Gun for the
simple reason that the British government feared that a high profile proceeding would
effectively put the war on trial, which to them would be have been a nightmare.
Sam Husseini is an independent journalist, senior analyst at the Institute for Public
Accuracy and founder of VotePact.org .
Follow him on twitter: @samhusseini .
If you enjoyed this original article please consider
making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
Before commenting please read Robert Parry'sComment Policy.
Allegations unsupported by facts, gross or misleading factual errors and ad hominem attacks,
and abusive language toward other commenters or our writers will be removed. If your comment
does not immediately appear, please be patient as it is manually reviewed.
David G , August 31, 2019 at 19:49
Saw the film today. Solid work; recommended.
Did her ultimate court appearance really go down in such a dramatic fashion? I suppose I
shouldn't be surprised if it did: English courtroom proceedings may not deliver better
justice than U.S. ones, but they're definitely more entertaining.
William , August 31, 2019 at 19:06
U.S. Government officials should be indicted for war crimes. It is quite clear that U.S.
officials conspired to ensure that an invasion
of Iraq would take place. The U.S. and Britain -- George Bush and Tony Blair -- initiated a
war of aggression against Iraq, and under
international law should be tried for war crimes, just as numerous German officials were
tried and convicted of war crimes.
No U.S. politician has called for investigation, and the main stream media has not touched
this topic. It is unquestionably clear that
the U.S. congress is a collection of spineless, cowardly, corrupt, greedy men and women. They
have allowed the U.S. to become a rogue,
criminal nation.
Katherine Gun is awesome! I heard her speak as part of a panel of whistleblowers –
wish there were many more like her
michael , August 31, 2019 at 08:15
Inequality.org reports that the majority of our top 1% are corporate executives. Finance,
which reportedly accounted for 3% of our economy in 1980, now accounts for 30%. Many of the
US's 585 billionaires have monopolies in their business domain, no different from the Robber
Barons of the late 19th and early 20th century. "Stability is more important than democracy",
the market hates uncertainty, and our foreign policies, determined by think tanks staffed and
funded by our "allies" Israel and Saudi Arabia, will continue to push for the greed of our
Richest. "Democracy" is a just a hypocritical bon mot for stealing and destroying.
The Republicans have always supported these people. What is worrisome is that the Democrats
have come to the same place as the GOP, since donations– pay-to-play- lead to
re-elections. The Democrats have deserted the Poor and working class, since they have no
money for pay-to-play. Our 17 technologically advanced Stasis work in concert with Congress,
our entitled government bureaucrats, and their lapdog main stream media to "make things
happen" for our Richest. How long before people like Assange, Katherine Gunn, Chelsea
Manning, Edward Snowden, Binney, Kiriakou etc learn that it pays to keep their mouths shut?
Transparency and whistleblowing is punished. Maybe other approaches are needed?
Tony , August 31, 2019 at 07:26
Very interesting to see what inspired her to act the way that she did.
Of course, the supporters of the war had various motives.
But one motive behind President Bush's plan was revealed by Russ Baker in his book 'Family of
Secrets' page 423.
He recalls a conversation with Bush family friend and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. He
says that he told him:
"He (George W. Bush) was thinking about invading in 1999."
Bush apparently said:
"If I have a chance to invade if I had that much (political) capital, I'm not going to
waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed, and I'm going to have
a successful presidency."
So there we have it, he thought that a war would boost his presidency.
David G , August 31, 2019 at 05:16
"The editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at The
Observer, Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News."
That's a repulsive little nugget I would never have known otherwise.
Thanks to Sam Husseini for this account. The film is playing in my town, at least for this
coming week; I plan to get to it.
RomeoCharlie29 , August 30, 2019 at 19:24
This is a really interesting story and one I knew nothing about, although I was one who
opposed the Iraq war because to me it was obvious the whole WMD issue was bullshit. Now I
understand the perception that that war was an American/ Brit thing but you might recall that
America's deputy Sheriff in the Pacific, the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, was Gung
ho for the war and committed Australian troops to the ill-fated endeavour with the result
that our country has subsequently become a target for ISIS inspired terrorism. Australia's
Opposition Leader at the time, Simon Crean led a vocal opposition to the war but "Little
Johnny" as we called him was not to be denied. Incidentally I don't think he has ever
admitted being wrong on this.
Xander Arena , August 30, 2019 at 18:15
Tip of an iceberg is right. Iraq was the second big lie of the 21st century. I wonder how
the world will react to the University of Alaska Fairbanks report which proves fraud at NIST,
and arguably reveals aiding and abetting of treason by the contractors who wrote NIST's
analysis of the WTC7 destruction. The UAF report drops Tuesday 9/3/19, and chisels away at
the big lie that preceded all the related Iraq deceit. BTW great article :)
Dan Anderson , August 30, 2019 at 16:49
I enjoyed the article and learned some things, but it does seem a bit of Hollywood
promotion at the same time.
If only Gun's sacrifice had stopped the invasion it would have been a sensation. As is,
the UN did not sanction the invasion, making that effort a bit moot, and since the reveal of
NSA bugging the world under Obama that dulls the sensibilities of those who might today have
otherwise been shocked, shocked like the Gary Powers U-2 spy plane downing over the USSR and
Ike being caught in a lie on TV.
But overall, knowing the downhill Gun's livelihood has taken over the 15 years makes the
story more of a warning for whistle blowers than inspiration. Maybe Gun will be well
compensated by the movie makers!
Neil E Mac , August 30, 2019 at 15:54
En fin!
bevin , August 30, 2019 at 14:13
One thing is certain: The Observer of 2019 would not publish a story like this. That is
one of the major changes since 2003: the capitalist media has tightened up. There are no
longer papers competing to attract readers at risk of cozy relations with the State. The
Observer/Guardian today – since the Snowden revelations- does what it is told.
Litchfield , August 30, 2019 at 13:16
"In 2005, he tragically died in a car crash."
Unfortunately -- or fortunately? -- this no longer seems to be credible when it comes to
those who have gone ouit on a limb to challenge the Deep State, or the US version of the Deep
State.
Can Bush and Blair be charged with crimes? In connection with the Third Reich there is
AFAIK no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity. Well, Iraq was also full of
'humanity." These guys belong in The Hague. Or in Iraq, doing community service.
In connection with Ellsberg's reviewing the evidence and concluding there was no
evidentiary justification for invading Iraq -- I wanna say, you didn't need to be Ellsberg or
any kind of expert to see clearly that there was no evidence that justified invading Iraq.
Millions of common folk could see this clearly. That is why over 14 million people worldwide
demonstrated against the planned illegal invasion. That is why people like me when to NYC, to
Washington, and also the front our local US Post Office in small towns all over the country
to protest the country's being lied into war. And were greeted mostly with thumbs-up from the
passers- and drivers-by.
The people knew it was all a pack of lies. It was the gullible PRESS that ginned up this
show. Remember Judith what's her name at the NYT? These people also should be indicted as war
criminals.
Dan Anderson , August 30, 2019 at 16:19
Judith Miller, the NYTimes reporter who did maybe the most to make the invasion of Iraq,
is the last name you were seeking.
SteveF , August 30, 2019 at 12:22
The timescales are interesting, we have the alleged US blackmail to get this illegal war
'approved' by the UN and in the same timescale we have the Jeffery Epstein story unfolding
and the corresponding allegations that he was a CIA/Mossad agent operating honey traps to
entangle the rich and famous.
The evil machinations of our governments are indeed breathtaking.
As we can see from so very many modern instances, it matters not at all that truth is on
your side, if what you are doing is attacking those with money and power.
And there's an entire American establishment dedicated to keeping it just that way.
America's history of the last half century, at least so far as foreign relations and
control of an empire, is almost entirely an artificial construct.
Absolutely no truth in everything from John Kennedy's assassination, which was intimately
concerned with America's relationship with Cuba, and the despicable Vietnam War to 9/11 and
the despicable Neocon Wars in the Middle East.
From hundreds of millions of printed newspapers and television broadcasts to speeches from
prominent American politicians, you have tissue of lies not unlike that that was constantly
being created by Oceania's Inner Party in 1984.
That's not even the slightest exaggeration, but, truly, are Americans in general the least
concerned or bothered?
We have no evidence of significant concern. None.
The Democratic Party just weeded out the only candidate it had, brave and informed enough
to speak to truth in some of these matters.
The ten left just represent varying degrees of hopelessness. On and on with weaving dreams
about this or that creative social program while the resources and close attention dedicated
to destruction in a dozen lands make them all impossible.
At the sae time, there is an almost complete lack of information and courage about
anything that is happening in Syria, in Iraq, in Libya, in Israel, and in such massively
important countries as China, Russia, and Iran.
Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are brave contemporary examples of the American
establishment's methods for shutting down truth and punishing severely those who reveal it.
While they have followers and supporters, I am always amazed at how relatively small their
numbers are.
And we have remarkably few individuals like Manning or Assange, especially when you
consider the scale and scope of America's many dark works. Mostly, we see only "willing
helpers" carrying on with their sensitive, secretive careers in government.
In the Democratic nomination contest, the "star" liberals, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren, are virtually no different in these absolutely critical matters than a confirmed old
puke of a war criminal like Joe Biden, someone who probably deserves recognition as father of
Obama's industrial-scale extrajudicial killing project with drones and Hellfire missiles
making legally-innocent people in a dozen countries just disappear. Biden has a long record
of smarmy deeds and lack of courage and principles. He is, of course, most likely to get the
nomination too.
Act, from America's CIA, no different in principle and in law to those of the old
Argentine military junta's massive efforts at dragging people off the streets, drugging them,
and throwing them out of planes over the ocean, something they did to thousands. Oh, and
during that wonderful project there were no objections from America, only silence.
Aimee , August 30, 2019 at 22:31
Excellent post. Agree completely. Tulsi was our only hope and she never had a chance. We
are doomed.
Coleen Rowley , August 30, 2019 at 23:29
Here are some of the reasons for the ever lessening concern over US-NATO-Israel-Saudi's
(aka our current Empire's) wars: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/04/recipe-concocted-for-perpetual-war-is-a-bitter-one/
By the way my co-author and I tried unsuccessfully to get this published in about 15
different US papers before Robert Parry posted it on Consortiumnews.
Robert Edwards , August 30, 2019 at 11:17
It's time these liers and war criminals are brought to Justice – I know that's
wishful , but sometimes wishes come true America must get back to a country run on integrity
and honesty, otherwise all will be lost in the spiral of evil
Sorry, but, oh please, America is lost. Has been so for a very long time.
Only tremendous outside influences like depression or war and the growth of competing
states and the loss of the dollar's privileged status, are going to change the reality.
America's feeble democratic system is capable of changing almost nothing. After all, it
was constructed with just that in mind.
john wilson , August 31, 2019 at 05:07
I think think the real worry is that these days they don't even bother to lie anymore and
they just do what they want. Think Venezuela.
Guy , August 30, 2019 at 10:42
"Other questions persist, such is prevalent is this sort of U.S. blackmail of foreign
governments to get UN votes or for other purposes? How is it leveraged? Does it fit in with
allegations made by former NSA analyst Russ Tice about the NSA having massive files on
political people?"
This also stands out , as given what we now know is standard modus opendi of CIA / Mossad
operations ,due to the Epstein arrest and ensuing information , who knows what is used to
leverage other nations to follow along with US and in this case UK demands.Birds of a feather
fly together.
Very good report by Sam Husseini.
Litchfield , August 30, 2019 at 13:32
Absolutely. It is an obvious avenue now to investigate: How did the Epstein operation
impact on the decision to invade Iraq? How were teh votes wrung out for the war authorization
in October 2002?
Regarding Kerry, as a resident of Mass. I couldn't believe that Vietnam vet Kerry would
vote Yes on the war authorization act. I called his office a number of time to beg him to
vote no. Rumors emanated from within his office in Boston or wherever that phone calls from
constituents were running 180 to 1 urging him to vote NO. But he voted YES anyhow.
I simply believe that Yalie Kerry didn't see what was up with the obvious lying that drove
the runup to an illegal invasion. This is the kind of scenario where one now has to wonder --
and ask openly -- whether Kerry had been compromised in some way that made him vulnerable to
blackmail. Why the hell else would he vote so stupidly?
Recall that Scott Ritter ran afoul of some kind of sex trap and so he, one of the most
knowledgeable and outspoken critics of the fake WMD narrative, was effectively muzzled.
Did Kerry have a little skeleton in the closet somewhere?
The same could be asked of all the esp. Democratic legislators who voted YES. Because we
now understand which state in the EAstern Med wanted the war most and profited the most from
it. We now know how deep and how wide the tentacles of that state's intelligence service
intrude into our own national sphere, our Congress, our own intelligence services, our media,
and, most likely, our military. Epstein seems to been part f this web of pressure and
blackmail.
Epstein is gone, but Ghislaine Maxwell apparently still runs free.
Let's bring her in for questioning specifically about pressure applied on the Oct. 2002 vote.
(Although some speculate that she, too, is already dead.)
Guy , August 30, 2019 at 10:23
At a time when despair in political affairs is very depressing ,it is very refreshing to
see that the voices of reason are being vindicated.
I really want to see this film as this is the first time that I hear of the voice of
Katherine Gun .Bless her heart for standing up and her efforts to warn of deception . Does
the film make any mention of Dr.David Kelly's so-called suicide / murder ? Will have to wait
ans see.
Thank you CN for once again coming through for your excellent report.
Pablo , August 30, 2019 at 10:15
Lawrence Wilkerson (Powell's Chief of Staff?) told me that Collin knew Bush was
fabricating, but went to the U.N. as a "loyal foot soldier".
AnneR , August 30, 2019 at 08:25
Thank you, Sam Husseini, for this overview of the background – real story – to
the film Official Secrets.
To be frank, I'd not heard of Katherine Gun's revelations at the time – not
surprising because I don't think that the US MSM gave the leak any oxygen. They were all too
gung-ho for the war.
While the film undoubtedly soft-pedals some of the story and likely doesn't reveal or make
explicit as much as we'd all hope, I really do hope that it receives at least as much
publicity (good) and viewing as that execrable film Zero dark Thirty which basically
supported the CIA and its torturers. But somehow I doubt that.
TomR , August 31, 2019 at 06:19
Zero Dark Thirty is just about the worst bullshit fake narrative put out by the CIA that
I've ever seen. I watched it but cringed with the dramatized fake narrative that the CIA is
famous for – think the bullshit 9/11 US govt. narrative – if you or anyone else
believes that totally bunkum govt. narrative – well, I feel sorry for you.
Druid , August 31, 2019 at 17:28
Im a good- movie buff. I avoided Zero Dark Thirty. Not a farthing for those lies
Sylvia Bennet , August 30, 2019 at 07:51
I applaud Keira Knightley and all who were involved in bringing this story to the public.
It is vital that more people who have the eyes and ears of the public speak out on these
issues. Sadly, most of them keep their heads below the parapet. With the Main Stream Media
colluding with corrupt corporations and governments to lie or distort the truth, we need
decent people with influence to step up before it is too late.
Toxik , August 30, 2019 at 02:42
Looked at my local theaters and Official Secrets will not be shown.
jmg , August 29, 2019 at 18:39
Katharine Gun's case can also be very relevant for Julian Assange's defense:
"Within half an hour, the case was dropped because the prosecution declined to offer
evidence. . . . The day before the trial, Gun's defence team had asked the government for any
records of advice about the legality of the war that it had received during the run-up to the
war. A full trial might have exposed any such documents to public scrutiny as the defence
were expected to argue that trying to stop an illegal act (that of an illegal war of
aggression) trumped Gun's obligations under the Official Secrets Act 1989. . . . In 2019 The
Guardian stated the case was dropped 'when the prosecution realised that evidence would
emerge that even British government lawyers believed the invasion was unlawful.'"
So Katharine Gun, like Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, etc., by revealing corruption and
crimes, maybe didn't obey the code of silence of organized crime, government sector, but
that's not a law.
For example, the US Executive Order 13526, Classified National Security Information,
explicitly outlaws any classification that covers up crimes or embarrassing information.
This means that whistleblowers like Katharine Gun or Chelsea Manning, and investigative
journalists like Julian Assange are the ones defending the law here, while the US and UK
governments are the criminals.
lindaj , August 29, 2019 at 22:10
Hear, Hear!
Me Myself , August 30, 2019 at 12:11
The espionage act has and would protect those who were responsible for the war I
believe.
If we could Abrogate the espionage act it would make are representatives more
accountable.
I was unaware of Katherine Gun she is clearly a standout person and will join the ranks of
are most respected truthers.
WTF Burkie , August 31, 2019 at 14:05
Our not are.b.c. burkhart
evelync , August 30, 2019 at 13:34
And the secrecy, apparently, is required in the name of "national security" .that's what I
was told by a Harvard JFK School of Government associate when I emailed 200+ of 'em to
express my outrage over their withdrawal of Chelsea Manning's honorary degree when Pompeo and
Morrell bullied them. I responded with – that's INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE at Harvard
– as a "respected" educational institution you should be front and center critiquing
foreign policy instead of helping to bury the wrongdoing ..no wonder voters didn't trust the
establishment candidates in 2016 but the DNC was too much a part of it all to see or care
what was going on. Except for Tulsi Gabbard who resigned at DNC VP in protest for what was
being done to the Sanders campaign and to endorse Sanders instead of Clinton. The DNC knee
capped the campaign of the one person who had won peoples' trust for his honesty.
We have incompetent people with no moral fiber making terrible decisions and burying the
mistakes under secrecy, a fear based "code of silence", as you say.
Biden touts his being chosen by Obama for VP; therefore "he's qualified".
Since Clinton and Biden were the most dangerously ambitious critics of Obama, I think he may
have chosen to add them to his administration as VP and Sec of State to practice "keep your
friends close and your enemies closer" .but his decision was very costly to the lives of
people around the world including the Caribbean and South American countries whose wealth our
oligarchs coveted.
And as far as Honduras is concerned those political choices by Obama sadly explains refugees
fleeing from that violent country even now ..thanks to our failing to declare the 2009 Coup a
"military coup". One of Clinton's "hard choices". Obama and Biden went along with that of
course.
Daniel Immerwahr's "How to Hide an Empire" tells the sordid tale of how waterboarding was
used long before Bush II – used on the freedom fighters for their independence in the
Philippines after the Spanish American War and we took over as imperialists ..
Most people, I think, don't know all the gruesome details of our aggression but they now know
enough to be troubled by it. Few political candidates have the backbone to criticize
wrongheaded foreign policy.
I'm disappointed that Tulsi Gabbard won't be permitted to join Bernie Sanders at the
September 12 2019 "debate" as the only ones who speak out on how wrong for this country and
the world our foreign policies have been. This courageous woman should be heard.
When Bernie was challenged in the 2016 Miami debate on his enlightened views on Cuba and
other Caribbean and South American countries, Clinton used Cold War rhetoric to attack him.
She was shocked, I tell you, shocked that he would not grind his heel on the Cuban people. I
wondered at the time whether she really believed the crap she was selling or just put on a
good political show for the national security state.
We so need transparency if we want to be a real democracy.
Sam F , August 30, 2019 at 21:06
Very true that transparency is essential to democracy. That also requires lifelong
monitoring of officials and their relatives for paybacks and other influence. But (for
example) Florida has an Sunshine Act that merely moves the bribes into other channels, and
may be the most corrupt state. I am investigating extensive racketeering there involving
state officials stealing conservation funds. They can be quire careless because their party
runs the entire state including state and federal judiciary, and instantly approves whatever
their rich "donors" want to steal. But the FBI and DOJ refuse to take action when given the
evidence on a silver platter – no doubt because they are appointed by the same party.
Theft is their sacred right and duty, to protect their country from its people.
michael , August 31, 2019 at 07:30
Florida's Sunshine laws were on display at Epstein's only trial, much of it still sealed
from public view.
It is apparent that the caricature of the Soviet Union in both productions is really a stand-in for the present-day Russian government
under Vladimir Putin. As only American exceptionalism could permit, Hollywood did not hold the same disdain for his predecessor,
Boris Yeltsin, whose legacy of high inflation and national debt have since been eliminated. In fact, most have forgotten that the
same filmdom community outraged about Russia's supposed interference in the 2016 U.S. election made a celebratory movie back in 2003,
Spinning Boris , which practically boasted about the instrumental role the West played in Yeltsin's 1996 reelection in Russia.
The highly unpopular alcoholic politician benefited from a near universal media bias as virtually all the federation's news outlets
came under the control of the 'oligarchs' (in America known simply as billionaires) which his economic policies of mass privatization
of state industry enriched overnight.
Yeltsin initially polled at less than 10% and was far behind Communist Party candidate Gennady Zyuganov until he became the recipient
of billions from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) thanks to his corrupt campaign manager, Anatoly Chubais, now one of the most
hated men in all of Russia. After the purging of votes and rampant ballot-box stuffing, Yeltsin successfully closed the gap between
his opponent thanks to the overt U.S. meddling.
Spinning Boris was directed by Roger Spottiswoode, who previously helmed an installment in the James Bond series, Tomorrow
Never Dies . The 1997 entry in the franchise is one of thousands of Hollywood films and network television shows exposed by journalists
Matthew Alford and Tom Secker as having been influenced or directly assisted by the Pentagon and CIA in their must-read book National
Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood. Based on evidence from documents revealed in Freedom
of Information Act (FOIA) requests, their investigation divulges the previously unknown extent to which the national security complex
has gone in exerting control over content in the film industry. While it has always been known that the military held sway over movies
that required usage of its facilities and equipment to be produced, the level of impact on such films in the pre-production and editing
stages, as well as the control over non-military themed flicks one wouldn't suspect to be under supervision by Washington and Langley,
is exhaustively uncovered.
As expected, Hollywood and the military-industrial complex's intimate relationship during the Cold War is featured prominently
in Alford and Secker's investigative work. It is unclear whether HBO or Netflix sought US military assistance or were directly involved
with the national security state in their respective productions, but these are just two recent examples of many where the correlated
increase in geopolitical tensions with Moscow is reflected. The upcoming sequel to DC's Wonder Woman set to be released next
year , Wonder Woman 1984, featuring the female superhero " coming into conflict with the Soviet Union during the Cold War
in the 1980s ", is yet another. Reprising her role is Israeli actress and IDF veteran is Gal Gadot as the title character, ironically
starring in a blockbuster that will demonize the Eurasian state which saved her ethnicity from extinction. Given the Pentagon's involvement
in the debacle surounding 2014's The Interview which provoked very real tensions with North Korea, it is likely they are at
least closely examining any entertainment with content regarding Russia, if not directly pre-approving it for review.
Ultimately, the Western panic about its imperial decline is not limited to assigning blame to Moscow. Sinophobia has manifested
as well in recent films such as the 2016 sci-fi film Arrival where the extra-terrestrials who reach Earth seem more interested
in communicating with Beijing as the global superpower than the U.S. However, while the West forebodes the return of Russia and China
to greater standing, you can be certain its real fear lies elsewhere. The fact that Chernobyl and Stranger Things are
as preoccupied with portraying socialism in a bad light as they are in rendering Moscow nefarious shows the real underlying trepidation
of the ruling elite that concerns the resurgence of class consciousness. The West must learn its lesson that its state of perpetual
war has caused its own downfall or it could attempt a last line of defense that would inevitably conscript all of humanity to its
death as the ruling class nearly did to the world in 1914 and 1939.
The article about how many intelligence officials (retired) now work for the corporate press
is misleading. It does not take into account the "undeclared" operatives such as Anderson
Cooper and Rachael Maddow. Cooper went to work for the CIA and they out him in his job,
Maddow is a Rhodes Scholar, a trained apparatchik for the elites.
This is nothing new, after WWII, when the press was most compliant and the CIA was formed
the press was "taken over" by the newly reforming and consolidating of deep state power.
There was Operation Mockingbird which was exposed long ago but nothing changes if they get
caught they just reorganize and continue.
"... And what did the spying involve? In such intelligence work, wiretaps are recorded; transcripts are made. The same can be true for person-to-person conversations between FBI informants and Trump campaign figures. In May, Trey Gowdy, the former Republican congressman who read deeply into Trump-Russia materials when he was in the House, strongly implied the FBI had transcripts of informant communications. ..."
"... "If the bureau is going to send an informant in, the informant is going to be wired," Gowdy told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo. "And if the bureau is monitoring telephone calls, there's going to be a transcript of that." ..."
"... "Where are the transcripts, if any exist," Gowdy continued, "between the informants and the telephone calls to George Papadopoulos?" ..."
"... And then the biggest questions: If there was evidence gained from the wiretapping and informing, what was it? Was it valuable? What did it tell the FBI about Russia and the Trump campaign? And did it prove that the Justice Department was right all along to spy on the campaign -- that the spying was, in the words of Attorney General William Barr, "adequately predicated"? ..."
"... Here is why Republicans are skeptical. Special counsel Robert Mueller had access to the results of the FBI's spying, and Mueller could not establish that there was any conspiracy or coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. After a two-year investigation with full law enforcement powers, Mueller never alleged that any American took part in any such conspiracy or coordination. ..."
"... And even if it were entirely declassified, Horowitz will not tell the whole story of spying and the 2016 election. Horowitz is the inspector general of the Justice Department and does not have the authority to investigate outside the department. For example, he cannot probe the actions of the Central Intelligence Agency and its then-director John Brennan during the period in question. ..."
There will be much to learn in
Inspector
General Michael Horowitz's upcoming report on the Trump-Russia investigation, but most of it will likely boil down to just two
questions. One, how much did the Obama Justice Department spy on the Trump campaign? And two, was it justified?
Many Democrats would immediately protest the word "spying." But the public already knows the FBI secured a warrant to wiretap
low-level Trump adviser Carter Page a few months after Page left the campaign. The public also knows the FBI used informant
Stefan Halper to gather information on other Trump campaign figures. And the public knows the FBI sent an undercover agent who
went by the alias "Azra Turk" to London to tease information out of another low-level Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos.
Was that all? Were there more? Horowitz should give definitive answers.
And what did the spying involve? In such intelligence work, wiretaps are recorded; transcripts are made. The same can be true
for person-to-person conversations between FBI informants and Trump campaign figures. In May, Trey Gowdy, the former Republican congressman
who read deeply into Trump-Russia materials when he was in the House, strongly implied the FBI had transcripts of informant communications.
"If the bureau is going to send an informant in, the informant is going to be wired," Gowdy told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo.
"And if the bureau is monitoring telephone calls, there's going to be a transcript of that."
"Where are the transcripts, if any exist," Gowdy continued, "between the informants and the telephone calls to George Papadopoulos?"
The "if any exist" was Gowdy's way of casting his statements as a hypothetical, but there was no doubt he was speaking from the
knowledge he gained as a congressional investigator.
And then the biggest questions: If there was evidence gained from the wiretapping and informing, what was it? Was it valuable?
What did it tell the FBI about Russia and the Trump campaign? And did it prove that the Justice Department was right all along to
spy on the campaign -- that the spying was, in the words of Attorney General William Barr, "adequately predicated"?
Here is why Republicans are skeptical. Special counsel Robert Mueller had access to the results of the FBI's spying, and Mueller
could not establish that there was any conspiracy or coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. After a two-year investigation
with full law enforcement powers, Mueller never alleged that any American took part in any such conspiracy or coordination.
So, Republicans know the end result of the investigation, but they don't know how it began. Yes, they know the official story
of the start of what the FBI called Crossfire Hurricane -- that it began with a foreign intelligence service (Australia) telling
U.S. officials that Papadopoulos appeared to have foreknowledge of a Russian plan to release damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
But they don't think it's the whole story.
That's where Horowitz comes in.
There's one big potential problem that people on Capitol Hill are talking about, and that is the issue of classified information.
Everyone expects a significant amount of Horowitz's report to be classified. How much, no one is quite sure. But the fact is, the
report was done to tell the American people what the nation's intelligence and law enforcement agencies did during the 2016 election.
Issuing a report with page after page blacked out would not be a good way to do that. But no one will know the extent of the classification
issue until Horowitz is ready to go public.
And even if it were entirely declassified, Horowitz will not tell the whole story of spying and the 2016 election. Horowitz
is the inspector general of the Justice Department and does not have the authority to investigate outside the department. For example,
he cannot probe the actions of the Central Intelligence Agency and its then-director John Brennan during the period in question.
That will be the role of another investigator, John Durham, the U.S. attorney appointed by Barr to investigate the origins of
the Trump-Russia probe. Durham is working with the support of top Republicans on Capitol Hill, like Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Lindsey Graham, who recently said, "I really am very curious about the role that the CIA played here."
But first, the Horowitz report. It will be an important step in answering the questions of how much spying took place and whether
it was justified. It's long past time Americans learned what happened.
"... The politically minded rich, or what I call the overworld, have reason to tolerate mob violence that never occur to those of a lesser means ... in maintaining a violent status quo in our society ... of weak and failed states ..."
"... And not to leave out the ex-CIA guys who blew the whistle from Phillip Agee to John Kiriakou over the years. Phil Giraldi another, and the work David Talbot did with "The Devil's Chessboard." New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, and the granddaddy of them all, Col L Fletcher Prouty. https://ratical.org/ratvill... ..."
"... Two interesting if not disparate notables from the ONI: Lee Harvey Oswald and Bob Woodward. ..."
Webb and Valentine begin the interview discussing how Valentine's journalistic work on the
CIA led him to be spied on and even threatened by the agency and how being a dissident
journalist in the 1990s compares to being one now. Valentine argues that, in the present,
efforts to outlaw criticism of the state of Israel are like a gateway that will soon lead to
the prohibition of criticism of the U.S. government and its intelligence agencies, the CIA
among them.
Lastly, Webb and Valentine discuss the CIA's long-standing interest in manipulating the
media and how those efforts also extend to alternative media, not just mainstream media
outlets. Valentine discusses the methods the CIA uses to target alternative, independent media
and how we are seeing its efforts take place in real time.
Follow Doug Valentine on Twitter or visit his website to learn more about his work.
MintPress donors and patrons: Stay tuned later this week for a
patron-exclusive extension of this podcast with Doug Valentine, which will discuss his work on
the War on Drugs and the Drug Enforcement Agency and how both are key to unconstitutional,
covert CIA programs. You can become a patron via Patreon or through our website.
"The politically minded rich, or what I call the overworld, have reason to tolerate
mob violence that never occur to those of a lesser means ... in maintaining a violent
status quo in our society ... of weak and failed states. [...] Even in America, one of
the more successful states, there has always been a negative space in which the
overworld, corporate power, and privately organized violence all have access to and
utilize each other, and rules are enforced by power that does not derive from the public
state."
And not to leave out the ex-CIA guys who blew the whistle from Phillip Agee to John
Kiriakou over the years.
Phil Giraldi another, and the work David Talbot did with "The Devil's Chessboard." New
Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, and the granddaddy of them all, Col L Fletcher
Prouty.
https://ratical.org/ratvill...
Whitney, are you aware of the lengthy (10 hour interview) with Kay Griggs? I am sure
her observations will resonate with you. The time spent on that interview will be RICHLY
rewarding, I promise.
She makes the point that it is not the CIA but Various military intel agencies like ONI (office of naval intelligence) and DIA (Defense Intelligence
Agency) directing organized crime. Google Kay Griggs for You tube video of that long
interview.
Images removed. See the original for full version.
Much more plausible explanation of Russiagate then Mueller report that cost probably 1000 times less. Mueller and his team should
commit hara-kiri in shame.
It contains more valuable information about Russiagate and color revolution against Trump initiatesd by Obama and Brennan. And
what is important it is much shorter and up to the point. In other words, Jeff Carlson beat the whole Mueller team to the
punch.
An excellent reporting by Jeff Carlson !!! Bravo!!!
Notable quotes:
"... Horowitz continued to push Congress for oversight access and encouraged passage of the Inspector General Empowerment Act . Horowitz would ultimately win his battle, but only as President Barack Obama was leaving office. On Dec. 16, 2016, Obama finally signed the Inspector General Empowerment Act into law. ..."
"... The IGs' memo included an assessment that Clinton's email account contained hundreds of classified emails, despite Clinton's claims that there was no classified information present on her server. ..."
"... On July 30, 2015, within weeks of the FBI's opening of the Clinton investigation, McCabe was suddenly promoted to the No. 3 position in the FBI. With his new title of associate deputy director, McCabe was transferred to FBI headquarters from the Washington Field Office, and his direct involvement in the Clinton investigation began. ..."
"... Strzok was one of the agents selected, and in late August 2015, he was assigned to the Mid-Year Exam team and transferred to FBI headquarters. Strzok, in his comments to lawmakers, acknowledged that the newly formed investigative team was largely made up of hand-picked personnel from the Washington Field Office and FBI headquarters. ..."
"... On Jan. 29, 2016, Comey appointed McCabe as FBI deputy director, replacing the retiring Giuliano, and McCabe assumed the No. 2 position in the FBI, after having held the No. 3 position for just six months. ..."
"... By early 2016, the three participants in the infamous "insurance policy" meeting -- McCabe, Strzok, and Page -- were now in place at the FBI. ..."
"... Priestap, who testified that he was unaware of the frequency of meetings between McCabe, Strzok, and Lisa Page, seems to have been kept in the dark regarding many of the actions taken by Strzok, who appeared to be exercising significant investigative control. ..."
"... It sounds like Peter Strzok was kind of driving the train here. Would you agree with that?" ..."
"... Peter and Jon, yeah." ..."
"... Do you know if Mr. McCabe was aware that some of his agent executives were concerned that they were being bypassed on information on what, by all accounts, was a sensitive, critical investigation?" ..."
"... My understanding was that he was aware." ..."
"... Notably, Comey had been convinced to remove the term "gross negligence" to describe Clinton's actions from his prepared statement by, among others, Page, Strzok, Anderson, and Moffa. ..."
"... While GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted, after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Most of these meetings with Papadopoulos -- whose own background and reasons for joining the Trump campaign remain suspicious -- occurred in the first half of 2016. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so. ..."
"... As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation. ..."
"... The last major segment of Brennan's efforts involved a series of three reports. The first, titled the "Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security ," was released on Oct. 7, 2016. The second report, "GRIZZLY STEPPE -- Russian Malicious Cyber Activity ," was released on Dec. 29, 2016. The third report, "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections " -- also known as the intelligence community assessment (ICA) -- was released on Jan. 6, 2017. ..."
"... On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis. At some point in early July, Steele passed his initial report to Nuland and the State Department. Nuland later said these documents were passed on at some point to both the FBI and then-Secretary of State John Kerry. ..."
"... Prior to joining Fusion GPS, Nellie had worked as an independent contractor for an internal open-source division of the CIA, Open Source Works, from 2008 to at least June 2010; it appears likely she remained in that role into 2014. ..."
"... Additionally, email communications between her and Bruce Ohr show that she routinely sent her husband at the DOJ articles on Russia -- most carrying a similar negative slant. The emails continued through the duration of Nellie's employment with Fusion GPS and usually contained a brief, often one-line comment from Nellie. ..."
"... In her testimony, Nellie described her work as online open-source efforts that utilized "Russian sources, media, social media, government, you know, business registers, legal databases, all kinds of things." Ohr said that she would "write occasional reports based on the open-source research that I described about Donald Trump's relationships with various people in Russia." ..."
"... Steele had produced eight reports from June 20, 2016, through the end of August 2016 (there also is one undated report included in the dossier). No further reports were generated by Steele until Sept. 14, when he suddenly wrote three separate memos in one day. One of the memos referenced a Russian bank named Alfa Bank, misspelled as "Alpha" in his memo. Steele's sudden burst of productivity was likely done in preparation for his Sept. 19 meeting in Rome with the FBI. ..."
"... The impact of Brennan's potential knowledge of the dossier in August 2016 should not be underestimated. As Brennan testified to Congress, his briefing to the Gang of Eight was done in consultation with the Obama administration: ..."
"... Halper, who has been outed as an FBI informant, stayed in contact with Carter Page for the next 14 months, severing ties exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired. ..."
"... Following the publication of the Isikoff article, the Hillary for America campaign released a statement on the same day that touted Isikoff's "bombshell report," with the full article attached. ..."
"... Winer had received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele then shared this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it as a means to corroborate Steele's own dossier. ..."
"... Steele also met with U.S. media during his visit to Washington, doing so "at Fusion's instruction." According to UK Court documents , Steele testified that he "briefed" The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, The New Yorker, and CNN at the end of September 2016. Steele would engage in a second round of media contact in mid-October 2016, meeting again with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Yahoo News. Steele testified that all these meetings were "conducted verbally in person." ..."
"... Sometime in late 2016, his wife, Nellie Ohr, provided him with a memory stick containing all of her research that she had compiled while employed at Fusion GPS. Bruce Ohr testified he gave the memory stick to Pientka. Nellie Ohr had left Fusion in September 2016. Through Pientka, Strzok now had all of Nellie Ohr's Fusion research in his possession. ..."
"... Flynn's 2015 dinner in Moscow was initially used to implicate the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. It was then used as a means to cast doubts on Flynn's ability as Trump's national security adviser. Following Flynn's resignation, it was then used as a means to pursue the ongoing collusion narrative that gained full strength in the early days of the Trump administration. ..."
"... On April 18, 2016, Rogers moved aggressively in response to the disclosures. He abruptly shut down all FBI outside-contractor access. At this point, both the FBI and the DOJ's NSD became aware of Rogers's compliance review. They may have known earlier, but they were certainly aware after outside-contractor access was halted. ..."
"... Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of the compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the NSA inspector general and associated FISA abuse to the FISA court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702-compliance review. ..."
Efforts by high-ranking officials in the CIA ,
FBI , Department of Justice (
DOJ ), and State Department to portray President
Donald Trump as having colluded with Russia were the culmination
of years of bias and politicization under the Obama administration.
The weaponization of the intelligence community and other government agencies created an environment that allowed for obstruction
in the investigation into Hillary Clinton and the relentless pursuit of a manufactured collusion narrative against Trump.
A willing and complicit media spread unsubstantiated leaks as facts in an effort to promote the Russia-collusion narrative.
The Spygate scandal also raises a bigger question: Was the 2016 election a one-time aberration, or was it symptomatic of decades
of institutional political corruption?
This article builds on dozens of congressional testimonies, court documents, and other research to provide an inside look at the
actions of Obama administration officials in the scandal that's become known as Spygate.
To understand this abuse of power, it helps to go back to July 2011, when DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed.
From the very start, Horowitz found his duties throttled by Attorney General Eric Holder, who placed limitations on the inspector
general's right to have unobstructed access to information. Holder
used
this tactic to delay Horowitz's investigation of the failed sting operation known as Operation Fast and Furious.
"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply
a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going
to give us that information," Horowitz told
members of Congress in February 2015.
On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general had sent a
letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015,
with a 58-page memorandum, titled "
Memorandum
for Sally Quillian Yates Deputy Attorney General ," written by Karl R. Thompson, the principal deputy assistant attorney general
of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).
The July 20, 2015, opinion was
widely criticized . But it accomplished what it was intended to do. The opinion limited IG Horowitz's oversight from extending
to any information collected under Title III -- including intercepted communications and national security letters. (Notably, The
New York Times
disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump 2016 presidential campaign.)
In response, on Aug. 3, 2015, IG Horowitz sent a
blistering letter to Congress. The letter was signed not only by Horowitz but by all other acting inspectors general as well:
"The OLC opinion's restrictive reading of the IG Act represents a potentially serious challenge to the authority of every Inspector
General and our collective ability to conduct our work thoroughly, independently, and in a timely manner. Our concern is that, as
a result of the OLC opinion, agencies other than DOJ may likewise withhold crucial records from their Inspectors General, adversely
impacting their work.
Horowitz continued to push Congress for oversight access and encouraged passage of the
Inspector General Empowerment
Act . Horowitz would ultimately win his battle, but only as President
Barack Obama was leaving office. On Dec. 16, 2016,
Obama finally signed the Inspector General Empowerment Act into law.
It is against this backdrop of minimal oversight that Spygate took place.
Ironically, the Clinton email server investigation, known as the "Mid-Year Exam," originated from a disclosure contained in a
June 29, 2015, memo sent by the inspectors general for both the State Department and the Intelligence Community to Patrick F. Kennedy,
then-undersecretary of state for management.
The IGs' memo included an assessment that Clinton's email account contained hundreds of classified emails, despite Clinton's claims
that there was no classified information present on her server.
On July 6, 2015, the IG for the Intelligence Community made a
referral
to the FBI, which resulted in the official opening of an investigation into the Clinton email server by FBI officials Randall Coleman
and Charles Kable on July 10, 2015.
At this time, Peter Strzok was an assistant special agent in charge at the FBI's Washington Field Office. The assistant director
in charge at the Washington Field Office during this period was Andrew McCabe, a position he
assumed on Sept.
14, 2014.
On July 30, 2015, within weeks of the FBI's opening of the Clinton investigation, McCabe was suddenly
promoted to the No. 3 position in the FBI. With his new title of associate deputy director, McCabe was transferred to FBI headquarters
from the Washington Field Office, and his direct involvement in the Clinton investigation began.
Strzok would follow shortly. Less than a month after McCabe was transferred, FBI headquarters reached out to the Washington Field
Office, saying it needed greater staffing and resources "based on what they were looking at, based on some of the investigative steps
that were under consideration," Strzok told congressional investigators in a closed-door hearing on June 27, 2018.
Strzok was one of the agents selected, and in late August 2015, he was assigned to the Mid-Year Exam team and transferred to FBI
headquarters. Strzok, in his comments to lawmakers, acknowledged that the newly formed investigative team was largely made up of
hand-picked personnel from the Washington Field Office and FBI headquarters.
Starting in October 2015 and continuing into early 2016, FBI Director
James Comey made a series of high-profile reassignments
that resulted in the complete turnover of the upper-echelon of the FBI team working on the Clinton email investigation:
Oct. 12, 2015: Louis Bladel was moved to the New York Field Office.
Dec. 1, 2015: Randall Coleman, assistant director of Counterintelligence, was named as executive assistant director of the
Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, and was replaced by Bill Priestap.
Dec. 9, 2015: Charles "Sandy" Kable was moved to the Washington Field Office.
Feb. 1, 2016: Mark Giuliano retired as FBI deputy director and was replaced by Andrew McCabe.
Feb. 11, 2016: John Giacalone retired as executive assistant director and was replaced by Michael Steinbach.
March 2, 2016: Gerald Roberts, Jr. was moved to the Washington Field Office.
Comey is the only known senior FBI leadership official who remained involved throughout the entire Clinton email investigation.
McCabe had the second-longest tenure.
On Jan. 29, 2016, Comey
appointed
McCabe as FBI deputy director, replacing the retiring Giuliano, and McCabe assumed the No. 2 position in the FBI, after having
held the No. 3 position for just six months.
It was at this point that FBI lawyer Lisa Page was assigned to McCabe as his special counsel. This was not the first time that
Page worked directly for McCabe. James Baker, the FBI's former general counsel, told congressional investigators that Page had worked
for McCabe at various times during McCabe's career, going back as far as 2013.
By early 2016, the three participants in the infamous "insurance policy" meeting -- McCabe, Strzok, and Page -- were now in place
at the FBI.
In January 2016, Bill Priestap was named as head of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, replacing Coleman and inheriting the
Clinton email investigation in the process.
According to Priestap, Coleman had "set up a reporting mechanism that leaders of that team would report directly to him, not through
the customary other chain of command" in the Clinton email investigation. Priestap, who said he didn't know why Coleman had "set
it up," kept the chain of command in place when he assumed Coleman's position in January 2016.
This new structure resulted in some unusual reporting lines that went outside normal chains of command. Strzok, who would not
normally fall under Priestap's oversight, was now reporting directly to him.
As Priestap described it, the team involved in the Clinton investigation comprised three different but intertwined elements: the
primary team, the filter team, and the senior leadership team.
The primary team was small, consisting only of Strzok, FBI analyst Jonathan Moffa, and, to varying degrees, filter team leader
Rick Mains and FBI lawyer Sally Moyer. Mains reported to Strzok and Moffa, who in turn, along with Moyer, provided briefings to Priestap.
Below Strzok and Moffa was the day-to-day investigative "filter" team of approximately 15 FBI agents and analysts that was overseen
by Mains, a supervisory special agent.
The senior leadership team was more fluid, consisting of higher-level FBI officials who provided briefings and updates to Comey
and/or McCabe. In addition to Priestap, Strzok, and Moffa, frequent attendees included Moyer, Page, Deputy General Counsel Trisha
Anderson, chief of staff Jim Rybicki, and General Counsel James Baker.
While the elements of the day-to-day investigative team differed for the Clinton email investigation and the Trump–Russia investigation,
the primary team remained the same throughout both cases -- as did the lines of communication between the FBI and the DOJ. According
to testimony by Page, John Carlin, who ran the DOJ's National Security Division (NSD), was receiving briefings on both investigations
directly from McCabe.
Priestap Left in the Dark
Priestap, who testified that he was unaware of the frequency of meetings between McCabe, Strzok, and Lisa Page, seems to have
been kept in the dark regarding many of the actions taken by Strzok, who appeared to be exercising significant investigative control. Priestap was asked about this by congressional investigators during a June 5, 2018, testimony:
Rep. Meadows: " It sounds like Peter Strzok was kind of driving the train here. Would you agree with that?"
Additionally, Page often circumvented the established chain of command, not only with McCabe, for whom she reportedly served as
a conduit for Strzok, but also with Baker. Additionally, there were concerns that Page bypassed both the executive assistant director
for the National Security Branch -- first Giacalone, then Steinbach -- and Priestap, the head of counterintelligence. Anderson, the
No. 2 lawyer, admitted in her testimony to congressional investigators that she had been aware of these concerns, saying, "Neither
of them personally complained to me, but I was aware of their concerns."
A report published by IG Horowitz in June 2018, which reviewed the FBI's investigation of the Clinton email case, included the
notable statement that several witnesses had informed the IG that Page "circumvented the official chain of command, and that Strzok
communicated important Midyear case information to her, and thus to McCabe, without Priestap's or Steinbach's knowledge." Steinbach,
who was the executive assistant director and Priestap's direct supervisor,
left the FBI in early 2017.
According to Anderson, McCabe was aware of the ongoing concerns regarding Page's circumventions, but it appears that nothing was
done to address them:
Mr. Baker: " Do you know if Mr. McCabe was aware that some of his agent executives were concerned that they were being bypassed
on information on what, by all accounts, was a sensitive, critical investigation?"
Ms. Anderson: " My understanding was that he was aware."
DOJ Prevents 'Gross Negligence' Charges
By the spring of 2016, the Clinton email investigation was already winding down. This was due in large part to the fact that the
DOJ, under Attorney General Loretta Lynch , had decided
to set an unusually high threshold for the prosecution of Clinton, effectively ensuring from the outset that she would not be charged.
In order for Clinton to be prosecuted, the DOJ required the FBI to establish evidence of intent -- even though the gross negligence
statute explicitly does not require this.
This meant that the FBI would have needed to find a smoking gun, such as an email or an admission made during FBI questioning,
revealing that Clinton or her aides knowingly set up the private email server to send classified information.
According to Page, the DOJ played a far larger role in the Clinton investigation than previously had been known:
"Everybody talks about this as if this was the FBI investigation, and the truth of the matter is there was not a single step,
other than the July 5th statement, there was not a single investigative step that we did not do in consultation with or at the direction
of the Justice Department," Page told congressional investigators on July 13, 2018.
Comey also had hinted at the influence exerted by the DOJ over the Clinton investigation, at a July 5, 2016,
press conference , in which he
recommended that Clinton not be charged, stating that "there are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially
regarding intent."
Notably, Comey had been convinced to remove the term "gross negligence" to describe Clinton's actions from his prepared statement
by, among others, Page, Strzok, Anderson, and Moffa.
CIA Director Instigates Trump Investigation
As the Clinton investigation wound down, interest from the intelligence community in the Trump campaign was ramping up. Sometime
in 2015, it appears former CIA Director John Brennan established himself as the point man to push for an investigation into the Trump
campaign. Using a combination of unofficial foreign intelligence compiled by contacts, colleagues, and associates --
primarily from the UK , but also from other Five Eyes members, such as Australia -- Brennan then fed this information to the
FBI. Brennan stated this fact repeatedly during a May 23, 2017,
congressional testimony :
"I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump
campaign, was shared with the [FBI]."
Brennan also admitted that it was his intelligence that helped
establish the FBI investigation:
"I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in
my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and
it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred."
In late 2015, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was involved in collecting information regarding then-candidate
Trump and transmitting it to the United States. The GCHQ is the UK equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
While GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been
targeted, after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Most of these meetings with Papadopoulos -- whose own background and reasons for joining the Trump campaign remain suspicious
-- occurred in the first half of 2016. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's
Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so.
Mifsud, who introduced Papadopoulos to a series of Russian contacts, appears to have more connections with Western intelligence
than with Russian intelligence.
Downer, then Australia's high commissioner to the UK, met with Papadopoulos in May 2016, in a meeting
established through a chain
of two intermediaries.
Information allegedly relayed by Papadopoulos during the Downer meeting -- that the Russians had damaging information on Clinton
-- appears nearly identical to claims later contained in the first memo from former MI6 spy and dossier author Christopher Steele
that the FBI obtained in early July 2016.
Downer's conversation with Papadopoulos was reportedly disclosed to the FBI on July 22, 2016, through Australian government channels,
although it may have come directly from Downer himself.
Details from the conversation between Downer and Papadopoulos were then used by the FBI to open its counterintelligence investigation
on July 31, 2016.
In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, the head of the UK's GCHQ, traveled to Washington to
meet with Brennan
regarding alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Around the same time, Brennan
formed an inter-agency task force comprising an estimated
six agencies and/or government departments. The FBI, Treasury, and DOJ handled the domestic inquiry into Trump and possible Russia
connections. The CIA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the NSA handled foreign and intelligence aspects.
During this time, Brennan appeared to have employed the use of
reverse targeting , which refers to the targeting of a foreign individual with the intent of capturing data on a U.S. citizen.
Mr. Brennan:
" We call it incidental collection in terms of CIA's foreign intelligence collection authorities. Any time we
would incidentally collect information on a U.S. person, we would hand that over to the FBI because they have the legal authority
to do it. We would not pursue that type of investigative, you know, sort of leads. We would give it to the FBI. So, we were picking
things up that was of great relevance to the FBI, and we wanted to make sure that they were there -- so they could piece it together
with whatever they were collecting domestically here."
As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a
process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed
the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation.
This final report was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Donald Trump.
Notably, Adm. Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning it only a moderate confidence level.
Fusion GPS and the Steele Dossier
Meanwhile, another less official effort began. Information paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton
campaign targeting Trump made its way to the highest levels of the FBI and the State Department, with a sophisticated strategy relying
on the personal connections of hired operatives.
At the center of the multi-pronged strategy to disseminate the information were Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and former
British spy Steele.
In early March 2016, Fusion GPS approached Perkins Coie -- the law firm used by the Clinton campaign and the DNC -- expressing
interest in an "engagement," according to an Oct. 24, 2017,
response
letter by Perkins Coie. The firm hired Fusion GPS in April 2016 to "perform a variety of research services during the 2016 election
cycle."
Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, was retained by Fusion GPS during the period between June and November 2016. During
this time, Steele produced 16 memos, with the last memo dated Oct. 20, 2016. There is one final memo that Steele wrote on Dec. 13
at the request of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Steele provided Fusion GPS with something that Simpson's firm was lacking: access to individuals within the FBI and the State
Department. These contacts could be traced back to at least 2010, when Steele had provided assistance in the FBI's investigation
into FIFA over concerns that Russia might have been engaging in bribery to host the 2018 World Cup.
Sometime in the latter half of 2014, Steele began to informally
provide reports
he had prepared for a private client to the State Department. One of the recipients of the reports was Victoria Nuland, the assistant
secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
After Steele's company was hired by Fusion GPS in June 2016, he began to reach out to the FBI through Michael Gaeta, an FBI agent
and assistant legal attaché at the
U.S. Embassy in Rome who Steele had worked with on the FIFA case. Gaeta also headed up the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime unit, which
specializes in investigating criminal groups from Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine.
Gaeta was later identified as Steele's FBI handler, in a July 16, 2018, congressional testimony before the House Judiciary and
Oversight committees by Page.
On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis. At some point in early July,
Steele passed his initial report to Nuland and the State Department. Nuland later said these documents were passed on at some point
to both the FBI and then-Secretary of State John Kerry.
Exactly what happened with the reports that Gaeta brought back from London, and precisely who he gave them to within the FBI,
remains unknown, although some media reports have indicated they might have been sent to the FBI's New York Field Office. During
the period following Steele's initial contact with the FBI, there appears to have been no further FBI interaction or contact with
Steele.
Former CIA Contractor Worked for Fusion GPS
Notably, eight months before Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele, Simpson had hired Nellie Ohr, the wife of then-Associate Deputy
Attorney General Bruce Ohr, to work for his firm as a researcher in October 2015. It was at this time that Fusion GPS was retained
by the Washington Free Beacon to engage in research on the Trump campaign.
Prior to joining Fusion GPS, Nellie had worked as an independent contractor for an internal open-source division of the CIA, Open
Source Works, from 2008 to at least June 2010; it appears likely she remained in that role into 2014.
Nellie told congressional investigators, in her Oct. 19, 2018, closed-door testimony, that part of her work for Fusion GPS was
to research the Trump 2016 presidential campaign, including campaign associate Carter Page, early campaign supporter Lt. Gen. Michael
Flynn, and campaign manager Paul Manafort, as well as Trump's family members, including some of his children.
Additionally, email communications between her and Bruce Ohr show that she routinely sent her husband at the DOJ articles on Russia
-- most carrying a similar negative slant. The emails continued through the duration of Nellie's employment with Fusion GPS and usually
contained a brief, often one-line comment from Nellie.
In her testimony, Nellie described her work as online open-source efforts that utilized "Russian sources, media, social media,
government, you know, business registers, legal databases, all kinds of things." Ohr said that she would "write occasional reports
based on the open-source research that I described about Donald Trump's relationships with various people in Russia."
The work Nellie conducted for Fusion GPS matches the same skill set used when she worked for Open Source Works, which is a division
within the CIA that uses open-source information to produce intelligence products.
When asked how she came to be hired by Fusion GPS and who had approached her, Nellie responded, "Nobody approached me," telling
investigators that it was she who had initiated contact and approached Fusion GPS after reading an article on Simpson.
Nellie would continue to work for Fusion GPS until September 2016. By this time, Simpson and Steele already had started working
on pushing the Steele dossier into the FBI.
Following the end of her employment with Fusion GPS, Nellie provided Bruce with a memory stick that contained all of the research
she had compiled during her time at the firm. Bruce then gave the memory stick to the FBI, through his handler, Joe Pientka.
Bruce Ohr Becomes a Conduit
Nearly a month after Gaeta brought back the reports that Steele provided in London, Simpson and Steele decided to pursue a new
channel into the FBI through Bruce Ohr. Bruce had known Steele since at least 2007, when they met during an "official meeting" while
Steele was still employed by the British government as an MI6 agent. Steele had already been in contact with Bruce via email in early
2016. Notably, most of these prior communications appeared to discuss Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and his ongoing efforts to
obtain a U.S. visa.
On July 29, 2016, Steele
wrote to Bruce, saying that he would "be in DC at short notice on business," and asked to meet with both Bruce and his wife.
On July 30, 2016, the Ohrs met Steele for breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel. Also present at the breakfast meeting was a fourth individual,
described by Bruce as "an associate of Mr. Steele's, another gentleman, younger fellow. I didn't catch his name." Nellie testified
that Steele's associate had a British accent.
The timing of the July 30 breakfast meeting is of particular note, as the FBI's counterintelligence investigation, "Crossfire
Hurricane," was formally opened the following day, on July 31, 2016, by FBI agent Peter Strzok.
According to a transcript of Bruce's testimony before Congress, Steele
relayed information from his dossier at this meeting and claimed that "a former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service,
the SVR, had stated to someone that they had Donald Trump over a barrel."
Steele also referenced Deripaska's business dealings with Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and foreign policy adviser Carter
Page's meetings in Moscow.
Lastly, Bruce noted that Steele told him he had been in contact with the FBI but now had additional reports. "Chris Steele had
provided some reports to the FBI, I think two, but that Glenn Simpson had more," he said.
Immediately following the Ohrs' breakfast meeting with Steele, Bruce Ohr reached out to FBI Deputy Director McCabe and the two
met in McCabe's office -- sometime between July 30 and the first days of August. Also present at this meeting was FBI lawyer Page,
who had previously worked for Bruce Ohr at the DOJ, where he was her direct supervisor for five to six years.
Bruce Ohr would later testify that during the July/August meeting, he told McCabe that his wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion, noting,
"I wanted the FBI to be aware of any possible bias." FBI General Counsel Baker, who reviewed a portion of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) application to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page -- which relied in part on the information from
Steele -- told congressional investigators that he was never told of Ohr's concerns regarding possible bias and conflicts of interest.
On Aug. 15, 2016, a week or two following Bruce Ohr's meeting with McCabe, Strzok would send the now-infamous "insurance policy"
text referencing McCabe to Lisa Page:
"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office – that there's no way he gets elected – but I'm afraid
we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."
On Aug. 22, Bruce Ohr had a meeting with Simpson. Ohr would later discuss that meeting during his testimony:
"I don't know exactly what Chris Steele was thinking, of course, but I knew that Chris Steele was working for Glenn Simpson, and
that Glenn might have additional information that Chris either didn't have or was not authorized to prevent [present], give me, or
whatever."
It was at this meeting that Simpson first mentioned Belarusan-American businessman Sergei Millian and former Trump attorney Michael
Cohen.
During this same period in late August 2016, Brennan began briefing members of the Gang of Eight on the FBI's counterintelligence
investigation, through a series of meetings in August and September 2016. Notably, each Gang of Eight member was briefed separately,
calling into question whether each of the members received the same information. Efforts by Democrats to
block the release of transcripts from each meeting are ongoing. Comey, however, did not notify Congress of the FBI investigation
until early March 2017, and it's entirely possible he was unaware of Brennan's private briefings during the summer of 2016.
During her testimony, FBI lawyer Lisa Page was questioned by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) in relation to an Aug. 25, 2016, text
message that read, "What are you doing after the CH brief?" CH almost certainly referred to Crossfire Hurricane.
Lisa Page then was asked about an event that took place on the same day as the "CH brief" -- a briefing provided by Brennan to
then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid:
"You give a brief on August the 25th. Director Brennan is giving a brief. It's not a Gang of Eight brief. It is a one-on-one,
from what we can tell, a one-on-one briefing with Harry Reid at that point."
According to Meadows, Brennan briefed Reid on the Steele dossier:
"We have documents that would suggest that in that briefing the dossier was mentioned to Harry Reid and then obviously we're going
to have to have conversations. Does that surprise you that Director Brennan would be aware [of the dossier]?"
Lisa Page appeared genuinely surprised that Brennan would have been aware of the dossier's existence at this early point, telling
Meadows: "The FBI got this information from our source. If the CIA had another source of that information, I am neither aware of
that nor did the CIA provide it to us if they did."
She elaborated further: "As of August of 2016, I don't know who Christopher Steele is. I don't know that he's an FBI source. I
don't know what he does. I have never heard of him in all of my life."
This claim by Page seems incongruous when viewed against Bruce Ohr's testimony that he met with Page and McCabe in the first days
of August following his July 30, 2016, breakfast with Steele:
"My initial meeting was with Mr. McCabe and with Lisa Page.
"I was telling them about what I was hearing from Chris Steele."
Meanwhile, Brennan's briefing prompted Reid to write not one but two letters to Comey. Both demanded that Comey commence an investigation,
with the details to be made public.
Reid's first letter
, which touched on Carter Page, was sent on Aug. 27, 2016. Reid's
second letter
, far angrier and declaring Comey to be in possession of material information, was sent on Oct. 30, 2016.
There had been
reports that Comey had been considering closing the FBI investigation of Trump, something Brennan strongly opposed. Now, with
Reid's letters sent, that avenue was effectively closed. The termination of the FBI's Trump–Russia investigation would be all but
impossible in the face of Reid's public demands.
Perhaps it was in response to Reid's Aug. 27 letter that the FBI suddenly reached out to Steele in September 2016, asking him
for all the information in his possession. The team working on Crossfire Hurricane received documents and a briefing from Steele
in mid-September, reportedly
at a meeting in Rome, where Gaeta also was present.
During Lisa Page's testimony, she appeared to corroborate this account, noting that the team received the "reports that are known
as the dossier from an FBI agent who is Christopher Steele's handler in September of 2016." She would later clarify the timing, noting
"we received the reporting from Steele in mid-September." A
text sent to her by FBI agent Peter
Strzok on Oct. 12, 2016, may provide us with the actual date:
"We got the reporting on Sept 19. Looks like [redacted] got it early August."
Steele had produced eight reports from June 20, 2016, through the end of August 2016 (there also is one undated report included
in the dossier). No further reports were generated by Steele until Sept. 14, when he suddenly wrote three separate memos in one day.
One of the memos referenced a Russian bank named Alfa Bank, misspelled as "Alpha" in his memo. Steele's sudden burst of productivity
was likely done in preparation for his Sept. 19 meeting in Rome with the FBI.
The impact of Brennan's potential knowledge of the dossier in August 2016 should not be underestimated. As Brennan
testified to Congress, his briefing to the Gang of Eight
was done in consultation with the Obama administration:
"Through the so-called Gang-of-Eight process we kept Congress apprised of these issues as we identified them. Again, in consultation
with the White House, I personally briefed the full details of our understanding of Russian attempts to interfere in the election
to congressional leadership.
"Given the highly sensitive nature of what was an active counter-intelligence case, involving an ongoing Russian effort, to interfere
in our presidential election, the full details of what we knew at the time were shared only with those members of Congress."
As the dossier was making its way into the FBI, the agency began its preparations to obtain a FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser
Carter Page, who was surveilled under Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
According to Baker's testimony, it appears that the FBI began to set its sights on Carter Page in the summer of 2016. When asked
how he had first gained knowledge of the FBI's intention to pursue a FISA warrant on Carter Page, Baker testified that it came through
his familiarity with the FBI's investigation:
Mr. Baker: " I learned of -- so I was aware when the FBI first started to focus on Carter Page, I was aware of that because
it was part of the broader investigation that we were conducting. So I was aware that we were investigating him. And then at some
point in time –"
Rep. Meadows: "But that was many years ago. That was in 2014. Or are you talking about 2016?"
Mr. Baker: " I am talking about 2016 in the summer."
Rep. Meadows: "Okay."
Mr. Baker: " Yeah. And so I was aware of the investigation, and then at some point in time, as part of the regular briefings
on the case, the briefers mentioned that they were going to pursue a FISA."
It appears the FBI, and possibly the CIA, began to focus on Carter Page earlier than Baker was aware. Carter Page had been invited
some months prior to a July 2016 symposium held at Cambridge regarding the upcoming election. The speaker list was notable:
Madeleine Albright (former U.S. secretary of state)
Vin Weber (Republican Party strategist and former congressman)
Peter Ammon (German ambassador to the UK)
Sir Richard Dearlove (former head of MI6 and Steele's former boss)
Bridget Kendall (BBC diplomatic correspondent and the next master of Peterhouse College)
Sir Malcolm Rifkind (former defense and foreign secretary)
Carter Page attended the event just four days after his July 2016 Moscow trip, and it was during this time in the UK that he first
encountered Stefan Halper. Page's Moscow trip would later figure prominently in the Steele dossier.
Halper, who has been outed as an FBI informant, stayed in contact with Carter Page for the next 14 months, severing ties exactly
as the final FISA warrant on Page expired.
Trisha Anderson, the principal deputy general counsel for the FBI and head of the bureau's National Security and Cyber Law Branch,
approved the application for a warrant to spy on Carter Page before it went to FBI Director James Comey.
According to Anderson, pre-approvals for the Carter Page FISA warrant were provided by both McCabe and Deputy Attorney General
Sally Yates, before the FISA application was ever presented to Anderson for review.
"[M]y boss and my boss' boss had already reviewed and approved this application. And, in fact, the Deputy Attorney General, who
had the authority to sign the application, to be the substantive approver on the FISA application itself, had approved the application.
And that typically would not have been the case before I did that," said Anderson.
The unusual preliminary reviews and approvals from both McCabe and Yates appear to have had a substantial impact on the normal
review process, leading other individuals like Anderson to believe that the warrant application was more vetted than it really was.
Anderson also testified that she had not read the Carter Page FISA application prior to signing off on it and passing it along
to Comey for the final FBI signature. According to FBI lawyer Sally Moyer, the underlying Woods file (a document that provides facts
supporting the allegations made in a FISA application) was only read by the originating agent and the supervisory special agent in
the field. Moyer also noted that the Woods file relating to the Page FISA had not been reviewed or audited by anyone.
The Carter Page FISA application was largely reliant on the Steele dossier, which was unverified at the time of its submission
to the FISA court and remains unverified by the FBI to this day. Circular reporting, provided by Steele himself, was used as corroboration
of the dossier. Additionally, Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, whose conversation with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer
was used to open the FBI's July 31, 2016, counterintelligence investigation, is referenced in the FISA, yet there "is no evidence
of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos," according to a House Intelligence Committee memo.
Moyer testified that without the Steele dossier, the Carter Page application would have had a "50/50" chance of achieving the
probable cause standard before the FISA court. Notably, the Steele dossier is generally considered to have been largely discredited.
On Sept. 19, shortly after Steele completed his latest three memos, FBI General Counsel James Baker met with Perkins Coie partner
Michael Sussmann, the lawyer the DNC turned to on April 28, 2016, after discovering the alleged hacking of their servers.
Sussman, who sought out the meeting, presented Baker with documents that Baker described as "a stack of material I don't know
maybe a quarter inch half inch thick something like that clipped together, and then I believe there was some type of electronic media,
as well, a disk or something."
The information that Sussmann gave to Baker was related to what Baker described as "a surreptitious channel of communications"
between the Trump Organization and "a Russian organization associated with the Russian Government."
Baker was describing alleged communications between Alfa Bank and a server in the Trump Tower. The allegations, which were investigated
by the FBI and proven to be false, were widely covered in the media.
Just four days earlier, on Sept. 14, Steele mentioned Alfa Bank (misspelled as Alpha bank) in one of his memos.
According to Baker's testimony, there appears to have been at least three meetings with Sussmann -- the first in person and at
least two subsequent meetings by phone. In either the second or third conversation, Baker came to understand The New York Times was
also in possession of Sussmann's information. As would become clear later, other members of the media also had this same information.
As Baker was meeting with Sussmann, Steele was back in Washington for a series of meetings that included his DOJ contact, Bruce
Ohr.
On Sept. 23, 2016, Bruce Ohr again met with Steele for breakfast, telling lawmakers during testimony, "Steele was in Washington,
D.C., again, and he reached out to me, and, again, we met for breakfast, and he provided some additional information." Ohr said this
meeting concerned similar topics that were discussed at the July 30, 2016, meeting but did not provide further details.
Bruce Ohr would also meet either that same month or in early October with FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and DOJ
career officials from the criminal division, Bruce Swartz, Zainab Ahmad, and Andrew Weissman (Ohr testified that he was unsure whether
Weismann was at this or a later meeting). Both Weissman and Ahmad would later become part of the team assembled by special counsel
Robert Mueller.
Steele's Meetings With the Media
On the same day that Bruce Ohr met with Christopher Steele for breakfast, on Sept. 23, 2016, Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff
published an article about Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The article, headlined "
U.S. Intel Officials Probe Ties Between Trump Adviser and Kremlin ," was based on an interview with Steele. Isikoff's article
would later be used by the FBI in the FISA spy warrant application on Carter Page as corroborating information.
Following the publication of the Isikoff article, the Hillary for America campaign released a
statement on the same day that touted
Isikoff's "bombshell report," with the full article attached.
A second lengthy article was published on Sept. 23, by Politico: "
Who Is Carter
Page? The Mystery of Trump's Man in Moscow ," by Julia Ioffe. This article was particularly interesting as it appeared to highlight
media efforts by Fusion GPS:
"As I started looking into Page, I began getting calls from two separate 'corporate investigators' digging into what they claim
are all kinds of shady connections Page has to all kinds of shady Russians. One is working on behalf of various unnamed Democratic
donors; the other won't say who turned him on to Page's scent. Both claimed to me that the FBI was investigating Page for allegedly
meeting with Igor Sechin and Sergei Ivanov, who was until recently Putin's chief of staff -- both of whom are on the sanctions list
-- when Page was in Moscow in July for that speech."
Ioffe noted that "seemingly everyone I talked to had also talked to the Washington Post, and then there were these corporate investigators
who drew a dark and complex web of Page's connections."
Her article also mentioned rumors regarding Alfa Bank:
"In the interest of due diligence, I also tried to run down the rumors being handed me by the corporate investigators: that Russia's
Alfa Bank paid for the trip as a favor to the Kremlin; that Page met with Sechin and Ivanov in Moscow; that he is now being investigated
by the FBI for those meetings because Sechin and Ivanov were both sanctioned for Russia's invasion of Ukraine."
It was probably during this same trip to Washington that Steele
met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy
for Libya, whom Steele had known since at least 2010.
Winer had received a
separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been
compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer
gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele then
shared this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it as a means to corroborate Steele's own dossier.
Steele also met with U.S. media during his visit to Washington, doing so "at Fusion's instruction." According to
UK Court documents , Steele testified
that he "briefed" The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, The New Yorker, and CNN at the end of September 2016. Steele
would engage in a second round of media contact in mid-October 2016, meeting again with The New York Times, The Washington Post,
and Yahoo News. Steele testified that all these meetings were "conducted verbally in person."
As Steele's media meetings were going on, FBI General Counsel James Baker learned that Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann was
also speaking with reporters from The New York Times regarding the Alfa Bank information that Sussmann had provided to the FBI. After
some internal discussion, the FBI approached both Sussmann and The New York Times, asking that any story be held until the FBI had
time to complete an investigation into the documents provided by Sussmann. It appears that an agreement was reached, and the FBI
began to look into the claims regarding Alfa Bank and the server at Trump Tower.
But Sussman wasn't the only one that Baker, currently the subject of an ongoing criminal leak investigation, was speaking with.
According to congressional investigators, beginning sometime in September 2016 -- before the presidential election -- Baker began
having conversations with his old friend and journalist, David Corn of Mother Jones.
According to Baker, these conversations were in relation to ongoing FBI matters:
Rep. Jordan: " Did you talk to Mr. Corn prior to the election about anything, anything related to FBI matters? Not -- so we're
not going to ask about the Steele dossier. Anything about FBI business, FBI matters?"
Mr. Baker: " Yes."
Rep. Jordan: " Yes. And do you know -- can you give me some dates or the number of times that you talked to Mr. Corn about
FBI matters leading up to the 2016 Presidential election?"
Mr. Baker: " I don't remember, Congressman."
By Oct. 31, 2016, the FBI had apparently wrapped up their investigation into the Alfa Bank allegations, finding no evidence of
anything untoward in the process. It was on this day that three separate articles on Alfa Bank would be published.
The first, " Investigating
Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia " by The New York Times, appeared to be an updated version of the article they
had intended to publish before the FBI asked them to delay their reporting. It stated the following:
"In classified sessions in August and September, intelligence officials also briefed congressional leaders on the possibility
of financial ties between Russians and people connected to Mr. Trump. They focused particular attention on what cyberexperts said
appeared to be a mysterious computer back channel between the Trump Organization and the Alfa Bank, which is one of Russia's biggest
banks and whose owners have longstanding ties to Mr. Putin."
The reference to "classified sessions in August and September" is likely in relation to the series of Gang of Eight briefings
that former CIA Director John Brennan engaged in at that time -- including his briefing to then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
The article continued:
"F.B.I. officials spent weeks examining computer data showing an odd stream of activity to a Trump Organization server and Alfa
Bank. Computer logs obtained by The New York Times show that two servers at Alfa Bank sent more than 2,700 'look-up' messages --
a first step for one system's computers to talk to another -- to a Trump-connected server beginning in the spring. But the F.B.I.
ultimately concluded that there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts."
The second article,
"Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?" by Slate Magazine, was solely focused on the allegations regarding a server in
the Trump Tower that had allegedly been communicating with a server at Alfa Bank in Russia.
Immediately following the publication of the Slate article, Clinton
posted a tweet that included a statement
from Jake Sullivan, a senior policy adviser:
"Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank."
Sullivan's statement referenced the Slate article and included the following:
"This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert
server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.
"This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization
felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists."
The Alfa Bank story took off -- despite the same-day story from The New York Times that specifically noted the FBI had investigated
that matter and found nothing untoward.
"In recent weeks, reporters in Washington have pursued anonymous
online reports that a computer server related
to the Trump Organization engaged in a high level of activity with servers connected to Alfa Bank, the largest private bank in Russia.
On Monday, a Slate
investigation
detailed the pattern of unusual server activity but concluded, 'We don't yet know what this [Trump] server was
for, but it deserves further explanation.' In an email to Mother Jones, Hope Hicks, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, maintains, 'The
Trump Organization is not sending or receiving any communications from this email server. The Trump Organization has no communication
or relationship with this entity or any Russian entity.'"
More notably, Corn's article also provided the first public reporting on the existence of the Steele dossier:
"A former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones
that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian
government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump -- and that the FBI requested more information from him."
As it turns out, Corn had detailed, first-hand knowledge of the dossier. According to testimony from Baker, Corn had been provided
with parts of the dossier by Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson. Baker knew of this fact, because within a week of publishing his article,
Corn passed these dossier parts on to Baker personally:
Rep. Jordan: " Prior to the election Mr. Corn had a copy of the dossier and was talking to you about giving that to you so
the FBI would have it. Is that all right? I mean all accurate."
Mr. Baker: " My recollection is that he had part of the dossier, that we had other parts already, and that we got still other
parts from other people, and that -- and nevertheless some of the parts that David Corn gave us were parts that we did not have from
another source?"
Steele had written four memos after the FBI team received his information in mid-September. All of the memos were written in October
-- on the 12th, 18th, 19th, and the 20th. It is possible that these were the memos passed along to Baker by Corn.
Baker testified that he received elements of the dossier from Corn that were not in the FBI's possession at the time. He said
that he immediately turned this information over to leadership within the FBI, noting, "I think it was Bill Priestap," the head of
the FBI's Counterintelligence Division.
The use of personal relationships as a mechanism to transmit outside information to the FBI was actually noted by Baker, who said
of Corn: "Even though he was my friend, I was also an FBI official. He knew that. And so he wanted to somehow get that into the hands
of the FBI."
Bruce Ohr's FBI Handler
Christopher Steele was terminated as a source by the FBI on Nov. 1, 2016, for communicating with the media. Despite this, DOJ
official Bruce Ohr and Steele communicated regularly for another full year, until November 2017.
On Nov. 21, 2016, Ohr had a meeting with FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and was introduced to FBI agent Joe
Pientka, who became Ohr's FBI handler. Pientka was also present with Strzok during the Jan. 24, 2017, interview of
Trump's national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn .
The next day, Nov. 22, 2016, Ohr met alone with Pientka. Ohr would continue to relay his communications with Steele to the FBI
through Pientka, who then recorded them in FD-302 forms. What Ohr didn't know was that Pientka was transmitting all the information
directly to Strzok.
Ohr, in his testimony, detailed his interactions with Steele and Glenn Simpson, as well as his communications with officials at
the FBI and DOJ. Notably, Ohr repeatedly stated that he never vetted any of the information provided by either Steele or Simpson.
He simply turned it over or relayed it to the FBI -- usually to Pientka -- but Ohr also testified that "at least on two occasions
I was handed onto a new agent."
Sometime in late 2016, his wife, Nellie Ohr, provided him with a memory stick containing all of her research that she had compiled
while employed at Fusion GPS. Bruce Ohr testified he gave the memory stick to Pientka. Nellie Ohr had left Fusion in September 2016.
Through Pientka, Strzok now had all of Nellie Ohr's Fusion research in his possession.
On Dec. 10, 2016, Bruce Ohr met with Simpson, who gave him a memory stick that Ohr believed contained a copy of the Steele dossier.
Ohr also passed this second memory stick along to Pientka.
On Jan. 20, 2017, Ohr had one final communication with Simpson, a phone call that took place on the same day as Trump's inauguration.
Ohr testified that Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson was concerned that one of Steele's sources was about to be exposed through
the pending publication of an article:
Mr. Ohr: " He says something along the lines of, I -- there's going to be some reporting in the next few days that's going
to -- could expose the source, and the source could be in personal danger."
Rep. Meadows: " And why was he concerned about that source being exposed?"
Mr. Ohr: " I think he was aware of some kind of article that was likely to come out in the next, you know, few days or something."
Apparently, Simpson's information was at least partly accurate. On Jan. 24, 2017, The Wall Street Journal
reported that Sergei Millian, a Belarusan-American businessman and onetime Russian government translator, was both "Source D"
and "Source E" in the dossier. It remains unknown exactly how Simpson knew in advance that Millian would be outed as a source.
But there are some questions as to the accuracy of the Journal's reporting. The dossier appears to conflict with the newspaper's
article in at least one aspect. According to the dossier, Source E was used as confirmation for Source D -- meaning they can't be
the same person.
McCain, the Dossier, and a UK Connection
Simpson and Steele were carefully thorough in their dissemination efforts. The dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several
different sources.
One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former
British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood may have previously
worked on behalf of Steele's company, Orbis Business Intelligence; he was referenced in a
UK court filing as an associate of
Orbis. Wood was also referred to as an adviser to Orbis in a deposition by an associate of late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), David
Kramer.
Kramer knew Wood previously from their mutual expertise on Russia. Kramer said in his deposition, which was part of a defamation
lawsuit against BuzzFeed News, that Wood told him that "he was aware of information that he thought I should be aware of and that
Senator McCain might be interested in."
McCain, Wood, and Kramer would meet later that afternoon, on Nov. 19, 2016, in a private meeting room at the Halifax International
Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Wood told both Kramer and McCain that "he was aware of this information that had been gathered that raised the possibility of
collusion and compromising material on the president-elect. And he explained that he knew the person who gathered the information
and felt that the person was of the utmost credibility," Kramer said.
Kramer ascribed the word "collusion" three times to Wood in his deposition. He also said that Wood mentioned the possible existence
of a video "of a sexual nature" that might have "shown the president-elect in a compromising situation." According to Kramer, Wood
said that "if it existed, that it was from a hotel in Moscow when president-elect, before he was president-elect, had been in Moscow."
No such video was ever uncovered or given to Kramer.
Kramer testified that following the description of the video, "the senator turned to me and asked if I would go to London to meet
with what turned out to be Mr. Steele."
Kramer traveled to London to meet with Steele on Nov. 28, 2016. Kramer reviewed all the memos during his meeting with Steele but
wasn't provided with a physical copy of the dossier.
When Kramer returned to Washington, he was provided with a copy of the dossier -- which, at that point, consisted of 16 memos
-- during a meeting with Simpson on Nov. 29, 2016. Kramer also testified that there was another individual, "a male," present at
the meeting.
Interestingly, Kramer testified that Simpson gave him two copies of the dossier, noting that Simpson told him that "one had more
things blacked out than the other." Kramer said, "It wasn't entirely clear to me why there were two versions of this, so but I took
both versions."
Kramer noted that Simpson, who was aware the dossier was being given to McCain, said the dossier "was a very sensitive document
and needed to be handled very carefully."
Despite that warning, Kramer showed the dossier to a number of journalists and had discussions with at least 14 members of the
media, along with some individuals in the U.S. government.
Kramer testified that he gave a physical copy of the dossier to reporters Peter Stone and Greg Gordon of McClatchy; to Fred Hiatt,
the editor of the Washington Post editorial page; Alan Cullison of The Wall Street Journal; Bob Little at NPR; Carl Bernstein at
CNN; and Ken Bensinger at BuzzFeed. It's possible that Kramer gave copies to other reporters as well.
Kramer said that Simpson and Steele were aware of most of these contacts, but that Kramer hadn't told either of them that he gave
the dossier to NPR. He also noted that Steele had been in contact with Bernstein at CNN and that the CNN and BuzzFeed meetings occurred
at Steele's request. Steele told Kramer that he and Bensinger "had been in touch during the FIFA investigation; they got to know
each other that way."
According to Kramer, he didn't believe that Fusion GPS and Simpson were aware of these two meetings with CNN and BuzzFeed.
Kramer testified that he, McCain, and McCain's chief of staff, Christopher Brose, met to review the dossier on Nov. 30, 2016.
Kramer suggested that McCain "provide a copy of [the dossier] to the director of the FBI and the director of the CIA." McCain later
passed a copy of the dossier to James Comey on Dec. 9, 2016. It isn't known whether McCain also provided a copy to then-CIA Director
John Brennan. Notably, Brennan did attach a two-page summary of the dossier to the intelligence community assessment that he delivered
to outgoing President Barack Obama on Jan. 5, 2017.
Kramer said that he wasn't aware of the content of McCain's Dec. 9 discussion with Comey, noting that he "did not get any readout
from the senator on the meeting, but just that it had happened."
Kramer did, however, provide updates to both Steele and Simpson regarding the status of McCain's meeting with Comey, in subsequent
discussions with Simpson and Steele:
"It was mostly just to inform him about whether or not the senator had transfer -- transmitted the document to the FBI. Both he
and Mr. Steele were -- I kept them apprised of whether the senator was -- where the senator was in terms of his contact with the
FBI."
The implications of this statement are significant. Kramer, a private citizen, was providing updates to a former British spy as
to what a sitting senator, and chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, was saying to the director of the FBI.
Other members of the media also had advance knowledge of McCain's intention to meet with Comey. Kramer testified that both Mother
Jones reporter David Corn and Guardian reporter Julian Borger came to meet with him. According to Kramer, "They were mostly interested
in Senator McCain and his, whether he had given it to Director Comey or not."
Several days after McCain, Brose, and Kramer met to discuss the dossier, Kramer said that McCain instructed him to meet with Victoria
Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, and Celeste Wallander, the senior director for Russia and
Central Asia on the National Security Council.
The purpose of the meeting was to verify whether the dossier "was being taken seriously." Both Nuland and Wallander were previously
aware of the dossier's existence, and both officials previously knew Steele, whom "they believed to be credible." Kramer said he
didn't physically share the dossier with them at this point, but met again with Wallander "around New Years" and "gave her a copy
of the document"
Nuland had actually
received a copy of the earlier Steele memos back in July 2016.
Steele produced a final memo dated Dec. 13, 2016. According to
UK court documents , Kramer, on behalf
of McCain, had asked Steele to provide any further intelligence that he had gathered relating to "alleged Russian interference in
the US presidential election." Notably, it appears it was this request from McCain that led Steele to produce his Dec. 13 memo.
Although Kramer didn't provide a date, he said he received the final Steele memo sometime after "Senator McCain had provided the
copy to Director Comey." We know that Kramer received the final memo prior to Dec. 29 -- when Kramer met with BuzzFeed's Bensinger.
Kramer testified that Bensinger "said he wanted to read them, he asked me if he could take photos of them on his -- I assume it
was an iPhone. I asked him not to. He said he was a slow reader, he wanted to read it. And so I said, you know, I got a phone call
to make, and I had to go to the bathroom " Kramer said that he "left him to read it for 20, 30 minutes."
Kramer also testified that besides the reporters, he gave a final copy of the dossier to two other people in early January 2017:
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Il.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan's chief of staff, Jonathan Burks.
James Clapper Leaks Details of Obama–Trump Briefings
The ICA on alleged Russian hacking was released
internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, outgoing president Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the assessment
-- and the attached summation of the dossier -- with national security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Deputy Attorney
General Sally Yates. Rice would later send herself an
email documenting the meeting.
The following day, CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary
of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the
dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey, Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the ICA and the Steele
dossier.
Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later
explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview
that he had done so at the request of Clapper and Brennan, "because that was the part that the leaders of the intelligence community
agreed he needed to be told about."
Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The
significance of the meeting was material, as Comey
noted in
a Jan. 7 memo :
"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that
the FBI has the material."
The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey
briefed Trump on it that
CNN reported
on the dossier. The House Intelligence Committee report on Russian election interference confirmed that Clapper personally leaked
confirmation of the dossier, along with Comey's meeting with Trump, to CNN:
"The Committee's investigation revealed that President-elect Trump was indeed briefed on the contents of the Steele dossier and
when questioned by the Committee, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted that he confirmed the existence
of the dossier to the media."
Additionally, the House intelligence report shows Clapper appears to have been the direct source for CNN's Jake Tapper and his
Jan. 10 story that disclosed the existence of the dossier:
"When initially asked about leaks related to the ICA in July 2017, former DNI Clapper flatly denied 'discuss[ing] the dossier
[compiled by Steele] or any other intelligence related to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with journalists.' Clapper subsequently
acknowledged discussing the 'dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper,' and admitted that he might have spoken with other journalists
about the same topic.
"Clapper's discussion with Tapper took place in early January 2017, around the time IC leaders briefed President Obama and President-elect
Trump, on 'the Christopher Steele information,' a two-page summary of which was 'enclosed in' the highly-classified version of the
ICA."
The allegations within the dossier were made public, and with reporting of the briefings by intelligence community leaders, instant
credibility was given to the dossier's assertions.
Immediately following the CNN story,
BuzzFeed published the Steele dossier, and the Trump–Russia conspiracy was pushed into the mainstream.
David Kramer was asked about his reaction when CNN broke the story on the dossier. According to his deposition, Kramer stated,
"I believe my words were 'Holy [expletive].'"
Kramer, who was actually meeting with The Guardian's Julian Borger when CNN reported on the dossier, said that he quickly spoke
with Steele, who "was shocked."
On the following day, Jan. 11, 2017, Clapper issued a statement condemning the leaks -- without revealing the fact that he was
the source of the leak.
On Nov. 17, 2016, Clapper submitted his resignation as director of national intelligence; his resignation became effective on
Jan. 20, 2017. Later that year, CNN hired Clapper as its national security analyst.
The Effort to Remove General Flynn
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then-national security adviser to President Donald Trump, was
interviewed on Jan. 24, 2017, by FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka about two December 2016 conversations that Flynn had
had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.
Details of the phone conversation had leaked to the media. Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI regarding
his conversations with Kislyak. It remains unknown to this day who leaked Flynn's classified call -- a far more serious felony violation.
The Washington Post reported in January 2017 that the FBI had found
no evidence of wrongdoing in Flynn's actual call with the Russian ambassador. The call, and the matters discussed in it, broke
no laws.
Flynn has been portrayed in the media as being suspiciously close to Russia; a dinner in Moscow that occurred in late 2015 is
frequently cited as evidence of this.
On Dec. 10, 2015, Flynn attended an event in Moscow to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Russian television network RT. Flynn,
who was seated next to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the culminating dinner, was also interviewed on national security matters
by an RT correspondent. Flynn's speaker's bureau, Leading Authorities Inc., was paid $45,000 for the event and Flynn received $33,000
of the total amount.
Seated at the same table with Flynn was Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate in the 2016 election. By all accounts, including
Stein's , Flynn and Putin didn't engage in any real conversation. At the time, Flynn's trip didn't garner significant attention.
But it would later be used by the media and the Clinton campaign to push the Russia-collusion narrative.
Notably, as stated
by lawyer Robert Kelner, Flynn disclosed his Moscow trip to the Defense Intelligence Agency before he traveled there and provided
a full briefing upon his return:
"As has previously been reported, General Flynn briefed the Defense Intelligence Agency, a component agency of the DoD, extensively
regarding the RT speaking event trip both before and after the trip, and he answered any questions that were posed by the DIA concerning
the trip during those briefings."
Flynn's trip to Russia was first brought to broader attention on July 18, 2016, during a
live interview at
the Republican National Convention with Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff.
The Isikoff interview took place on July 18, 2016. Unknown at the time, the matter had also captured the attention of Christopher
Steele, who had begun publishing his dossier memos on June 20, 2016.
Contained within an Aug. 10, 2016,
memo was this initial
reference to Flynn:
"Kremlin engaging with several high profile US players, including STEIN, PAGE and (former DIA Director Michael Flynn) and funding
their recent visits to Moscow."
In addition to the obvious questions raised by the timing of Flynn's name appearing in Steele's Aug. 10 memo, is the manner in
which Flynn is denoted. All other names are capitalized, in the manner of intelligence briefings. Flynn's name isn't capitalized
and, in one case, appears within parentheses.
Steele met with Yahoo News' Isikoff in September 2016 and gave him information from the dossier. The resulting Sept. 23, 2016,
article from Isikoff was then cited by the FBI as validating Steele's claims and was featured in the original
FISA application , and its three subsequent
renewals , for a warrant to spy on Trump campaign
foreign policy adviser Carter Page.
Steele wasn't the only person Isikoff was working with. On April 26, 2016, Isikoff
published a story
on Yahoo News about Paul Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. It was later learned from a Democratic
National Committee (DNC) email leaked by Wikileaks that
Isikoff had been working with Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American operative who was doing consulting work for the DNC. Chalupa
met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose alleged ties between Trump, Manafort, and
Russia.
The obvious question remains: How did the information on Flynn make its way into the dossier at the time it did, and who provided
the information to Steele?
Flynn's 2015 dinner in Moscow was initially used to implicate the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. It was then
used as a means to cast doubts on Flynn's ability as Trump's national security adviser. Following Flynn's resignation, it was
then used as a means to pursue the ongoing collusion narrative that gained full strength in the early days of the Trump administration.
"In an extraordinary report released last week, the agencies
bluntly accused
the Russian government of having worked to undermine American democracy and promote the candidacy of Mr. Trump.
The report is likely to renew questions about Mr. Flynn's avowed eagerness to work with Russia, and his dismissal of concerns about
President Vladimir V. Putin."
Flynn would resign from his position as national security adviser in February 2017. The sequence of events leading to his resignation
were both coordinated and orchestrated, with acting Attorney General Sally Yates playing a leading role.
On Jan. 12, 2017, Flynn's Dec. 29, 2016, call with Kislyak was
leaked to The Washington Post. The article portrayed Flynn as undermining Obama's Russia sanctions that had been imposed on the
same day as Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador.
On Jan. 15, five days before Trump's inauguration, Vice President Mike Pence
appeared
on "Face the Nation" to defend Flynn's calls.
A few days later, on Jan. 19, Obama officials -- Yates, Clapper, Brennan and Comey -- met to discuss Flynn's situation. The concern
they
reportedly discussed was that Flynn might have misled Trump administration officials regarding the nature of his call with Kislyak.
Yates, Clapper, and Brennan supported informing the Trump administration of their concerns. Comey took a dissenting view. On Jan
23, Yates again pressured Comey, telling the FBI director that she believed Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail. At this point,
according to media reports, Comey relented, despite the FBI finding nothing unlawful in the content of Flynn's calls.
Strzok and Pientka, at the instruction of McCabe, interviewed Flynn the following day. According to court documents, McCabe and
other FBI officials "decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted
Flynn to be relaxed." It was during this interview that Flynn reportedly lied to the FBI.
The DOJ was provided with a detailed briefing of the Flynn interview on the following day. On Jan. 26, Yates contacted White House
counsel Don McGahn, who agreed to meet to discuss the matter. Yates arrived at McGahn's office, bringing Mary McCord, John Carlin's
acting replacement as head of the DOJ's National Security Division.
Yates later testified before Congress that the meeting
surrounded Flynn's phone calls and his FBI interview. She also testified that Flynn's call and subsequent interview "was a topic
of a whole lot of discussion in DOJ and with other members of the intel community." McGahn reportedly asked Yates, "Why does it matter
to the DOJ if one White House official lies to another official?"
McGahn called Yates the following day and asked her to return for a second meeting. Yates returned to the White House without
McCord. McGahn asked to examine the FBI's evidence on Flynn. Yates said she would respond by the following Monday.
Yates failed to provide McGahn with the FBI's evidence on Flynn. From that point, the pressure on Flynn and the Trump administration
escalated -- with help from media reporting.
Flynn resigned on Feb. 13, after it was reported that he had misled Pence about phone conversations he'd had with Kislyak.
The following day, The
New York
Times reported that "phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and
other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according
to four current and former American officials."
With Flynn gone and the Russian narrative firmly established, the conspirators then turned their attention to Trump's newly confirmed
attorney general, Jeff Sessions . On March 1, 2017, The
Washington Post
reported that Sessions had twice had contact with the Russian ambassador, Kislyak. The following day, March 2, Sessions recused
himself from the Russia investigation.
On the same day that Sessions recused himself, Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, detailed efforts
at hampering the newly installed Trump administration, during a March 2, 2017,
interview with MSNBC , in which she described how the Obama
administration gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:
"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as much
intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'
"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try to
compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the leaking."
Note that Farkas said "how we knew," not just "what we knew."
Obama Officials Used Unmasking to Target the Trump Campaign
On Tuesday, March 21, 2017, the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), met
a classified source who showed him "dozens" of intelligence reports. Contained within these reports was evidence of surveillance
on the Trump campaign. Nunes held a
press conference on March 22 highlighting what he had found:
"I recently confirmed that on numerous occasions, the intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens
involved in the Trump transition. Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent
foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting."
In a series of rapid-fire questions and answers, Nunes attempted to elaborate on what he had been shown:
"From what I know right now, it looks like incidental collection. We don't know exactly how that was picked up but we're trying
to get to the bottom of it I think the NSA's going to comply. I am concerned – we don't know whether or not the FBI is going to comply.
I have placed a call, I'm waiting to talk to Director Comey, hopefully later today.
"I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show the President-elect and his team were at least monitored and disseminated
out in intelligence, in what appears to be raw -- well I shouldn't say raw -- but intelligence reporting channels.
"It looks to me like it was all legally collected, but it was essentially a lot of information on the President-elect and his
transition team and what they were doing."
The documents Nunes had been shown highlighted the unmasking activities of the FBI, the Obama administration, and CIA Director
Brennan in relation to the Trump campaign. Although March 2017 would prove chaotic, the Trump administration had survived the first
crucial months, and would now begin to slowly assert its administrative authority.
Comey Testifies No Obstruction by Trump Administration
On May 3, 2017, James Comey
testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Under oath, Comey stated that his agency -- and the FBI's investigation -- had
not been pressured by the Trump administration:
Sen. Hirono: " So if the attorney general or senior officials at the Department of Justice opposes a specific investigation,
can they halt that FBI investigation?"
Mr. Comey: " In theory, yes."
Sen. Hirono: " Has it happened?"
Mr. Comey: " Not in my experience. Because it would be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something that – without an
appropriate purpose. I mean where oftentimes they give us opinions that we don't see a case there and so you ought to stop investing
resources in it. But I'm talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason. That would be a very
big deal. It's not happened in my experience."
Less than a week later, on May 9, Trump fired Comey based on a May 8 recommendation by Deputy Attorney General
Rod Rosenstein .
Rosenstein would later
tell members of Congress: "In one of my first meetings with then-Sen. Jeff Sessions last winter, we discussed the need for new
leadership at the FBI. Among the concerns that I recall were to restore the credibility of the FBI, respect the established authority
of the Department of Justice, limit public statements and eliminate leaks."
Regarding the recommendation, Rosenstein said: "I wrote it. I believe it. I stand by it."
McCabe's FBI Reaches Out Again to Steele
Within days of Trump's firing of Comey, the FBI, now under the leadership of acting-FBI Director Andrew McCabe, suddenly decided
to reestablish direct contact with Christopher Steele through DOJ official Bruce Ohr.
The re-engagement attempt came six months after Steele had been formally terminated by the FBI on Nov. 1, 2016.
The FBI's re-engagement of Ohr was highlighted during a congressional review of some text messages between Ohr and Steele:
Mr. Ohr: " The FBI had asked me a few days before, when I reported to them my latest conversation with Chris Steele,
they had had would he -- next time you talk with him, could you ask him if he would be willing to meet again."
Rep. Jordan: " So this is the re-engagement?"
Mr. Ohr: " Yes."
The texts being referenced were sent on May 15, 2017, and refer to a request that Ohr received from the FBI to ask Steele to re-engage
with the FBI in the days after Comey had been fired on May 9.
This was the only time the FBI used Ohr to reach out to Steele.
The Battle Between McCabe and Rosenstein
Two days after Comey was fired, on May 11, 2017, McCabe
testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. While the hearing's original intent had been to focus on national security
threats, Trump's firing of Comey completely altered the topic of the hearing.
McCabe, who
agreed that he would notify the committee "of any effort to interfere with the FBI's ongoing investigation into links between
Russia and the Trump campaign," told members of Congress that there had been "no effort to impede our investigation to date." In
other words, McCabe testified that he was unaware of any evidence of obstruction from Trump or his administration. Notably, Comey's
May 3 testimony may have left McCabe with little choice other than to confirm there had been no obstruction.
McCabe, however, failed to inform the committee that he was actively considering opening an obstruction-of-justice probe of Trump
-- a path he would initiate in a meeting with Rosenstein just five days later.
On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein allegedly
suggested
to McCabe that he could secretly record Trump. It was at this
meeting that McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president," according to witness
accounts reported by The Washington Post.
In addition to McCabe, Rosenstein, and McCabe's special counsel, Lisa Page, there were one or two others present, including Rosenstein's
chief of staff , James Crowley, and possibly Scott Schools, the senior-most career attorney at the DOJ and a top aide to Rosenstein.
An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post,
framed the conversation between McCabe and Rosenstein in an entirely different light, noting that Rosenstein had responded with
angry sarcasm to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"
This was just five days after McCabe had publicly testified that there was no obstruction on the part of the Trump administration.
Sometime later that same day, both Rosenstein and Trump met with former FBI Director Robert Mueller in the Oval Office. The meeting
was reported as being for the FBI director position, but the idea that Mueller would be considered for the FBI director role seems
highly unlikely.
Mueller had previously served as the FBI director from 2001 to 2013 -- two years beyond the normal 10-year tenure for an FBI director.
In 2011, Obama requested that Mueller stay on as FBI director for an additional two years, which required
special congressional approval .
Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel the following day, on May 17, 2017, and in doing so, Rosenstein removed control
of the Trump–Russia investigation from McCabe and put it in the hands of Mueller.
This was confirmed in a recent statement by a DOJ spokesperson, who said, "The deputy attorney general in fact appointed special
counsel Robert Mueller, and directed that Mr. McCabe be removed from any participation in that investigation."
Following the appointment of Mueller as special counsel, it also appears the FBI's efforts to re-engage with Steele abruptly ended.
'There's No Big There There'
We know the FBI hadn't found any evidence of collusion in the May 2017 timeframe. While McCabe was attempting to open an obstruction
investigation, Peter Strzok -- who played a key role in the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign -- texted Lisa
Page about lacking evidence of collusion:
"You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I'd be there, no question. I hesitate, in part, because
of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there."
Page, who was asked about this text during her July 2018 testimony, said, "So I think this represents that even as far as May
of 2017, we still couldn't answer the question."
James Baker, who was questioned about the Strzok text, was then asked if he'd seen any evidence to the contrary. He stumbled a
bit in his reply:
Rep. Meadows: " Do you have any evidence to the contrary that you observed personally in your official capacity?"
Mr. Baker: " So the difficulty I'm having with your question is, what does 'collusion' mean, and what does 'prove' mean? And
so I don't know how to respond to that."
FBI Leadership Speculates on New Trump–Russia Collusion Narrative
In his testimony, Baker disclosed the actual substance of discussions taking place at the upper echelons of the FBI immediately
following Comey's firing -- that Vladimir Putin had ordered Trump to fire Comey:
Mr. Baker: " We discussed, so to the best of my recollection, with the same people I described earlier: Mr. McCabe, possibly
Mr. Gattis [Carl Ghattas, executive assistant director of the National Security Branch], Mr. Priestap, possibly Lisa Page, possibly
Pete Strzok. I don't remember that specifically."
Rep. Ratcliffe: " So there was -- there was a discussion between those folks, possibly all of the folks that you've identified,
about whether or not President Trump had been ordered to fire Jim Comey by the Russian Government?"
Mr. Baker: " I wouldn't say ordered. I guess I would say the words I sort of used earlier, acting at the behest of and somehow
following directions, somehow executing their will, whether -- and so literally an order or not, I don't know. But -- "
Rep. Ratcliffe: " And so -- "
Mr. Baker: " As a -- it was discussed as a theoretical possibility."
Rep. Ratcliffe: " When was it discussed?"
Mr. Baker: "After the firing, like in the aftermath of the firing."
The FBI, with no actual evidence of collusion after 10 months of investigating, began discussing a complete hypothetical at the
highest levels of leadership as a means to possibly open an obstruction-of-justice investigation of the president of the United States.
During his testimony, Baker told lawmakers: "I had a jaundiced eye about everything, yes. I had skepticism about all this stuff.
I was concerned about all of this. This whole situation was horrible, and it was novel and we were trying to figure out what to do,
and it was highly unusual."
McCabe was later fired for lying to the DOJ inspector general and is currently the subject of a criminal grand jury investigation.
The Fixer
Despite the ongoing assault from the intelligence community and holdovers from the Obama administration, Trump was not entirely
without allies.
Dana Boente, one of the nation's highest-profile federal prosecutors, served in a series of critical shifting roles within the
Trump administration. Boente, who remained the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia until early 2018, concurrently
became the acting attorney general following the firing of Sally Yates. Boente, who was specifically appointed by Trump, was not
directly in the line of succession that had been previously laid out under an unusual executive order from the Obama administration.
Upon the confirmation of Sessions as attorney general, Boente next served as acting deputy attorney general until the confirmation
of Rod Rosenstein as deputy attorney general on April 25, 2017. Boente then
became the acting head of the DOJ's National Security Division on April 28, 2017, following the sudden resignation of Mary McCord.
Boente was appointed as FBI general counsel on Jan. 23, 2018, replacing Baker, who was demoted and reassigned. Baker is currently
the subject of a criminal leak investigation. Boente remains in his position as FBI general counsel.
On March 31, 2017, the Trump administration asked for the resignations all 46 holdover U.S. attorneys from the Obama administration.
Trump refused to accept the resignations of just three of them -- Boente, Rosenstein, and John Huber.
As Sessions noted in a
March 29, 2018, letter
to congressional chairmen Chuck Grassley, Bob Goodlatte, and Trey Gowdy, Huber was assigned by Sessions to lead a prosecution
team and is currently working with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz:
"I already have directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate certain issues previously raised by the Committee. Specifically,
I asked United States Attorney John W. Huber to lead this effort."
The Carter Page FISA application has been the subject of significant media attention, but there's another element to the story
that, although largely ignored, is equally important. It involved what amounted to a surreptitious race between then-NSA Director
Adm. Mike Rogers and DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin.
Following a March 9, 2016, discovery that outside contractors for the FBI had been accessing raw FISA data since at least 2015,
Rogers directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702" at some
point in early April 2016 (
Senate testimony &
pages
83–84 of court ruling).
On April 18, 2016, Rogers moved aggressively in response to the disclosures. He abruptly shut down all FBI outside-contractor
access. At this point, both the FBI and the DOJ's NSD became aware of Rogers's compliance review. They may have known earlier, but
they were certainly aware after outside-contractor access was halted.
The DOJ's NSD maintains oversight of the intelligence agencies' use of Section 702 authority. The NSD and the Office of the Director
of National Intelligence (ODNI) jointly conduct reviews of the intelligence agencies' Section 702 activities every 60 days. The NSD
-- with notice to the ODNI -- is required to report any incidents of agency noncompliance or misconduct to the FISA court.
Instead of issuing individual court orders, the attorney general and the director of national intelligence (DNI) are required
by Section
702 to provide the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) with annual certifications that specify categories of foreign
intelligence information the government is authorized to acquire, pursuant to Section 702.
The attorney general and the DNI also must certify that Intelligence Community agencies will follow targeting procedures and
minimization
procedures that are approved by the FISC as part of the certification.
Carlin filed the government's proposed
2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of the compliance review by Rogers. The NSD
was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016,
report by the NSA inspector
general and associated FISA abuse to the FISA court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing
Section 702-compliance review.
On Sept. 27, 2016, the day after he filed the annual certifications, Carlin announced his
resignation , which would become effective on Oct. 15, 2016.
On Oct. 4, 2016, a standard follow-up court hearing was held (
Page 19
), with Carlin present. Again, he made no disclosure of FISA abuse or other related issues. This lack of disclosure would be
noted by the court later in the April 2017 ruling:
"The government's failure to disclose those IG and OCO reviews at the October 4, 2016 hearing [was ascribed] to an institutional
'lack of candor.'"
On Oct. 15, 2016, Carlin formally left the NSD.
On Oct. 20, 2016, Rogers was briefed by the NSA compliance officer on findings from the 702 NSA compliance audit. The audit had
uncovered a large number of issues, including numerous "about query" violations (
Senate testimony ).
Rogers shut down all "about query" activity on Oct. 21, 2016. "About queries" are particularly worrisome, since they occur when
the target is neither the sender nor the recipient of the collected communication; rather, the target's "query," such as an email
address, is being passed between two other communicants.
On the same day, the DOJ and FBI sought and received a Title I FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. At this point,
the FISA court still was unaware of the Section 702 violations.
On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA court of his findings:
"On October 24, 2016, the government orally apprised the Court of significant non-compliance with the NSA's minimization procedures
involving queries of data acquired under Section 702 using U.S. person identifiers. The full scope of non-compliant querying practices
had not been previously disclosed to the Court."
Rogers appeared formally before the FISA court on Oct. 26, 2016, and presented the written findings of his audit:
"Two days later, on the day the Court otherwise would have had to complete its review of the certifications and procedures, the government
made a written submission regarding those compliance problems and the Court held a hearing to address them.
"The government reported that the NSA IG and OCO were conducting other reviews covering different time periods, with preliminary
results suggesting that the problem was widespread during all periods under review."
The FISA court was unaware of the FISA "query" violations until they were presented to the court by then-NSA Director Rogers.
Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications, apparently in order to avoid raising
suspicions at the FISA court ahead of receiving the Carter Page FISA warrant.
The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page. FISA
Abuse & the FISC
Rogers presented his findings directly to the FISA court's presiding judge, Rosemary Collyer. Collyer and Rogers would work together
for the next six months, addressing the issues that Rogers had uncovered.
It was Collyer who wrote the
April 26, 2017,
FISA court ruling on the entire episode. It also was Collyer who signed the original FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21,
2016, before being apprised of the many issues by Rogers.
The litany of abuses described in the April 26, 2017, ruling was shocking and detailed the use of private contractors by the FBI
in relation to Section 702 data. Collyer referred to it as "a very serious Fourth Amendment issue." The FBI was specifically singled
out by the court numerous times in the ruling:
"The improper access previously afforded the contractors has been discontinued. The Court is nonetheless concerned about the FBI's
apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information
that have not been reported."
Rogers informed Collyer of the ongoing FISA abuses by the FBI and NSD just three days after she personally signed the Carter Page
FISA warrant.
Virtually every FBI and NSD official with material involvement in the original Carter Page FISA application would later be removed
-- either through firing or resignation.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated the wrong month for Christopher Steele's 2016 meeting with the FBI in
Rome. The meeting took place in September 2016.
"... Toward the end of the segment , Bartiromo asked Graham: "Who do you think is the mastermind of this? Whose idea was it to insert Donald Trump into Russia meddling?" ..."
"... Graham responded: "You know, I really am very curious about the role the CIA played here. We know that the FISA warrant application was based on a dossier prepared by Christopher Steele, who was biased against Trump, that was unverified. That's one problem. But this whole intelligence operation -- what role did the CIA play?" ..."
"... "Over the spring of 2016, multiple European allies passed on additional information to the United States about contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians. Is this accurate?" ..."
"... "Yes, it is, and it's also quite sensitive. The specifics are quite sensitive." ..."
"... "We call it incidental collection in terms of CIA's foreign intelligence collection authorities. Any time we would incidentally collect information on a U.S. person, we would hand that over to the FBI because they have the legal authority to do it. We would not pursue that type of investigative, you know, sort of leads. We would give it to the FBI. So, we were picking things up that was of great relevance to the FBI, and we wanted to make sure that they were there -- so they could piece it together with whatever they were collecting domestically here." ..."
"... So, it's an intelligence-sharing operation between " ..."
"... Right. We put together a Fusion Center at CIA that brought NSA and FBI officers together with CIA to make sure that those proverbial dots would be connected." ..."
"... "I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign. I know that there was a sufficient basis of information and intelligence that required further investigation by the bureau to determine whether or not U.S. persons were actively conspiring, colluding with Russian officials." ..."
"... "We have documents that would suggest that in that briefing the dossier was mentioned to Harry Reid and then, obviously, we're going to have to have conversations. Does that surprise you that Director Brennan would be aware of [the dossier]?" ..."
"... "Yes, sir. Because with all due honesty, if Director Brennan – so we got that information from our source, right? The FBI got this information from our source. If the CIA had another source of that information, I am neither aware of that nor did the CIA provide it to us if they did." ..."
"... "So what you're saying is, is that you had no knowledge of these potential unverified memos prior to the middle part of September in your investigation?" ..."
told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo that Justice
Department Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz was "doing a very in-depth dive about the FISA warrant application" and "the behavior
regarding the counterintelligence operation."
Graham noted that he believed Horowitz's
report would be coming out in "weeks -- not days, not months" and would prove to be "ugly and damning regarding the Department of
Justice's handling of the Russian probe." Graham noted that the IG's report has been delayed because "every time you turn around,
you find something new."
Graham said he wants the IG's report to be as declassified as possible in order for the "American public to hear the story."
Graham said that prosecutor John Durham "will be looking at criminality, did somebody violate the law," while Horowitz "will be
telling us about the good, the bad, and the ugly, and what should be done internally." He went so far as to mention exploring a possible
restructuring of the Department of Justice.
Toward the end of the segment , Bartiromo
asked Graham: "Who do you think is the mastermind of this? Whose idea was it to insert Donald Trump into Russia meddling?"
Graham responded: "You know, I really am very curious about the role the CIA played here. We know that the FISA warrant application
was based on a dossier prepared by Christopher Steele, who was biased against Trump, that was unverified. That's one problem. But
this whole intelligence operation -- what role did the CIA play?"
Graham then went a step further, asking: "Who knew about this in the White House? Here's a question: Was President Obama briefed
on the fact that they were opening up a counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign? I'd like to know that."
Bartiromo, who noted that Brennan was running the CIA at that time and would have likely provided the Obama briefing, asked Graham
if he was going to call Brennan to testify before Congress. Graham responded somewhat cryptically, saying only, "We'll see."
Brennan's Role
Brennan appears to have played a key role in
establishing the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign -- including making repeated use of questionable
foreign intelligence.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper personally confirmed foreign intelligence involvement during
congressional testimony in May 2017:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein: "Over the spring of 2016, multiple European allies passed on additional information to the United States
about contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians. Is this accurate?"
James Clapper: "Yes, it is, and it's also quite sensitive. The specifics are quite sensitive."
Brennan has testified to Congress that any information,
specifically "anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign was shared with the bureau [FBI]." Brennan also admitted
that it was his intelligence that helped establish the
FBI investigation:
"I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in
my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and
it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred."
Focus on Intelligence Role Prior to FBI Probe
John Solomon of The Hill, who has extensively covered the Spygate scandal, told Bartiromo in an
interview that he was hearing that "John
Durham and Bill Barr are focused on the part before the FBI officially got started on July 31, 2016, the period of March to July,
and whether intelligence assets -- Western, private, or U.S. -- were deployed in an earlier effort to start probing the Trump campaign
and its Russia ties -- maybe lay the breadcrumb trail of evidence that Christopher Steele then collected up and gave to the FBI."
Solomon noted that when Attorney General Barr said, "I believe there was political surveillance going on," this was likely what
he was referring to.
This focus on the spring of 2016 is particularly interesting given that during this time, Brennan appeared to have employed the
use of
reverse targeting on members of the Trump campaign. Reverse targeting refers to the targeting of a foreign individual with the
intent of capturing data on a U.S. citizen. During an
Aug. 17, 2018, interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, Brennan said:
"We call it incidental collection in terms of CIA's foreign intelligence collection authorities. Any time we would incidentally
collect information on a U.S. person, we would hand that over to the FBI because they have the legal authority to do it. We would
not pursue that type of investigative, you know, sort of leads. We would give it to the FBI. So, we were picking things up that was
of great relevance to the FBI, and we wanted to make sure that they were there -- so they could piece it together with whatever they
were collecting domestically here."
As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of traditional channels -- was gathered on members of the Trump
campaign, Brennan began his process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from
the CIA director helped push the FBI toward establishing a formal counterintelligence investigation.
Role of Joseph Mifsud
Solomon also discussed the role of Joseph Mifsud, the individual who told Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos in March 2016
that Russia had Hillary Clinton emails. Solomon noted that he had recently interviewed Stefan Roe, Mifsud's lawyer, who told him
that Mifsud "had long worked with Western intelligence" and that he was "asked to connect George Papadopoulos to Russia -- meaning
it was an operation, some form of an intelligence operation."
As Solomon noted, this would mean that the "flashpoint that started the whole investigation was, in fact, manufactured from the
beginning." Solomon also noted that "both John Durham and two different committees in Congress have recently reached out to get this
evidence from the lawyer, which includes an audiotaped deposition that Mr. Mifsud gave his lawyer before he went into hiding."
Bartiromo closed by asking Solomon
the same question she put to Graham, "Who do you think is the mastermind?" Solomon responded in a similar fashion to Graham, noting:
"I think the CIA. We have to take a closer look at them. We're starting to see some sign of it."
Role of UK Intelligence
Luke Harding, a journalist for The Guardian, had
previously reported
on the early involvement of UK intelligence and their interaction with the U.S. intelligence community, noting that Britain's
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was engaged in collecting information on the Trump campaign and transmitting it to
the United States beginning in late 2015:
"In late 2015, the British eavesdropping agency GCHQ was carrying out standard 'collection' against Moscow targets. The intelligence
was handed to the U.S. as part of a routine sharing of information," Harding wrote in an article on Nov. 15, 2017.
Additionally, in the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, then-head of GCHQ, traveled to Washington to personally
meet with Brennan:
"That summer, GCHQ's then head, Robert Hannigan, flew to the U.S. to personally brief CIA chief John Brennan. The matter was deemed
so important that it was handled at 'director level,' face-to-face between the two agency chiefs," Harding reported.
Around the same time, Brennan formed an inter-agency
task force comprising an estimated six agencies and government departments. Brennan appeared to describe the task force formation
during the Aug. 17, 2018, interview with MSNBC's Maddow:
Maddow: " So, it's an intelligence-sharing operation between "
Brennan: " Right. We put together a Fusion Center at CIA that brought NSA and FBI officers together with CIA to make sure
that those proverbial dots would be connected."
FBI's 'Mid-Year Exam' Team Shifts to Trump Probe
By the spring of 2016, the Clinton email investigation was winding down. This was due in large part to the fact that the Department
of Justice, under Attorney General Loretta Lynch, had decided to set an
unusually high threshold for the prosecution of Clinton, effectively ensuring from the outset that she wouldn't be charged.
In order for Clinton to be prosecuted, the department required the FBI to establish evidence of intent -- even though the gross
negligence statute explicitly doesn't require that.
It was at this same time that Trump campaign adviser Papadopoulos had his April 26, 2016,
meeting with Mifsud, followed
a few weeks later with his
ill-fated meeting with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer in May. The meeting with Downer, then Australia's high commissioner
to the UK, was established through
a chain of two intermediaries.
Downer's conversation with Papadopoulos was reportedly disclosed to the FBI on July 22, 2016, through Australian government channels,
although it also may have come directly from Downer himself via the U.S. Embassy in London. Details from the conversation between
Downer and Papadopoulos were then used by the FBI to open its counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign on July 31,
2016.
Interestingly, the information allegedly relayed by Papadopoulos during the Downer meeting -- that the Russians had damaging information
on Clinton -- appears nearly identical to claims later contained in the first memo from former MI6 spy and dossier author Christopher
Steele that the FBI obtained in early July 2016.
Steele's first dossier
document , dated June 20, 2016, noted that "a dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the
Russian Intelligence Services over many years."
Which raises a good question, recently posed
by internet researcher Nick Weil on Twitter: "When the FBI got the tip from Alexander Downer that the Russians had Hillary's
33k emails, the appropriate action would have been to re-open Mid Year Exam, no?"
Rather than deciding to re-examine the "Mid-Year Exam" investigation, which looked into Clinton's handling of her emails and use
of a private server, the FBI instead used this information to establish an investigation into the Trump campaign.
What makes this sequence of events even more telling is exactly when the FBI first received information from Steele.
After Steele's company was hired by Fusion GPS in June 2016, he began to reach out to the FBI through Michael Gaeta, an FBI agent
and assistant legal attaché at the
U.S. Embassy in Rome whom Steele had worked with on the FIFA case. Gaeta also headed up the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime unit,
which specializes in investigating criminal groups from Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine.
Gaeta would later be identified as Steele's FBI handler, in a July 16, 2018, congressional testimony before the House Judiciary
and Oversight committees by FBI lawyer Lisa Page.
Following a reported
initial meeting that took place during late June 2016 in Rome, Gaeta
traveled to London on July 5, 2016, and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis. During the July 5 meeting, Steele
provided the first memo in his dossier to Gaeta for ultimate transmission back to the FBI and the State Department.
At the exact time that Gaeta was meeting with Steele, on July 5, 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey announced the closure of
the FBI's investigation into Clinton's use of a personal e-mail system during her time as secretary of state.
During the July 5, 2016,
press conference , Comey recommended that Clinton not be charged, stating, "We cannot find a case that would support bringing
criminal charges on these facts." Comey also noted that "although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like
this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case."
With the July 5 closure of the Clinton investigation, many of the same FBI agents who had worked on the case were assigned to
the agency's July 31, 2016, counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign -- the opening of which was based on little more
than details from the conversation between Downer and Papadopoulos, provided by the Australian government. Although all investigative
focus fell on the Trump campaign, the fact that Downer said that the Russians had Clinton's emails appears not to have been an impetus
for the FBI to reopen the Clinton email investigation.
CIA's Use of Unofficial Intel on Trump Campaign
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who has seen the electronic communication that was used to officially open the FBI's counterintelligence
investigation, has publicly stated , "We now know that
there was no official intelligence that was used to start this investigation."
Contrast Nunes's statement with what Brennan testified
before Congress on May 23, 2017:
"I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials
and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign. I know that there was a sufficient basis of information and intelligence that required
further investigation by the bureau to determine whether or not U.S. persons were actively conspiring, colluding with Russian officials."
Brennan has claimed that
he didn't see the dossier until "later in that year; I think it was in December [2016]." Brennan also stated in his testimony that
the CIA didn't rely on the Steele dossier and that it "was not in any way used as a basis for the intelligence community assessment
that was done."
https://g.jwpsrv.com/g/gcid-0.1.2.html?notrack Rewind 10 Seconds Next Up Live 00:00 00:00 00:00 Closed Captions Settings Fullscreen
click to watch video
But this claim was countered during the July 16, 2018,
testimony of former FBI lawyer Page, when the following discussion took place regarding Brennan's August 2016 briefing of then-Sen.
Harry Reid:
Rep. Mark Meadows: "We have documents that would suggest that in that briefing the dossier was mentioned to Harry Reid and
then, obviously, we're going to have to have conversations. Does that surprise you that Director Brennan would be aware of [the dossier]?"
Lisa Page: "Yes, sir. Because with all due honesty, if Director Brennan – so we got that information from our source, right?
The FBI got this information from our source. If the CIA had another source of that information, I am neither aware of that nor did
the CIA provide it to us if they did."
While some within the FBI likely had parts of the dossier in early July, Page testified that the counterintelligence investigative
team didn't receive it until mid-September -- likely during a trip to Rome, where they met with Steele:
Rep. Meadows: "So what you're saying is, is that you had no knowledge of these potential unverified memos prior to the middle
part of September in your investigation?"
Page: "That is correct, sir."
Was Reid's Letter Based on Steele Dossier Info?
In the days following Brennan's briefing, Reid
sent a letter on Aug. 27,
2016, to Comey demanding an investigation -- and that the investigation be made public. Based on Brennan's briefing, it's highly
likely that Reid knew an FBI investigation was already underway. Some of the details contained within Reid's letter relate to former
Trump adviser Carter Page and match details contained only within the Steele dossier at the time.
Specifically, Reid claimed that Page had "conflicts of interest due to investments in Russia energy conglomerate Gazprom" and
that he had "met with high-ranking sanctioned individuals while in Moscow in July of 2016, well after Trump became the presumptive
Republican nominee."
Page's investment in Gazprom was known prior to Reid's letter, but it appears that the first public allegations that Page had
met with "high-ranking sanctioned individuals while in Moscow" weren't made until Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff published his
article "
U.S. intel officials probe ties between Trump adviser and Kremlin " on Sept. 23, 2016, based on information directly from Christopher
Steele.
Prior to Isikoff's September article, the only place that information had been referenced, aside from Reid's letter, was in a
July 19, 2016, Steele
dossier memo (there is also a mention in a sequentially earlier, but undated memo from Steele). The Steele dossier wouldn't become
public until its Jan. 10, 2017,
publication
by BuzzFeed.
During his May 2017 testimony, Brennan discussed his briefings to the Gang of Eight. Brennan testified that the briefings were
done "in consultation with the White House" and stated that he gave the "same briefing to each of the Gang of Eight members." Notably,
Brennan conducted his briefings individually over a period of almost a full month between Aug. 11, 2016, and Sept. 6, 2016.
However, Nunes has stated that he wasn't given the same briefing as was Reid, despite that Nunes held the position of chairman
of the House Intelligence Committee at the time. Nunes made this disclosure in a July 28, 2019,
interview with Bartiromo, noting: "We now know that John Brennan briefed Harry Reid on the dossier in August 2016. At the same
time, he never briefed me or Paul Ryan, who was the speaker of the House at the time."
Brennan's Role in Official Reports
The last major segment of Brennan's efforts involved a series of three reports. The
first report was released on Oct. 7, 2016, and the
second
on Dec. 29, 2016.
This final report was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of Trump as president. Notably,
Adm. Mike Rogers, then director of the National Security Agency , publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning it only
a moderate confidence level.
As previously noted, while Brennan has denied using the dossier in the ICA, he did attach a two-page summary of the dossier to
the intelligence community assessment that he, along with Clapper and Comey, delivered to President Barack Obama on Jan. 6, 2017.
Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey, Brennan,
and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the ICA and the Steele dossier.
Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later
explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview
that he'd done so at the request of Clapper and Brennan, "because that was the part that the leaders of the intelligence community
agreed he needed to be told about."
@Sean McBride Not sure if I'm correct here, but my understanding is that the CIA (&
& Dulles in particular) "invented" the term ""conspiracy theory" to further muddy the
waters in the wash up from the Kennedy assassination.
'Conspiracy theory' is how the mainstream media characterizes any narrative that differs
from their reporting of the official line. What is a conspiracy theory? Can it be defined in
categorical terms? Can a conspiracy theory be validated forensically or refuted by similar
means? What criteria can be used to differentiate between a conspiracy theory and theoretical
musings?
The labelling of a theory as 'conspiratorial' is an attempt to discredit its author/authors
and deny its validity. A 'conspiracy theory' usually involves an explanatory thesis that points
to a malevolent plot often involving a secretive interested party. The term 'conspiracy theory'
has a pejorative connotation: its use suggests that the theory appeals to prejudice and/or
involves a farfetched, unsubstantiated narrative built on insufficient evidence.
Those who oppose conspiracy theories argue that such theories resist falsification and are
reinforced by circular reasoning, that such theories are primarily based on beliefs, as opposed
to academic or scientific reasoning.
But this critique is also not exactly based on valid scholarly principles. It isn't just
'conspiracy theories' that resist falsification or are reinforced by circular reasoning. The
philosopher Karl Popper, who defined the principle of falsifiability, would categorically
maintain that Freudian psychoanalysis and Marxism fail for the same reasons. The Oedipal
complex, for instance, has never been scientifically proven and can't be scientifically
falsified or validated. Marxism also resists falsification. Despite Marx's 'scientific'
predictions, the proletarian revolution never occurred. I have personally never come across
anyone who refers to Marx or Freud as 'conspiracy theorists.' 'Resisting falsification' and
"reinforced by circular reasoning," are traits of non-scientific theories and do not apply only
to 'conspiracy theories.'
The Oxford English Dictionary defines conspiracy theory as "the theory that an event or
phenomenon occurs as a result of a conspiracy between interested parties; spec. a belief
that some covert but influential agency (typically political in motivation and oppressive in
intent) is responsible for an unexplained event".
The Oxford dictionary does not set forth the criteria that define a conspiracy theory in
categorical terms. The history of mankind is saturated with references to hidden plots led by
influential parties.
The problem with refuting conspiracy theories is that they are often more elegant and
explanatory than the official competing narratives. Such theories have a tendency to ascribe
blame to hegemonic powers. In the past, conspiracy theories were popular mostly amongst fringe
circles, they are now becoming commonplace in mass media. Alternative narratives are widely
disseminated through social media. In some cases, they have been disseminated by official news
outlets and even by the current American president. It is possible that the rapid rise in
popularity of alternative explanatory theories is an indication of a growing mistrust of the
current ruling class, its ideals, its interests and its demography.
The response to the story of Jeffrey Epstein's suicide is illustrative. The official
narrative provoked a reaction that was a mixture of disbelief expressed in satire and inspired
a plethora of theories that attempted to explain the saga that had escalated into the biggest
sex scandal in the history of America and beyond.
The obvious question is what has led to the increase in popularity of so called 'conspiracy
theories'? I would push it further and ask, why is a society that claims to be 'free' is
threatened by the rise of alternative explanatory narratives?
In truth, the question is itself misleading. No one is really afraid of 'conspiracy
theories' per se. You will not be arrested or lose your job for being a 'climate change
denier.' You may speculate on and even deny the moon landing as much as you like. You are free
to speculate about Kennedy's assassination as long as you don't mention the Mossad . You can even
survive being a 911 truther and espouse as many alternative narratives as you like, however,
the suggestion that ' Israel did 911' will get you
into serious trouble. Examining 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' as a fictional,
however
prophetic , piece of literature can lead to imprisonment in some countries. Digging into
the true origin of Bolshevism and the demographics of the Soviet revolution is practically a
suicidal act. Telling the truth about Hitler's agreement with the Zionist agency
will definitely result in your expulsion from the British Labour party and you will be accused
of being
at the least, theoretically conspiratorial .
"... "The failing New York Times, in one of the most devastating portrayals of bad journalism in history, got caught by a leaker that they are shifting from the Phony Russian Collusion Narrative (the Mueller Report & his testimony were a total disaster), to a Racism Witch Hunt ," Trump wrote on Twitter ..."
"... Systematic deception by the press is a national security issue. In a real crisis, 2/3rds of this country is not going to believe either the government nor the media. That will be a real problem, and it's a massive weakness. ..."
"... Neoliberal MSM propaganda like heroin. Those "news" outlets don't care about actual facts or news, they are more script writers than anything else. ..."
President Trump slammed the "failing New York Times" on Sunday after leaked comments from executive editor Dean Baquet revealed
that the paper is pivoting from the Russia narrative (which he described as being "a little tiny bit flat-footed") to 'Trump is a
racist.'
"The failing New York Times, in one of the most devastating portrayals of bad journalism in history, got caught by a leaker that
they are shifting from the Phony Russian Collusion Narrative (the Mueller Report & his testimony were a total disaster), to a Racism
Witch Hunt ," Trump wrote on Twitter, adding "'Journalism' has reached a new low in the history of our Country. It is nothing more
than an evil propaganda machine for the Democrat Party. The reporting is so false, biased and evil that it has now become a very
sick joke But the public is aware! The reporting is so false, biased and evil that it has now become a very sick joke But the public
is aware!"
Systematic deception by the press is a national security issue. In a real crisis, 2/3rds of this country is not going to believe either the government nor the media. That will be a real problem, and it's a massive weakness.
Neoliberal MSM propaganda like heroin. Those "news" outlets don't care about actual facts or news, they are more script
writers than anything else. These pretend journalists have conjured up a narrative and it is all about repeat repeat repeat,
keeping that constant drip going into the vein of the Dem constituency. It's been going on for decades and the only people that
are too stupid to see it are the Dems themselves.
"... Even more importantly, we should all be troubled by efforts to shut down content and discussions labeled "false and misleading" on major social media platforms . ..."
"... Conspiracies can be found out by many different ways e.g. documents uncovered, discrepancies, evidence that contradicts what has been claimed etc. ..."
"... "A two decade old CT, like 9/11, or worse, one six decades old (the JFK assassination), are false because they would have involved too many people–someone would have blown the whistle, if only on their deathbed." ..."
"... "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. ..."
"... The old adage 'two men can keep a secret, if one of them is dead' applies here. ..."
"... This co-ordinated and global media attack on the 'Conspiracy Theorist' is co-ordinated and Global for good reason. ..."
"... The determination of international deepstate to make illegal any question or recognition of it under guise of 'Conspiracy theorist=domestic terrorist/anti-semite/anti-Zionist/BDS/trump supporting white supremacist(etc)'- conflating those ULTRA memes with growing awareness of the Anglo/Yankee/zionist PSYOPS underway globally, mean we are entering a choke point in progression of reason, truth and beauty. ..."
"... The danger of the conspiracy theorist to the present world order, is that most of the BIG ones, the nasty ones, are true. And CIA operation Mockingbirds' job (Quote) 'is to Guard against the illicit Transformation of Probability into Certainty," that they are . ..."
"... Ultimately, the average conspiracy theorist has a better grasp of how the world works than the average liberal. ..."
"... The reality is that the ruling class and its public servants really do have a parasitic and predatory relationship to the vast majority of humanity ..."
"... I like Michael Moore's response when asked if he believed the conspiracy theories which were floating about at the time: "Just the ones that are true" ..."
"... A conspiracy theory, like any theory is as strong as the evidence put forward to support it. ..."
"... One of the ways they will do this is to plant "evidence" purporting to support the theory, but easily disproved by easily available information. Unfortunately,it is a sad fact that far too many "conspiracy theorists" readily accept and share along with genuine evidence, this planted "evidence" to the wider internet, thereby undermining the solid evidence of a conspiracy, by associating it with the easily disprovable nonsense. ..."
"... For example, after the attack on the WTC Kissinger was appointed to the head the 9/11 commission (before stepping down). ..."
"... 'Conspiracy theorists' would have thought – why are neocons appointing a mass-murdering neocon to investigate an event that might have involved neocons (raising obvious credibility issues) – whereas those who regard conspiracy theorists as dribbling fruitcakes would have welcomed the appointment of the nobel peace prize winner. ..."
Noam
Chomsky has pointed out , the more educated we are, the more we are a target for state-corporate propaganda. Even journalists
outside the mainstream may internalize establishment values and prejudices. Which brings us to Parramore's embrace of the term "conspiracy
theory." Once a neutral and little-used phrase, "conspiracy theory" was infamously weaponized in
1967 by a memo from the CIA to its station chiefs worldwide.
Troubled by growing mass disbelief in the "lone nut" theory of President Kennedy's assassination, and concerned that "[c]onspiracy
theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization," the agency directed its officers to "discuss the publicity problem
with friendly and elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)" and to "employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the
attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose."
In the 45 years before the CIA memo came out, the phrase 'conspiracy theory' appeared in the Washington Post and New
York Times only 50 times, or about once per year. In the 45 years after the CIA memo, the phrase appeared 2,630 times, or
about once per week."
While it turns out that Parramore knows something about this hugely successful propaganda drive, she chose in her NBC piece to deploy
the phrase as the government has come to define it, i.e., as "something that requires no consideration because it is obviously not
true." This embeds a fallacy in her argument which only spreads as she goes on. Likewise, the authors of the studies she cites, who
attempt to connect belief in "conspiracy theories" to "narcissistic personality traits," are not immune to efforts to manipulate
the wider culture. Studies are only as good as the assumptions from which they proceed; in this case, the assumption was provided
by an interested Federal agency. And what of their suggested diagnosis?
On the contrary, most of the people I know who hold these varied (and not always shared) views are deeply empathic, courageously
humble, and resigned to a life on the margins of official discourse, even as they doggedly seek to publicize what they have learned.
A number of them have arrived at their views through painful, direct experience, like the
loss of a friend or the illness of a child, but far from having a "negative view of humanity," as Parramore writes, most hold
a deep and abiding faith in the power of regular people to see injustice and peacefully oppose it. In that regard, they share a great
deal in common with writers like Parramore: ultimately, we all want what's best for our children, and none of us want a world ruled
by unaccountable political-economic interests. If we want to achieve that world, then we should work together to promote speech that
is free from personal attacks on all sides. Even more importantly, we should all be troubled by efforts to shut down content and
discussions labeled "false and misleading"
on major social media platforms.
Who will decide what is false and what is true? ... ... ...
President Kennedy said:
a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."
Perhaps we should take a closer look at ideas that so frighten the powers-that-be. Far from inviting our ridicule, the people who
insist that we look in these forbidden places may one day deserve our thanks.
John Kirby is a documentary filmmaker. His latest project, Four Died Trying, examines what John Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther
King and Robert Kennedy were doing in the last years of their lives which may have led to their deaths.
George
I am responding to an earlier comment you made because, for some reason, I cannot reply to it in the proper place.
"The old adage 'two men can keep a secret, if one of them is dead' applies here."
Wrong: secrets can be uncovered even if both of them are dead.
"The conspiracies we know about are exposed because someone talks, or a computer gets hacked."
Conspiracies can be found out by many different ways e.g. documents uncovered, discrepancies, evidence that contradicts what
has been claimed etc.
"A two decade old CT, like 9/11, or worse, one six decades old (the JFK assassination), are false because they would have involved
too many people–someone would have blown the whistle, if only on their deathbed."
Always a bad sign when you start to repeat "would have". Lots of presumption here.
"No new facts have emerged because the only people who knew anything are long dead, taking the reasons to their graves .."
New facts can emerge all the time even regarding the most ancient of events.
" .or in the case of 9/11, because there was no great conspiracy, beyond the one reported."
So you now have godlike omniscience?
"A propensity for subscribing to conspiracy theories, is, sad to say, indicative of mental inadequacy "
There's no point in going much further here. You now devolve into psychobabble which, as always, is based on the dogmatic assertion
that you are right. (cf. the formerly mentioned godlike omniscience)
Ragnar
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only
for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie.
It thus
becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the
lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." These words are attributed to Joseph Goebbels.
-So, George, it would hardly make a difference whether the State is Marxist or Capitalist. It's either power or
truth. They are inherently different and can not be reconciled. Ultimately, there is no bridge possible.
However, so-called "common" goals are of a lower order and cooperation here is possible, temporarily. These relationships are
unstable and prone to breaking up precisely because they're ultimately not common at all. The principle are different and the
personalities too. Ships Passing In The Night, like. -See?
George
We all have common goals. Basically the goals of life and health. And these are hardly goals "of a lower order". If that was true
then we must be living in a state of "postmodernist relativity" where anyone can decide arbitrarily what matters. And that would
certainly lead to your ships-passing-in-the-night scenario i.e. the ultimate divide-and-rule vision.
As for power, the late Marxist writer Ellen Meiksins Wood noted that, in modern times, we have an unprecedented degree of political
freedom. But the reason for that is that power no longer lies in politics. It lies in economics. What is the point of having formal
rights when your livelihood is gone?
The old adage 'two men can keep a secret, if one of them is dead' applies here.
The conspiracies we know about are exposed because someone talks, or a computer gets hacked. A two decade old CT, like 9/11,
or worse, one six decades old (the JFK assassination), are false because they would have involved too many people – someone would
have blown the whistle, if only on their deathbed. No new facts have emerged because the only people who knew anything are long
dead, taking the reasons to their graves, or in the case of 9/11, because there was no great conspiracy, beyond the one reported.
A propensity for subscribing to conspiracy theories, is, sad to say, indicative of mental inadequacy. Such people are unable
to deal with the complexities of the world as it is, and therefore seek to make it a world of black and white, good and evil,
heroes and villains. The internet, with its blurring of fantasy and fact enables them. This is why discussions like this get so
polarised.
TFS
1. 9/11 and JFK are false because WILLIAM HBonney has declared it so.
Boom, thanks for watching kids.
2. In other news, some Conspiracy Theorists Imagined 747-E4Bs above Washington at the time of 9/11 and 25+second delay introduced
into the Air Traffic Control System but the Official Conspiracy Account of 9/11 didn't discuss it because there was nothing to
see.
6. But it's ok kidz, because HWB wack jobs, like first responders, police, fire personnel architects, physicists, former military
personnel, pilots, Nobel Peace Prixe winners, medical experts, etc etc all collectively asertained that the Official Conspiracy
Theory of 9/11 is about as usefull as the Warren Commission Report.
7. HOWEVER, HWB THINKS YOU'RE A WACK JOB.
r. rebar
unless & until someone goes to jail -- there are no conspiracies & as silence is -- like any commodity -- only as good as the
price paid to maintain it -- those who know have a real vested interest in not talking (it's not a secret if you tell someone)
roger morris
Ms Parramore is doing nothing more than her profession and tenure demands. Witting or un-witting. This co-ordinated and global
media attack on the 'Conspiracy Theorist' is co-ordinated and Global for good reason.
It is the 'Great Wurlitzer' at full throat
coinciding with extraordinary reductions in internet freedoms of information flow. The determination of international deepstate
to make illegal any question or recognition of it under guise of 'Conspiracy theorist=domestic terrorist/anti-semite/anti-Zionist/BDS/trump
supporting white supremacist(etc)'- conflating those ULTRA memes with growing awareness of the Anglo/Yankee/zionist PSYOPS underway
globally, mean we are entering a choke point in progression of reason, truth and beauty.
A read of the Cass Sunstein/Cornelius Adrian Comstock Vermeule Paper describing 'Conspiracy theory' as a 'crippled Epistemology'
and determining 'COINTELPRO' type strategies to counter the danger of their truth becoming certainty, will enlighten those in
the dark of IIO methodology and expose Ms Parramore as a true MOCKINGBIRD.
The danger of the conspiracy theorist to the present world order, is that most of the BIG ones, the nasty ones, are true. And
CIA operation Mockingbirds' job (Quote) 'is to Guard against the illicit Transformation of Probability into Certainty," that they
are .
"Ultimately, the average conspiracy theorist has a better grasp of how the world works than the average liberal. Even the most
outlandish "conspiracy theory" in existence -- that people like George W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth are shape-shifting, extra-dimensional
reptilians -- is closer to the truth than what liberals believe.
The reality is that the ruling class and its public servants really do have a parasitic and predatory relationship to the
vast majority of humanity "
I've often felt there is a lot of (metaphorical!) truth in David Icke's ravings, although the reptile image is unfortunate
in that actual reptiles are amongst the most sedate and peaceful creatures.
Molloy
Eichmann and today's useful idiots; Hannah Arendt
(start Arendt quote)
Despite all the efforts of the prosecution, everybody could see that this man was not a "monster," but it was difficult indeed
not to suspect that he was a clown. And since this suspicion would have been fatal to the whole enterprise, and was also rather
hard to sustain, in view of the sufferings he and his like had caused so many millions of people, his worst clowneries were hardly
noticed. What could you do with a man who first declared, with great emphasis, that the one thing he had learned in an ill-spent
life was that one should never take an oath ("Today no man, no judge could ever persuade me to make a sworn statement. I refuse
it; I refuse it for moral reasons. Since my experience tells me that if one is loyal to his oath, one day he has to take the consequences,
I have made up my mind once and for all that no judge in the world or other authority will ever be capable of making me swear
an oath, to give sworn testimony.
I won't do it voluntarily and no one will be able to force me"), and then, after being told
explicitly that if he wished to testify in his own defense he might "do so under oath or without an oath," declared without further
ado that he would prefer to testify under oath? Or who, repeatedly and with a great show of feeling, assured the court, as he
had assured the police examiner, that the worst thing he could do would be to try to escape his true responsibilities, to fight
for his neck, to plead for mercy -- and then, upon instruction of his counsel, submitted a handwritten document that contained
a plea for mercy?
As far as Eichmann was concerned, these were questions of changing moods, not of inconsistencies, and as long
as he was capable of finding, either in his memory or on the spur of the moment, an elating stock phrase to go with them, he was
quite content. (end quote)
And why it is essential to understand what Eichmann was facilitating (and the madness that morphed into the same apartheid bigotry
in the 21st century).
I appreciate the article, but the sentence below is offered with no logical or rational support – it is simply an evidence free
assertion:
("But Parramore and many journalists like her are neither assets of an intelligence service nor unthinking tools of big media;
) – really?
It is quite clear that if someone "is" (an asset of an intelligence service) that they will certainly not be broadcasting this
fact to the world or to friends and family. And for someone to assert that "conspiracies" don't exist in the real world requires
a level of credulity that most intelligent and rational people the least bit familiar with the historical record would find rather
difficult to muster up. I dare say it would be much easier in fact to prove the assertion that our Western history is simply the
"history of conspiracies" given the oligarchic control of Western populations for millennia. This is hardly "rocket science" as
they say. We do have a rather well documented historical record to fall back on to show the endless scheming of Western oligarchy
behind the backs of Western populations.
wardropper
I like Michael Moore's response when asked if he believed the conspiracy theories which were floating about at the time:
"Just the ones that are true"
John Thatcher
A conspiracy theory, like any theory is as strong as the evidence put forward to support it. Often people offer as fact conspiracies
that only as yet exist as theories,with greater or lesser amounts of evidence to support.I have no doubt that interested parties
who are the accused in these theories, will mount efforts to discredit any theory mounted against them or those they represent.
One of the ways they will do this is to plant "evidence" purporting to support the theory, but easily disproved by easily
available information. Unfortunately,it is a sad fact that far too many "conspiracy theorists" readily accept and share along
with genuine evidence, this planted "evidence" to the wider internet, thereby undermining the solid evidence of a conspiracy,
by associating it with the easily disprovable nonsense.
Harry Stotle
Isn't it high time we had a term to describe those who always accept the official version of events after controversial political
incidents no matter how implausible this account might be?
For example, after the attack on the WTC Kissinger was appointed to the head the 9/11 commission (before stepping down).
'Conspiracy theorists' would have thought – why are neocons appointing a mass-murdering neocon to investigate an event that
might have involved neocons (raising obvious credibility issues) – whereas those who regard conspiracy theorists as dribbling
fruitcakes would have welcomed the appointment of the nobel peace prize winner.
Anyway, here's a clip of Henry – the believers in everything the government say would never have considered the objections
raised in the film – such questions are tantamount to mental illness according to these 'progressives'.
Need to investigate the role , if any , of Dr. Michael Baden in the Epstein and JFK autopsy
cover-ups .
According to Dr.Crenshaw who treated JFK at the Parkland Hospital Kennedy was shot once or
twice from the front and , therefore, Oswald could not possibly have been the killer. See "
Trauma Room One , the JFK Medical Coverup Exposed . " By Dr. Michael Crenshaw .
"... We know our disinformation program is complete when almost everything the American public believes is false.' ..."
"... Using groundbreaking camera and lighting techniques, Riefenstahl produced a documentary that mesmerized Germans; as Pilger noted, her Triumph of the Will 'cast Adolf Hitler's spell'. She told the veteran Aussie journalist the "messages" of her films were dependent not on "orders from above", but on the "submissive void" of the public. ..."
"... All in all, Riefenstahl produced arguably for the rest of the world the most compelling historical footage of mass hysteria, blind obedience, nationalistic fervour, and existential menace, all key ingredients in anyone's totalitarian nightmare. That it also impressed a lot of very powerful, high profile people in the West on both sides of the pond is also axiomatic: These included bankers, financiers, industrialists, and sundry business elites without whose support Hitler might've at best ended up a footnote in the historical record after the ill-fated beer-hall putsch. (See here , and here .) ..."
"... The purpose of this propaganda barrage, as Sharon Bader has noted, has been to convince as many people as possible that it is in their interests to relinquish their own power as workers, consumers, and citizens, and 'forego their democratic right to restrain and regulate business activity. As a result the political agenda is now confined to policies aimed at furthering business interests.' ..."
Here was, of course, another surreal spectacle, this time courtesy of one of the Deep State's most dangerous, reviled, and divisive
figures, a notable protagonist in the Russia-Gate conspiracy, and America's most senior diplomat no less.
Not only is it difficult to accept that the former CIA Director actually believes what he is saying, well might we ask, "Who can
believe Mike Pompeo?"
And here's also someone whose manifest cynicism, hypocrisy, and chutzpah would embarrass the much-derided
scribes and Pharisees of Biblical days.
We have Pompeo on record recently in a rare moment of
honesty admitting – whilst laughing his ample ass off, as if recalling some "Boy's Own Adventure" from his misspent youth with a
bunch of his mates down at the local pub – that under his watch as CIA Director:
We lied, cheated, we stole we had entire training courses.'
It may have been one of the few times in his wretched existence that Pompeo didn't speak with a forked tongue.
At all events, his candour aside, we can assume safely that this reactionary, monomaniacal, Christian Zionist 'end-timer' passed
all the Company's "training courses" with flying colours.
According to Matthew Rosenberg
of the New York Times, all this did not stop Pompeo however from name-checking Wikileaks when it served his own interests. Back
in 2016 at the height of the election campaign, he had ' no compunction about pointing people toward emails stolen* by Russian hackers
from the Democratic National Committee and then posted by WikiLeaks."
[NOTE: Rosenberg's omission of the word "allegedly" -- as in "emails allegedly stolen" -- is a dead giveaway of bias on his part
(a journalistic Freudian slip perhaps?), with his employer
being one of those MSM marques leading the charge with the "Russian Collusion" 'story'. For a more insightful view of the source
of these emails and the skullduggery and thuggery that attended Russia-Gate, readers are encouraged to
check this out.]
And this is of course The Company we're talking about, whose past and present relationship with the media might be summed up in
two words:
Operation Mockingbird (OpMock). Anyone vaguely familiar with the well-documented Grand Deception that was OpMock, arguably the
CIA's most enduring, insidious, and successful
psy-ops gambit, will know what
we're talking about. (See
here ,
here ,
here , and
here .) At its most basic, this operation was all about propaganda and censorship, usually operating in tandem to ensure all
the bases are covered.
After opining that the MSM is 'totally infiltrated' by the CIA and various other agencies, for his part former NSA whistleblower
William Binney recently added , ' When it
comes to national security, the media only talk about what the administration wants you to hear, and basically suppress any other
statements about what's going on that the administration does not want get public. The media is basically the lapdogs for the government.'
We know our disinformation program is complete when almost everything the American public believes is false.'
In order to provide a broader and deeper perspective, we should now consider the views of a few others on the subjects at hand,
along with some history. In a 2013 piece musing on the modern significance of the practice, my compatriot John Pilger
ecalled a time when he met
Leni Riefenstahl
back in 70s and asked her about her films that 'glorified the Nazis'.
Using groundbreaking camera and lighting techniques, Riefenstahl produced a documentary that mesmerized Germans; as Pilger
noted, her Triumph of the Will 'cast Adolf Hitler's
spell'. She told the veteran Aussie journalist the "messages" of her films were dependent not on "orders from above", but on the
"submissive void" of the public.
All in all, Riefenstahl produced arguably for the rest of the world the most compelling historical footage of mass hysteria,
blind obedience, nationalistic fervour, and existential menace, all key ingredients in anyone's totalitarian nightmare. That it also
impressed a lot of very powerful, high profile people in the West on both sides of the pond is also axiomatic: These included
bankers, financiers, industrialists,
and sundry business elites without whose support Hitler might've at best ended up a footnote in the historical record after the
ill-fated
beer-hall
putsch. (See
here , and here .)
" Triumph " apparently still resonates today. To the surprise of few one imagines, such was the impact of the film -- as casually
revealed in the excellent 2018 Alexis Bloom documentary Divide and
Conquer: The Story of Roger Ailes -- it elicited no small amount of admiration from arguably the single most influential propagandist
of recent times.
[Readers might wish to check out Russell Crowe's recent portrayal of Ailes in Stan's mini-series
The Loudest Voice , in my view one the best performances of the man's career.]
In a recent piece unambiguously titled "Propaganda Is The Root Of All Our Problems", my other compatriot Caitlin Johnstone also
had a few things to
say about the subject, echoing Orwell when she observed it was all about "controlling the narrative".
Though I'd suggest the greater "root" problem is our easy propensity to ignore this reality, pretend it doesn't or won't affect
us, or reject it as conspiratorial nonsense, in this, of course, she's correct. As she cogently observes,
I write about this stuff for a living, and even I don't have the time or energy to write about every single narrative control
tool that the US-centralised empire has been implementing into its arsenal. There are too damn many of them emerging too damn
fast, because they're just that damn crucial for maintaining existing power structures.'
Fittingly, in a discussion encompassing amongst other things history, language, power, and dissent, he opined, ' Determining how
individuals communicate is' an objective which represents for the power elites 'the best chance' [they] have to control what people
think. This translates as: The more control 'we' have over what the proles think, the more 'we' can reduce the inherent risk for
elites in democracy.
' Clumsy men', Saul went on to say, 'try to do this through power and fear. Heavy-handed men running heavy-handed systems attempt
the same thing through police-enforced censorship. The more sophisticated the elites, the more they concentrate on creating intellectual
systems which control expression through the communications structures. These systems require only the discreet use of censorship
and uniformed men.'
In other words, along with assuming it is their right to take it in the first place, ' those who take power will always try to
change the established language ', presumably to better facilitate their hold on it and/or legitimise their claim to it.
For Oliver Boyd-Barrett, democratic theory presupposes a public communications infrastructure that facilitates the free and open
exchange of ideas.' Yet for the author of the recently published
RussiaGate and Propaganda: Disinformation in the Age of Social Media , 'No such infrastructure exists.'
The mainstream media he says, is 'owned and controlled by a small number of large, multi-media and multi-industrial conglomerates'
that lie at the very heart of US oligopoly capitalism and much of whose advertising revenue and content is furnished from other conglomerates:
The inability of mainstream media to sustain an information environment that can encompass histories, perspectives and vocabularies
that are free of the shackles of US plutocratic self-regard is also well documented.'
Of course the word "inability" suggests the MSM view themselves as having some responsibility for maintaining such an egalitarian
news and information environment. They don't of course, and in truth, probably never really have! A better word would be "unwilling",
or even "refusal". The corporate media all but epitomise the " plutocratic self-regard" that is characteristic of "oligopoly capitalism".
Indeed, the MSM collectively functions as advertising, public relations/lobbying entities for Big Corp, in addition to acting
as its Praetorian bodyguard , protecting their secrets,
crimes, and lies from exposure. Like all other companies they are beholden to their shareholders (profits before truth and people),
most of whom it can safely be assumed are no strangers to "self-regard", and could care less about " histories, perspectives and
vocabularies" that run counter to their own interests.
It was Aussie social scientist Alex Carey who
pioneered the study of nationalism ,
corporatism , and moreso for our purposes herein, the
management (read: manipulation) of public opinion, though all three have important links (a story for another time). For Carey, the
following conclusion was inescapable: 'It is arguable that the success of business propaganda in persuading us, for so long, that
we are free from propaganda is one of the most significant propaganda achievements of the twentieth century.' This former farmer
from Western Australia became one of the world's acknowledged experts on propaganda and the manipulation of the truth.
Prior to embarking on his academic career, Carey was a successful sheep
grazier . By all accounts, he was a first-class judge of the
animal from which he made his early living, leaving one to ponder if this expertise gave him a unique insight into his main area
of research!
In any event, Carey in time sold the farm and travelled to the U.K. to study psychology, apparently a long-time ambition. From
the late fifties until his death in 1988, he was a senior lecturer in psychology and industrial relations at the Sydney-based University
of New South Wales, with his research being lauded by such luminaries as Noam Chomsky and John Pilger, both of whom have had a thing
or three to say over the years about The Big Shill. In fact such was his admiration, Pilger
described him as "a second Orwell", which in anyone's lingo
is a big call.
In fact, for anyone with an interest in how public opinion is moulded and our perceptions are managed and manipulated, in whose
interests they are done so and to what end, it is as essential reading as any of the work of other more famous names. This tome came
complete with a foreword by Chomsky, so enamoured was the latter of Carey's work.
For Carey, the three "most significant developments" in the political economy of the twentieth century were:
the growth of democracy the growth of corporate power; and the growth of propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against
democracy.
For Carey, it is an axiom of conventional wisdom that the use of propaganda as a means of social and ideological control is 'distinctive'
of totalitarian regimes. Yet as he stresses: the most minimal exercise of common sense would suggest a different view: that propaganda
is likely to play at least as important a part in democratic societies (where the existing distribution of power and privilege is
vulnerable to quite limited changes in popular opinion) as in authoritarian societies (where it is not).' In this context, 'conventional
wisdom" becomes conventional ignorance; as for "common sense", maybe not so much.
The purpose of this propaganda
barrage, as Sharon Bader has noted, has been to convince as many people as
possible that it is in their interests to relinquish their own power as workers, consumers, and citizens, and 'forego their democratic
right to restrain and regulate business activity. As a result the political agenda is now confined to policies aimed at furthering
business interests.'
An extreme example of this view playing itself right under our noses and over decades was the cruel fiction of the "
trickle down effect " (TDE) -- aka the 'rising tide that would lift all yachts' -- of
Reaganomics . One of several mantras that defined Reagan's
overarching political shtick, the TDE was by any measure, decidedly more a torrent than a trickle, and said "torrent" was going up
not down. This reality as we now know was not in Reagan's glossy economic brochure to be sure, and it may have been because the Gipper
confused his prepositions and verbs.
Yet as the GFC of 2008 amply demonstrated, it culminated in a free-for all, dog eat dog, anything goes, everyman for himself form
of cannibal (or anarcho) capitalism -- an updated, much
improved version of the no-holds-barred mercenary mercantilism much reminiscent of the
Gilded Age and the
Robber Barons who 'infested' it, only one
that doesn't just eat its young, it eats itself!
Making the World Safe for Plutocracy
In the increasingly dysfunctional, one-sided political economy we inhabit then, whether it's widgets or wars or anything in between,
few people realise the degree to which our opinions, perceptions, emotions, and views are shaped and manipulated by propaganda (and
its similarly 'evil twin' censorship ,) its most adept practitioners, and those elite, institutional, political, and corporate entities
that seek out their expertise.
It is now just over a hundred years since the practice of propaganda took a giant leap forward, then in the service of persuading
palpably reluctant Americans that the war raging in Europe at the time was their war as well.
This was at a time when Americans had just voted their then-president
Woodrow Wilson back into office for a second term, a victory
largely achieved on the back of the promise he'd
"keep us out of the War." Americans were
very much in what was one of their most
isolationist
phases , and so Wilson's promise resonated with them.
But over time they were convinced of the need to become involved by a distinctly different appeal to their political sensibilities.
This "appeal" also dampened the isolationist mood, one which it has to be said was not embraced by most of the political, banking,
and business elites of the time, most of whom stood to lose big-time if the Germans won, and/or who were already profiting or benefitting
from the business of war.
For a president who "kept us out of the war", this wasn't going to be an easy 'pitch'. In order to sell the war the president
established the Committee on Public Information
(aka the Creel Committee) for the purposes of publicising the rationale for the war and from there, garnering support for it
from the general public.
Either way, Bernays 'combined their perspectives and synthesised them into an applied science', which he then 'branded' "public
relations".
For its part the Creel committee struggled with its brief from the off; but Bernays worked with them to persuade Americans their
involvement in the war was justified -- indeed necessary -- and to that end he devised the brilliantly inane slogan,
"making the world safe for democracy"
.
Thus was born arguably the first
great propaganda catch-phrases of the modern era, and certainly one of the most portentous. The following sums up Bernays's unabashed
mindset:
The conscious, intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic
society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power
of our country.'
The rest is history (sort of), with Americans becoming more willing to not just support the war effort but encouraged to view
the Germans and their allies as evil brutes threatening democracy and freedom and the 'American way of life', however that might've
been viewed then. From a geopolitical and historical perspective, it was an asinine premise of course, but nonetheless an extraordinary
example of how a few well chosen words tapped into the collective psyche of a country that was decidedly opposed to any U.S involvement
in the war and turned that mindset completely on its head.
' [S]aving the world for democracy' (or some 'cover version' thereof) has since become America's positioning statement, 'patriotic'
rallying cry, and the "Get-out-of-Jail Free" card for its war and its white collar criminal clique.
At all events it was by any measure, a stroke of genius on Bernays's part; by appealing to people's basic fears and desires, he
could engineer consent on a mass scale. It goes without saying it changed the course of history in more ways than one. That the U.S.
is to this day still using a not dissimilar meme to justify its
"foreign entanglements" is testament to both its utility and durability.
The reality as we now know was markedly different of course. They have almost always been about power, empire, control, hegemony,
resources, wealth, opportunity, profit, dispossession, keeping existing capitalist structures intact and well-defended, and crushing
dissent and opposition.
The Bewildered Herd
It is instructive to note that the template for 'manufacturing consent' for war had already been forged by the British. And the
Europeans did not 'sleepwalk'
like some " bewildered herd ' into this conflagration.
For twenty years prior to the outbreak of the war in 1914, the then stewards of the British Empire had been diligently preparing
the ground for what they viewed as a preordained clash with their rivals for empire the Germans.
To begin with, contrary to the opinion of the general populace over one hundred years later, it was not the much touted German
aggression and militarism, nor their undoubted imperial ambitions, which precipitated its outbreak. The stewards of the British Empire
were not about to let the Teutonic upstarts chow down on their imperial lunch as it were, and set about unilaterally and preemptively
crushing Germany and with it any ambitions it had for creating its own imperial domain in competition with the Empire upon which
Ol' Sol never set.
The "Great War" is worth noting here for other reasons. As documented so by Jim Macgregor and Gerry Docherty in their two books
covering the period from 1890-1920, we learn much about propaganda, which attest to its extraordinary power, in particular its
power to distort
reality en masse in enduring and subversive ways.
In reality, the only thing "great" about World War One was the degree to which the masses fighting for Britain were conned via
propaganda and censorship into believing this war was necessary, and the way the official narrative of the war was sustained for
posterity via the very same means. "Great" maybe, but not in a good way!
The horrendous carnage and destruction that resulted from it was of course unprecedented, the global effects of which linger on
now well over one hundred years later.
Such was the
enduring power
of the propaganda that today most folks would have great difficulty in accepting the following; this is a short summary of historical
realities revealed by Macgregor and Docherty that are at complete odds with the official narrative, the political discourse, and
the school textbooks:
It was Great Britain (supported by France and Russia) and not Germany who was the principal aggressor in the events and actions that
let to the outbreak of war; The British had for twenty years prior to 1914 viewed Germany as its most dangerous economic and imperial
rival, and fully anticipated that a war was inevitable; In the U.K. and the U.S., various factions worked feverishly to ensure the
war went on for as long as possible, and scuttled peacemaking efforts from the off; key truths about this most consequential of geopolitical
conflicts have been concealed for well over one hundred years, with no sign the official record will change; very powerful forces
(incl. a future US president) amongst U.S. political, media, and economic elites conspired to eventually convince an otherwise unwilling
populace in America that U.S. entry onto the war was necessary; those same forces and many similar groups in the U.K. and Europe
engaged in everything from war profiteering, destruction/forging of war records, false-flag ops, treason, conspiracy to wage aggressive
war, and direct efforts to prolong the war by any means necessary, many of which will rock folks to their very core.
But peace was not on the agenda. When, by 1916, the military failures were so embarrassing and costly, some key players in the
British government were willing to talk about peace. This could not be tolerated. The potential peacemakers had to be thrown under
the bus. The unelected European leaders had one common bond: They would fight Germany until she was crushed.
Prolonging the Agony details how this secret cabal organised to this end the change of government without a single vote being
cast. David Lloyd George was promoted to prime minister
in Britain and Georges Clemenceau made prime minister
in France. A new government, an inner-elite war cabinet thrust the Secret Elite leader, Lord
Alfred Milner into power at the very inner-core of the
decision-makers in British politics.
Democracy? They had no truck with democracy. The voting public had no say. The men entrusted with the task would keep going till
the end and their place-men were backed by the media and the money-power, in Britain, France and America.
Propaganda Always Wins
But just as the pioneering adherents of propaganda back in the day might never have dreamt how sophisticated and all-encompassing
the practice would become, nor would the citizenry at large have anticipated the extent to which the industry has facilitated an
entrenched, rapacious plutocracy at the expense of our economic opportunity, our financial and material security, our physical, social
and cultural environment, our values and attitudes, and increasingly, our basic democratic rights and freedoms.
We now live in the Age of the Big Shill -- cocooned in a submissive void no less -- an era where nothing can be taken on face
value yet where time and attention constraints (to name just a few) force us to do so; [where] few people in public life can be taken
at their word; where unchallenged perceptions become accepted reality; where 'open-book' history is now incontrovertible not-negotiable,
upon pain of imprisonment fact; where education is about uniformity, function, form and conformity, all in the service of imposed
neo-liberal ideologies embracing then prioritising individual -- albeit dubious -- freedoms.
More broadly, it's the "Roger Ailes" of this world -- acting on behalf of the power elites who after all are their paymasters
-- who create the intellectual systems which control expression through the communications structures, whilst ensuring these systems
require only 'the discreet use of censorship and uniformed men.'
They are the shapers and moulders of the discourse that passes for the accepted lingua franca of the increasingly globalised,
interconnected, corporatised political economy of the planet. Throughout this process they 'will always try to change the established
language.'
And we can no longer rely on our elected representatives to honestly represent us and our interests. Whether this decision making
is taking place inside or outside the legislative process, these processes are well and truly in the grip of the banks and financial
institutions and transnational organisations. In whose interests are they going to be more concerned with?
We saw this all just after the
Global Financial Crisis
(GFC) when the very people who brought the system to the brink, made billions off the dodge for their banks and millions for
themselves, bankrupted hundreds of thousands of American families, were called upon by the U.S. government to fix up the mess, and
to all intents given a blank cheque to so do.
That the U.S. is at even greater risk now of economic
implosion is something few serious pundits would dispute, and a testament to the effectiveness of the snow-job perpetrated upon Americans
regarding the causes, the impact, and the implications of the 2008 meltdown going forward.
In most cases, one accepts almost by definition such disconnects (read: hidden agendas) are the rule rather than the exception,
hence the multi-billion foundation -- and global reach and impact -- of the propaganda business. This in itself is a key indicator
as to why organisations place so much importance on this aspect of managing their affairs.
At the very least, once corporations saw how the psychology of persuasion could be leveraged to manipulate consumers and politicians
saw the same with the citizenry and even its own workers, the growth of the industry was assured.
As Riefenstahl noted during her chinwag with Pilger after he asked if those embracing the "submissive void" included the liberal,
educated bourgeoisie? " Everyone ," she said.
By way of underscoring her point, she added enigmatically: 'Propaganda always wins if you allow it'.
Greg Maybury is a freelance writer based in Perth, Australia. His main areas of interest are American history and politics
in general, with a special focus on economic, national security, military, and geopolitical affairs. For 5 years he has regularly
contributed to a diverse range of news and opinion sites, including OpEd News, The Greanville Post, Consortium News, Dandelion Salad,
Global Research, Dissident Voice, OffGuardian, Contra Corner, International Policy Digest, the Hampton Institute, and others.
nottheonly1
This brilliant essay is proof of the reflective nature of the Universe. The worse the propaganda and oppression becomes, the greater
the likelihood such an essay will be written.
Such is the sophistication and ubiquity of the narrative control techniques used today -- afforded increasingly by 'computational
propaganda' via automated scripts, hacking, botnets, troll farms, and algorithms and the like, along with the barely veiled
censorship and information gatekeeping practised by Google and Facebook and other tech behemoths -- it's become one of the
most troubling aspects of the technological/social media revolution.
Very rarely can one experience such a degree of vindication. My moniker 'nottheonly1' has received more meaning with this precise
depiction of the long history of the manipulation of the masses. Recent events have destroyed but all of my confidence that there
might be a peaceful way out of this massive dilemma. Due to this sophistication in controlling the narrative, it has now become
apparent that we have arrived at a moment in time where total lawlessness reigns. 'Lawlessness' in this case means the loss of
common law and the use of code law to create ever new restrictions for free speech and liberty at large.
Over the last weeks, comments written on other discussion boards have unleashed a degree of character defamation and ridicule
for the most obvious crimes perpetrated on the masses through propaganda. In this unholy union of constant propaganda via main
stream 'media' with the character defamation by so called 'trolls' – which are actually virtual assassins of those who write the
truth – the ability of the population, or parts thereof to connect with, or search for like minded people is utterly destroyed.
This assault on the online community has devastating consequences. Those who have come into the cross hairs of the unintelligence
agencies will but turn away from the internet. Leaving behind an ocean of online propaganda and fake information. Few are now
the web sites on which it is possible to voice one's personal take on the status quo.
There is one word that describes these kind of activities precisely: traitor. Those who engage in the character defamation
of commenters, or authors per se, are traitors to humanity. They betray the collective consciousness with their poisonous attacks
of those who work for a sea change of the status quo. The owner class has all game pieces positioned. The fact that Julian Assange
is not only a free man, but still without a Nobel price for peace, while war criminals are recipients, shows just how much the
march into absolute totalitarianism has progressed. Bernays hated the masses and offered his 'services' to manipulate them often
for free.
Even though there are more solutions than problems, the time has come where meaningful participation in the search for such
solution has been made unbearable. It is therefore that a certain fatalism has developed – from resignation to the acceptance
of the status quo as being inevitable. Ancient wisdom has created a proverb that states 'This too, will pass'. While that is a
given, there are still enough Human Beings around that are determined to make a difference. To this group I count the author of
this marvelous, albeit depressing essay. Thank you more that words can express. And thank you, OffGuardian for being one of the
last remaining places where discourse is possible.
Really great post! Thanks. I'm part of the way through reading Alex Carey's book: "Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate
Propaganda Versus Freedom and Liberty," referenced in this article. I've learned more about the obviously verifiable history of
U.S. corporate propaganda in the first four chapters than I learned gaining a "minor" in history in 1974 (not surprisingly I can
now clearly see). I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in just how pervasive, entrenched and long-standing are the
propaganda systems shaping public perception, thought and behavior in America and the West.
Norcal
Wow Greg Maybury great essay, congratulations. This quote is brilliant, I've never see it before, "For Carey, the following conclusion
was inescapable: 'It is arguable that the success of business propaganda in persuading us, for so long, that we are free from
propaganda is one of the most significant propaganda achievements of the twentieth century.' "
Too, Rodger Ailes was the man credited with educating Nixon up as how to "use" the TV media, and Ailes never looked back as
he manipulated media at will. Thank you!
nondimenticare
That is also one of the basic theses of Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize speech.
vexarb
I read in 'Guns, Germs and Steel' about Homo Sapiens and his domesticated animals. Apparently we got on best in places where we
could find animals that are very like us: sheep, cattle, horses and other herd animals which instinctively follow their Leader.
I think our cousins the chimpanzee are much the same; both species must have inherited this common trait from some pre-chimpanzee
ancestor who had found great survival value in passing on the sheeple trait to their progeny. As have the sheep themselves.
By the way, has anybody observed sheeple behaviour in ants and bees? For instance, quietly following a Leader ant to their
doom, or noisily ganging up to mob a worker bee that the Queen does not like?
I'd say the elites are both for and against. Competing factions.
It's clear that many are interested in overturning democracy, whilst others want to exploit it.
The average grunt on the street is in the fire, regardless of the pan chosen by the elites.
I'm hoping that an element within our intelligence services did the right thing and
Offed him to send a loud and clear message to the rest of the tribal members involved in
false flags against USA and world. Obviously, JE was a very high ranking mossad agent who
had strong ties with ALL the Israelis and Americans who did 9/11.
The primary mission of intelligence agencies is self-preservation, and that means
co-operation with other nation's intelligence agencies whenever possible.
As a practical matter it is highly likely that both Israeli and US Intelligence agencies
had access to the Epstein blackmail materials to use as they wish.
( and, as a practical matter it is highly likely that both Israeli and US Intelligence
agencies were behind 911, the Kennedy assassinations, etc etc etc)
They are on one team, and those outside the intelligence "community" are on the other
team.
Ever consider a rogue upper echelon CIA faction may have ran Epstein, hoping it looked
optically like the Mossad ran him?
Epstein was probably a sex criminal from his early adulthood, but knew a few people. Hell,
his handlers could have told him they were Mossad. I think our CIA/NSA has some brass who
wouldnt mind calling America's foreign policy shots from behind the scenes via blackmail info
on influential company leaders and corporate officers/assorted congresscritters. Epstein
could privide this while appearing to be Mossad.
Its hard to believ CIA would let the Mossad get kompramat on our politicians so they could
boss them around. Turf concerns and a bruised ego would lead me to believe the CIA would at
least brief new members of congress about this anyway. I think it could have been them. "He
belongs to intelligence".
@Anon Interesting
idea, but aren't the CIA and Mossad joined at the hip at this stage? How likely is it that
rogue elements within the CIA haven't been purged by now?
Ever consider a rogue upper echelon CIA faction may have ran Epstein, hoping it looked
optically like the Mossad ran him?
No. For simple reasons: "What's there for me" and "Unless having THAT clearance I'll never
know".
Re the former: if they can pull this to him what can they pull on me (or people I care
for) if/when they want it.
Gets worse.
What if they pull that just to get a kick of out of it? Like aristocrats/nobles of Rome
would pull it on a gladiator/slave? Or Middle Age noble on a serf?
I remember when Milosevic died and I'd mention that over lunch in white-collar/corporate
environment. He WAS a head of state, European, White. I remember the jokes. And I was
thinking (stupid, I know) the same: if they can do this to him, what can they do to me?
Nobody else was, of course, at least where I was moving around (senior corporate management,
that is .or so I say).
Then, there was a S.A.S. guy. Quote from Wikipedia:
He was a lance corporal in 1980, serving in Pagoda Troop, 'B' Squadron, 22 SAS Regiment,
when he led "Blue Team" in the storming of the Iranian Embassy in London during a hostage
siege on 5 May 1980. McAleese fought in the Falklands War in 1982, and in Ulster. He was
awarded the Military Medal for gallantry in action at the Loughgall ambush in Armagh on 8
May 1987,[4] and was present at the Drumnakilly ambush in County Tyrone in August 1988.[5]
He also served as a bodyguard for three Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom.
The last sentence could be interesting.
And, then ..
Four days after his son's funeral John McAleese was arrested by officers from West
Mercia Police on charges of accessing indecent images of juveniles on the internet via a
home computer.
So, again, if they can do that to this fellow, what can they do to me?
Etc.
Hehehe ..now the funny part: how many people reading this knew about Mr. McAleese? No need
to state it here.
Oh, BTW, how many people you know are paying attention to this? Real attention, I
mean?
Funny too.
"... Malcolm Wallace and LBJ had been closely linked. In the early 50’s, LBJ had gone to great extents to save Wallace’s life after he shot down a professional golfer who was having an affair with LBJ’s alcoholic sister. Although guilty of murder, Wallace ended up with a minor sentence. ..."
"... Interestingly, a Wallace fingerprint was apparently found at the TSBD “Sniper nest” from where Oswald allegedly shot JFK. Probably some insurance taken against LBJ by his co-conspirators… ..."
This reminds me a little of a almost forgotten incident from the 1960s
Some government inspector in Texas had agreed to testify about the details of a gigantic
corruption ring that was closely connected with LBJ. I can't remember the exact details, but
not long afterward, he was found dead, shot seven times.
The local Texas court ruled it an apparent suicide and that's exactly how it was reported
in the Washington Post and the other national newspapers
In 1984, Billie Sol Estes told a grand jury investigating the 1961 shooting death of Henry
Marshall, an official with the Department of Agriculture, that LBJ’s associate Malcolm
Wallace was Marshall’s murderer.
Malcolm Wallace and LBJ had been closely linked. In the early 50’s, LBJ had gone
to great extents to save Wallace’s life after he shot down a professional golfer who
was having an affair with LBJ’s alcoholic sister. Although guilty of murder, Wallace
ended up with a minor sentence.
Interestingly, a Wallace fingerprint was apparently found at the TSBD “Sniper
nest” from where Oswald allegedly shot JFK. Probably some insurance taken against LBJ
by his co-conspirators…
@Iris Shortly before
he died, Estes collaborated with a French journalist on a book called “Le dernier
temoin” (“The Last Witness”) in which Estes claimed that he had
participated in a meeting with LBJ in which the JFK assassination was planned. The book was
published in French (I have a copy), but no English translation has ever appeared.
That the rogue elements of the CIA participated in the assassination of JFK now is undisputable. And they probably were
connected to the very top.
Presence of Bush Senior on Dealey Plaza (who was top CIA executive at the time) at the moment of assassination tells a lot in
this respect as well as the speed and intensity of the cover up. The only discussion can be about motives and the degree in which
LBJ was involved.
Notable quotes:
"... The killing of the Kennedys and today's new Cold War and war against terror are two ends of a linked intelligence operation. ..."
"... The assassination of the top four leaders of the political left in the five year period – President John Kennedy in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968 – represented nothing less than a slow-motion coup on the political scene. ..."
"... If anyone wishes to understand what has happened to the United States since this coup, and thus to its countless victims at home and throughout the world, one must understand these assassinations and how the alleged assassins were manipulated by the coup organizers and how the public was hoodwinked in a mind-control operation on a vast scale. ..."
"... Sandra Serrano, a Kennedy campaign worker and a courageous witness, was bullied by the CIA-connected police interrogator Sergeant Enrique "Hank" Hernandez. She had been sitting outside on a metal fire escape getting some air when the polka dot dress girl, accompanied by a man, ran out and down the stairs, shouting, "We've shot him, we've shot him." When Serrano asked whom did they shoot, the girl replied, "We've shot Senator Kennedy." Then she and her companion, both of whom Serrano had earlier seen ascending the stairs with Sirhan, disappeared into the night. A little over an hour after the shooting Serrano was interviewed on live television by NBC's Sander Vanocur where she recounted this. And there were others who saw and heard this girl say the same thing as she and her companion fled the crime scene. Nevertheless, the LAPD, led by Lieutenant Manuel Pena, also CIA affiliated, who was brought out of retirement to run the investigation dubbed "Special Unit Senator," worked with Hernandez and others to dismiss the girl as of no consequence. ..."
The CIA Takeover of America in the 1960s Is the Story of Our Times. The Killing of the
Kennedys and Today's New Cold WarA Quasi-Review of A Lie Too Big To Fail: The Real
History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy by Lisa Pease By Edward Curtin Global Research, August
03, 2019 Region: USA
Theme: History , Law and Justice , Media
Disinformation
First published by Global Research on April 2, 2019
"'We're all puppets,' the suspect [Sirhan Sirhan] replied, with more truth than he could
have understood at that moment." – Lisa Pease , quoting from the LAPD questioning of
Sirhan
When Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated on June 5, 1968, the American public fell into
an hypnotic trance in which they have remained ever since. The overwhelming majority accepted
what was presented by government authorities as an open and shut case that a young Palestinian
American, Sirhan Sirhan , had murdered RFK because of his support for Israel, a false
accusation whose ramifications echo down the years. That this was patently untrue and was
contradicted by overwhelming evidence made no difference.
Sirhan did not kill Robert Kennedy, yet he remains in jail to this very day. Robert Kennedy,
Jr., who was 14 years old at the time of his father's death, has visited Sirhan in prison,
claims he is innocent, and believes there was another gunman. Paul Schrade , an aide to the
senator and the first person shot that night, also says Sirhan didn't do it. Both have plenty
of evidence. And they are not alone.
There is a vast body of documented evidence to prove this, an indisputably logical case
marshalled by serious writers and researchers. Lisa Pease is the latest. It is a reason why a
group of 60 prominent Americans has recently called for a reopening of, not just this case, but
those of JFK, MLK, and Malcom X. The blood of these men cries out for the revelation of the
truth that the United States national security state and its media accomplices have fought so
mightily to keep hidden for so many years.
That they have worked so hard at this reveals how dangerous the truth about these
assassinations still is to this secret government that wages propaganda war against the
American people and real wars around the world. It is a government of Democrats, Republicans,
and their intelligence allies working together today to confuse the American people and provoke
Russia in a most dangerous game that could lead to nuclear war, a possibility that so
frightened JFK and RFK after the Cuban Missile Crisis that they devoted themselves to ending
the Cold War, reconciling with the Soviet Union, abolishing nuclear weapons, reining in of the
power of the CIA, and withdrawing from Vietnam. That is why they were killed.
The web of deceit surrounding the now officially debunked Democratic led Russia-gate
propaganda operation that has strengthened Trump to double-down on his anti-Russia operations
(a Democratic goal) is an example of the perfidious and sophisticated mutuality of this game of
mass mind-control.
The killing of the Kennedys and today's new Cold War and war against terror are two ends of
a linked intelligence operation.
Moreover, more than any other assassination of the 1960s, it is the killing of Bobby Kennedy
that has remained shrouded in the most ignorance.
It is one of the greatest propaganda success stories of American history.
In her exhaustive new examination of the case, A Lie Too Big To Fail , Lisa Pease
puts it succinctly at the conclusion of her unravelling of the official lies that have
mesmerized the public:
The assassination of the top four leaders of the political left in the five year period
– President John Kennedy in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, and Martin Luther King, Jr. and
Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968 – represented nothing less than a slow-motion coup on
the political scene.
If anyone wishes to understand what has happened to the United States since this coup, and
thus to its countless victims at home and throughout the world, one must understand these
assassinations and how the alleged assassins were manipulated by the coup organizers and how
the public was hoodwinked in a mind-control operation on a vast scale. It is not ancient
history, for the forces that killed these leaders rule the U.S. today, and their ruthlessness
has subsequently informed the actions of almost all political leaders in the years since. A
bullet to the head when you seriously talk about peace and justice is a not so gentle reminder
to toe the line or else.
"But the way the CIA took over America in the 1960s is the story of our time,"
writes Pease, "and too few recognize this. We can't fix a problem we can't even acknowledge
exists."
Nothing could be truer.
Lisa Pease has long recognized the problem, and for the past twenty-five years, she has
devoted herself to shedding light on the CIA's culpability, particularly in the Robert Kennedy
case. Few people possess the grit and grace to spend so much of their lives walking this path
of truth. The extent of her research is dazzling, so dazzling in its voluminous detail that a
reviewer can only touch on it here and there. She has written a book that is daunting in its
comprehensiveness. It demands focused attention and perseverance, for it runs to over 500 pages
with more than 800 footnotes. This book will remain a touchstone for future research on the RFK
assassination, whether one agrees or disagrees with all of her detailed findings and
speculations. For this book is so vast and meticulous in its examination of all aspects of the
case that one can surely find areas that one might question or disagree with.
Nevertheless, Pease fundamentally proves that Sirhan did not shoot RFK and that there was a
conspiracy organized and carried out by shadowy intelligence forces that did so. These same
forces worked with the Los Angeles Police Department, federal, state, and judicial elements to
make sure Sirhan was quickly accused of being the lone assassin and dispatched to prison after
a show trial. And the mass media carried out its assigned role of affirming the government's
case to shield the real killers and to make sure the cover-up was successful.
No doubt others will investigate this case further. Yet I think no more research is really
needed, for as with these other assassinations, additional analyses will only result in
pseudo-debates about minutiae. Such debates will only serve to prolong the hallucinatory grip
the perpetrators of these crimes have on a day of reckoning, suggesting as they would that we
do not really know what happened. This is an old tactic meant to delay forevermore such a day
of reckoning.
The facts are clear for all to see if they have the will to truth. All that is now needed is
a public tribunal, which is planned for later this year, in which the fundamental, clear-cut
facts of these cases are presented to the American public. In the case of Robert Kennedy's
assassination as with the others, a little knowledge goes a long way, and only those who are
closed to basic logic and evidence will refuse to see that government forces conspired to kill
these men and did so because all were seeking peace and justice that was then, and is now, a
threat to the war-making forces of wealth and power that control the American government.
Pease writes:
Anyone who has looked closely and honestly at the evidence has realized that more than one
person was involved in Robert Kennedy's death. So why can't reporters see this? Why can't the
media explain this? Because the media and the government are two sides of the same coin, and
those who challenge the government's version of history, as numerous reporters have found
out, all too often lose status and sometimes whole careers. Kristina Borjesson published an
anthology of such stories in her book Into the Buzzsaw, in which journalists describe
how they lost their careers when eachof them expressed a truth that the government did not
want exposed.
Lisa Pease discloses such truths. I am reporting on her work. Therefore, the mainstream
media, except for an extraordinary reporter or two, such as Tom Jackman of The
WashingtonPost , will likely ignore both of us, but the publication where you are reading
this is on the side of truth, and in the disclosure of truth lies our hope.
Since more than one person was involved in the killing of RFK, there was – ipso facto
– a conspiracy. This is not theory but fact. The fact of a conspiracy. For more than
fifty years, mainstream reporters have been cowed by this word "conspiracy," thanks to the CIA.
Many others have been intelligence assets posing as journalists, regurgitating the lies. This
is a fact.
The official story is that after giving his victory speech for winning the 1968 Democratic
California Primary, Kennedy, as he was walking through a crowded hotel pantry, was shot by
Sirhan Sirhan, who was standing to his left between 3-6 feet away. Sirhan's revolver held eight
bullets, and as he was shooting, he was tackled by a group of large men who subdued him. All
witnesses place Sirhan in front of Kennedy and all claim he was firing a gun.
Fact: As the autopsy definitively showed, RFK was shot from the rear at point blank range,
three bullets entering his body, with the fatal headshot coming upward at a 45-degree angle
from 1-3 inches behind his right ear. Not one bullet from Sirhan's gun hit the Senator. In
addition, an audio
recording shows that many more bullets than the eight in Sirhan's gun were fired in the
hotel pantry that night. It was impossible for Sirhan to have killed RFK.
Let me repeat: More than one gunman, contrary to the government's claims, equals a
conspiracy. So why lie about that?
What is amazing is that the obvious conclusion to such simple syllogistic logic (Sirhan in
front, bullets in the back, therefore ) that a child could understand has been dismissed by the
authorities for fifty-one years. The fact that the government authorities – the LAPD, the
Sheriff's Office, the District Attorney, federal and state government officials, the FBI, the
CIA – have from the start so assiduously done all in their power to pin the blame on "a
lone assassin," Sirhan, proves they are part of a coordinated cover-up, which in turn suggests
their involvement in the crime.
The fact that Robert Kennedy was shot from the back and not the front where Sirhan was
standing immediately brings to mind the Zapruder film that shows that JFK was killed from the
front right and not from the 6 th floor rear where Oswald was allegedly shooting
from. That unexpected film evidence was hidden from the public for many years, but when it was
finally seen, the case for a government conspiracy was solidified.
While no such video evidence has surfaced in the RFK case, the LAPD made sure that no
photographic evidence contradicting the official lies would be seen. As Lisa Pease writes:
Less than two months after the assassination, the LAPD took the extraordinary step of
burning some 2,400 photos from the case in Los Angeles County General's medical waste
incinerator. Why destroy thousands of photos in an incinerator if there was nothing to hide?
The LAPD kept hundreds of innocuous crowd scene photos that showed no girl in a polka
dot dress or no suspicious activities or individuals. Why were those photos preserved?
Perhaps because those photos had nothing in them that warranted their destruction.
While "perhaps" is a mild word, the cover-up of "the girl in the polka dot dress" needs no
perhaps. Dozens of people reported seeing a suspicious, curvaceous girl in a white dress with
black polka dots with Sirhan in the pantry and other places. She was seen with various other
men as well. The evidence for her involvement in the assassination is overwhelming, and yet the
LAPD did all in its power to deny this by browbeating witnesses and by allowing her to
escape.
Sandra Serrano, a Kennedy campaign worker and a courageous witness, was bullied by the
CIA-connected police interrogator Sergeant Enrique "Hank" Hernandez. She had been sitting
outside on a metal fire escape getting some air when the polka dot dress girl, accompanied by a
man, ran out and down the stairs, shouting, "We've shot him, we've shot him." When Serrano
asked whom did they shoot, the girl replied, "We've shot Senator Kennedy." Then she and her
companion, both of whom Serrano had earlier seen ascending the stairs with Sirhan, disappeared
into the night. A little over an hour after the shooting Serrano was interviewed on live
television by NBC's Sander Vanocur where she recounted this. And there were others who saw and
heard this girl say the same thing as she and her companion fled the crime scene. Nevertheless,
the LAPD, led by Lieutenant Manuel Pena, also CIA affiliated, who was brought out of retirement
to run the investigation dubbed "Special Unit Senator," worked with Hernandez and others to
dismiss the girl as of no consequence.
Lisa Pease covers all this and much more. She shows how Sirhan was obviously hypnotized, how
the trial was a farce, how the police destroyed evidence from the door frames in the pantry
that proved more than the eight bullets in Sirhan's gun were fired, how Officer DeWayne Wolfer
manipulated the ballistic evidence, etc. Through years of digging into court records, archives,
transcripts, the public library, and doing countless interviews, she proves without a doubt
that Sirhan did not kill Kennedy and that the assassination and the cover-up were part of a
very sophisticated intelligence operation involving many parts and players. She shows how no
matter what route Kennedy took in the hotel that night, the killers had all exits covered and
that he would not be allowed to leave alive.
While some of her more speculative points – e.g. that Robert Maheu (Howard Hughes/CIA)
was "the most credible high-level suspect for the planner of Robert Kennedy's assassination,"
that Kennedy was shot twice in the head from behind, etc. are open to debate, they do not
detract from her fundamentally powerful case that RFK, like his brother John, was assassinated
by a CIA-run operation intended to silence their voices of courageous resistance to an
expanding secret government dedicated to war, murder, and human exploitation. The U.S.
government of today.
When Bobby Kennedy was entering the kitchen pantry, he was escorted by a security guard
named Thane Eugene Cesar, a man long suspected of being the assassin. Cesar was carrying a gun
that he drew but denied firing, despite witnesses' claims to the contrary. Conveniently, the
police never examined the gun. He has long been suspected of being CIA affiliated, and now
Pease says she has found evidence to confirm that. She writes, "It's hard to overstate the
significance of finding a current or future CIA contract agent holding Kennedy's right arm at
the moment of the shooting."
Yes, it is. As she rightly claims, the CIA takeover of America in the 1960s is the story of
our time. And our time is now. None of this is ancient history. That is so crucial to grasp.
For those who think that learning the truth about the 1960s assassinations is an exercise in
futility reserved for those who are living in the past, they need to think again. Our descent
into endless war and massive media propaganda to support it is part of a long-term project that
began with the elimination of JFK, Malcom X, MLK, and Robert Kennedy. They were killed for
reasons, and those reasons still exist, even if they don't physically, but only in spirit.
Their killers roam the land because they have become far more deeply part of the institutional
structure of government and the media.
Pease says:
It was horrible that Robert Kennedy was taken from us far too soon. It is horrible that
one man has borne the guilt for an operation he neither planned nor willingly participated
in. It's horrible the conspiracy was so obvious that bullets had to be lost and switched to
hide it. And it's horrible that the mainstream media has never dared to tell the people of
this country that the government lied to us about what they really found when they looked
into this case. Until the media can deal with the truth of the Robert Kennedy assassination,
and until the people can be made aware of the CIA's role in slanting the truth on topics of
great importance, America's very survival is in jeopardy .We've come perilously close to
losing democracy itself because of fake, CIA-sponsored stories about our history. Should
America ever become a dictatorship, the epitaph of our democracy must include the role the
mainstream media, by bowing to the National Security state, played in killing it.
By writing A Lie Too Big To Fail, Lisa Pease has done her valiant part in refuting
the lie that is now failing. Now it is up to all of us to spread the word of truth by focusing
on the fundamental facts so we can finally take back our country from the CIA.
Then we can say with RFK and his favorite poet Aeschylus:
And even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until
in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email
lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre
for Research on Globalization.
"... There is a photo of someone who looks like him standing in front of the School Book Depository. Bush is one of the few people in America who can't remember where he was that day. ..."
There is some flimsy photo evidence of someone who looked like him in Dealey Plaza, so my
answer would be, "not sure." But anecdotally, there sure seems to be a large number of
"coincidences" around a guy who could apparently walk across a snow covered field without
leaving foot prints , so maybe.
Since the beginning, the rumored driving motive for JFK's assassination, (from both sides
really) was the cluster-fuck known as "The Bay of Pigs invasion," so we'll start there. At the
end of Mark Lane's book "Plausible Denial," (the account of E. Howard Hunt's ill-fated lawsuit
against The Liberty Lobby) some interesting facts about the Bay of Pigs invasion were tossed
out that leaves one scratching his or her head and wondering if 41 had anything to do with it.
The operation was ostensibly to deliver small arms and ordnance to a (turns out to be
fictional) 25,000 man rebel army that was in the Cuban hills waiting for help to depose Castro.
The US Navy supplied a couple of ships, but they were decommissioned, had their numbers scraped
off, and were renamed the "Houston" and the "Barbara," (or the Spanish spelling of Barbara.)
This is while 41 was living in Houston with his wife Barbara. Also, the CIA code name for the
invasion was "Operation Zapata."
This while the name of 41's business was "Zapata Offshore."
(Or something like that. 41 had business' using Zapata's name since his days as an oilman in
Midland Texas.) The day after Kennedy's killing, a George Bush met with Army Intel. What went
on in that meeting is a mystery, and the CIA unconvincingly claims that they had another guy
working for them named George Bush, only he wasn't hired until 1964 and his expertise was
meteorology so it's difficult to understand why they wanted to talk with him on that day. Then
there's the fact that Oswald's CIA handler, a guy name Georges DeMorinshilt (sp?) had the name
George (Poppy) Bush in his address book along with 41's Houston address and phone number.
Of course this is all coincidental, but consider: 41 was a failed two-term congressman who
couldn't hold his seat, (in Houston Texas of all places) and yet was made by Nixon the
ambassador to the UN, then Ford named him ambassador to China and the Director of the CIA. Wow!
What a lucky guy.
So was he involved with the Kennedy assassination and photographed in Dealey Plaza? Don't
know. I was 13 at the time, but in the intervening years, the politics in this country,
especially relating to the Republican Party, have become shall we say, "Kalfkaesque."
There is a photo of someone who looks like him standing in front of the School Book
Depository. Bush is one of the few people in America who can't remember where he was that day.
There is also a memo by J.Edgar Hoover referencing a "George Bush of the CIA" reporting on
"misguided Cubans" in Dallas that day. The CIA had a safe house stuffed with Cuban agents in
the Oak Cliff neighborhood, and Lee Harvey Oswald rented a room nearby shortly before the
assassination took place.
Astoundingly, Bush, the elder, claims that he does not remember where he was when Kennedy
was assassinated. I do. I'll bet a dollar that you do (if old enough). Everyone above the age
of fifty-five does except George H. W. Bush. He does however, remember that he was not at
Dealey Plaza at the time.
It is interesting to note that photographs and videos exist showing a man who looks very
much like Bush, at the site, at the time. It was not difficult to find them on line in the
past. Now, they seem to have been expunged somehow, though a few blurry photos can still be
found.
We discovered some fascinating evidence that George Bush was directly involved
in the murder of President John F Kennedy, the latest of which evidence comes from the late
Roger Craig. The evidence seems overwhelming that George Herbert Walker Bush was in Dealey
Plaza at the time of the president's murder, supervising the Cubans involved in the
assassination squad. Evidence for Bush's involvement is legion. Bush denies remembering where
he was on November 22d, largely because he can't remember which lie he should tell about it. It
saves him the embarrassing contradictions in which Nixon found himself when explaining his
whereabouts on that day. But not remembering one's location on that historic and traumatic day
doesn't pass the laugh test although Bush did manage to laugh about it at Gerald Ford's funeral
– precisely when he mentioned the murder. The laugh speaks volumes of Bush's contempt for
Kennedy. We have written previously about the memo which Hoover wrote about a meeting he had
with "Mr George Bush of the CIA" – a memo which irrefutably links Bush with the CIA
operating under cover as an "independent oil man from Houston." We reported in a recent blog
posting identifying Hunt as Bush's case officer in the CIA. These two independent witnesses
help cement Bush's involvement with the agency as well as his presence in the City of Hate on
the day he helped murder the president. Bush was on business for the CIA which is why he had
official communication with the FBI and most likely Hoover himself in Washington, DC the
following day. His official post was Dallas. Bush's cover story is that he spoke at an oil
convention – the Dallas based American Association of Oil Well Drilling Contractors, but
this is at best plausible deniability.
The important point is that this story demonstrates that
he was in Dallas, a fact which the Dallas Morning News reported occurring on the evening of
November 21, 1963. Indeed, he stayed at the Sheraton Hotel which was also headquarters of
Secret Service communications and other elements coordinating the assassination. Many have
covered the James Parrot story in which Bush called the FBI to warm it about suspicious
activity of Parrot. But Parrot worked for Bush, and Bush used this lame story to provide an
alibi for his non-presence in Dallas.
Unfortunately, the lady doth protest too much. The Tyler,
TX story – the one where Bush supposedly called the FBI from Tyler is a giant hoax. It
didn't happen. Someone impersonating Bush made the call because Bush was too busy supervising
the assassination at that time. As we will show momentarily, Bush was nowhere near Tyler. The
aforementioned memo's citation of the "mis-guided" anti-Castro Cubans clearly associates Bush
with Alpha 66, Operation 40, and groups the CIA was training for assassination duty. The
pretext is that it was against Castro, but the plan was always against Kennedy. But how do we
know that? A CIA pilot told the story of George Bush being the pay master for Castro.
We have
posted elsewhere in this Chronicle that Cuba was an invention – a hoax – to justify
covert and bellicose operations – to justify the permanent war and police state. Castro
was on the CIA payroll and has always been a pawn of the New York banksters. Now here is the
kicker, as John Hankey quotes Dallas Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig speaking with Jim Garrison, the
New Orleans district attorney who prosecuted Clay Shaw for his involvement with the murder:
"Jim also asked me about the arrests made in Dealey Plaza that day. I told him I knew of
twelve arrests, one in particular made by R. E. Vaughn of the Dallas Police Department. The man
Vaughn arrested was coming from the Dal-Tex Building across from the Texas School Book
Depository. The only thing which Vaughn knew about him was that he was an independent oil
operator from Houston, Texas. The prisoner was taken from Vaughn by Dallas Police detectives
and that was the last that he saw or heard of the suspect." (emphasis added)
Here is
extraordinary evidence that George Bush was arrested in Dallas at the time of the
assassination. But why was he arrested? We diverge from Hankey's explanation that he was caught
where he wasn't supposed to be. Citizens knew that bullets were fired from Dal-Tex and were
jeering the people coming out. The police were providing Bush an escort of safety from one of
the crime scenes, as the Dallas Police were heavily involved in the murder. Thus an enormous
amount of evidence places George Bush in the City of Hate and Dealey Plaza on 11/21-22. The
evidence consists of newspaper accounts, FBI memoranda, photographs, and first person witness
accounts. George Herbert Walker Bush murdered John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Reference Jim Fetzer,
John Hankey, Was George H. W. Bush Involved With Assassination of JFK? VeteransToday.com,
November 16, 2011 Copyright 2013 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.
@Kevin Barrett Jack Ruby did not kill Oswald "for the Jews." He was the Mafia capo of
Dallas and was following orders in Plan B when two previous attempts to kill Oswald failed.
He tried to get out of it, but had no choice but to follow orders that he could not refuse.
I've communicated in the past with former U.S. Army unit leaders whose occasional mission
was to escort CIA teams into Laos during the Vietnam war, who were to bring back significant
amounts of heroin for placement in the body bags of killed U.S. soldiers for shipment back to
the States for distribution. I was told that in some cases, the CIA team did not make it back
with the heroin, courtesy of the accompanying U.S. military unit. I guess that saves the
trouble of making such activities public.
"... "You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty convincing.... ..."
"... Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system??? ..."
"... The Russians trying to rig the elections meme was a fallback for the failure of the “trump is a russianstooge" meme. ..."
Here are some insights into the minds of many movers and shakers in Russiagate:
Key US officials behind the Russia investigation have made no secret of their animus
towards Russia.
"I do always hate the Russians," Lisa Page, a senior FBI lawyer on the Russia probe,
testified to Congress in July 2018. "It is my opinion that with respect to Western ideals
and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans, Russia poses the most dangerous
threat to that way of life."
As he opened the FBI's probe of the Trump campaign's ties to Russians in July 2016,
FBI agent Peter Strzok texted Page: "fuck the cheating motherfucking Russians Bastards. I
hate them I think they're probably the worst. Fucking conniving cheating savages."
Speaking to NBC News in May 2017, former director of national intelligence James
Clapper explained why US officials saw interactions between the Trump camp and Russian
nationals as a cause for alarm: "The Russians," Clapper said, "almost genetically driven to
co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique. So we were
concerned."
In a May interview with Lawfare, former FBI general counsel Jim Baker, who helped
oversee the Russia probe, explained the origins of the investigation as follows: "It was
about Russia, period, full stop. When the [George] Papadopoulos information comes across
our radar screen, it's coming across in the sense that we were always looking at Russia.
we've been thinking about Russia as a threat actor for decades and decades."
"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin
rejects the claim many times publicly saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections
as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty
convincing....
My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of
"Russia meddling" which began with the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA
and NSA???
Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies???
And --if there is-- does that mean we are headed for a one-party system???
Evidence accumulates that Obama was the real leader of this color revolution against Trump with Brannan as his chief lieutenant
and Comey as a willing accomplice.
Now that the dust has settled, one must ask why the Deep State wanted Trump gone. Why does the Obama-Clinton mafia hates him so
much? Is this due to Trump committed an unforgivable sin in suggesting we “get along with Russia” and thus potentially cut the
revenues of military-industrial complex ? This is not true -- Trump inflated the Pentagon budget to astronomical height. Then
why ?
Notable quotes:
"... The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama. ..."
"... Operation Crossfire Hurricane was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip Strozk texted the following to his mistress, Lisa Page : ..."
"... We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials, such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named in US intelligence documents. ..."
"... Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane? ..."
"... On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election to install Donald Trump? ..."
"... Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide. ..."
The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was
not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken
with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama.
As
I have written previously , the claim that Russia tried to hijack our election is a damn lie. But you do not have to take my
word for it. Just listen to Barack Obama speaking in October 2016 in response to Donald Trump's expressed concerns about
election meddling :
"There is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig America's elections, in part because they are
so decentralized. There is no evidence that that has happened in the past, or that there are instances that that could happen this
time," the president said to the future president in October 2016.
"Democracy survives because we recognize that there is something more important than any individual campaign, and that is making
sure the integrity and trust in our institutions sustains itself. Becasue Democracy works by consent, not by force," Obama said.
"I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections
and the election process before votes have even taken place. It is unprecedented. It happens to be based on no fact. Every expert
regardless of political party... who has ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant
voter fraud are not to be found. Keep in mind elections are run by state and local officials."
It is important to remember what had transpired in the Trump/Russia collusion case by this point. Operation Crossfire Hurricane
was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations
that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA
and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip
Strozk texted
the following to his mistress, Lisa Page :
Strzok: And hi. Went well, best we could have expected. Other than [REDACTED] quote: " the White House is running this. " My answer,
"well, maybe for you they are." And of course, I was planning on telling this guy, thanks for coming, we've got an hour, but with
Bill [Priestap] there, I've got no control .
Page: Yeah, whatever (re the WH comment). We've got the emails that say otherwise.
The White House clearly knew. But Strzok's text is not the only evidence. We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials,
such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named
in US intelligence documents.
There are only two possibilities:
Obama was being briefed by Susan Rice and DNI James Clapper and CIA Director about the project
to take out Trump, or
Obama was kept in the dark.
Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known
to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to
hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do
nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane?
On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was
the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election
to install Donald Trump?
My wife was for many years an election official in Virginia. IMO Obama was right in saying that a US presidential election
is impossible to "rig." The US Constitution requires that federal elections be run by the states WITHOUT federal supervision.
As a result the methods and equipment in the states and the various parts of the states vary widely and the state systems are
not tied together with a national electronic network as, for example, the system is in France where the result of a national election
is reported on TeeVee immediately when the polls close.
Asking the question, "Can you cite one specific case where a single vote was definitively changed by Russian meddling?"
causes panic in a person who is declaiming about the evils of Russian meddling in our elections.
When you ask that question, the invariable retort is that the Russians are so clever that you wouldn't know that you were being
gulled; or, when I say that I have never seen a Russian produced facebook ad, the rejoinder is that the Russians concentrated
on Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and, of course, I would have been privy to the bot-sent emails and facebook ads generated by
the Internet Research Agency.
You've maintained all along that the Russians interfered in the election, yet I believe it is your position that the Russians
did not change a single vote. Is that correct or do you believe the Russians changed the votes before tabulation?
What did the Russians do that the Trump and Hillary campaigns did not do? Did they also turnout the tens of thousands who showed
up for Trump rallies that Hillary could never muster? Are they still turning out thousands at recent Trump rallies? I'm curious
how come Brennan and Clapper could not turn out thousands to Hillary's rallies when according to our German friend "b", the omnipotent
US Intel services just turned out a quarter of the population of Hong Kong to protest CCP authoritarianism?
Did the Israeli, Saudi and Chinese governments interfere in the election? How would you compare what they did to what you believe
the Russians did?
uieter about it. All that is very different from the absolute covert nature of the Russian IO in the 2016 election. I have
no idea what China did or is doing.
You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication. The lies on this are enormous. If the FBI really had detected
GRU hacking of the DNC in 2015, which is claimed in the fabricated meme, then you would expect the FBI and the other counter intel
elements of the USG to take action. THEY DID NOTHING.
The issue of Russian hacking only emerged when Hillary and the DNC learned that DNC emails were going to be put out by WIKILEAKS.
Again, not one shred of actual evidence that the Russians did it, but blaming the Russians became a convenient excuse in a bid
to divert attention from the real story--i.e,. Hillary and the DNC colluded to defeat Bernie Sanders.
The only real solid evidence of colluding with foreigners, in this case the Ukraine, comes courtesy of Hillary and her campaign.
Hiring a foreign intel officer (ie. Steele) who then takes info from Russians of questionable background and spread it around
as "truth". That was not a Russian IO. Pure Clinton IO.
"What the Russians did was insert misattributed information and disinformation into the election cycle...That is what separates
the Russian IO from anything Clinton, Trump or any of their supporters did."
I believe supporters of both candidates did exactly what you say the Russians did - insert misattributed information & disinformation
into the media stream. If you watch MSNBC or Fox on any given day there is much assertion & opinion masquerading as news. And
the Twitter & Facebook and blog universe are teeming with stories and innuendo that are more fiction than fact all from anonymous
accounts.
The Russia Collusion hysteria is replete with examples of "misattributed information and disinformation". It seems that yellow
journalism is as American as apple pie.
The whole opaque PAC structure with names like "Americans for Democracy" funded by chain structures hiding the real financiers
and calling up down is something that we see growing in every election cycle and is already of significant scale both in terms
of financing and dubiousness.
It is also rather common that "experts" who are called upon to opine on issues routinely never disclose their conflicts of
interest. Jeffrey Sachs and so many others on the payroll of CCP entities never disclose those payments as they extoll the virtues
of offshoring our industrial base to China and are apologists for CCP espionage.
Blue peacock, supporters of Clinton and Trump did not put out misattributed info. They both put out truth, innuendo, exaggerations,
misleading info and even outright lies, but they put it out as themselves. They didn't represent themselves as someone other than
who they were. The PAC structure comes close to skirting this requirement for truthful attribution, but a quick internet search
blows away the facades of these PACs. What the Russians did was pure black propaganda.
You mean the kindly grandmother, Loretta Lynch, Attorney General of the United States, did not inform President Obama that
the FBI had obtained a FISA warrant to surveil the Republican candidate for the presidency and members of his staff becasue he
was working with Russians? Or do you mean that James Comey failed to tell his boss, Loretta Lynch; or do you mean John Brennan
failed to tell Obama about that Steele dossier from Fusion GPS that Mueller know anything about; or do you mean that James Clapper
failed to tell Jeh Johnson about that too? The Russians made them do all those things as part of an interference campaign, right?
It couldn't have been they were corrupt and incompetant.
"Instead, Obama...." made an "If you like your doctor, you can keep you doctor" statement that he knew was completely false.
Trump didn't win, Russians influenced Americans to vote for Trump, just ask the losers of the election, their paid sources and
their colleagues in Congress. In fact Americans love Hilary so much she's just where in the polls right now?
I continue to be astounded by the outrage at "Russian meddling". So some Russians used the internet to post true or false information
on candidates in a election.... so what?...millions of American partisan trolls were doing the same thing for or against a candidate.
We had tons of fake info written by American bloggers and posters all over the net, Facebook, twitter etc..
Its not like Putin came to the US and gave a speech to congress in favor of Trump ...as Netanyahu did in appearing before the
US congress and urging them to go against President Obama's Syria policy for heaven's sake.
It is so ridiculous I have given up hope of finding enough IQs above that of a cabbage to form a sane government.
Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block
the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide.
1. The FBI cannot be trusted to uphold defend and protect our Constitution, as they sought actively
to overturn a duly elected POTUS.; and
2 - Mueller's incompetence is astounding.
Is the only entity of the Defense Department called the U.S. Army the only ones left actually upholding, defending, and protecting
our Constitution and our Constitution processes? I don't see the other entities of the DOD called Navy and Air Force doing their
jobs upholding our Constitution!
Thumbs up to the Army, thumbs down to the Navy and Air Force!
I'm a little more charitable to the FBI. The Trumps lied their asses off to the FBI about their foreign contacts. Which IMO,
wrong or right, left the FBI all but no recourse but to investigate those lies. Even if the lies were simply based in long-seated
personal habits, it takes investigation to prove that is the case.
"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly
saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty
convincing....
My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of "Russia meddling" which began with
the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA and NSA???
Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean
we are headed for a one-party system???
Larry, sorry to nitpick, but I have such regard for your work that it pains me to see the typographical error in your second sentence,
where you say "his error" shortly after referring to Trump. I'm guessing that you meant to say "this error", but it reads as if
it means "Trump's error".
And while I'm at it, your last sentence has "it" instead of "if".
Keep up your great work for this excellent website.
Sadly naive in that you think the conspirators were actually acting in good faith. You think they were right when they used
the Steele Dossier in applying for a FISA warrant in Colyyer's Star Chamber? Steele was a paid informant for the FBI as was Page.
"... Former FBI Director James Comey has been under investigation for misleading President Trump - telling him in private that he wasn't the target of an ongoing FBI probe, while refusing to admit to this in public. ..."
"... Comey was essentially "running a covert operation" against Trump - which began with a private "defensive briefing" shortly after the inauguration. RCI 's sources say that Horowitz has pored over text messages between the FBI's former top-brass and other communications suggesting that Comey was in fact conducting a "counterintelligence assessment" of the president during their January 2017 meeting in New York. ..."
"... What's more, the FBI couldn't treat Trump as a suspect - formally, as they didn't have the legal grounds to do so according to former FBI counterintelligence lawyer Mark Wauck. " They had no probable cause against Trump himself for 'collusion' or espionage ," he said, adding "They were scrambling to come up with anything to hang a hat on, but had found nothing." ..."
"... According to House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), Comey and the rest of the FBI's top team (including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page) were attempting to "stop" Trump's presidency for political reasons. ..."
"... "You have the culmination of the ultimate spying, where you have the FBI director spying on the president, taking notes [and] illegally leaking those notes of classified information" to the MSM, said Nunes in a recent interview. ..."
"... Comey is just the political class operative who they brought in to save Scooter Libby's butt in the Valerie Flame leak. Then he got a seven figure job as a reward at a hedge fund (with no prior experience in the financial industry). Then, they took him off the bench to be FBI director. ..."
"... The larger problem is that the "five eyes" system is broken in favor of British surveillance and interference in our elections, and, the Patriot Act practice of "masking" is a complete violation of the fourth amendment and a fraud. From a fourth amendment analysis, it's like letting the police search everyone's house every day as long as they don't look at the name on the address. ..."
"... This investigation would explain why Comey, Brennan, and other members of Barry Obama's regime are very quiet, while Congressional Democrats are freaking out. ..."
"... Does the DOJ investigate British agents? Serious question. ..."
Former FBI Director James Comey has been under investigation for misleading President
Trump - telling him in private that he wasn't the target of an ongoing FBI probe, while
refusing to admit to this in public.
According to
RealClearInvestigations ' Paul Sperry, "Justice Department Inspector General Michael
Horowitz will file a report in September which contains evidence that Comey was misleading the
president " while conducting an active investigation against him.
Even as he repeatedly assured Trump that he was not a target, the former director was
secretly trying to build a conspiracy case against the president, while at times acting as an
investigative agent . -
RCI
According to two US officials familiar with Horowitz's upcoming report on FBI misconduct,
Comey was essentially "running a covert operation" against Trump - which began with a
private "defensive briefing" shortly after the inauguration. RCI 's sources say that Horowitz
has pored over text messages between the FBI's former top-brass and other communications
suggesting that Comey was in fact conducting a "counterintelligence assessment" of the
president during their January 2017 meeting in New York.
What's more, Comey had an FBI agent in the White House who reported the activities of Trump
and his aides, according to 'other officials familiar with the matter.'
The agent, Anthony Ferrante, who specialized in cyber crime, left the White House around
the same time Comey was fired and soon joined a security consulting firm, where he contracted
with BuzzFeed to lead the news site's efforts to verify the Steele dossier, in connection
with a defamation lawsuit. -RCI
According to the report, Horowitz and his team have examined over 1 million documents and
conducted over 100 interviews - including sit-downs with Comey and other current and former FBI
and DOJ employees. "The period covering Comey's activities is believed to run from early
January 2017 to early May 2017, when Comey was fired and his deputy Andrew McCabe, as the
acting FBI director, formally
opened full counterintelligence and obstruction investigations of the president."
McCabe's deputy, Lisa Page, appeared to dissemble last year when asked in closed-door
testimony before the House Judiciary Committee if Comey and other FBI brass discussed opening
an obstruction case against Trump prior to his firing in May 2017. Initially, she flatly
denied it , swearing: "Obstruction of justice was not a topic of conversation during the time
frame you have described." But then, after conferring with her FBI-assigned lawyer, she
announced: " I need to take back my prior statement ." Page later conceded that there could
have been at least "discussions about potential criminal activity" involving the president .
-RCI
Comey coordination
Sperry notes that Comey wasn't working in isolation on the Trump effort. In particular,
Horowitz has looked at the January 6, 2017 briefing on the infamous 'Steele Dossier' - a
meeting which was used by BuzzFeed, CNN and others to legitimize reporting on the dossier's
salacious and unsubstantiated claims .
Comey's meeting with Trump took place one day after the FBI director met in the Oval
Office with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to discuss how to brief Trump -- a
meeting attended by National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh
Johnson, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and National Intelligence Director James
Clapper, who would soon go to work for CNN. -RCI
While Comey claims in his book, "A Higher Loyalty" that he didn't have "a
counterintelligence case file open on [Trump]," former federal prosecutor and National Review
columnist Andrew McCarthy notes that just because Trump's name wasn't on a formal file or
surveillance warrant doesn't mean that he wasn't under investigation.
"They were hoping to surveil him incidentally, and they were trying to make a case on him,"
said McCarthy. " The real reason Comey did not want to repeat publicly the assurances he made
to Trump privately is that these assurances were misleading . The FBI strung Trump along,
telling him he was not a suspect while structuring the investigation in accordance with the
reality that Trump was the main subject ."
What's more, the FBI couldn't treat Trump as a suspect - formally, as they didn't have
the legal grounds to do so according to former FBI counterintelligence lawyer Mark Wauck. "
They had no probable cause against Trump himself for 'collusion' or espionage ," he said,
adding "They were scrambling to come up with anything to hang a hat on, but had found
nothing."
What remains unclear is why Comey would take such extraordinary steps against a sitting
president . The Mueller report concluded there was no basis for the Trump-Russia collusion
conspiracy theories. Comey himself was an early skeptic of the Steele dossier -- the
opposition research memos paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign that were the road map of
collusion theories -- which he dismissed as "salacious and unverified." -RCI
According to House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), Comey and
the rest of the FBI's top team (including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page) were attempting to "stop"
Trump's presidency for political reasons.
"You have the culmination of the ultimate spying, where you have the FBI director spying
on the president, taking notes [and] illegally leaking those notes of classified information"
to the MSM, said Nunes in a recent interview.
They will whitewash Comey. The deep state is alive and well, the DoJ and the FBI are as
corrupt as they were the day before Trump took office.
Why do I say this? Well, the canary hasn't fallen off her perch yet. Hillary Clinton is
still singing her song, and even making noises like she's going to run again, and she's not
in prison. They have her solid on over a hundred felony counts of mishandling classified
documents and they've not touched her. Proof of life that the Deep State is still in
power.
So, was the Steele dossier the ex post facto excuse for illegally spying on Trump, or was
it the ex post facto diversion for ALL of Obama's spying on politically powerful people,
which we know included spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee, spying on reporters, and
spying on Trump. I'll bet Obama hopes the investigation doesn't get into all of his spying
activities, and I wouldn't be surprised government officials in charge of the spying
equipment are keeping it covered up because they don't want to lose their jobs (for either
allowing such to happen, or because they fear the spying apparatus will be eliminated).
Did Obama also spy on SCOTUS justices, Congressmen, other Senators and other rich and
powerful people? I'll bet he did, because we haven't seen all the unmasking documentation,
and Obama took it to his library so no one can see it (at least so he thinks). Further, look
at the way Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Rice are disparaging Trump (they protest too much).
And look at how all the allegations about Trump are blowing right back into the faces of the
Democrats who've shown their MO is to accuse their political opponents, of the illegal
activity in which the Democrats are engaged.
They need to go to jail, for a long time, if not be executed for treason.
Did Obama spy on SCOTUS justices, et al? - Yes. Look up project HAMR or "Hammer". MI5/6
was spying on all Americans comms to circumvent legal frameworks (5 eyes). Google is now
fully Chinese intelligence - TREASON. It's coming and it's gonna blow most people's
minds.
It started a very long time ago. 1913 was a notable date, so was JFK's assassination. So
was 9/11. So was Operation Paperclip. These monsters have been slithering around a while. Now
it's time for them to go bye-bye. Dark to Light. Execute.
Comey is just the political class operative who they brought in to save Scooter
Libby's butt in the Valerie Flame leak. Then he got a seven figure job as a reward at a hedge
fund (with no prior experience in the financial industry). Then, they took him off the bench
to be FBI director.
The larger problem is that the "five eyes" system is broken in favor of British
surveillance and interference in our elections, and, the Patriot Act practice of "masking" is
a complete violation of the fourth amendment and a fraud. From a fourth amendment analysis,
it's like letting the police search everyone's house every day as long as they don't look at
the name on the address.
That our broken secrecy system effectively legalized Watergate under Obama and the "five
eyes" is the real problem that needs fixing.
This investigation would explain why Comey, Brennan, and other members of Barry Obama's
regime are very quiet, while Congressional Democrats are freaking out. The end of the Deep
State is starting.
"... If the answer is yes, then the IG must provide the House and Senate Armed Services committees with a report on the experiments' scope and "whether any ticks or insects used in such experiments were released outside of any laboratory by accident or experiment design." The amendment is an attempt to confirm or deny reports that Pentagon researchers -- at places such as Fort Detrick in Maryland and Plum Island in New York -- implanted diseases into insects to learn about the effects of biological weapons and also looked into using such insects to disseminate biological agents. ..."
"... A book called "Bitten," published this year, makes the case that the Defense Department research occurred and hints at a possible connection between the experiments and the spread of maladies such as Lyme disease, which is borne by ticks. ..."
"... Between 300,000 and 427,000 new cases of Lyme disease occur each year, with further growth expected in the years ahead, said Smith, a founding co-chairman of the Congressional Lyme Disease Caucus, which advocates for greater awareness of the disease and for more funding for research into a cure. ..."
"... Pat Smith, president of the Lyme Disease Association, said in an interview Monday that she is hopeful the IG report could provide information that could save lives. ..."
"... "We need to find out: is there anything in this research that was supposedly done that can help us to find information that is germane to patient health and combating the spread of the disease," she said. ..."
The House quietly voted last week to require the Pentagon inspector general to tell Congress whether the department experimented
with weaponizing disease-carrying insects and whether they were released into the public realm -- either accidentally or on purpose.
The unusual proposal took the form of an amendment that was adopted by
voice vote July 11 during House
debate on the fiscal 2020 defense authorization bill, which lawmakers passed the following day.
The amendment, by New Jersey Republican
Christopher H. Smith
, says the inspector general "shall conduct a review of whether the Department of Defense experimented with ticks and other insects
regarding use as a biological weapon between the years of 1950 and 1975."
If the answer is yes, then the IG must provide the House and Senate Armed Services committees with a report on the experiments'
scope and "whether any ticks or insects used in such experiments were released outside of any laboratory by accident or experiment
design." The amendment is an attempt to confirm or deny reports that Pentagon researchers -- at places such as Fort Detrick in Maryland
and Plum Island in New York -- implanted diseases into insects to learn about the effects of biological weapons and also looked into
using such insects to disseminate biological agents.
President Richard Nixon banned U.S. government research into biological weapons in 1969, but research into protecting U.S. military
personnel from such agents may have continued, Smith said in an interview Monday.
A book called "Bitten," published this year, makes the case that the Defense Department research occurred and hints at a possible
connection between the experiments and the spread of maladies such as Lyme disease, which is borne by ticks.
To Smith and other advocates of the Pentagon IG report, studying the past may provide data that can help stem the spread of Lyme
disease in the future.
Between 300,000 and 427,000 new cases of Lyme disease occur each year, with further growth expected in the years ahead, said
Smith, a founding co-chairman of the Congressional Lyme Disease Caucus, which advocates for greater awareness of the disease and
for more funding for research into a cure.
"We need answers and we need them now," Smith said.
Smith's amendment was co-sponsored by Minnesota Democrat
Collin C. Peterson
, who is the House caucus's other leader, and by Maryland Republican
Andy Harris .
Pat Smith, president of the Lyme Disease Association, said in an interview Monday that she is hopeful the IG report could
provide information that could save lives.
"We need to find out: is there anything in this research that was supposedly done that can help us to find information that
is germane to patient health and combating the spread of the disease," she said.
It remains to be seen whether Congress will send President Donald Trump a defense authorization bill with the weaponized ticks
amendment. The Senate has passed its version without any similar provision, and now House and Senate negotiators must reconcile the
two bills.
"... Moreover, if, as the memorandum asserted, 'British officials' were also aware that the 'most reliable intelligence' exonerated the Syrian government, rather fundamental questions arose as to how the JIC had felt able to claim precisely the reverse in support of David Cameron's unsuccessful attempt on 29 August to win Commons' support for British participation in air strikes. ..."
"... At the time, the Director General, Defence and Intelligence at the FCO was one Robert Hannigan, who in April 2014 would be appointed as Director of GCHQ. The National Security Adviser was a certain Sir Kim Darroch, whose appointment as Ambassador to the U.S. would be announced in August 2015. Both have been in the news, in relation to 'Russiagate.' ..."
"... Obviously, the same question arises about both of them as about Brennan: are they 'Gleiwitz types', who were actively complicit in preparing a murderous 'false flag', or were they simply part of a rather stupid Anglo-American 'dog', whom the 'tail', in the shape of the jihadists and their Turkish, Saudi and Qatari backers, could 'wag', as they chose? ..."
"... From the articles which Seymour Hersh published in the 'London Review of Books', and other materials, it became evident that the Defense Intelligence Agency, then headed by General Flynn, had been aware of the likelihood of fresh 'false flags' -- after the small scale incidents in spring 2013. ..."
"... An argument that 'Sundance' has repeatedly made is that a lot of what was happening in mid-2016, including the dossier attributed to Steele, had to do with the need to find justifications for these questionable surveillance operations. ..."
"... While I think there is something in this, I have long thought that the discovery that a mass of material exfiltrated from the DNC, and was going to be published by 'WikiLeaks', and the subsequent murder of Seth Rich, are likely to have been critically important triggers. ..."
"... panic-stricken improvisation found alike in the dossier, and the claims about the 'digital forensics' made by Dmitri Alperovitch of 'CrowdStrike', and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait. ..."
"... A week later, Butowsky filed a new action, in which the suggestion of a very-wide ranging conspiracy to suppress the truth about both the DNC leaks and Rich's murder was turned into a catalogue of defamation claims against a long list of people, including, as well as a variety of lawyers involved, CNN, the'Nw York Times', Vox, and the DNC. ..."
"... 'That Seth Rich was wacked because he stole the DNC emails and transferred them to Wikileaks is a conspiracy theory. It is possible and even plausible, but there is no evidence to confirm it. Many people seem to believe it because it makes more sense than the competing conspiracy theory, that Russia hacked the DNC and handed the emails to Wikileaks. Isikoff's claim, that Russia planted the Rich conspiracy theory, has no sound base. That theory existed before anything "Russian" mentioned it.' ..."
"... Reading the full text of Ms. Craven's report, I can see quite how well justified was Larry's suggestion in his post that Folkenflik and NPR were on a very sticky wicket indeed (as we say in England.) ..."
"... However, 'fools rush in', as the saying goes, so Isikoff decided to conspire with Deborah Sines, apparently the former U.S. assistant attorney in charge of investigating Seth Rich's murder, to suggest that suggestions that the victim had been the source of the material from the DNC published by 'WikiLeaks' originated as just another Russian plot. ..."
"... It appears that prior to the publication of his 'report', Isikoff talked to Butowsky, who in his efforts to dissuade him explained that his involvement in the whole affair began when Ellen Ratner, a news analyst with Fox, and sister of the late Michael Ratner, who had been an attorney for Assange, contacted him in Fall 2016 about a meeting she had with her that figure. ..."
"... And then, not particularly surprisingly, Butowsky and Clevenger abandoned their inhibitions about identifying Ellen Ratner as a source, and filled in a lot of 'blanks' in their 'narrative' about how Seth Rich lived and died. ..."
"... Among the many problems for Brennan and his co-conspirators -- among whom, on the British side, Hannigan and Darroch, and also Sedwill, are very important -- one relates to the way that the capabilities of 'scientific forensics', in all kinds of areas, have increased by leaps and bounds in recent years. ..."
"... This has meant that they have had little option but to corrupt the processes of investigation. The ludicrous claims by Dmitri Alperovitch of 'Crowdstrike' and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait, which nobody but a fool -- congenital 'useful idiot' one might say -- or a knave would dare to defend in public, are only one of many cases in point. ..."
One does not like to admit to having been one of John Brennan's 'useful idiots' -- I had
thought I could see through any of the 'active measures' which he and his co-conspirators, on
both sides of the Atlantic, could dream up. But I had swallowed whole the notion that Michael
Flynn had been stupid enough knowingly to get involved in Erdoğan's feud with
Gülen.
In fairness, however, I do think that when dealing with spiders like the former head of
the CIA, a prudent fly needs to be sure he, or she, gets competent legal advice at the
outset.
It may perhaps be interesting to put your account together with a post by 'Sundance' on
the 'Conservative Treehouse' site on 14 July, headlined 'Devin Nunes Discusses Upcoming
Mueller Testimony '
This takes up the issue, on which its author has commented extensively, of illegitimate
access by contractors to the databases of NSA intercepts -- an issue which is clearly bound
up with that of the use of such material to create the 'web' in which Flynn found himself
hopelessly entangled.
The post by 'Sundance' suggests, just as you do, that the driving force behind what has
happened was actually John Brennan. The April 2017 ruling by FISA Court Presiding Judge
Rosemary Collyer does not definitely establish that the illegitimate access of contractors
started in 2012, but it definitely strongly suggests that it did.
Reading the 6 September 'Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity' memorandum to
Obama, entitled 'Is Syria a Trap?', whose signatories included both you and Colonel Lang, it
seemed overwhelmingly likely to some of us who were familiar with both your writings that
Brennan had to have been involved in a conspiracy with the Turks, Saudis, and Qataris.
One relevant question related to whether the role of the Americans involved in this
conspiracy was simply 'ex post facto' exploitation of the patent 'false flag' sarin atrocity
at Ghouta the previous 21 August to attempt to inveigle the United States into toppling
Assad, or whether there was 'ex ante' complicity.
Moreover, if, as the memorandum asserted, 'British officials' were also aware that the
'most reliable intelligence' exonerated the Syrian government, rather fundamental questions
arose as to how the JIC had felt able to claim precisely the reverse in support of David
Cameron's unsuccessful attempt on 29 August to win Commons' support for British participation
in air strikes.
At the time, the Director General, Defence and Intelligence at the FCO was one Robert
Hannigan, who in April 2014 would be appointed as Director of GCHQ. The National Security
Adviser was a certain Sir Kim Darroch, whose appointment as Ambassador to the U.S. would be
announced in August 2015. Both have been in the news, in relation to 'Russiagate.'
Obviously, the same question arises about both of them as about Brennan: are they
'Gleiwitz types', who were actively complicit in preparing a murderous 'false flag', or were
they simply part of a rather stupid Anglo-American 'dog', whom the 'tail', in the shape of
the jihadists and their Turkish, Saudi and Qatari backers, could 'wag', as they chose?
From the articles which Seymour Hersh published in the 'London Review of Books', and other
materials, it became evident that the Defense Intelligence Agency, then headed by General
Flynn, had been aware of the likelihood of fresh 'false flags' -- after the small scale
incidents in spring 2013.
And it was clear enough, if one bothered to study the 'open source' material at all
carefully, that the DIA had been a key locus of opposition to the strategies being pursued by
Brennan, together with his British co-conspirators.
Accordingly, the fact that an 'interagency memorandum of understanding', which according
to Collyer's judgement looks as though it may well date from 2012 -- the year Brennan was
appointed to head the CIA -- appears to have led, in that year, to the granting of access to
the material, through the FBI, to outside contractors, looks somewhat interesting. (This is
well covered by 'Sundance'.)
So, I find myself asking whether in fact this gross abuse of the role of the NSA was not
linked at the outset to the divisions within the American intelligence apparatus and military
about policy towards the Middle East, and also whether this may not be relevant to assessing
the role of Robert Mueller, who was FBI Director through until September 2013.
An argument that 'Sundance' has repeatedly made is that a lot of what was happening in
mid-2016, including the dossier attributed to Steele, had to do with the need to find
justifications for these questionable surveillance operations.
While I think there is something in this, I have long thought that the discovery that a
mass of material exfiltrated from the DNC, and was going to be published by 'WikiLeaks', and
the subsequent murder of Seth Rich, are likely to have been critically important
triggers.
Among other things, I do not think that the version given by 'Sundance' can explain the
air of panic-stricken improvisation found alike in the dossier, and the claims about the
'digital forensics' made by Dmitri Alperovitch of 'CrowdStrike', and the former GCHQ person
Matt Tait.
I see that there has now been a dramatic escalation in the legal battles which began when
Ed Butowsky bought his initial action against David Folkenflik and his 'NPR' colleagues in
June 2018. The discovery process in that action was followed by an 'Amended Complaint' on 5
March this year.
A week later, Butowsky filed a new action, in which the suggestion of a very-wide ranging
conspiracy to suppress the truth about both the DNC leaks and Rich's murder was turned into a
catalogue of defamation claims against a long list of people, including, as well as a variety
of lawyers involved, CNN, the'Nw York Times', Vox, and the DNC.
On 9 July, Michael Isikoff published a story alleging that the claims about Rich and his
murder were the result of a Russian 'active measures' operation -- to use a favourite phrase
of TTG's.
'That Seth Rich was wacked because he stole the DNC emails and transferred them to
Wikileaks is a conspiracy theory. It is possible and even plausible, but there is no evidence
to confirm it. Many people seem to believe it because it makes more sense than the competing
conspiracy theory, that Russia hacked the DNC and handed the emails to Wikileaks. Isikoff's
claim, that Russia planted the Rich conspiracy theory, has no sound base. That theory existed
before anything "Russian" mentioned it.'
As it happens, Butowsky and his lawyer, Ty Clevenger, obviously decided it was time to, as
it were, 'unmask their batteries', and provide some of the evidence they have been
accumulating.
There is another useful post by 'Sundance', which in turn links to a very interesting post
on the Gateway Pundit' site. From there, you can access both Clevenger's blog post, and the
text of the 'Amended Complaint.'
It seems likely that Butowsky and Clevenger were pushed into acting a bit sooner than they
had intended. The fact that the name of Ellen Ratner, clearly a pivotal participant, was
misspellled 'Rattner' in the 'Amended Complaint', is likely to be an indication of this.
However, I also think that Clevenger, who seems to me a first-class 'ferret', could do
with the services of an old-style secretary, who checked his productions before they went
out.
As I have previously mentioned, I testified several times in Collyer's Washington district
court on non-FISA matters. My impression was that she is a very ambitious woman who wishes
always to do DoJ's bidding.
Your recollections of Collyer had, unfortunately, slipped my mind when I posted my comment
above. So, unfortunately, had Larry's post on Judge Caroline M. Craven's denial in her report
dated 17 April 2019 of the Motion to Dismiss filed by David Folkenflik and his NPR colleagues
in the defamation case brought against them by Ed Butowsky.
At the time of his post, the full text of the judgement was only available on PACER, which
requires a subscription. However, looking at the 'Court Listener' site, I now see that both
it and some other key documents in the case are freely available.
Reading the full text of Ms. Craven's report, I can see quite how well justified was
Larry's suggestion in his post that Folkenflik and NPR were on a very sticky wicket indeed
(as we say in England.)
And I can also see more clearly why, following the judgement, Butowsky and Ty Clevenger
felt they were in a position to launch an action both against some of the major legal players
in the cover-up of the fact that the materials published by the DNC were leaked by Seth Rich,
not hacked by the Russians, and also key disseminators of the cover-up, CNN, the NYT, and
Vox.
What looks to have happened subsequently is a natural enough process of escalation.
Among those who rather actively promoted the hogwash attributed to Christopher Steele was
Michael Isikoff, who is, apparently, chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News. In
April, he was reported in 'Vanity Fair' conceding that 'I think it's fair to say that all of
us should have approached this, in retrospect, with more skepticism'.
Any 'investigative reporter' worth his or her salt would have done elementary checks on
the dossier immediately, and not touched it with a bargepole -- again, as we used to say in
England. Also, even among the incompetent and corrupt, common prudence might have suggested
caution.
However, 'fools rush in', as the saying goes, so Isikoff decided to conspire with
Deborah Sines, apparently the former U.S. assistant attorney in charge of investigating Seth
Rich's murder, to suggest that suggestions that the victim had been the source of the
material from the DNC published by 'WikiLeaks' originated as just another Russian
plot.
It appears that prior to the publication of his 'report', Isikoff talked to Butowsky,
who in his efforts to dissuade him explained that his involvement in the whole affair began
when Ellen Ratner, a news analyst with Fox, and sister of the late Michael Ratner, who had
been an attorney for Assange, contacted him in Fall 2016 about a meeting she had with her
that figure.
Although Butowsky intended the conversation to be 'off the record', and the idea was
emphatically not that Isikoff would contact Ellen Ratner, he did. It seems that -- not
particularly surprisingly, in the current climate -- she lied to him, and he was stupid
enough to think that this meant he could get away with publishing his story.
And then, not particularly surprisingly, Butowsky and Clevenger abandoned their
inhibitions about identifying Ellen Ratner as a source, and filled in a lot of 'blanks' in
their 'narrative' about how Seth Rich lived and died.
I am still in the process of digesting the new information. However, a couple of
preliminary observations about the implications may be worth making.
Among the many problems for Brennan and his co-conspirators -- among whom, on the
British side, Hannigan and Darroch, and also Sedwill, are very important -- one relates to
the way that the capabilities of 'scientific forensics', in all kinds of areas, have
increased by leaps and bounds in recent years.
This has meant that they have had little option but to corrupt the processes of
investigation. The ludicrous claims by Dmitri Alperovitch of 'Crowdstrike' and the former
GCHQ person Matt Tait, which nobody but a fool -- congenital 'useful idiot' one might say --
or a knave would dare to defend in public, are only one of many cases in point.
What is really dangerous for the conspirators, however, is when the problems they have in
contesting rational arguments about the 'scientific forensics' come together with problems
relating to more 'old-fashioned' kinds of evidence: crucially, 'witness testimony'.
This, I think, may now be happening.
It also seems to me quite likely that some of those 'in the know' -- including perhaps
Rosemary Collyer -- had seen what was liable to happen a good while ago, and decided that a
prudent 'rat' keeps its options open.
"... This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of ..."
"... Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at ..."
"... War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate ..."
his
Wikipedia biography , he has -- or he had -- "a sterling reputation" both among Republicans
and Democrats. That changed when Barr announced his ongoing investigation into the origins of
Russiagate, a vital subject
I, too, have explored .
As Barr explained , "What we're looking at is: What was the predicate for conducting a
counterintelligence investigation on the Trump campaign. How did the bogus narrative begin that
Trump was essentially in cahoots with Russia to interfere with the U.S. election?" Still more,
Barr, who is empowered to declassify highly sensitive documents, made clear that his primary
focus was not the hapless FBI under James Comey but the CIA under John Brennan. Evidently this
was too much for leading Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, who assailed Barr for having "just
destroyed the scintilla of credibility that he had left." Not known for a sense of irony,
Schumer accused Barr of using "the words of conspiracy theorists," as though Russiagate
itself is not among the most malign and consequential conspiracy theories in American political
history.
More indicative is the reaction of the generally liberal pro-Democratic New York
Times and Washington Post , the country's two most important political
newspapers, to Barr's investigation. Leaning heavily on the "expert" opinion of former
intelligence officials and McCarthy-echoing members of Congress such as Adam Schiff, both
papers went into outrage mode.
The Times bemoaned Barr's "drastic escalation of [Trump's] yearslong assault on
the intelligence community" while rejecting "the president's unfounded claims that his campaign
had been spied on," even though some forms of FBI and CIA infiltration and surveillance of the
2016 Trump campaign are now well documented. (See, for example,
Lee Smith's reporting .)
Unconcerned by the activities of either agency, the papers
warned ominously that Barr's probe "effectively strips [the CIA] of its most critical
power: choosing which secrets it shares and which remain hidden." It "could be tremendously
damaging to the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies." Not surprisingly, given the
Times ' three-year role in promulgating Russiagate allegations, it preempted Barr's
investigation
by declaring that US intelligence agencies' covert actions were part of "a lawful
investigation aimed at understanding a foreign power's efforts to manipulate an American
election." Considering what is now known, this generalization seems a whitewash both of the
Times ' coverage and the agencies' conduct. (In the Post , see coverage by
Toluse Olorunnipa and
Shane Harris .)
Hillary Clinton, also not surprisingly, agreed. As paraphrased by Matt Stevens
in the Times on May 3 , she accused Barr of diverting attention "from what the
real story is. The real story is the Russian interference in our election." According to the
defeated Democratic candidate, "the Russians were successful in sowing 'discord and
divisiveness' in the country, and helping Mr. Trump." But who has actually sowed more "discord
and divisiveness" in America -- the Russians or Mrs. Clinton and her supporters, by still
refusing to accept the legitimacy of her electoral loss and Trump's victory?
Unfortunately, but predictably, Barr's investigation has become polarizing, with Fox News,
for example, bannering each new unsavory Russiagate revelation and the Times and the
Post mostly ignoring them altogether. In particular, the Democratic Party, once
traditionally skeptical of intelligence agencies, is becoming the party of an intel cult and
thus of the new US-Russian Cold War. Only a few of the party's leaders, notably presidential
candidate Tulsi Gabbard, demur from this dangerous folly. (Might Democratic reticence also be
due to the circumstance that the intelligence chiefs now under investigation were appointees of
former President Obama, who has been remarkably silent about the entire Russiagate saga? What,
as I have asked previously, did Obama know, when did he know it, and what did he do?)
Everyone who cares about the quality of American political life, no matter what they think
about Trump, should encourage Barr's probe. To resort to a familiar cliché, Russiagate
allegations have become a spreading cancer in American politics, with Democratic congressional
candidates raising funds by promising, despite the exculpatory findings of Robert Mueller
regarding "collusion," to fight evil "Trump-Putin" forces in Washington. Meanwhile, some
Republicans, despite ample contrary evidence, preposterously blame Russia itself -- for the
infamous Steele Dossier, for example. (By the way, for more irony, Trump is regularly accused
in the above-cited news accounts of "siding with" Russian President Vladimir Putin in denying
that any "collusion" determined the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, a conclusion
also reached by Mueller, thereby putting Trump, Putin, and Mueller on the same
"side.")
Ideally, we would have an investigation of the intelligence agencies entirely independent of
the White House and headed by an eminent political figure who is not a presidential appointee,
as was the 1975 Senate Church Committee. For now, we have only Trump's attorney general,
William Barr. Nonetheless, we should support him, however conditionally. Rogue intelligence
agencies subvert democracy, and the next candidate they target -- as they did Trump -- may be
yours.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the
host ofThe John Batchelor
Show . Now in their sixth year, previous installments are atTheNation.com .William Barr, a
two-time attorney general who served at the CIA in the 1970s, would seem to be an ultimate
Washington insider. According to his Wikipedia biography , he has -- or he had
-- "a sterling reputation" both among Republicans and Democrats. That changed when Barr
announced his ongoing investigation into the origins of Russiagate, a vital subject I, too, have
explored .
As Barr
explained , "What we're looking at is: What was the predicate for conducting a
counterintelligence investigation on the Trump campaign. How did the bogus narrative begin that
Trump was essentially in cahoots with Russia to interfere with the U.S. election?" Still more,
Barr, who is empowered to declassify highly sensitive documents, made clear that his primary
focus was not the hapless FBI under James Comey but the CIA under John Brennan. Evidently this
was too much for leading Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, who assailed Barr for having "just
destroyed the scintilla of credibility that he had left." Not known for a sense of irony,
Schumer accused Barr of using "the words of conspiracy theorists," as though Russiagate
itself is not among the most malign and consequential conspiracy theories in American political
history.
More indicative is the reaction of the generally liberal pro-Democratic New York
Times and Washington Post , the country's two most important political
newspapers, to Barr's investigation. Leaning heavily on the "expert" opinion of former
intelligence officials and McCarthy-echoing members of congress such as Adam Schiff, both
papers went into outrage mode. The
Times bemoaned Barr's "drastic escalation of [Trump's] yearslong assault on the
intelligence community" while rejecting "the president's unfounded claims that his campaign had
been spied on," even though some forms of FBI and CIA infiltration and surveillance of the 2016
Trump campaign are now well documented. (See, for example,
Lee Smith's reporting .)
Support Progressive Journalism
If you like this article, please give today to help fund The Nation 's work.
Unconcerned by the activities of either agency, the papers warned
ominously that Barr's probe "effectively strips [the CIA] of its most critical power:
choosing which secrets it shares and which remain hidden." It "could be tremendously damaging
to the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies." Not surprisingly, given the Times '
three-year role in promulgating Russiagate allegations, it preempted Barr's investigation by
declaring
that US intelligence agencies' covert actions were part of "a lawful investigation aimed at
understanding a foreign power's efforts to manipulate an American election." Considering what
is now known, this generalization seems a whitewash both of the Times ' coverage and
the agencies' conduct. (Writing for the Post , see coverage
by Toluse Olorunnipa and
Shane Harris .)
Hillary Clinton, also not surprisingly, agreed. As paraphrased by Matt Stevens in the
Times on May 3 , she accused Barr of diverting attention "from what the real story
is. The real story is the Russian interference in our election." According to the defeated
Democratic candidate, "the Russians were successful in sowing 'discord and divisiveness' in the
country, and helping Mr. Trump." But who has actually sowed more "discord and divisiveness" in
America -- the Russians or Mrs. Clinton and her supporters, by still refusing to accept the
legitimacy of her electoral loss and Trump's victory?
Unfortunately, but predictably, Barr's investigation has become polarizing, with Fox News,
for example, bannering each new unsavory Russiagate revelation and the Times and
Post mostly ignoring them altogether. In particular, the Democratic Party, once
traditionally skeptical of intelligence agencies, is becoming the party of an intel cult and
thus of the new US-Russian Cold War. Only a few of the party's leaders, notably presidential
candidate Tulsi Gabbard, demur from this dangerous folly. (Might Democratic reticence also be
due to the circumstance that the intelligence chiefs now under investigation were appointees of
former President Obama, who has been remarkably silent about the entire Russiagate saga? What,
as I have asked previously, did Obama know, when did he know it, and what did he do?)
Everyone who cares about the quality of American political life, no matter what they think
about Trump, should encourage Barr's probe. To resort to a familiar cliché, Russiagate
allegations have become a spreading cancer in American politics, with Democratic congressional
candidates fund-raising by promising, despite the exculpatory findings of Robert Mueller
regarding "collusion," to fight evil "Trump-Putin" forces in Washington. Meanwhile, some
Republicans, despite ample contrary evidence, preposterously blame Russia itself -- for the
infamous Steele Dossier, for example. (By the way, for more irony, Trump is regularly accused
in the above-cited news accounts of "siding with" Russian President Vladimir Putin in denying
that any "collusion" determined the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, a conclusion
also reached by Mueller, thereby putting Trump, Putin, and Mueller on the same "side.")
Ideally, we would have an investigation of the intelligence agencies entirely independent of
the White House headed by an eminent political figure who is not a presidential appointee, as
was the 1975 Senate Church Committee. For now, we have only Trump's attorney general, William
Barr. Nonetheless, we should support him, however conditionally. Rogue intelligence agencies
subvert democracy, and the next candidate they target -- as they did Trump -- may be yours.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the
host of The John Batchelor Show .
Now in their sixth year, previous installments are atTheNation.com . Ad PolicyStephen F. Cohen Stephen F. Cohen is a
professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton
University. A Nation contributing editor, his new book War With Russia? From Putin
& Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback and in an ebook
edition.
"... Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?" Acosta had been asked. Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he'd had just one meeting on the Epstein case. He'd cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein's attorneys because he had "been told" to back off, that Epstein was above his pay grade. ..."
"... "I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone," he told his interviewers in the Trump transition, who evidently thought that was a sufficient answer and went ahead and hired Acosta. (The Labor Department had no comment when asked about this.) ..."
Epstein's name, I was told, had been raised by the Trump transition team when Alexander
Acosta, the former U.S. attorney in Miami who'd infamously cut Epstein a non-prosecution plea
deal back in 2007, was being interviewed for the job of labor secretary. The plea deal put a
hard stop to a separate federal investigation of alleged sex crimes with minors and
trafficking.
" Is the Epstein case going to cause a problem [for confirmation hearings]?" Acosta
had been asked. Acosta had explained, breezily, apparently, that back in the day he'd had
just one meeting on the Epstein case. He'd cut the non-prosecution deal with one of Epstein's
attorneys because he had "been told" to back off, that Epstein was above his pay
grade.
"I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone," he told his
interviewers in the Trump transition, who evidently thought that was a sufficient answer and
went ahead and hired Acosta. (The Labor Department had no comment when asked about
this.)
'Belongs to intelligence' makes a lot of sense. The question is to which one. A lot of
people will says "Mossad" but I don't believe that to be the (full) truth.
We do not know why Epstein resurfaced, there was no need to re-open the case unless 'they'
wanted it to be reopened. Thus, there is definitely a deeper political purpose behind this.
As I know the higher ups in both Democrat and Republican Party are in one way or another
involved in this (both Clinton and Trump visited his island and I am sure many more prominent
high ranking US career politicians), this could indeed be equally dangerous for either
political party.
However, I don't think Trump needs convincing with regard to Iran he has been all in on
that from day 1 of his presidency and never hesitated a moment to tear up the JCPOA. Bibi was
right when he said there was never a US president as friendly towards Israel than Donald
Trump. His actions have spoken louder than words. So for this case, we will just have to wait
and see what pieces of information they allow the MSM to publish and we will know who they
are after or what bigger political goal is at play.
Something does not smell right about this.
It's not like Epstein was some obscure issue or that Trump was uninformed about the case.
Who would allow a person with such baggage on the team?
And the issue was raised so no possibility it was over-looked.
Congress (including the now concerned repubs) had their shot at him, where was the
indignation?
Looks like people were told to disregard the issue, until now.
Now like good soldiers they are all barking alert.
Looks like this guy was a plant, an insurance policy maybe.
Now that policy has been triggered - has Trump failed in playing his role?
Trumps ex-pal Epstein linked to intelligence. Makes sense given he has Robert Maxwell's
daughter doing the procuring. His was likely a black mail operation run by the intelligence
agency
Trumps other ex-pal (partner) was also linked to intelligence. Bayrocks Felix Sater. I
imagine some of their business practices could have landed Trump in jail unless like Felix he
cooperated
Could Trump himself be a an intelligent asset? Perhaps under duress through his activities
with Jeffrey and Felix.
If so, indeed the question is if its Israels or the US agency, or is there any difference
now.
I don't pretend to know the answers.
Whats the end game?. Comeys daughter is one of the NY prosecutors.Dershowitz is an Israeli
puppet and was behind getting the sealed files opened. Is Clinton and the Dems the target or
is it meant to pressure Trump to go hard on Iran or risk something coming out? Something
else?
I cant help but wonder why nobody choses to remind us about the case filed against Trump
in 2016, where a woman claimed rape at age 13 at Epstein's apartment. Is wasn't covered much
at the time either. Apparently silently withdrawn. Curious no? Not even the so called Deep
State Media that everyone believes was against Trump. Theydon't seem to want to touch it now
either. Maybe its just BS.
Of course, maybe just more distraction as they continue fleecing the bottom 90%
Billionaire, $6 B, Les Wexner, L Brands, Victoria's Secret.
from Wiki
Wexner had a close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who managed Wexner's financial
assets. Wexner and Epstein parted when Epstein went to prison.[25] Wexner was believed to be
the primary source of Epstein's wealth. [26]
I am trying to link Wexner with the Bronfman's (Seagrams Liquor Family) via a source other
than the Mega Group (which may not be credible, IDK).Clare Bronfman and NEXIVM.
Looks like Epstein was running a high powered honey trap to ensnare Politicians, Lawyers,
Government employees for the express purpose of promoting the "Greater Israel Project".
@fastfreddy - While I hesitate to engage in the ubiquitous Israel is at the root of all
debacles conjecture, I think you might be onto something there. Sure would be interesting
(now or when whatever shakes out of this) to compare the record on votes of importance to
Israeli interests of any politician who gets implicated or indicted with who doesn't.
Protecting Epstein and his clients is secondary. The main goal is to protect his
billionaire, Jewish, sponsors and whatever state sponsored him. The pleabs cannot know that
their gov is corrupt but the bigger secret that must be kept is who is pulling the strings
and how they are doing it.
Regarding questions on Acosta by Jared at #27, here's a 2017 article showing that the
facts were out about Acosta when the Senate confirmed him: "Did Trump Labor Pick Protect
Trump, Rich Rapists, Tax Cheats, Crooked Bankers? Do We Find Out Wednesday?" March 14, 2017.
http://ow.ly/hk8b309Uerm
Regarding MSM reluctance to mention rape of 12 and 13 year olds by Trump, as several
commentators noted, here's a January 2017 wrap up of those matters with leading to other
links: "Welcome To Waterbury: The city that holds secrets that could bring down Trump," Jan.
9, 2018.
http://www.justice-integrity.org/1445-welcome-to-waterbury-the-city-that-holds-secrets-that-could-bring-down-trump.
My colleague Wayne Madsen and I filed a FOIA action today at the U.S. Justice Department
seeking further records.
Our view is that this is an intelligence / foreign policy operation and it's likely that
Epstein's time has run out, an occupational hazard in that field. Further, Madsen and I have
written separate books years ago documenting that all U.S. presidents after Carter -- but not
yet Trump as proven -- have been covert assets of the CIA or FBI before -- stress that --
they entered politics. That's the way it is, and helps explain a lot of the complaints in
comments above. Trump is in his own category of a corrupt stooge -- that's not necessarily
better.
Can recommend excellent 2008 book "Flat Earth News" by longtime UK journalist Nick Davies
that describes the deeply flawed nature of MSM from his perspective as a Guardian and other
UK journalist, who aptly describes why lies and quarter-truths get printed. That's a longer
story but the gist is what many here are suggesting.
After years of study and many many books I believe the Mossad and CIA are one and the
same. The Mossad is very useful when leaving sovereign footprints is verboten--and vice
versa.
"...'Belongs to intelligence' makes a lot of sense. The question is to which one. A lot
of people will says "Mossad" but I don't believe that to be the (full) truth ..."
At the level that Jeffrey Epstein is operating, he is loyal primarily to himself but
happily takes his reward from whichever intel agency at any time offers him the most or whose
interests might prove the most lucrative for him.
And the interests of American, British, Israeli and other nations' intelligence agencies
are surely so entwined that picking them apart is impossible. One thing for sure though: none
of them serve the interests of the nations they supposedly work for.
The function of the CIA/Mossad is to make sure the agenda and the narrative of the Deep
State gets served. In that case one could truly blame Epstein's actions on individuals, or
groups of individuals who dictate orders to the Mossad/CIA.
Epstein reminds me of the Bill Browder affair. And the statement: To know who are the
rulers not which are the ones you are not permitted to criticize. Or somethinh like that.
If indeed they are after Trump as he failed them on 'Iran', then it makes absolute sense that
Dershowitz and Cernovich had the records unsealed as both are strong, strong Zionists and
supporters of Israel. Getting a judge do the thing they need is just a formality. I agree
with some writer above who asked, why the publicity if pressure can be applied in secret
without the media being involved? But this may be the stated goal to bring Trump either
completely in line now or publicly topple his presidency.
I get why @94 Really? and others would be sceptical at this stage but I know strong
powers in the Zionist/Neo-con deep state want a direct confrontation with Iran for myriad
number of reasons (stop the BRI, deal a blow to Syria and Hizbollah, take out Israel's No 1
enemy etc, shore up the Petrodollar), and Trump was still the most likely candidate to follow
through with this, given his proximity to Zionism. So far he also has dully followed through
with everything imaginable, except for actually attacking Iran.
Interesting development indeed. B. Clinton could be collateral damage, at this stage their
power is overestimated in my opinion.
Okay, An "intelligence op," but which one? The Epstein/Mueller link was made several
months ago. I don't see any irregularities in the court judgement to order the unsealing as
it's been ongoing for almost 2.5 years and involves odd bedfellows. Was Mueller even aware of
the attempt to unseal Epstein's case? So many questions!
Arnon Milchan? He was Israeli. Should he be punished, absolutely. But you know who should
be hung? Robert DeNiro. He knew Arnon Milchan was a spy and kept his mouth shut for decades.
He is a POS of epic proportions.
Insofar as Epstein is concerned. It is all about timing. Mueller is set to testify and
probably has skeletons in his closet with regards to Epstein's case. He is likely being told
implicitly via the Epstein arrest to be on his best behavior by Barr, and Barr at this age
probably can care less that Epstein is being sacrificed so he can make his point,
particularly since Barr is probably the 2nd most powerful person in the USA right now.
Epstein was extremely likely an Israeli asset. The Israelis have through political power
and force convinced many in the US IC that their ship is sailing in the same direction, and
that they should be allowed to serve as the US's dog on a leash, and once in a while be
unleashed to do what the US won't. So while he was an Israeli asset, his resources (that is
compromising material) was often made available to the CIA, and thus Acosta was told that he
is an intelligence asset.
The fireworks will start to fly if and when Epstein realizes he is being hung out to dry
and won't be saved. But like almost every other case involving such rich and powerful people,
don't hold your breath for justice to be served in the US.
What does protecting adolescent teenagers from predatory adults have to do with
puritanism? Am I understanding this correctly that you advocate sex with minors as long as
they have reached biological puberty? Never mind their mental maturity? So sexual relations
involving young women is ok what about sexual relations with young men? This has nothing to
do with a false pretentious morality but with the fact that teenagers have not yet reached
the level of mental maturity that protects them from sexual exploitation that will haunt them
for the rest of their lives, never mind their biological functions and ability to conceive or
sire children. It is really puzzling that I even need to make these elaborations in here!
In many ways this thread is as sickening as the subject it discusses. All sorts of types left
and right competing to show that they have the most insight into the forces behind the anal
rape of a 12 year old girl See Andrew Kreig's excellent piece which does consider the horror
of the acts, rather than just whether or not it plays into the particular vision of 'power
politics' each poster invokes). In no instance does anyone express disgust at the actions of
these low life scum other than for the corruption of the pols such as Acosta.
The glee which so many have displayed jumping into this horror story because it can be
twisted and forced into their own particular theory about "how the world really works" while
totally ignoring that these humans who were abducted at age eleven or twelve & then sold
like cattle, now inhabit the netherworld of 'the great society' living in the fringes of
prosperous cities in a ramshackle 'double wide', reveals a psychic corruption not a million
miles away from that of the rapists.
This story is those young boys & girls, anyone who claims to want to use it to force
the greedy rapists and warmongering grubs to face justice, will not succeed as long as they
waste time speculating who works for who and who is really in control.
Prince Andrew still bludges off taxpayers despite being photographed with his arm around
one of his victims, if you're english & really care about stopping this scum, instead of
speculating on which shadowy 'palace spokesman suggested that the
Daily Mail include the line "There is no suggestion that the duke had any sexual contact
at the house, or knew what was allegedly going on there" you will find out how the at the
time 17 y.o. Virginia Roberts feels about her public destruction now (A child the Mail
described as an erotic masseuse - presumably to reduce the horror a normal human reacts to
that pic whilst ensuring the victim is so humiliated she causes no further problem for "the
royal family's" number one arms salesman). This victim first hung out with the andrew sleaze
when she was 17 at the pimp's Florida hell hole where the age of consent is 18.
Concentrating on the effect on victims while protecting them from further harm will bring
the creeps undone - nothing else will. It was only once people began to see past the priests
claims that "the victims led me on" and considered the huge power imbalance that the catholic
church came unstuck.
Most of all without humanity, there is no difference between any of us and the scum we
criticise.
Now, to be on topic, why the insistence that Epstein finally getting outed for real is
some mysterious intel op? The CIA has been screwing up left, right and center for years, so
is it any surprise that one of their major kompromat operations is getting exposed? Their
foolproof plan to install their tool Clinton in the White House in 2016 failed spectacularly
and blew up in their faces, so tell me again how great they are at running covert ops? The
CIA's own version of James Bond gets snuffed by the CIA's own death squads in Benghazi, but
people still think the CIA has a clue what they're doing? The CIA's operatives in multiple
embassies are being incapacitated by freakin' crickets and people think these clowns
still somehow maintain some vestigial link to reality?
No, this is simply another massive screw-up by the establishment. This blind-sided the
Deep State and so much took them by surprise that they were too late to get it clamped down
in the mass media. If Epstein dies before the real dirt starts getting exposed then it proves
me right and proves wrong all those who worship at the alter of the omnipotent Deep
State.
"... As Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate. On Sunday, a top Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic public attack on former leaders of the FBI and CIA. ..."
"... "The media went along with this – actually, keeping this farcical, ridiculous thought going that the President of the United States was somehow involved in a conspiracy with Russia against his own country." ..."
"... Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. No fan of the current President, Ray has been trained to follow and analyze the facts, wherever they may lead. He spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, and prepared the President's Daily Brief for three presidents. In retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). ..."
"... Mr. McGovern you are right in your analysis. Obama is in this up to his neck, however there will be a limited investigation at best because the Jews and Israel don't want this. They are involved and a real investigation would show what control they have over the FBI and CIA. ..."
"... The world is controlled by the Corporate Fascist Military-Intelligence Police State in which governments are nothing more than Proxies with Intelligence Agencies who work against the average citizen and for the Corporations. Politicians like Trump are nothing more than figureheads who must "Toe the Line" or else. ..."
As Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees
prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being
drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate. On Sunday, a top
Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic
public attack on former leaders of the FBI and CIA.
"There is no doubt to me there was severe, serious abuses that were carried out in the FBI
and, I believe, top levels of the CIA against the President of the United States or, at that
time, presidential candidate Donald Trump," according to The Hill.
King (image on the right), a senior congressman specializing in national security, twice
chaired the House Homeland Security Committee and currently heads its Subcommittee on
Counterterrorism and Intelligence. He also served for several years on the House Intelligence
Committee.
He asserted:
"There was no legal basis at all for them to begin this investigation of his campaign
– and the way they carried it forward, and the way information was leaked. All of this
is going to come out. It's going to show the bias. It's going to show the baselessness of the
investigation and I would say the same thing if this were done to Hillary Clinton or Bernie
Sanders It's just wrong."
The Long Island Republican added a well aimed swipe at what passes for the media today:
"The media went along with this – actually, keeping this farcical, ridiculous
thought going that the President of the United States was somehow involved in a conspiracy
with Russia against his own country."
According to King, the Justice Department's review, ordered by Attorney General William Barr
, would prove that former officials acted improperly. He was alluding to the investigation led
by John Durham , U.S. Attorney in Connecticut. Sounds nice. But waiting for Durham to complete
his investigation at a typically lawyerly pace would, I fear, be much like the experience of
waiting for Mueller to finish his; that is, like waiting for Godot. What about now?
So Where is the IG Report on FISA?
That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his
report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan , former FBI Director
James Comey , former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe , former Deputy Attorneys General Sally
Yates and Rod Rosenstein , and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA
applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at
last report, he is FBI General Counsel!).
The DOJ inspector General's investigation, launched in March 2018, has centered on whether
the FBI and DOJ filing of four FISA applications and renewals beginning in October 2016 to
surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page amounted to abuse of the FISA process.
(Fortunately for the IG, Obama's top intelligence and law enforcement officials were so sure
that Hillary Clinton would win that they did not do much to hide their tracks.)
The Washington Examiner
reported last Tuesday, "The Justice Department inspector general's investigation of
potential abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is complete, a Republican
congressman said, though a report on its findings might not be released for a month." The
report continued:
"House Judiciary Committee member John Ratcliffe (R, Texas) said Monday he'd met with DOJ
watchdog Michael Horowitz last week about his FISA abuse report. In a media interview,
Ratcliffe said they'd discussed the timing, but not the content of his report and Horowitz
'related that his team's investigative work is complete and they're now in the process of
drafting that report. Ratcliffe said he was doubtful that Horowitz's report would be made
available to the public or the Congress anytime soon. 'He [Horowitz] did relay that as much
as 20% of his report is going to include classified information, so that draft report will
have to undergo a classification review at the FBI and at the Department of Justice,'
Ratcliffe said. 'So, while I'm hopeful that we members of Congress might see it before the
August recess, I'm not too certain about that.'"
Earlier, Horowitz had predicted that his report would be ready in May or June but there may,
in fact, be good reason for some delay. Fox News reported Friday that "key
witnesses sought for questioning by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz
(image on the left) early in his investigation into alleged government surveillance abuse have
come forward at the 11th hour." According to Fox's sources, at least one witness outside the
Justice Department and FBI has started cooperating -- a breakthrough that came after Durham was
assigned to lead a separate investigation into the origins of the FBI's 2016 Russia case that
led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe.
"Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie
investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or
reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge.
Judging by past precedent, Deep State intelligence and law enforcement officials will do all
they can to use the "but-it's-classified" excuse to avoid putting themselves and their former
colleagues in legal jeopardy. (Though this would violate Obama's executive order 13526 ,
prohibiting classification of embarrassing or criminal information).
It is far from clear that DOJ IG Horowitz and Attorney General Barr will prevail in the end,
even though President Trump has given Barr nominal authority to declassify as necessary. Why
are the the stakes so extraordinarily high?
What Did Obama Know, and When Did He Know It?
Recall that in a Sept. 2, 2016 text message to the FBI's then-deputy chief of
counterintelligence Peter Strzok, his girlfriend and then-top legal adviser to Deputy FBI
Director McCabe, Lisa Page , wrote that she was preparing talking points because the president
"wants to know everything we're doing." [Emphasis added.] It does not seem likely that
the Director of National Intelligence, DOJ, FBI, and CIA all kept President Obama in the dark
about their FISA and other machinations -- although it is possible they did so out of a desire
to provide him with "plausible denial."
It seems more likely that Obama's closest intelligence confidant, Brennan, told him about
the shenanigans with FISA, that Obama gave him approval (perhaps just tacit approval), and that
Brennan used that to harness top intelligence and law enforcement officials behind the effort
to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him.
Moreover, one should not rule out seeing in the coming months an "Obama-made-us-do-it"
defense -- whether grounded in fact or not -- by Brennan and perhaps the rest of the gang.
Brennan may even have a piece of paper recording the President's "approval" for this or that --
or could readily have his former subordinates prepare one that appears authentic.
Reining in Devin Nunes
That the Deep State retains formidable power can be seen in the repeated
Lucy-holding-then-withdrawing-the-football-for-Charlie Brown treatment experienced by House
Intelligence Committee Ranking Member, Devin Nunes (R-CA, image on the right). On April 5,
2019, in the apparent belief he had a green light to go on the offensive, Nunes
wrote that committee Republicans "will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous
individuals involved in the abuse of intelligence for political purposes. These people must be
held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future."
On April 7, Nunes was even more specific, telling Fox News that he was preparing to send
eight criminal referrals to the Department of Justice "this week," concerning alleged
misconduct during the Trump-Russia investigation, including leaks of "highly classified
material" and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the FISA court. It seemed to be
no-holds-barred for Nunes, who had begun to
talk publicly about prison time for those who might be brought to trial.
Except for Fox, the corporate media ignored Nunes's explosive comments. The media seemed
smugly convinced that Nunes's talk of "referrals" could be safely ignored -- even though a new
sheriff, Barr, had come to town. And sure enough, now, three months later, where are the
criminal referrals?
There is ample evidence that President Trump is afraid to run afoul of the Deep State
functionaries he inherited. And the Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr
leans hard on the president to unfetter Nunes, IG Horowitz, Durham and like-minded
investigators, all hell may break lose, because the evidence against those who took serious
liberties with the law is staring them all in the face.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in inner-city Washington. No fan of the current President, Ray has been trained to
follow and analyze the facts, wherever they may lead. He spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, and
prepared the President's Daily Brief for three presidents. In retirement he co-founded Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Mr. McGovern you are right in your analysis. Obama is in this up to his neck, however
there will be a limited investigation at best because the Jews and Israel don't want this.
They are involved and a real investigation would show what control they have over the FBI and
CIA.
Trump by now realizes these agencies can make anything up and the Jewish owned and
controlled media will do their bidding. I have to assume that Trump has come to the
conclusion that he wasn't suppose to win and that the NWO wasn't happy with that because he
stands in their way especially on World Trade and Immigration.
The world is controlled by the Corporate Fascist Military-Intelligence Police State in
which governments are nothing more than Proxies with Intelligence Agencies who work against
the average citizen and for the Corporations. Politicians like Trump are nothing more than
figureheads who must "Toe the Line" or else.
I believe Trump knows he could be assassinated at any time. Obama the "God King" did his
part for NWO and that's why he gets a King's Ransom for his speeches for reading a
teleprompter and banging on his chest and saying, "I did that." What he is really saying is I
did that for you -- now where's my check!
"... US gives Israel billions each year. Israel gives some of that money to Epstein for a hedge fund front. Epstein buys island, planes, mansions, power and influence. Hires attractive under age girls for sexual acts with elites. Tapes the sexual acts. Sends tapes back to Mossad. Blackmails elites for money and favors. Sends money and favors back to Mossad. Epstein keeps the vig. Elites just **** their pants. Elites suicide rate increases dramatically over the next six months. ..."
"... Yes, the blackmailing would not just be for money but foreign policy actions too. And it isn't just the US, it's the UK too. Hence both suckers are trying to start a war with Iran. ..."
"... CCI has the goods on a third of congress and the whole msm. ..."
"... I am not holding my breath for your prediction xbkrisback. Appointing Comey's daughter as the chief prosecutor tells a sorry tale. And Comey and Mueller are best buds. ..."
"... Epstein will not give up the big names. Bubba took 26 trips to Pedo Island on the Lolita Express to refresh his tan. ..."
"... The power structure runs on pedophilia. And the horror of it is that pedophilia is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the abuse of children. Where is Carlos Danger's laptop with Huma's huge "life insurance" file on it? You know, the one that made grizzled NYPD detectives puke when they opened it. ..."
"... Epstein outdoes Berlusconi ..."
"... Have another look at Tony Podesta's art collection. http://ibankcoin.com/zeropointnow/2016/11/26/sick-lets-revisit-the-podesta-penchant-for-pedophilic-cannibalistic-and-satanic-art/#sthash.6jj0GpQo.dpbs ..."
"... I never understood why people claimed Podesta had child abuse links until I read that article. It is enough to make even a hardened Podesta supporter cringe. ..."
"... Coulter's take on this sounds very plausible, because there certainly was evidence gathering by Epstein. ..."
"... By the way, that was the favorite tactic of the old pervert that ran the FBI ... J. Edgar Hoover. He would gather evidence, then have a couple of his agents pay the offender a visit, warning them to be careful, while delivering the clear message that the Director has the goods on you. ..."
"... If Epstein goes to prison (a real prison) for any length of time, that would negate the idea of state sponsorship, would it not? Conversely, if he gets another sweetheart deal, that would confirm it. ..."
I think I figured this scam out. US gives Israel billions each year. Israel gives some of that money to Epstein for a
hedge fund front. Epstein buys island, planes, mansions, power and influence. Hires attractive under age girls for sexual acts
with elites. Tapes the sexual acts. Sends tapes back to Mossad. Blackmails elites for money and favors. Sends money and favors
back to Mossad. Epstein keeps the vig. Elites just **** their pants. Elites suicide rate increases dramatically over the next
six months.
smacker , 1 hour ago
Yes, the blackmailing would not just be for money but foreign policy actions too. And it isn't just the US, it's the UK too.
Hence both suckers are trying to start a war with Iran.
cayman , 46 minutes ago
CCI has the goods on a third of congress and the whole msm. It's why elections haven't mattered in decades. It's why congress
can have a 9% approval rating and yet nothing changes. CIA has so many offshore sources of revenue now, it is sovereign now.
RoyalDraco , 17 minutes ago
I am not holding my breath for your prediction xbkrisback. Appointing Comey's daughter as the chief prosecutor tells a sorry
tale. And Comey and Mueller are best buds.
Epstein will not give up the big names. Bubba took 26 trips to Pedo Island on the
Lolita Express to refresh his tan.
5 years at Club Fed and a list of names no one ever heard of. The power structure runs on
pedophilia. And the horror of it is that pedophilia is just the tip of the iceberg regarding the abuse of children. Where is
Carlos Danger's laptop with Huma's huge "life insurance" file on it? You know, the one that made grizzled NYPD detectives puke
when they opened it.
HideTheWeenie , 1 hour ago
Epstein outdoes Berlusconi ... Takes bunga bunga parties to the next level - and on the road - in the air - island hopping
Coulter is right ... Nobody in financial circles ever bumped into Epstein. Nobody, nobody knows the guy outside of the teenage
***** connection.
I never understood why people claimed Podesta had child abuse links until I read that article. It is enough to make even
a hardened Podesta supporter cringe.
I need some mind bleach after reading that.
RayUSA , 1 hour ago
Obviously, the more powerful people that are involved, the less chance this has of going anywhere.
Coulter's take on this sounds very plausible, because there certainly was evidence gathering by Epstein.
There would be no reason for that unless it was going to be used in the future for black mail.
By the way, that was the favorite tactic of the old pervert that ran the FBI ... J. Edgar Hoover. He would gather evidence,
then have a couple of his agents pay the offender a visit, warning them to be careful, while delivering the clear message that
the Director has the goods on you.
herbivore , 2 hours ago
If Epstein goes to prison (a real prison) for any length of time, that would negate the idea of state sponsorship, would
it not? Conversely, if he gets another sweetheart deal, that would confirm it.
"... The Epstein case has all the earmarks of CIA protection of an asset. ..."
"... Successful entry into politics requires candidates to first "tag themselves" with a "corrupted and venerable" "CAV" badge? ..."
"... Is the CAV Badge the weapon that has corrupted the intelligence services and stable of politicians in nearly every nation in the world? Did Colin Powell flash a CAV badge as he spoke to UN focus about the most likely presence of non existent WMDs that led to w__ in Iraq? ..."
Journalism. =>has disclosed the tunnel, and a few of its investigators are exploring
its contents, expecting to find at the end of this tunnel Successful entry into politics
requires candidates to first "tag themselves" with a "corrupted and venerable" "CAV"
badge?
Wonder if this has traction in the persons involved in Grace I, the failure of JCPOA.
Is the CAV badge the weapon that has corrupted nearly every nation state in the western
world?
Politicians make promises, and then within hours for unexplained reasons, reverse
them..Hmmm?
Is the CAV Badge the weapon that has corrupted the intelligence services and stable of
politicians in nearly every nation in the world? Did Colin Powell flash a CAV badge as he
spoke to UN focus about the most likely presence of non existent WMDs that led to w__ in
Iraq?
How can CAV badge victims be identified and isolated from politics?
The CAV badge could explain so many USA positive, American negative events?
"... "Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge. ..."
"... Judging by past precedent, Deep State intelligence and law enforcement officials will do all they can to use the "but-it's-classified" excuse to avoid putting themselves and their former colleagues in legal jeopardy. (Though this would violate Obama's executive order 13526 , prohibiting classification of embarrassing or criminal information). ..."
"... Recall that in a Sept. 2, 2016 text message to the FBI's then-deputy chief of counterintelligence Peter Strzok, his girlfriend and then-top legal adviser to Deputy FBI Director McCabe, Lisa Page, wrote that she was preparing talking points because the president "wants to know everything we're doing." [Emphasis added.] It does not seem likely that the Director of National Intelligence, DOJ, FBI, and CIA all kept President Obama in the dark about their FISA and other machinations -- although it is possible they did so out of a desire to provide him with "plausible denial." ..."
"... It seems more likely that Obama's closest intelligence confidant, Brennan, told him about the shenanigans with FISA, that Obama gave him approval (perhaps just tacit approval), and that Brennan used that to harness top intelligence and law enforcement officials behind the effort to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him. ..."
"... "That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorneys General Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at last report, he is FBI General Counsel!)." ..."
"... It will be a very interesting 2020 campaign if the Democratic candidate has to run with the ripe stinking dead albatross of Russiagate around her neck. ..."
"... The only outcome that could be more bizarre than the last go-round would be to see Trump favored by all the smart money and then lose to the latest corporate Democrat to shamelessly sell out the middle class in broad daylight. ..."
"... The Grabber in Chief vs Willie Brown's mistress – wonderful. ..."
"... Forgive my cynicism but the US government is so corrupt, has wielded illegitimate power for so long, and has covered the tracks of countless functionaries who have not upheld the constitution that I doubt this will go anywhere. I have been quoting Ben Franklin for some time "you have a republic, if you can keep it." I don't think we can. A reading of "A History of Venice" by John J. Norris would be appropriate here. The most serene republic lasted for essentially 1,000 years from roughly 800 to not quite 1800, first as a democracy, later as an oligarchy. Much like us, including having the most feared secret service in Europe at the time, Venice kept its power through trade but at least we don't hoist the new president up on a chair so that he can throw golden Ducats to the crowd on Wall Street the way that a new Doge would. ..."
"... I don't suppose anything will happen to anybody important about this. After all, nothing happened to anybody when they were caught mass spying on any and all american citizens, even before they made it legal. ..."
"... Unfortunately Webb and Parry exposed much of these gangster criminal "intel" savages for running guns and drugs to Central American pseudo fascist mercenary sadists throughout much of the late 1970s through the '80s. I say unfortunately b/c nothing much ever came along by way of true justice, by way of the criminal players rotting in maximum security jail cells for years on end, not unlike the crack or heroin addict who steals a $400 television. ..."
"... This has been one long crime against the American people. King should read what he knows into the Congressional Record. I have no sympathy for Trump's fear of the deep state. He has sent people to die knowing full well that his actions were based on lies, lies that would result in the deaths of civilians as well as our own military. If he is going to do that, then he should have the courage to face the deep state. That's partial penance for all the deaths he has caused. ..."
"... I also don't care about Trump's personal issue about being surveilled. He personally supports that against everyone else. That is why I feel this is a crime against our people as a whole. Our constitution has been stripped bare. We don't have the rule of law. Mass surveillance covering the globe is current reality. It is dangerous. It is wrong. It is lawless. It is a disaster. ..."
"... Further, Russiagate was used to keep real opposition away from Trump. His supporters doubled down on "liking" Trump because he appeared to be a victim of these lies. Democrats meanwhile learned to further worship the IC. They ignored Trump's actual unlawful behavior, and, in the case of war crimes, still support Trump on every war/regime change action etc. recommended to them by their IC "resistance" "leaders". ..."
"... This has been one of the most effective propaganda tools I have ever seen against our populace. It has created a divided, unthinking populace who is ripe for the picking by evil men and women. I am truly hoping that once this is exposed people will stop this madness and pull together for a common good. But I'm quite worried that, like most cults, when the leader is shown to be wrong, people cling to them even more. ..."
"... there have always been nefarious agents in one government or another for one gangster interest or another, whether was Milner's roundtable or Dulles's Gladio werewolves, these are nefarious individuals there is no gray area in that, however they may conduct themselves and their personal lives, it is not sloppy journalism, is to call something what it is, a this shadow government working in many instances against the direct interest of the American people ..."
"... It's the propaganda, the United States is one of the most heavily propagandize societies in the world, we make the Soviets look like children. No one wants you to have sympathy for Donald Trump, you do not have to agree or like a person to see that the cartel seeking to damage him is also simultaneously against your interests and they are against your interests whether you're from the left or the right because they do not have an ideology just it will to power. ..."
"... So reminiscent of the darker days of the Cold War. A stark education has just played out to this point. ..."
The Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr leans hard on Trump to
unfetter investigators, all hell may break lose, says Ray McGovern.
A s Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees
prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being
drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate. On Sunday, a top
Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic
public attack on former leaders of the FBI and CIA.
King
told a radio audience: "There is no doubt to me there was severe, serious abuses that were
carried out in the FBI and, I believe, top levels of the CIA against the President of the
United States or, at that time, presidential candidate Donald Trump," according to The
Hill.
King, a senior congressman specializing in national security, twice chaired the House
Homeland Security Committee and currently heads its Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and
Intelligence. He also served for several years on the House Intelligence Committee.
He asserted:
"There was no legal basis at all for them to begin this investigation of his campaign
– and the way they carried it forward, and the way information was leaked. All of this
is going to come out. It's going to show the bias. It's going to show the baselessness of the
investigation and I would say the same thing if this were done to Hillary Clinton or Bernie
Sanders It's just wrong."
The Long Island Republican added a well aimed swipe at what passes for the media today: "The
media went along with this – actually, keeping this farcical, ridiculous thought going
that the President of the United States was somehow involved in a conspiracy with Russia
against his own country."
King: Lashes out.
According to King, the Justice Department's review, ordered by Attorney General William
Barr, would prove that former officials acted improperly. He was alluding to the investigation
led by John Durham, U.S. Attorney in Connecticut. Sounds nice. But waiting for Durham to
complete his investigation at a typically lawyerly pace would, I fear, be much like the
experience of waiting for Mueller to finish his; that is, like waiting for Godot. What about
now?
So Where is the IG Report on FISA?
That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his
report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James
Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorneys General Sally Yates
and Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant FISA
applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI library; at
last report, he is FBI General Counsel!).
The DOJ inspector General's investigation, launched in March 2018, has centered on whether
the FBI and DOJ filing of four FISA applications and renewals beginning in October 2016 to
surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page amounted to abuse of the FISA process.
(Fortunately for the IG, Obama's top intelligence and law enforcement officials were so sure
that Hillary Clinton would win that they did not do much to hide their tracks.)
The Washington Examiner
reported last Tuesday, "The Justice Department inspector general's investigation of
potential abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is complete, a Republican
congressman said, though a report on its findings might not be released for a month." The
report continued:
"House Judiciary Committee member John Ratcliffe (R, Texas) said Monday he'd met with DOJ
watchdog Michael Horowitz last week about his FISA abuse report. In a media interview,
Ratcliffe said they'd discussed the timing, but not the content of his report and Horowitz
'related that his team's investigative work is complete and they're now in the process of
drafting that report. Ratcliffe said he was doubtful that Horowitz's report would be made
available to the public or the Congress anytime soon. 'He [Horowitz] did relay that as much
as 20% of his report is going to include classified information, so that draft report will
have to undergo a classification review at the FBI and at the Department of Justice,'
Ratcliffe said. 'So, while I'm hopeful that we members of Congress might see it before the
August recess, I'm not too certain about that.'"
Horowitz: Still waiting for his report
Earlier, Horowitz had predicted that his report would be ready in May or June but there may,
in fact, be good reason for some delay. Fox News reported Friday that "key
witnesses sought for questioning by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz
early in his investigation into alleged government surveillance abuse have come forward at the
11th hour." According to Fox's sources, at least one witness outside the Justice Department and
FBI has started cooperating -- a breakthrough that came after Durham was assigned to lead a
separate investigation into the origins of the FBI's 2016 Russia case that led to Special
Counsel Robert Mueller's probe.
"Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite tactics to stymie
investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious embarrassment or
reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge.
Judging by past precedent, Deep State intelligence and law enforcement officials will do all
they can to use the "but-it's-classified" excuse to avoid putting themselves and their former
colleagues in legal jeopardy. (Though this would violate Obama's executive order 13526 ,
prohibiting classification of embarrassing or criminal information).
It is far from clear that DOJ IG Horowitz and Attorney General Barr will prevail in the end,
even though President Trump has given Barr nominal authority to declassify as necessary. Why
are the the stakes so extraordinarily high?
What Did Obama Know, and When Did He Know It?
Recall that in a Sept. 2, 2016 text message to the FBI's then-deputy chief of
counterintelligence Peter Strzok, his girlfriend and then-top legal adviser to Deputy FBI
Director McCabe, Lisa Page, wrote that she was preparing talking points because the president
"wants to know everything we're doing." [Emphasis added.] It does not seem likely that
the Director of National Intelligence, DOJ, FBI, and CIA all kept President Obama in the dark
about their FISA and other machinations -- although it is possible they did so out of a desire
to provide him with "plausible denial."
It seems more likely that Obama's closest intelligence confidant, Brennan, told him about
the shenanigans with FISA, that Obama gave him approval (perhaps just tacit approval), and that
Brennan used that to harness top intelligence and law enforcement officials behind the effort
to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him.
Moreover, one should not rule out seeing in the coming months an "Obama-made-us-do-it"
defense -- whether grounded in fact or not -- by Brennan and perhaps the rest of the gang.
Brennan may even have a piece of paper recording the President's "approval" for this or that --
or could readily have his former subordinates prepare one that appears authentic.
Reining in Devin Nunes
That the Deep State retains formidable power can be seen in the repeated
Lucy-holding-then-withdrawing-the-football-for-Charlie Brown treatment experienced by House
Intelligence Committee Ranking Member, Devin Nunes (R-CA). On April 5, 2019, in the apparent
belief he had a green light to go on the offensive, Nunes
wrote that committee Republicans "will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous
individuals involved in the abuse of intelligence for political purposes. These people must be
held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future."
On April 7, Nunes was even more specific, telling Fox News that he was preparing to send
eight criminal referrals to the Department of Justice "this week," concerning alleged
misconduct during the Trump-Russia investigation, including leaks of "highly classified
material" and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the FISA court. It seemed to be
no-holds-barred for Nunes, who had begun to
talk publicly about prison time for those who might be brought to trial.
Except for Fox, the corporate media ignored Nunes's explosive comments. The media seemed
smugly convinced that Nunes's talk of "referrals" could be safely ignored -- even though a new
sheriff, Barr, had come to town. And sure enough, now, three months later, where are the
criminal referrals?
There is ample evidence that President Trump is afraid to run afoul of the Deep State
functionaries he inherited. And the Deep State almost always wins. But if Attorney General Barr
leans hard on the president to unfetter Nunes, IG Horowitz, Durham and like-minded
investigators, all hell may break lose, because the evidence against those who took serious
liberties with the law is staring them all in the face.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in inner-city Washington. No fan of the current President, Ray has been trained to
follow and analyze the facts, wherever they may lead. He spent 27 years as a CIA analyst, and
prepared the President's Daily Brief for three presidents. In retirement he co-founded Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
If you enjoyed this original article, please considermaking a donationto Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
Joe T Wallace , July 8, 2019 at 20:24
I'm a great admirer of Ray McGovern's reporting. He exposes much that is never revealed by
the mainstream media. That said, I do have one quibble about this article. In the seventh
paragraph, just below the heading "So Where is the IG Report on FISA?" he writes:
"That's the big one. If Horowitz is able to speak freely about what he has learned, his
report could lead to indictments of former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director
James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former Deputy Attorneys General Sally
Yates and Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente -- Boente being the only signer of the relevant
FISA applications still in office. (No, he has not been demoted to file clerk in the FBI
library; at last report, he is FBI General Counsel!)."
My immediate reaction was: Who is Horowitz? It was confusing not to know. Further down in
the article, I learned that Ray was referring to Michael Horowitz, a DOJ watchdog who is
preparing an IG report about FISA abuse, but readers should have been informed who he was
earlier in the article.
John , July 8, 2019 at 17:10
Peter King? Devin Nunes?
At one point the article says little effort was made to cover tracks because of certainty
that HRC would win but later that the FBI et al were planting land mines to either defeat
Trump or blow up his presidency. Seemed contradictory to me.
Perhaps you have the skinny on these machinations, if indeed there were machinations by
one person or group or another for this purpose or that.
But Peter King and Devin Nunes? If either ever was credible, their track record condemns
them to be received, if at all, with extreme skepticism.
Realist , July 8, 2019 at 16:59
It will be a very interesting 2020 campaign if the Democratic candidate has to run with
the ripe stinking dead albatross of Russiagate around her neck. Or will she be expected to
repudiate the Hitlery-run DNC? Where does the money and the ground game originate if the
latter?
The only outcome that could be more bizarre than the last go-round would be to see Trump
favored by all the smart money and then lose to the latest corporate Democrat to shamelessly
sell out the middle class in broad daylight. I won't like it, but I can see Trump Derangement
Syndrome pulling out the chestnuts for the Dems, what with all their celebrity spokespeople
constantly running and ranting like their hair is on fire underneath those pussy hats. My
poor gullible sister from Cali embraces that whole ball of wax as revealed truth holier than
the total dry weight of all the Abrahamic scriptures rolled into one big bale for the
recycling center. Kamala Harris seems to be emerging as the new messiah anointed to lead this
country back to Obamian gridlock and more prestidigitation like mandated insurance to ensure
the health of the insurance companies. Again, it will only be the illusion of "free
stuff."
The only way such a scenario won't cause four more years of turmoil for this country
(rinse and repeat in 2024) is if the victor is Gabbard and she ends all the illegal and
unconstitutional wars by edict, telling all the sure-to-be pissing and moaning Deep State
functionaries to pick up their severance pay and go pound sand. Then shut the world-wide
spider web of military bases and bring home the troops while we can still afford the carfare.
That would be "morning in America," and Gabbard would be the most heroic chief exec since
Lincoln and FDR made their marks in the history books, though such fantasies never play out
in the real world. More likely all the criminal evidence of treason remains classified, most
Americans pop the blue pill, the actual rabbit hole continues to grow ever deeper but the
masses are contentedly oblivious to it all, satisfied to blame select scapegoats from
Russia, China and other "malign" countries for our viewing entertainment.
Deniz , July 8, 2019 at 17:50
The Grabber in Chief vs Willie Brown's mistress – wonderful.
ML , July 8, 2019 at 20:12
You are really something, Realist. I love the way you flourish that pen of yours. Thank
you.
Rob Roy , July 8, 2019 at 20:13
Realist, well said, per usual. To add a bit the Dems probably gave Trump the gift of a
lifetime the next election. Wasting three years on Russiagate instead of hammering out a
decent platform for the party was beyond dumb. That reminds me. the Dems's next dumbest idea
choosing Joe Biden as their next candidate. Just like Hillary, he can't beat Trump. The
duopoly is dead, they just don't know it.
As for Tulsi, she's got my vote.
John Earls , July 8, 2019 at 16:55
Looks like Barry Eisler's John Rain (expert in "death by natural causes") will have a lot
of work in front of him if the investigation builds and a whole lot of "material witnesses"
begin to testify.
ricardo2000 , July 8, 2019 at 16:33
I'm supposed to feel sorry for the surveillance of a right-wing creep? OH PLEASE.
No one in government, or the right wing ReThugs, has ever suffered the intrusive, lying,
speculative 'investigations' that social justice, environmental, or human rights activists
have over the past 70 years.
When these buttheads suffer what MLK and Malcolm X have suffered then I might just wipe
away a few tears, after I stop roaring with laughter and get off the floor.
Realist , July 8, 2019 at 17:08
You prefer a race to the bottom of the cesspool?
You never win when you adopt the methods you claim to revile. The opponent who introduced
the tactics you condemn wins if you embrace them as your own. You didn't beat him, you joined
him.
LibertyBonBon , July 8, 2019 at 18:12
Must be nice to think the justice system should revolve around your particular emotions,
rather than equality and objectivity. Safe and easy.
Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 20:41
ricardo2000, nothing personal, I get the revulsion to Trump and entourage not to mention a
large portion of the Maga crowd but this right and left thing is really just an illusion, the
people doing the persecuting here regardless of how disgusting Trump is are the same ones
doing the persecuting to a large degree of everyone else from Assange to the Iranians, that
is this government deep state in combination with all of the various American alphabet soup
agencies as well as foreign deep states have cornered the market in State power, hate Trump
but don't confuse this with a good thing.
Thank you, Ray McGovern. You are a good man, Charlie Brown!
Thing is, all of this was predictable from the beginning. Many of us saw it coming.
No one really wanted an incompetent baboon running things – the song about Monkey
and the Engineer comes to mind – so Obama tried to hamstring Trump with this
investigation. I mean, Obama couldn't very well have not completed the transfer of power
because it is the most valuable thing about democracy. There is no ten year bloody hellified
civil war every time the crown changes hands from one inbred to the next.
So Obama did the next best thing on his way out the Oval Office doors, he put Brennan and
the boys on it. Seemed like a good idea at the time, I'm sure. But it backfired because he
couldn't call the dogs off once he was no longer president. Not Brennan, not anyone could
call them off after the snowball really got rolling because the spooks believed their own
story and the media made too much money off selling the mythology:
Only question left to answer now is whether or not Trump the carnival barker can milk his
opportunist Armageddon into a second term of fleecing the rubes.
This is a very serious Constitutional Law issue and MUST be pursued–and it makes no
difference the political party denomination of those breaking the law! The Current
Oligarchy–Deep State–is the adversary of the vast majority of US citizens and
humanity. With Epstein's arrest and the developments McGovern relates, some progress appears
to be happening.
Lydia , July 8, 2019 at 14:51
You summed it up perfectly, Jill.
Pablo Diablo , July 8, 2019 at 14:42
"the effort to defeat Trump and, later, to emasculate and, if possible, remove him." says
it all. Trump is a loose cannon. The so called "Deep State" has been "controlling" our
Presidents since at least the Dulles Brothers. Truman even admitted giving them power was a
BIG mistake. Still question the Kennedy Assassination.
In the 70's, the FBI mailed me a box of drugs, which I refused to take from a very
incompetent fake Mail Man, and three minutes later they showed up with a search warrant for
my house that listed all the drugs in the failed mailed box signed by a Federal Judge. So
much for FISA. The bullshit continues. I could reveal more if necessary.
robert e williamson jr , July 8, 2019 at 14:32
Sam F. whether you realize it or not you got it pretty much on the nose. Except for
this.
The judiciary has been compromised by the congresses refusal to hold CIA et. al.
accountable for their actions. Why? Those in congress remember what happened to JFK.
The number one reason is because the deep state ensures that if anyone goes after CIA
officials or designees that the persons career and life are ruined. Which is something else
that needs to be investigated. Something that if explored may very well put a stop to CIA's
B.S. of lying about everything and getting away with it.
Currently no deterrent exists. None.
Anytime some one or entity gets close the Deep State ends up with their guy as AG. See the
Bill Barr story.
Barr may get his chance to prove me right and at the same time prove "Lady Justice" has
little to do with the DOJ! I think he is a cowardly blowhard. Justice would be Trump and Barr
going to jail .
Justice in this country for the true scoundrels in government or billionaires is non-
existent at this point in time. Putting Epstein in prison for life is called for and if he is
threatened with that maybe his jaw will loosen up.
Until DOJ can become a deterrent to bad actors in government, all government the country
will be controlled by the Deep State. The SWETS, super wealthy elitists.
@ "Justice would be Trump and Barr going to jail ."
Are you suggesting that *any* of their living predecessors don't deserve the same? If so,
which do not and why?
Jay , July 8, 2019 at 14:18
Bif:
I agree something very suspect occurred.
And it's very likely the Obama White House knew that either the NSA or the FBI was tapping
into the communications of some of Trump's campaign team BEFORE Hillary lost in Nov.
2016.
However the xenophobic, lying, terrorist (IRA) supporting, Peter King is not a credible
messenger. (Right, Rep Steve King of Iowa is even worse than King of Long Island.)
Peter Dyer , July 8, 2019 at 14:09
Thanks, Ray.
DH Fabian , July 8, 2019 at 13:59
Actually, that deep split among the masses, and certainly within the Dem voting base, was
achieved in the 1990s -- middle class vs. poor, workers vs. those left jobless, further split
by race. The Obama years confirmed that this split is permanent. Russia had nothing to do
with the Democrats' 2016 defeat, nor will it be the reason for their 2020 defeat. Democrats
maintain their resistance against acknowledging the consequences of dividing and conquering
their own voting base.
EuGene Miller , July 9, 2019 at 00:24
DH, that's an interesting assessment. However, I doubt that any House or Senate Democrat
sought an advantage by "splitting their base". The elected Dems do not control the narrative.
So, who benefits by splitting the masses into rival factions?
Perhaps the narrative of social and political discourse is defined by the owners, boards,
and foundations that control the main-stream media and pop-culture.
Robert Reich wrote that an oligarchy divides-and-conquers the rest of us. I suspect that
controlling the narrative is not simply a propaganda tool; it is the basis of
divide-and-conquer strategy.
Is it possible that the DOJ, see the Sec. of Labor's problems developing with the Espstein
case, is about to have it's gloriously corrupt underbelly rolled over into the sunlight? (you
must roll the snake over to see its belly)
Please Ray tell me this is where we might be heading or instead will we end up with the
courts truncating investigation because they say it will be best for the country not to have
all this filthy laundry dragged out into the sunlight or someones bull shit sources and
methods might be exposed. The DOJ has become a really bad joke!
I'm hoping you know something I don't because Barr's past history pretty much speaks for
itself I'd say after be made sure he pardoned all of Bush 41 henchmen!
At this point I certainly do not have much faith in the DOJ doing the right thing. What
Acosta did in Florida with Epstein was hardly the right thing to do.
They all need to be locked up.
Eric32 , July 8, 2019 at 13:33
Very little "punishment" will occur, and no deep change cleanup will occur.
The US govt. is controlled by money and blackmail – not "voting" or public outrage.
So many high level people have so much dirt on other high level people that nothing major
will be done.
A series of very big events, including the JFK murder and the 9/11 charade went unexposed and
undealt with – there is no reason to think that this medium size event will wind up
making a big difference.
What will happen is that US "democracy" will continue on its downward course, but maybe
with a better facade.
Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 20:59
I personally believe that the empire will crash when it hits maximum overreach it will
also simultaneously go broke at the same time, as the money interests at that point Will
probably move east, this will partially be due to both the feds tendency to over inflate in
order to cover military acquisitions as well as the decline of swift and the ascendancy of
China in the rest. I actually think that this is what some American factions desire, it is
potentially good for all of us if we can regain a republic but it will mean the end of
American hegemony.
Gary Weglarz , July 8, 2019 at 13:22
This is the same "deep state" that assassinated a sitting president, then proceeded to
assassinate the next three most important and influential progressive leaders in the country
all over a five year period. Problem solved. And just when you thought Allen Dulles didn't
know what to do with all those oh so experienced Nazi war criminals he'd recruited to the
CIA.
When Congress investigated the CIA in the mid-1970's (before Congress became completely
"owned" by the deep state) right on cue witnesses began to "commit suicide" just before they
would be scheduled to testify. Problem solved. Hardly a raised eyebrow from the always
complicit MSM through all of this. Expecting anything more than a massive coverup of this
latest deep state corruption and abuse is beyond my abilities to even effectively fantasize
about.
herbert davis , July 8, 2019 at 14:12
Justice in the USA?
John Drake , July 8, 2019 at 13:20
The corporate Democrats strike out again. They run a corrupt, violent(war monger)
candidate, who loses to a buffoon-an election which was hers to lose. Meanwhile trying to
hedge their bets they play sleazeball with the investigative arm's authority in order to
sabotage said buffoon; which as it is revealed gives ammunition and the advantage to their
target. i.e. "They were illegally picking on me"
If Trump is smart-a very long stretch, but some advisor might suggest this- he will expose
all this slime closer to the election for maximum effect. What a distressing thought. All the
more reason to run a progressive Presidential candidate that can disavow the DNC clowns and
their corruption.
geeyp , July 8, 2019 at 12:37
It's past time for the Deep State to come up from the deep state of hell in which they
reside. At least to purgatory for some fresh air and a wee ray of light. I couldn't let the
Schumer warning keep me from giving the go ahead on this. If my coconut is shattered, someone
somewhere (not our current media) would have a clue as to what happened to me. Sic 'em,
President Trump and A.G. and Devin Nunes!
Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 12:14
The US needs to solve the underlying problem of corruption of secret agencies and
judiciary, otherwise the political wrongdoing of one faction will only be matched by that of
its opponents, regardless of a few prosecutions. I know from experience the extreme
corruption of the Repubs, and little doubt that the Dems do such things at least when
desperate.
The solution includes:
1. All secrets meaningfully shared among multiparty committees;
2. All politicians and top officials monitored for corrupt influence;
3. Entire federal judiciary fired, replaced, and monitored like the politicians; and
4. Amendments to protect elections and mass media from control by money power.
Until then all government acts are tribal gangsterism and little more.
Guy , July 8, 2019 at 13:50
You forgot about dual citizenship members of the senate and congress . Elected as a
representative for the country of the US should mean just that and not another country . And
while we are at it , major reform on monetary contributions to candidates running for
re-election . There is something terribly wrong with needing millions if not billions of
dollars to run the electoral races.There is much more that needs to be done but this would be
a good start .
Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 17:32
Yes, the proposed Amendments would restrict funding of mass media and elections to
registered individual contributions (some prefer government funding) limited to the average
day's pay annually (for example), with full reporting by candidates and all intermediaries.
We all can see the destruction of democracy that was caused by economic power controlling
elections, mass media, the judiciary, etc.
But of course we cannot get those amendments because those tools of democracy now belong
to the rich, etc. History suggests that we are in for generations of severe decline before
the people are hurting enough to turn off the tube and do something, and generations more
before they can re-establish democracy.
Ray McGovern writes:"Classification," however, has been one of the Deep State's favorite
tactics to stymie investigations -- especially when the material in question yields serious
embarrassment or reveals crimes. And the stakes this time are huge"
On the matter of government reform classification there is a great need of public
discussion and radical reform. Why? Because the government is playing with an essential
right, the right to know. All the red herrings needed to be thrown in the trash and the
burden placed on the classifiers to justify why the public does not have a right to know.
Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 17:24
Yes, the facts and their significance (especially about false flags and scandals) need to
be publicly debated, as well as policy goals, and the policies derived from facts and goals.
We have far too many government secrets to sustain a democracy.
I suggest limiting secrets to ongoing investigations (with a time limit), defensive
military plans and operations (not alleged provocations or aggressive war schemes), and
personal IDs of those at risk. Beyond that secrets disguise tyranny.
Ida G Millman , July 8, 2019 at 16:02
Another path towards a solution to government corruption could be term limits for all
federal representatives. Limiting the number of terms would curtail the opportunities for
forming the uninterrupted years of long coalitions between public servants and government
officials that result in the abuses of power that have damaged the interests of ordinary less
wealthy citizens, in favor of corporate and military interests.
In the matter of the original intentions of the men who wrote our founding documents, we
should consider one of the enormous differences that technology has made between us: that our
representatives can travel between DC and their homes with enough ease that they can continue
reasonably, or nearly reasonably, satisfactory family lives – something that could not
be done in the 18th century. The forefathers did not foresee that being a member of
government would become a career for a lifetime. They assumed, I believe, that members of
government would always be citizens who would give our country a few years of their lives and
then return to private life to share their experience and knowledge with their neighbors.
Such a change would not magically reform government corruption. There will always be those
who will find a way – but it could slow things down and it would certainly engage an
increasing number of citizens who would participate in governing, as well as the circles of
people surrounding each of them whose interest in and understanding of government would
increase because everyone would know more of their representatives. Got that, kids?
L&B&L
Sam F , July 8, 2019 at 17:37
Term limits are useful and we should enact more. There seems to be a sufficient supply of
puppets for the rich/WallSt/Mic/zionists to ensure that all new candidates represent only
those interests, unless we go further and control funding of mass media and elections,
monitoring of politicians and judges for life, etc.
Rob Roy , July 8, 2019 at 20:28
Ida,
Term limits wouldn't be necessary if money were out of elections and all elections were
publicly funded. Next, a law should be passed to prevent retired congress people from
lobbying for any private company of any kind. Then people wouldn't have to spend all their
time in congress lining up money for the next election, nor would they owe favors to
anyone.
Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 21:19
Sam F, all of those goals seem very nice but it would probably be better if we just
dissolved back into 50 states save for an interstate system and a very small navy for common
defense, maybe four nuclear submarines total, the American people will be best off without a
government completely working it out for themselves, if some of them work it out in
completely different ways without hurting each other so be it. Besides even a libertarians
would have to acknowledge democracy best works for smaller populations. We may never be able
to curb the will to power of evil men but we can diminish their abilities to fleece the
public if we are not subject to them.
Jay , July 8, 2019 at 11:42
Peter King?
Really now.
Not a credible source, no matter how invention filled Russia-gate is. And no matter how
clear it is that in 2016 the FBI was poking around campaign Trump and likely telling the
White House what it found.
Bif Webster , July 8, 2019 at 13:28
I agree that King isn't the best of messengers, but we can also go to others who are not
right-wing to see something fishy went on.
Those text messages convinced me something was going on. And that was before all the other
stuff came to light.
I think this will be about who has more dirt on the other side you know, leverage?
Jeff Harrison , July 8, 2019 at 11:41
Thank you, Ray. Forgive my cynicism but the US government is so corrupt, has wielded
illegitimate power for so long, and has covered the tracks of countless functionaries who
have not upheld the constitution that I doubt this will go anywhere. I have been quoting Ben
Franklin for some time "you have a republic, if you can keep it." I don't think we can. A
reading of "A History of Venice" by John J. Norris would be appropriate here. The most serene
republic lasted for essentially 1,000 years from roughly 800 to not quite 1800, first as a
democracy, later as an oligarchy. Much like us, including having the most feared secret
service in Europe at the time, Venice kept its power through trade but at least we don't
hoist the new president up on a chair so that he can throw golden Ducats to the crowd on Wall
Street the way that a new Doge would.
I don't see that as necessarily much of a plus.
Steven Berge , July 8, 2019 at 11:40
I don't suppose anything will happen to anybody important about this. After all, nothing
happened to anybody when they were caught mass spying on any and all american citizens, even
before they made it legal.
Drew Hunkins , July 8, 2019 at 11:32
Unfortunately Webb and Parry exposed much of these gangster criminal "intel" savages for
running guns and drugs to Central American pseudo fascist mercenary sadists throughout much
of the late 1970s through the '80s. I say unfortunately b/c nothing much ever came along by
way of true justice, by way of the criminal players rotting in maximum security jail cells
for years on end, not unlike the crack or heroin addict who steals a $400 television.
Jill , July 8, 2019 at 11:15
This has been one long crime against the American people. King should read what he knows
into the Congressional Record. I have no sympathy for Trump's fear of the deep state. He has
sent people to die knowing full well that his actions were based on lies, lies that would
result in the deaths of civilians as well as our own military. If he is going to do that,
then he should have the courage to face the deep state. That's partial penance for all the
deaths he has caused.
I also don't care about Trump's personal issue about being surveilled. He personally
supports that against everyone else. That is why I feel this is a crime against our people as
a whole. Our constitution has been stripped bare. We don't have the rule of law. Mass
surveillance covering the globe is current reality. It is dangerous. It is wrong. It is
lawless. It is a disaster.
Further, Russiagate was used to keep real opposition away from Trump. His supporters
doubled down on "liking" Trump because he appeared to be a victim of these lies. Democrats
meanwhile learned to further worship the IC. They ignored Trump's actual unlawful behavior,
and, in the case of war crimes, still support Trump on every war/regime change action etc.
recommended to them by their IC "resistance" "leaders".
People won't speak to one another because of this division, all based on lies. Democrats
want Assange put to death because he exposed truthful information about Clinton. Neighbor has
turned against neighbor over this. We have stopped talking and stopped thinking about whether
claims make sense or have evidence behind them. Political parties have become cults with cult
leaders. Meanwhile, many who think it was wrong to use surveillance against Trump, accept
mass surveillance against everyone else, including themselves.
This has been one of the most effective propaganda tools I have ever seen against our
populace. It has created a divided, unthinking populace who is ripe for the picking by evil
men and women. I am truly hoping that once this is exposed people will stop this madness and
pull together for a common good. But I'm quite worried that, like most cults, when the leader
is shown to be wrong, people cling to them even more.
I cannot believe what Russiagate has done to our own people. I am terrified at the wars it
has/may yet cause and the cruelty against others, both foreign and domestic, which it has
wrought.
Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 21:51
What else would you call it, there have always been nefarious agents in one government or
another for one gangster interest or another, whether was Milner's roundtable or Dulles's Gladio werewolves, these are nefarious individuals there is no gray area in that, however
they may conduct themselves and their personal lives, it is not sloppy journalism, is to call
something what it is, a this shadow government working in many instances against the direct
interest of the American people, I'm not trying to be you over the head with this but Mr.
McGovern was once upon a Time swimming in the same waters and he knows what he is talking
about. The deep state maybe several different factions but all of it at least so far is
fairly I'm Accountable, this thing must be named.
AnneR , July 8, 2019 at 14:18
First the Disclaimer: I'm not a supporter of either side of the one party two headed
monster political machine, not of either HRC or DT, both, and their "parties," making me want
to puke.
I am curious about the following: "He [DT] has sent people to die knowing full well that
his actions were based on lies, lies that would result in the deaths of civilians as well as
our own military. If he is going to do that, then he should have the courage to face the deep
state. That's partial penance for all the deaths he has caused."
While I have no doubt that DT has been responsible for civilian deaths (I am far less
concerned about military deaths – join the military and you cannot expect not to have
to chance it, particularly in a warmongering nation state; if the recruit doesn't recognize
this reality, then they need to do some reading), *most* such deaths in those countries we
(the US and its vassal states and proxies) have been happily bombing, shelling, destroying
one way or another, even since the late 1980s (not therefore including the appalling and
illegal warring on Vietnam et al) are down, not to DT, but rather to presidents: BC, GHB,
GWB, BO. Pretty evenly divided betwixt the two heads, wouldn't you say?
That's not to excuse DT (and I wouldn't excuse HRC either – think Libya; as bad as
MA, if with different forms of warfare; but then they're buddies, like attracting like).
We – the US – need to stop killing other peoples (let's cry for the war-making
profiteers), stop destroying other countries (and for our corporate-capitalists who plunder
them); need to mind our own "shop" and business. And stop pretending that we're such a
wonderful, white-hatted, "good" nation.
Jill , July 8, 2019 at 15:15
AnneR,
We have had war criminal presidents from the legacy parties, period. Barr is a party to
war crimes so I share other's doubts that he will do anything about actual justice. He may be
in on the current winning side of the IC and they may be purging some enemies at this time.
That is the only thing I see Barr being involved in.
Speaking as someone who has done counter-recruitment in schools, I will just give you my
experience. Students are tracked from grade school. A file is kept on them with over a
thousand data points. These files are taken by recruiters and used to "pitch" the military to
young people. I don't know if you were sophisticated at 16. I was a little bit but not much.
So here's an example–they told one young woman who had a single mother that if she went
in the military she would not be a burden on her mother any longer. They understood the
family had few resources and they played on this young woman's "guilt" over being a financial
"drain" on her mother. No, recruiters do not tell the truth to those they meet. They lie and
they lie very well because they have excellent information to help them tell the correct
lies. That girl is dead and I mourn her death.
Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 22:05
AnneR, you have so much anger, I understand, it is terrible what our nation has done and
is continuing to do, it has gone on so long that many of the people currently perpetrating
the crimes against foreign populations are themselves of descendents of peoples the US has
victimized. It's the propaganda, the United States is one of the most heavily propagandize
societies in the world, we make the Soviets look like children. No one wants you to have
sympathy for Donald Trump, you do not have to agree or like a person to see that the cartel
seeking to damage him is also simultaneously against your interests and they are against your
interests whether you're from the left or the right because they do not have an ideology just
it will to power.
Dunderhead , July 8, 2019 at 22:09
Jill that was an incredibly cogent description of the mess we are currently in,
congratulations on such clarity, peace out.
David Otness , July 9, 2019 at 00:18
With you on all that you state, Jill. It's really exposed the U.S. population for what we
unfortunately are, if not what we've become. So reminiscent of the darker days of the Cold
War. A stark education has just played out to this point. I wonder how many have learned anything at all from it?
With all due respect Mr. Smith things have really gone down hill after Bush Sr. I'm talking
about direct attacks on the rights of American citizens. Bush Sr. (R) with his CIA drug dealing
with the help of Noriega. He purchased weapons with the proceeds to arm terrorist guerrilla
groups in Nicaragua. Bill Clinton (D) helped Bush Sr. as governor of Arkansas by covering up
any investigation targeting the operation and laundering their money through a state owned
bank. Bush Jr. (R) secured lands in Afghanistan in order to restart athe heroine trade by
growing poppy fields to process and ship back to the US. Obama (R) made sure the Mexican drug
cartels were well armed in order to launch a drug war that supported the Merida Initiative,
which allowed armed DEA, CIA and Mercenaries into Mexican territory. Trump (R) will be the
clean up hitter that will usher in the dollar collapse.
Mr. Smith do you really believe it is a coincidence that Rep 8 yrs, Dem 8yrs, Rep 8yrs, Dem
8yrs, Rep 3 yrs are voted in? Please sir, don't fool yourself because in the next election I
will bet money the orange fool will be president for another 4 years unless the owners don't
want him there. But we can safely say that history tells us he will. All I'm saying that people
like you, waiting for someone to throw you a rope because you've fallen into deep water are
waiting on a rescue boat that doesn't care if you drown.
Your best bet for change was thrown away when Dr. Ron Paul failed to be nominated. Us dumb
asses in Mexico didn't need another election fraud this time around! The people started YouTube
channels that reported the "real" news (Chapucero – Quesadillas de Verdades –
Charro Politico – Sin Censura, etc.). Those channels made a big difference, countering
the negative reporting by Mexican and US MSM that the Presidential Candidate for MORENA as
"Leftist", "Communist", "Socialist", "Like Hugo Chavez", "Dangerous", etc.
With all of the US propaganda, Mexican propaganda, the negative MSM and Elite financing,
Mexicans knew they had to get out and vote in record numbers and they did! Otherwise a close
election was seen as another loss and the end of Mexico as a country. People were ready to
fight and die if necessary. They had seen the Energy Reforms forced down our throat by the
corrupt PRI/PAN parties (Mex version o DEM/REP), with the help of Hillary Clinton and the US
State Department. They drafting the changes needed to the Mexican Constitution to allow a vote.
Totally against the Law in Mexico and I'm sure the laws of the US.
There is a saying that goes something like, "If you're not ready to die for Freedom, take it
out of your Vocabulary"!
You have probably seen the bumper sticker that says: "Shit Happens." Some people are just
lucky, I suppose, and odd coincidences mark their lives.
When he was just out of Columbia College and working for a reputed CIA front company,
Business International Corporation, Barack Obama had a chance encounter with a young woman,
Genevieve Cook, with whom he had a 1-2 year relationship.
Like Obama and at about the same
time, Cook just happened to have lived in Indonesia with her father, Michael Cook, who just
happened to become Australia's top spook, the director-general of the Office of National
Assessments, and also the Ambassador to Washington.
Of course, Obama's mother, as is well-known, just happened to be living in Indonesia with
Barack and Obama's step-father, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian military officer, who had been
called back to Indonesia by the CIA supported General Suharto three months before the CIA coup
against President Sukarno. Suharto subsequently slaughtered over a million Indonesian
Communists and Indonesian-Chinese.
As is also well-known, it just so happened that Obama's
mother, Ann Dunham, trained in the Russian language, after teaching English in the US Embassy
in Jakarta that housed one of the largest CIA stations in Asia, did her "anthropological" work
in Indonesia and Southeast Asia financed by the well-known CIA conduits, USAID and the Ford
Foundation.
Then there is Cook's stepfather, Philip C. Jessup, who just happened to be in
Indonesia at the same time, doing nickel-mining deals with the genocidal Suharto
government.
Anyway, "shit happens." You never know whom you might meet along the way of life.
The banal, 1967 hit song, "San Francisco" (Be sure to wear flowers in your hair), which was
influential in enticing young people to come to San Francisco for the Summer of Love, was
written by "Papa" John Philips, who attended the US Naval Academy at Annapolis and whose father
was a Marine Corps Captain. "Papa" John's wife had worked at the Pentagon and her father was
involved in covert intelligence work in Vietnam. His neighbor and Laurel Canyon (Los Angeles)
buddy was Jim Morrison of Doors fame, whose father US Navy Admiral George Morrison commanded
U.S. warships in Vietnam's Tonkin Gulf during the "Tonkin Gulf Incident."
Frank Zappa, the father figure of Laurel Canyon's many musicians who just happened to
converge in one place at the same time where a covert military film studio operated, had a
father who was a chemical warfare specialist at Edgewood Arsenal.
Stephen Stills, David Crosby and many other soon to be famous musicians all came from
military and intelligence backgrounds and frolicked in Laurel Canyon. Although they were draft
age, none of them was drafted as they played music, dropped acid, and created the folk-rock
movement whose music was catchy but innocuous and posed no threat to the establishment. But
"shit happens."
In his disturbing book, Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon , David McGowan raises the
question: "what if the musicians themselves (and various other leaders and founders of the
'movement') were every bit as much a part of the intelligence community as the people who were
supposedly harassing them?
What if, in other words, the entire youth culture of the 1960s was created not as a
grass-roots challenge to the status quo, but as a cynical exercise in discrediting and
marginalizing the budding anti-war movement and creating a fake opposition that could be easily
controlled and led astray . What if, in reality, they were pretty much all playing on the same
team?"
"... To head the Iran Mission Center, the CIA appointed Michael D'Andrea. D'Andrea was central to the post-9/11 interrogation program, and he ran the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. Assassinations and torture were central to his approach. ..."
"... What is germane to his post at the Iran Mission Center is that D'Andrea is close to the Gulf Arabs, a former CIA analyst told me. The Gulf Arabs have been pushing hard for action against Iran, a view shared by D'Andrea and parts of his team. For his hard-nosed attitude toward Iran, D'Andrea is known -- ironically -- as "Ayatollah Mike." ..."
"... D'Andrea and people like Bolton are part of an ecosystem of men who have a visceral hatred for Iran and who are close to the worldview of the Saudi royal family . These are men who are reckless with violence, willing to do anything if it means provoking a war against Iran. Nothing should be put past them. ..."
"... D'Andrea's twin outside the White House is Thomas Kaplan, the billionaire who set up two groups that are blindingly for regime change in Iran. The two groups are United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and Counter Extremism Project. There is nothing subtle here. These groups -- and Kaplan himself -- promote an agenda of great disparagement of Muslims in general and of Iran in particular. ..."
"... It is fitting that Kaplan's anti-Iran groups bring together the CIA and money. The head of UANI is Mark Wallace, who is the chief executive of Kaplan's Tigris Financial Group, a financial firm with investments -- which it admits -- would benefit from "instability in the Middle East." Working with UANI and the Counter Extremism Project is Norman Roule, a former national intelligence manager for Iran in the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ..."
"... These men -- Kaplan and Bolton, D'Andrea and Shihabi -- are eager to use the full force of the U.S. military to further the dangerous goals of the Gulf Arab royals (of both Saudi Arabia and of the UAE). When Pompeo walked before cameras, he carried their water for them. These are men on a mission. They want war against Iran. ..."
In 2017, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) created a special unit -- the Iran Mission Center -- to focus attention on
the U.S. plans against Iran . The initiative for this unit came from CIA director John Brennan, who left his post as the Trump administration
came into office. Brennan believed that the CIA needed to focus attention on what the United States sees as problem areas -- North
Korea and Iran, for instance. This predated the Trump administration.
Brennan's successor -- Mike Pompeo, who was CIA director for just over a year (until he was appointed U.S. Secretary of State)
-- continued this policy. The CIA's Iran-related activity had been conducted in the Iran Operations Division (Persia House). This
was a section with Iran specialists who built up knowledge about political and economic developments inside Iran and in the Iranian
diaspora.
It bothered the hawks in Washington -- as one official told me -- that Persia House was filled with Iran specialists who had no
special focus on regime change in Iran. Some of them, due to their long concentration on Iran, had developed sensitivity to the country.
Trump's people wanted a much more focused and belligerent group that would provide the kind of intelligence that tickled the fancy
of his National Security Adviser John Bolton .
To head the Iran Mission Center, the CIA appointed Michael D'Andrea. D'Andrea was central to the post-9/11 interrogation program,
and he ran the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. Assassinations and torture were central to his approach.
It was D'Andrea who expanded the CIA's drone strike program, in particular the signature strike. The signature strike is a particularly
controversial instrument. The CIA was given the allowance to kill anyone who fit a certain profile -- a man of a certain age, for
instance, with a phone that had been used to call someone on a list. The dark arts of the CIA are precisely those of D'Andrea.
What is germane to his post at the Iran Mission Center is that D'Andrea is close to the Gulf Arabs, a former CIA analyst told
me. The Gulf Arabs have been pushing hard for action against Iran, a view shared by D'Andrea and parts of his team. For his hard-nosed
attitude toward Iran, D'Andrea is known -- ironically -- as "Ayatollah Mike."
D'Andrea and people like Bolton are part of an ecosystem of men who have a visceral hatred for Iran and who are close to the
worldview of the Saudi royal family . These are men who are reckless with violence, willing to do anything if it means provoking
a war against Iran. Nothing should be put past them.
D'Andrea and the hawks edged out several Iran experts from the Iran Mission Center, people like Margaret Stromecki -- who had
been head of analysis. Others who want to offer an alternative to the Pompeo-Bolton view of things either have also moved on or remain
silent. There is no space in the Trump administration, a former official told me, for dissent on the Iran policy.
Saudi Arabia's War
D'Andrea's twin outside the White House is Thomas Kaplan, the billionaire who set up two groups that are blindingly for regime
change in Iran. The two groups are United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and Counter Extremism Project. There is nothing subtle here.
These groups -- and Kaplan himself -- promote an agenda of great disparagement of Muslims in general and of Iran in particular.
Kaplan blamed Iran for the creation of ISIS, for it was Iran -- Kaplan said -- that "used a terrible Sunni movement" to expand
its reach from "Persia to the Mediterranean." Such absurdity followed from a fundamental misreading of Shia concepts such as taqiya,
which means prudence and not -- as Kaplan and others argue -- deceit. Kaplan, bizarrely, shares more with ISIS than Iran does with
that group -- since both Kaplan and ISIS are driven by their hatred of those who follow the Shia traditions of Islam.
It is fitting that Kaplan's anti-Iran groups bring together the CIA and money. The head of UANI is Mark Wallace, who is the
chief executive of Kaplan's Tigris Financial Group, a financial firm with investments -- which it admits -- would benefit from "instability
in the Middle East." Working with UANI and the Counter Extremism Project is Norman Roule, a former national intelligence manager
for Iran in the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Roule has offered his support to the efforts of the Arabia Foundation, run by Ali Shihabi -- a man with close links to the Saudi
monarchy. The Arabia Foundation was set up to do more effective public relations work for the Saudis than the Saudi diplomats are
capable of doing. Shihabi is the son of one of Saudi Arabia's most well-regarded diplomats, Samir al-Shihabi, who played an important
role as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Pakistan during the war that created al-Qaeda.
These men -- Kaplan and Bolton, D'Andrea and Shihabi -- are eager to use the full force of the U.S. military to further the
dangerous goals of the Gulf Arab royals (of both Saudi Arabia and of the UAE). When Pompeo walked before cameras, he carried their
water for them. These are men on a mission. They want war against Iran.
Evidence, reason. None of this is important to them. They will not stop until the U.S. bombers deposit their deadly payload on
Tehran and Qom, Isfahan and Shiraz. They will do anything to make that our terrible reality.
This article was produced by Globetrotter ,
a project of the Independent Media Institute.
I don't know either. But it's been the main stream party line for a while now. "Bernie
should drop out because he's old, white, male, and his opinions are not unique. He's not even
a real Democrat. And he doesn't support the party. So why is he running for president as a
Democrat and picking fights with Biden/Warren/Beto?"
The one that gets me is Bernie the Bomber. Somehow when the pundit class talks about
Bernie and Tulsi, it's only to mention how they coddle dictators.
Coddle (the wrong) dictators. Real Dems coddle our CIA approved dictators. Bernie and
Tulsi coddle those filthy democratically elected "dictators" that want to retain natural
resources for the benefit of their own nations and not for the enrichment of multinationals.
They're monsters!
Seriously though, only the Dems would have a superstar like Bernie and put all their
efforts into sabotaging him. Even the RNC and right wing media was willing to suck it up and
get behind Trump when it was clear he was going to win and had a huge base of support. But,
as is said often now, "the Dems would rather lose to a Republican than win with a
progressive".
Is the CIA's purpose to protect national security or financial security? They seem
confused at times on their purpose and if they were disbanded would the country notice?
Doesn't the Defense Intelligence Agency do most of the heavy security lifting?
Looking at the CIA actions from the Dulles Brothers onwards, I would say that it is to
protect and support all members of the Oligarchy of Money from the 1% to Big Oil to Big
Finance from that pesky Democratic Government and the troublesome Rule of Law.
Actually protecting the United States and never mind Americans themselves is like #47 on
its to-do list.
Did you notice the shift in Bernie's message tonight? He said they needed to have the guts
to take on Wall Street, the Military Industrial Complex, and Big Pharma. I didn't hear him
complain about big banks. I think he's been compromised!
Western News Agencies Mistranslate Iran's President Speech - It Is Not The First Time
Such 'Error' HappensJOHN CHUCKMAN , Jun 26, 2019 2:10:12
PM |
23
Yesterday the news agencies Associated Press and Reuters mistranslated a
speech by Iran's President Hassan Rouhani. They made it sound as if Rouhani insulted U.S.
President Donald Trump as 'mentally retarded'. Rouhani never said that.
Iran's conservative new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said Wednesday that Israel must be
"wiped off the map" and that attacks by Palestinians would destroy it, the ISNA press
agency reported.
...
Referring to comments by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic revolution,
Ahmadinejad said, "As the imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map."
Ever since he spoke at an anti-Zionism conference in Tehran last October, President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad of Iran has been known for one statement above all. As translated by news
agencies at the time, it was that Israel "should be wiped off the map." Iran's nuclear
program and sponsorship of militant Muslim groups are rarely mentioned without reference to
the infamous map remark.
Here, for example, is R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political
affairs, recently: "Given the radical nature of Iran under Ahmadinejad and its stated wish
to wipe Israel off the map of the world, it is entirely unconvincing that we could or
should live with a nuclear Iran."
"Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to wipe Israel off the map because no such idiom
exists in Persian," remarked Juan Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of
Michigan and critic of American policy who has argued that the Iranian president was
misquoted. "He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying
Jerusalem, would collapse." Since Iran has not "attacked another country aggressively for
over a century," he said in an e-mail exchange, "I smell the whiff of war propaganda."
Jonathan Steele, a columnist for the left-leaning Guardian newspaper in London, recently
laid out the case this way: "The Iranian president was quoting an ancient statement by
Iran's first Islamist leader, the late Ayatollah Khomeini, that 'this regime occupying
Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time,' just as the Shah's regime in Iran had
vanished. He was not making a military threat. He was calling for an end to the occupation
of Jerusalem at some point in the future. The 'page of time' phrase suggests he did not
expect it to happen soon."
Despite the above
and other explanations the false "wipe Israel off the map" translation never died. Years
later it still reappeared in Guardian pieces which required it to issuemultiple
corrections and clarifications.
Now, as the Trump administration is pushing for war on Iran, a similar mistranslation
miraculously happened. It were again 'western' news agencies who lightened the fire:
A lot of Western media is reporting that Iranian President Rouhani called Trump
"mentally retarded." This is inaccurate.
Regarding Trump, he just said "no wise person would take such an action [the new sanctions
imposed]."
Absolutely incorrect. There is a word for "retarded" in Persian & Rouhani didn't use
it. Prior to him saying "mental disability" he even prefaced his comment by saying "mental
weakness." Those who speak Persian can listen & judge for themselves. Here is a video
clip of Rouhani's comment: link
Iran leadership doesn't understand the words "nice" or "compassion," they never have.
Sadly, the thing they do understand is Strength and Power, and the USA is by far the most
powerful Military Force in the world, with 1.5 Trillion Dollars invested over the last two
years alone..
....The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their
leadership spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else. The U.S. has not
forgotten Iran's use of IED's & EFP's (bombs), which killed 2000 Americans, and wounded
many more...
.... Iran's very ignorant and insulting statement , put out today, only shows that they
do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great
and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John
Kerry & Obama!
Reuters , which also peddled the mistranslation, gleefully
connected the dots :
This follows in the footsteps of a rich history of mistranslating and obfuscating which is
rarely, if ever, corrected by our Guardians of Truth. I will not hold my breath for AP to
pull its tweet out issue any sort of correction. The war machine is revving up, truth be
damned.
To add a few obfuscations to the list of mistranslations: the Palestinian intifada. Sounds
scary, no? Violence against the benevolent Israelis. Because what does intifada actually
mean? Uprising, which by its nature suggests oppression, something which just 'can't' be
happening in Palestine, hence the need for intifada.
Or take jihad, 'a pillor' of Islam. Again, very scary, as jihad 'means' suicide bombs and
killing infidels. What the Guardians of Truth never mention is that jihad in Islam is a very,
very broad term that includes such things as helping the poor or less fortunate, educating
oneself, quiet reflection, and prayer. Jihad as meaning 'holy war' was a sense meaning
derived much later than the founding of the religion, as a reaction to very real threats to
believers of the time, the Crusades and Mongol invasions. That this specific sense meaning
was essentially confined to history afterward, only to be revived by Wahhabists and takfiris,
and one not believed in by the vast majority of Muslims, is never explained. 'Cause all them
crazy Muslims believe in jihad!
In all cases where the boogeyman of the day needs concocting, rest assured the
'mainstream' press, with AP in the lead, will be there to build a gleaming edifice mistruths,
omissions, and lies.
In approximately 17 months, the american public can make strides to fix this mess.
I guess that is a long time for the iranians, but still maybe best option.
Just in case there is any doubt in American minds here is the Israeli Ambassador to the UN.
He thinks the sanctions are working well. Iran is panicking.
They mistranslate Trump all the time, or they spin what he says. It is amazing to watch.
For instance, at the Helsinki meeting, where he met with Putin and they discussed multiple
topics, but the press ignored any topic but demanding that Trump denounce Putin and "admit"
that Putin helped him steal the election, and that he was therefore not the legitimate
president.
Obviously, Trump was not going to say that, so he said that he was the legitimate
president, and the mockingbird media spun that into "the president is a traitor to America
because he said that 17 national intelligence agencies are lying".
.....The ministers lie, the professors lie, the television lies,
the priests lie .
These lies mean that the country wants to die.
Lie after lie starts out into the prairie grass,
like enormous caravans of Conestoga wagons .
And a long desire for death flows out, guiding the
enormous caravans from beneath,
stringing together the vague and foolish words.
It is a desire to eat death,
to gobble it down,
to rush on it like a cobra with mouth open
It's a desire to take death inside,
to feel it burning inside, pushing out velvety hairs,
like a clothes brush in the intestines --
This is the thrill that leads the President on to lie....
Robert Bly, The Teeth Mother Naked at Last, originally published by City Lights books
1970
Maybe the translation is inacurate but the message had the expected reaction from Trump:
Tweet furor.
It is good that Trump realizes that he does not have the monopole of insulting leaders.
The USA is a country that since WWII has never won any war. How could it give a lesson to
Iran who won a 8 years war against Iraq despite the support that the USA, the Gulf countries
and Western countries gave to Iraq.
Loud noise and indecisive actions: The disaster of the USA foreign policy
I remember watching CNN translate Khamenei's "Nuclear Power" to "Nuclear Weapons" right on
live TV in 2013. This is not new.
/div> Virgile "The USA is a country that since WWII has never won any war".
The US won a war against Grenada [population 95,000] I would go so far as to say they whupped
ass. True there were only 64 Cuban soldiers there [security guards] All members of the US armed
forces were involved and 5,000 medals were given out. Ra Ra USA.
Posted by: Harry Law , Jun 26, 2019 5:29:37 PM |
50
Virgile "The USA is a country that since WWII has never won any war". The US won a war
against Grenada [population 95,000] I would go so far as to say they whupped ass. True there
were only 64 Cuban soldiers there [security guards] All members of the US armed forces were
involved and 5,000 medals were given out. Ra Ra USA.
Posted by: Harry Law | Jun 26, 2019 5:29:37 PM |
50
b-
I am a Persian speaker and is true that president Rouhani never said Trump is retarded, we
now have way passed the point that insults can matte. Nevertheless it was better if President
Rouhani would have called Trump and the rest of the ruling US regime like what the whole
world has now come to understand, a true and unique collection of retards on a shining hill.
Reminds me of when Nikita Khruschev attempted to explain in 1956 his view that that
capitalism would destroy itself from within by quoting Marx: "What the bourgeoisie therefore
produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers." This was notoriously
mistranslated into English as "We will bury you", as if the Soviets were out to kill all
westerners themselves. Of course this mistranslated was quoted time and time again in western
media, fueling Cold War paranoia for years to come.
blue @ 19 The news media are wedded to the state which is wedded to the banking system which
are all subsidiaries of global capitalism. They don't need to correct themselves. They may
have the occasional family feud, but they're all on the same team. They will admit to
"mistakes" being made, but only long after it makes no difference.
We have a FREE PRESS in America-Pravda on the Potomac, Izvestia on the Hudson.
Have a look sometime at the Venn Diagrams that portray the overlapping/interlocking
memberships of the regulatory/financial/corporate leadership class.
But more than that, whatever the idea of a free press once meant, with the rise of digital
corporate networking "platforms", not subject to any accountability, the barriers to entry of
any competing narratives to the mainstream discourse are nearly insurmountable. Except maybe
through subversion?
What is missing is a true public 'Marketplace of Ideas'
The deliberate mis-translations of non-english speaking "adversaries" of the US is common in
the msm. Putin is frequently and deliberately mis-translated to make him appear dictatorial
and aggressive.
I listened to Rohani's speech. He said that if JCPOA is bad, it is bad for all parties; and
if it is good, it is good for all parties. They cannot expect for JCPOA to be bad for them
and good for us. They withdrew from the JCPOA and expect us to stay with the agreement. This
is what he meant when he said: White house has been affected by mental inability and mental
disability.
ADKC
Iran is at war. US and gang are trying to destroy Iran as a nation. The biggest asset in
times of war is deception. Used by both the attacker and the attacked.
Khamenei
has Tweeted a series of tweets, and his scribe has posted what he tweeted along with
other words
at his website in English so there's no mistranslation. Here's one of the series of 6:
"The graceful Iranian nation has been accused & insulted by world's most vicious
regime, the U.S., which is a source of wars, conflicts & plunder. Iranian nation won't
give up over such insults. Iranians have been wronged by oppressive sanctions but not
weakened & remain powerful."
They were made 14+ hours ago, yet I'm the first to post notice of them here?!
The USA government excels at propaganda. It always has. Doesn't matter if it babies and
incubators, mistranslated leaders of targeted countries, or supposed mass graves. BTW... what
ever happened to all those mass graves in Iraq? HRW was going to dig them all up and document
them. Hundreds of thousands. Most Americans I talk to still believe in this. Was it true?
Saddam himself had claimed it wasn't true. That it was Kurdish propaganda to gain sympathy.
He claimed the Anfal campaign was only to push the Kurds off the border so he could control
arms smuggling and that casualties were minimal. Looking into the search. They are graves
with a few hundred here and there but where are the rest of the bodies? If you google Iraq
mass graves there are more articles about ISIS mass graves than the Anfal campaign. There
were people killed in the South during the Shia uprising after the first gulf war than there
was for the Anfal campaign. Was that a lie too? Nearly every American believes it still.
PM admits graves claim 'untrue'
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that
'400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses
have so far been uncovered.
The claims by Blair in November and December of last year, were given widespread credence,
quoted by MPs and widely published, including in the introduction to a US government pamphlet
on Iraq's mass graves.
In that publication - Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves produced by USAID, the US
government aid distribution agency, Blair is quoted from 20 November last year: 'We've
already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.'
Anyone who can undestand Farsi ( Persian language) can litsen Rouhani's speech. He did not
name "Trump", he said " White House".
I have been watching CNN news channel who said that Rouhani made a personal attack on Trump!
That was not true.
There was no personal attack on Rouhani's speech.
Importantly, the context of the speech and conclusion is diffent from western media reports
and western translations.
I would like give few links of some Iranian news agencies, reporting Rouhani's speech for
International use, as reference here:
1) FrasNews Agency
Rouhani said:
"These days, we see the White House in confusion and we are witnessing undue and
ridiculous words and adoption of a scandalous policy,"
..."The US sanctions are crime against humanity. The US recent measures indicate their
ultimate failure. The new US measures are the result of their frustration and confusion over
Iran. The White House has mental disability,"
Le président iranien, affirmant que les États-Unis, malgré de
nombreuses tentatives de pression exercées par divers leviers sur l'Iran, ont
échoué dans leurs objectifs, a poursuivi : "Une étrange frustration et
une grande confusion règnent au sein du Corps dirigeant de la Maison Blanche. Ils se
sentent déçus car ils n'ont obtenu aucun résultat, ils s'attendaient
à voir l'Iran brisé dans l'espace de quelques mois, mais ils ont fini par
constater que les Iraniens agissent de plus en plus fermement, de manière plus
créative que jamais ".
The president also decried the new US sanctions against Iran, saying the White House has
been thrown into confusion as its officials are making "inappropriate and ridiculous"
comments and adopting the policy of disgrace.
Wow that's amazing! Probably the best known Khrushchev 'quote', presented as evidence of
his boorish nature, is an intentional mistranslation. And the Marx quote is not exactly
obscure, it's from Chapter 1 of the Communist Manifesto for eff sake! At least it makes a
change from the 'lets just make things up' cottage industry of Lenin & Stalin
'quotes'.
"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its
shoes."
Mark Twain (or some other student of wisdom)
... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/books/famous-misquotations.html
Apr 26, 2017 - Mark Twain is one of many who gets credit for famous quotations he never wrote
or said. ... credited with saying "a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth
is still putting on its shoes" ... Proverbial wisdom, in which a quotation is elevated to the
status of a proverb because its source is unknown;.
Circe , Jun 27, 2019 10:19:52 AM |
136Noirette , Jun 27, 2019 10:50:17 AM |
137
Mistranslations are a classical cheap n easy way to sway opinion.
Interesting that the examples b quotes, and most of those promoted currently by the
US-uk-eu, afaik, understand, are intended to project into the voice of Iranians, Russians,
Syrians, utterances, declarations, to be labelled insults, slander, threats, impropriety,
even rage, coming from these parties, as
there is nothing much else to display!
(Spanish is too comprehensible > does not apply to Mexico, Cuba, S. America.)
Often cultural matters play a role, but are ignored. Ahmadinejad was endlessly vilified
and mocked by the W-MSM for saying what was translated as there are no homosexuals in
Iran (no idea what the original formulation was) - which 'obviously' can't be 'true.'
Besides homosexuality being unacceptable in conservative rule-books, Iran is, or was (to
2010) above (or with) Thailand the no. 1. practitioner / destination for sex change
operations. Iran had super educated docs, great hospitals, etc.
Ahmadinejad was relying on a kind of fundamentalist principle where the 'soul' or the
'essential quality' of a person is what is tantamount, what counts above all. The physical
manifestation, here the human body, can be transformed to be in harmony with the deep-felt or
'innately' ascribed orientation or 'spirit.' So, no homosexuals in Iran, or only a few who
are in 'transition.' (Not denying real suffering of gays in Iran, other story.)
The W, in first place the US, is doing precisely the same with its 'gender change'
promotion, as applied to children and young teens. Here too, 'feelings' and 'identity'
override 'nature' : the physical can be overturned, overcome, fixed.
Such cultural issues play a role in mis-translations, deliberate or not. It may appear
that I wandered far off topic, I just picked a topical comprehensible ex. Sharia law is more
complex..
"... Harding's avowed contact with Steele may also have contributed to another high profile blunder in April this year. In the immediate wake of the apparent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK, the UK government issued a D(SMA) notice , blocking mention of Pablo Miller -- Skripal's MI6 recruiter -- in the media. ..."
On September 21, The Guardian ran an absolutely sensational exclusive, based on disclosures made by "multiple" anonymous sources
to Luke Harding, one of the paper's leading journalists - in 2017, Russian diplomats allegedly held secret talks in London with associates
of Assange, in an attempt to assist in the Wikileaks founder's escape from the UK.
The dastardly conspiracy would've entailed Assange being smuggled out of the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge under cover
of Christmas Eve in a diplomatic vehicle and transported to Russia, where he'd be safe from extradition to the US, ending his eight-years
of effective arbitrary detention in the process.
In any event, the audacious plot was eventually aborted after being deemed "too
risky" -- even for the reckless daredevils of Moscow -- mere days before its planned execution date.
Rommy Vallejo, head of Ecuador's
intelligence agency, is said to have travelled to the UK around December 15 to supervise the operation, and left when it was called
off.
'Extraordinary, Deliberate Lies'
The Russian Embassy in London
was quick to condemn the
article on Twitter, calling the claims "another example of disinformation and fake news" in the UK mainstream media, and noting the
paper violated national media standards by failing to ask the Russian side for a comment prior to the report's release. "This publication
has nothing to do with the reality. The Embassy has never engaged with Ecuadorian colleagues, or with anyone else, in discussions
of any kind on Russia's participation in ending Assange's stay within the diplomatic mission of Ecuador.
We're puzzled by the sensational
attitude of the authors. As recently as September 18, Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright called for increased efforts to combat media
and online disinformation. [The] Guardian piece is a brilliant example of the kind of journalism British reader should be protected
from," a spokesperson added in an official statement.
In a subsequent statement
, the Russian Foreign Ministry slammed the article for containing a "whole series of similar anti-Russia innuendos, and once again
made clear Russian diplomats did not contact staff of the Ecuadoran Embassy in London or Assange's associates in order to assist
in his escape from the UK.
However,
a
far more damning indictment of the article's extraordinary, evidence-free claims was provided by Craig Murray, former UK Ambassador
to Uzbekistan, who denounced the "quite extraordinary set of deliberate lies" in a September 23 blog post. In doing so, he revealed
he and Fidel Narvaez -- a close confidant of Assange fingered as the key point of contact between the Ecuadorian embassy and Moscow
in the article -- had engaged in discussions with Assange in 2017 regarding a possible departure from the UK capital, and debated
possible future destinations for the embattled Wikileaks founder.
"It's not only the case Russia didn't figure in those plans, Julian directly ruled out the possibility of going to Russia. I know
100% for certain the entire story is a complete and utter fabrication. I cannot find words enough to express the depth of my contempt
for Harding and [Editor] Katherine Viner, who've betrayed completely the values of journalism. The aim of the piece is evidently
to add a further layer to the fake news of Wikileaks' non-existent relationship to Russia as part of the "Hillary didn't really lose"
narrative. I am, frankly, rather shocked," Murray
wrote
.
Friends in Spooky Places
The identities of Harding's alleged anonymous sources aren't even hinted at in the article, but Murray made a striking suggestion
-- he "strongly suspect[ed]" that "MI6 tool" Harding's informants were the UK security services. If true, this would make the article
"entirely black propaganda" produced by British spies. Whether MI6 agents are the source of the story or not, it's certainly true
Harding enjoys a very close relationship indeed with British intelligence services -- a bond he has frequently, openly and proudly
advertised in articles and books.
For instance, in his highly controversial 2017 book Collusion, Harding argued Donald Trump
had a relationship with the Russian 'deep state' dating back to the 1980s, and colluded with the Kremlin to subvert US democracy.
To support this conclusion, he frequently cited claims fed to him directly by Christopher Steele, the ex-MI6 spy turned 'business
intelligence' professional, who authored the utterly discredited 'Trump-Russia' dossier for Fusion GPS.
When challenged to provide any evidence whatsoever for his book's assertions by Aaron Mate of The Real News, Harding was left mumbling
and stuttering -- he was also unable to defend
his claim that an individual's use of an emoji was proof they were working for Russian intelligence, and terminated the interview
prematurely.
Harding's avowed contact with Steele may also have contributed to another high profile blunder in April this year. In the immediate
wake of the apparent poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, UK, the UK government
issued a D(SMA) notice , blocking mention of Pablo
Miller -- Skripal's MI6 recruiter -- in the media. Individuals who conducted internet searches for Miller afterwards quickly found
his LinkedIn profile, which identified him as a 'Senior Analyst' at Orbis Intelligence -- Steele's corporate espionage company.-
It is true, or was. As I say, this 2017 forum thread, which links to Pablo Miller's LinkedIn profile, states Orbis is listed on
Miller's CV -- https://t.co/Fx0vu1qorJ . Stop regurgitating anonymous claims
by your spook pals and do some research, Luke -- Kit Klarenberg (@KitKlarenberg)
March 12, 2018
Miller's page was quickly deleted though, and Harding took to Twitter to issue firm denials of a connection between Miller and the
firm, going so far as to suggest "someone" was using search engine optimization techniques to dishonestly associate Miller and Orbis.
However, enterprising Sputnik journalist Kit Klarenberg quickly and easily found an online forum thread dating from 2017 clearly
identifying Miller as an Orbis employee -- as of September, Harding is yet to respond, or retract his claims.
"... Risen detailed how his editors had been "quite willing to cooperate with the government." In fact, a top CIA official even told Risen that his rule of thumb for approving a covert operation was, "How will this look on the front page of the New York Times?" ..."
"... Bernstein obtained CIA documents that revealed that more than 400 American journalists in the previous 25 years had "secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency." ..."
"... Virtually all major US media outlets cooperated with the CIA, Bernstein revealed, including ABC, NBC, the AP, UPI, Reuters, Newsweek, Hearst newspapers, the Miami Herald, the Saturday Evening Post, and the New York Herald‑Tribune. ..."
"... However, he added, "By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc." ..."
"... These layers of state manipulation, censorship, and even direct crafting of the news media show that, as much as they claim to be independent, The New York Times and other outlets effectively serve as de facto spokespeople for the government -- or at least for the US national security state. ..."
The New York Times casually acknowledged that it sends major scoops to the US government
before publication, to make sure "national security officials" have "no concerns."
By Ben Norton
June 25, 2019 " Information Clearing House " - The New York
Times has publicly acknowledged that it sends some of its stories to the US government for
approval from "national security officials" before publication.
This confirms what veteran New York Times correspondents like James Risen have said: The
American newspaper of record regularly collaborates with the US government, suppressing
reporting that top officials don't want made public.
On June 15, the Times reported that the US government is escalating its cyber
attacks on Russia's power grid . According to the article, "the Trump administration is
using new authorities to deploy cybertools more aggressively," as part of a larger "digital
Cold War between Washington and Moscow."
In response to the report, Donald Trump attacked the
Times on Twitter, calling the article "a virtual act of Treason."
The New York Times PR office replied to Trump from its official Twitter account, defending
the story and noting that it had, in fact, been cleared with the US government before being
printed.
"Accusing the press of treason is dangerous," the Times communications team said. "We
described the article to the government before publication."
"As our story notes, President Trump's own national security officials said there were no
concerns," the Times added.
NY Times editors 'quite willing to cooperate with
the government'
The symbiotic relationship between the US corporate media and the government has been known
for some time. American intelligence agencies play the press like a musical instrument, using
it it to selectively leak information at opportune moments to push US soft power and advance
Washington's interests.
But rarely is this symbiotic relationship so casually and publicly acknowledged.
In 2018, former New York Times reporter James Risen published a 15,000-word article in
The Intercept providing further insight into how this unspoken alliance operates.
Risen
detailed how his editors had been "quite willing to cooperate with the government." In fact, a
top CIA official even told Risen that his rule of thumb for approving a covert operation was,
"How will this look on the front page of the New York Times?"
There is an "informal arrangement" between the state and the press, Risen explained, where
US government officials "regularly engaged in quiet negotiations with the press to try to stop
the publication of sensitive national security stories."
"At the time, I usually went along with these negotiations," the former New York Times
reported said. He recalled an example of a story he was writing on Afghanistan just prior to
the September 11, 2001 attacks. Then-CIA Director George Tenet called Risen personally and
asked him to kill the story.
"He told me the disclosure would threaten the safety of the CIA officers in Afghanistan,"
Risen said. "I agreed."
Risen said he later questioned whether or not this was the right decision. "If I had
reported the story before 9/11, the CIA would have been angry, but it might have led to a
public debate about whether the United States was doing enough to capture or kill bin Laden,"
he wrote. "That public debate might have forced the CIA to take the effort to get bin Laden
more seriously."
This dilemma led Risen to reconsider responding to US government requests to censor stories.
"And that ultimately set me on a collision course with the editors at the New York Times," he
said.
"After the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration began asking the press to kill stories more
frequently," Risen continued. "They did it so often that I became convinced the administration
was invoking national security to quash stories that were merely politically embarrassing." In
the lead-up to the Iraq War, Risen frequently "clashed" with Times editors because he raised
questions about the US government's lies. But his stories "stories raising questions about the
intelligence, particularly the administration's claims of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda,
were being cut, buried, or held out of the paper altogether."
The Times' executive editor Howell Raines "was believed by many at the paper to prefer
stories that supported the case for war," Risen said.
In another anecdote, the former Times journalist recalled a scoop he had uncovered on a
botched CIA plot. The Bush administration got wind of it and called him to the White House,
where then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice ordered the Times to bury the story.
Risen said Rice told him "to forget about the story, destroy my notes, and never make
another phone call to discuss the matter with anyone."
"The Bush administration was successfully convincing the press to hold or kill national
security stories," Risen wrote. And the Barack Obama administration subsequently accelerated
the "war on the press."
CIA media infiltration and manufacturing consent
In their renowned study of US media, "
Manufacturing Consent : The Political Economy of the Mass Media," Edward S. Herman and
Chomsky articulated a "propaganda model," showing how "the media serve, and propagandize on
behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them," through "the
selection of right-thinking personnel and by the editors' and working journalists'
internalization of priorities and definitions of newsworthiness that conform to the
institution's policy."
But in some cases, the relationship between US intelligence agencies and the corporate media
is not just one of mere ideological policing, indirect pressure, or friendship, but rather one
of employment.
In the 1950s, the CIA launched a covert operation called Project Mockingbird, in which it
surveilled, influenced, and manipulated American journalists and media coverage, explicitly in
order to direct public opinion against the Soviet Union, China, and the growing international
communist movement.
Legendary journalist Carl Bernstein, a former Washington Post reporter who helped uncover
the Watergate scandal, published a major cover story for Rolling Stone in 1977 titled "
The CIA and
the Media : How America's Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central
Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up."
Bernstein obtained CIA documents that revealed that more than 400 American journalists in
the previous 25 years had "secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence
Agency."
Bernstein wrote:
"Some of these journalists' relationships with the Agency were tacit; some were explicit.
There was cooperation, accommodation and overlap. Journalists provided a full range of
clandestine services -- from simple intelligence gathering to serving as go‑betweens with
spies in Communist countries. Reporters shared their notebooks with the CIA. Editors shared
their staffs. Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who
considered themselves ambassadors without‑portfolio for their country. Most were less
exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their
work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested in the derring‑do of the spy
business as in filing articles; and, the smallest category, full‑time CIA employees
masquerading as journalists abroad. In many instances, CIA documents show, journalists were
engaged to perform tasks for the CIA with the consent of the managements of America's leading
news organizations."
Virtually all major US media outlets cooperated with the CIA, Bernstein revealed, including
ABC, NBC, the AP, UPI, Reuters, Newsweek, Hearst newspapers, the Miami Herald, the Saturday
Evening Post, and the New York Herald‑Tribune.
However, he added, "By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA
officials, have been with the New York Times, CBS and Time Inc."
These layers of state
manipulation, censorship, and even direct crafting of the news media show that, as much as they
claim to be independent, The New York Times and other outlets effectively serve as de facto
spokespeople for the government -- or at least for the US national security state.
Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He is a reporter for The Grayzone, and the producer
of the Moderate Rebels podcast,
which he co-hosts with Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com , and he tweets at @ BenjaminNorton .
This article was originally published by " Grayzone
"
"... Early in any psychology course, students are taught to be very cautious about accepting people's reports. A simple trick is to stage some sort of interruption to the lecture by confederates, and later ask the students to write down what they witnessed. Typically, they will misremember the events, sequences and even the number of people who staged the tableaux. Don't trust witnesses, is the message. ..."
"... The three assumptions -- lack of rationality, stubbornness, and costs -- imply that there is slim chance that people can ever learn or be educated out of their biases; ..."
"... So, are we as hopeless as some psychologists claim we are? In fact, probably not. Not all the initial claims have been substantiated. For example, it seems we are not as loss averse as previously claimed. Does our susceptibility to printed visual illusions show that we lack judgement in real life? ..."
"... Well the sad fact is that there's nobody in the position to protect "governments" from their own biases, and "scientists" from theirs ..."
"... Long ago a lawyer acquaintance, referring to a specific judge, told me that the judge seemed to "make shit up as he was going along". I have long held psychiatry fits that statement very well. ..."
"... Here we have a real scientist fighting the nonsense spreading from (neoclassical) economics into other realms of science/academia. ..."
"... Behavioral economics is a sideline by-product of neoclassical micro-economic theory. It tries to cope with experimental data that is inconsistent with that theory. ..."
"... Everything in neoclassical economics is a travesty. "Rational choice theory" and its application in "micro economics" is false from the ground up. It basically assumes that people are gobbling up resources without plan, meaning or relevant circumstances. Neoclassical micro economic theory is so false and illogical that I would not know where to start in a comment, so I should like to refer to a whole book about it: Keen, Steve: "Debunking economics". ..."
"... As the theory is totally wrong it is really not surprising that countless experiments show that people do not behave the way neoclassical theory predicts. How do economists react to this? Of course they assume that people are "irrational" because they do not behave according to their studied theory. (Why would you ever change your basic theory because of some tedious facts?) ..."
"... The title of the 1st ed. of Keen's book was "Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences" which was simply a perfect title. ..."
Early in any psychology course, students are taught to be very cautious about accepting people's reports. A simple trick is
to stage some sort of interruption to the lecture by confederates, and later ask the students to write down what they witnessed.
Typically, they will misremember the events, sequences and even the number of people who staged the tableaux. Don't trust witnesses,
is the message.
Another approach is to show visual illusions, such as getting estimates of line lengths in the Muller-Lyer illusion, or studying
simple line lengths under social pressure, as in the Asch experiment, or trying to solve the Peter Wason logic problems, or the puzzles
set by Kahneman and Tversky. All these appear to show severe limitations of human judgment. Psychology is full of cautionary tales
about the foibles of common folk.
As a consequence of this softening up, psychology students come to regard themselves and most people as fallible, malleable, unreliable,
biased and generally irrational. No wonder psychologists feel superior to the average citizen, since they understand human limitations
and, with their superior training, hope to rise above such lowly superstitions.
However, society still functions, people overcome errors and many things work well most of the time. Have psychologists, for one
reason or another, misunderstood people, and been too quick to assume that they are incapable of rational thought?
He is particularly interested in the economic consequences of apparent irrationality, and whether our presumed biases really result
in us making bad economic decisions. If so, some argue we need a benign force, say a government, to protect us from our lack of capacity.
Perhaps we need a tattoo on our forehead: Diminished Responsibility.
The argument leading from cognitive biases to governmental paternalism -- in short, the irrationality argument -- consists
of three assumptions and one conclusion:
1. Lack of rationality. Experiments have shown that people's intuitions are systematically biased.
2. Stubbornness. Like visual illusions, biases are persistent and hardly corrigible by education.
3. Substantial costs. Biases may incur substantial welfare-relevant costs such as lower wealth, health, or happiness.
4. Biases justify governmental paternalism. To protect people from theirbiases, governments should "nudge" the public
toward better behavior.
The three assumptions -- lack of rationality, stubbornness, and costs -- imply that there is slim chance that people can ever
learn or be educated out of their biases; instead governments need to step in with a policy called libertarian paternalism (Thaler
and Sunstein, 2003).
So, are we as hopeless as some psychologists claim we are? In fact, probably not. Not all the initial claims have been substantiated.
For example, it seems we are not as loss averse as previously claimed. Does our susceptibility to printed visual illusions show that
we lack judgement in real life?
In Shepard's (1990) words, "to fool a visual system that has a full binocular and freely mobile view of a well-illuminated scene
is next to impossible" (p. 122). Thus, in psychology, the visual system is seen more as a genius than a fool in making intelligent
inferences, and inferences, after all, are necessary for making sense of the images on the retina.
Most crucially, can people make probability judgements? Let us see. Try solving this one:
A disease has a base rate of .1, and a test is performed that has a hit rate of .9 (the conditional probability of a positive
test given disease) and a false positive rate of .1 (the conditional probability of a positive test given no disease). What is
the probability that a random person with a positive test result actually has the disease?
Most people fail this test, including 79% of gynaecologists giving breast screening tests. Some researchers have drawn the conclusion
that people are fundamentally unable to deal with conditional probabilities. On the contrary, there is a way of laying out the problem
such that most people have no difficulty with it. Watch what it looks like when presented as natural frequencies:
Among every 100 people, 10 are expected to have a disease. Among those 10, nine are expected to correctly test positive. Among
the 90 people without the disease, nine are expected to falsely test positive. What proportion of those who test positive actually
have the disease?
In this format the positive test result gives us 9 people with the disease and 9 people without the disease, so the chance that
a positive test result shows a real disease is 50/50. Only 13% of gynaecologists fail this presentation.
Summing up the virtues of natural frequencies, Gigerenzer says:
When college students were given a 2-hour course in natural frequencies, the number of correct Bayesian inferences increased
from 10% to 90%; most important, this 90% rate was maintained 3 months after training (Sedlmeier and Gigerenzer, 2001). Meta-analyses
have also documented the "de-biasing" effect, and natural frequencies are now a technical term in evidence-based medicine (Akiet
al., 2011; McDowell and Jacobs, 2017). These results are consistent with a long literature on techniques for successfully teaching
statistical reasoning (e.g., Fonget al., 1986). In sum, humans can learn Bayesian inference quickly if the information is presented
in natural frequencies.
If the problem is set out in a simple format, almost all of us can all do conditional probabilities.
I taught my medical students about the base rate screening problem in the late 1970s, based on: Robyn Dawes (1962) "A note on
base rates and psychometric efficiency". Decades later, alarmed by the positive scan detection of an unexplained mass, I confided
my fears to a psychiatrist friend. He did a quick differential diagnosis on bowel cancer, showing I had no relevant symptoms, and
reminded me I had lectured him as a student on base rates decades before, so I ought to relax. Indeed, it was false positive.
Here are the relevant figures, set out in terms of natural frequencies
Every test has a false positive rate (every step is being taken to reduce these), and when screening is used for entire populations
many patients have to undergo further investigations, sometimes including surgery.
Setting out frequencies in a logical sequence can often prevent misunderstandings. Say a man on trial for having murdered his
spouse has previously physically abused her. Should his previous history of abuse not be raised in Court because only 1 woman in
2500 cases of abuse is murdered by her abuser? Of course, whatever a defence lawyer may argue and a Court may accept, this is back
to front. OJ Simpson was not on trial for spousal abuse, but for the murder of his former partner. The relevant question is: what
is the probability that a man murdered his partner, given that she has been murdered and that he previously battered her.
Accepting the figures used by the defence lawyer, if 1 in 2500 women are murdered every year by their abusive male partners, how
many women are murdered by men who did not previously abuse them? Using government figures that 5 women in 100,000 are murdered every
year then putting everything onto the same 100,000 population, the frequencies look like this:
So, 40 to 5, it is 8 times more probable that abused women are murdered by their abuser. A relevant issue to raise in Court about
the past history of an accused man.
Are people's presumed biases costly, in the sense of making them vulnerable to exploitation, such that they can be turned into
a money pump, or is it a case of "once bitten, twice shy"? In fact, there is no evidence that these apparently persistent logical
errors actually result in people continually making costly errors. That presumption turns out to be a bias bias.
Gigerenzer goes on to show that people are in fact correct in their understanding of the randomness of short sequences of coin
tosses, and Kahneman and Tversky wrong. Elegantly, he also shows that the "hot hand" of successful players in basketball is a real
phenomenon, and not a stubborn illusion as claimed.
With equal elegance he disposes of a result I had depended upon since Slovic (1982), which is that people over-estimate the frequency
of rare risks and under-estimate the frequency of common risks. This finding has led to the belief that people are no good at estimating
risk. Who could doubt that a TV series about Chernobyl will lead citizens to have an exaggerated fear of nuclear power stations?
The original Slovic study was based on 39 college students, not exactly a fair sample of humanity. The conceit of psychologists
knows no bounds. Gigerenzer looks at the data and shows that it is yet another example of regression to the mean. This is an apparent
effect which arises whenever the predictor is less than perfect (the most common case), an unsystematic error effect, which is already
evident when you calculate the correlation coefficient. Parental height and their children's heights are positively but not perfectly
correlated at about r = 0.5. Predictions made in either direction will under-predict in either direction, simply because they are
not perfect, and do not capture all the variation. Try drawing out the correlation as an ellipse to see the effect of regression,
compared to the perfect case of the straight line of r= 1.0
What diminishes in the presence of noise is the variability of the estimates, both the estimates of the height of the sons based
on that of their fathers, and vice versa. Regression toward the mean is a result of unsystematic, not systematic error (Stigler,1999).
Gigerenzer also looks at the supposed finding that people are over-confidence in predictions, and finds that it is another regression
to the mean problem.
Gigerenzer then goes on to consider that old favourite, that most people think they are better than average, which supposedly
cannot be the case, because average people are average.
Consider the finding that most drivers think they drive better than average. If better driving is interpreted as meaning fewer
accidents, then most drivers' beliefs are actually true. The number of accidents per person has a skewed distribution, and an
analysis of U.S. accident statistics showed that some 80% of drivers have fewer accidents than the average number of accidents
(Mousavi and Gigerenzer, 2011)
Then he looks at the classical demonstration of framing, that is to say, the way people appear to be easily swayed by how the
same facts are "framed" or presented to the person who has to make a decision.
A patient suffering from a serious heart disease considers high-risk surgery and asks a doctor about its prospects.
The doctor can frame the answer in two ways:
Positive Frame: Five years after surgery, 90% of patients are alive.
Negative Frame: Five years after surgery, 10% of patients are dead.
Should the patient listen to how the doctor frames the answer? Behavioral economists say no because both frames are logically
equivalent (Kahneman, 2011). Nevertheless, people do listen. More are willing to agree to a medical procedure if the doctor uses
positive framing (90% alive) than if negative framing is used (10% dead) (Moxeyet al., 2003). Framing effects challenge the assumption
of stable preferences, leading to preference reversals. Thaler and Sunstein (2008) who presented the above surgery problem, concluded
that "framing works because people tend to be somewhat mindless, passive decisionmakers" (p. 40)
Gigerenzer points out that in this particular example, subjects are having to make their judgements without knowing a key fact:
how many survive without surgery. If you know that you have a datum which is more influential. These are the sorts of questions patients
will often ask about, and discuss with other patients, or with several doctors. Furthermore, you don't have to spin a statistic.
You could simply say: "Five years after surgery, 90% of patients are alive and 10% are dead".
Gigerenzer gives an explanation which is very relevant to current discussions about the meaning of intelligence, and about the
power of intelligence tests:
In sum, the principle of logical equivalence or "description invariance" is a poor guide to understanding how human intelligence
deals with an uncertain world where not everything is stated explicitly. It misses the very nature of intelligence, the ability
to go beyond the information given (Bruner, 1973)
The key is to take uncertainty seriously, take heuristics seriously, and beware of the bias bias.
One important conclusion I draw from this entire paper is that the logical puzzles enjoyed by Kahneman, Tversky, Stanovich and
others are rightly rejected by psychometricians as usually being poor indicators of real ability. They fail because they are designed
to lead people up the garden path, and depend on idiosyncratic interpretations.
Critics of examinations of either intellectual ability or scholastic attainment are fond of claiming that the items are "arbitrary".
Not really. Scholastic tests have to be close to the curriculum in question, but still need to a have question forms which are simple
to understand so that the stress lies in how students formulate the answer, not in how they decipher the structure of the question.
Intellectual tests have to avoid particular curricula and restrict themselves to the common ground of what most people in a community
understand. Questions have to be super-simple, so that the correct answer follows easily from the question, with minimal ambiguity.
Furthermore, in the case of national scholastic tests, and particularly in the case of intelligence tests, legal authorities will
pore over the test, looking at each item for suspected biases of a sexual, racial or socio-economic nature. Designing an intelligence
test is a difficult and expensive matter. Many putative new tests of intelligence never even get to the legal hurdle, because they
flounder on matters of reliability and validity, and reveal themselves to be little better than the current range of assessments.
In conclusion, both in psychology and behavioural economics, some researchers have probably been too keen to allege bias in cases
where there are unsystematic errors, or no errors at all. The corrective is to learn about base rates, and to use natural frequencies
as a guide to good decision-making.
Don't bother boosting your IQ. Boost your understanding of natural frequencies.
Good concrete advice. Perhaps even more useful for those who need to explain things like this to others than for those seeking
to understand for themselves.
"intelligence deals with an uncertain world where not everything is stated explicitly. It misses the very nature of intelligence,
the ability to go beyond the information given (Bruner, 1973)"
"The key is to take uncertainty seriously, take heuristics seriously, and beware of the bias bias."
Actually I think this is an example of an increasingly common genre of malapropism, where the writer gropes for the right word,
finds one that is similar, and settles for that. The worst of it is that readers intuitively understand what was intended, and
then adopt the marginally incorrect usage themselves. That's perhaps how the world and his dog came to say "literally" when they
mean "figuratively". Maybe a topic for a future article?
In 2009 Google finished engineering a reverse search engine to find out what kind of searches people did most often. Seth Davidowitz
and Steven Pinker wrote a very fascinating/entertaining book using the tool called Everybody Lies
Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics
to sports to race to sex, gender, and more, all drawn from the world of big data. What percentage of white voters didn't vote
for Barack Obama because he's black? Does where you go to school effect how successful you are in life? Do parents secretly
favor boy children over girls? Do violent films affect the crime rate? Can you beat the stock market? How regularly do we lie
about our sex lives, and who's more self-conscious about sex, men or women?
Investigating these questions and a host of others, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers revelations that can help us understand
ourselves and our lives better. Drawing on studies and experiments on how we really live and think, he demonstrates in fascinating
and often funny ways the extent to which all the world is indeed a lab. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking
to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential – revealing biases deeply embedded
within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we're afraid to ask that might be essential to our
health – both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data every day, and its influence is multiplying. Everybody
Lies challenges us to think differently about how we see it and the world.
I shall treat this posting (for which many thanks, doc) as an invitation to sing a much-loved song: everybody should read Gigerenzer's
Reckoning with Risk. With great clarity it teaches what everyone ought to know about probability.
(It could also serve as a model for writing in English about technical subjects. Americans and Britons should study the English
of this German – he knows how, you know.)
Inspired by "The original Slovic study was based on 39 college students" I shall also sing another favorite song. Much of Psychology
is based on what small numbers of American undergraduates report they think they think.
" Gigerenzer points out that in this particular example, subjects are having to make their judgements without knowing a key fact:
how many survive without surgery. "
This one reminds of the false dichotomy. The patient has additional options! Like changing diet, and behaviours such as exercise,
elimination of occupational stress , etc.
The statistical outcomes for a person change when the person changes their circumstances/conditions.
@Tom
Welsh A disposition (conveyance) of an awkwardly shaped chunk out of a vast estate contained reference to "the slither of
ground bounded on or towards the north east and extending two hundred and twenty four meters or thereby along a chain link fence "
Not poor clients (either side) nor cheap lawyers. And who never erred?
Better than deliberately inserting "errors" to guarantee a stream of tidy up work (not unknown in the "professional" world)
in future.
Good article. 79% of gynaecologists fail a simple conditional probability test?! Many if not most medical research papers use
advanced statistics. Medical doctors must read these papers to fully understand their field. So, if medical doctors don't fully
understand them, they are not properly doing their job. Those papers use mathematical expressions, not English. Converting them
to another form of English, instead of using the mathematical expressions isn't a solution.
Regarding witnesses: When that jet crashed into Rockaway several years ago, a high percentage of witnesses said that they saw
smoke before the crash. But there was actually no smoke. The witnesses were adjusting what they saw to conform to their past experience
of seeing movie and newsreel footage of planes smoking in the air before a crash. Children actually make very good witnesses.
Regarding the chart. Missing, up there in the vicinity of cancer and heart disease. The third-leading cause of death. 250,000
per year, according to a 2016 Hopkins study. Medical negligence.
1. Lack of rationality. Experiments have shown that people's intuitions are systematically biased.
2. Stubbornness. Like visual illusions, biases are persistent and hardly corrigible by education.
3. Substantial costs. Biases may incur substantial welfare-relevant costs such as lower wealth, health, or happiness.
4. Biases justify governmental paternalism. To protect people from theirbiases, governments should "nudge" the public toward
better behavior.
Well the sad fact is that there's nobody in the position to protect "governments" from their own biases, and "scientists"
from theirs.
So, behind the smoke of all words and rationalisations, the law is unchanged: everyone strives to gain and exert as much power
as possible over as many others as possible. Most do that without writing papers to say it is right, others write papers,
others books. Anyway, the fundamental law would stay as it is even if all this writing labour was spared, wouldn't it?
But then another fundamental law, the law of framing all one's drives as moral and beneffective comes into play the papers
and the books are useful, after all.
An interesting article. However, I think that the only thing we have to know about how illogical psychiatry is this:
In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) asked all members attending its convention to vote on whether they believed
homosexuality to be a mental disorder. 5,854 psychiatrists voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM, and 3,810 to retain
it.
The APA then compromised, removing homosexuality from the DSM but replacing it, in effect, with "sexual orientation disturbance"
for people "in conflict with" their sexual orientation. Not until 1987 did homosexuality completely fall out of the DSM.
The article makes no mention of the fact that no "new science" was brought to support the resolution.
It appears that the psychiatrists were voting based on feelings rather than science. Since that time, the now 50+ genders have
been accepted as "normal" by the APA. My family has had members in multiple generations suffering from mental illness. None were
"cured". I know others with the same circumstances.
How does one conclude that being repulsed by the prime directive of every
living organism – reproduce yourself – is "normal"? That is not to say these people are horrible or evil, just not normal. How
can someone, who thinks (s)he is a cat be mentally ill, but a grown man thinking he is a female child is not?
Long ago a lawyer acquaintance, referring to a specific judge, told me that the judge seemed to "make shit up as he was going
along". I have long held psychiatry fits that statement very well.
Thank you for this article. I find the information about the interpretation of statistical data very interesting. My take on the
background of the article is this:
Here we have a real scientist fighting the nonsense spreading from (neoclassical) economics into other realms of science/academia.
Behavioral economics is a sideline by-product of neoclassical micro-economic theory. It tries to cope with experimental
data that is inconsistent with that theory.
Everything in neoclassical economics is a travesty. "Rational choice theory" and its application in "micro economics" is
false from the ground up. It basically assumes that people are gobbling up resources without plan, meaning or relevant circumstances.
Neoclassical micro economic theory is so false and illogical that I would not know where to start in a comment, so I should like
to refer to a whole book about it:
Keen, Steve: "Debunking economics".
As the theory is totally wrong it is really not surprising that countless experiments show that people do not behave the
way neoclassical theory predicts. How do economists react to this? Of course they assume that people are "irrational" because
they do not behave according to their studied theory. (Why would you ever change your basic theory because of some tedious facts?)
We live in a strange world in which such people have control over university faculties, journals, famous prizes. But at least
we have some scientists who defend their area of knowledge against the spreading nonsense produced by economists.
The title of the 1st ed. of Keen's book was "Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences" which was simply
a perfect title.
Declassified documents show President John Kennedy in 1963 warned Israeli Prime Minister
Levi Eshkol that U.S. support for the young country would be "seriously jeopardized" if Israel
did not allow the United States periodic inspections of Israel's nuclear reactor to make sure
Israel was not manufacturing weapons-grade nuclear material
:
A telegram from Kennedy dated July 4, 1963, congratulates Eshkol on assuming the prime
ministership after Ben Gurion's resignation and recounts talks between Kennedy and Ben Gurion
about inspections at the reactor in Dimona.
"As I wrote Mr. Ben Gurion, this government's commitment to and support of Israel could be
seriously jeopardized if it should be thought that we were unable to obtain reliable
information on a subject as vital to peace as Israel's effort in the nuclear field," the
telegram said.
The telegram was declassified in the 1990s but was not widely available until last week
when the National Security Archives, a project affiliated with George Washington University,
posted it on its website.
Kennedy who was otherwise close to Israel was furious with its ostensible nuclear weapons
program, fearing that the Soviet Union could use it as leverage to maintain its influence in
the Middle East.
Eshkol, caught off guard by the tone of the telegram, took seven weeks to assent, and the
twice-yearly inspections continued until 1969 when President Richard Nixon ended them.
Also revealed in the trove of documents the NSA posted is the origin of Israel's
oft-repeated credo that it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons -- a
deliberately ambiguous statement that left Israel room to develop the weapons, but not arm
them.
Shimon Peres, then the deputy defense minister who later would lead the country as prime
minister for two stints and then become president, improvised the statement when he was
surprised by Kennedy during a meeting Peres had scheduled with Kennedy's adviser, Myer
Feldman, who also functioned as the administration's liaison to Israel and the U.S. Jewish
community . Unbeknownst to Peres, Kennedy and Feldman had planned the "surprise"
encounter.
According to a Hebrew-language Foreign Ministry of Israel account of the April 2 meeting,
Kennedy asked Peres into the Oval Office for 30 minutes and questioned him on Israel's
nuclear capacity.
"You know that we follow very closely the discovery of any nuclear development in the
region," Kennedy said. "This could create a very dangerous situation. For this reason, we
monitor your nuclear effort. What could you tell me about this?"
Peres improvised, "I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons
to the region, and certainly we will not be the first."
"... For the United States, as for all warlike nations, military power has traditionally been the decisive factor determining whether it wins or loses its campaigns to capture or subdue other countries. World War II was the climax of that bloody history. ..."
"... It was not only the Dulles brothers, however, who brought the United States into the regime-change era in the early 1950s. Eisenhower himself was a fervent advocate of covert action. Officially his defense and security policy, which he called the "New Look," rested on two foundations, a smaller army and an increased nuclear arsenal. In reality, the "New Look" had a third foundation: covert action. Eisenhower may have been the last president to believe that no one would ever discover what he sent the CIA to do. With a soldier's commitment to keeping secrets, he never admitted that he had ordered covert regime-change operations, much less explained why he favored them. ..."
For most of history, seizing another country or territory was a straightforward proposition.
You assembled an army and ordered it to invade. Combat determined the victor. The toll in death
and suffering was usually horrific, but it was all done in the open. That is how Alexander
overran Persia and how countless conquerors since have bent weaker nations to their will.
Invasion is the old-fashioned way.
When the United States joined the race for empire at the end of the 19th century, that was
the tactic it used. It sent a large expeditionary force to the Philippines to crush an
independence movement, ultimately killing some 200,000 Filipinos. At the other end of the
carnage spectrum, it seized Guam without the loss of a single life and Puerto Rico with few
casualties. Every time, though, U.S. victory was the result of superior military power. In the
few cases when the United States failed, as in its attempt to defend a client regime by
suppressing Augusto Cesar Sandino's nationalist rebellion in Nicaragua during the 1920s and
30s, the failure was also the product of military confrontation. For the United States, as for
all warlike nations, military power has traditionally been the decisive factor determining
whether it wins or loses its campaigns to capture or subdue other countries. World War II was
the climax of that bloody history.
After that war, however, something important changed. The United States no longer felt free
to land troops on every foreign shore that was ruled by a government it disliked or considered
threatening. Suddenly there was a new constraint: the Red Army. If American troops invaded a
country and overthrew its government, the Soviets might respond in kind. Combat between
American and Soviet forces could easily escalate into nuclear holocaust, so it had to be
avoided at all costs. Yet during the Cold War, the United States remained determined to shape
the world according to its liking -- perhaps more determined than ever. The United States
needed a new weapon. The search led to covert action.
A news agency
During World War II the United States used a covert agency, the Office of Strategic
Services, to carry out clandestine actions across Europe and Asia. As soon as the war ended, to
the shock of many OSS agents, Harry Truman abolished it. He believed there was no need for such
an agency during peacetime. In 1947 he changed his mind and signed the National Security Act,
under which the Central Intelligence Agency was established. That marked the beginning of a new
era. Covert action replaced overt action as the principal means of projecting American power
around the world.
Truman later insisted that he had intended the CIA to serve as a kind of private global news
service. "It was not intended as a 'Cloak & Dagger Outfit!'" he wrote. "It was intended
merely as a center for keeping the President informed on what was going on in the world [not]
to act as a spy organization. That was never the intention when it was organized." Nonetheless
he did not hesitate to use the new CIA for covert action. Its first major campaign, aimed at
influencing the 1948 Italian election to ensure that pro-American Christian Democrats would
defeat their Communist rivals, was vast in scale and ultimately successful -- setting the
pattern for CIA intervention in every Italian election for the next two decades. Yet Truman
drew the line at covert action to overthrow governments.
The CIA's covert-action chief, Allen Dulles, twice proposed such projects. In both cases,
the target he chose was a government that had inflicted harm on corporations that he and his
brother, John Foster Dulles, had represented during their years as partners at the globally
powerful Wall Street law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell. In 1952 he proposed that the CIA
overthrow President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala, whose government was carrying out land reform
that affected the interests of United Fruit. By one account, State Department officials "hit
the roof" when they heard his proposal, and the diplomat David Bruce told him that the
Department "disapproves of the entire deal." Then Dulles proposed an operation to overthrow
Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran, who had nationalized his country's oil industry.
Secretary of State Dean Acheson flatly rejected it.
White House resistance to covert regime-change operations dissolved when Dwight Eisenhower
succeeded Truman at the beginning of 1953. Part of the new administration's enthusiasm came
from Allen Dulles, Washington's most relentless advocate of such operations, whom Eisenhower
named to head the CIA. The fact that he named Dulles's brother as secretary of State ensured
that covert operations would have all the necessary diplomatic cover from the State Department.
During the Dulles brothers' long careers at Sullivan & Cromwell, they had not only learned
the techniques of covert regime change but practiced them. They were masters at marshaling
hidden power in the service of their corporate clients overseas. Now they could do the same
with all the worldwide resources of the CIA.
It was not only the Dulles brothers, however, who brought the United States into the regime-change era in the early
1950s. Eisenhower himself was a fervent advocate of covert action. Officially his defense and security policy, which he called
the "New Look," rested on two foundations, a smaller army and an increased nuclear arsenal. In reality, the "New Look" had a
third foundation: covert action. Eisenhower may have been the last president to believe that no one would ever discover what he
sent the CIA to do. With a soldier's commitment to keeping secrets, he never admitted that he had ordered covert regime-change
operations, much less explained why he favored them. He would, however, have had at least two reasons.
Since Eisenhower had commanded Allied forces in Europe during World War II, he was aware of
the role that covert operations such as breaking Nazi codes had played in the war victory --
something few other people knew at the time. That would have given him an appreciation for how
important and effective such operations could be. His second reason was even more powerful. In
Europe he had had the grim responsibility of sending thousands of young men out to die. That
must have weighed on him. He saw covert action as a kind of peace project. After all, if the
CIA could overthrow a government with the loss of just a few lives, wasn't that preferable to
war? Like most Americans, Eisenhower saw a world of threats. He also understood that the threat
of nuclear war made overt invasions all but unthinkable. Covert action was his answer. Within a
year and a half of his inauguration, the CIA had deposed the governments of both Guatemala and
Iran. It went on to other regime-change operations from Albania to Cuba to Indonesia.
Successive presidents followed his lead.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was once again free to launch
direct military invasions. When it found a leader it didn't like -- such as Saddam Hussein or
Muammar Qaddafi -- it deposed him not through covert action, but by returning to the approach
it had used before World War II: the force of arms. Covert efforts to overthrow governments
have hardly ceased, as any Iranian or Venezuelan could attest. The era when covert action was
America's principal weapon in world affairs, however, is over. That makes this a good time to
look back.
Metrics for covert action
Books about the Cold War heyday of covert action era are a mini-genre. Lindsey A. O'Rourke's
contribution is especially valuable. Unlike many other books built around accounts of CIA
plots, Covert Regime Change takes a scholarly and quantitative approach. It provides
charts, graphs, and data sets. Meticulous analysis makes this not the quickest read of any book
on the subject, but certainly one of the best informed. Chapters on the disastrous effort to
overthrow communist rule in Eastern Europe, which cost the lives of hundreds of deceived
partisans, and on the covert-action aspects of America's doomed campaign in Vietnam are
especially trenchant.
O'Rourke identifies three kinds of covert operations that are aimed at securing perceived
friends in power and keeping perceived enemies out: offensive operations to overthrow
governments, preventive operations aimed at preserving the status quo, and hegemonic operations
aimed at keeping a foreign nation subservient. From 1947 to 1989, by her count, the United
States launched 64 covert regime-change operations, while using the overt tool -- war -- just
six times. She traces the motivations behind these operations, the means by which they were
carried out, and their effects. Her text is based on meticulous analysis of individual
operations. Some other books about covert action are rip-roaring yarns. This one injects a dose
of
rigorous analysis into a debate that is often based on emotion. That rigor lends credence to
her conclusions:
When policymakers want to conduct an operation that they know violates international
norms, they simply conduct it covertly to hide their involvement.
Covert missions typically have lower potential costs than their overt counterparts, but
they are also less likely to succeed.
Can interveners acquire reliable allies by covertly overthrowing foreign governments?
Overall, I find the answer is no. Covert regime changes seldom worked out as intended.
The new leader's opponents often accused him of being a U.S. puppet and, in some cases,
even took up arms against the regime. In fact, approximately half of the governments that
came to power in a U.S.-backed covert regime change during the Cold War were later violently
removed from power.
States targeted in a covert regime-change operation appear less likely to be democratic
afterward and more likely to experience civil war, adverse regime changes, or human-rights
abuses
Covert regime changes can have disastrous consequences for civilians within the target
states. Countries that were targeted by the United States for a covert regime change during
the Cold War were more likely to experience a civil war or an episode of mass killing
afterward.
Even nominally successful covert regime changes -- where U.S.-backed forces came to power
-- seldom delivered on their promise to improve interstate relations.
Although these conclusions are not new, they have rarely if ever been presented as the
result of such persuasive statistical evidence. Yet even this evidence seems unlikely to force
a reassessment of covert action as a way to influence or depose governments. It is an American
"addiction." The reasons are many and varied, but one of the simplest is that covert action
seems so easy. Changing an unfriendly country's behavior through diplomacy is a long, complex,
multi-faceted project. It takes careful thought and planning. Often it requires compromise.
Sending the CIA to overthrow a "bad guy" is far more tempting. It's the cheap and easy way out.
History shows that it often produces terrible results for both the target country and the
United States. To a military and security elite as contemptuous of history as America's,
however, that is no obstacle.
Although covert regime-change operations remain a major part of American foreign policy,
they are not as effective as they once were. The first victims of CIA overthrows, Prime
Minister Mossadegh and President Arbenz, did not understand the tools the CIA had at its
disposal and so were easy targets. They were also democratic, meaning that they allowed open
societies in which the press, political parties, and civic groups functioned freely -- making
them easy for the CIA to penetrate. Later generations of leaders learned from their ignorance.
They paid closer attention to their own security, and imposed tightly controlled regimes in
which there were few independent power centers that the CIA could manipulate.
If Eisenhower could come back to life, he would see the havoc that his regime-change
operations wreaked. After his overthrow of Mossadegh, Iran fell under royal dictatorship that
lasted a quarter-century and was followed by decades of rule by repressive mullahs who have
worked relentlessly to undermine American interests around the world. The operation he ordered
in Guatemala led to a civil war that killed 200,000 people, turning a promising young democracy
into a charnel house and inflicting a blow on Central America from which it has never
recovered. His campaign against Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, which included the
fabrication of a poison kit in a CIA laboratory, helped turn that country into one of the most
violent places on Earth.
How would Eisenhower respond to the long-term disasters that followed his covert action
victories? He might well have come up with a highly convincing way to excuse himself. It's now
clear, he could argue, that covert action to overthrow governments usually has terrible
long-term results -- but that was not clear in the 1950s. Eisenhower had no way of knowing that
even covert regime-change operations that seem successful at the time could have devastating
results decades later.
We today, however, do know that. The careful analysis that is at the center of Covert
Regime Change makes clearer than ever that when America sets out to change the world
covertly, it usually does more harm than good -- to itself as well as others. O'Rourke
contributes to the growing body of literature that clearly explains this sad fact of
geopolitics. The intellectual leadership for a national movement against regime-change
operations -- overt or covert -- is coalescing. The next step is to take this growing body of
knowledge into the political arena. Washington remains the province of those who believe not
only that the United States should try to reconfigure the world into an immense American sphere
of influence, but that that is an achievable goal. In the Beltway morass of pro-intervention
think tanks, members of Congress, and op-ed columnists, America's role in the world is usually
not up for debate. Now, as a presidential campaign unfolds and intriguing new currents surge
through the American body politic, is an ideal moment for that debate to re-emerge. If it does,
we may be surprised to see how many voters are ready to abandon the dogma of regime change and
wonder, with George Washington, "Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?"
This article was originally published in the June 2019 edition ofFuture of Freedom .
This post was written by: Stephen Kinzer Stephen Kinzer is an author and
newspaper reporter. He is a veteran New York Times correspondent who has reported from more
than 50 countries on five continents. His books include "Overthrow" and "All the Shah's Men".
Articles like this are what make Ray McGovern sound like the limited-hangout artist of the
century, this era's Ellsberg.
You've got Barr, who functioned as DCI Bush's mob lip ever since Iran/Contra, who calls in
Durham, renowned for CIA's CAT-illegal torture whitewash. No sane professional expects
anything but a moist and well-consolidated sigmoid coil of exculpation. Ray is not nearly
stupid enough to believe this is for real. Ray himself has said there are two CIAs. These
guys are from the criminal one, and Ray knows it.
Russiagate is not the fever dream of lone bad apple Brennan. Russiagate is an
institutional initiative of CIA. Current DCI Gina Haspel was in London marshalling the
foreign intelligence cutouts for the anti-Russian war propaganda that got repackaged for
publication as Dem oppo research.
Ray has brass balls. But wake me up when he goes up against the CIA DO like he went up
against DoS or Israeli navy pussies.
hetro , June 13, 2019 at 20:23
Yeah but this flagrant in your face we're-going-to-fuck-with-you people (again), and now
with this particular fantasy, is rapidly un-entangling for all to see (and who can resist the
naked lady in the sky?):
they used their intelligence assets to frame the whole thing, starting with Brennan's
fixation on the juicy Steele thing. And why? A little more on why? What's beyond their
repugnance for Trump, in the money angle? Is that coming out too?
Imagery of these people in prison garb behind bars sends a shiver through me.
David Otness , June 13, 2019 at 17:36
"Our long national nightmare is finally over ?"
For those too young, that was for Nixon finally having abdicated after a quite similar in
national intrigue episode, his own imperial Presidency caught up short in impeachment. The
difference being here, albeit from a scenario contrived for impeachment, it is the
prosecutors of a sitting President who are in the spotlight, if not the crosshairs, for
having contrived the plot to impeach.
The image of a meddling foreign power, the ultimate "other" as manifested in the
decades-now-long demonizing of anything Putin from the CIA -- his Slavic-Asian features, a
'thug,' 'his oligarchs,' (versus our billionaire and quite as lawless 'tycoon/plutocrats')
and the ludicrous Russian 'territorial expansion ambitions' (that from the by-far world's
largest country and "Pssst, you're thinking of Israel) makes this transition back into the
land of approximate reality of 2019 a different kettle of fish.
Meaning the U.S./CIA's easily ginned-up exploitable Cold War 2.0 recidivism is going to be
a tenacious monkey to shake from the country's collective back. It's been drilled in --
intentionally -- hard and deep. And that isolates and nullifies the Dem true-believers who
won't let go of it. And they continue to show they don't want to.
They are likely the leading edge of the Biden-Believers too; stuck in an unimaginative world
that craves the Obama era even as its worse (liberal-approved) elements come back to haunt
with these brooding personages like Brennan and the predatory Clapper-Thing foremost. Why
does that matter? Because they both committed public perjury under oath. And walked.
Unscathed. What does that say about the rule of law? And what does that say about those who
lionize them, all the while knowing of that perjury?
Most people in the U.S. despised Nixon in 1974, and the D and R political parties had not
reached the unconscionable and corrupt nadir at which we now find them in the pig-sty they
have wrought for themselves and drug us into. And despising Trump is something most find easy
enough, but his defenders are in the right on this if Brennan is exposed for such infamy.
"And such a beautiful fantasy Rachel Maddow had woven for us. Why did it ever have to end
?"
If Dems had been honest with themselves, had critically-thought for themselves, had not
fallen for the cheapest of tricks and been lucid-enough to see they were but foils in a mass
psy-op they'd be well assured of regaining the Presidency almost by default.
But, as Mark Twain rightfully observed: "It's much easer to fool people than to convince them
they've been fooled."
To have observed so many 'leftish' Dems claiming-to-be-progressives lionizing the likes of
Brennan, Comey, and Clapper in their televised role-playing as saviors was hard enough to
take, but then we come to the specter of Mueller who kept up the act in the face of knowing
he had nothing from the get-go, but did his best to obfuscate for 2 years; likely all the
while knowing this was Brennan's Brains' 'love child.'
Now even as the msm/House aspersions and egging-on continue post-Mueller report, these
same plotters have only further-enfurled themselves in the flag and beckon for the Dem party
faithful to drench themselves in further delusions; anything but confront the fact they've
been so thoroughly used and abused already by Clinton Inc and its wholly-owned DNC. Silly
humans. Mendacious masochists too.
And what of the nation as it spirals ever-downward to the drain ?
Bush would tell you to go shopping.
Obama would lay one of his patented "folks" on you. And tell you to never forget how
"exceptional" you really are. It's your 'participation' trophy, mah fellow Americans. You
swept the Apathy and Complacency divisions! Congratulations!
Jeff B , June 13, 2019 at 17:09
What the government (Deep State) values more than the truth or global stability is faith
in government. They cannot afford to have the reality of this attempted coup come to light
because normal, everyday citizens will be more appalled that this could happen more than it
was revealed. The investigation may reach the grass roots reality of what transpired but I
doubt the public will ever know. Even the hint of a conniving, dishonest Deep State will
cause ripples even the media can gloss over. (Have you seen any of the network news programs
do any story on the fabrication of WMD intelligence?)
Abe , June 13, 2019 at 17:00
"John Brennan has always been a failure as an intelligence officer even as he successfully
climbed the promotion ladder. He was the CIA's Chief of Station (COS) in Saudi Arabia when
the Khobar Towers were bombed, killing 19 Americans, a disaster which he incorrectly blamed
on the Iranians. He was deputy executive director on 9/11 and was complicit in that
intelligence failure. He subsequently served as CIA chief of staff when his boss George Tenet
concocted phony stories about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He also approved of the
Agency torture and rendition programs and was complicit in the destruction of Libya as well
as the attempt to do the same to Syria.
"Barack Obama wanted Brennan to be his CIA Director but his record with the Agency torture
and rendition programs made approval by the Senate problematical. Instead, he became the
president's homeland security advisor and deputy national security advisor for
counterterrorism, where he did even more damage, expanding the parameters of the death by
drone operations and sitting down with the POTUS for the Tuesday morning counterterrorism
sessions spent refining the kill list of American citizens.
"After Obama was re-elected in 2012, he was able to overcome objections and appoint
Brennan CIA Director. Conniving as ever, Brennan then ordered the Agency to read the
communications of the congressional committee then engaged in investigating CIA torture, the
very program that he had been complicit in. Brennan then denied to Congress under oath that
any such intramural spying had occurred, afterwards apologizing when the truth came out."
I think it is oversimplification. It was the intelligence agencies that controlled Hillary,
not vise versa. The interests of intelligence agencies and Hillary campaign coincided, that's why
she got as much support form CIA and FBI: Trump represented a central danger to flow of funds to
"national security parasites" so their reaction was predictable reaction of any large bureaucracy
of the possibility of losing power -- they circle the wagons.
Notable quotes:
"... But Steele's first overture on July 5, 2016, failed to capture the FBI's imagination. So the Clinton machine escalated. Steele, a British national, went to senior Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr -- whose wife, Nellie, also worked for Fusion -- to push his Trump dirt to the top of the FBI. ..."
"... Nellie Ohr likewise sent some of her own anti-Trump research augmenting Steele's dossier to the FBI through her husband. Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann used his connection to former FBI general counsel James Baker to dump Trump dirt at the FBI, too. ..."
"... In short, the Clinton machine flooded the FBI with pressure -- and bad intel -- until an investigation of Trump was started. The bureau and its hapless sheriff at the time, James Comey, eventually acquiesced with the help of such Clinton fans as then-FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. ..."
"... The Clinton team's dirty trick was as diabolical as it was brilliant. It literally used house money and a large part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus to carry out its political hit job on Trump. ..."
"... After two years of American discomfort, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent, it's time for the house to call in its IOU. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton owes us answers -- lots of them. So far, she has ducked them, even while doing many high-profile media interviews. ..."
"... Longtime Clinton adviser Douglas Schoen said Friday night on Fox News that it's time for Clinton to answer what she knew and when she knew it. ..."
"... John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists' misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports . ..."
During the combined two decades she served as a U.S. senator and secretary of State,
Hillary Clinton 's
patrons regularly donated to her family charity when they had official business pending before
America's most powerful political woman.
The pattern of political IOUs paid to the Clinton Foundation was so pernicious that the
State Department even tried to execute a special
agreement with the charity to avoid the overt appearance of "pay-to-play" policy.
Still, the money continued to flow by the millions of dollars, from foreigners and Americans
alike who were perceived to be indebted to the Clinton machine or in need of its help.
It's time for the American public to call in their own IOU on political transparency.
The reason? Never before -- until 2016 -- had the apparatus of a U.S. presidential candidate
managed to sic the weight of the FBI and U.S. intelligence community on a rival nominee during
an election, and by using a foreign-fed, uncorroborated political opposition research
document.
But Clinton's campaign, in concert with the Democratic Party and through their shared law
firm, funded Christopher Steele's unverified
dossier which, it turns out, falsely portrayed Republican Donald Trump as a treasonous asset colluding with
Russian President Vladimir Putin to hijack the U.S. election.
Steele went to the FBI to get an investigation started and then leaked the existence of the
investigation, with the hope of sinking Trump's presidential aspirations.
On its face, it is arguably the most devious political dirty trick in American history and
one of the most overt intrusions of a foreigner into a U.S. election.
It appears the Clinton machine knew that what it was doing was controversial. That's why it
did backflips to disguise the operation from Congress and the public, and in its Federal
Election Commission (FEC) spending reports.
Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC)
used the law firm of Perkins Coie to hire Glenn Simpson's research firm, Fusion GPS, which
then hired Steele -- several layers that obfuscated transparency, kept the operation off the
campaign's public FEC reports and gave the Clintons plausible deniability.
But Steele's first overture on July 5, 2016, failed to capture the FBI's imagination. So
the Clinton machine escalated. Steele, a British national, went to senior Department of Justice
official Bruce Ohr -- whose wife, Nellie, also worked for Fusion -- to push his Trump dirt to
the top of the FBI.
Nellie Ohr likewise sent some of her own anti-Trump research augmenting Steele's dossier
to the FBI through her husband. Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann
used his connection to former FBI general counsel James Baker to dump Trump dirt at the
FBI, too.
In short, the Clinton machine flooded the FBI with pressure -- and bad intel -- until an
investigation of Trump was started. The bureau and its hapless sheriff at the time, James
Comey, eventually acquiesced with the help of such Clinton fans as then-FBI employees Peter
Strzok and Lisa Page.
To finish the mission, Simpson and Steele leaked the existence of the FBI investigation to
the news media to ensure it would hurt Trump politically. Simpson even
called the leaks a "hail Mary" that failed.
Trump won, however. And now, thanks to special counsel Robert Mueller, we know the
Russia-collusion allegations relentlessly peddled by Team Clinton were bogus. But not before
the FBI used the Clinton-funded, foreign-created research to get a total of four warrants to
spy on the Trump campaign , transition and presidency from October 2016 through the
following autumn.
The Clinton team's dirty trick was as diabolical as it was brilliant. It literally used
house money and a large part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus to carry out its political hit
job on Trump.
After two years of American discomfort, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent,
it's time for the house to call in its IOU.
Hillary Clinton owes us answers -- lots of them. So far, she has ducked them, even while
doing many high-profile media interviews.
I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Longtime Clinton adviser Douglas Schoen said
Friday night on Fox News that it's time for Clinton to answer what she knew and when she knew
it.
Here are 10 essential questions:
Please identify each person in your campaign, including Perkins Coie lawyers, who were
aware that Steele provided information to the FBI or State Department, and when they learned
it.
Describe any information you and your campaign staff received, or were briefed on, before
Election Day that was derived from the work of Simpson, Steele, Fusion GPS, Nellie Ohr or
Perkins Coie and that tried to connect Trump, his campaign or his business empire with
Russia.
Did you or any senior members of your campaign, including lawyers such as Michael
Sussmann, have any contact with the CIA, its former Director John Brennan, current Director
Gina Haspel, James Baker, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page or former FBI Deputy Director Andrew
McCabe?
Describe all
contacts your campaign had with Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal concerning Trump,
Russia and Ukraine.
Describe all contacts you and your campaign had
with DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa, the Ukraine government, the Ukraine Embassy in the
United States or the U.S. Embassy in Kiev concerning Trump, Russia or former Trump campaign
chairman Paul Manafort.
Why did your campaign and the Democratic Party make a concerted effort to portray Trump as
a Russian asset?
Given that investigations by a House committee, a Senate committee and a special
prosecutor all have concluded there isn't evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, do you regret
the actions by your campaign and by Steele, Simpson and Sussmann to inject these unfounded
allegations into the FBI, the U.S. intelligence community and the news media?
Hillary Clinton owes us answers to each of these questions. She should skip the lawyer-speak
and answer them with the candor worthy of an elder American stateswoman.
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has
exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists'
misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political
corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at
The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports .
"... Despite special counsel Robert Mueller clearing Trump of collusion with Russia in 2016, Brennan still maintains the counterintelligence operation against the Republican nominee's campaign was more than justified. ..."
"... "I was there in the summer of '16 and it was very well predicated," the former intelligence official told MSNBC's Deadline host Nicole Wallace last month. "To launch this counterintelligence investigation about what the Russians were doing to interfere in our election and how among American citizens might have been working with them." ..."
"... Eventually 0bama will be asked when he authorized the spying on the 2012 election, and you can bet 0bama will toss Brennan under that proverbial bus. 0bama will have to answer the question, because there is a massive paper trail of evidence. ..."
"... President Trump weathered the Russia-Russia-Russia hoax storm. Those slow-moving wheels of real justice are finally starting to turn. ..."
Former CIA Director John Brennan has once against spoken out against President Donald
Trump, describing him in a recent interview as a "pathological deceiver" who "rankles" him "to
no end."
Speaking to the Irish Times over the weekend, Brennan discussed what he claims is the root of his
harsh and repeated criticism of President Trump. The longtime Deep Stater's attacks, he claims,
aren't driven as much by president's policy prescriptions but by his character.
"So my beef with Donald Trump is not because he has done some very foolish things –
like reneging on the Iran nuclear deal, or how he has handled the North Korea situation –
I find that many of his policies are deeply flawed and are purely tactical to give him a
political bounce," he
told interviewer Suzanne Lynch, the Times' Washington Correspondent.
"But if that was the only problem I had with him, I would be silent. What really just
rankles me to no end is his dishonesty, his lack of ethics and principles and character, the
way he demeans and degrades and denigrates individuals or institutions of government, what he
has done and said about the FBI and CIA and the former leadership, the fact that he wilfully
misleads not just the American people but the world," the former Obama spy chief
continued .
Brennan concluded his thoughts on Trump by
stating : "He is a pathological deceiver and that lack of ethical, principled behaviour is
something that I never thought I would see in the president of the United States who is the
most powerful person in the world, who should serve as a role model to all Americans.
Brennan's remarks come as his conduct during the U.S. government's Russia investigation is
under review by the Department of Justice. Last month, President Trump directed several federal
departments and agencies to cooperate with Attorney General William Barr's examination of the
Russia probe's origins, as well as the declassification of intelligence related to it.
Despite special counsel Robert Mueller clearing Trump of collusion with Russia in 2016,
Brennan still maintains the counterintelligence operation against the Republican nominee's
campaign was more than justified.
"I was there in the summer of '16 and it was very well predicated," the former
intelligence official
told MSNBC's Deadline host Nicole Wallace last month. "To launch this counterintelligence
investigation about what the Russians were doing to interfere in our election and how among
American citizens might have been working with them."
Brennan is worried about what President Trump is doing with the metric-tons of
#Spygate & #Obamagate evidence.
Eventually 0bama will be asked when he authorized the spying on the 2012 election, and you
can bet 0bama will toss Brennan under that proverbial bus. 0bama will have to answer the
question, because there is a massive paper trail of evidence.
They never thought Hillary could lose. Mueller's special counsel, was only a temporary
cover-up. President Trump weathered the Russia-Russia-Russia hoax storm. Those slow-moving
wheels of real justice are finally starting to turn.
Scandal?
JFK went against the flow of the good old boys and their networks.
'Bay of Pigs' was a disaster but did JFK really have that much input into the planning of
that mess?
He stopped it, eventually, probably because he thought it might escalate into a full blown
war with Russia.
He did some amazing stuff during the Cuban crises.
He kept his rabid war hawks at bay until a resolution was worked out with Russia.
Khrushchev did should be thanked too by keeping his military maniacs leashed too.
What's with the tea baggers redefining history?
You guys have started burning books over there yet? and
"... Other than it is against the law for CIA to spy in the US. It is FBI's job. And Brennan lied to Congress under oath, a crime for which Clinton was impeached. And the fact that if they are coneding this crime, they must've been caught on something even bigger. ..."
"... They are way out of control. They need to take a step back and reevaluate their reason for being and their goals. You can't protect the people if you see them as the enemy. ..."
"... The intelligence agencies are civil servants who need to be reigned in whenever they exceed the instructions given to them by their civilian bosses. ..."
"... And the CIA torture? ..."
"... Who ever was over the hacking of the Senator's computer and the Senator's staffers computers should be invited to leave. If that extends all the way up to Brennan, so be it. ..."
"... Unfortunately, that corrective action has to come from those who are perpetrating these crimes in order for it to be legal. It's the classic Catch-22 of political corruption. ..."
"... "They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretences, and all of this they hail as the construction of empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace." ― Tacitus (AD56 to after AD117) The Agricola and the Germania ..."
"... The problem with political power is that it proves to be a magnet to those with sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies and they are easily corrupted. ..."
"... Back in the day, the people of Russia knew that what they were being fed was propaganda, in the US and the UK we thought it was news. ..."
"... Intelligence Agencies have their own Agenda. The CIA spy on everyone including the Senate it seems. Meanwhile the Israeli Intelligence Agencies spy on many people Including the USA,the very people who give them the money... ..."
"... If the CIA are Spying on the Senate you have to ask the Question who are they working for ? ..."
There should be no discussion about this! However just like Mockingbird, National Students Ass., Tailwind, PBSUCCESS,and so many
others, they will stall until they get it dropped from the media and we will forget again.
John Brennan's next job should be in a orange jump suit earning pennies and hour.
But we all know that this will never happen. Brennan is the right hand of the commander and chief of death, destruction and torture.
and has been for a long time. This is the work of evil, plain and simple.
How can you have any faith or trust in a government like this? It's one damn thing after another. The Executive branch, the Congress,
the high courts, the Justice Dept. are all corrupt. Laws are broken, constitutional protections are laughed at, we are constantly
being spied on. No charges are brought. Nobody goes to jail.
A minor detail?
The CIA and security services have every right to know who is who on all and every politician and their staff.
That's why we are safe. :-)
Other than it is against the law for CIA to spy in the US. It is FBI's job.
And Brennan lied to Congress under oath, a crime for which Clinton was impeached. And the fact that if they are coneding this
crime, they must've been caught on something even bigger.
Sure, everything else is just fine. As far as we know, that is.
They are way out of control. They need to take a step back and reevaluate their reason for being and their goals.
You can't protect the people if you see them as the enemy.
So it appears that some in Congress will get upset if a Executive agency misuses its powers? Are these the same folks who seem
to be okay with the IRS focus on Conservative 501(c)(3) applicants?
Who ever was over the hacking of the Senator's computer and the Senator's staffers computers should be invited to leave. If that
extends all the way up to Brennan, so be it.
Unfortunately, that corrective action has to come from those who are perpetrating these crimes in order for it to be legal. It's
the classic Catch-22 of political corruption.
Don't fire Brennan. Arrest him and charge him violating the prohibition against domestic surveillance, lying under oath and,
arguably, treason. Maybe there is space in Guantanamo for him to reflect upon the meaning of the Constitution and the rule of
law.
And the reason that we never hear of these supposed 'facts' is what? That we're all too dumb to know? Dumbing down America is
getting mighty costly of late, n'est-pas?
Just because they say you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Remember: America is not a democracy. That's a
sideshow. It's an oligarchy and don't you forget it.
You can always trust some govts/agencies/people to always take the wrong path/back door. It would simply never occur to them to
take the right one. This is who they are.
Staffs carry out directives. I'm not buying that staff had cause to go looking otherwise.
Feinstein has problems with being spied on, yet heads the Intelligence Committee who for several years has been authorizing
spying on - well, everybody.
Feinstein shouldn't worry about spying, unless she's doing something wrong. Isn't that the proposition?
So why is it scandalous for public officials in our supposed western liberal democracies to spy on officials in other agencies,
and deserving of an apology, but it's Okay for officials to spy on fellow citizens?
What might a government of the people that does not trust the people it governs be properly called?
I would like to point out that beyond what is touted in the press as "the story" the nature of these sorts of things can remain
hidden for many years. Recent events in Germany and in Washington, if viewed from a different perspective may be connected. In
the past when such revelations come to light it is resultant from security issues that are of such magnitude that those tasked
with intelligence responsibilities remain in power because they are simply doing their job and are doing so at the command of
elected officials, who when made aware of covert matters go all quiet and allow the chips to fall as they may. Seldom does the
public ever hear of the actual facts in a timely way, and by the time that does happens they have long since moved on to more
pressing matters.
Has any politician asked them to explain why they spied, in terms of their motivations ? It seems the 'why' is surely more damaging
than the act of spying itself?
What else is new!...Corruption / deceit / fraud / theft, at the highest level of tax payers money is being conducted..War criminals
being sponsored by their own corrupt government ministers / agencies, to create carnage, by divide & rule tactics...Its a fatal
backfiring failure / disaster which is causing their downfall.
Not surprising...All these out of control "rogue agencies" I.E. CIA / NSA / MI5 / MI6 / GCHG / MOSAD, must be brought to book
for their corrupt / deceitful / fraudulent workings...Their most senior officers are involved in a worldwide cover up into illegal
involvement of creating criminal wars around the world, by using spying techniques upon government institutions & citizens...The
recent scandal of phone tapping / voice mail / email interception, goes to show the lengths they are prepared to conduct / cover
up their own war criminality acts. They are the REAL terrorists !!
"They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by
ambition, if poor They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretences, and all of this they hail as the construction of
empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace."
― Tacitus (AD56 to after AD117) The Agricola and the Germania
They'll even eat their own... How this behaviour doesn't equate to criminal actions is part of the disgrace. The US government
have morphed in to a dystopian movement.
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA by Webster Griffin Tarpley (ISBN: 9780930852375) another good read and makes a plausible case
for a coup carried out on America.
In the reign of Elizabeth 1st a blacksmith was executed for treason because he was overhead saying that he believed the uncrowned
King Edward V was still alive.
A quick search on Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's Secretary of State will reveal for just how long and how sophisticated
state spying on state has been.
Yes, they don't like others to be in a position to know of their venality, their sexual deviances and assorted other human failings.
Else that knowledge be used to control them...............
The problem of how the rest of the world views the actions of the US is exacerbated by the seeming inability or disinterest of
its citizens in doing anything about it.
Admittedly, a frustration shared by many citizens/subjects in Western countries, that pretend to be functioning democracies but
are in fact anything but.
The problem with political power is that it proves to be a magnet to those with sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies and they
are easily corrupted.
We are politically and economically very poorly educated and are daily fed propaganda and mind filling mush by media that are
'on message'.
The media ownership needs to be broken up but politicians, corporations and the media are one self serving body and would resist
that and have the power to do so.
Back in the day, the people of Russia knew that what they were being fed was propaganda, in the US and the UK we thought it
was news.
Intelligence Agencies have their own Agenda.
The CIA spy on everyone including the Senate it seems.
Meanwhile the Israeli Intelligence Agencies spy on many people Including the USA,the very people who give them the money...
(Out of Control is the thought that springs to mind)
If the CIA are Spying on the Senate you have to ask the Question who are they working for ? Is it the American Government ? Is
it the American Military? Is it The American Citizen ? Or are we seeing the henchmen of the illuminati in action here !
Their fingers seem to be in every pie and no one seems to be able to control them .
"... A sincere question: who is running the CIA and on whose behalf? ..."
"... They consider us the people, their enemy. We are the 'enemy within', because as we become increasingly aware of our politicians' criminality any action we take may threaten the status quo. ..."
"... Just because Americans don't tend to care about anything that happens beyond their own borders doesn't mean the rest of the world can live with the same blissful ignorance. ..."
"... The NSA scandal has made us realize that the US regards us as second-rated citizens who are nondeserving of the 'special protections' that Anglo-speaking countries do. ..."
"... This is extremely telling about Obama's continued failure to discern good character in his aides and cabinet. His administration has been a shambles largely due to his inability to surround himself with good people. ..."
"... I guess so, as we all know that the CIA always tried to silent war opponents. This had been largely documented about Vietnam opponents to the War on US soil. ..."
"... The CIA is now a discredited organization run by proven liars. When will Congress do something about it? Answer -- never. They are all being blackmailed. ..."
"... The CIA is completely out of control. This begs the question, as to why do, or should, American citizen vote for candidates when those candidates are effectively being 'managed' and spied on by people in the CIA. Senators in both houses are not making 'decisions' the CIA is. ..."
"... Yes and the only politician who has called for the abolition of the CIA is Ron Paul. ..."
"... The NSA isn't hindering your movements as you are not a danger to the status quo. You can keep getting blasted at your BBQ's and coming online to defend the indefensible, you're not a threat. But it's not about you. It's about the people who are in a position to challenge the system. This can include anti-war activists, judges, politicians and journalists. ..."
They consider us the people, their enemy. We are the 'enemy within', because as we become increasingly aware of our politicians'
criminality any action we take may threaten the status quo.
leaders haven't been voted into office for a while now - they're rigged into office - from the lowly dog catcher to the president
- and its happening all over the world.
If you take the easy way now, you will take the easy way in the future. This not a sandlot baseball game here. These are high-
powered people , who are responsible for matters extremely operant to the people of our country, and it must be admitted, the
world.
To simply brush off these serious breaches of Government procedure (law) would serve to perpetuate the Executive Branch intrusions
into the business of the Legislative Branch.
Separation of the powers is a time-honored method of setting up a government that has kept us 'moving along' for quite
awhile now. Most of its problems stem from the populace placing too much trust in their elected officials .
It is everyone's responsibility to collectively maintain our government. It was never the intention of our founders that our
leaders become reclusive despots: from today's vantage point, we can see this. It is a short walk to realize where the blame should
be laid. Up and on your way to no future.
Just because Americans don't tend to care about anything that happens beyond their own borders doesn't mean the rest of the
world can live with the same blissful ignorance.
The NSA scandal has made us realize that the US regards us as second-rated citizens who are nondeserving of the 'special
protections' that Anglo-speaking countries do.
I find it absolutely shocking that this guy's dismissal is still debatable. Should be a no-brainer is any democracy
In the UK and USA these spooks backed by politicians and civil servants are getting way out of hand. Having the technology to
do things doesn't provide the need or right to do such things. They are getting to the point where they are "protecting" us from
the very people and system they have become.
although the White House indicated its support for a man who has been one of Barack Obama's most trusted security aides.
This is extremely telling about Obama's continued failure to discern good character in his aides and cabinet. His administration
has been a shambles largely due to his inability to surround himself with good people.
I guess so, as we all know that the CIA always tried to silent war opponents. This had been largely documented about Vietnam
opponents to the War on US soil.
They're all fuc@#$g rogue. Power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely. Who polices the police? No one apparently. They
and all their UK counterparts will walk away from this unscathed. If the heat gets a little too warm just play your joker, 'Terrorism'.
The CIA is now a discredited organization run by proven liars. When will Congress do something about it? Answer -- never.
They are all being blackmailed.
Your state can imprison anyone it wants, for as long as it wants, without having to justify it in any way... hell they are not
even required to let relatives know. That is a police state. The US is operating what effectively are concentration camps all
over the place, Guantanamo being the flagship.
The CIA is completely out of control. This begs the question, as to why do, or should, American citizen vote for candidates when
those candidates are effectively being 'managed' and spied on by people in the CIA. Senators in both houses are not making 'decisions'
the CIA is.
Quite how the CIA, White House or any other government body think that they have any credibility regarding any matter, is amazing.
I JUST PUT A LIST OF QUESTIONS ON MY TIME LINE THIS SHOULD KEEP THE SPY NETWORK BUSY FOR A WHILE ! BUT THEY NEVER DO ANYTHING
THAT MAKES SENSE ANYWAY ; THEY ONLY HAVE A 30 BILLION DOLLAR BUDGET ; BUT CANNOT TELL US WHAT HAPPENED TO MH370 MALAYSIAN AIRPLANE
! WOW ! SOME SPY NETWORK ! IT 'S EASY FOR THEM TO SCREW WITH US ; BECAUSE WE ARE EVERYDAY MARKS !
If the United States government doesn't even govern by popular mandate, it certainly won't give a fuck about anyone's respect,
dear fellow internet commentator.
The penalties for lying under oath are quite strict and can include up to 5 years of prison time. But nobody is willing to go
after these guys, they have too much information on too many people. The day the US congress voted for the patriot act was the
last day of their democracy.
What exactly does a CIA member have to do to get arrested, prosecuted and convicted for an action inside the USA?
It is not spying on Congress. It it spying on the Supreme court, or killing a Senator? Do they walk away free after assassinating
their own president? Do they need to do more?
The NSA isn't hindering your movements as you are not a danger to the status quo. You can keep getting blasted at your BBQ's and
coming online to defend the indefensible, you're not a threat. But it's not about you. It's about the people who are in a position
to challenge the system. This can include anti-war activists, judges, politicians and journalists.
Everyone who matters can be
kept inline with blackmail and for public figures it can be the smallest thing. Recently, during a primary, a candidate lost as
questions were raised about the fact he had checked in the a mental care facility. He probably had a breakdown and needed to be
observed for a couple of days. This piece of information would be easy to pick up with the various NSA programmes.
If this candidate
had the same views as you, this little fact would not have been released but I believe he was a defender of your constitution
and that could cause problems for the criminal regime you now live under.
Snooping is poison in a democracy. Your system was built so that it had self correction and could hence adapt to new situations
and constantly improve. This served Americans well for many years, but it has ended.
Feinstein and the word "hope" do not belong in one and the same sentence. She along with her fellow conspirators in the intelligence
committee are the ones that have been green-lighting this fascism for years. It's like expecting John McCain to repeal the Patriot
Act.
People like Feinstein are chosen to oversee mass surveillance for the simple reason that they are old, completely technologically
illiterates who can be easily fooled or if need be blackmailed through their extensive business empires
.
Yeah and let's take a look at the CIA's backing for Operation Gladio in post WW2 Europe. Yeah, you Americans were there but you
certainly weren't saving lives or making the aftermath bearable for the victims.
Notable quotes:
"... Don't fire Brennan. Arrest him and charge him violating the prohibition against domestic surveillance, lying under oath and, arguably, treason. Maybe there is space in Guantanamo for him to reflect upon the meaning of the Constitution and the rule of law. ..."
"... "What might a government of the people that does not trust the people it governs be properly called?" ..."
There should be no discussion about this! However just like Mockingbird, National Students Ass., Tailwind, PBSUCCESS,and so many
others, they will stall until they get it dropped from the media and we will forget again.
Get Smart Amarica
How can you have any faith or trust in a government like this? It's one damn thing after another. The Executive branch, the Congress,
the high courts, the Justice Dept. are all corrupt. Laws are broken, constitutional protections are laughed at, we are constantly
being spied on. No charges are brought. Nobody goes to jail. But Snowden is a traitor for revealing the truth.
A minor detail? The CIA and security services have every right to know who is who on all and every politician and their
staff.
That's why we are safe. :-)
Other than it is against the law for CIA to spy in the US. It is FBI's job. And Brennan lied to Congress under oath, a crime for
which Clinton was impeached. And the fact that if they are coneding this crime, they must've been caught on something even bigger.
Sure, everything else is just fine. As far as we know, that is.
They are way out of control. They need to take a step back and reevaluate their reason for being and their goals. You can't protect
the people if you see them as the enemy.
So it appears that some in Congress will get upset if a Executive agency misuses its powers? Are these the same folks who seem
to be okay with the IRS focus on Conservative 501(c)(3) applicants?
Um, no, Trevor Alfred, "the REAL terrorists" are still the folks who deliberately bomb civilians in areas where peace is supposed
to exist. The intelligence agencies are civil servants who need to be reigned in whenever they exceed the instructions given to
them by their civilian bosses.
Who ever was over the hacking of the Senator's computer and the Senator's staffers computers should be invited to leave. If that
extends all the way up to Brennan, so be it.
Unfortunately, that corrective action has to come from those who are perpetrating these crimes in order for it to be legal. It's
the classic Catch-22 of political corruption.
Don't fire Brennan. Arrest him and charge him violating the prohibition against domestic surveillance, lying under oath and,
arguably, treason. Maybe there is space in Guantanamo for him to reflect upon the meaning of the Constitution and the rule of
law.
And the reason that we never hear of these supposed 'facts' is what? That we're all too dumb to know? Dumbing down America is
getting mighty costly of late, n'est-pas?
Just because they say you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Remember: America is not a democracy. That's a
sideshow. It's an oligarchy and don't you forget it.
You can always trust some govts/agencies/people to always take the wrong path/back door. It would simply never occur to them to
take the right one. This is who they are.
Staffs carry out directives. I'm not buying that staff had cause to go looking otherwise.
Feinstein has problems with being spied on, yet heads the Intelligence Committee who for several years has been authorizing
spying on - well, everybody.
Feinstein shouldn't worry about spying, unless she's doing something wrong. Isn't that the proposition?
So why is it scandalous for public officials in our supposed western liberal democracies to spy on officials in other agencies,
and deserving of an apology, but it's Okay for officials to spy on fellow citizens?
What might a government of the people that does not trust the people it governs be properly called?
I would like to point out that beyond what is touted in the press as "the story" the nature of these sorts of things can remain
hidden for many years. Recent events in Germany and in Washington, if viewed from a different perspective may be connected. In
the past when such revelations come to light it is resultant from security issues that are of such magnitude that those tasked
with intelligence responsibilities remain in power because they are simply doing their job and are doing so at the command of
elected officials, who when made aware of covert matters go all quiet and allow the chips to fall as they may. Seldom does the
public ever hear of the actual facts in a timely way, and by the time that does happens they have long since moved on to more
pressing matters.
Has any politician asked them to explain why they spied, in terms of their motivations ? It seems the 'why' is surely more damaging
than the act of spying itself?
What else is new!...Corruption / deceit / fraud / theft, at the highest level of tax payers money is being conducted..War criminals
being sponsored by their own corrupt government ministers / agencies, to create carnage, by divide & rule tactics...Its a fatal
backfiring failure / disaster which is causing their downfall.
Not surprising...All these out of control "rogue agencies" I.E. CIA / NSA / MI5 / MI6 / GCHG / MOSAD, must be brought to book
for their corrupt / deceitful / fraudulent workings...Their most senior officers are involved in a worldwide cover up into illegal
involvement of creating criminal wars around the world, by using spying techniques upon government institutions & citizens...The
recent scandal of phone tapping / voice mail / email interception, goes to show the lengths they are prepared to conduct / cover
up their own war criminality acts. They are the REAL terrorists !!
"They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by
ambition, if poor They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretences, and all of this they hail as the construction of
empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace."
― Tacitus (AD56 to after AD117) The Agricola and the Germania
They'll even eat their own... How this behaviour doesn't equate to criminal actions is part of the disgrace. The US government
have morphed in to a dystopian movement.
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA by Webster Griffin Tarpley (ISBN: 9780930852375) another good read and makes a plausible case
for a coup carried out on America.
In the reign of Elizabeth 1st a blacksmith was executed for treason because he was overhead saying that he believed the uncrowned
King Edward V was still alive.
A quick search on Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's Secretary of State will reveal for just how long and how sophisticated
state spying on state has been.
The problem of how the rest of the world views the actions of the US is exacerbated by the seeming inability or disinterest of
its citizens in doing anything about it. Admittedly, a frustration shared by many citizens/subjects in Western countries,
that pretend to be functioning democracies but are in fact anything but.
The problem with political power is that it proves to be a magnet to those with sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies and they
are easily corrupted.
We are politically and economically very poorly educated and are daily fed propaganda and mind filling mush by media that are
'on message'.
The media ownership needs to be broken up but politicians, corporations and the media are one self serving body and would resist
that and have the power to do so.
Back in the day, the people of Russia knew that what they were being fed was propaganda, in the US and the UK we thought it
was news.
Intelligence Agencies have their own Agenda. The CIA spy on everyone including the Senate it seems. Meanwhile the
Israeli Intelligence Agencies spy on many people Including the USA, the very people who give them the money... (Out of Control
is the thought that springs to mind)
If the CIA are Spying on the Senate you have to ask the Question who are they working for ? Is it the American Government ? Is
it the American Military? Is it The American Citizen ? Or are we seeing the henchmen of the illuminati in action here !
Their fingers seem to be in every pie and no one seems to be able to control them .
"... The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, issued an extraordinary apology to leaders of the US Senate intelligence committee on Thursday, conceding that the agency employees spied on committee staff and reversing months of furious and public denials. ..."
"... Brennan acknowledged that an internal investigation had found agency security personnel transgressed a firewall set up on a CIA network, which allowed Senate committee investigators to review agency documents for their landmark inquiry into CIA torture. ..."
"... CIA spokesman Dean Boyd acknowledged that agency staff had improperly monitored the computers of committee staff members, who were using a network the agency had set up, called RDINet. "Some CIA employees acted in a manner inconsistent with the common understanding reached between [the committee] and the CIA in 2009 regarding access to the RDINet," he said. ..."
"... If its considered 'extraordinary' that a man apologize for his actions, then that man is either a sociopath, a criminal, or both. ..."
"... The CIA has now clearly suborned the executive. Obama now works for the CIA. He's spineless, Obama. He is craven, before the very same intelligence agencies that are supposed to work for him. ..."
"... You people are so deluded. You think it matter who you vote for. Newsflash - the CIA killed JFK. The CIA runs America. ..."
"... American foreign policy is the same no matter which party is in power. They are all screwing you six ways from Sunday. ..."
"... If America was a just state, that would happen. But America is a neo-fascist - or more properly, corporatist - state. ..."
"... The NSA/CIA in recent hearings forcefully explained to the Judiciary Committee in Congress that they only spy on foreigners and not US citizens. I guess Congressmen/women are not US citizens and must be terrorists. ..."
"... 'The CIA spying on the people supposedly in charge of the CIA' sounds as if they are reaping what they sowed... ..."
CIA director apologises for improper conduct of agency staff One senator calls on John Brennan to resign in wake of scandal
The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, issued an extraordinary apology to leaders of the US Senate
intelligence committee on Thursday, conceding that the agency employees spied on committee staff and reversing months of furious
and public denials.
Brennan acknowledged that an internal investigation had found agency security personnel transgressed a firewall set up on
a CIA network, which allowed Senate committee investigators to review agency documents for their landmark inquiry into CIA torture.
Among other things, it was revealed that agency officials conducted keyword searches and email searches on committee staff while
they used the network.
The admission brings Brennan's already rocky tenure at the head of the CIA under renewed question. One senator on the panel said
he had lost confidence in the director, although the White House indicated its support for a man who has been one of Barack Obama's
most trusted security aides.
CIA spokesman Dean Boyd acknowledged that agency staff had improperly monitored the computers of committee staff members,
who were using a network the agency had set up, called RDINet. "Some CIA employees acted in a manner inconsistent with the common
understanding reached between [the committee] and the CIA in 2009 regarding access to the RDINet," he said.
Asked if Brennan had or would offer his resignation, a different CIA spokesman, Ryan Trapani, replied: "No."
Feinstein said the vindication, from CIA inspector general David Buckley, and Brennan's apology were "positive first steps," suggesting
that the director had further work to do before she would consider the matter closed.
She stopped short of calling for Brennan's resignation. But her committee colleague, Democrat Mark Udall of Colorado, said Brennan
should go. "I have no choice but to call for the resignation of CIA director John Brennan," Udall said after a briefing on the inspector
general's findings.
"The CIA unconstitutionally spied on Congress by hacking into Senate intelligence committee computers. This grave misconduct is
not only illegal, but it violates the US constitution's requirement of separation of powers. These offenses, along with other errors
in judgment by some at the CIA, demonstrate a tremendous failure of leadership, and there must be consequences.
Mark Udall (@MarkUdall)
. @CIA IG rprt shows John Brennan misled public, whose interests I have
championed. I will fight for change at the CIA: http://t.co/uQVsvV43nB
Boyd, the CIA spokesman, said Brennan has asked a former committee member, Evan Bayh, a former Indiana Democratic senator, to
lead an "accountability board" reviewing Buckley's report and to advise Brennan on next steps.
That advice, Boyd said, "could include potential disciplinary measures and/or steps to address systemic issues."
Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, a longtime observer of the CIA, called its Thursday statement a "conciliatory
gesture" to the committee's leaders. "If Senator Feinstein is satisfied with the apology then the affair is effectively over. If
she contends there was a fundamental breach that cannot be corrected with a mere apology then some further action might be needed,"
Aftergood said.
Feinstein, in her dramatic speech on the Senate floor in March, said the agency breached the firewall to obstruct the committee's
investigation of the agency's torture of post-9/11 terrorism detainees, a years-long effort expected to be partially declassified
in the coming days or weeks. That investigation was itself prompted by a different coverup: the destruction of videotapes of brutal
interrogations by a senior official, Jose Rodriguez.
"In March, the committee chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, accused the agency of violating constitutional boundaries
by spying on the Senate."
Aahahahhahhhhahaaa. What a hypocrite hag. She must have something to hide if she doesn't like being spied on. I think that
there should be a full investigation into what Dianne...if that is even her real name, has been hiding and bring it to the light
of day.
Good point, but wrong way round imho. The CIA has now clearly suborned the executive. Obama now works for the CIA. He's spineless, Obama. He is craven, before the very same intelligence agencies that are supposed to work for him.
Just imagine how the laugh at him, speak about him, behind his back. No wonder Putin treats him like a fool.
It is time to put all the DemPublicanCFR basterds in prison for life. From the BUSH II (The torturer) to bill clinton who initiated
the covert torture operation. The clearest signal that we are not living in a self governing democracy is that; excluding Watergate,
the DemPublicanCFR ruling elite do not go to prison, there is rarely any real investigation of their crimes; as in the recent
largest public swindle in human history....the DemPublicanCFR, Wall st/Rating Company Swindle that was orchestrated by the "boys"
from the bohemian grove.The level of corruption in this Country exceeds that of ancient Rome.The best way to combat "terrorism"
is to get the hell out of other peoples countries.and imprison the DemPublicanCFR members who intentionally mislead this Country
into a fossil fuel War in Iraq. George Bush II ( the coward draft dodger) is a moron on an epic scale comparable to the Roman
Emperor who named his horse a general. We are confronted with a monumental environmental emergency and these idiot myopic assholes
debate carbon emission controls instead of leading the way to a fossil fuel nuclear free world.by initiating the largest public
works program in human history....a massive energy conversion program funded by cutting the military budget in half.The conversion
program will also be funded by the profits made by all the fossil fuel and nuclear power companies. Just imagine all the AMERICAN
JOBS WILL BE CREATED. We need leaders who put the interests of the Americam people first and who do not march to the drumb beat
of the Rockefucker internationalist DemPublicanCFR elite. It is time to send David Rockyfucker to Iran to stand trial for the
crimes he has committed against the Iranian people....We are living in a state of environmental crisis and it is time for true
American patriots to rise and confront our Enemy within who, thanks to the great American patriot Edward Snowden, we now know
for certain has all or electronic communications under 24 hour surveillance. The DemPublicanCFR ruling elite must be held to pay
for their crimes or I fear the planet that our childen, grand children and great grandchildren will be living in is doomed to
cataclysmic events that we have yet to even imagine...
Boy, once you spy on a Democrat it becomes an issue. Lying seems to be what Obama and his appointees due best as there are no
consequences for lying, even under oath as Eric Holder has done several times. So let's just move along here as this is just another
day under Obama.
Agency security personnel had transgressed? And just what is that some kind of creepy code for? We, the bigwigs, did it, but we
have language that allows us to blame it on our innocent underlings...of course. This is the height of mental illness and corruption!
Just a simple excuse used to placate a supposedly mind dead public already hypnotized by their main stream media and under their
almost absolute control. That's you and I, of course...sound familiar? Well, I will be totally under their control when they come
and kill me, and not before that! "Agency staff had improperly monitored the computers of committee staff members", well who in
the hell is agency staff if not Brennan? Considering how far Obama has fallen since he stated how good he was at killing, I do
not see how any of us in a sound state of mind can see Mr. Brennan as anything other than a criminal and a traitor to the American
people. Same as our present president, supreme court, congress, and many more.
As long as you persist in your long held delusion that there are differences between democrats and republicans - differences that
matter - nothing will change.
Open you eyes. American foreign policy is the same no matter which party is in power. They are all screwing you six ways from
Sunday.
If America was a just state, that would happen. But America is a neo-fascist - or more properly, corporatist - state.
Democrats and republicans are two sides of the same coin. Political theater for the plebs to fight over while the real power
brokers hide in the shadows.
The free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip
on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse
has begun its rapid slide into despotism.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
The NSA/CIA in recent hearings forcefully explained to the Judiciary Committee in Congress that they only spy on foreigners and
not US citizens. I guess Congressmen/women are not US citizens and must be terrorists.
Nothing will change in America until someone actually starts losing their job, being forced to resign or go to jail - both politicians
and so called "leaders" in the agencies committing these horrific crimes.
You've won the HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD award.
But you did forget the DHS who also has a Prius type
program for surveillance. The name starts with a C
but I cannot remember off the top of my head. I do
recall that Boeing's employees were involved in doing
training of technicians.
Things are "out of hand". I fear the US government will
be using contracted mercenaries to keep us in line before
too much longer. Those guys will be coming home and
taking jobs in our local police departments.
Follow the Blackwater money. Erik Prince, and cohorts.
Names may change many times, but it is still all there.
It does not seem to be doing the US any good. Their army would seem to be a complete failure. Their so called intelligence seems
to know nothing about anything that matters. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan many trillions of dollars and abject failure and we see
a nation that brakes every law of decency.
Example,
The CIA agent who shot in the back 2 Pakistani men, and then
after reloading once, he fired 10 times. This occurred during the
day on a busy street in Lahore, Pakistan. He claimed first to be
a US Embassy Staff Member. He was ransomed by Kerry, who
was not yet Secretary of State, but was sent by Obama to do so.
2 other CIA agents, the killer's roommates, who the killer had called
for help, ran over a Pakistani bystander with their jeep on the way
to aid the killer, and killed the poor man. They were immediately airlifted out of Pakistan and returned to the United States,
never to
be heard of since, nor reported by the media.
But, this CIA killer just couldn't stop there. He has been arrested by Sheriff's Deputies, inside a Colorado bar for being
involved in a knife fight. This CIA killer and his wife own a United States contracted spy agency in Las Vegas.
These are the Agents who represent our United States of America.
Who can forget Obama's Secret Servicemen, one of which, while
a guest of a South American city, tried to rip off a Whore by short-
changing her. That hit the newspapers around the world.
These are the Agents who represent our United States of America.
Don't forget this is the same agency that enabled the capture and imprisonment of Mandela, and that only scratches the surface
of some of the stuff they've been up to.
The CIA is beyond reform now, it's no longer a matter of changing who heads it.
There are places in the world where these people would
be put on a wall and quickly dispensed with.
Spies and Surveillers hide the truth from us all, and the
United States Congress pays them to do so.
Voters need to Turn Out the Incumbents. Everyone of them.
Along with their Staffers. 100,000 lobbyists need to be
stripped of their licenses, and their political connections.
It is long past time for revolution or revolt.
It is time to clean house.
Susan, thank you. Seeing is believing.
In the US Intelligence Agencies, including the Military,
there are 850,000 men and women employees who
hold Top Secret clearances and more. That is a lot of
Secrets to hide. Only a few come freely forward to report
corruption to the public at large. Only a couple have had
the guts to paper the world with these corrupt agency's
offal.
Cut off the heads, and the tails.
The United States Intelligence Agencies are corrupted.
They are killers of innocent human beings.
Will Erik Holder send any of them to Prison? He did not prosecute
any of the people responsible for our nation's debacle. Not a one of
them went to prison. He and his boss Obama are also corrupted.
They both are killers of innocent human beings.
Every man of integrity who works for the United States government
should, when he sees corruption, report it to the media 1st, and to
his superior officers 2nd. Not to do so, is a criminal act itself.
We have to wonder if there are any besides Edward Snowden, who
work for the United States government, and have the guts to let us
know when they see corruption.
Great to see truth coming out in the wash.. Also brilliant to hear on the radio,whistleblowers in the UK are going to be protected,
there's progress now....
It seems to appear the spying business is a new democratic industry where money, power, and control are prime. Words like decency
and morality are flying out the windows. The head of a spy ring can retire to form a new enterprise to charge half million to
one million dollars for spy protection...
Flagrant Violations of U.S. Constitution & International Law Continue Unabated as CIA/Feinstein Row Over Senate Spying Lands on
Front Page and Elite Politely Decline to Prosecute Peers' Crimes
I don't know if the 9/11 panic has caused the relaxation of the LAW
The law was relaxed as soon as the Church Committee wrapped up. The CIA was offended at the very idea of having to obey the
law, and their allies in Congress, and the White House after Reagan was elected, obliged them.
Who cares about what they admit to that we all already suspected. Who is getting charged and going to jail? Of course the answer
is nobody because they are either all complicit or congress is intimidated by what other information they may know about them.
Time to purge the whole system.
one has to wonder how many politicians across the Five Eyes nations (US, UK, Canada, Australia and Canada), are being blackmailed,
co-erced and manipulated, by big business/government.
Many of the decisions (and statements from some politicians) that I witness in first world government, make no sense.
for example, is there even one investigatory committee in Westminster or Washington, that has/is not been hacked and controlled
by outsiders (big business often in cahoots with senior govt/intelligence people).
look at the antics of the disgraced News of the Wooorld, deliberately targetting members of the sub-committee investigating
their hacking.
For all the abuses by powerful men in history there are those, including American Presidents, who have demonstrated both leadership
and courage in the face of obstruction, opposition.
But hey, thanks for adding bluster and hot air to the debate. I guess you'd have us all pack up and go home.
The CIA spying on the people supposedly in charge of the CIA has nothing to do with fighting 'terrorism' and everything to do
with the CIA protecting itself from any such namby-pamby libtard delusions such as integrity, accountability, congressional oversight,
responsibility, and other such pesky nuisances.
But isn't spying what the CIA is supposed to do? And isn't this what we supported for so many years during the Cold War because
of "the threat of communism"?
There are certainly still threats out there (Al Queda and Boko Haram come to mind) but is the CIA geared to handle intelligence
in terrorist organizations or are they still fighting the Communists? Revamp the Agency to make it more adapted to the new reality
of terrorist threats world wide but don't fault somebody if they're just trying to do their job. Give them some direction or don't
complain when things go awry. Maybe they're just looking for something to do. Let's be sure to keep them busy fighting terrorists
not the US Senate.
Former CIA Director John Brennan warned Republicans who support President Trump that they
are on a sinking ship, in an appearance Wednesday morning on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
"I'm waiting for the Republicans to realize that the Trump ship is a sinking one," he
said.
"There are still rats on that ship, and there are individuals who are not going to separate
themselves from Trump. They do so at their own peril. They need to fulfill their obligations,
irrespective of their political affiliations. This is now the presidency and institutions of
government we rely on to keep us safe and secure."
MIKE BARNICLE: Last week, there was another continued swipe ordered by the president of the
United States, who whatever he says is a megaphone and resonates throughout the country
because of the way it is carried, in which he basically said that people like you and several
other people in the intelligence community were responsible for trying to participate in a
coup, to undermine the presidency of the United States and to remove the president of the
United States. What does it do -- nevermind to you personally -- what does it do to
institutions like the NSA, the CIA, the FBI.
JOHN BRENNAN: It continues to show Mr. Trump's disdain for the intelligence and law
enforcement communities, who are trying to do their jobs irrespective of political winds that
might be blowing in Washington. It really is demoralizing for Mr. Trump to continue to say
there is this "deep state" that tried to launch a coup, and that he is trying to "clean the
swamp," while in fact, it is those professionals within the intelligence community, law
enforcement community, who are trying to carry out their duties and responsibilities to the
American people. Mr. Trump just continues to go down this road. I think it is having a very
damaging impact.
WILLIE GEIST: What do you think, Director Brennan, happens from here? I think people
watching want to know. They say, okay, Mueller didn't like how the report was characterized
by the attorney general. Fine, on the issue of obstruction of justice. Now, what? Is it
Mueller sitting before the Senate and answering specific questions about what is inside the
report? What is the outcome of this?
JOHN BRENNAN: Barr has to be interrogated.
WILLIE GEIST: That starts this morning at 10:00.
JOHN BRENNAN: And then Bob Mueller has to get in front of Congress, then Congress has to
do its job.
And I'm still waiting for the Republicans to realize that the Trump ship is a sinking one.
There are still rats on that ship, and there are individuals who are not going to separate
themselves from Trump. But they do so at their own peril. And they need to fulfill their
obligations, irrespective of their political affiliations. And to do it now rather than to
allow this continued sinking of not just the presidency, but of these institutions of
government that we rely on to keep us safe and secure.
If Barr represent different faction of CIA then Brennan, Brannan might pay with his head for his artistic inventions in
fomenting Russiagate color revolution and Steele dossier. Not very likely, though...
They spied on Trump because they thought it was a guaranteed win and Hillary could cover
it up. They started the witch hunt to make it look like it was a legit investigation.
"Surveillance". Would you buy a used car from Jim Comey?. Time for issuing a number of
orange jumpsuits and for the ones at the top?. A sharp drop and a sudden stop.
They spied on Trump because they thought it was a guaranteed win and Hillary could cover
it up. They started the witch hunt to make it look like it was a legit investigation.
"Surveillance". Would you buy a used car from Jim Comey?. Time for issuing a number of
orange jumpsuits and for the ones at the top?. A sharp drop and a sudden stop.
Spying Work for a government or other organization by secretly collecting information
about enemies or competitors. investigating Carry out a systematic or formal inquiry to
discover and examine the facts of (an incident, allegation, etc.) so as to establish the
truth. What a bunch of idiots
If you have to make up reasons to investigate, it becomes spying. With this logic, we can
investigate anyone! As long as we make sure to cover our tracks in lies! Perfect!
That's Judicial Watch's definition of the Deep State! It's not just a few politicians and
judges, it's almost all of Washington and many in government around the country. The Deep
State will just take its time, put it off, forget about it, make mistakes implementing it,
and so on and so forth.
"... Julian E. Barnes is obviously a long-term intelligence asset and his stories are not based on independent research but are just a repetition of the yarn that the CIA want to spin. Julian E. Barnes and the CIA obviously think Americans and other westerners are DAF. ..."
"... And should we be surprised that such false information about Gina Haspel and Donald Trump puts Trump in a bad light and somehow humanises a CIA director with a reputation for torturing prisoners? ..."
"... A week or 3 ago, a Barnes co-reported "article" flat out stated that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. This was done by pretending to quote someone in the the US Defense establishment as saying "we believe Iran will redouble its work on nuclear weapons". ..."
"... Julian Barnes is a well established liar. Sort of akin to Judith Miller and Michael Gordon. ..."
"... Now the Washington post's narrative is quite colorful too. So Trump really was concerned how many Russians Germany or France expelled? Why was he angry? The vassals did not follow his example as they should have? ..."
"... The CIA and MI6 boys must have blanked out to let this one slip through the cracks. We pay them billions to run false flag and cover-up operations. This makes those of us that believe their lying narratives look stupid. I guess we need to add more billions to their annual budgets. ..."
"... More believable that Julian Barnes performs no cross-referencing and zero research. Investigative reporting (or asking questions) is not the job of the modern MSM stenographer. His job - pushing the war machine agenda. He simply writes that which he is instructed to write. Probably emails all of his articles to his CIA liason for approval prior to publication. ..."
"... In the Skripnal psyop one can readily assess that the only truly "dead ducks" are the MSM journalists and the Western politicians who peddled this incredible slapstick nonsense story in order to further the "demonization of Russia" narrative of Western oligarchy. That these same media "dead ducks" appear to have not even the very slightest interest whatsoever in the current whereabouts or safety of said Skripnals speaks volumes about the true nature of this intelligence operation. ..."
"... both versions of the story expose Gina as a untrustworthy ratfucker ..."
"... At the moment the UK is run by MI6 which sees itself as the real political directorate of the CIA and the Deep State in the US. It seriously believes that it is on the verge of establishing global hegemony. ..."
"... Please note, everyone, that not all of these sad excuses for "journalists" are on the CIA payroll. In fact, very few of them are. Most work with the CIA out of warped senses of patriotism and duty to the empire. Most would never think of themselves as intelligence agency assets, and no small number of them probably think their relationships with the CIA are unique. They think that they are special and that their contacts on the inside at the CIA are unusual. Few would guess that they are just another propaganda mule in the CIA's stable, and that friendly guy who "leaks" to them is actually their handler; their "operator" in spook-speak. ..."
"... CIA did not control many of the Vietnam era journalists that had their pieces printed in mainstream media of the day. Not many left now and perhaps since the nineties they could no longer get their articles published. Regan brought in perception management which eventually brought all MSM 100% under US -CIA control. ..."
"... If you're a CIA guy, you get the editor and the ombudsman on the payroll and he will make certain that the desired propaganda gets published. If he's a Zionist, he's on the same page from the start, anyway. ..."
"... What a strange construction. Doesn't the CIA have PR staff? A decent PR team would review every item referencing their boss and issue clarifications and/or demand corrections immediately. There should have been no need for Julian E. Barnes to figure anything out as the CIA should have pointed out his mistake very quickly. This explanation/exculpation is utter bullshit! ..."
"... I doubt that Trump asked questions about how those ducks and kids were doing. More likely that MI5 was annoyed that they were exposed as the providers of the duck snuff pictures, and put pressure on the NY Times. ..."
"... Those who advocated the strong response to Russia are the intellectual authors of "Russia Gate" to thwart detente with Russia. ..."
A piece in the New York Times showed how in March 2018 Trump was manipulated by the
CIA and MI6 into expelling 60 Russian diplomats. Eight weeks after it was published the New
York Times 'corrects' that narrative and exculpates the CIA and MI6 of that manipulation.
Its explanation for the correction makes little sense.
On April 16 the New York Times published a report by Julian E. Barnes and Adam
Goldman about the relation between CIA Director Gina Haspal and President Donald Trump.
The piece described a scene in the White House shortly after the
contentious Skripal/Novichok incident in Britain. It originally said (emphasis added):
During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She
outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the
president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.
To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the
only victims of Russia's attack.
Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children
hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She
then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by
the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.
The 60 Russian diplomats were
expelled on March 26 2018. Other countries only expelled a handful of diplomats over the
Skripal incident. On April 15 2018 the Washington Post
reported that Trump was furious about this:
The next day, when the expulsions were announced publicly, Trump erupted, officials said. To
his shock and dismay, France and Germany were each expelling only four Russian officials --
far fewer than the 60 his administration had decided on. The President, who seemed to believe
that other individual countries would largely equal the United States, was furious that his
administration was being portrayed in the media as taking by far the toughest stance on
Russia.
...
Growing angrier, Trump insisted that his aides had misled him about the magnitude of the
expulsions. 'There were curse words,' the official said, 'a lot of curse words.
In that context the 2019 NYT report about Haspel showing Trump dead duck pictures
provided by the Brits made sense. Trump was, as he himself claimed, manipulated into the large
expulsion.
The NYT report created some waves. On April 18 2019 the Guardian
headlined:
The report of the dead duck pictures in the New York Times was a problem for the CIA
and the British government. Not only did it say that they manipulated Trump by providing him
with false pictures, but the non-dead ducks also demonstrated that the official narrative of
the allegedly poisoning of the Skripals has some huge holes. As Rob Slane of the
BlogMirenoted
:
In addition to the extraordinary nature of this revelation, there is also a huge irony
here. Along with many others, I have long felt that the duck feed is one of the many achilles
heels of the whole story we've been presented with about what happened in Salisbury on 4th
March 2018. And the reason for this is precisely because if it were true, there would
indeed have been dead ducks and sick children .
According to the official story, Mr Skripal and his daughter became contaminated with
"Novichok" by touching the handle of his front door at some point between 13:00 and 13:30
that afternoon. A few minutes later (13:45), they were filmed on CCTV camera feeding
ducks, and handing bread to three local boys, one of whom ate a piece . After this they
went to Zizzis, where they apparently so contaminated the table they sat at, that it had to
be incinerated.
You see the problem? According to the official story, ducks should have died. According to
the official story children should have become contaminated and ended up in hospital. Yet as
it happens, no ducks died, and no boys got sick (all that happened was that the boys' parents
were contacted two weeks later by police, the boys were sent for tests, and they were given
the all clear).
After the NYT story was published the CIA and the British government had to remove
the problematic narrative from the record. Yesterday they finally succeeded. Nearly eight weeks
after the original publishing of the White House scene the NYT recanted and issued
a correction
(emphasis. added):
Correction: June 5, 2019
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the photos that Gina Haspel
showed to President Trump during a discussion about responding to the nerve agent attack in
Britain on a former Russian intelligence officer. Ms. Haspel displayed pictures illustrating
the consequences of nerve agent attacks, not images specific to the chemical attack in
Britain. This correction was delayed because of the time needed for research.
The original paragraphs quoted above were changed into this:
During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She
outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the
president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.
To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel tried to demonstrate the dangers of using a nerve agent like Novichok in
a populated area. Ms. Haspel showed pictures from other nerve agent attacks that showed their
effects on people.
The British government had told Trump administration officials about early intelligence
reports that said children were sickened and ducks were inadvertently killed by the sloppy
work of the Russian operatives.
The information was based on early reporting, and Trump administration officials had
requested more details about the children and ducks, a person familiar with the intelligence
said, though Ms. Haspel did not present that information to the president. After this article
was published, local health officials in Britain said that no children were harmed.
So instead of pictures of dead ducks in Salisbury the CIA director showed pictures of some
random dead ducks or hospitalized children or whatever to illustrate the effects consequences
of nerve agent incidents?
That the children were taken to hospital but unharmed was already reported in Britishmedia on
March 24 2018, before the Russian diplomats were expelled, not only after the NYT piece
was published in April 2019.
Yesterday the author of the NYT piece, Julian E. Barnes, turned to Twitter to
issue a lengthy 'apology':
I made a significant error in my April 16 profile of Gina Haspel. It took a while to
figure out where I went wrong. Here is the correction: 1/9
[...]
The intelligence about the ducks and children were based on an early intelligence report,
according to people familiar with the matter. The intelligence was presented to the US in an
effort to share all that was known, not to deceive the Trump administration. 7/9
This correction was delayed because conducting the research to figure out what I got
wrong, how I got it wrong and what was the correct information took time. 8/9
I regret the error and offer my apology. I strive to get information right the first time.
That is what subscribers pay for. But when I get something wrong, I fix it. 9/9
Barnes covers national security and intelligence issues for the Times Washington
bureau. His job depends on good access to 'sources' in those circles.
It is remarkable that the CIA spokesperson never came out to deny the original NYT
report. There was zero visible push back against its narrative. It is also remarkable that the
correction comes just as Trump is on a state visit in Britain.
The original report was sourced on 'people briefed on the conversation'. The
corrected version is also based on 'people briefed on the conversation' but adds 'a
person familiar with the intelligence'. Do the originally cited 'people' now tell a different
story? Are we to trust a single 'person familiar with the intelligence' more than those
multiple 'people'? What kind of 'research' did the reporter do to correct what he then and now
claims was told to him by 'people'? Why did this 'research' take eight weeks?
That the 'paper of the record' now corrects said 'record' solves a big problem for Gina
Haspel, the CIA/MI6 and the British government. They can no longer be accused of manipulating
Trump (even as we can be quite sure that such manipulations happen all the time).
In the end it is for the reader to decide if the original report makes more sense than the
corrected one.
---
This is a Moon of Alabama fundraising week. Please consider to support
our work .
Posted by b on June 6, 2019 at 06:12 AM |
Permalink
Julian E. Barnes is obviously a long-term intelligence asset and his stories are not based on
independent research but are just a repetition of the yarn that the CIA want to spin. Julian
E. Barnes and the CIA obviously think Americans and other westerners are DAF.
Surely the time and effort Julian Barnes needed to check what information he had got wrong
and how he got it wrong should not have been as major as he makes out. Animals dying and
children falling sick to a toxin that could have killed them are incidents that should have
stuck out like sore thumbs and warranted careful checks with different and independent
sources before reporting that Gina Haspel apparently showed the US President pictures of dead
ducks and sick boys in Salisbury.
No wonder Barnes got such a roasting on Twitter after making his abject apology.
And should we be surprised that such false information about Gina Haspel and Donald Trump
puts Trump in a bad light and somehow humanises a CIA director with a reputation for
torturing prisoners?
During years I researched articles published in @nytimes we fact-checked BEFORE publication. Here it comes
AFTER bloggers, officials et al point out fatal flaws. That no children were poisoned, and no
ducks killed, by #novichok
in #Salisbury + was known
in Spring 2018. #propaganda
A week or 3 ago, a Barnes co-reported "article" flat out stated that Iran has a nuclear
weapons program. This was done by pretending to quote someone in the the US Defense
establishment as saying "we believe Iran will redouble its work on nuclear weapons".
Except in the Barnes construction it wasn't a quotation, or anything like a phrasing that
made clear that the Pentagon source was guessing, not stating, that Iran has a nuclear
weapons program.
This was NOT corrected.
Eric Schmitt was the other NY Times "reporter" who signed the article.
And here's what the two liars reported, pretending that an Iranian nuclear weapons program is
a real thing, first paragraph:
"Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated military plan that envisions sending as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East should Iran attack American forces or accelerate work on nuclear weapons, administration officials said."
So Julian Barnes is a well established liar. Sort of akin to Judith Miller and Michael
Gordon.
Barnes provides the truth then provides a lie about the truth....par for the course at
NYT.
(Remember Judith Miller?) A fake news organization spreading fake news with revised fake
news.
can't really get excited by the fact that not everything in this type of creative writing is
taken serious. Did anyone expect otherwise?
During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr.
Trump. She outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and
told the president that the "strong option" was to expel 60 diplomats.
To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials
including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the
only victims of Russia's attack.
It's pretty obvious that his/their narrative necessarily must be cobbled together by a lot
of sources. Some by phone. Those may not even share the same idea what image of the president
or Haspel they should convey. I always wonder with this type of newspaper reporting. Maybe
both writers should write novels.
Now the Washington post's narrative is quite colorful too. So Trump really was concerned
how many Russians Germany or France expelled? Why was he angry? The vassals did not follow
his example as they should have?
Superb analysis! Been coming here for 11 years now, and I just have to say that "b" is the
best propaganda analyst in the English language. He is the sturdiest anchor in these stormy
seas:)
The CIA and MI6 boys must have blanked out to let this one slip through the cracks. We pay
them billions to run false flag and cover-up operations. This makes those of us that believe
their lying narratives look stupid. I guess we need to add more billions to their annual
budgets.
Sarcasm is just about the last pleasure one can get from watching the horrific antics of
these morons.
More believable that Julian Barnes performs no cross-referencing and zero research.
Investigative reporting (or asking questions) is not the job of the modern MSM stenographer.
His job - pushing the war machine agenda.
He simply writes that which he is instructed to write. Probably emails all of his articles
to his CIA liason for approval prior to publication.
Perhaps, the liason can see what this fool types in real time. Who knows?
As the story of the dead ducks and sick children unraveled and fell apart, a sloppy patch
up had to be made. Now its fixed. Like a Boeing 737 MAX.
BoTh vErSioNs of the story (I checked with the "Wayback Machine") still include this
paragraph (6th paragraph of story):
Unusually for a president, Mr. Trump has publicly rejected not
only intelligence agencies' analysis, but also the facts they have gathered.
And that has created a perilous situation for the C.I.A.
As usual for the NYT, they did not publicly reject the intelligence agencies'
analysis,
but also the facts they had gathered.
That, of course, would have created a perilous situation for the NYT.
As the saying goes: "if it looks like a false-flag, walks like a false-flag, and talks like a
false-flag, it just might be a "duck."
In the Skripnal psyop one can readily assess that the only truly "dead ducks" are the MSM
journalists and the Western politicians who peddled this incredible slapstick nonsense story
in order to further the "demonization of Russia" narrative of Western oligarchy. That these
same media "dead ducks" appear to have not even the very slightest interest whatsoever in the
current whereabouts or safety of said Skripnals speaks volumes about the true nature of this
intelligence operation.
"I made a significant error in my April 16 profile of Gina Haspel. It took a while to figure
out where I went wrong".
It was only when I found the horses head next to me in bed when I woke up, that I realized
what a stupid mistake I had made.
Gina Haspel has to be as dumb and incompetent as I suspected: someone is paying good money to
make her look like an ordinary sociopath, not a depraved tart who sucked cock to climb to the
head of the organisation.
Slane is ++ on the Skirpals. One 'fact' that emerged early on, made public by Slane, is that
the proposed 'official' time-line ( > press, Gvmt between the lines) of the Skripal
movements - trivial as in a town, drinkies, lunch, feeding ducks, etc. -- was never reported
correctly, obfuscated.
Idk the reasons, but it is a vital point.
___________________________________
Trump, we see, is treated like the zombie public, flashed random photos, sold tearful
narratives about babies, children, recall incubator babies, horrific bio-weapons
threats...
The PTB loathes him, Pres. are supposed to be complicit like Obama - or at least keep
their resistance toned down, be ready to compromise. .. Obama objected to, and refused to act
on, at least two engineered / fake Syria chem. 'attacks.' (Just looked on Goog and can't find
links to support.)
The only EU figure who stated there is no evidence that the Russkies novichoked
Sergei and Yulia was Macron, afaik. He didn't get the memo in time (the Elysée is
inefficient, lots of screw-ups there) but soon caught up! and expelled the minimum. -- I have
heard, hush hush, one in F was a receptionist - gofer (an excellent + extremely highly paid
position) who is now at the Emb. in Washington! Most likely merely emblematic story (see
telephone game) .. but telling.
I like this story. It makes Trump look like a naif which wouldn't bother President Teflon in
the least. On the other hand, both versions of the story expose Gina as a untrustworthy ratfucker.
I'm hoping she said "cross my heart and hope to die" when he queried her advice...
I'm glad I checked to see if anyone had mentioned this hack's article about Russia
restarting nuclear testing. Using his name as one search item I tried a number of current
issues. Like the fellows at local intersections holding up signs "will work for money",
Barnes might as well have a tattoo saying "I'll write anything if the price is right.
That it took so long to come up with a half-assed "explanation" shows he's not the brightest
bulb in the lamp. I suppose people whose jobs consist of slightly re-writing Deep State
dictation don't have to be especially clever.
That "apology" by Barnes is completely nonsensical. How would you know that there was
something wrong with your story, that there was an error in it, without knowing what it was?
If the CIA, various bloggers, commenters, etc., alerted him to the errors, it's unlikely they
would say, "There's something wrong in this story but I'm not going to say what it is. You'll
have to re-research they whole thing to figure it out." I don't think that's how people
usually point out errors.
"Which narrative is unraveling and which is gathering momentum?"psychohistorian@19
One thing that seems to be unravelling is the tight political cartel that controls Foreign
Policy in the UK.
If it does unravel and Labour turns to an independent foreign policy while it reverses the
disaster of 'austerity' and neo-liberalism, cases such as that of Assange and the Skripal
affair, both products of extremists within the Establishment who regard themselves as
privileged members of the DC Beltway, are going to be re-opened.
At the moment the UK is run by MI6 which sees itself as the real political directorate of the
CIA and the Deep State in the US. It seriously believes that it is on the verge of
establishing global hegemony. And this at a time when the UK is falling apart and its
population teeters on the brink of economic disaster. It has fallen into this delusion over
the years as it has been able to offer the CIA services which it is afraid to initiate
itself. Hence, most recently, the entire Russiagate nonsense which has British fingerprints
all over it. Hence too the new aggressiveness in DC towards Assange. Hence the disappearance,
without explanation, of the Skripals.
Julian Barnes is like Winston Smith without the intellectual curiosity. He quote happily goes
about his work. lol. What is the matter with you people? You are supposed to embrace the new
narrative!
From wikidpeida... A memory hole is any mechanism for the alteration or disappearance of
inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts or other records, such as
from a website or other archive, particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression
that something never happened.[1][2] The concept was first popularized by George Orwell's
dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the Party's Ministry of Truth systematically
re-created all potentially embarrassing historical documents, in effect, re-writing all of
history to match the often-changing state propaganda. These changes were complete and
undetectable.
@37 bevin... maybe they will do with assange what they have done with the skripals... the uk
is more then pathetic at this point in time.. craig murray had more to say on the assange
case yesterday - A
Swedish Court Injects Some Sense
Julian E. Barnes' humble confession (a self-incrimination) sounds like one made in a Gulag.
failure of imaginati , Jun 6, 2019 2:23:10 PM |
35
Further down the memory hole is the side tale of the daughter of Brutish Army Chief Nurse
helping Skirpals and getting an award without contaminating the news. Was the girl's father
Pablo Miller,(of Orbis Dossier MFG) and a pal of Skirpal? There's debunk in their poor
narrative. The public has a photogenic memory.
There are 2 Julian Barneses (at the very least!), one is an English writer, the other has
mostly been writing for the WSJ ( https://www.wsj.com/news/author/julian-e.-barnes)
but since recently again for the NYTimes .
Trump is a drug-addled, brain-damaged, hollowed-out shell of the dull con man he once
was.
But, he perceives himself to be a brilliant mastermind - a stable genius. So, he might
indeed, be prone to making inquiries (generally these would induce the toadies around him to
stifle their laughter).
It makes sense that he might ask, while in GB, about the Skirpal incident, since he pulled
60 people from their posts and he remembered the fantasy he was lead to believe about sick
children and dead ducks.
The fact that he overreacted without sufficient evidence, may have inspired a tiny amount
of self-reflection simply because it may have embarrassed him to have been caught on his back
foot. He was lead to believe that his contemporaries intended to react in equal measure. They
did not. Therefore - he was "fooled" or tricked.
This is the only way to embarrass the buffoon. That is to have someone fool him
personally. And to make him look stupid.
He doesn't mind that he is a fat oaf, a greed head and a pig, but that is the stuff of his
own doing. He is comfortable in this. Money is the end-all, etc.
He bought Mar A Lago, making it his own club, because the Palm Beach Club and its elite
snobs would not let him join.
Trump was betrayed by Gina Haskell, the CIA and the NYT.
All of Western media has been compromised by the CIA and friends since at least the 50s.
Remember what late CIA director William Casey said in 1981; "We'll know our disinformation
program is complete when everything the US public believes is false".
They 'CIA' controls every talking head you can name. Believe no one. Sad isn't it.
Please note, everyone, that not all of these sad excuses for "journalists" are on the
CIA payroll. In fact, very few of them are. Most work with the CIA out of warped senses of
patriotism and duty to the empire. Most would never think of themselves as intelligence
agency assets, and no small number of them probably think their relationships with the CIA
are unique. They think that they are special and that their contacts on the inside at
the CIA are unusual. Few would guess that they are just another propaganda mule in the CIA's
stable, and that friendly guy who "leaks" to them is actually their handler; their
"operator" in spook-speak.
Of course, there is also the incentive provided by just having to take the story their CIA
"friend" gives them, edit it a little to fit their employer's style guidelines, and
then submit it as their own. A whole day's worth of work and they can have it finished in
half an hour. What's not to like about that?
CIA did not control many of the Vietnam era journalists that had their pieces printed in
mainstream media of the day. Not many left now and perhaps since the nineties they could no
longer get their articles published. Regan brought in perception management which eventually
brought all MSM 100% under US -CIA control.
If you're a CIA guy, you get the editor and the ombudsman on the payroll and he will make
certain that the desired propaganda gets published. If he's a Zionist, he's on the same page from the start, anyway.
The self-important "journalists" are controlled and in fact, they are flattered by their
special relationships with informants and the owner/managers. After one has sucked his or her way to the upper level, kissing up and kicking down... Laziness is a bonus.
I made a significant error in my April 16 profile of Gina Haspel. It took a while to figure
out where I went wrong.
What a strange construction. Doesn't the CIA have PR staff? A decent PR team would review
every item referencing their boss and issue clarifications and/or demand corrections
immediately. There should have been no need for Julian E. Barnes to figure anything out as
the CIA should have pointed out his mistake very quickly. This explanation/exculpation is
utter bullshit!
Every day when I turn on my computer, I am enticed with offers to "see how the Brady Bunch
kids look today" or "what do the stars of the 80s look like today?".
Apparently, there is quite a demand for updates on celebrities and their current well
being.
So why would Julian Barnes do an article about the Skirpals without showing us how they look
today? And just where are they living? Enquiring minds want to know!
I doubt that Trump asked questions about how those ducks and kids were doing. More likely
that MI5 was annoyed that they were exposed as the providers of the duck snuff pictures, and
put pressure on the NY Times.
Using ducks is easier. Gina Haspel could always ask one of the bottom-feeding subordinates
to nip down the road to one of those Chinese BBQ shops and
photograph the display of roast ducks hanging in the shop window . The photos can be
uploaded and altered to remove the background of the chef and the cashier and then the actual
ducks can be altered or colored appropriately before the pictures are sent to Haspel. Anyone
looking at the altered pictures would never guess their actual provenance.
:-)
I'm not sure where Haspel can find hippos or any other large animals that might topple on
top of someone (with dire consequences) were s/he to apply a whiff of nerve agent.
Thanks b for a good laugh at Barnes and Goldman's expense. I note Goldman is silent and I
guess that is because he would likely get his apology wrong and contradict Barnes BS.
Here's my profile of Gina Haspal: war criminal
Here's my profile of Julian Barnes: Fwit and BShitter
Here's my profile of Adam Goldman: Fwit and BShitter.
"... In reality intelligence agencies control the nomination. ..."
"... Russiagate and the DNC hacking scandal were the attempts to reverse the presidential election. Essentially Russiagate was created to tame Trump, although I am not sure that such drastic measures were needed and I might be wrong. He betrayed his election promises with such an ease that Russiagate now looks like a paranoid overreaction of the USA intelligence agencies (and former FBI director Mueller of 9/11 and anthrax investigation fame) Which figuratively speaking moved tanks to capture the unnamed native village. ..."
"... Due to the nature of intelligence agencies work and the aura of secrecy control of intelligence agencies in democratic societies is a difficult undertaking as the entity you want to control is in many ways more politically powerful and more ruthless in keeping its privileges then controllers. And if the society preaches militarism it is outright impossible: any politician deviation from militaristic policies will be met with the counterattack of intelligence agencies which are intimately interested in maintaining the status quo. ..."
In reality intelligence agencies control the nomination.
Pics or it didn't happen.
I am very sorry and sincerely apologize. Please view this as a plausible hypothesis ;-)
Some considerations (neoliberals and neocons usually interpret those facts differently so this is a view from paleoconservative
universe; you are warned):
1. Exoneration of Hillary deprived Sanders of chances to lead Democratic ticket in 2016. This is as close to the proven fact as
we can get.
2. Russiagate and the DNC hacking scandal were the attempts to reverse the presidential election. Essentially Russiagate was created
to tame Trump, although I am not sure that such drastic measures were needed and I might be wrong. He betrayed his election promises
with such an ease that Russiagate now looks like a paranoid overreaction of the USA intelligence agencies (and former FBI director
Mueller of 9/11 and anthrax investigation fame) Which figuratively speaking moved tanks to capture the unnamed native village.
3. JFK and then Robert Kennedy assassination. The key role of the CIA in the JFK assassination now is broadly accepted in the
USA.
3. Obama connection to CIA was subject of many articles, especially in the alt-right press. He definitely was raised in a family
of CIA operatives.
4. Brennan spied on Congress and was not fired, which means that the CIA hieratically is above the Congress. Proven fact.
In short, nothing in the power structure of democratic societies prevents intelligence agencies from becoming key political actors,
the Pretorian guard which selects the Presidents by keeping dirt on politicians and controls the press (see Church commission). They
have both motivation (preservation and enhancement of their status as any large bureaucracy), means (weakly controlled, oversized
budget; access to shadow funds from arms and narcotics trading) and skills (covert operations, disinformation, sabotage. This triad
is inherent in their status as the legalized mafia which operates above the law. As Pompeo recently said in a recent speech at Texas
A&M University CIA operatives lie and cheat and steal.
When intelligence agencies control MSM that alone gives them considerable power to influence the political process. For example,
in the case of Russiagate, we saw well organized and timed series of leaks. So, in fact, they can be viewed as the "Inner Party"
in terms of Orwell dystopia 1984.
And the fact of media control is a proven fact. And not only via Church commission. Dr. Ulfkotte went on public television stating
that he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agents under his own name, also adding that noncompliance with these orders
would result in him losing his job.
Due to the nature of intelligence agencies work and the aura of secrecy control of intelligence agencies in democratic societies
is a difficult undertaking as the entity you want to control is in many ways more politically powerful and more ruthless in keeping
its privileges then controllers. And if the society preaches militarism it is outright impossible: any politician deviation from
militaristic policies will be met with the counterattack of intelligence agencies which are intimately interested in maintaining
the status quo.
In any case, the problem of "the tail wagging the dog" is a problem for any country, not only for the USA. The fact that both
Brennan and Clapper become 'talking heads' after retirement tells something about the trend. Such things would be impossible 20 years
ago.
Some insights into the problem can be obtained by reading the article about the politicization of intelligence agencies in other
countries. For example:
Ultimately, making the intelligence agencies accountable amounts to a broader reevaluation of the larger framework of civil-military
relations. As a result, not only is intelligence reform an almost intractable political issue, but it also requires a complete
change of mentality for the actors involved. Reigning in the intelligence agencies is a problem of a deeper political culture,
one that requires a systemic change in the psychology of the organizations.
the lack of civilian oversight of intelligence agencies is a byproduct of the political imbalance between civilian and military
actors, a power structure that favors the latter.
As long as the military can get its way through seemingly constitutional means, the importance of the intelligence agencies
will remain relatively limited. Their role, however, becomes essential whenever the military meets some resistance
the military's domestic political power "has always derived from [its] ability to mediate confrontations among feuding political
leaders, parties or state institutions, invariably presented as threats to the political order and stability. The military [is]
of course the only institution empowered to judge whether such threats existed based on the assumption that a polity in turmoil
cannot sustain a professional military" (Rizvi 1998: 100). Yet whenever necessary, the military has not hesitated to generate
problems itself if it believes its institutional interests would be better served by a weak and divided polity. This is where
the intelligence agencies come into play.
the link between journalists and the intelligence agencies is a complex one, and cannot be reduced to a simple power dynamic
in which the journalists are merely the victim. Journalists need information, and thus have an interest in maintaining a good
relationship with intelligence agencies. In return, journalists are often asked to provide information themselves to intelligence
agencies.
"... Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike Whitney and Philip Giraldi described the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. ..."
"... The CIA spies in England and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies. ..."
"... It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did. ..."
"... Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war. ..."
"... In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych. They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad. The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown. ..."
"... You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient. ..."
"... Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult to deal with them. ..."
"... People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and media men should know their place. ..."
"... How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy? ..."
"... These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation. ..."
"... Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI. ..."
"... It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes. If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers. ..."
"... It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control. The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control; it's firmly IN control. ..."
"... It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism – depending on the case. ..."
"... And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money, because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism ..."
"... The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance. ..."
"... Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA. ..."
"... Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors, but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor is a spook and he does what he wants. ..."
"... John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves. ..."
"... A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country, its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion and terror. ..."
"... Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses. ..."
"... Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments. ..."
"... While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control. They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it. ..."
Conspiratorially-minded writers envisaged the Shadow World Government as a board of evil sages surrounded by the financiers and
cinema moguls. That would be bad enough; in infinitely worse reality, our world is run by the Junior Ganymede that went berserk.
It is not a government, but a network, like freemasonry of old, and it consists chiefly of treacherous spies and pens-for-hire, two
kinds of service personnel, that collected a lot of data and tools of influence, and instead of serving their masters loyally, had
decided to lead the world in the direction they prefer.
German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the last head of the Abwehr, Hitler's Military Intelligence, had been such a spy with political
ambitions. He supported Hitler as the mighty enemy of Communism; on a certain stage he came to conclusion that the US will do the
job better and switched to the Anglo-American side. He was uncovered and executed for treason. His colleague General Reinhard Gehlen
also betrayed his Führer and had switched to the American side. After the war, he continued his war against Soviet Russia, this time
for CIA instead of Abwehr.
The spies are treacherous by their nature. They contact people who betrayed their countries; they work under cover, pretending
to be somebody else; for them the switch of loyalty is as usual and normal as the gender change operation for a Moroccan doctor who
is doing that 8 to 5 every day. They mix with foreign spies, they kill people with impunity; they break every law, human or divine.
They are extremely dangerous if they do it for their own country. They are infinitely more dangerous if they work for themselves
and still keep their institutional capabilities and international network.
Recently we had a painful reminding of their treacherous nature. Venezuela's top spy, the former director of the Bolivarian National
Intelligence Service (Sebin), Manuel Cristopher Figuera , had switched sides during the last coup attempt and escaped abroad
as the coup failed. He discovered that his membership on the Junior Ganymede of the spooks is more important for him than his duty
to his country and its constitution.
Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though
they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike
Whitney and Philip Giraldi described
the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. In
the conspiracy, foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, played an important role. As by law, these spies aren't
allowed to operate on their home ground, they go into you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back routine. The CIA spies in England
and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to
unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies.
It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal
to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is
good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the
Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians
and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did.
Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of
JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq
war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war.
Russian spooks are in a special relations mode with the global network – for many years. In Russia, persistent rumours claim the
perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the KGB chief (1967 – 1982)
Yuri Andropov . He and his appointees
dismantled the socialist state and prepared the takeover of 1991 in the interests of the One World project.
Andropov (who had stepped into Brezhnev's shoes in 1982 and died in 1984) had advanced Gorbachev and his architect of glasnost,
Alexander Yakovlev . Andropov
also promoted the arch-traitor KGB General Oleg Kalugin
to head its counter-intelligence. Later, Kalugin betrayed his country, escaped to the US and delivered all Russian spies he knew
of to the FBI hands.
In late 1980s-early 1990s, the KGB, originally the guarding dog of the Russian working class, had betrayed its Communist masters
and switched to work for the Network. But for their betrayal, Gorbachev would not be able to destroy his country so fast: the KGB
neutralised or misinformed the Communist leadership.
They allowed Chernobyl to explode; they permitted a German pilot to land on the Red Square – this was used by Gorbachev as an
excuse to sack the whole lot of patriotic generals. The KGB people were active in subverting other socialist states, too. They executed
the Romanian leader Ceausescu and his wife; they brought down the GDR, the socialist Germany; they plotted with Yeltsin against Gorbachev
and with Gorbachev against Romanov. As the result of their plotting, the USSR fell apart.
The KGB plotters of 1991 had thought that post-Communist Russia would be treated by the West like the prodigal son, with a fattened
calf being slaughtered for the welcome feast. To their disappointment, the stupid bastards discovered that their country was to play
the part of the fattened calf at the feast, and they were turned from unseen rulers into billionaires' bodyguards. Years later, Vladimir
Putin came to power in Russia with the blessing of the world spooks and bankers, but being too independent a man to submit, he took
his country into its present nationalist course, trying to regain some lost ground. The dissatisfied spooks supported him.
Only recently Putin began to trim the wild growth of his own intelligence service, the FSB. It is possible the cautious president
had been alerted by the surprising insistence of the Western media that the alleged attempt on Skripal and other visible cases had
been attributed to the GRU, the relatively small Russian Military Intelligence, while the much bigger FSB had been forgotten. The
head of
FSB cybercrime department had been arrested and sentenced for lengthy term of imprisonment, and two FSB colonels had been arrested
as the search of their premises revealed immense
amounts of cash , both Russian and foreign currency. Such piles of roubles and dollars could be assembled only for an attempt
to change the regime, as it was demanded by the Network.
In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych.
They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad.
The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support
of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown.
In the US, the spooks allowed Donald Trump to become the leading Republican candidate, for they thought he would certainly lose
to Mme Clinton. Surprisingly, he had won, and since then, this man who was advanced as an easy prey, as a buffoon, had been hunted
by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry.
You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were
and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the
plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient.
Their knowledge of official leaders' faults gives them their feeling of power, but this knowledge can be translated into actual
control only for weak-minded men. Strong leaders do not submit easily. Putin has had his quota of imprudent or outright criminal
acts in his past, but he never allowed the blackmailers to dictate him their agenda. Netanyahu, another strong man of modern politics,
also had managed to survive blackmail. Meanwhile, Trump defeated all attempts to unseat him, though his enemies had used his alleged
lack of delicacy in relation to women, blacks and Jews to its utmost. He waded through the deep pond of Russiagate like Gulliver.
But he has to purge the alphabet agencies to reach safety.
In Russia, the problem is acute. Many Russian spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other
countries than to their fellow citizens. There is a freemasonic quality in their camaraderie. Such a quality could be commendable
in soldiers after the war is over, but here the war is going on. Russian spooks are particularly besotted with their declared enemies;
apparently it is the Christian quality of the Russian soul, but a very annoying one.
When Snowden reached Moscow after his daring escape from Hong Kong, the Russian TV screened a discussion that I participated in,
among journalists, members of parliament and ex-spies. The Russian spooks said that Snowden is a traitor; a person who betrayed his
agency can't be trusted and should be sent to the US in shackles. They felt they belong to the Spy World, with its inner bond, while
their loyalty to Russia was a distant second.
During recent visit of Mike Pompeo to Sochi, the head of SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Mr Sergey Naryshkin
proposed the State Secretary Mike Pompeo, the ex-CIA director,
to expand contacts between Russian and US special services at a higher level. He clarified that he actively interacted with Pompeo
during the period when he was the head of the CIA. Why would he need contacts with his adversary? It would be much better to avoid
contacts altogether.
Even president Putin, who is first of all a Russian nationalist (or a patriot, as they say), who has granted Snowden asylum in
Moscow at a high price of seriously worsening relations with Obama's administration, even Putin has told Stone that Snowden shouldn't
have leaked the documents the way he did. "If he didn't like anything at his work he should have simply resigned, but he went further",
a response proving he didn't completely freed himself from the spooks' freemasonry.
While the spooks plot, the scribes justify their plots. Media is also a weapon, and a mighty one. In Richard Wagner's opera
Lohengrin , the protagonist is defeated by the smear campaign in the media. Despite his miraculous arrival, despite his glorious
victory, the evil witch succeeds to poison minds of the hero's wife and of the court. The pen can counter the sword. When the two
are integrated, as in the union of spooks and scribes, it is too dangerous tool to leave intact.
In many countries of Europe, editorial international policies had been outsourced to the spooky Atlantic Council, the Washington-based
think tank. The Atlantic Council is strongly connected with NATO alliance and with Brussels bureaucracy, the tools of control over
Europe. Another tool is
The
Integrity Initiative , where the difference between spies and journalists is
blurred
. And so is the difference between the left and the right. The left and the right-wing media use different arguments, surprisingly
leading to the same bottom line, because both are tools of warfare for the same Network.
In 1930s, they were divided. The German and the British agents pulled and pushed in the opposite directions. The Russian military
became so friendly with the Germans, that at a certain time, Hitler believed the Russian generals would side with him against their
own leader. The Russian spooks were befriended by the Brits, and had tried to push Russia to confront Hitler. The cautious Marshal
Stalin had purged the Red Army's pro-German Generals, and the NKVD's pro-British spooks, and delayed the outbreak of hostilities
as much as he could. Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult
to deal with them.
If they are so powerful, integrated and united, shouldn't we throw a towel in the ring and surrender? Hell, no! Their success
is their undoing. They plot, but Allah is the best plotter, – our Muslim friends say. Indeed, when they succeed to suborn a party,
the people vote with their feet. The Brexit is the case to consider. The Network wanted to undermine the Brexit; so they neutralised
Corbyn by the antisemitism pursuit while May had made all she could to sabotage the Brexit while calling for it in public. Awfully
clever of them – but the British voter responded with dropping both established parties. So their clever plot misfired.
People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected
legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and
media men should know their place.
How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage
to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?
Spymasters are usually renowned for their inscrutability and for playing their cards close to their vests.
These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created
the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of
a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation.
Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution
to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI.
Forthcoming books will no doubt get into all the remarkable and bizarre details.
Donald Trump has demonstrated the ability to troll and goad many of his opponents into a state of imbecility. It's a negotiating
tactic -- knock them off balance, provoke them to lose control. No matter how smart they are, some people take the bait.
I am sitting here pointing to my nose. Spies run the world – contemporary history in a nutshell. A few provisos:
– It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes.
If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal
biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers.
– It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control.
The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control;
it's firmly IN control.
– There is a crucial difference between US and Russian spies. Russians can go over the head of their government to the world.
That's the only effective check on state criminal enterprise like CIA. Article 17 of the Russian Constitution says "in the Russian
Federation rights and freedoms of person and citizen are recognized and guaranteed pursuant to the generally recognized principles
and norms of international law and in accordance with this Constitution." Article 18 states that rights and freedoms of the person
and citizen are directly applicable, which prevents the kind of bad-faith tricks the USA pulls, like declaring "non-self executing"
treaties, or making legally void reservations, declarations, understandings, and provisos to screw you out of your rights. Article
46(3) guarantees citizens a constitutional right to appeal to inter-State bodies for the protection of human rights and freedoms
if internal legal redress has been exhausted. Ratified international treaties including the ICCPR supersede any domestic legislation
stipulating otherwise.
Isn't it just collusion that holds certain elite groups together, including in some businesses where a lot of chicanery goes on.
The most important thing is to be in on it as one of them, not as a person who can be trusted not to say anything, but as one
of the gang. It's exactly how absenteeism-friendly offices full of crony parents with crony-parent managers work.
The only problem for the guy at the tippy top is what would happen if such a tight group turned on him / her? Maybe, some leaders
see the value in protecting a few brave individuals, like Snowden, letting any coup-stirring spooks know that some people are
watching the Establishment's rights violators, too. Those with technical knowledge have more capacity than most to do it or, at
least, to understand how it works.
In a country founded on individual liberties, including Fourth Amendment privacy rights that were protected by less greedy
generations, the US should have elected leaders that put the US Constitution first, but that is too much to ask in an era when
the top dogs in business & government are all colluding for money.
In Russia, persistent rumours claim the perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the
KGB chief (1967 – 1982) Yuri Andropov.
FWIW, I have heard the exact same thing from Russian commenters myself. Some have insisted that, if Andropov had lived long
enough, he would have carried glasnost and perestroika himself.
Spies are loathsome bunch, with questionable loyalties and personal integrity. But I believe that overall they play a positive
role. They play a positive role because they help adversaries gain insight into their adversary's activities.
If it wasn't for the spies, paranoia about what the other side is doing can get out of hand and cause wrong actions to take
place. The problem with the spies is also that no one knows how much they can be trusted and on whose side they are really on.
It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected
to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism
– depending on the case.
And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money,
because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism.
The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial
espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage
them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR
close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance.
Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization
of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA.
An aspect of the rule of spies that Mr. Shamir does not touch on is the legitimization of this rule through popular culture.
This started with the James Bond novels and movies and by now has become ubiquitous. Spies and assassins are the heroes of the
masses. While secrecy is still needed for tactical reasons in the case of specific operations, overall secrecy is not needed nor
even desirable. So you have thugs like Pompeo actually boasting of their villainy before audiences of college students at Texas
A&M and you have the Mossad supporting the publication of the book Rise and Kill First which is an extensive account of their
world-wide assassination policy. They have the power; now they want the perks that go with it, including being treated like rock
stars.
dear mr Shamir, the criminals are not only stupid but also utterly wicked. they will be stricken down in the twinkling of the
eye and will cry out why God? all the righteous will shout for joy and give thanks to the Almighty for judging Babylon. woe unto
them! they will have no place to hide or run to.
Ezekiel 9 (NKJV)
The Wicked Are Slain
9 Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, "Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a
deadly weapon in his hand." 2 And suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his
battle-ax in his hand. One man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer's inkhorn at his side. They went in and stood
beside the bronze altar.
3 Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He
called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's inkhorn at his side; 4 and the Lord said to him, "Go through the midst
of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations
that are done within it."
5 To the others He said in my hearing, "Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity.
6 Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and
begin at My sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were before the temple. 7 Then He said to them, "Defile the temple,
and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!" And they went out and killed in the city.
8 So it was, that while they were killing them, I was left alone; and I fell on my face and cried out, and said, "Ah, Lord
God! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem?"
9 Then He said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed,
and the city full of perversity; for they say, 'The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see!' 10 And as for Me also,
My eye will neither spare, nor will I have pity, but I will recompense their deeds on their own head."
11 Just then, the man clothed with linen, who had the inkhorn at his side, reported back and said, "I have done as You commanded
me."
E Michael Jones was just warning President Trump about the possibility of this in the Straits of Hormuz.
https://youtu.be/iIm3WuJAVEE?t=272
Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors,
but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor
is a spook and he does what he wants.
John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves.
@Antares that's because the Mossad
isn't like "our" spy agencies. it's closer to the old paradigm of the hashishim or true assassins. Mossad "agents" don't gad around
wearing dark glasses and tapping phones; they run proper deep cover operations. "sleepers" is a term used in the USA. they have
jobs. they look "normal". They integrate
Do spies run the world? No not really, bankers run the world.
Bankers constitute most of the deep state in the US/UK in particular and most of Europe. It is the bankers/deep state which
control the intelligence agencies. The ethnicity of a hefty proportion of said bankers is plain to see for anyone with functioning
critical faculties. How else can a tiny country in the middle east have such influence in the US? How else do we explain why 2/3
of the UK parliament are "friends of Israel" How come financial institutions can commit felonies and no one does jail time? why
is Israel allowed to commit war crimes and break international law with total impunity? who got bailed out of their gambling debts
at the expense of inflicting "austerity" on most of the western world?
How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage
to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?
A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks
who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country,
its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion
and terror.
Since winning, Trump has been hunted by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry. <fallacy is that Trump could have gained the assistence
of every American, had Trump just used his powers to declassify all secret information and make it available to the public, instead
he chases Assange, and continues to conduct the affairs of his office in secret.
Propaganda preys on belief.. it is more powerful than an atomic weapon.. when the facts are hidden or when the facts are changed,
distorted or destroyed.
Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their
fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule
making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence
of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses.
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/08/josh-gottheimer-democrats-yemen/
<i wrote IRT to the article, that contents appearing in private media supported monopoly powered corporations and distributed
to the public, direct the use of military and the willingness of soldiers of 22 different countries.
Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended
to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately
owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments.
I am bothered by you article because it looks to be Trumped weighted and failes to make clear it is these secret apolitical,
human rights abusers, that direct the contents of the media distributed articles that appear in the privately owmed, media distributed
to the public. Also not explained is how the cost of advertising is shared by the monopoly powered corporations, and it is that
advertising that is the source of support that keeps the fake news in business, the nation state propaganda in line, and the support
of robin -hood terror.
Monopoly powered global corporation advertising funds the fake and misleading private media, that is why the open internet
has been shut in tight. In order for the evil, global acting, high technology nomads to continue their extortion and terror activities
they need the media, its their only real weapon. I have never meet a member of any of the twenty two agencies that was not a trained,
certified mental case terrorist.
I think the interplay between the spooks and scribes warrants a deeper explanation. Covert action refers to anything in which
the author can disclaim his responsibility, ie it looks like someone else or something else. The handler in a political operation
cannot abuse his agent because the agent is the actor. The handler in an intelligence gathering operation can abuse his agent
because the agent merely enables action.
The political operations in this case are propaganda. The Congress of Cultural Freedom is the most clearly described one to
date. Propaganda is necessary in any mass society to ensure that voters care about the right issues, the right way, at the right
time. Propaganda can be true, false, or a mix of the two. Black propaganda deals in falsehoods, ie the Steele Dossier. Black propaganda
works best when it enables a pre-planned operation, but it pollutes the intelligence gathering process with disinformation.
Intelligence gathering is colloquially called investigative reporting. If anyone knows about Gary Webb, Alan Frankovich, or
Michael Hastings they know you can't really do that job well for very long. So how do the old timers last so long? It's a back
and forth. The reporter brings all of his information on a subject to his intelligence source (handler). The source then says,
"print this, print that, sit on that, and since you've been a good boy here's a little something you didn't know." The true role
of the investigative reporter is to conduct counterintelligence and package it as a limited hangout.
While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control.
They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care
as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it.
@Sean McBride And now Trump should
have then all rounded up and hung from the trees in the front of the Whitehouse. Anything less should be seen as encouragement.
The worst among us rule over the rest of us. As Plato said, this needs to change. How to do that? We don't know, but we desperately
need to find out ..
Obama was a very effective promoter of what might be called the "globalist" agenda. He of course didn't invent it but did appoint
those three.
Wayne Madsen gave a convincing account in his speculation that both Obama's parent's were CIA operatives. So it's "all
the family" and in the details one might conclude with the author that indeed "spies run the world."
The US government has a tendency to hijack and weaponize revolutionary innovations, Edward
Snowden said, noting that the natural human desire to communicate with others is now being
exploited on an unprecedented scale. "Our utopian vision for the future is never guaranteed
to be realized," Snowden told the audience in Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada via
live stream from Moscow this week, stressing that the US government "corrupted our
knowledge... towards a military purpose."
They took our nuclear capability and transformed it into the most horrible weapon that
the world had ever witnessed. And we're seeing an atomic moment of computer science... Its
reach is unlimited... but its safeguards are not!
The whistleblower, who in 2013 leaked a trove of highly classified information about global
spying operations by the National Security Agency, argued that, armed with modern technology
and with the help of social media and tech giants, governments are becoming
"all-powerful" in their ability to monitor, analyze, and influence behavior.
It's through the use of new platforms and algorithms that are built on and around these
capabilities that they are able to shift our behavior. In some cases, they are able to
predict our decisions and also nudge them to different outcomes.
The natural human need for "belonging" is being exploited and users voluntarily
consent to surrender virtually all of their data by signing carefully drafted user agreements
that no one bothers to read. "Everything has hundreds and hundreds of pages of legal jargon
that we're not qualified to read and assess and yet they are considered binding upon us,"
Snowden said.
And now these institutions, which are both commercial and governmental... have
structuralized and entrenched it to where it has become now the most effective means of
social control in the history of our species.
Most of now-former special counsel Robert Mueller 's public
statement to the press last week seemed to fall under the category of "Fair enough." After all, the man did nearly two years of work,
he kept largely silent throughout, and he alternately was called a hero or a dog.
So the day Mueller resigns, he chooses to make a
fairly brief statement putting a button on all of it, and at the same time declining to take any questions, before gliding back
into private life.
But there's at least one comment Mueller made that nags at me. It's when he said, "If we had had confidence that the president
clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so."
Mueller must have had his reasons for shading his commentary in that way rather than in the other direction: If they'd found adequate
evidence to implicate Trump in a crime, or even "collusion," they would have said that, too.
The statement Mueller chose to give carries with it an implication that his team looked for evidence of
President Trump 's innocence but simply could not find it.
With that in mind, I thought of a short list of questions I'd like to ask Mueller, if ever permitted to do so:
What witnesses did you interview and what evidence did you collect in an attempt to exonerate Trump or prove him not guilty?
(I believe the answer would be, "None. It's not the job of a special counsel or prosecutor to do so." Therefore, was Mueller's
comment appropriate?)
Does it concern you that the FBI claimed "
collection tool failure " in
stating that 19,000 text messages between former FBI employees Lisa Page and Peter Strozk had been deleted and were unavailable
for review by the Department of Justice (DOJ) inspector general? Is it worth investigating how the inspector general was
able to recover the messages , when the FBI said it could not? Does the FBI lack the technical expertise, or the will? Isn't
it a serious issue that should be addressed, either way?
Along the same lines, do you think it strange or inappropriate that the DOJ
wiped text messages between Strzok and Page from their special counsel cell phones? The deletions happened shortly after they
were ejected from the team and before the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General could review them -- at a time when all had been
informed that their actions were under review. Did technicians attempt to recover the messages? Were the circumstances of the
deletions thoroughly investigated?
When did you first learn that the FBI and DOJ signed off on and presented unverified, anti-Trump political opposition research
to a court
to get wiretaps on an innocent U.S. citizen? Doesn't this violate the
strict procedures enacted while you were FBI director,
intended to ensure that only verified information is seen by the court? Who will be held accountable for any lapses in this arena?
Do these issues point to larger problems within our intelligence community, in terms of how officials operate? Does that put
you in a position where there's a conflict of interest since you were in charge of the FBI when
prior surveillance abuses were identified by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court? Did you consider disclosing this
potential conflict and stepping aside, or referring any issues that overlap with your interests?
What steps did you take after Strzok and Page were exposed, to try to learn if other investigators on your team likewise were
conflicted? Did you take action to segregate the work of these agents and any potential biases they injected into your investigation
and team? Wasn't their behavior a beacon to call you to follow an investigative trail in another direction?
Did you become concerned about foreign influence beyond Russia when you learned that a foreign national, Christopher Steele,
claimed to have obtained opposition research from Russian officials connected to Putin -- and that the FBI and DOJ presented this
material to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to obtain wiretap approvals?
Were you aware that some Democratic Party officials acknowledged
coordinating with Ukraine in 2016 to undermine Trump and his associates and to leak disparaging information to the news media?
Is it true that you
applied
for the job as FBI director but Trump rejected you, the day before then-Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed you
as special counsel to investigate Trump? Does that put you in a potentially conflicted position?
Do you think Donald Trump is guilty of a crime? If so, then do you believe he is perhaps the most clever criminal of our time
since he was able to conceal the evidence despite all the government wiretaps, investigations, informants, surveillance and hundreds
of interviews spanning several years?
Clearly, Robert Mueller hopes he has closed the book on his public statements about his investigation. If he has his way, he will
not discuss the case further on the record. But his parting shot raised plenty of questions.
1) You said DoJ policy prevented you from indicting a sitting president. Did anything prevent you from indicting any co-conspirators
in any obstruction efforts the president may have taken? Did anything prevent you from naming the president as an unindicted co-conspirator
if there were any obstruction?
2) You said that if you had found clear evidence the president was innocent of collusion or obstruction you would have said
so in the report. Would you have done the same if you found clear evidence the president did collude or obstruct even though you
were barred from indicting him?
3) Your report says Russian intelligence hacked into DNC servers and stole emails and then leaked the stolen emails through
Wikileaks in order to influence the election. Did your investigators ever examine the DNC servers? Did FBI investigators ever
examine the DNC servers? Did employess of any other government agency examin the servers? Did anybody other than a firm hired
by the DNC do a forensic examination of the DNC servers? What evidence do you have that the DNC servers were hacked? And what
evidence do you have that it was by Russian intelligence? How can you be certain that Wikileaks source was not Seth Rich or some
other disgruntled DNC employee?
4) Would you like to talk about Whitey Bulger you slimy son of a bitch?
She ignored the two most important questions of all: (1) that Mueller never confirmed that "Russians" hacked the DNC server
because they never looked at it and instead relied on CrowdStrike to tell them it was "Russians" and (2) that Mueller never confirmed
that "Russians" uploaded HillDog's, the DNC's and Podesta's emails to Wikileaks. Yet Mueller reaches these 2 conclusions in his
Report.
The Report is a total farce when it reaches the foregoing two conclusions as the basis for "the Russians interfering in our
elections" absent any evidentiary proof of the same admissible in a court of law. Would be hearsay if they tried to introduce
those two facts into evidence at a trial.
One of the oldest legal tactics, force your adversary to prove a negative, prove an event did not occur, prove a crime was
not committed. Won't work at bench trials, but in front of a jury of "peers" it stands a chance. Especially when you have the
dem congress/MSM-industrial complex willing to parrot the story.
In a different time, Mueller would be shredded in the editorials: two years, unlimited resources, and all you produce is an
insinuation? FU, bob.
Yes. Judge Sullivan alluded to it at the time of the Flynn sentencing. Since Muellers' hands were deliberately tied from
investigating the actual crimes of a treasonous nature - vis a vis the laundered money from the turco-talmudic gangsters -
he could not bring that element of the serious and flagrant abuses both pre and post election into the proceedings.
The "Steele Dossier" was a joint effort of Uk/USA intelligence operatives who colluded with several parties - including
the Clintons, to muddy the waters according to the plans of Urusalem.
Rhetorical. Ignore
When it became clear that the "Russian" government as such operates as a network of mafiyas doing for.... and receiving
from the state... favors which are more often than not part of the strategy of a criminal network known as Chabad. That later
party is the partner in 'collusion'... which took place in the interests of Urusalem.
Peripheral to the investigation.
Crimes have been committed by both Democrat and Republican operatives. Only those which are part of the specific mandate
of the SC were investigated.
Certain specific persons were placed "off limits" to the investigators. All of whom share in common a degree of allegiance
to/control by Urusalem
Seth Rich is alive and well, living in a small beacon of democracy in the middle east. The investigation was tasked with
investigating false flag operations staged by parties whose names can never be mentioned.
Folks, the fact that FISA courts are even "legal" on the books is so far outside the boundaries of fair play I don't even know
where to start. How is this not a civil war starting offense? We're fucked folks.
I'd add two more questions, if slightly off topic.
Why did you let 4 men rot in prison for murders they did not commit when you had evidence exonerating them and implicating
corrupt FBI agents. I guess that question answers itself.
Why did Whitey Bulger get transferred to a new Federal prison and conveniently murdered - out of the camera's view - just as
Rep. Lynch was seeking to expose the FBI's corrupt handling of informants. I guess that question answers itself too.
These questions are just a start. I would also include: "What sort of punishment should people who try to sponsor a coup to
overthrow a duly elected President be subject to?".
The problem is more complex than just CIA. The Deep state encompass more players and it replaced elected officials (surface
state) while elections now provide mostly function of legitimizing the rule of the Deep State
Notable quotes:
"... The truth is as the world's economy becomes free of the US and its think-tanks, the world gets richer but those of us in the USA who make our living by working and getting paid will become poorer. Our money will not be able to cover for a good lifestyle. ..."
"... Its sad to see the disastrous policies of the CIA's economic unit has to be paid by the hard working US citizens who only want a good life like everyone else. We did not ask for the CIA, the CIA imposed itself on us, making the decisions without our consent. Now we pay for their disastrous policies by becoming a third world country. ..."
The growth of the USA is going to depend on the ability of the people in government to
disband the Central Intelligence Agency which has become a bottleneck in the progress of the
USA. The USA cannot grow as long as you have such a powerful bottleneck similar to a dictator
with absolute power.
The truth is as the world's economy becomes free of the US and its think-tanks, the world
gets richer but those of us in the USA who make our living by working and getting paid will
become poorer. Our money will not be able to cover for a good lifestyle.
Its sad to see the disastrous policies of the CIA's economic unit has to be paid by the
hard working US citizens who only want a good life like everyone else. We did not ask for the
CIA, the CIA imposed itself on us, making the decisions without our consent. Now we pay for
their disastrous policies by becoming a third world country.
We are being left behind .... China is going to keep growing... there is nothing the USA
can do to stop her now. If war is used, the USA will lose, if economics of scale is compared
the USA loses. China is a giant with an almost monolithic population of over one billion. Can
you imagine what an educated country with over one billion people can do???
The USA has a lot of blacks, hispanics, asians, Arabs etc, we are not a single group of
people. While diversity is a good thing when you have a lot of money to keep everyone happy,
poverty will be the enermy of diversity. People will be at each other's jugulars fighting for
the little scraps of wealth left behind after the big and powerful grab all they can.
We are into a very hard future in the USA.... no thanks to the silly Central Intelligence
Agency. For heavens sake, cant the CIA learn from Chinese or Russian intelligence???? How do
the intelligence agencies of the Chinese or Russians operate? Learn instead of sitting on the
silly high horse thinking US intelligence is anything but primitive and third rate!
Now the entire USA has to pay for the silly inteliigence agencies which keep expanding
with acronyms like rats!
"... Institutions can "monitor and record private activities of people on a scale that's broad enough that we can say it's close to all-powerful," said Snowden. They do this through "new platforms and algorithms," through which "they're able to shift our behavior. In some cases they're able to predict our decisions -- and also nudge them -- to different outcomes. And they do this by exploiting the human need for belonging ." ..."
"... "We don't sign up for this," he added, dismissing the notion that people know exactly what they are getting into with social media platforms like Facebook. ..."
"... That means that a company, community or country that uses Huawei technology is protecting itself from the US-led international system of surveillance and possible control. And the threats and demands that they stop using Huawei products is more about keeping US control, not so much about blocking Chinese control ..."
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said Thursday that people in systems of power have exploited the human desire to connect in
order to create systems of mass surveillance .
Snowden appeared at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia via
livestream from Moscow to give a keynote address
for the Canadian university's Open Dialogue Series.
Right now, he said, humanity is in a sort of "atomic moment" in the field of computer science. "We're in the midst of the greatest
redistribution of power since the Industrial Revolution, and this is happening because technology has provided a new capability,"
Snowden said.
"It's related to influence that reaches everyone in every place," he said. "It has no regard for borders. Its reach is unlimited,
if you will, but its safeguards are not." Without such defenses, technology is able to affect human behavior.
Institutions can "monitor and record private activities of people on a scale that's broad enough that we can say it's close
to all-powerful," said Snowden. They do this through "new platforms and algorithms," through which "they're able to shift our behavior.
In some cases they're able to predict our decisions -- and also nudge them -- to different outcomes. And they do this by exploiting
the human need for belonging ."
"We don't sign up for this," he added, dismissing the notion that people know exactly what they are getting into with social
media platforms like Facebook.
Snowden focuses on the common-knowledge stuff to keep our attention away from mass Signals Interference (spoofing and blocking
messages, calls, and emails) and other shady programs.
Huxley's 'Ultimate Revolution' - a scientific dictatorship where the masses willingly submit to their own enslavement - is
here.
His 1962 UC Berkeley speech sums it all up. Orwell's 1984 depended on terror and force to maintain control. Much easier with
A Brave New World where the control is psychological and people 'know their place' in the world and willingly accept it.
Mass surveillance is useless if you can't organise such a huge data set into meaningful information, and what's meaningful
is always a matter of opinion. Those who paid the bazillions to build this thing must be starting to scratch their heads.
The real threat of a system like this is when some low level user with access exploits it for their personal advantage. Some
neighbor or co-worker who doesn't like you.
AI has a long way to go and in this case it just sounds like a poor excuse to keep feeding the big white elephant.
10 to 15 yrs from now, security services and police will intercept any person walking in a public place without some form
of smart device to identify who they are, and it is all being implemented by stealth, right before our eyes
Smart identification devices will become mandatory, everything in your life will be tracked, your travel, your spending,
your political affiliations, people will willingly give up their freedoms to the illusory safety of the security state, call
it slavery
I don't know but at least as it pertains to me, I think all the scare tactics aboput Artificial Inteligence is way overblown.
I don't even read the ads on the internet, and if I do happen to spend more than a nanosecond viewing them, its usually only
to getg the name of the company so I make sure NOTG to buy anything from them for invading my space.
SoI reallhydon't \care if some algorithm says I am likely to buy a certain kind of product, because they can bombard me with
ads all day and all night and it won't make a rat's *** bit of difference in whagt I decide to do. Same with politics...there's
nothing they can pipe intop my computer that will make me more or less likely to vote for a candidate. I have voted all over
the ballot in any election I ever voted in, and my selections were based on reading what the candidates said at debates or in
campaign speeches. Political advertising is a waste of money when itg comes to my voting.
In terms of spying, yes, I can understand how and why tech companies and the government engage in that kind of activity.
I surely don't like it, but it really doesn't bother me because I would never portray anything I do to an internet full of anonymous
people who may be collecting information. Most people are law abiding and the things they do that come close to criminal occur
so infrequently and are for such a relatively small amount of money compared to a criminal enterprise that the government probably
doesn't have time to bother with them. If you have nothing to hide than you have nothing to fear, and for the most part, most
people have nothing to hide.
In terms of drones surveilling everyone, I think they are great target practice. How often do you get the chance to fire
atga moving target outside of skeet shooting ? So if the government or some ahole company wants to spy on you with drones, have
fun shooting them out of the air. If enough people take this route, the practice will end because the cost of all those shot
up drones will be too expensive for the Peeping Toms to afford. And the government does not have the resources to prosecute
a hundred million people all shooting at drones.
Another point : when it comes to election time, go to the local Meet The Candidate forums where you live and ask the candidates
who has the balls to state they will vote against any government spying without warrants based on unimpeachable reasonable causes
? Only vote for the politicians who make such pledges, and if they break their promises vote them out of office the next time
they try to get elected. Democracy works when the people are willing to use it. So use it.
Then get off your dead *** and work to save what power the people have left. Are you that lazy physically and intellectually?
TV people own you enough to cave into deep apathy? The I hope you get FEMA camped in one form or another because that's where
this **** is headed unless you take to heart the previous poster.
I would have agreed with you 20 years ago. We're way past the point where voting matters. All politicians on both sides are
the worst pieces of **** you can imagine. They all support mass surveillance, slavery through fake Fed money, war, GMOs, vaccines
and any other evil **** their masters are trying to force on us.
I hope the voting rate in America goes under 10 percent so that 90 percent of us can say, "**** you! I didn't vote for that"
and have it be true. Because when it comes to all the important stuff, you did vote for that if you voted for one of these vile
wastes of protoplasm in DC.
"As for freedom, it will soon cease to exist in any shape or form. Living will depend upon absolute obedience to a strict
set of arrangements, which it will no longer be possible to transgress. The air traveler is not free. In the future, life's
passengers will be even less so: they will travel through their lives fastened to their (corporate) seats."
I agree with Snowden's assessment of the human need to socially connect with others which is being exploited and morphed
into mass surveillance.
But .gov cannot be trusted to take any effective action against the likes of Faceache or Goolag because these outfits are
in bed with government (see recent ZH article on this very subject). Thus, government is a prime beneficiary of the mass surveillance
data being collected.
I actually disagree with Snowden. I think social media, from what people describe and what I observe, strokes people's egos
and self-esteem. The tragedy here is that social connection becomes redefined rather narrowly within the confines of ego and
self-esteem. I note, e.g., the strident and self-righteous tones in some of the posts throughout ZH here today. Along with the
hyper-massaging of ego/self-esteem comes hyper-emotionalism. Everything is cataclysmic. You're the "good guy," and everybody
and anybody who opposes you are the "bad guys." Stark, vivid black and white thinking propelled by emotions on steroids. Combine
ego massage with steroidal emotions, and you get people wearing the equivalent of horse blinders. People who are easily duped.
I was struck by Snowden's remarks about Huawei technology. He makes the claim that in the past 6 years our best minds with
unlimited resources had been unable to find Huawei back doors or kill switches, because otherwise we would know, they would
have announced it to the world
On the other hand we can assume that American servers and the software they use do have back doors and maybe kill switches
That means that a company, community or country that uses Huawei technology is protecting itself from the US-led international
system of surveillance and possible control. And the threats and demands that they stop using Huawei products is more about
keeping US control, not so much about blocking Chinese control
This reminds me of the urgency with which the US demands that countries buy Patriot missile systems, not S400's.
STASI was privatized - now, people volunteer their information, and the CIA-funded ABC and FaceBook aggregate and sell the
data back to Big Government.
He is right. When myspace, then facebook came out I thought, Cool, I can keep in touch with all these people. Then, when
I became obvious that is was being used to spy on everyone and sell their info, I was pissed at myself for being so naive to
think that an honest company could exist without stabbing everyone in the back and becoming a tool for for the same intelligence
groups that have been standing on our necks for a couple hundred years now. Today it is too much to ask for an honest company
and a government that does not victimize its citizens in about every way it can imagine. We can have a better world. It won't
come by voting. They locked that **** down. It is time for the rope.
I get the surveillance part, but the social control part is still in the wings. China's social credit system and US' "terrorism"
databases are all but inklings of what is to come: constant and ubiquitous 24/7 monitoring with AI drone "enforcement". So far
the powers that be feel constrained in using all the data they collect in criminal court - in part because there are not enough
prisons, and in part because they don't want a revolt. But: once AI, data collection and drone automation reach the tipping
point (not far off), those constraints will be gone: there will be no ability to revolt as the drones will wipe out the "seditionists",
and prison won't be a problem because they will use other means (no food, no transportation, or corporal punishment, all administered
by integrated sales, transportation and drone systems).
An interesting method of monitoring access to the particular WEB site or page by intercepting pages at the router and
inserting reference to the "snooping" site for example one pixel image) which collects IPs of devices which accessed particular
page. Does not require breaking into the particular Web site 00 just the control of provider router is is enough. That
makes it more understandable the attack on Huawei.
Notable quotes:
"... Said Mr. Snowden was at risk for extra ordinary rendition.. qualified him for application under refuge law. Said to claim refugee status Art. 33 of the refugee humanitarian grounds application is Intl Refuge Law, that those in control of governments are working to eliminate this long standing intl understanding. ..."
"... said we are experiencing the greatest and fastest and most pervasive redistribution of power since the Industrial revolution.Highly concerned that very few are going to benefit. ..."
"... Talked about Conspiracy , a group called 5 eyes (USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, and UK) and prism.. explained how it worked. basically a collaboration between big corporations and government ..."
"... Explained how these corporations and government (mostly government) could intercept web page request between user at home or in office and the target server, and replace generate a blank page that has surveillance hidden in the page, then blend hidden with the legitimate page delivered by the innocent server to the unknowing user. said it goes beyond collaboration and moves to proactive surveillance. ..."
"... Said law is needed to criminalize companies and governments that make useful network devices that people buy, into evil spyware. mentioned the NSO group can remember why?. .. classified "trade in hidden exploits". as evil relayed story about how such devices were used in Mexico to defeat political opposition ..."
Describes the incredible pressure governments are applying on anyone who steps forward to
help a whistle blower.
Said Mr. Snowden was at risk for extra ordinary rendition.. qualified him for application
under refuge law. Said to claim refugee status Art. 33 of the refugee humanitarian grounds
application is Intl Refuge Law, that those in control of governments are working to eliminate
this long standing intl understanding.
Explained the constitution of Equador was the most complex constitution on planet its due
process rights solid due process safeguard, has a very high threshold but. Morales decision
was arbitrary to strip Mr. Assange of his asylum. Said HK angry at Germany over two whistle
blowers
Snowden then speaks .. excellent talk..
1st point.. progress in science has been unprecedented, especially nuclear science, but
the nation states are using that new
knowledge to make nuclear weapons.. called the progress an "Atomic Moment" in Science
evolution. .
said we are experiencing the greatest and fastest and most pervasive redistribution of
power since the Industrial revolution.Highly concerned that very few are going to benefit.
2nd point Platforms and Algorithms are being used by those in power to "shift our
behaviors" accomplished covertly by user
contracts people are required to sign when joining something on line (<=he said no one
reads these things, but they are dangerous
Talked about Conspiracy , a group called 5 eyes (USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, and UK) and
prism.. explained how it worked.
basically a collaboration between big corporations and government
Explained how these corporations and government (mostly government) could intercept web
page request between
user at home or in office and the target server, and replace generate a blank page that has
surveillance hidden in the page, then
blend hidden with the legitimate page delivered by the innocent server to the unknowing user.
said it goes beyond collaboration
and moves to proactive surveillance.
said the legal means to spy on the populations existed long before 9/11, but it could not
find daylight to be adopted until 9/11.
Basically the government and massive in size corporations have all of the data on every
single person on the earth because they gather it everywhere all of the time. discussed
warrant_less wire tap, explained why whistle blower fair trial in he USA not likely,
Said everything single call or electronic communication made by citizens is captured
suggested monitoring calls was a felony many corporations committed before the FISA Act was
enacted to protect the listener.
Mentioned Signal by Open Whisper <= for encryption??
Said law is needed to criminalize companies and governments that make useful network devices
that people buy, into evil spyware. mentioned the NSO group can remember why?. .. classified
"trade in hidden exploits". as evil relayed story about how such devices were used in Mexico
to defeat political opposition.
But the big thing I got out of it, was how website contract agreements are not innocent.
Such agreements prey on human desire to [interact, connect, share and cooperate] these
desires have been modelled into a platform that allows government or private commercial
enterprises to manipulate, exploit and prey-on any human "interacting with a such
websites.
"... "All political analysis which favors either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party is inherently worthless, because both parties are made of swamp and exist in service of the swamp. If you can't see that the entire system is one unified block of corruption and that ordinary people need to come together and unite against it, then you really don't understand what you're looking at." ..."
Whatever you may think of Trump, the people who set out to 'get him' are the scum of the
Earth. I recommend listening to the two-part interview of George Papadopoulos with Mark
Steyn, where he describes the convoluted plot to use him to bring down Trump.
What they did to this guy is truly disgusting. Brennan belongs in a prison cell, and he
should be sharing it with Mueller. Papadopoulos also has written a book about his
experiences called 'Deep State Target, How I got caught in the crosshairs of the plot to
bring down President Trump.
And, a final comment. Hillary Clinton proved beyond all doubt that she and not Trump was
not fit to be President. To engage in this scheme and then to raise tensions through the
roof with a nuclear superpower, which can destroy this country, is about as low and selfish
as it is possible to be.
As I stated on the open thread, to paraphrase Muller;
I don't give a s###. figure it out yourself, Im f***ing outta' here.
The whole point of impeachment, is to have a show trial, not actually impeach. If the
thing is on TV, the American people may watch it, and that would be interesting.
Not to worry though, Pelosi and Schumer won't let that happen. Appeasing their donors,is
all they care about.
psycho @ 2 quoting C. Johnston stated;
"All political analysis which favors either the Democratic Party or the Republican
Party is inherently worthless, because both parties are made of swamp and exist in service of
the swamp. If you can't see that the entire system is one unified block of corruption and
that ordinary people need to come together and unite against it, then you really don't
understand what you're looking at."
"... He basically said in so many words "Russians hacked Hillary & I didn't find Trump didn't collude with them, I just came up short on proof, and I never said he didn't obstruct my probe, just that I wasn't allowed to charge it. However, Congress can charge him thru impeachment" ..."
"... Russian spin is the key to maintaining Russia as a fake enemy and using their fake involvement in the election to get support to suppress alt media and censor social media. This is a bipartisan agenda. Impeachment just serves to divide and distract, exactly what they want. ..."
"... Russia like China is a fake enemy. Fake conflict with the US serves them just as well as it does with the US. The people must have an enemy lest they focus attention on the government. So they all play along. ..."
"... we get the opportunity to vote for one clown or another, two max, is a mainstay (about the only one) of our "democratic" nation. And the wrong clown won! Damned Russians. ..."
What do you expect from the master of coverup himself?
He basically said in so many words "Russians hacked Hillary & I didn't find
Trump didn't collude with them, I just came up short on proof, and I never said he didn't
obstruct my probe, just that I wasn't allowed to charge it. However, Congress can charge
him thru impeachment"
Except for the Russian involvement that's the truth. But the Russian spin is the key
to maintaining Russia as a fake enemy and using their fake involvement in the election to
get support to suppress alt media and censor social media. This is a bipartisan agenda.
Impeachment just serves to divide and distract, exactly what they want.
Russia like China is a fake enemy. Fake conflict with the US serves them just as
well as it does with the US. The people must have an enemy lest they focus attention on the
government. So they all play along.
No wonder hollywood is producing crap now and messed up GOT finale. All the good writers
are engaged in scripting our reality under the guidance of the Deep State. Trumps nothing
more than an actor following a script.
The Dems can't believe Hillary lost all on her own. It must have been the Russians who
threatened US democracy and it's too bad we don't have the truth b/c Trump obstructed the
patriotic and sacred investigation according to a powerful person.
. . .Nancy Pelosi --
"The Special Counsel's report revealed that the President's campaign welcomed Russian
interference in the election, and laid out eleven instances of the President's
obstruction of the investigation. The Congress holds sacred its constitutional
responsibility to investigate and hold the President accountable for his abuse of power.
"The Congress will continue to investigate and legislate to protect our elections and
secure our democracy. The American people must have the truth. We call upon the Senate to
pass H.R. 1, the For The People Act, to protect our election systems.
"We salute Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team for his patriotic duty to seek
the truth." . . . here
After all, the quadrennial presidential election, when we get the
opportunity to vote for one clown or another, two max, is a mainstay (about the only one)
of our "democratic" nation. And the wrong clown won! Damned Russians.
"... IMO it also became more apparent when the Deep State f*cked up by no bringing Russia on-side after the end of the Cold War while continuing to assist China's "peaceful rise". That caused the dislocation known as Trump. There's gonna be some turbulence when you turn a massive entity like USA. ..."
Mueller plays his criminal hand of innuendo until the end. Were he ever to submit to questions in a Congressional setting,
Mueller would be out-Giancana-ing Sam on taking the Fifth. The Special Counsel format is at this stage a superseded footnote.
The ball's now in Barr/Durham's court now and the theme is Hunt for Red Predicates.
Breaking news. The Russia Collusion time-zero may in fact lead to Rome as all roads are wont to do. Italy is not a Five Eyes
member. However that did not prevent Obama and Brennan from treating it like one. Both spent a lot of time there at opportune
moments.
As it turns out the oft-cited, oft-profaned Steele Dossier was the barest of predicates that was always meant to be hopped
over anyway. The Mother of all Predicates was a a failed effort on the the part of Italian intelligence and the FBI to frame
Trump in a stolen (Clinton) email scandal. How did the Italians get hold of these emails and who thwarted the frame-up attempt?
Hmm.
Just when you think the transnational plot is thick enough, it gets thickerer, and if Obama's Milan itinerary's any indication,
it may well reach the tippy-top.
Nine Days in May (2017) is where 90% of the action is.
@29 bruce... everyone here at moa is saying much the same which is why some of us are saying the cia is running the usa at this
point.. that and a confluence of other interests... mueller - ex cia... so, basically the mueller investigation was more cover
up and b.s. for the masses... it seems to have worked to a limited degree..
Some think the CIA has been running the show since the Kennedy assassination. But with the rise of the neocons and the
end of the Cold War, it became more apparent.
IMO it also became more apparent when the Deep State f*cked up by no bringing Russia on-side after the end of the Cold
War while continuing to assist China's "peaceful rise". That caused the dislocation known as Trump. There's gonna be some turbulence
when you turn a massive entity like USA.
Last thing that as become 'apparent' is this: the vast majority of people in the West (including many smart people in
alt-media) can't dislodge their thinking from the MSM narratives. Despite being skeptical of MSM and USA, they just can't bring
themselves to see the degree of manipulation that leads to the logical conclusion: "cia is running the usa".
Some think the CIA has been running the show since the Kennedy assassination. But with the rise of the neocons and the end
of the Cold War, it became more apparent.
IMO it also became more apparent when the Deep State f*cked up by no bringing Russia on-side after the end of the Cold War
while continuing to assist China's "peaceful rise". That caused the dislocation known as Trump. There's gonna be some turbulence
when you turn a massive entity like USA.
Last thing that as become 'apparent' is this: the vast majority of people in the West (including many smart people in
alt-media) can't dislodge their thinking from the MSM narratives. Despite being skeptical of MSM and USA, they just can't
bring themselves to see the degree of manipulation that leads to the logical conclusion: "cia is running the usa" .
Having been practically a recluse since since the 'fake dossier' alleging links between Donald Trump and Russia that he produced
was published by BuzzFeed in January 2017, Christophe Steele has reportedly refused to cooperate with AG Barr's probes
Reuters reports that , according to a source with knowledge of the situation, Steele, a former Russia expert for the British
spy agency MI6, will not answer questions from prosecutor John Durham , named by Barr to examine the origins of the investigations
into Trump and his campaign team.
However, buried deep in
Reuters story is the same source claiming that Steele might cooperate with a parallel inquiry by the Justice Department's Inspector
General into how U.S. law enforcement agencies handled pre-election investigations into both Trump and Clinton.
In the past Steele has cooperated, willingly being interviewed twice in the special counsel's investigation, and submitting answers
in writing to the Senate Intelligence Committee, but apparently this time he is not willing.
With Steel refusing to cooperate, Joe DiGenova, former U.S. Attorney warned Monday on WMAL radio's
Mornings on the Mall radio show,
"this is full scale war," adding that "we are heading toward a gigantic, gigantic fight...
The intelligence community, which includes the FBI, is in full resistance to disclosing what they did during the presidential
campaign ."
Sara Carter reports that DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to release his report on the FBI's handling of the
investigation into Trump within weeks.
These investigation will hold those in the intelligence and law enforcement community accountable, depending on what evidence
is discovered. This reporter is hearing from sources that it will be scathing. Those who abused their power and weaponized the tools
meant to target America's enemies against a political opponents should be held accountable . Tags
Politics Law Crime
It seems reasonable to demand Steele's extradition to America to explain his part in the conspiracy.
I mean is being a party to the conspiracy, attempted treason and sedition of the attempted overthrow of an elected President
not at least as important as Julian Assange who only made public some documents that someone else removed?
Oh these fuckers are scared to death. Comey lashing out at Trump...on and on. This is going to be great...and Trump will
play it perfect right into the election. And BIDEN was part of all of it. What a great next 6 years.
Funny, I was recently de-platformed on Twitter for tweeting to GCHQ (British Intelligence) that the UK's sordid involvement
in spying on the Trump campaign would be exposed and "no amount of British bluster could refute it...".
How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and
other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?
Because they serve those who dispense such power. That is their job.
And those whom they serve make sure that checky/balancey oversight–say in the form
of chief executive of the United States of America, or an honest Congressman or
journalist–is destroyed if it threatens not to align with those masters or even
questions/reveals these individuals or these structures.
Look at how they've reacted to Donald Trump's trolling both before and while in
office.
They make sure that "the intelligence bureaucracy" reifies that exclusionary principle in
every hire, every action, every policy. Like many bureaucracies and institutions it becomes a
factory for its own viral replication rather than anything that is traditionally considered
"intelligence."
Look at their prime creation of the new millennium: Barack Obama.
"... Tom Charles Huston testified before the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, commonly known as the Church Committee, on the 43-page plan he presented to the President Nixon and others on ways to collect information about anti-war and "radical" groups, including burglary, electronic surveillance, and opening of mail. ..."
9/23/1975 Tom Charles Huston Church Committee Testimony
Tom Charles Huston testified before the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental
Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, commonly known as the Church Committee,
on the 43-page plan he presented to the President Nixon and others on ways to collect
information about anti-war and "radical" groups, including burglary, electronic surveillance,
and opening of mail.
"... In July 2017 Strache and his right hand man Johann Gudenus, who is also the big number in the FPOe, get invited for dinner to a rented villa on Ibiza, the Spanish tourist island in the Mediterranean. They are told that the daughter of a Russian billionaire plans large investments in Austria. It was said that she would like to help his party. The alleged daughter of the Russian billionaire, who is actually also Austrian, and her "friend" serve an expensive dinner. Alcohol flows freely. The pair offers a large party donation but asks for returns in form of mark ups on public contracts. ..."
"... Unknown to Strache the villa is professionally bugged with many hidden cameras and microphones. ..."
"... The right-wing parties will use the case to boost their legitimacy. ..."
"... Strache was obviously set up by some intelligence services, probably a German one with a British assist. The original aim was likely to blackmail him. But during the meeting on Ibiza Strache promised and did nothing illegal. Looking for potential support for his party is not a sin. Neither is discussing investments in Austria with a "daughter of a Russian oligarch." Some boosting while drunk is hardly a reason to go to jail. When the incident provided too little material to claim that Strache is corrupt, the video was held back until the right moment to politically assassinate him with the largest potential damage to his party. That moment was thought to be now. ..."
"... The massive economic shock following the banking collapse of 2007–8 is the direct cause of the crisis of confidence which is affecting almost all the institutions of western representative democracy. The banking collapse was not a natural event, like a tsunami. It was a direct result of man-made systems and artifices which permitted wealth to be generated and hoarded primarily through multiple financial transactions rather than by the actual production and sale of concrete goods, and which then disproportionately funnelled wealth to those engaged in the mechanics of the transactions. ..."
"... The political assassination of Christian Strache is unjust. What was done during the 2007-8 banking crisis was utterly corrupt and also unjust. Instead of going to jail the bankers were rewarded with extreme amounts of money for their assault on the well being of the people. The public was then told that it must starve through austerity to make up for the loss of money. ..."
During the last days a right wing politician in Austria was taken down by using an elaborate sting. Until Friday Heinz-Christian
Strache was leader of the far right (but not fascist) Freedom Party of Austria (FPOe) and the Vice Chancellor of the country. On
Friday morning two German papers, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Der Spiegelpublished
(German)
reports (English) about an old video that was made to take Strache down.
The FPOe has good connections with United Russia, the party of the Russian President Putin, and to other right-wing parties in
east Europe. It's pro-Russian position has led to verbal attacks on and defamation of the party from NATO supporting and neoliberal
circles.
In July 2017 Strache and his right hand man Johann Gudenus, who is also the big number in the FPOe, get invited for dinner to
a rented villa on Ibiza, the Spanish tourist island in the Mediterranean. They are told that the daughter of a Russian billionaire
plans large investments in Austria. It was said that she would like to help his party. The alleged daughter of the Russian billionaire,
who is actually also Austrian, and her "friend" serve an expensive dinner. Alcohol flows freely. The pair offers a large party donation
but asks for returns in form of mark ups on public contracts.
Unknown to Strache the villa is professionally bugged with many hidden cameras and microphones.
A scene from the video. Source: Der Falter (vid,
German)
During the six hour long party several schemes get proposed by the "Russian" and are discussed. Strache rejects most of them.
He insists several times that everything they plan or do must be legal and conform to the law. He says that a large donation could
probably be funneled through an endowment that would then support his party. It is a gray area under Austrian party financing laws.
They also discuss if the "Russian" could buy the Kronen Zeitung , Austria's powerful tabloid, and use it to prop up his party.
The evening goes on with several bottles of vodka on the table. Starche gets a bit drunk and boosts in front of the "oligarch
daughter" about all his connections to rich and powerful people. He does not actually have these.
Strache says that, in exchange for help for his party, the "Russian" could get public contracts for highway building and repair.
Currently most of such contracts in Austria go to the large Austrian company, STRABAG, that is owned by a neoliberal billionaire
who opposes the FPOe. At that time Strache was not yet in the government and had no way to decide about such contracts.
At one point Strache seems to understand that the whole thing is a setup. But his right hand man calms him down and vouches
for the "Russian". The sting ends with Strache and his companion leaving the place. The never again see the "Russian" and her co-plotter.
Nothing they talked about will ever come to fruition.
Three month later Strache and his party win more than 20% in the Austrian election and form a coalition government with the
conservative party OeVP led by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Even while the FPOe controls several ministries, it does not achieve much
politically. It lacks a real program and the government's policies are mostly run by the conservatives.
Nearly two years after the evening on Ibiza, ten days before the European parliament election in which Strache's party is predicted
to achieve good results, a video of the evening on Ibiza is handed to two German papers which are known to be have strong transatlanticist
leanings and have previously been used for other shady 'leaks'. The papers do not hesitate to take part in the plot and publish extensive
reports about the video.
After the reports appeared Strache immediately
stepped down and the conservatives
ended the coalition with his party. Austria will now have new elections.
On Bloomberg Leonid Bershidsky
opines
on the case:
Strache's discussion with the Russian oligarch's fake niece shows a propensity for dirty dealing that has nothing to do with idealistic
nationalism. Nationalist populists often agitate against entrenched, corrupt elites and pledge to drain various swamps. In the
videos, however, Strache and Gudenus behave like true swamp creatures, savoring rumors of drug and sex scandals in Austrian politics
and discussing how to create an authoritarian media machine like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's.
I do not believe that the people who voted for the FPOe (and similar parties in other countries) will subscribe to that view.
The politics of the main stream parties in Austria have for decades been notoriously corrupt. Compared to them Strache and his party
are astonishingly clean. In the video he insists several times that everything must stay within the legal realm. Whenever the "Russian"
puts forward a likely illegal scheme, Starche emphatically rejects it.
Bershidsky continues:
Strache, as one of the few nationalist populists in government in the European Union's wealthier member states, was an important
member of the movement Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has been trying to cobble together ahead of the European Parliament
election that will take place next week. On Saturday, he was supposed to attend a Salvini-led rally in Milan with other like-minded
politicians from across Europe. Instead, he was in Vienna apologizing to his wife and to Kurz and protesting pitifully that he'd
been the victim of a "political assassination" -- a poisonous rain on the Italian right-winger's parade.
...
This leaves the European far right in disarray and plays into the hands of centrist and leftist forces ahead of next week's election.
Salvini's unifying effort has been thoroughly undermined, ...
This is also a misreading of the case. The right-wing parties will use the case to boost their legitimacy.
Strache was obviously set up by some intelligence services, probably a German one with a British assist. The original aim was
likely to blackmail him. But during the meeting on Ibiza Strache promised and did nothing illegal. Looking for potential support
for his party is not a sin. Neither is discussing investments in Austria with a "daughter of a Russian oligarch." Some boosting while
drunk is hardly a reason to go to jail. When the incident provided too little material to claim that Strache is corrupt, the video
was held back until the right moment to politically assassinate him with the largest potential damage to his party. That moment was
thought to be now.
But that Strache stepped down after the sudden media assault only makes him more convincing. The right-wing all over Europe will
see him as a martyr who was politically assassinated because he worked for their cause. The issue will increase the right-wingers
hate against the 'liberal' establishment. It will further motivate them: "They attack us because we are right and winning." The new
far-right block Natteo Salvini
will setup in the European Parliament will likely receive a record share of votes.
Establishment writers notoriously misinterpret the new right wing parties and their followers. This stand-offish sentence in the
Spiegel story about Strache's party demonstrates the problem:
In the last election, the party drew significant support from the working class, in part because of his ability to simplify even
the most complicated of issues and play the common man, even in his role as vice chancellor.
The implicit thesis, that the working class is too dumb to understand the "most complicated of issues", is not only incredibly
snobbish but utterly false. The working class understands very well what the establishment parties have done to it and continue to
do. The increasing vote share of the far-right is a direct consequence of the behavior of the neoliberal center and of the lack of
real left alternatives.
Last week, before the Strache video appeared, Craig Murray
put his finger on the wound:
The massive economic shock following the banking collapse of 2007–8 is the direct cause of the crisis of confidence which is affecting
almost all the institutions of western representative democracy. The banking collapse was not a natural event, like a tsunami.
It was a direct result of man-made systems and artifices which permitted wealth to be generated and hoarded primarily through
multiple financial transactions rather than by the actual production and sale of concrete goods, and which then disproportionately
funnelled wealth to those engaged in the mechanics of the transactions.
...
The rejection of the political class manifests itself in different ways and has been diverted down a number of entirely blind
alleys giving unfulfilled promise of a fresh start – Brexit, Trump, Macron. As the vote share of the established political parties
– and public engagement with established political institutions – falls everywhere, the chattering classes deride the political
symptoms of status quo rejection by the people as "populism". It is not populism to make sophisticated arguments that undermine
the received political wisdom and take on the entire weight of established media opinion.
If one wants to take down the far right one has to do so with arguments and good politics for the working class. Most people,
especially working class people, have a strong sense for justice. The political assassination of Christian Strache is unjust. What
was done during the 2007-8 banking crisis was utterly corrupt and also unjust. Instead of going to jail the bankers were rewarded
with extreme amounts of money for their assault on the well being of the people. The public was then told that it must starve through
austerity to make up for the loss of money.
While I consider myself to be a strong leftist who opposes the right wherever possible, I believe to understand why people vote
for Strache's FBOe and similar parties. When one talks to these people issues of injustice and inequality always come up. The new
'populist' parties at least claim to fight against the injustice done to the common men. Unlike most of the establishment parties
they seem to be still mostly clean and not yet corrupted.
In the early 1990s Strache actually flirted with violent fascists but he rejected their way. While he has far-right opinions,
he and his like are no danger to our societies. If we can not accept that Strache and his followers have some legitimate causes,
we will soon find us confronted with way more extreme people. The neoliberal establishment seems to do its best to achieve that.
Posted by b on May 19, 2019 at 01:10 PM |
Permalink
"... what is true is that May was judge, jury and executioner in convicting Russia of the poisoning and refused to follow an evidence based discovery process that lies at the heart of the UK justice system - by hiding behind those powers that the UK intelligence community "needs" in order to protect british (not russian, british) citizens from the sinister influences of foreign powers. ..."
"... the criminal activities of howler monkeys, like Strzok, Page, Brennan, McCabe, SUSAN RICE, Comey, Ohr, BIDEN, OBAMA, etc in the USA are bad enough (whilst hardly impacting civilian life in the US - BUT - the tactics used have been deployed to starve, cause disease, "dumb down", reduce life chances all over the middle east and elsewhere for countless millions of people. ..."
Couple of factors not mentioned. one is Israel and the other is more sinister still and tied
to the conclusions to be drawn from the Mueller report.
it may be true that Skripal helped Steele with some elements of the dossier compiled by
Steele, via SKripals handler Pablo Miller. It may be true that Skripal went "stir crazy" and an
attempt was made to silence him and his daughter - permanently, because they simply cold not be
trusted. a similar motivation could be drawn up against Russia - with the two Russians visiting
Salisbury used as diversionary "stool pigeons". It may be true that the "poisoning" was self
inflicted and was in fact a murder/suicide attempt as a result of depression along the ines
"what's the point of it all".
what is true is that May was judge, jury and executioner in convicting Russia of the
poisoning and refused to follow an evidence based discovery process that lies at the heart of
the UK justice system - by hiding behind those powers that the UK intelligence community
"needs" in order to protect british (not russian, british) citizens from the sinister
influences of foreign powers.
what ought to be apparent is
- the same tactics used by the special prosecutor to investigate the "Russia collusion"
smoke screen erected by the howler monkeys in the US intel agencies (aided and abetter by
howler monkeys in UK intel agencies) to stymie the US executive branch (Trump) are likely to be
used by the the UK government and some more as well - in true Le Carre fashion, but with much
dumber and less principled actors than Smiley's people.
these tactics prevented (and continue to prevent) investigation and prosecution of heinous
corruption within the obama administration of the previous 8 years - these howler monkey
intelligence agency tactics include(d) entrapment, honeypots, racketeering, blackmail, de facto
kidnapping (in the case of Skripals), bribery, wire fraud, unauthorized wire-tapping, breach of
authorized intel agency activities (like the FBI operating overseas and the CIA operating
domestically in the US, false and unverified claims in FISA warrants, NSA providing unauthorized
information to the CIA and FBI etc)
- given the howler monkey activities of the alphabet soup, it is not beyond the imagination
to draw parallels with the CIA's reporting and analysis of situations on the ground wherever
they operate to provide intel ahead of military activity. the DOD has already proved complicit
by hiring Halper (for hundreds of thousands of dollars) to assist with the entrapment of Trump
operative Papadopoulos. Mifsud is likely a CIA, not a Russian, asset.
- given that we have ample evidence of the howler monkeys in the alphabet soup seeking to
facilitate a coup against a sitting US president, it is certainly plausible that - as with the
US goverment sponsoring the mujaheedin, isis and al qaeda in afghanistan to fight the russians
in late 80's early 90's, Iraq yellow cake and WMD - that the howler monkeys paid the white
helmets to ovethrow assad and foment civil war in Syria - thus causing the migration of some 5
million syrians into europe, iraq, turkey, jordan, turkey and lebanon.
so , the case is that howler monkey activity in intel agencies of the UK and US (add
(F)rance to get FUKUS) are guilty of the manufacture of human conflict by fabricating evidence,
breaking the laws (certainly of the targeted countries, but also of the UK and US), providing
shitty analysis (howler monkeys are only good at swinging in trees and flinging ****) and
generally operating as evil actors on the dark side of humanity.
this can only be brought into sharp relief if howler monkey activities were instead shown to
be powers for good rather than the geo-political risks that persist in Iran, North Korea,
Venezuela, Yemen, Libya and so on and so forth.
Never mind how much past conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and so on relied on
evidence and analysis thrown at us by the howler monkeys in the tree tops, how much of what we
we are doing now is a fabrication causing needless suffering by civilian (not politicians or
military engaged in conflict) populations?
the criminal activities of howler monkeys, like Strzok, Page, Brennan, McCabe, SUSAN RICE,
Comey, Ohr, BIDEN, OBAMA, etc in the USA are bad enough (whilst hardly impacting civilian life
in the US - BUT - the tactics used have been deployed to starve, cause disease, "dumb down",
reduce life chances all over the middle east and elsewhere for countless millions of
people.
there are equivalents of strzok, page, ohr right throughout the US and UK government
"machines" operating overseas. think about that. crimes exposed by Barr et al in the US -
against a sitting president - are replicated wherever howler monkeys operate overseas as well.
US President Donald Trump declared a national emergency over Huawei, which he has deemed a
national security threat. His new executive order makes it more difficult for US companies to
do business with the Chinese tech giant. RT America's Manila Chan chats with investigative
journalist Ben Swann, who says no evidence exists for the Trump administration's claim.
#RTAmerica#InQuestionRT#QuestionMore
U.S. cannot spy via Chinese made technology products. That is the problem. When did
competition against American technology get to be a national security threat? It is about
creating a monopoly of only certain products in America. I hope American companies fight
back. Prices in American stores have already started to rise. Monopolies mean high
prices.
In the age of technology...any country
who doesn't SPY on other countries or their own citizens is LYING thru their teeth! USA is NO
DIFFERENT than CHINA.....they both are rogue nations, competing for the same thing,
TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP! The problem is....HUAWEI just got the upper hand in 5G technology
before the US can compete...so as such, the US threatens other countries with scare tactics
until the US can develop and deploy 5G technology to compete with CHINA. It's all about MONEY
and BUSINESS.
USA has dishonestly gathered more data on it's own civilians than it can access or
understand in several lifetimes, they have the gaul to attack others without proof?
UNREAL
"... BREAKING: A high-level source tells me it was Brennan who insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report... Brennan should be asked to testify under oath in Congress ASAP. ..."
"... As one example, in its FISA application, the bureau repeatedly and incorrectly assured the court in a footnote that it "does not believe" British ex-spy Christopher Steele was the direct source for a Yahoo News article implicating Page in Russian collusion, and instead asserted that the Yahoo article provided an independent basis to believe Steele. - Fox News ..."
"... Graham noted a report by The Hill 's John Solomon that the FBI was specifically told that Steele was "keen" to leak his salacious dossier for the purpose of influencing the 2016 US election . The agency also knew that the document's claims were either unverified or disproven , yet it was used anyway against Trump and his campaign. ..."
"... Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are now blaming Loretta Lynch for the botched Hillary/email investigation. ..."
FBI-CIA Dispute Erupts Over Whether Comey Or Brennan Pushed Steele Dossier
by Tyler Durden Thu, 05/16/2019 - 10:25 0 SHARES
Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print
A dispute has erupted over whether former FBI Director James Comey or his CIA counterpart, John Brennan, promoted the unverified
Steele dossier as the Obama-era intelligence community targeted the Trump campaign.
According to Fox News , an email chain exists which indicates that Comey told bureau subordinates that Brennan insisted on the
dossier's inclusion in the intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian interference . Also interesting is that the dossier
was referred to as "crown material" in the emails - a possible reference to the fact that Steele is a former British spy.
In a statement to Fox, however, a former CIA official "put the blame squarely on Comey ."
"Former Director Brennan, along with former [Director of National Intelligence] James Clapper, are the ones who opposed James
Comey's recommendation that the Steele Dossier be included in the intelligence report," said the official.
"They opposed this because the dossier was in no way used to develop the ICA," the official continued. "The intelligence analysts
didn't include it when they were doing their work because it wasn't corroborated intelligence, therefore it wasn't used and it wasn't
included. Brennan and Clapper prevented it from being added into the official assessment. James Comey then decided on his own to
brief Trump about the document. "
James Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan are starting to publicly argue who was pushing the dossier that ended up in the
intelligence community assessment on Russian interference. The RATS are beginning to turn on each other.
Former GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy - a longtime
defender
of the FBI - told Fox News ' Martha MacCallum on Tuesday night that "Comey has a better argument than Brennan, based on what
I've seen."
In March, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) suggested over Twitter that Brennan had "insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier"
be included in the January 2017 ICA .
BREAKING: A high-level source tells me it was Brennan who insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included
in the Intelligence Report... Brennan should be asked to testify under oath in Congress ASAP.
The dossier was ultimately not included in the ICA according to
previous testimony by Clapper. Meanwhile, word that Comey
had briefed President Trump personally on the dossier - "because he understood reporters already had that information and it could
become public soon if journalists had a "news hook," according to the
Associated Press . And as it so happens - the
fact that Comey briefed Trump is what CNN and Buzzfeed caim
legitimized
their decision to publicly release the salacious and unverified dossier.
Whether the FBI acted appropriately in obtaining the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to Trump campaign
aide Carter Page is now the subject not only of U.S. Attorney John Durham's new probe, but also the ongoing review by Justice
Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber has been conducting his own investigation separately,
although details of his progress were unclear.
As one example, in its FISA application, the bureau
repeatedly and incorrectly assured the court in a footnote that it "does not believe" British ex-spy Christopher Steele was
the direct source for a Yahoo News article implicating Page in Russian collusion, and instead asserted that the Yahoo article
provided an independent basis to believe Steele. -
Fox News
On Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News that he was pushing to declassify documents which would expose the FBI's dismal
efforts to verify the claims within the dossier.
"There's a document that's classified that I'm gonna try to get unclassified that takes the dossier -- all the pages of it --
and it has verification to one side," said Graham. "There really is no verification, other than media reports that were generated
by reporters that received the dossier."
Graham noted a report by The Hill 's John Solomon that the FBI was specifically told that Steele was "keen" to leak his salacious
dossier for the purpose of influencing the 2016 US election . The agency also knew that the document's claims were either unverified
or
disproven , yet it was used anyway against Trump and his campaign.
The Italian prime minister has suddenly requested resignations from 6 deputy directors of Italian intelligence agencies: DIS,
AISI and AISE. This was all after I outed Mifsud in Rome and the president called the Italian prime minister. Italy has flipped
and are giving up Brennan.
The Italian prime minister has suddenly requested resignations from 6 deputy directors of Italian intelligence agencies:
DIS, AISI and AISE. This was all after I outed Mifsud in Rome and the president called the Italian prime minister. Italy has flipped
and are giving up Brennan.
U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber has been on the job for some months yet narry a peep out of him. There's not even any indication
that he gets out of bed in the morning.
He's a member of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, I imagine that should he ever get out of bed, he will whitewash whichever
agency has the most Mormons who might be affected by this scandal.
Back in the sixties, Jack Anderson, a serious investigative journalist and Mormon, noted that to Mormons the US Constitution
is a sacred document given to the founding fathers by God himself. Let's hope Huber honors this Mormon tradition.
Comey was going to blackmail Trump and be the white knight he thinks he is. Even if it were true (which it isn't) Trump didn't
give a ****. Especially after all the lies after lies of trash the Dems have sunk to (like with Kavanaugh). Never be ashamed of
**** you do, and you will be blackmail proof....except for the pedophiles in DC. We know they are there, and when we find out
who they are we will kill them. Comey's a douche.
If you kill all the pedophile in and associated with Washington, the streets will run with blood.
Imagine you or me. If we have a little sexual kink--even a little one--there is little we can do about it but fantasize or
find an occasional person/animal/or vegetable to accommodate us. But if you hold great power or are super-rich, you don't need
to fantasize. You can act out your little kink with impunity. If you hold great power or are super-rich and you have a very, very
evil kink, you can exercise it with impunity. I often thought of that looking at **** Cheney's eyes. They're the eyes of a madman.
He could have sliced and diced a man, woman, child or beast a day and gotten away with it. President Trump can grab them by the
***** (adult women) and why not. It's just a very personal way of shaking hands. But I see no insanity in his eyes at all. Hillary's
eyes remind me of Norman Bates on a bad day. And Biden. . . . Wow! A pervert of the first water but also a complete coward. Thank
God! One less sex monster in action.
Everyone knows that FBI, CIA, NSA etc., are all in the business of being in business. Helps that insider trading is not illegal
for Congress. Corporate America directs intelligence outfits. My opinion...well, ok, my chickens told me.
The hits just keep coming. It's not just Comey vs. Brennan. Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are now blaming Loretta Lynch for the
botched Hillary/email investigation. Bruce Ohr is blaming DOJ and FBI officials for ignoring his "warnings" about Christopher
Steele and the dossier.
Comey is bashing Strzok, Page, and now Rosenstein. Rosenstein is firing back at Comey. Andrew McCabe is attacking anyone pretty
much with a pulse.
She's trying to protect herself. She already testified and spilled the beans about herself and her husband. And they threw
a criminal referral at her anyway. MARK MEADOWS REFERS NELLIE OHR TO DOJ FOR INVESTIGATION
This just gets juicier and juicier. Adm. Rogers of the NSA had found that FBI contractors were overusing the NSA database to
run searches/spying so he shut them down. In April 2016! Friends, Fusion GPS wasn't hired just to fabricate dirt on Trump, they
were hired to create cover for the spying that was already happening when they knew they got caught by Rogers. They were terrified
of what Rogers would do. Enter Fusion/Steele/dossier/European & Australian intelligence. The cover-up will be the death of them.
Wait until we find out who else they were spying on during this time.
Admiral Michael S. Rogers is a hero. He has everything. He knows exactly who was being spied on and when.
EDIT: So who the hell approved the original spying? We know Brennan pushed the dossier but who pushed Brennan? I smell Barry.
"... I don' know what are the revenues of NYT or The Guardian, but I know that the US government spends 750 million a year on the Agency for Global Media (formerly Broadcasting Board of Governors). If you think US or France is under attack by warmongers, you can't imagine how many propagandists are these 750 million hiring in low-COL places like Serbia, Burma, Venezuela. ..."
"... The situation is even worse today as the CIA and Pentagon have massive propaganda budgets and have infiltrated the media at every level , the public is unaware that each day they are brainwashed by the MSM to support the agenda of the "deep State' and the MIC. ..."
"... No mention of the journalists as CIA assets who publish planted stories? Isn't Dr Udo Ulfkotte one who did that, repented, told all in his best-seller Bought Journalists, and as a warning to others unselfishly dropped dead of a heart attack within a couple of years? ..."
"... The best sentence was the one expressing the Establishment's collective faux shock that anything other than Russian spybots could be responsible for the serfs' rejection of the "two centrist parties" that have sponged up lobbyist money for 3 decades, cashing in on the globalist-Neoliberal economy, as rents rose and wages fell. ..."
"... Not too sure about the US even remaining important as a continent wide farm.. The aquifers in the West and Midwest are being inexorably drawn down to sustain the current rate of farming, so it's possible North America's value would primarily be as a source of pockets of human talent in the sciences and technologies. ..."
the hysteria emanating from the nyt, cnn and the rest of the msm is the result of a conscious
or subconscious grasp that socialism dying worldwide. the great ponzi scam of forcing future
generations to pay for the cookies and ice cream of the present generation has hit the math
of the complete dearth of unencumbered assets from which to emit more unpayable debt,
insufficient economic growth upon which to pretend the debt can be serviced forget about
repayment and the simple fact demographichs throughout the west are so negative the
government and public pension scheme blowup in the several years
the more intelligent members of the establishment know in their bones the jig is up. hence
the great and urgent need to turn up .lets over throw sovereign nations so the plunder model
..venezuela, syria, russia, china et al.can find more unencumbered assets to be brought into
the nyc, london orbit of banks from which new debt can be emitted.
the west is staring at its last decade of global rule, a rule that began 500 years ago. by
the 2030's finance, manufacturing and all the global power and prestige that goes with it
moves from ny, london to shanghai and moscow.
if the united states is lucky and remains intact, a giant IF, we may wind up as continent
size farm with a smidgen of non competitive industry here and there.
the west has only disinformation with which to go to war against the rising east. the
weapons of the west are powerful ONLY in their quantity. Russian weapons already are many
years beyond anything the pentagon has in the field and the gap is only increasing, ergo the
us treasury is forced to fight the battle using sanctions and other forms of restrictions, a
long term losing strategy irrespective of any short terms gains.
so, cj worry not, the disinformation campaign is backed by nothing but hot air and the
rage from being thwarted by china and russia as well as brave pipsqueakes like iran and
venezuela.
see it for what it is, transparent sound and fury signifying nothing
I don' know what are the revenues of NYT or The Guardian, but I know that the US government
spends 750 million a year on the Agency for Global Media (formerly Broadcasting Board of
Governors). If you think US or France is under attack by warmongers, you can't imagine how
many propagandists are these 750 million hiring in low-COL places like Serbia, Burma,
Venezuela.
I don' know what are the revenues of NYT or The Guardian, but I know that the US
government spends 750 million a year on the Agency for Global Media (formerly Broadcasting
Board of Governors). If you think US or France is under attack by warmongers, you can't
imagine how many propagandists are these 750 million hiring in low-COL places like Serbia,
Burma, Venezuela.
In 1917 US Congressman Calloway informed Congress that J.P. Morgan interests had purchased 25
of the nations leading newspapers and replaced their editors in order to control the mass
media for the benefit of the plutocrats/money interests who ran the country and who still do
. The situation is even worse today as the CIA and Pentagon have massive propaganda budgets
and have infiltrated the media at every level , the public is unaware that each day they are
brainwashed by the MSM to support the agenda of the "deep State' and the MIC.
See, half a century after McCarthy, wingers got their noses into some (not all) Soviet files,
and got to scream, nonstop and to this day, "See!@@#$% McCarthy was RIGHT!"
Betya in a half century, if we're still around, the same type people are going to get
nosing in some files somewhere and find incontrovertible evidence that: "See!@#%$%^^ The New
York Times was RIGHT!"
And then there's the evil Russian spywhale, which the disinformationists want us to
believe is just a harmless "therapy Beluga" for kids, but which has clearly been strapped
with some sort of monstrous, mind-controlling apparatus that enables the Kremlin to
remotely implant a host of dangerous "populist" ideas in the brains of defenseless
Norwegian fishermen, weaponizing them into a horde of neo-Odinist Viking berserkers who
will scream down out of Scandinavia and storm the EU Parliament in Brussels smelling of
akvavit and fermented shark.
You had me doing a cartoon spit-take with this beaut!
these enormous corporate media conglomerates, and the transnational corporations that
own them, and these intelligence agencies, and their fronts and cutouts, and corporate
lobbyists and PR firms, and councils, and think tanks, and research institutes, to
disinform the Western masses, or to manufacture an official narrative
No mention of the journalists as CIA assets who publish planted stories? Isn't Dr Udo
Ulfkotte one who did that, repented, told all in his best-seller Bought Journalists, and as a
warning to others unselfishly dropped dead of a heart attack within a couple of years?
" that enables the Kremlin to remotely implant a host of dangerous "populist" ideas in
the brains of defenseless Norwegian fishermen, weaponizing them into a horde of neo-Odinist
Viking berserkers who will scream down out of Scandinavia and storm the EU Parliament in
Brussels smelling of akvavit and fermented shark "
It isn't the akvavit that does it, but you can't do it without the akvavit.
And then there's the evil Russian spywhale, which the disinformationists want us to
believe is just a harmless "therapy Beluga" for kids, but which has clearly been strapped
with some sort of monstrous, mind-controlling apparatus that enables the Kremlin to
remotely implant a host of dangerous "populist" ideas in the brains of defenseless
Norwegian fishermen, weaponizing them into a horde of neo-Odinist Viking berserkers who
will scream down out of Scandinavia and storm the EU Parliament in Brussels smelling of
akvavit and fermented shark.
I had a good laugh at the Spy Whale schtick. One look at the thing, and you get the
idea it should've been in a Pink Panther movie.
Made up shit that only a mind of a child could believe.
The best sentence was the one expressing the Establishment's collective faux shock that
anything other than Russian spybots could be responsible for the serfs' rejection of the "two
centrist parties" that have sponged up lobbyist money for 3 decades, cashing in on the
globalist-Neoliberal economy, as rents rose and wages fell.
The serfs have to love that. How
could they not embrace it? Only spybots beaming up doom-and-gloom messages from halfway
around the globe could persuade the thick-headed serfs that the part-time / churn / gig
economy is anything but nirvana.
@paraglider I think
you're probably right about the inevitable collapse of the West as the dominant global power.
Not too sure about the US even remaining important as a continent wide farm.. The aquifers
in the West and Midwest are being inexorably drawn down to sustain the current rate of
farming, so it's possible North America's value would primarily be as a source of pockets of
human talent in the sciences and technologies.
Also Russia has been making some progress, but unless that continues it may not reach the
level of competitiveness in science, industry and domestic product to be any more than a
junior partner to China.
Whatever happens, a sea change in history seems unavoidable and it won't be what our
present rulers think it will. I don't pretend to think I can reliably predict what is
coming.
I used to know Russian disinformation when I saw it because it was obvious when it came from
the USSR. Then the MSM peddled it as authentic as when, in response to Soviet deployment of
IRBM in Europe, pinkos magically appeared to protest the American deployment of similar
weapons. It was well funded too as Brezhnev had serious oil revenues to finance both his
military and his disinformation campaigns and the USSR had 125% of America's population and a
satellite Eastern Europe to boot.
Now I am to believe a motheaten "Russia' with less than half the US population, a hostile
Ukraine and no Eastern European satrapies is able to exert more 'influence' in the West than
the mighty USSR. Yet those same 'pinkos' would have me believe a castrated Russia is an
existential threat. Come on!
Important article that shed some light on the methods of disinformation in foreign events used by neoliberal MSM
Notable quotes:
"... However, there is a simple reason why the global agencies, despite their importance, are virtually unknown to the general public. To quote a Swiss media professor: "Radio and television usually do not name their sources, and only specialists can decipher references in magazines." (Blum 1995, P. 9) The motive for this discretion, however, should be clear: news outlets are not particularly keen to let readers know that they haven't researched most of their contributions themselves. ..."
"... Much of our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no choice but to rely completely on global agencies for foreign news. But what about the big daily newspapers and TV stations that have their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries, for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, and public broadcasters. ..."
"... Moreover, in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war, for example, many journalists "reported" from cities such as Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In addition, many journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and media. ..."
"... How do correspondents under such circumstances know what the "news" is in their region of the world? The main answer is once again: from global agencies. The Dutch Middle East correspondent Joris Luyendijk has impressively described how correspondents work and how they depend on the world agencies in his book "People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East" : ..."
"... The central role of news agencies also explains why, in geopolitical conflicts, most media use the same original sources. In the Syrian war, for example, the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" – a dubious one-man organization based in London – featured prominently. The media rarely inquired directly at this "Observatory", as its operator was in fact difficult to reach, even for journalists. ..."
"... Ulrich Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss television, warned in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of deception by the military and the role played by the media: ..."
"... What is known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence services. In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts: ..."
"... "In all press systems, the news media are instruments of those who exercise political and economic power. Newspapers, periodicals, radio and television stations do not act independently, although they have the possibility of independent exercise of power." (Altschull 1984/1995, p. 298) ..."
"How does the newspaper know what it knows?" The answer to this question is likely to
surprise some newspaper readers: "The main source of information is stories from news agencies.
The almost anonymously operating news agencies are in a way the key to world events. So what
are the names of these agencies, how do they work and who finances them? To judge how well one
is informed about events in East and West, one should know the answers to these questions."
(Höhne 1977, p. 11)
A Swiss media researcher points out:
"The news agencies are the most important suppliers of material to mass media. No daily
media outlet can manage without them. () So the news agencies influence our image of the
world; above all, we get to know what they have selected." (Blum 1995, p. 9)
In view of their essential importance, it is all the more astonishing that these agencies
are hardly known to the public:
"A large part of society is unaware that news agencies exist at all In fact, they play an
enormously important role in the media market. But despite this great importance, little
attention has been paid to them in the past." (Schulten-Jaspers 2013, p. 13)
Even the head of a news agency noted:
"There is something strange about news agencies. They are little known to the public.
Unlike a newspaper, their activity is not so much in the spotlight, yet they can always be
found at the source of the story." (Segbers 2007, p. 9)
"The Invisible Nerve Center of the Media System"
So what are the names of these agencies that are "always at the source of the story"? There
are now only three global agencies left:
The American Associated Press ( AP ) with over 4000 employees worldwide.
The AP belongs to US media companies and has its main editorial office in New York. AP news
is used by around 12,000 international media outlets, reaching more than half of the world's
population every day.
The quasi-governmental French Agence France-Presse ( AFP ) based in Paris and with around
4000 employees. The AFP sends over 3000 stories and photos every day to media all over the
world.
The British agency Reuters in London, which is privately owned and employs just over 3000
people. Reuters was acquired in 2008 by Canadian media entrepreneur Thomson – one of
the 25 richest people in the world – and merged into Thomson Reuters , headquartered in New York.
In addition, many countries run their own news agencies. However, when it comes to
international news, these usually rely on the three global agencies and simply copy and
translate their reports.
The three global news agencies Reuters, AFP and AP, and the three national agencies of the
German-speaking countries of Austria (APA), Germany (DPA) and Switzerland (SDA).
Wolfgang Vyslozil, former managing director of the Austrian APA, described the key role of
news agencies with these words:
"News agencies are rarely in the public eye. Yet they are one of the most influential and
at the same time one of the least known media types. They are key institutions of substantial
importance to any media system. They are the invisible nerve center that connects all parts
of this system." (Segbers 2007, p.10)
Small abbreviation, great effect
However, there is a simple reason why the global agencies, despite their importance, are
virtually unknown to the general public. To quote a Swiss media professor: "Radio and
television usually do not name their sources, and only specialists can decipher references in
magazines." (Blum 1995, P. 9) The motive for this discretion, however, should be clear: news outlets are not particularly
keen to let readers know that they haven't researched most of their contributions
themselves.
The following figure shows some examples of source tagging in popular German-language
newspapers. Next to the agency abbreviations we find the initials of editors who have edited
the respective agency report.
News agencies as sources in newspaper articles
Occasionally, newspapers use agency material but do not label it at all. A study in 2011
from the Swiss Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society at the University of
Zurich came to the following conclusions (FOEG 2011):
"Agency contributions are exploited integrally without labeling them, or they are
partially rewritten to make them appear as an editorial contribution. In addition, there is a
practice of 'spicing up' agency reports with little effort; for example, visualization
techniques are used: unpublished agency reports are enriched with images and graphics and
presented as comprehensive reports."
The agencies play a prominent role not only in the press, but also in private and public
broadcasting. This is confirmed by Volker Braeutigam, who worked
for the German state broadcaster ARD for ten years and views the dominance of these agencies
critically:
"One fundamental problem is that the newsroom at ARD sources its information mainly from
three sources: the news agencies DPA/AP, Reuters and AFP: one German/American, one British
and one French. () The editor working on a news topic only needs to select a few text
passages on the screen that he considers essential, rearrange them and glue them together
with a few flourishes."
Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), too, largely bases itself on reports from these agencies.
Asked by viewers why a peace march in Ukraine was not reported, the editors
said : "To date, we have not received a single report of this march from the independent
agencies Reuters, AP and AFP."
In fact, not only the text, but also the images, sound and video recordings that we
encounter in our media every day, are mostly from the very same agencies. What the uninitiated
audience might think of as contributions from their local newspaper or TV station, are actually
copied reports from New York, London and Paris.
Some media have even gone a step further and have, for lack of resources, outsourced their
entire foreign editorial office to an agency. Moreover, it is well known that many news portals
on the internet mostly publish agency reports (see e.g., Paterson 2007, Johnston 2011,
MacGregor 2013).
In the end, this dependency on the global agencies creates a striking similarity in
international reporting: from Vienna to Washington, our media often report the same topics,
using many of the same phrases – a phenomenon that would otherwise rather be associated
with "controlled media" in authoritarian states.
The following graphic shows some examples from German and international publications. As you
can see, despite the claimed objectivity, a slight (geo-)political bias sometimes creeps
in.
"Putin threatens", "Iran provokes", "NATO concerned", "Assad stronghold": Similarities in
content and wording due to reports by global news agencies.
The role of correspondents
Much of our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no choice but to
rely completely on global agencies for foreign news. But what about the big daily newspapers
and TV stations that have their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries,
for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, and public
broadcasters.
First of all, the size ratios should be kept in mind: while the global agencies have several
thousand employees worldwide, even the Swiss newspaper NZZ, known for its international
reporting, maintains only 35 foreign correspondents (including their business correspondents).
In huge countries such as China or India, only one correspondent is stationed; all of South
America is covered by only two journalists, while in even larger Africa no-one is on the ground
permanently.
Moreover, in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war, for example,
many journalists "reported" from cities such as Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In
addition, many journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and media.
How do correspondents under such circumstances know what the "news" is in their region of
the world? The main answer is once again: from global agencies. The Dutch Middle East
correspondent Joris Luyendijk has impressively described how correspondents work and how they
depend on the world agencies in his book "People Like Us:
Misrepresenting the Middle East" :
"I'd imagined correspondents to be historians-of-the-moment. When something important
happened, they'd go after it, find out what was going on, and report on it. But I didn't go
off to find out what was going on; that had been done long before. I went along to present an
on-the-spot report. ()
The editors in the Netherlands called when something happened, they faxed or emailed the
press releases, and I'd retell them in my own words on the radio, or rework them into an
article for the newspaper. This was the reason my editors found it more important that I
could be reached in the place itself than that I knew what was going on. The news agencies
provided enough information for you to be able to write or talk you way through any crisis or
summit meeting.
That's why you often come across the same images and stories if you leaf through a few
different newspapers or click the news channels.
Our men and women in London, Paris, Berlin and Washington bureaus – all thought that
wrong topics were dominating the news and that we were following the standards of the news
agencies too slavishly. ()
The common idea about correspondents is that they 'have the story', () but the reality is
that the news is a conveyor belt in a bread factory. The correspondents stand at the end of
the conveyor belt, pretending we've baked that white loaf ourselves, while in fact all we've
done is put it in its wrapping. ()
Afterwards, a friend asked me how I'd managed to answer all the questions during those
cross-talks, every hour and without hesitation. When I told him that, like on the TV-news,
you knew all the questions in advance, his e-mailed response came packed with expletives. My
friend had relalized that, for decades, what he'd been watching and listening to on the news
was pure theatre." (Luyendjik 2009, p. 20-22, 76, 189)
In other words, the typical correspondent is in general not able to do independent research,
but rather deals with and reinforces those topics that are already prescribed by the news
agencies – the notorious "mainstream effect".
In addition, for cost-saving reasons many media outlets nowadays have to share their few
foreign correspondents, and within individual media groups, foreign reports are often used by
several publications – none of which contributes to diversity in reporting.
"What the agency does not report, does not take place"
The central role of news agencies also explains why, in geopolitical conflicts, most media
use the same original sources. In the Syrian war, for example, the "Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights" – a dubious one-man organization based in London – featured
prominently. The media rarely inquired directly at this "Observatory", as its operator was in
fact difficult to reach, even for journalists.
Rather, the "Observatory" delivered its stories to global agencies, which then forwarded
them to thousands of media outlets, which in turn "informed" hundreds of millions of readers
and viewers worldwide. The reason why the agencies, of all places, referred to this strange
"Observatory" in their reporting – and who really financed it – is a question that
was rarely asked.
The former chief editor of the German news agency DPA, Manfred Steffens, therefore states in
his book "The Business of News":
"A news story does not become more correct simply because one is able to provide a source
for it. It is indeed rather questionable to trust a news story more just because a source is
cited. () Behind the protective shield such a 'source' means for a news story, some people
are quite inclined to spread rather adventurous things, even if they themselves have
legitimate doubts about their correctness; the responsibility, at least morally, can always
be attributed to the cited source." (Steffens 1969, p. 106)
Dependence on global agencies is also a major reason why media coverage of geopolitical
conflicts is often superficial and erratic, while historic relationships and background are
fragmented or altogether absent. As put by Steffens:
"News agencies receive their impulses almost exclusively from current events and are
therefore by their very nature ahistoric. They are reluctant to add any more context than is
strictly required." (Steffens 1969, p. 32)
Finally, the dominance of global agencies explains why certain geopolitical issues and
events – which often do not fit very well into the US/NATO narrative or are too
"unimportant" – are not mentioned in our media at all: if the agencies do not report on
something, then most Western media will not be aware of it. As pointed out on the occasion of
the 50th anniversary of the German DPA: "What the agency does not report, does not take place."
(Wilke 2000, p. 1)
While some topics do not appear at all in our media, other topics are very prominent –
even though they shouldn't actually be: "Often the mass media do not report on reality, but on
a constructed or staged reality. () Several studies have shown that the mass media are
predominantly determined by PR activities and that passive, receptive attitudes outweigh
active-researching ones." (Blum 1995, p. 16)
In fact, due to the rather low journalistic performance of our media and their high
dependence on a few news agencies, it is easy for interested parties to spread propaganda and
disinformation in a supposedly respectable format to a worldwide audience. DPA editor Steffens
warned of this danger:
"The critical sense gets more lulled the more respected the news agency or newspaper is.
Someone who wants to introduce a questionable story into the world press only needs to try to
put his story in a reasonably reputable agency, to be sure that it then appears a little
later in the others. Sometimes it happens that a hoax passes from agency to agency and
becomes ever more credible." (Steffens 1969, p. 234)
Among the most active actors in "injecting" questionable geopolitical news are the military
and defense ministries. For example, in 2009, the head of the American news agency AP, Tom
Curley,
made public that the Pentagon employs more than 27,000 PR specialists who, with a budget of
nearly $ 5 billion a year, are working the media and circulating targeted manipulations. In
addition, high-ranking US generals had threatened that they would "ruin" the AP and him if the
journalists reported too critically on the US military.
Despite – or because of? – such threats our media regularly publish dubious
stories sourced to some unnamed "informants" from "US defense circles".
Ulrich Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss television, warned
in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of deception by the military and the role played
by the media:
"With the help of the media, the military determine the public perception and use it for
their plans. They manage to stir expectations and spread scenarios and deceptions. In this
new kind of war, the PR strategists of the US administration fulfill a similar function as
the bomber pilots. The special departments for public relations in the Pentagon and in the
secret services have become combatants in the information war. () The US military
specifically uses the lack of transparency in media coverage for their deception maneuvers.
The way they spread information, which is then picked up and distributed by newspapers and
broadcasters, makes it impossible for readers, listeners or viewers to trace the original
source. Thus, the audience will fail to recognize the actual intention of the military."
(Tilgner 2003, p. 132)
What is known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence services. In a
remarkable report
by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the
systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical
conflicts:
Former CIA officer and whistleblower John Stockwell said of his work in the
Angolan war,
"The basic theme was to make it look like an [enemy] aggression in Angola. So any kind of
story that you could write and get into the media anywhere in the world, that pushed that
line, we did. One third of my staff in this task force were covert action, were
propagandists, whose professional career job was to make up stories and finding ways of
getting them into the press. () The editors in most Western newspapers are not too skeptical
of messages that conform to general views and prejudices. () So we came up with another
story, and it was kept going for weeks. () [But] it was all fiction."
Fred Bridgland
looked back on his work as a war correspondent for the Reuters agency: "We based our reports on
official communications. It was not until years later that I learned a little CIA
disinformation expert had sat in the US embassy, in Lusaka and composed that communiqué,
and it bore no relation at all to truth. () Basically, and to put it very crudely, you can
publish any old crap and it will get newspaper room."
And former CIA analyst David MacMichael described his work in the
Contra War in Nicaragua with these words:
"They said our intelligence of Nicaragua was so good that we could even register when
someone flushed a toilet. But I had the feeling that the stories we were giving to the press
came straight out of the toilet." (Hird 1985)
Of course, the intelligence services also have a large number of direct contacts in our media,
which can be "leaked" information to if necessary. But without the central role of the global
news agencies, the worldwide synchronization of propaganda and disinformation would never be so
efficient.
Through this "propaganda multiplier", dubious stories from PR experts working for
governments, military and intelligence services reach the general public more or less unchecked
and unfiltered. The journalists refer to the news agencies and the news agencies refer to their
sources. Although they often attempt to point out uncertainties with terms such as "apparent",
"alleged" and the like – by then the rumor has long been spread to the world and its
effect taken place.
The Propaganda Multiplier: Governments, military and intelligence services using global
news agencies to disseminate their messages to a worldwide audience.
As the New York Times reported
In addition to global news agencies, there is another source that is often used by media
outlets around the world to report on geopolitical conflicts, namely the major publications in
Great Britain and the US.
For example, news outlets like the New York Times or BBC have up to 100 foreign
correspondents and other external employees. However, Middle East correspondent Luyendijk
points out:
"Dutch news teams, me included, fed on the selection of news made by quality media like
CNN, the BBC, and the New York Times . We did that on the assumption
that their correspondents understood the Arab world and commanded a view of it – but
many of them turned out not to speak Arabic, or at least not enough to be able to have a
conversation in it or to follow the local media. Many of the top dogs at CNN, the BBC, the
Independent, the Guardian, the New Yorker, and the NYT were more often than not dependent on
assistants and translators." (Luyendijk p. 47)
In addition, the sources of these media outlets are often not easy to verify ("military
circles", "anonymous government officials", "intelligence officials" and the like) and can
therefore also be used for the dissemination of propaganda. In any case, the widespread
orientation towards the Anglo-Saxon publications leads to a further convergence in the
geopolitical coverage in our media.
The following figure shows some examples of such citation based on the Syria coverage of the
largest daily newspaper in Switzerland, Tages-Anzeiger. The articles are all from the first
days of October 2015, when Russia for the first time intervened directly in the Syrian war
(US/UK sources are highlighted):
Frequent citation of British and US media, exemplified by the Syria war coverage of Swiss
daily newspaper Tages-Anzeiger in October 2015.
The desired narrative
But why do journalists in our media not simply try to research and report independently of
the global agencies and the Anglo-Saxon media? Middle East correspondent Luyendijk describes
his experiences:
"You might suggest that I should have looked for sources I could trust. I did try, but
whenever I wanted to write a story without using news agencies, the main Anglo-Saxon media,
or talking heads, it fell apart. () Obviously I, as a correspondent, could tell very
different stories about one and the same situation. But the media could only present one of
them, and often enough, that was exactly the story that confirmed the prevailing image."
(Luyendijk p.54ff)
Media researcher Noam Chomsky has described this effect in his essay "What makes the mainstream media mainstream" as
follows: "If you leave the official line, if you produce dissenting reports, then you will soon
feel this. () There are many ways to get you back in line quickly. If you don't follow the
guidelines, you will not keep your job long. This system works pretty well, and it reflects
established power structures." (Chomsky 1997)
Nevertheless, some of the leading journalists continue to believe that nobody can tell them
what to write. How does this add up? Media researcher Chomsky clarifies the apparent contradiction:
"[T]he point is that they wouldn't be there unless they had already demonstrated that
nobody has to tell them what to write because they are going say the right thing. If they had
started off at the Metro desk, or something, and had pursued the wrong kind of stories, they
never would have made it to the positions where they can now say anything they like. () They
have been through the socialization system." (Chomsky 1997)
Ultimately, this "socialization process" leads to a journalism that generally no longer
independently researches and critically reports on geopolitical conflicts (and some other
topics), but seeks to consolidate the desired narrative through appropriate editorials,
commentary, and interviewees.
Conclusion: The "First Law of Journalism"
Former AP journalist Herbert Altschull called it the First Law of Journalism:
"In all press systems, the news media are instruments of those who exercise political and
economic power. Newspapers, periodicals, radio and television stations do not act
independently, although they have the possibility of independent exercise of power."
(Altschull 1984/1995, p. 298)
In that sense, it is logical that our traditional media – which are predominantly
financed by advertising or the state – represent the geopolitical interests of the
transatlantic alliance, given that both the advertising corporations as well as the states
themselves are dependent on the US dominated transatlantic economic and security
architecture.
In addition, our leading media and their key people are – in the spirit of Chomsky's
"socialization" – often themselves part of the networks of the transatlantic elite. Some
of the most important institutions in this regard include the US Council on Foreign Relations
(CFR), the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission (see in-depth study of these networks
).
Indeed, most well-known publications basically may be seen as "establishment media". This is
because, in the past, the freedom of the press was rather theoretical, given significant entry
barriers such as broadcasting licenses, frequency slots, requirements for financing and
technical infrastructure, limited sales channels, dependence on advertising, and other
restrictions.
It was only due to the Internet that Altschull's First Law has been broken to some extent.
Thus, in recent years a high-quality, reader-funded journalism has emerged, often outperforming
traditional media in terms of critical reporting. Some of these "alternative" publications
already reach a very large audience, showing that the „mass" does not have to be a
problem for the quality of a media outlet.
Nevertheless, up to now the traditional media has been able to attract a solid majority of
online visitors, too. This, in turn, is closely linked to the hidden role of news agencies,
whose up-to-the-minute reports form the backbone of most news portals.
Will "political and economic power", according to Altschull's Law, retain control over the
news, or will "uncontrolled" news change the political and economic power structure? The coming
years will show.
Case study: Syria war coverage
As part of a case study, the Syria war coverage of nine leading daily newspapers from
Germany, Austria and Switzerland were examined for plurality of viewpoints and reliance on news
agencies. The following newspapers were selected:
For Germany: Die Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(FAZ)
For Switzerland: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Tagesanzeiger (TA), and Basler Zeitung
(BaZ)
For Austria: Standard, Kurier, and Die Presse
The investigation period was defined as October 1 to 15, 2015, i.e. the first two weeks
after Russia's direct intervention in the Syrian conflict. The entire print and online coverage
of these newspapers was taken into account. Any Sunday editions were not taken into account, as
not all of the newspapers examined have such. In total, 381 newspaper articles met the stated
criteria.
In a first step, the articles were classified according to their properties into the
following groups:
Agencies : Reports from news agencies (with agency code)
Mixed : Simple reports (with author names) that are based in whole or in part on agency
reports
Reports : Editorial background reports and analyzes
Opinions/Comments : Opinions and guest comments
Interviews : interviews with experts, politicians etc.
Investigative : Investigative research that reveals new information or context
The following Figure 1 shows the composition of the articles for the nine newspapers
analyzed in total. As can be seen, 55% of articles were news agency reports; 23% editorial
reports based on agency material; 9% background reports; 10% opinions and guest comments; 2%
interviews; and 0% based on investigative research.
Figure 1: Types of articles (total; n=381)
The pure agency texts – from short notices to the detailed reports – were mostly
on the Internet pages of the daily newspapers: on the one hand, the pressure for breaking news
is higher than in the printed edition, on the other hand, there are no space restrictions. Most
other types of articles were found in both the online and printed editions; some exclusive
interviews and background reports were found only in the printed editions. All items were
collected only once for the investigation.
The following Figure 2 shows the same classification on a per newspaper basis. During the
observation period (two weeks), most newspapers published between 40 and 50 articles on the
Syrian conflict (print and online). In the German newspaper Die Welt there were more
(58), in the Basler Zeitung and the Austrian Kurier , however, significantly less
(29 or 33).
Depending on which newspaper, the share of agency reports is almost 50% (Welt,
Süddeutsche, NZZ, Basler Zeitung), just under 60% (FAZ, Tagesanzeiger), and 60 to 70%
(Presse, Standard, Kurier). Together with the agency-based reports, the proportion in most
newspapers is between approx. 70% and 80%. These proportions are consistent with previous media
studies (e.g., Blum 1995, Johnston 2011, MacGregor 2013, Paterson 2007).
In the background reports, the Swiss newspapers were leading (five to six pieces), followed
by Welt , Süddeutsche and Standard (four each) and the other
newspapers (one to three). The background reports and analyzes were in particular devoted to
the situation and development in the Middle East, as well as to the motives and interests of
individual actors (for example Russia, Turkey, the Islamic State).
However, most of the commentaries were to be found in the German newspapers (seven comments
each), followed by Standard (five), NZZ and Tagesanzeiger (four each).
Basler Zeitung did not publish any commentaries during the observation period, but two
interviews. Other interviews were conducted by Standard (three) and Kurier and
Presse (one each). Investigative research, however, could not be found in any of the
newspapers.
In particular, in the case of the three German newspapers, a journalistically problematic
blending of opinion pieces and reports was noted. Reports contained strong expressions of
opinion even though they were not marked as commentary. The present study was in any case based
on the article labeling by the newspaper.
Figure 2: Types of articles per newspaper
The following Figure 3 shows the breakdown of agency stories (by agency abbreviation) for
each news agency, in total and per country. The 211 agency reports carried a total of 277
agency codes (a story may consist of material from more than one agency). In total, 24% of
agency reports came from the AFP; about 20% each by the DPA, APA and Reuters; 9% of the SDA; 6%
of the AP; and 11% were unknown (no labeling or blanket term "agencies").
In Germany, the DPA, AFP and Reuters each have a share of about one third of the news
stories. In Switzerland, the SDA and the AFP are in the lead, and in Austria, the APA and
Reuters.
In fact, the shares of the global agencies AFP, AP and Reuters are likely to be even higher,
as the Swiss SDA and the Austrian APA obtain their international reports mainly from the global
agencies and the German DPA cooperates closely with the American AP.
It should also be noted that, for historical reasons, the global agencies are represented
differently in different regions of the world. For events in Asia, Ukraine or Africa, the share
of each agency will therefore be different than from events in the Middle East.
Figure 3: Share of news agencies, total (n=277) and per country
In the next step, central statements were used to rate the orientation of editorial opinions
(28), guest comments (10) and interview partners (7) (a total of 45 articles). As Figure 4
shows, 82% of the contributions were generally US/NATO friendly, 16% neutral or balanced, and
2% predominantly US/NATO critical.
The only predominantly US/NATO-critical contribution was an op-ed in the Austrian
Standard on October 2, 2015, titled: "The strategy of regime change has failed. A
distinction between ‚good' and ‚bad' terrorist groups in Syria makes the Western
policy untrustworthy."
Figure 4: Orientation of editorial opinions, guest comments, and interviewees (total;
n=45).
The following Figure 5 shows the orientation of the contributions, guest comments and
interviewees, in turn broken down by individual newspapers. As can be seen, Welt,
Süddeutsche Zeitung, NZZ, Zürcher Tagesanzeiger and the Austrian newspaper
Kurier presented exclusively US/NATO-friendly opinion and guest contributions; this goes
for FAZ too, with the exception of one neutral/balanced contribution. The
Standard brought four US/NATO friendly, three balanced/neutral, as well as the already
mentioned US/NATO critical opinion contributions.
Presse was the only one of the examined newspapers to predominantly publish
neutral/balanced opinions and guest contributions. The Basler Zeitung published one
US/NATO-friendly and one balanced contribution. Shortly after the observation period (October
16, 2015), Basler Zeitung also published an interview with the President of the Russian
Parliament. This would of course have been counted as a contribution critical of the
US/NATO.
Figure 5: Basic orientation of opinion pieces and interviewees per newspaper
In a further analysis, a full-text keyword search for "propaganda" (and word combinations
thereof) was used to investigate in which cases the newspapers themselves identified propaganda
in one of the two geopolitical conflict sides, USA/NATO or Russia (the participant "IS/ISIS"
was not considered). In total, twenty such cases were identified. Figure 6 shows the result: in
85% of the cases, propaganda was identified on the Russian side of the conflict, in 15% the
identification was neutral or unstated, and in 0% of the cases propaganda was identified on the
USA/NATO side of the conflict.
It should be noted that about half of the cases (nine) were in the Swiss NZZ , which
spoke of Russian propaganda quite frequently ("Kremlin propaganda", "Moscow propaganda
machine", "propaganda stories", "Russian propaganda apparatus" etc.), followed by German
FAZ (three), Welt and Süddeutsche Zeitung (two each) and the Austrian
newspaper Kurier (one). The other newspapers did not mention propaganda, or only in a
neutral context (or in the context of IS).
Figure 6: Attribution of propaganda to conflict parties (total; n=20).
Conclusion
In this case study, the geopolitical coverage in nine leading daily newspapers from Germany,
Austria and Switzerland was examined for diversity and journalistic performance using the
example of the Syrian war.
The results confirm the high dependence on the global news agencies (63 to 90%, excluding
commentaries and interviews) and the lack of own investigative research, as well as the rather
biased commenting on events in favor of the US/NATO side (82% positive; 2% negative), whose
stories were not checked by the newspapers for any propaganda.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email
lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
It might well be that Trump treatment of 9/11 as unsolved investigation was one of the red flag for establishment
(and personally Brennan) which led to launching of Russiagate.
Notable quotes:
"... But why was Brennan so anti-Syria and anti-Ukraine? What personal motives did he have? ..."
"... Can someone please explain what it was about Donald Trump at the time that this all began, that Brennan would set all of this in motion? ..."
"... For one thing, Trump, early in his campaign stated that he had suspicions regarding official explanations of 9/11. ..."
But why was Brennan so anti-Syria and anti-Ukraine? What personal motives did he have? Why
target two regimes esp hated by Jews?
It seems he's like McCain. A mean nasty son of a bitch who likes to play world politics.
It's his bullying nature. But he has no vision or compass. Like a dog, he will hunt and maul
anything that is approved by the Power. And that Power is Jewish.
Dogs love to hunt but only get to hunt what the master orders it to. If the master orders
the dog to love rabbits and hunt raccoon, it will do just that. If the master orders it to
love raccoon and hunt rabbits, it will do that. In the end, the dog doesn't care what it
hunts as long as it's given a chance to hunt something.
Same with these goy cuck dogs. Their lives feel fulfilled only in Big Power bully mode.
They need to beat up on something. But they have no vision or compass, no agency. They look
over their shoulders to the Power to tell them what to love(Israel and Saudis) and what to
hate(Iran and Syria and Russia).
Dogs growl at dogs, not at their masters. When Trump came around, Brennan didn't see him
as the new master but as a bad dog(or even wolf) displeasing his master, the Jews. Like
McCain, a very loyal dog. Also, a dog feels jealousy that the master may take to a new dog
over him.
I have to think that the pyramid goes higher still Brennan working for Hillary and Hillary
working for the combined plutocratic imperialist elite that make up the core of the Clinton
Foundation's billions these scumbags will never be touched for buying Killary, but maybe
Killary will end up in an orange jumpsuit, right beside her gopher Brennan
And maybe Trump finally has his hands untied to start doing the things he promised time
will tell
But evidence of wrongdoing is not proof that Comey was the ringleader, he was just the
hapless sad sack who was left holding the bag. The truth is, Comey was just a reluctant
follower. The real architect of the Trump-Russia treachery was the boss-man at the nation's
premier intelligence agency, the CIA.
suspect you are correct
Brennan seems like the real evil, Comey just a doofus
@R Boyd
"Can someone please explain what it was about Donald Trump at the time that this all began,
that Brennan would set all of this in motion?"
He was not truly compromised thus controlled by the spooks. So they were trying to achieve
that, and it appears based on Trump's behavior, that they did achieve that
"... Historians will study this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any entente between Moscow and Washington. ..."
"... Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' ( 8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts. ..."
"... This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia. Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but by the Obama administration? ..."
"... Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute to Montenegro, NATO's newest member. ..."
"... At this stage, it doesn't matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own conclusions. ..."
Trump was after a good deal from Russia. A new partnership would have reversed deteriorating relations between the powers by encouraging
their alliance against ISIS and recognising the importance of Ukraine to Russia's security. Current US paranoia about everything
Kremlin-related has encouraged amnesia about what President Barack Obama said in 2016, after the annexation of the Crimea and Russia's
direct intervention in Syria. He too put the danger posed by President Vladimir Putin into perspective: the interventions in Ukraine
and the Middle East were, Obama said, improvised 'in response to a client state that was about to slip out of his grasp' (
5 ).
Obama went on: 'The Russians can't change us or significantly weaken us. They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country,
their economy doesn't produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms.' What he feared most about Putin was
the sympathy he inspired in Trump and his supporters: '37% of Republican voters approve of Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald
Reagan would roll over in his grave' ( 6 ).
By January 2017, Reagan's eternal rest was no longer threatened. 'Presidents come and go but the policy never changes,' Putin
concluded ( 7 ). Historians will study
this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing
of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any
entente between Moscow and Washington.
Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump
and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe
an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails
fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' (
8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts.
The media, especially the New York Times and Washington Post, eagerly sought a new Watergate scandal and knew their
middle-class, urban, educated readers loathe Trump for his vulgarity, affection for the far right, violence and lack of culture (
9 ). So they were searching for any information
or rumour that could cause his removal or force a resignation. As in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, everyone
had his particular motive for striking the same victim.
The intrigue developed quickly as these four areas have fairly porous boundaries. The understanding between Republican hawks such
as John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the military-industrial complex was a given. The architects
of recent US imperial adventures, especially Iraq, had not enjoyed the 2016 campaign or Trump's jibes about their expertise. During
the campaign, some 50 intellectuals and officials announced that, despite being Republicans, they would not support Trump because
he 'would put at risk our country's national security and wellbeing.' Some went so far as to vote for Clinton (
10 ).
Ambitions of a 'deep state'?
The press feared that Trump's incompetence would threaten the US-dominated international order. It had no problem with military
crusades, especially when emblazoned with grand humanitarian, internationalist or progressive principles. According to the press
criteria, Putin and his predilection for rightwing nationalists were obvious culprits. But so were Saudi Arabia or Israel, though
that did not prevent the Saudis being able to count on the ferociously anti-Russian Wall Street Journal, or Israel enjoying
the support of almost all US media, despite having a far-right element in its government.
Just over a week before Trump took office, journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Edward Snowden story that revealed the mass
surveillance programmes run by the National Security Agency, warned of the direction of travel. He observed that the US media had
become the intelligence services' 'most valuable instrument, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with
hidden intelligence officials.' This at a time when 'Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss as
well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing
-- eager -- to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry and damaging
those behaviours might be' ( 11 ).
The anti-Russian coalition hadn't then achieved all its objectives, but Greenwald already discerned the ambitions of a 'deep state'.
'There really is, at this point,' he said 'obvious open warfare between this unelected but very powerful faction that resides in
Washington and sees presidents come and go, on the one hand, and the person that the American democracy elected to be the president
on the other.' One suspicion, fed by the intelligence services, galvanised all Trump's enemies: Moscow had compromising secrets about
Trump -- financial, electoral, sexual -- capable of paralysing him should a crisis between the two countries occur (
12 ).
Covert opposition to Trump
The suspicion of such a murky understanding, summed up by the pro-Clinton economist Paul Krugman as a 'Trump-Putin ticket', has
transformed the anti-Russian activity into a domestic political weapon against a president increasingly hated outside the ultraconservative
bloc. It is no longer unusual to hear leftwing activists turn FBI or CIA apologists, since these agencies became a home for a covert
opposition to Trump and the source of many leaks.
This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses
the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia.
Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no
one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but
by the Obama administration?
The silence was once broken when the Republican representative for North Carolina, Tom Tillis, questioned former CIA director
James Clapper in January: 'The United States has been involved in one way or another in 81 different elections since World War II.
That doesn't include coups or the regime changes, some tangible evidence where we have tried to affect an outcome to our purpose.
Russia has done it some 36 times.' This perspective rarely disturbs the New York Times 's fulminations against Moscow's trickery.
The Times also failed to inform younger readers that Russia's president Boris Yeltsin, who picked Putin as his successor
in 1999, had been re-elected in 1996, though seriously ill and often drunk, in a fraudulent election conducted with the assistance
of US advisers and the overt support of President Bill Clinton. The Times hailed the result as 'a victory for Russian democracy'
and declared that 'the forces of democracy and reform won a vital but not definitive victory in Russia yesterday For the first time
in history, a free Russia has freely chosen its leader.'
Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining
resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President
Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute
to Montenegro, NATO's newest member.
No longer getting his way
But the Times, far from worrying about these provocative gestures coinciding with heightened tensions between great powers
(trade sanctions against Russia, Moscow's expulsion of US diplomats), poured oil on the fire. On 2 August it praised the reaffirmation
of 'America's commitment to defend democratic nations against those countries that would undermine them' and regretted that Mike
Pence's views 'aren't as eagerly embraced and celebrated by the man he works for back in the White House.'
At this stage, it doesn't
matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own
conclusions.
Whats difficult to understand here is who is driving who. The white house uses the media, the
media uses the white house. The CIA uses both. All of them use the Pentagon, which in turn
uses and serves the MIC. These stories that suddenly appear could be any one of those parties
using the press, or a drive by the press to prepare the stage for war on behalf of their
corporate overlords.
It is not " the job of the media to point that out", the job of the media is to serve
shareholders interest, whoever they may be. It is, however, the responsibility of a
conscientious public to discriminate very carefully between various consumable media outlets.
It is the duty of patriotic journalists to support their country's war efforts in times of
war, is it not? America has been at war for a very long time. For as long as the latest crop
of crappy "journalists" can remember (assuming they can remember anything beyond
yesterday's breakfast, which we see precious little evidence of).
Maybe in Europe and the rest of the world outside America there remains this idealized
conception of what journalism should be about, but that is long gone in the US. In America
the journalists consider themselves the "boots on the ground" in the psy-op
information war. They know that they are just as vital to America's imperial ambitions as the
Special Forces assassins and CIA covert operatives directing the death squads.
The CIA does the coordination of media narratives. You can think of them as the conductor
of the orchestra... the organist at the Mighty Wurlitzer . The CIA also
direct a lot of covert operations to strong-arm vassals into line and to knock states off
balance that try to resist the empire. They also do lots of assassinations of labor
organizers and the like.
But who is above the CIA? Who does the CIA work for? Certainly not the US Executive
Branch! The CIA kills presidents when they feel the need.
Just ask yourself who benefits. The corporate elites at Coca-Cola, Nestle, Exxon,
Monsanto, GE, and so on; and above them the elites at maybe a dozen giant financial
syndicates whose evils psychohistorian is always going on about (he is right, by the way).
These are the folks that gather at the Bilderberg and Bohemian Grove meet-ups where the large
scale plans are hatched and corrections to faltering plans are debated and that the CIA must
then fine tune and implement.
George Papadopoulos's story on why he thinks that the RussiaGate probe was started is something out of The Parallax View but,
alas, rings true: the Trans-Pacific Partnership, stopping Brexit, and abandoning an Atlanticist foreign policy were opposed by a
CIA and corporate political establishment, who created the fake Steele dossier to bring down Trump (the TPP, and also Brexit, I believe,
were in the dossier as reasons why "Putin" wanted Trump to win)
Saudi "Nawaf Al-Hamzi, one of the 9/11 hijackers," as mentioned by b above,
arrived in the US in January of 2000.
The CIA station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was there in Saudi Arabia during what
would have been the early planning stages for 9/11.
He left this position and traveled back to the US to become chief of staff
to CIA director George Tenet in 1999. This was just before the 9/11 hijackers
themselves began arriving.
I have not been able to locate a time table. Was it days, weeks or months
before Nawaf Al-Hamzi arrived in the US that John Brennan, CIA station chief
in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, relocated to the US? **Anyone have John Brennan's arrival date in 1999?**
"... "The evidence is plain–there was a broad, coordinated effort by the Obama Administration, with the help of foreign governments, to target Donald Trump and paint him as a stooge of Russia. The Mueller Report provides irrefutable evidence that the so-called Russian collusion case against Donald Trump was a deliberate fabrication by intelligence and law enforcement organizations in the US and UK and organizations aligned with the Clinton Campaign." ( "How US and Foreign Intel Agencies Interfered in a US Election" , Larry C. Johnson, Consortium News) ..."
"... "Brennan was the key to the operation because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court refused to approve several requests by the FBI to initiate taps on Trump associates and Trump Tower as there was no probable cause to do so but the British and other European intelligence services were legally able to intercept communications linked to American sources. Brennan was able to use his connections with those foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, to make it look like the concerns about Trump were coming from friendly and allied countries and therefore had to be responded to as part of routine intelligence sharing. As a result, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Gen. Michael Flynn were all wiretapped. And likely there were others. This all happened during the primaries and after Trump became the GOP nominee." ( "The Conspiracy Against Trump" , Philip Giraldi) ..."
"... According to a report in The Guardian (where the story first appeared.): "GCHQ (British Government Communications Headquarters) played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation, which began in late July 2016. One source called the British eavesdropping agency the "principal whistleblower". ("British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia ", The Guardian) ..."
"... Okay, so Brennan twisted a few arms and got his foreign Intel buddies to make uncorroborated claims that got the investigative ball rolling, but then what? If there was any meat to Brennan's foreign intel, then Mueller would have dug it up and used it in his report, right? But he didn't. Why? ..."
"... Because there was nothing there, the whole thing was a sham from the get go. Brennan probably "sexed up" the intelligence so it would sound like something it really wasn't. (Think: WMD) Again, if there was even a scintilla of hard evidence that Trump's campaign assistants were in bed with Russia, Mueller would have shrieked it from every mountaintop across America. But he didn't, because there wasn't any. There was no cooperation, no conspiracy and no collusion. Trump was falsely accused. End of story. ..."
Sometime in the next 4 weeks, the Justice Department's inspector general will release an internal review that will reveal the
origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. Among other matters, the IG's report is expected to determine "whether there was sufficient
justification under existing guidelines for the FBI to have started an investigation in the first place." Critics of the Trump-collusion
probe believe that there was never probable cause that a crime had been committed, therefore, there was no legal basis for launching
the investigation. The findings of the Mueller report– that there was no cooperation or collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump
campaign– seem to underscore this broader point and suggest that the fictitious Trump-Russia connection was merely a pretext for
spying on the campaign of a Beltway outsider whose political views clashed with those of the foreign policy establishment. In any
event, the upcoming release of the Horowitz report will formally end the the first phase of the long-running Russiagate scandal and
mark the beginning of Phase 2, in which high-profile officials from the previous administration face criminal prosecution for their
role in what looks to be a botched attempt at a coup d'etat.
Here's a brief summary from political analyst, Larry C. Johnson, who previously worked at the CIA and U.S. State Department:
"The evidence is plain–there was a broad, coordinated effort by the Obama Administration, with the help of foreign governments,
to target Donald Trump and paint him as a stooge of Russia. The Mueller Report provides irrefutable evidence that the so-called
Russian collusion case against Donald Trump was a deliberate fabrication by intelligence and law enforcement organizations in
the US and UK and organizations aligned with the Clinton Campaign." (
"How US and Foreign Intel Agencies Interfered in a US Election" , Larry C. Johnson, Consortium News)
Bingo. Attorney General William Barr has already stated his belief that spying on the Trump campaign "did occur" and that, in
his mind, it is "a big deal". He also reiterated his commitment to thoroughly investigate the matter in order to find out whether
the spying was adequately "predicated", that is, whether the FBI followed the required protocols for such spying, or not. Barr already
knows the answer to this question as he is fully aware of the fact that the FBI used information that they knew was false to obtain
warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. Having no hard evidence of cooperation with the Kremlin, senior-level FBI officials and their
counterparts at the Obama Justice Department used parts of an "opposition research" document (The Trump Dossier) that they knew was
unreliable to procure warrants that allowed them to treat a presidential campaign the same way the intelligence agencies treat foreign
enemies; using electronic surveillance, wiretapping, confidential informants and "honey trap" schemes designed to gather embarrassing
or incriminating information on their target. Barr knows all of this already which is why the Democrats are doing everything in their
power to discredit him and have him removed from office. His determination to "get to the bottom of this" is not just a threat to
the FBI, it's a threat to multiple agencies that may have had a hand in this expansive domestic espionage operation including the
CIA, the NSA, the DOJ, the State Department and, perhaps, even the Obama White House. No one knows yet how far up the political food-chain
the skulduggery actually goes, but Barr appears to be serious about finding out.
Here's Barr again: "Many people seem to assume that the only intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant
.I would like to find out whether that is in fact true. It strikes me as a fairly anemic effort if that was the counterintelligence
effort designed to stop the threat as it's being represented."
In other words, Barr knows that the Trump campaign was riddled with spies and he is going to do his damnedest to find out what
happened. He also knows that the FISA warrants were improperly obtained using the shabby disinformation from an opposition research
"hit piece" (The Steele Dossier) that was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, just like he knows that government agents had
concocted a strategy for leaking classified information to the media to fuel the public hysteria. Barr knows most of what happened
already. It's just a matter of compiling the research in the proper format and delivering it in a way that helps to emphasize how
trusted government agents abused their power by pursuing a vicious partisan plot to either destroy the president's reputation or
force him from office. Like Barr said, that's a "big deal".
The name that seems to feature larger than all others in the ongoing Trump-Russia saga, is James Comey, the former FBI Director
who oversaw the spying operations that are now under investigation at the DOJ. But was Comey really the central figure in these felonious
hi-jinks or was he a mere lieutenant following directives from someone more powerful than himself? While the preponderance of new
evidence suggests that the FBI was deeply involved, it does not answer this crucial question. For example, just this week, a report
by veteran journalist John Solomon, showed that former British spy Christopher Steele admitted to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Kathleen Kavalec that his "Trump Dossier" was "political research", implying that the contents couldn't be trusted because they were
shaped by Steele's political bias. Kavalec passed along this information to the FBI which shrugged it off and then, just days later,
used the dossier to obtain warrants to spy on members of the Trump campaign. Think about that for a minute. The FBI had "written
proof . that Steele had a political motive", but went ahead and used the dossier to procure the warrants anyway. That's what I'd
call a premeditated felony.
But evidence of wrongdoing is not proof that Comey was the ringleader, he was just the hapless sad sack who was left holding the
bag. The truth is, Comey was just a reluctant follower. The real architect of the Trump-Russia treachery was the boss-man at the
nation's premier intelligence agency, the CIA. That's where the headwaters of this shameful burlesque are located, in Langley. More
on that in a minute, but first check out this excerpt from an article at The Hill which sums up Comey's role fairly well:
(There) "will be an examination of whether Comey was unduly influenced by political agendas emanating from the previous White
House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director and attorney general. This, above all, is what's causing the 360-degree
head spin.
"There are early indicators that troubling behaviors may have occurred in all three scenarios. Barr will want to zero in on
a particular area of concern: the use by the FBI of confidential human sources, whether its own or those offered up by the then-CIA
director.
In addition, the cast of characters leveraged by the FBI against the Trump campaign all appear to have their genesis as CIA
sources ("assets," in agency vernacular) shared at times with the FBI. From Stefan Halper and possibly Joseph Mifsud, to Christopher
Steele, to Carter Page himself, and now a mysterious "government investigator" posing as Halper's assistant and cited in The New
York Times article, legitimate questions arise as to whether Comey was manipulated into furthering a CIA political operation more
than an FBI counterintelligence case." (
"James Comey
is in trouble and he knows it" , The Hill)
Why is the Inspector General so curious as to whether Comey "was unduly influenced by political agendas emanating from the previous
White House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director? And why did Comey draw from "a cast of characters " . that "all
appear to have their genesis as CIA sources"??
Could it be that Comey was just an unwitting pawn in a domestic regime change operation launched by former CIA Director John Brennan,
the one public figure who has expressed greater personal animus towards Trump than all the others combined? Could Trump's promise
to normalize relations with Russia have intensified Brennan's visceral hatred of him given the fact that Russia had frustrated Brennan's
strategic plans in Ukraine and Syria? Keep in mind, the CIA had been arming, training and providing logistical support to the Sunni
militants who were trying to overthrow Syrian president Bashar al Assad. Putin's intervention crushed the jihadist militias delivering
a humiliating defeat to Generalissimo Brennan who, soon after, left office in disgrace. Isn't this at least part of the reason why
Brennan hates Trump?
Regular readers of this column know that I have always thought that Brennan was the central figure in the Trump-Russia charade.
It was Brennan who first referred the case to Comey, just as it was Brennan who "hand-picked" the analysts who stitched together
the dodgy Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) (which said that "Putin and the Russian government aspired to help Trump's election
chances.") It was also Brennan who persuaded Harry Reid to petition Comey to open an investigation in the first place. Brennan was
chief instigator of the Trump-Russia fiasco, the omniscient puppet-master who persuaded Clapper and Comey to do his bidding while
still-unidentified agents strategically leaked stories to the media to inflame passions and sow social unrest. At every turn, Brennan
was there guiding the perfidious project along. According to journalist Philip Giraldi, the CIA may have even assisted in the obtaining
of FISA warrants on Trump campaign aids as this excerpt from an article at The Unz Review indicates:
"Brennan was the key to the operation because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court refused to approve
several requests by the FBI to initiate taps on Trump associates and Trump Tower as there was no probable cause to do so but the
British and other European intelligence services were legally able to intercept communications linked to American sources. Brennan
was able to use his connections with those foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, to make it look like the
concerns about Trump were coming from friendly and allied countries and therefore had to be responded to as part of routine intelligence
sharing. As a result, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Gen. Michael Flynn were all wiretapped.
And likely there were others. This all happened during the primaries and after Trump became the GOP nominee." (
"The Conspiracy Against Trump" , Philip
Giraldi)
Can you see how important this is? The FBI was having trouble getting warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, so Brennan helped
them out by persuading his foreign intelligence allies (the British and other European intelligence services) to come up with bogus
"intercepted communications linked to American sources," which helped to secure the FISA warrants. We have no idea of what these
foreign agents heard on these alleged intercepted communications, all we know is that they were effectively used to achieve Brennan's
ultimate objective, which was to acquire the means of taking down Trump via a relentless and expansive surveillance campaign.
According to a report in The Guardian (where the story first appeared.): "GCHQ (British Government Communications Headquarters)
played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation, which began in late July 2016. One source called
the British eavesdropping agency the "principal whistleblower". ("British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia
", The Guardian)
Okay, so Brennan twisted a few arms and got his foreign Intel buddies to make uncorroborated claims that got the investigative
ball rolling, but then what? If there was any meat to Brennan's foreign intel, then Mueller would have dug it up and used it in his
report, right? But he didn't. Why?
Because there was nothing there, the whole thing was a sham from the get go. Brennan probably "sexed up" the intelligence
so it would sound like something it really wasn't. (Think: WMD) Again, if there was even a scintilla of hard evidence that Trump's
campaign assistants were in bed with Russia, Mueller would have shrieked it from every mountaintop across America. But he didn't,
because there wasn't any. There was no cooperation, no conspiracy and no collusion. Trump was falsely accused. End of story.
Here's more from the same article:
"The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump's team
and Moscow ahead of the US election." (Guardian)
"The extensive nature of contacts between Trump's team and Moscow"???
Really? This is precisely the type of hyperventilating journalism that fueled the absurd conspiracy theory that the president
of the United States was a Russian agent. It's hard to believe that we're even discussing the matter at this point.
There was an interesting aside in John Solomon's article that suggests that he might be thinking along the same lines. He says:
"One legal justification cited for redacting the Oct. 13, 2016, email is the National Security Act of 1947, which can be used to
shield communications involving the CIA or the White House National Security Council."
Why would Solomon draw attention to "to shielding communications involving the CIA or the White House", after all, the bulk of
his article focused on the State Department and the FBI? Is he suggesting that the CIA and Obama White House may have been involved
in these spying shenanigans, is that why Kavalec's damning notes (which stated that Steele's dossier could not be trusted.) have
been retroactively classified?
Take a look at this email from the FBI's chief investigator in the Russia collusion probe, Peter Strzok, to his fellow agents
in April 2017.
"I'm beginning to think the agency (CIA) got info a lot earlier than we thought and hasn't shared it completely with us. Might
explain all those weird/seemingly incorrect leads all these media folks have. Would also highlight agency as source of some leaks."
-Peter Strzok.
Ha! So even the FBI's chief investigator was in the dark about the CIA's shadowy machinations behind the scenes. Clearly, Brennan
wanted to prevent the other junta leaders from fully knowing what he was up to.
All of this is bound to come out in the inspector general's report sometime in the next month or so. Both Attorney General William
Barr and IG Horowitz appear to be fully committed to revealing the criminal leaks, the illegal electronic surveillance, the improperly
obtained FISA warrants, and the multiple confidential human sources (spies) that were placed in the Trump campaign. They are going
to face withering criticism for their efforts, but they are resolutely moving forward all the same. Bravo, for that.
Bottom line: The agents and officials who conducted this seditious attack on the presidency never thought they'd be held accountable
for their crimes. But they were wrong, and now their day of reckoning is fast approaching. The main players in this palace coup are
about to be exposed, criminally charged and prosecuted. Some of them will probably wind up in jail.
"The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine."
If prophecy does not happen, Russiagaters like typical members of "Doomsday
cults" just became more bound to their sect as admitting this means destroying self-respect.
Notable quotes:
"... What does it say about American society that so many people are actually enrolled in believing that this man could be any kind of a savior? What does that say about the divisions and the conflicts and the contradictions and the genuine problems in this culture? And how do we address those issues? ..."
"... I mean there was a massive denial of the actual dynamics in American society that led to the election of this traumatized and traumatizing individual as President, number one. ..."
"... Now, you may think that's a good thing to do. I'm not arguing about that. I'm not arguing politics. All I'm saying is projection is when we project onto somebody else the things that we do ourselves, and we refuse to deal with the implications of it. So there's denial and then there's projection. ..."
"... And I think there was this huge element of victimhood in this Russiagate process. ..."
"... ("The Resistance With Keith Olbermann", GQ, December 2016) ..."
"... ("The Rachel Maddow Show", MSNBC, March 2017) ..."
"... ("All In With Chris Hayes", MSNBC, February 2018) ..."
"... ("AM Joy", MSNBC, February 2018) ..."
"... GABOR MATÉ : And the assumption, that even if you take all the things that Russia was charged with in this whole Russiagate narrative over the last two and a half years, and if you multiply it by a hundred times, even then, you could not have possibly destroyed the United States. Even then, what is our self image if we think we're that weak, that that kind of external interference could undermine everything that you believed this country has built over the last few centuries?' ..."
"... (FBI Director Robert Mueller, Congressional Testimony, February 2003) ..."
"... ROBERT MUELLER : As Director Tenet has pointed out, Secretary Powell presented evidence last week that Baghdad has failed to disarm its weapons of mass destruction and willfully attempting to evade and deceive the international community. Our particular concern is that Saddam Hussein may supply terrorists with biological, chemical or radiological material. ..."
"... GABOR MATÉ : So given the line supported by Mueller led to the deaths of several hundred thousand Iraqi people and thousands of Americans, and has incurred costs that we all are fully aware of in terms of rise in terrorism and embroilment in multiple wars and situations, it takes an act of powerful historical amnesia for people to believe that this man is going to be our savior. That's the first point. Just incredible historical amnesia number one. ..."
"... ooking at how under the Bushes and under Obama, there was this massive transfer of wealth upwards. Instead of asking why Barack Obama gets $400,000 for an hour speech to Wall Street, which means that maybe our faith in how our system operates needs to be shaken a bit so we can actually look at what's really going on, let's just put our attention on some foreign devil again. ..."
"... How did the Democratic elite deliberately try to marginalize the progressive candidate? ..."
"... Like if he lacks discretion, let's assume that Russia did leak those Democratic e mails. Let's assume that. We don't know that they did. But we don't know that they didn't either. Let's assume that they did. Which is the greater assault on American democracy? The fact that the Russians leaked the document? Or that the American national Democratic leadership deliberately tried to marginalize one of their own candidates? ..."
"... We screwed up. We actually tried to undemocratically interfere with the Democratic nomination. We didn't pay attention to the people that were really hurting in the society because of our policies. We as the press gave this man all kinds of attention that he never deserved and never merited because he was interesting news and sold copies. ..."
"... AARON MATÉ: And there's a material incentive to do it. Because as you've talked about, if you're the Democrats and you look at the lessons of the election, you saw that people rejected your neoliberal economic legacy, that means you have to start challenging the powerful corporate sectors that you've been representing for a long time, actually posing real alternative policies to Donald Trump. ..."
"... If you do that, though, you risk losing your privileged status within the power structure. And the same thing if you're in the media and you identify with that faction of the power structure. ..."
AARON MATÉ : So we've just been through this two-year ordeal with
Russiagate. It's in a new phase now with Robert Mueller rejecting the outcome that so many were
expecting, that there would be a Trump-Russia conspiracy. Your sense of how this whole thing
has gone?
GABOR MATÉ : What's interesting is that in the aftermath of the Mueller thunderbolt
of no proof of collusion, there were articles about how people are disappointed about this
finding.
Now, disappointment means that you're expecting something and you wanted something to
happen, and it didn't happen. So that means that some people wanted Mueller to find evidence of
collusion, which means that emotionally they were invested in it. It wasn't just that they
wanted to know the truth. They actually wanted the truth to look a certain way. And wherever we
want the truth to look a certain way, there's some reason that has to do with their own
emotional needs and not just with the concern for reality.
And in politics in general, we think that people make decisions on intellectual grounds
based on facts and beliefs. Very often, actually, people's dynamics are driven by emotional
forces that they're not even aware of in themselves. And I, really, as I observed this whole
Russiagate phenomenon from the beginning, it really seemed to me that there was a lot of
emotionality in it that had little to do with the actual facts of the case.
... ... ...
What does it say about American society that so many people are actually enrolled in
believing that this man could be any kind of a savior? What does that say about the divisions
and the conflicts and the contradictions and the genuine problems in this culture? And how do
we address those issues?
... ... ...
I mean there was a massive denial of the actual dynamics in American society that led to
the election of this traumatized and traumatizing individual as President, number one.
... ... ...
GABOR MATÉ : So even if it's true what the Russians have even if it's the worst thing
that's alleged about the Russians is true, it's not even on miniscule proportion of what
America has publicly acknowledged it has done all around the world. And so this rage that we
project, then, and this bad guy image that we project onto the Russians, it's simply a mirror a
very inadequate mirror of what America publicly and openly and repeatedly does all around the
world.
Now, you may think that's a good thing to do. I'm not arguing about that. I'm not arguing
politics. All I'm saying is projection is when we project onto somebody else the things that we
do ourselves, and we refuse to deal with the implications of it. So there's denial and then
there's projection.
And then, there's just something in people. I can tell you well, your mother can tell you
this that in relationships it's always easier to see ourselves as the victims than as the
perpetrators. So there's something comforting about seeing oneself as the victim of somebody
else. Nobody likes to be a victim. But people like to see themselves as victims because it
means they don't have to take responsibility for what we do ourselves.
AARON MATÉ : I can relate to that, too.
GABOR MATÉ : Yeah. I'm just saying the effect of somebody else. So this functions
beautifully in politics. And populist politicians and xenophobic politicians around the world
use this dynamic all the time. That whether it's Great Britain, or whether it's France with
their vast colonial empires, they're always the victims of everybody else. The United States is
always the victim of everybody else. All these enemies that are threatening us. It's the most
powerful nation on earth, a nation that could single handedly destroy the earth a billion times
over with the weapons that are at its disposal, and it's always the victim.
So this victimhood, there is something comforting about it because, again, it allows us not
to look at ourselves. And I think there was this huge element of victimhood in this
Russiagate process.
Noam Chomsky on Mass Media Obsession with Russia & the Stories Not Being Covered in the
Trump Era
("The Resistance With Keith Olbermann", GQ, December 2016)
KEITH OLBERMANN : The nation and all of our freedoms hang by a thread. And the military
apparatus of this country is about to be handed over to scum who are beholden to scum,
Russian scum. As things are today, January 20th will not be an inauguration but rather the
end of the United States as an independent country
("The Rachel Maddow Show", MSNBC, March 2017)
RACHEL MADDOW : But the important thing here is that that Bernie Sanders lovers page run
out of Albania, it's still there. Still running. Still operating. Still churning this stuff
out. Now. This is not part of American politics. This is not, you know, partisan warfare
between Republicans and Democrats. This is international warfare against our country.
("All In With Chris Hayes", MSNBC, February 2018)
JERROLD NADLER : Imagine if FDR had denied that the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor
and didn't react, that's the equivalent.
CHRIS HAYES : Well, it's a bit of a different thing. I mean --
JERROLD NADLER : No, it's not.
CHRIS HAYES : They didn't kill anyone.
JERROLD NADLER : They didn't kill anyone, but they're destroying our country, our
democratic process.
CHRIS HAYES : Do you really think it's on par?
JERROLD NADLER : Not in the amount of violence, but I think in the seriousness it is very
much on par. This country exists to have a democratic system with a small D, that's what the
country's all about, and this is an attempt to destroy that.
("AM Joy", MSNBC, February 2018)
ROB REINER : We have been invaded in such a subtle way because we don't see planes hitting
the buildings. We don't see bombs dropping in Pearl Harbor. But we have been invaded as
Malcolm [Nance] points out. We are under attack, but we don't feel it. But it's like walking
around with high blood pressure and then all of a sudden you're not aware of it and you drop
dead.
So it's insidious, and it has affected our blood stream. And if we don't do something
about it – and that's why, guys like John Brennan and James Clapper are running around
with their hair on fire because they're trying to wake people up to tell them: We have to do
something about it. We have to protect ourselves and if we don't, our 241 years of democracy
and self-governance will start to collapse.
GABOR MATÉ : And the assumption, that even if you take all the things that Russia
was charged with in this whole Russiagate narrative over the last two and a half years, and if
you multiply it by a hundred times, even then, you could not have possibly destroyed the United
States. Even then, what is our self image if we think we're that weak, that that kind of
external interference could undermine everything that you believed this country has built over
the last few centuries?'
So it shows to me a real shock reaction. And what has been shocked here is our beliefs in
what this country is about.
And again, as I said before, it's in a sense more comforting. It's frightening, but at the
same time more comforting to see the problem as coming from the outside than to search for it
with amongst ourselves and within ourselves.
AARON MATÉ : How about then the aspect of this that puts so much hope into Robert
Mueller? Because Robert Mueller was supposed to be our savior.
GABOR MATÉ : First of all, if we actually look at who Mueller is, who is he?
He's a man who, amongst many others, was 100 percent convinced that Iraq had weapons of mass
discussion.
VIDEO CLIP
(FBI Director Robert Mueller, Congressional Testimony, February 2003)
ROBERT MUELLER : As Director Tenet has pointed out, Secretary Powell presented evidence
last week that Baghdad has failed to disarm its weapons of mass destruction and willfully
attempting to evade and deceive the international community. Our particular concern is that
Saddam Hussein may supply terrorists with biological, chemical or radiological
material.
GABOR MATÉ : So given the line supported by Mueller led to the deaths of several
hundred thousand Iraqi people and thousands of Americans, and has incurred costs that we all
are fully aware of in terms of rise in terrorism and embroilment in multiple wars and
situations, it takes an act of powerful historical amnesia for people to believe that this man
is going to be our savior. That's the first point. Just incredible historical amnesia number
one.
Number two, America, if you can judge by its TV shows, is very much addicted to the good
guy/bad guy scenario. So that reality is not complex. And it's not subtle. And it's not a build
up of multiple dynamics, internal and external. But, basically, there's evil and there's good.
And evil is going to be cut out by the good and destroyed by it. And that's really how the
American narrative very often is presented.
Now, the same thing is projected into politics. So now if there's a bad guy called Putin and
his puppet called Trump, then there has to be a good guy that is going to save us from it. Some
guy on a white charger that's going to move in here, and is silver haired, patrician looking
man who's going to find the truth and rescue us all, which again is a projection of people's
hopes for truth outside of themselves onto some kind of a benevolent savior figure.
Needless to say, when that savior figure doesn't deliver, then we have to argue that maybe
he was bought off or corrupt or stupid himself or insufficient himself. Or that there's
something secret that has yet to be uncovered that some day will come to the surface that
Mueller himself was unable to discover for himself.
But, again, this projection of hope onto some savior figure. Rather than saying, okay,
there's a big problem here. We've elected a highly traumatized grandiose, intellectually
unstable, emotionally unstable, misogynist, self aggrandizer to power. Something in our society
made that happen. And let's look at what that was. And let's clear up those issues if we can.
And let's look at the people on the liberal side who, instead of challenging all those issues,
put all their energies into this foreign conspiracy explanation. Because to have challenged
those issues would have meant looking at their own policies, which tended in the same
direction.
Rather than looking at how under the Clinton, they've jailed hundreds of thousands of people
who should never have been in jail. L ooking at how under the Bushes and under Obama, there
was this massive transfer of wealth upwards. Instead of asking why Barack Obama gets $400,000
for an hour speech to Wall Street, which means that maybe our faith in how our system operates
needs to be shaken a bit so we can actually look at what's really going on, let's just put our
attention on some foreign devil again.
... ... ...
GABOR MATÉ : .... How did the Democratic elite deliberately try to marginalize the
progressive candidate?
Like if he lacks discretion, let's assume that Russia did leak those Democratic e mails.
Let's assume that. We don't know that they did. But we don't know that they didn't either.
Let's assume that they did. Which is the greater assault on American democracy? The fact that
the Russians leaked the document? Or that the American national Democratic leadership
deliberately tried to marginalize one of their own candidates?
... ... ...
GABOR MATÉ : Let me just interrupt to say that if I were those people, then, then
quite apart from the shock defense that we've already talked about, it'd be so much more
convenient for me to go to the Russia narrative than to say publicly, you know what? We
screwed up. We actually tried to undemocratically interfere with the Democratic nomination. We
didn't pay attention to the people that were really hurting in the society because of our
policies. We as the press gave this man all kinds of attention that he never deserved and never
merited because he was interesting news and sold copies.
... ... ...
AARON MATÉ: And there's a material incentive to do it. Because as you've talked
about, if you're the Democrats and you look at the lessons of the election, you saw that people
rejected your neoliberal economic legacy, that means you have to start challenging the powerful
corporate sectors that you've been representing for a long time, actually posing real
alternative policies to Donald Trump.
If you do that, though, you risk losing your privileged status within the power
structure. And the same thing if you're in the media and you identify with that faction of the
power structure.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not
understanding it."
― Upton Sinclair
As more evidence is being uncovered like the the Kathy Kavalec contemporaneous notes &
email to FBI on her meeting with Steele, it is getting more & more apparent that there
was a program to entrap and smear Trump as a Putin stooge by top officials in the Obama
administration, directly interfering in a presidential election.
Mueller was conflicted right from the very beginning. The fact that Strzok, Page &
Weisman were on his initial staff points to that conflict. Considering the inherent bias it
should be instructive that they could not find any evidence and had to conclude that the
Trump campaign did not collude with agents of the Russian government.
Sometime in the next 4 weeks, the Justice Department's inspector general will release an internal review that will reveal the
origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. Among other matters, the IG's report is expected to determine "whether there was sufficient
justification under existing guidelines for the FBI to have started an investigation in the first place." Critics of the Trump-collusion
probe believe that there was never probable cause that a crime had been committed, therefore, there was no legal basis for launching
the investigation.
The findings of the Mueller report– that there was no cooperation or collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign– seem
to underscore this broader point and suggest that the fictitious Trump-Russia connection was merely a pretext for spying on the campaign
of a Beltway outsider whose political views clashed with those of the foreign policy establishment.
In any event, the upcoming release of the Horowitz report will formally end the the first phase of the long-running Russiagate
scandal and mark the beginning of Phase 2, in which high-profile officials from the previous administration face criminal prosecution
for their role in what looks to be a botched attempt at a coup d'etat.
Here's a brief summary from political analyst, Larry C. Johnson, who previously worked at the CIA and U.S. State Department:
" The evidence is plain–there was a broad, coordinated effort by the Obama Administration, with the help of foreign governments,
to target Donald Trump and paint him as a stooge of Russia. The Mueller Report provides irrefutable evidence that the so-called
Russian collusion case against Donald Trump was a deliberate fabrication by intelligence and law enforcement organizations in
the US and UK and organizations aligned with the Clinton Campaign." (
"How US and Foreign Intel Agencies Interfered in a US Election" , Larry C. Johnson, Consortium News)
Bingo. Attorney General William Barr has already stated his belief that spying on the Trump campaign "did occur" and that, in
his mind, it is "a big deal". He also reiterated his commitment to thoroughly investigate the matter in order to find out whether
the spying was adequately "predicated", that is, whether the FBI followed the required protocols for such spying, or not. Barr already
knows the answer to this question as he is fully aware of the fact that the FBI used information that they knew was false to obtain
warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. Having no hard evidence of cooperation with the Kremlin, senior-level FBI officials and their
counterparts at the Obama Justice Department used parts of an "opposition research" document (The Trump Dossier) that they knew was
unreliable to procure warrants that allowed them to treat a presidential campaign the same way the intelligence agencies treat foreign
enemies; using electronic surveillance, wiretapping, confidential informants and "honey trap" schemes designed to gather embarrassing
or incriminating information on their target. Barr knows all of this already which is why the Democrats are doing everything in their
power to discredit him and have him removed from office.
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4855
His determination to "get to the bottom of this" is not just a threat to the FBI, it's a threat to multiple agencies that may
have had a hand in this expansive domestic espionage operation including the CIA, the NSA, the DOJ, the State Department and, perhaps,
even the Obama White House. No one knows yet how far up the political food-chain the skulduggery actually goes, but Barr appears
to be serious about finding out.
Here's Barr again:
"Many people seem to assume that the only intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant .I would
like to find out whether that is in fact true. It strikes me as a fairly anemic effort if that was the counterintelligence effort
designed to stop the threat as it's being represented."
In other words, Barr knows that the Trump campaign was riddled with spies and he is going to do his damnedest to find out what
happened. He also knows that the FISA warrants were improperly obtained using the shabby disinformation from an opposition research
"hit piece" (The Steele Dossier) that was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, just like he knows that government agents had
concocted a strategy for leaking classified information to the media to fuel the public hysteria. Barr knows most of what happened
already. It's just a matter of compiling the research in the proper format and delivering it in a way that helps to emphasize how
trusted government agents abused their power by pursuing a vicious partisan plot to either destroy the president's reputation or
force him from office. Like Barr said, that's a "big deal".
The name that seems to feature larger than all others in the ongoing Trump-Russia saga, is James Comey, the former FBI Director
who oversaw the spying operations that are now under investigation at the DOJ. But was Comey really the central figure in these felonious
hi-jinks or was he a mere lieutenant following directives from someone more powerful than himself? While the preponderance of new
evidence suggests that the FBI was deeply involved, it does not answer this crucial question. For example, just this week, a report
by veteran journalist John Solomon, showed that former British spy Christopher Steele admitted to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State
Kathleen Kavalec that his "Trump Dossier" was "political research", implying that the contents couldn't be trusted because they were
shaped by Steele's political bias. Kavalec passed along this information to the FBI which shrugged it off and then, just days later,
used the dossier to obtain warrants to spy on members of the Trump campaign. Think about that for a minute. The FBI had "written
proof . that Steele had a political motive", but went ahead and used the dossier to procure the warrants anyway. That's what I'd
call a premeditated felony.
But evidence of wrongdoing is not proof that Comey was the ringleader, he was just the hapless sad sack who was left holding the
bag. The truth is, Comey was just a reluctant follower. The real architect of the Trump-Russia treachery was the boss-man at the
nation's premier intelligence agency, the CIA. That's where the headwaters of this shameful burlesque are located, in Langley. More
on that in a minute, but first check out this excerpt from an article at The Hill which sums up Comey's role fairly well:
(There) "will be an examination of whether Comey was unduly influenced by political agendas emanating from the previous White
House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director and attorney general. This, above all, is what's causing the 360-degree
head spin.
"There are early indicators that troubling behaviors may have occurred in all three scenarios. Barr will want to zero in on
a particular area of concern: the use by the FBI of confidential human sources, whether its own or those offered up by the then-CIA
director.
In addition, the cast of characters leveraged by the FBI against the Trump campaign all appear to have their genesis as CIA
sources ("assets," in agency vernacular) shared at times with the FBI. From Stefan Halper and possibly Joseph Mifsud, to Christopher
Steele, to Carter Page himself, and now a mysterious "government investigator" posing as Halper's assistant and cited in The New
York Times article, legitimate questions arise as to whether Comey was manipulated into furthering a CIA political operation more
than an FBI counterintelligence case." (
"James Comey
is in trouble and he knows it" , The Hill)
Why is the Inspector General so curious as to whether Comey "was unduly influenced by political agendas emanating from the previous
White House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director? And why did Comey draw from "a cast of characters " . that "all
appear to have their genesis as CIA sources"??
Could it be that Comey was just an unwitting pawn in a domestic regime change operation launched by former CIA Director John Brennan,
the one public figure who has expressed greater personal animus towards Trump than all the others combined? Could Trump's promise
to normalize relations with Russia have intensified Brennan's visceral hatred of him given the fact that Russia had frustrated Brennan's
strategic plans in Ukraine and Syria? Keep in mind, the CIA had been arming, training and providing logistical support to the Sunni
militants who were trying to overthrow Syrian president Bashar al Assad. Putin's intervention crushed the jihadist militias delivering
a humiliating defeat to Generalissimo Brennan who, soon after, left office in disgrace. Isn't this at least part of the reason why
Brennan hates Trump?
Regular readers of this column know that I have always thought that Brennan was the central figure in the Trump-Russia charade.
It was Brennan who first referred the case to Comey, just as it was Brennan who "hand-picked" the analysts who stitched together
the dodgy Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) (which said that "Putin and the Russian government aspired to help Trump's election
chances.") It was also Brennan who persuaded Harry Reid to petition Comey to open an investigation in the first place. Brennan was
chief instigator of the Trump-Russia fiasco, the omniscient puppet-master who persuaded Clapper and Comey to do his bidding while
still-unidentified agents strategically leaked stories to the media to inflame passions and sow social unrest. At every turn, Brennan
was there guiding the perfidious project along. According to journalist Philip Giraldi, the CIA may have even assisted in the obtaining
of FISA warrants on Trump campaign aids as this excerpt from an article at The Unz Review indicates:
"Brennan was the key to the operation because the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court refused to approve several
requests by the FBI to initiate taps on Trump associates and Trump Tower as there was no probable cause to do so but the British
and other European intelligence services were legally able to intercept communications linked to American sources. Brennan was
able to use his connections with those foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, to make it look like the concerns
about Trump were coming from friendly and allied countries and therefore had to be responded to as part of routine intelligence
sharing. As a result, Paul Manafort, Carter Page, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Gen. Michael Flynn were all wiretapped.
And likely there were others. This all happened during the primaries and after Trump became the GOP nominee." (
"The Conspiracy Against Trump" , Philip
Giraldi)
Can you see how important this is? The FBI was having trouble getting warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, so Brennan helped
them out by persuading his foreign intelligence allies (the British and other European intelligence services) to come up with bogus
"intercepted communications linked to American sources," which helped to secure the FISA warrants. We have no idea of what these
foreign agents heard on these alleged intercepted communications, all we know is that they were effectively used to achieve Brennan's
ultimate objective, which was to acquire the means of taking down Trump via a relentless and expansive surveillance campaign.
According to a report in The Guardian (where the story first appeared.):
"GCHQ (British Government Communications Headquarters) played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI's Trump-Russia
investigation, which began in late July 2016. One source called the British eavesdropping agency the "principal whistleblower".
("British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia ", The Guardian)
Okay, so Brennan twisted a few arms and got his foreign Intel buddies to make uncorroborated claims that got the investigative
ball rolling, but then what? If there was any meat to Brennan's foreign intel, then Mueller would have dug it up and used it in his
report, right? But he didn't. Why?
Because there was nothing there, the whole thing was a sham from the get go. Brennan probably "sexed up" the intelligence so it
would sound like something it really wasn't. (Think: WMD) Again, if there was even a scintilla of hard evidence that Trump's campaign
assistants were in bed with Russia, Mueller would have shrieked it from every mountaintop across America. But he didn't, because
there wasn't any. There was no cooperation, no conspiracy and no collusion. Trump was falsely accused. End of story.
Here's more from the same article:
"The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump's team
and Moscow ahead of the US election." (Guardian)
"The extensive nature of contacts between Trump's team and Moscow"???
Really? This is precisely the type of hyperventilating journalism that fueled the absurd conspiracy theory that the president
of the United States was a Russian agent. It's hard to believe that we're even discussing the matter at this point.
There was an interesting aside in John Solomon's article that suggests that he might be thinking along the same lines. He says:
"One legal justification cited for redacting the Oct. 13, 2016, email is the National Security Act of 1947, which can be used to
shield communications involving the CIA or the White House National Security Council."
Why would Solomon draw attention to "to shielding communications involving the CIA or the White House", after all, the bulk of
his article focused on the State Department and the FBI? Is he suggesting that the CIA and Obama White House may have been involved
in these spying shenanigans, is that why Kavalec's damning notes (which stated that Steele's dossier could not be trusted.) have
been retroactively classified?
Take a look at this email from the FBI's chief investigator in the Russia collusion probe, Peter Strzok, to his fellow agents
in April 2017.
"I'm beginning to think the agency (CIA) got info a lot earlier than we thought and hasn't shared it completely with us. Might
explain all those weird/seemingly incorrect leads all these media folks have. Would also highlight agency as source of some leaks."
-Peter Strzok.
Ha! So even the FBI's chief investigator was in the dark about the CIA's shadowy machinations behind the scenes. Clearly, Brennan
wanted to prevent the other junta leaders from fully knowing what he was up to.
All of this is bound to come out in the inspector general's report sometime in the next month or so. Both Attorney General William
Barr and IG Horowitz appear to be fully committed to revealing the criminal leaks, the illegal electronic surveillance, the improperly
obtained FISA warrants, and the multiple confidential human sources (spies) that were placed in the Trump campaign. They are going
to face withering criticism for their efforts, but they are resolutely moving forward all the same. Bravo, for that.
Bottom line : The agents and officials who conducted this seditious attack on the presidency never thought they'd be held accountable
for their crimes. But they were wrong, and now their day of reckoning is fast approaching. The main players in this palace coup are
about to be exposed, criminally charged and prosecuted. Some of them will probably wind up in jail.
"The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine."
There is ZERO evidence that Russia played ANY role in the 2016 USSA election and yet are sanctioned to the max, threatened
with war etc. HOWEVER there IS proof of the UK/GCHQ involvement.
I am waiting to see if Trump still goes to the UK in June or if he tells them he is "busy with more important things at home"
aka F...off.
Apocalypse, I would say that word describes it pretty well.
Middle English Apocalipse "Revelation (the New Testament book)," borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Late Latin
apocalypsis "revelation, the Book of Revelation," borrowed from Greek apokálypsis "uncovering, disclosure, revelation,"
from apokalyp-, stem of apokalýptein "to uncover, disclose, reveal" (from apo- APO- + kalýptein "to cover, protect,
conceal," of uncertain origin) + -sis -SIS
"No one knows yet how far up the political food-chain the skulduggery actually goes"
Too kind. We all know it is impossible that Susan Rice did not know -- she would have to authorize the FBI to conduct any foreign
spying operations.
And if Susan Rice knew, it is impossible that Barack Obama didn't know. And approved of it, if only by not putting a stop to
it.
The string that hasn't been pulled yet is the role of British intelligence. Brennan is obviously not a very bright man. He's
a post-turtle, so how a dull-witted former communist ended up as head of the CIA is yet another story that needs looking into.
Was he actually a British mole?
The intersection of British establishment political goals and donated assets in the operation of this plot is nakedly obvious.
It will be for Barr to expose that "angle", with the distinct possibility the ultimate origin of this scheme was the Blairite
UK civil service who wished to eliminate a potentially powerful political actor who repeatedly and strongly indicated his unreserved
support for Brexit.
All the things you mentioned were obfuscated by Clinton, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr., Cheney, several Generals, heads of
state, foreign intelligence. Do you think someone just snaps a finger and the MIC disappears?
You conflate 'past' leadership with the current. The deep state is crumbling. We need to keep digging and indicting until Rothschild
takes a one way rocket off planet Earth.
It will only end when treasonous traitor hang by their necks. I'm still hoping and informing others.
"I've talked to the members of the Israeli government at the highest levels. I know who they want elected here. It's not
Hillary Clinton." – Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani
The TRUMP Collusion wasn't with the Russians , but with APARTHEID Israhell.
It would be an understatement to say that author Haley does not like Lyndon Baines
Johnson. And despite the fact that his book is an unrelenting tirade against all things
Lyndon, it provides a useful service in reminding the reader of how Johnson trampled and
double-crossed friend and foe alike in his single-minded lust for power.
I am fairly conservative politically, but I am open-minded enough to recognize and oppose
corruption whether practiced by liberals or conservatives. In my lifetime, Johnson, Nixon,
and Clinton have been shining examples of the worst impulses in American presidential
politics in which greed and lust for either power or money ended up overshadowing any of
their real achievements.
Haley shows that Johnson was a man of few real principles, neither liberal nor
conservative, but rather a man who usually always wanted to know which way the wind was
blowing before taking a stand on any important issue. Johnson was a man who used all his
powers of persuasion and veiled threats to get what he wanted and woe unto anyone who stood
in his way.
He was a man who knew and used the old adage "It's not what you know, but who you know" to
Machiavellian extremes.
But he was also a man of sometimes great political courage who would rarely give an inch
once he took a stand. He hated those who opposed him, nursed resentments, and wreaked revenge
on those who crossed him in the least as most of his enemies and many of his friends learned
to their sorrow. From the earliest days, he was involved with corrupt Texas politicians from
the local to the state level and swam in the seas of corporate corruption with the likes of
the infamous swindler Billy Sol Estes and others of his stripe.
Admittedly, the conservatism of the author is the conservatism of a bygone age and the
reader will recognize that the book is meant to be a partisan attack on Johnson. Some of the
attacks on Johnson are made solely for political reasons as Johnson was clever enough to
outmaneuver Haley's ideological brothers and sisters. But Johnson surrounded himself with
enough scummy characters and got involved in so many underhanded political AND business deals
that he deserves the rough treatment given him in Haley's devastating diatribe.
No matter your political leanings, your eyes will be opened when you read A Texan Looks At
Lyndon. The book is well-written and often riveting in its allegations and revelations, but
it loses one star for occasional hysteria. If US or Texas politics interests you, then I
highly recommend this.
Randall Ivey
You have been warned, July 31, 2000
Haley wrote this book (and published it himself) in 1964 basically as a campaign tract for
Barry Goldwater. In the intervening years it has become a classic of its kind, a philippic,
to use M.E. Bradford's term, tracing the illegitimate rise to power of Lyndon Baines
Johnson.
If you're politically naive, this book will grown hair on your chest. It's an unblinking,
fearless portrait of Johnson's wheeling dealing and underhanded methods to achieve the power,
prestige, and money he craved all his life.
Haley names all the names and lays out facts and figures for the reader to make up his
mind. And the reader winds up shaking his head in utter astonishment. The best part of the
book is that detailing Johnson's eventual election to the U.S. Senate in a contest with
former Gov. Coke Stevenson.
The election was clearly Stevenson's, but through the machinations of George Parr, the
notorious Duke of Duval County, the results were turned around in LBJ's favor. Investigators
later found that among those voting in the primary were people who didn't live in the county
anymore and people who weren't alive at all. But the results stood.
(An interesting and amusing aside: when Haley ran for Texas governor in 1956, he
approached Parr and said, "I'm Evetts Haley. I'm running for governor, and if I win, it will
be my privilege to put you in jail."
Parr's reply: "I believe you will." Parr, the Artful Dodger of Texas politics for years,
eventually killed himself.)
At times the book grows tiresome, especially in the Bobby Baker and Billie Sol Estes
scandals, where Haley turns a virtual torrent of names and numbers on the reader as to be
sometimes confusing.
A foreign intelligence asset was used to justify surveillance of Trump[ and some of his associates
Notable quotes:
"... What is clear from the new records is that Christopher Steele, a foreign intelligence officer, had frequent and extensive contacts with the FBI. Who was his FBI Case Agent? ..."
"... The main thing I want to know is WHEN was the decision made to tar Trump with Russia - both at the FBI (and likely CIA) and at the DNC (over the leak) - and WHO was the deciding entity - Comey, Brennan, Clinton, Obama or someone else? And perhaps who came up with the idea in the first place (at the DNC, it was very likely Alexandra Chalupa, the Ukrainian-American DNC "consultant"). ..."
"... The bad thing is that our MSM is so reverent of our Intel agencies that I see them encouraged to increasingly put their hand on the scale. ..."
"... Recently, I saw arm flailing by a Congressman, Dan Coats, and Mueller about how the Russians are still at it. They are trying to disrupt or influence the 2018. Really, then I demand to get a list of the pro-Kremlin candidates. How long before the mere threat of being outed as a Kremlin agent is used to punish elected officials if they are not sufficiently hawkish or don't support certain programs. Unchallenged claims by Intel agencies gives them a lot of political power. ..."
"... I am skeptical. Russia has a lot of fish to fry, why would they expend resources on midterm elections. Now everyone in the U.S. hates them, both traditional hawk Republicans and born again uber-hawk Democrats. There is a tiger behind both doors. ..."
"... if Steele had been a CHS since at least February of 2016, what was the purpose of passing the Dossier to the FBI through Fusion GPS? Why not just going to his FBI handler? Was Steele collaboration with Fusion even in compliance with FBI regulations? Did the FBI know? ..."
"... Because part of the plan was to leak the information in order to damage Trump. FBI could not do that. Would have exposed them to some real legal jeopardy. This was a dual track strategy. Diabolical almost. ..."
"... Don't forget the Nellie Ohr (Fusion GPS) -> Bruce Ohr (DOJ) back channel. The husband & wife tag team. Yes, the same Nellie that was investigating using ham radio to communicate to avoid NSA mass surveillance. ..."
"... From the very beginning that information about all this was slowly leaking from the Congressional investigation, this whole thing smelled very fishy. Then add intense effort at DOJ & FBI to obstruct and obfuscate. And the unhinged tweets and interviews by Brennan, Clapper & Comey. ..."
"... He was working with FBI and GPS at the same time. GPS was in the dark supposedly about his work with the FBI and Steele got their approval to hand over what he had delivered to GPS to the FBI as a cover for his work with the FBI. ..."
"... its also likely FBI had some input into the content of what was delivered to GPS, and more importantly what was not delivered. ..."
"... Re the 'standing agreement to not recruit each other's intelligence personnel for clandestine activities.' As Steele was not by this time a current employee of MI6, was the FBI in technical violation of this? ..."
"... A central question in regard to Steele, as with quite a number of former intelligence/law enforcement/military people who have started at least ostensibly private sector operations, is how far these are being used as 'cover' for activities conducted on behalf of either the state agencies for which they used to work, or other state agencies. ..."
"... It is at least possible that one advantage of such arrangements may be that they make it possible to evade the letter of agreements between intelligence agencies in different countries ..."
"... If, as seems likely, both current and former top FBI and DOJ people – very likely Mueller as well as Comey, Strzok and many others – were intimately involved in the conspiracy to subvert the constitution, then a means of making it possible for Steele to combine feeding information to the FBI while also engaging in 'StratCom' via the MSM could have been necessary. ..."
"... An obvious means of 'squaring the circle' would have been to issue a formal 'termination' to Steele, while creating 'back channels' to those who were officially supposed not to be talking to him ..."
"... A report yesterday by John Solomon in 'The Hill' quotes from messages exchanged between Steele and Bruce Ohr after the supposed termination ..."
"... 'In all, Ohr's notes, emails and texts identify more than 60 contacts with Steele and/or Simpson, some dating to 2002 in London. But the vast majority occurred during the 2016-2017 timeframe that gave birth to one of the most controversial counterintelligence probes in American history.' ..."
"... I have just finished taking a fresh look at Sir Robert Owen's travesty of a report into the death of Litvinenko. In large measure, this develops claims originally made in Christopher Steele's first attempt to provide a convincing account of why figures close to Putin might have thought it made sense to assassinate that figure, and to do so with polonium. The sheer volume of fabrication which has been deployed in an attempt to defend the patently indefensible almost beggars belief. ..."
"... Just as a question arises as to whether Steele is essentially acting on behalf of MI6, a question also arises as to whether the FBI leadership were knowledgeable about, and possibly involved with, the various shenanigans in which Shvets and Levinson were involved. Given that claims about Mogilevich have turned out to be central to 'Russiagate', that seems a rather important issue, and I am curious as to whether Ohr's communications with Steele may cast any light on it. ..."
"... Apparently the FBI got Deripaksa to fund the rescue of Levinson from Iran. Furthermore apparently FBI personnel maybe including McCabe visited with Deripaksa and showed him the Steele dossier. He supposedly had a nice guffaw and dismissed it as nonsense. So on the one hand while they make Russia out to be the most evil they play footsie with Russian oligarchs. ..."
"... Thinking about "Christopher Steele was terminated as a Confidential Human Source for cause.", something that doesn't seem to have gotten as much attention is that Peter Strzok failed his poly: ..."
"... Steele's relationship with the FBI extends far further back than February 2016. Shortly after he left MI6, he contracted with the Football Association to investigate possible FIFA corruption. Once he realized the massiveness of this corruption he contacted his old friends at the FBI Eurasian Crimes Task Force in 2011. Thus began his association with the FBI as a CHS. That investigation culminated in the 2015 FIFA corruption indictments and convictions. ..."
"... One thing I don't understand...we have the anti-Trumpers saying that Donald Junior meeting with a Russian national to get 'dirt' on Hillary is illegal...due to some law about candidates collaborating with foreigners or something like that...[obviously I'm foggy on the technical details]... Yet we know that the Hillary campaign worked with a foreign national, Steele, to get dirt on Trump...how is this not the same...? ..."
"... What role did Stefan Halper and Mifsud play as Confidential Human Sources in all this? ..."
"... Why was British Intelligence allegedly collecting and passing along info about Donald Trump in the first place? Or could this have been a pretext created to give cover and/or support to the agenda here in the US to insure his defeat? Could a foreign intelligence source such as this trigger/facilitate/justify the US counterintelligence investigation of Trump, or give cover to a covert investigation that may have already begun? ..."
"... British intelligence was collecting / passing on info about Trump because of his campaign stance on NATO (he said it was obsolete), his desire to end regime change wars (he castigated the fiasco in Iraq, took Bush to task over it etc.), and his often stated desire to get along with Russia (and China). Trump also talked of ending certain economic policies (NAFTA, TPP, etc.) and reenacting others (Glass-Steagall, the American System of Economics i.e. Hamilton, Carey, Clay), If Trump had acted on those, which he has not so far, he would changed the entire world system, a system in place since the end of WW II, or earlier. That was a risk too big to take without some kind of insurance policy - I believe Christopher Steele was that insurance policy. ..."
"... British Intelligence is verifiably the foreign source with the most extensive and effective meddling in the 2016 election. Perfidious Albion. ..."
"... Or, GSHQ was hovering up signint on Trump campaign early-on (using domestics US resources and databases via their 5-Eyes "sharing agreement" with NSA) cuz Brennan asked them to do it? ..."
"... Trump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching him, they would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates, ..."
"... Trump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching him, they would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates, ..."
"... I've heard that the Echelon system is used by the Five Eyes IC to do something similar. The Brits spy on US, and give the NSA the data so the NSA can evade US laws prohibiting spying on us, and we return the favor to help them evade what (few) laws they have that prohibits spying on their people. ..."
"... still wonder why the US would need to rely so much on British intelligence sources ..."
"... I've read that Steele's cover was blown 20 years ago and he hasn't even been to Russia since, so I wonder why he was considered such a reliable source by both the US and UK? In my opinion as an absolute naif about such things, Steele seems like he may be a has-been when it comes to Russia. ..."
"... Here is a simple explanation from someone who knows almost nothing about how any of the people in power work: Most of them are not as clever and smart as they think they are. And most of the regular people who are just citizens are smarter than these people think they are. ..."
"... It's simply that their arrogant assessment of their own superiority caused them to do really stupid things ..."
The revelations from US Government records about the FBI/Intel Community plot to take out Donald Trump continue to flow thanks
to the dogged efforts of Judicial Watch. The latest nugget came last Friday with the release of FBI records detailing their recruitment
and management of Britain's ostensibly retired Intelligence Officer, Christopher Steele. He was an officially recruited FBI source
and received at least 11 payments during the 9 month period that he was signed up as a Confidential Human Source.
You may find it strange that we can glean so much information from
a document dump that is almost
entirely redacted . The key is to look at the report forms; there are three types--FD-1023 (Source Reports), FD-209a (Contact
Reports) and FD-794b (Payment Requests). There are 15 different 1023s, 13 209a reports and 11 794b payment requests covering the
period from 2 February 2016 thru 1 November 2016. That is a total of nine months.
These reports totally destroy the existing meme that Steele only came into contact with the FBI sometime in July 2016. It is important
for you to understand that a 1023 Source Report is filled out each time that the FBI source handler has contact with the source.
This can be an in person meeting or a phone call. Each report lists the name of the Case Agent; the date, time and location of the
meeting; any other people attending the meeting; and a summary of what was discussed.
What is clear from the new records is that Christopher Steele, a foreign intelligence officer, had frequent and extensive
contacts with the FBI. Who was his FBI Case Agent?
The main thing I want to know is WHEN was the decision made to tar Trump with Russia - both at the FBI (and likely CIA)
and at the DNC (over the leak) - and WHO was the deciding entity - Comey, Brennan, Clinton, Obama or someone else? And perhaps
who came up with the idea in the first place (at the DNC, it was very likely Alexandra Chalupa, the Ukrainian-American DNC "consultant").
We can be pretty sure this predates any alleged Russian "hacking" (unless it occurred as a result of alleged Russian hacking
of the DNC in 2015).
This needs to be pinned down if anyone is to be successfully prosecuted for creating this treasonous hoax.
A very closely related topic, Victor Davis Hanson is onto something but it is darker than he suggests,
https://www.nationalreview.... Paraphrasing, he gives the typical, rally around the flag we must stop the Russians intro but
then documents how govt flaks abused their power to influence our elections and then makes the point, 'this is why the public
is skeptical of their claims'.
The bad thing is that our MSM is so reverent of our Intel agencies that I see them encouraged to increasingly put their
hand on the scale.
Recently, I saw arm flailing by a Congressman, Dan Coats, and Mueller about how the Russians are still at it. They are
trying to disrupt or influence the 2018. Really, then I demand to get a list of the pro-Kremlin candidates. How long before the
mere threat of being outed as a Kremlin agent is used to punish elected officials if they are not sufficiently hawkish or don't
support certain programs. Unchallenged claims by Intel agencies gives them a lot of political power.
I am skeptical. Russia has a lot of fish to fry, why would they expend resources on midterm elections. Now everyone in
the U.S. hates them, both traditional hawk Republicans and born again uber-hawk Democrats. There is a tiger behind both doors.
What I can't figure out is: if Steele had been a CHS since at least February of 2016, what was the purpose of passing the
Dossier to the FBI through Fusion GPS? Why not just going to his FBI handler? Was Steele collaboration with Fusion even in compliance
with FBI regulations? Did the FBI know?
Because part of the plan was to leak the information in order to damage Trump. FBI could not do that. Would have exposed them
to some real legal jeopardy. This was a dual track strategy. Diabolical almost.
Don't forget the Nellie Ohr (Fusion GPS) -> Bruce Ohr (DOJ) back channel. The husband & wife tag team. Yes, the same Nellie
that was investigating using ham radio to communicate to avoid NSA mass surveillance.
From the very beginning that information about all this was slowly leaking from the Congressional investigation, this whole
thing smelled very fishy. Then add intense effort at DOJ & FBI to obstruct and obfuscate. And the unhinged tweets and interviews
by Brennan, Clapper & Comey. And of course the media narrative that Rep. Nunes, Goodlatte and others were endangering "national
security" by casting aspersions on the "patriotic" law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
He was working with FBI and GPS at the same time. GPS was in the dark supposedly about his work with the FBI and Steele got
their approval to hand over what he had delivered to GPS to the FBI as a cover for his work with the FBI.
Of course, he had most likely already done so and its also likely FBI had some input into the content of what was delivered
to GPS, and more importantly what was not delivered.
Re the 'standing agreement to not recruit each other's intelligence personnel for clandestine activities.' As Steele was
not by this time a current employee of MI6, was the FBI in technical violation of this?
The point is not merely a quibble. A central question in regard to Steele, as with quite a number of former intelligence/law
enforcement/military people who have started at least ostensibly private sector operations, is how far these are being used as
'cover' for activities conducted on behalf of either the state agencies for which they used to work, or other state agencies.
It is at least possible that one advantage of such arrangements may be that they make it possible to evade the letter of
agreements between intelligence agencies in different countries.
Another related matter has to do with the termination of Steele as a 'Confidential Human Source.'
It has long seemed to me that it was more than possible that this was not to be taken at face value. If, as seems likely,
both current and former top FBI and DOJ people – very likely Mueller as well as Comey, Strzok and many others – were intimately
involved in the conspiracy to subvert the constitution, then a means of making it possible for Steele to combine feeding information
to the FBI while also engaging in 'StratCom' via the MSM could have been necessary.
An obvious means of 'squaring the circle' would have been to issue a formal 'termination' to Steele, while creating 'back
channels' to those who were officially supposed not to be talking to him.
A report yesterday by John Solomon in 'The Hill' quotes from messages exchanged between Steele and Bruce Ohr after the
supposed termination.
When on 31 January 2017 – well after the publication of the dossier by BuzzFeed – Ohr provided reassurance that he could continue
to help feed information to the FBI, Steele texted back:
"If you end up out though, I really need another (bureau?) contact point/number who is briefed. We can't allow our guy to be
forced to go back home. It would be disastrous."
At that point, Solomon tells us that 'Investigators are trying to determine who Steele was referring to.' This seems to me
a rather important question. It would seem likely, although not certain, that he is talking about another Brit. If he is, would
it have been someone else employed by Orbis? Or someone currently working for British intelligence? What is the precise significance
of 'forced to go back home', and why would this have been 'disastrous'?
Another crucial paragraph:
'In all, Ohr's notes, emails and texts identify more than 60 contacts with Steele and/or Simpson, some dating to 2002 in
London. But the vast majority occurred during the 2016-2017 timeframe that gave birth to one of the most controversial counterintelligence
probes in American history.'
The earlier contacts may be of little interest, but there again they may not be.
As it happens, it was following Berezovsky's arrival in London in October 2001 that the 'information operations' network he
created began to move into high gear. It is moreover clear that this was always a transatlantic operation, and also fragments
of evidence suggest that the FBI may have had some involvement from early on.
I have just finished taking a fresh look at Sir Robert Owen's travesty of a report into the death of Litvinenko. In large
measure, this develops claims originally made in Christopher Steele's first attempt to provide a convincing account of why figures
close to Putin might have thought it made sense to assassinate that figure, and to do so with polonium. The sheer volume of fabrication
which has been deployed in an attempt to defend the patently indefensible almost beggars belief.
The original attempt came in a radio programme broadcast by the BBC – which was to become known to some of us as the 'Berezovsky
Broadcasting Corporation' – on 16 December 2006, presented by Tom Mangold, a familiar 'trusty' for the intelligence services.
(A transcript sent out from the Cabinet Office at the time is available on the archived 'Evidence' page for the Inquiry, at
http://webarchive.nationala... , as HMG000513. There is an interesting and rather important question as to whether those who
sent it out, and those who received it, knew that it was more or less BS from start to finish.)
The programme was wholly devoted to claims made by the former KGB operative Yuri Shvets, who was presented as an independent
'due diligence' expert, without any mention of the rather major role he had played in the original 'Orange Revolution.'
Back-up was provided by his supposed collaborator in 'due diligence', the former FBI operative Robert 'Bobby' Levinson. No
mention was made of the fact that he had been, in the 'Nineties, a, if not the lead FBI investigator into the notorious Ukrainian
Jewish mobster Semyon Mogilevich.
The following March Levinson would disappear on the Iranian island of Kish, on what we now know was a covert mission on behalf
of elements in the CIA.
Just as a question arises as to whether Steele is essentially acting on behalf of MI6, a question also arises as to whether
the FBI leadership were knowledgeable about, and possibly involved with, the various shenanigans in which Shvets and Levinson
were involved. Given that claims about Mogilevich have turned out to be central to 'Russiagate', that seems a rather important
issue, and I am curious as to whether Ohr's communications with Steele may cast any light on it.
Apparently the FBI got Deripaksa to fund the rescue of Levinson from Iran. Furthermore apparently FBI personnel maybe including
McCabe visited with Deripaksa and showed him the Steele dossier. He supposedly had a nice guffaw and dismissed it as nonsense.
So on the one hand while they make Russia out to be the most evil they play footsie with Russian oligarchs.
Thinking about "Christopher Steele was terminated as a Confidential Human Source for cause.", something that doesn't seem
to have gotten as much attention is that Peter Strzok failed his poly:
Steele's relationship with the FBI extends far further back than February 2016. Shortly after he left MI6, he contracted with
the Football Association to investigate possible FIFA corruption. Once he realized the massiveness of this corruption he contacted
his old friends at the FBI Eurasian Crimes Task Force in 2011. Thus began his association with the FBI as a CHS. That investigation
culminated in the 2015 FIFA corruption indictments and convictions. His initial contact with old friends at the FBI Eurasian
Crime Task Force is awfully similar to his contacting these same friends in 2016 after deciding his initial Trump research was
potentially bigger than mere opposition research.
One thing I don't understand...we have the anti-Trumpers saying that Donald Junior meeting with a Russian national to get
'dirt' on Hillary is illegal...due to some law about candidates collaborating with foreigners or something like that...[obviously
I'm foggy on the technical details]... Yet we know that the Hillary campaign worked with a foreign national, Steele, to get dirt
on Trump...how is this not the same...?
Even worse is that the FBI was using this same foreign agent that a presidential
candidate had hired to get dirt on an opponent... Even knowing nothing about legalities this just doesn't look very good...
Stupid question? As the Col. has explained, the President can declassify any document he pleases. So, why doesn't Donaldo unredact
the redacted portions of these bullcrap docs? What is he afraid of? That the Intel community will get mad and be out to get him?
Isn't time for him to show some cojones?
Why was British Intelligence allegedly collecting and passing along info about Donald Trump in the first place? Or could this
have been a pretext created to give cover and/or support to the agenda here in the US to insure his defeat? Could a foreign intelligence
source such as this trigger/facilitate/justify the US counterintelligence investigation of Trump, or give cover to a covert investigation
that may have already begun?
British intelligence was collecting / passing on info about Trump because of his campaign stance on NATO (he said it was obsolete),
his desire to end regime change wars (he castigated the fiasco in Iraq, took Bush to task over it etc.), and his often stated
desire to get along with Russia (and China). Trump also talked of ending certain economic policies (NAFTA, TPP, etc.) and reenacting
others (Glass-Steagall, the American System of Economics i.e. Hamilton, Carey, Clay), If Trump had acted on those, which he has
not so far, he would changed the entire world system, a system in place since the end of WW II, or earlier. That was a risk too
big to take without some kind of insurance policy - I believe Christopher Steele was that insurance policy.
Or, GSHQ was hovering up signint on Trump campaign early-on (using domestics US resources and databases via their 5-Eyes "sharing
agreement" with NSA) cuz Brennan asked them to do it? And therefore without having to mess about with any formal FISA warrant
thingy's ... But, then use what might be found (or plausibly alleged) to try to get a proper FISA warrant later on (July 2016)?
'Parallel Discovery' of sorts; with Fusion GPS also a leaky cut-out: channelling media reports to be used as confirmation of Steele's
"raw intelligence" in the formal FISA application(s)?
Trump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching him, they
would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates,
" Trump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching
him, they would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates, "
That's a good question, could it legally enable an end run around the FISC until enough evidence was gathered for a FISC surveillance
authorization?.
I've heard that the Echelon system is used by the Five Eyes IC to do something similar. The Brits spy on US, and give the
NSA the data so the NSA can evade US laws prohibiting spying on us, and we return the favor to help them evade what (few) laws
they have that prohibits spying on their people.
Only a matter of time until someone figured out the same method could be used to "meddle" in national affairs.
I understand, but still wonder why the US would need to rely so much on British intelligence sources such as Steele about
a very high profile American citizen and businessman -- aren't our intelligence services competent enough to have known and discovered
as much if not more about Trump than other countries' intelligence services? I've read that Steele's cover was blown 20 years
ago and he hasn't even been to Russia since, so I wonder why he was considered such a reliable source by both the US and UK? In
my opinion as an absolute naif about such things, Steele seems like he may be a has-been when it comes to Russia.
Here is a simple explanation from someone who knows almost nothing about how any of the people in power work: Most of them
are not as clever and smart as they think they are. And most of the regular people who are just citizens are smarter than these
people think they are.
It's simply that their arrogant assessment of their own superiority caused them to do really stupid things.
Brennan role in weaponizing dossier now became more clear.
Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, Fusion GPS hiring of Nellie Ohr -- the wife of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr -- also shows that Steele's role in producing the dossier may be exaggerated. Ohr is a Stanford Ph.D. whose expertise is Russia and she appears to be fluent in Russian. She may have conducted interviews or written parts of the dossier. ..."
"... The dossier, however, only has Steele's name on it -- helping to credential the research as an "intelligence product." ..."
"... A Democratic consultant and Ukrainian-American activist named Alexandra Chalupa, told the Clinton campaign about Manafort's work for Yanukovich. "I flagged for the DNC the significance of his hire," Chalupa told CNN in July of this year. ..."
"... Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS in April, shortly after Trump hired Manafort. Manafort's role now allowed Simpson to highlight corruption that he already knew to exist, from his reporting. A line from the dossier states: ..."
"... Steele -- it notes -- had not lived or worked in Russia for nearly 25 years, but his name "at a minimum" would be useful in marketing whatever his firm pulled together. Plus, Steele had a good relationship with the FBI and could "spill secrets" to journalists. ..."
"... it is likely that Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook cited Fusion GPS's work in a July 22 interview after embarrassing leaks of Democratic National Committee emails. He told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos that "some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump." ..."
"... The FBI did launch an investigation into possible collusion, however, known by "only a dozen or so people at the FBI," including then-director James Comey and Peter Strzok, who was chosen to supervise the investigation. ..."
"... She said by August 2016, the CIA had "verified the key finding of the dossier" to the point that it was having "eyes only" top secret meetings with President Obama about it. ..."
"... CIA Director John Brennan had also briefed top lawmakers on Russian efforts to help Trump last summer and had said the CIA had limited legal ability to investigate Russian connections to Trump, prompting Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to write a public letter to the FBI -- which collects domestic intelligence -- about the threat of Russian interference. ..."
"... It appears that Brennan was briefing Reid on the Steele dossier. ..."
"... Brennan apparently sent the dossier to the White House, prompting the "eyes only" meetings. ..."
"... The Post also writes that the "material was so sensitive that CIA Director John O. Brennan kept it out of the president's daily brief, concerned that even that restricted report's distribution was too broad." ..."
"... But as Tablet asks, "if the material was so sensitive that it had to be kept out of the PDB and withheld from the Senate majority leader, why was someone telling The Washington Post about it?" ..."
Did the Obama administration launch an investigation into the Trump campaign based solely off of unverified political opposition
research? And was that "research" dressed up and given more credibility than it should have? It appears that way
based on an
investigation of open-source information by Tablet.
The outlet's investigation begins with a June 24, 2017, Facebook post by Mary Jacoby, the wife of Glenn Simpson, the former
Wall Street Journal reporter who started Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier.
Jacoby, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who once shared bylines with Simpson, bragged how her husband was not getting
the credit he deserved for the dossier.
"It's come to my attention that some people still don't realize what Glenn's role was in exposing Putin's control of Donald Trump,"
she wrote on Facebook. "Let's be clear. Glenn conducted the investigation. Glenn hired Chris Steele. Chris Steele worked for Glenn."
Until this day, the dossier is often referred to as the "Steele dossier," named after the former British spy Christopher Steele
who is believed to have authored the document.
Steele's background has been used by collusion-believers to argue that the document is credible. But Jacoby's post suggests that
Steele might not have played as big of a role in the dossier as he is given credit.
Indeed, Fusion GPS hiring of Nellie Ohr -- the wife of senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr -- also shows that Steele's
role in producing the dossier may be exaggerated. Ohr is a Stanford Ph.D. whose expertise is Russia and she appears to be fluent
in Russian. She may have conducted interviews or written parts of the dossier.
The dossier, however, only has Steele's name on it -- helping to credential the research as an "intelligence product."
Tablet also took a look at Simpson and Jacoby's work for the WSJ . In April 2007 -- in the lead-up to the 2008 election
-- they co-wrote a story about Republican links to Russians.
In that story, titled "How Lobbyists Help Ex-Soviets Woo Washington," they detail how prominent Republicans helped open doors
for "Kremlin-affiliated oligarchs and other friends of Vladimir Putin."
They reported on Viktor Yanukovich, who had paid political fixer Paul Manafort to introduce Yanukovich to powerful Washington,
DC, figures. They later reported on May 14, 2008, that Manafort's lobbying firm was escorting Yanukovich around Washington. Yanukovich
would later become president of Ukraine in 2010.
Tablet explains how their reporting may have been the origins of the Trump dossier:
So when the Trump campaign named Paul Manafort as its campaign convention manager on March 28, 2016, you can bet that Simpson
and Jacoby's eyes lit up. And as it happened, at the exact same time that Trump hired Manafort, Fusion GPS was in negotiations
with Perkins Coie, the law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, to see if there was interest in the firm continuing
the opposition research on the Trump campaign they had started for the Washington Free Beacon. In addition to whatever sales pitch
Simpson might have offered about Manafort, the Clinton campaign had independent reason to believe that research into Manafort's
connections might pay some real political dividends: A Democratic consultant and Ukrainian-American activist named Alexandra
Chalupa, told the Clinton campaign about Manafort's work for Yanukovich. "I flagged for the DNC the significance of his hire,"
Chalupa told CNN in July of this year.
Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS in April, shortly after Trump hired Manafort. Manafort's role now allowed Simpson to highlight
corruption that he already knew to exist, from his reporting. A line from the dossier states:
Ex-Ukrainian President YANUKOVYCH confides directly to PUTIN that he authorised (sic) kick-back payments to MANAFORT, as alleged
in western media Assures Russian President however there is no documentary evidence/trail.
Tablet notes that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would later find corruption by Manafort related to money laundering (before he
joined the Trump campaign). It also points out that Tony Podesta -- Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta's brother -- worked
for Manafort at the time he represented Yanukovich. (The Podesta Group disbanded this year after those connections were made public,
and the special counsel is reportedly investigating Podesta too.)
Tablet notes that while Simpson had begun working on the dossier on Trump collusion with Russia, he was also working for a Russian
lawyer to undermine an American law called the Magnitsky Act and that Steele may have been hired to disguise that contradiction.
Steele -- it notes -- had not lived or worked in Russia for nearly 25 years, but his name "at a minimum" would be useful in
marketing whatever his firm pulled together. Plus, Steele had a good relationship with the FBI and could "spill secrets" to journalists.
Ohr -- Simpson's next hire -- also hadn't lived in Russia for decades and was "not a spy, or even a journalist." "In this world,
she was definitely an amateur," Tablet writes.
"Presumably, as a result of all the above, much of the reporting in the dossier is recognizably the kind of patter that locals
in closed or semi-closed societies engage in to impress expats -- the kind of thing you hear in a bar, or on the cab ride from the
airport to the hotel," it says.
Tablet then goes into the bad shape of U.S. intelligence on Russia -- likely making officials less skeptical of the dossier even
though, to date, they have not been able to confirm any of its allegations on collusion.
And Tablet notes that it is likely that Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook cited Fusion GPS's work in a July 22 interview
after embarrassing leaks of Democratic National Committee emails. He told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos that "some experts are
now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump."
At that point, a tech firm had attributed the leaks to Russia but was not able to explain why. The FBI was looking at the leak
but had not yet publicly determined political motivation.
"But the DNC and Clinton campaign did have an oppo-research firm under contract that was in the middle of putting together a file
that would claim that the Russians were trying to get Trump elected," Tablet notes.
The FBI did launch an investigation into possible collusion, however, known by "only a dozen or so people at the FBI," including
then-director James Comey and Peter Strzok, who was chosen to supervise the investigation.
But by late October, they had not yet found any evidence that showed Russia was working to elect Trump. So, ten days before the
election, angry Clinton supporters and unnamed intelligence officials
spoke to
the New York Times in an October 31, 2016, story about what the investigation had found so far.
Jacoby would post that story in her June 24 Facebook post, slamming the FBI and accusing it of "ineptitude," while the CIA "hopped
to and immediately worked to verify" the dossier.
She said by August 2016, the CIA had "verified the key finding of the dossier" to the point that it was having "eyes only"
top secret meetings with President Obama about it.
Thus, while the document could not be verified and was not used in any intelligence assessment because of its inability to be
verified, it was now the topic of meetings with the president.
CIA Director John Brennan had also briefed top lawmakers on Russian efforts to help Trump last summer and had said the CIA
had limited legal ability to investigate Russian connections to Trump, prompting Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to write a public letter
to the FBI -- which collects domestic intelligence -- about the threat of Russian interference.
Reid then wrote another letter to Comey after he reopened the investigation into Clinton's emails -- accusing him of letting Trump
slide.
"It has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his
top advisers, and the Russian government -- a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every
opportunity," he wrote.
"I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public and yet, you continue to resist calls
to inform the public of this critical information."
That "information" Reid was referring to was the dossier, according to Tablet:
According to David Corn's Oct. 31, 2016, article in Mother Jones , the Nevada lawmaker was referencing the findings
of "a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence."
Corn now explains that the "former Western intelligence officer -- who spent almost two decades on Russian intelligence matters
and who now works with a U.S. firm that gathers information on Russia for corporate clients" is Christopher Steele. According
to Corn, Steele said that "in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources,
contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump."
It appears that Brennan was briefing Reid on the Steele dossier.
Brennan apparently sent the dossier to the White House, prompting the "eyes only" meetings.
"An envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried 'eyes
only' instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides," the
Washington
Post
reported on June 23, 2017.
"So was the Steele dossier in the envelope?" Tablet asks.
The Post writes that inside that envelope "was an intelligence bombshell" -- a report drawn from sourcing deep inside
the Russian government that detained Putin's direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the presidential race,
defeat or at least damage Hillary Clinton, and help elect Donald Trump.
The Post also writes that the "material was so sensitive that CIA Director John O. Brennan kept it out of the president's
daily brief, concerned that even that restricted report's distribution was too broad."
But as Tablet asks, "if the material was so sensitive that it had to be kept out of the PDB and withheld from the Senate majority
leader, why was someone telling The Washington Post about it?"
Tablet writes:
Sources and methods are the crown jewels of the American intelligence community. And yet someone has just told a major American
newspaper about a "report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that captured Putin's specific instructions."
If the CIA had a human intelligence source that close to Putin, publication of the Post article could have exposed that
source -- doing incalculable damage to American national security. He and many of his loved ones would then have presumably died
horrible deaths.
Or, as Mary Jacoby surmised, it was her husband's handiwork that landed on the president's desk.
This "shadowy Russian" might well be Sergey Skripal. This suggests that Steele dossier was CIA operation with British MI6 as transfer mechanism and
Steele as a cover. And implicates Brennan. So this is next level of leaks after "Stormy Daniel"...
Another NYT leak out of a set of well coordinated leans from anonymous intelligence officials ;-) Poor Melania...
Notable quotes:
"... But U.S. intelligence officials have reason to doubt the veracity of the video and other information about Trump associates provided by the Russian, according to a fascinating report from The New York Times. ..."
"... If there was ANYTHING on Trump, it would have oversaturated the airwaves 24/7 during his candidacy, and he would have never made it out of the primaries. ..."
"... More than you know, whenever Russian is stated, replace with Ukrainian. TPTB cannot help themselves but push forward on another agenda as the current one falls apart. The Russophobia is still being stoked no matter what. ..."
"... Steele was a double agent, maybe triple. British,Ukrainian and probably American. Does that start to make a little more sense ? Those huuuge donations to the CF from Ukraine, McStains involvement, Steele's early retirement from MI6, Brennan's frequent trips to Ukraine, State Dept.s role. Investigate the Chalupa sisters to find out who the rest of the rats are.Lee Stranahan started before he was shut down. ..."
"... the CIA has to turn America into a criminal totalitarian regime in order to make the world safe for democracy ..."
"... How much you wanna bet that Brennan, Obama's CIA Director, was behind ..."
"... You mean the same Brennan who is the godfather of ISIS? ..."
"... "U.S. intelligence officials told The Times" Sounds like the Donald is finally learning to cooperate better with his masters. They can call off the hounds. ..."
"... Ok - so we have yet another (likely factual) story here of overt, in-your-face abuse of power and agency aimed directly at American citizens for political gain. And tomorrow? Probably another. And then another. Until: 'Bimbo Fatigue' Remember that phrase. If real justice isn't thrown down soon, you can forget it. Looks to me like (possibly) Trump imploring for public support - i.e., he can't do this himself, or it's too dangerous and he knows it... ..."
"... Why is the CIA trying to purchase dirt on a sitting President in 2017! Because they have nothing on him! And they are desperate to not all hang by the neck. The times are trying to portray this as Russian intelligence sowing discord between the US intelligence agencies and Trump...Wrong! The US Intel agencies are sowing that discord all on their fucking own. They weren't fooled at all, they created this fucking mess for their own treasonous reasons and now want us to believe that hey...if we fucked up its because the big bad russkies tricked us. ..."
"... 'The Russian, who has ties to organized criminals and money launderers' wtf! So far the Russians are playing our CIA like a bunch of amateurs. And the deep state/dem's bought it hook, line and sinker. Trump was right again. Dem's and Russia are colluding against a duly elected Presidential candidate. I guess it's safe to say we need another order for more Rope. Dem's and deepshit state just can't get enough of hanging themselves. This ain't over by a long shot. ..."
"... i call bullshit. you dont 'buy back' a software program that can be copied in 30 seconds. this whole story is a fabrication just like the dossier. made up to inflect bad info on to trump. ..."
"... Yeah, I loved that one. "Here. I'm giving you back that software I ripped off from you. I copied it to this CD and then deleted it from my computer... You know: wiped it with a cloth." ..."
"... And I love that the CIA thinks they can get away with a tale like that when everyone but my 90-year-old mother-in-law knows how a digital file works ..."
"... So were these "patriotic" CIA superheroes interested in Bill Clinton's rapes, rapes and more rapes? Were they concerned that he was snorting coke and using Arkansas state troopers for procurers of hosebags for him to screw? ..."
When they said "Russian collusion", few expected it to be between the CIA and a "shadowy
Russian operative." And yet, according to a blockbuster NYT report, that's precisely what
happened.
* * *
The CIA paid $100,000 last year to a Russian operative who claimed to have derogatory
information about President Trump, including a video tape of the Republican engaged with
prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room. If the video showed Trump, it would support claims made in
the infamous Steele dossier, the salacious opposition research report financed by the Clinton
campaign and DNC.
But U.S. intelligence officials have reason to doubt the veracity of the video and other
information about Trump associates provided by the Russian, according to
a fascinating report from The New York Times.
American spies made contact with the Russia early in 2017 after he offered to sell the Trump
material along with cyber hacking tools that were stolen from the NSA that year, according to
The Times. U.S. intelligence officials told The Times they were so desperate to retrieve those
tools that they negotiated with the operative for months despite several red flags, including
indications that he was working in concert with Russian intelligence.
Another red flag was the Russian's financial request. He initially sought $10 million for
the information but dropped the asking price to $1 million.
After months of negotiations, American spies handed over $100,000 in cash in a brief case to
the Russian during a meeting in Berlin in September.
The operative also offered documents and emails that purported to implicate other Trump
associates, including former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. But The Times viewed the
documents and reported that they were mostly information that is already in the public
domain.
The Russian, who has ties to organized criminals and money launderers, showed the video
purported to be Trump to a Berlin-based American businessman who served as his intermediary to
the CIA. But according to the Times, the footage and the location of the viewing raised
questions about its authenticity.
The 15-second clip showed two women speaking with a man. It is not clear if the man was
Trump, and there was no audio. The Russian also showed the video to his American partner at the
Russian embassy in Berlin, a sign that the operative had ties to Russian intelligence.
The Russian stonewalled the production of the cyber tools, and U.S. officials eventually cut
ties, according to The Times. After the payout in Berlin, the man provided information about
Trump and his associates of questionable veracity.
The Americans gave him an ultimatum earlier in 2018 to either play ball, leave Western
Europe, or face criminal charges. He left, according to The Times, which interviewed U.S.
officials, the American intermediary and the Russian for its article.
The Times' U.S. sources -- who appear to paint the American side in a positive light -- said
that they were reluctant to purchase information because they did not want to be seen buying
dirt on the president.
The officials also expressed concern that the Russian operative was planting disinformation
on behalf of the Russian government. U.S. officials were worried that the Russian government
has sought to sow discord between U.S. intelligence agencies and Trump. The revelation that the
CIA purchased dirt on him would likely do the trick.
The Times report also has other new details.
Four other Russians with ties to the spy world have surfaced over the past year offering to
sell dirt on Trump that closely mirrors allegations made in the dossier, according to the
article. But officials have reason to believe that some of sellers have ties to Russian
intelligence agencies.
The Times also provides new details on Cody Shearer, a notorious operative close to the
Clintons. Shearer was recently revealed to have shopped
around a so-called "second dossier" prior to the campaign which mirrored the sex allegations of
the Steele report.
According to The Times, he has criss-crossed Europe over the past six months in an attempt
to find video footage of Trump from the Moscow hotel room. Shearer claimed to have information
from the FSB, Russia's spy service, that a video existed of Trump with prostitutes in a Moscow
hotel room.
He shared a memo making the allegations with his friend and fellow Clinton fixer, Sidney
Blumenthal. Blumenthal in turn passed the memo to his friend, Jonathan Winer, a Department of
State official. Winer then gave the information to Steele who provided it to the FBI in October
2016.
Steele also provided information to Winer, who wrote up a two-page memo that was circulated
within the State Department.
Trump has denied allegations that he used prostitutes in Moscow. He has called the dossier a
"hoax" and "crap."
* * *
On Saturday morning, Trump tweeted that "according to the @nytimes, a Russian sold phony
secrets on "Trump" to the U.S. Asking price was $10 million, brought down to $1 million to be
paid over time. I hope people are now seeing & understanding what is going on here. It is
all now starting to come out - DRAIN THE SWAMP!
Of course, if Trump really wants to "drain the swamp", any such decision would have
originate with him. Tags PoliticsCommercial Banks
Release the pee pee video now! No one pee peed in the $100,000 video in question. The
15-second clip showed two women speaking with a man. It is not clear if the man was Trump,
and there was no audio. And how can anyone be more fascinated by the prospect of pee pee than
by the fact that US intelligence agencies were buying bad information from extremely shady
foreigners in an attempt to overthrow the President of the United States?
Trump is starting to assume that the people are dumber than Obowel did. Earth to Don, you
sir have the drain pump, you sir have surrounded yourself with Swamp creatures.... You sir
are.............
According to this, the Russians stole the hacking tools needed to cut through the Swamp
levee, which were developed by the NSA, and now the CIA cannot buy them back. Now, since the
USA wanted its Swamp, the Russians are more than happy to let the USA drown in its swamp.
Anyone have a link for the Qanon posts. I haven't seen them in a couple of weeks since he
left 8chan where he was posting. I don't want the Youtube BS, I just want the link... anyone
got one. Its strangely not googleable... LOLZ.
If you think that the CIA is a U.S. intelligence agency working on the best interests of
the United States, you better wake up and smell the treason. They only work for the best
interests of themselves.
Here is a question. Why does the CIA not come out and clear the air re: Trump?
I mean they were even paying people to come up with dirt. He is now your president and the
country is a fucking mess. Should the CIA not come out and say we tried but we got nothing?
They do have the ability to fix all this Trump shit and yet crickets.
And the best interests of clients. The CIA started out is the muscle for the Dulles
Brothers clients who were being booted out of various countries they were super-exploiting.
The Agency hasn't looked back since.
Nobody got whizzed on. That lurid fantasy came soley out of the head of Hillary Clinton,
given to Blumenthal, passed around and made to look like it came from Russia.
It IS remarkable the stuff people believe when all logic goes against it. Like Oswald
firing magic bullets from an old Italian Carcano...and jet fuel melting steel beams...and a
building collapsing through the path of greatest resistance into its own footprint after NOT
being hit by an airplane...and Kennedy being shot from behind, but his head snapping
backwards from the impact...and Oswald picking the worst possible shooting location, but in
front of Kennedy were two intersecting highways going in any direction...and terrorist
passports floating gently down from the sky.
RFK and Nixon knew immediately the assassination of JFK was a CIA hit job because they had
CHAIRED those hit squad operations themselves for Cuban Operations. They saw the CIA- Cuban
hit squad fingerprints all over the kill. RFK had personally fired Wm Harvey, Dulles' chief
of assassinations. However, RFK was silenced because he and Jack had been tag-teaming Marilyn
Monroe.
The reason JFK was killed was a) his openly stated determination to shatter the CIA into a
thousand pieces so they could no longer operate as a dangerous, renegade private army; and b)
in the Spring of '63 JFK delivered his famous American U address calling for the end of the
Cold War...
Oswald was always a patsie... the WC documents how his rifle was inoperable... scope
needed parts just to be be sited and take aim... even after parts installed the rifle
attributed to Oswald remained highly inaccurate... Military sharpshooters couldn't even hit
stationary targets reliably.
Drain the swamp! Townsquare justice for Odumbo and Hitlery! George Soros to bathe in the
Amazon River with 1 million Piranha Fish until it completely disappears. Drain the evil
Dumorat swamp. Drain the banana republic CIA and FBI. Our tax dollars and constitution did
not pay for this shit.
With today's technology, the CIA is most likely working on a fake video for you right now.
They might release it on Vimeo or Netflix to cover the costs and give themselves plausible
deniability. To add a finishing touch they will make a fake video of Julian Assange claiming
he is releasing it. You'll be in hog heaven. Which is where folks like you go just before
being slaughtered by your owners and turned into spam.
Of course the story is a plant to introduce the hacking tools to cover the payment to
Russians for dirt on a sitting POTUS by his own Intel Agency...
And CNN, MSNBC, etc are still wall to wall Trump impeachment... they no longer even
pretend. Brain dead Erin Burnett opened with "the Republicans are at it again" to night (in
my regular 30 secs of checking in for a laugh)!
No shit, this is what I tell every Libtard when they cry the tired "Trump is corrupt and
evil" meme. If there was ANYTHING on Trump, it would have oversaturated the airwaves 24/7
during his candidacy, and he would have never made it out of the primaries.
So which is it? Is he the world's greatest evil retard idiot, or a 9000+ IQ genius that is
so slick and underhanded that he was able to collude with Putin, hide all evidence, and pull
off the biggest caper in the history of the United States by sneaking into the Presidency?
You can't have it both ways.
We must also give credit to the army of Russian bots that tell us how to think and act all
day, where would we be without them?
Of course the story is a plant to introduce the hacking tools to cover the payment to
Russians for dirt on a sitting POTUS by his own Intel Agency...
And CNN, MSNBC, etc are still wall to wall Trump impeachment... they no longer even
pretend. Brain dead Erin Burnett opened with "the Republicans are at it again" to night (in
my regular 30 secs of checking in for a laugh)!
No shit, this is what I tell every Libtard when they cry the tired "Trump is corrupt and
evil" meme. If there was ANYTHING on Trump, it would have oversaturated the airwaves 24/7
during his candidacy, and he would have never made it out of the primaries.
So which is it? Is he the world's greatest evil retard idiot, or a 9000+ IQ genius that is
so slick and underhanded that he was able to collude with Putin, hide all evidence, and pull
off the biggest caper in the history of the United States by sneaking into the Presidency?
You can't have it both ways.
We must also give credit to the army of Russian bots that tell us how to think and act all
day, where would we be without them?
More than you know, whenever Russian is stated, replace with Ukrainian. TPTB cannot help
themselves but push forward on another agenda as the current one falls apart. The Russophobia
is still being stoked no matter what.
Steele was a double agent, maybe triple. British,Ukrainian and probably American. Does
that start to make a little more sense ? Those huuuge donations to the CF from Ukraine,
McStains involvement, Steele's early retirement from MI6, Brennan's frequent trips to
Ukraine, State Dept.s role. Investigate the Chalupa sisters to find out who the rest of the
rats are.Lee Stranahan started before he was shut down.
Good point in the last sentence. If someone is going to "drain the swamp" it is going to
have to be the president of the United States. I think I'm correct that he can fire anyone
that works in the executive department for cause. He can also order investigations or hire
people who will launch real investigations.
Mr. President, if you want to "drain the swamp," drain it.
If there was a video it would of been leaked during the election, they have nothing that
sticks on the guy.
All the evidence thus far states
Obama Hillary the FBI, DNC, CIA all spied on Trump and colluded with foreign governments
(U.K. , Ukraine , Russia) to try and dig up dirt to use against Trump (and they more or less
failed).
They turned over every rock they could, look at that stupid hot-mic video in the bus, how
many hours of video did they have to go through to dig up that crumb? they went back
searching through 30+ years of content and thats all they could come up with.... some locker
room talk lol
People have to just face it.
Your government was and still is corrupt and its a weaponized system of control, Your
government colluded with the enemy in a desperate attempt to stop Trump from becoming
president. Your government started a sham "Russia investigation" to cover up its own crimes.
Your government applied a different standard of justice to the clintons than it would have to
you or anyone else.
To date ZERO evidence has been brought forward that Trump or anyone in his campaign did
anything wrong, and the only people that have done anything wrong so far were picked by "the
swamp" to fill positions..... all the others fell into petty perjury Traps on meaningless
topics and insignificant factoids.
Isn't it lovely to find out that your money and mine is being used by government agents to
give us the government they want?
It's sort of like a thug robbing you and using part of your money to pay another thug to
rough you up from time time to time if you ask any questions with the thugs believing it's
for our own good.
Thanks, Hillary, for looking out for us. You and your best buds are the best. Such
bighearted givers! Meanwhile, give our regards to your partner in slime Obama, although it
must pain you to have been bested by 'Beavis' who thinks so much of himself to balance out
how little he impresses anyone who knows him.
"U.S. intelligence officials told The Times" Sounds like the Donald is finally learning to cooperate better with his masters. They can
call off the hounds.
Ok - so we have yet another (likely factual) story here of overt, in-your-face abuse of
power and agency aimed directly at American citizens for political gain. And tomorrow? Probably another. And then another. Until: 'Bimbo Fatigue' Remember that phrase. If real justice isn't thrown down soon, you can forget it. Looks to me like (possibly) Trump imploring for public support - i.e., he can't do this
himself, or it's too dangerous and he knows it...
As taxpayers can we sue the CIA for misusing our funds? Pretty sure that buying sex videos
for commercial release isn't part of the CIA's lawful mandate even at bargain prices.
Why is the CIA trying to purchase dirt on a sitting President in 2017! Because they have nothing on him! And they are desperate to not all hang by the neck. The times are trying to portray this as Russian intelligence sowing discord between the US
intelligence agencies and Trump...Wrong! The US Intel agencies are sowing that discord all on
their fucking own. They weren't fooled at all, they created this fucking mess for their own
treasonous reasons and now want us to believe that hey...if we fucked up its because the big
bad russkies tricked us.
my sauces tell me that pink pussyhat wearing hollywood types have been called in because
they have a doppelganger for trump and access to 30,000 sexually abused victims that can act
as Russian prostitutes for just ten bucks each. snapchat has a trump emoji that can be transplanted onto any porn video star - male or
female - thus confirming that trump is a serial (serious?) user of ladies of the night
my sauces also tell me that the CIA offers a reward of 100,000 bucks (or 10 BTC) for every
photo-shopped (snap-shopped or porn-shopped) material.
of course, the CIA already owns many many porn movie studios and films, but it would
prefer third "party" movies - not from epstein's island where its operatives choose to rela
with a pizza.
the CIA "pink" budget for such movies is limited to just 5,000 clips or 5 billion of
taxpayers funds, whichever is the higher.
'The Russian, who has ties to organized criminals and money launderers' wtf! So far the
Russians are playing our CIA like a bunch of amateurs. And the deep state/dem's bought it
hook, line and sinker. Trump was right again. Dem's and Russia are colluding against a duly
elected Presidential candidate. I guess it's safe to say we need another order for more Rope.
Dem's and deepshit state just can't get enough of hanging themselves. This ain't over by a
long shot.
i call bullshit. you dont 'buy back' a software program that can be copied in 30 seconds.
this whole story is a fabrication just like the dossier. made up to inflect bad info on to
trump.
Yeah, I loved that one. "Here. I'm giving you back that software I ripped off from you. I
copied it to this CD and then deleted it from my computer... You know: wiped it with a
cloth."
And I love that the CIA thinks they can get away with a tale like that when everyone but
my 90-year-old mother-in-law knows how a digital file works.
So were these "patriotic" CIA superheroes interested in Bill Clinton's rapes, rapes and
more rapes? Were they concerned that he was snorting coke and using Arkansas state troopers
for procurers of hosebags for him to screw?
I mean if they're so concerned about Trump and a couple of hookers... Better put some ice on that, CIA.
You all are so ridiculous and fooled with your "drain the swamp" bs. It's a great idea but
Trump doing it is a joke, I mean just look at who he has hired, what's wrong with you all are
you blind?!!
He can't even fill 1/3 of the government positions he's supposed to and the ones he has
have no business holding the positions given to them and are so incompetent, downright
criminal or just personally horrendous humans that they can't stay in office more than a few
months. All their blatant and moronically concocted lies are backing them into corners every
day that they just try and lie out of again. America is over if we really have gotten to the
point that a group like Trump's has support, it's just astonishing.
"... Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers. In the following year, Hannigan abruptly announced his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration. ..."
"... Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele retains close ties with Dearlove. ..."
"... Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter Page to attend. ..."
"... Dearlove knows Halper through their mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and retains close ties to UK intelligence services. ..."
"... Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has co-authored two books. ..."
"... Downer, who met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting established through a chain of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times. ..."
"... Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia. ..."
"... Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016 Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known each other for years and maintain several mutual associations. ..."
"... Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with Page. Current information suggests there was only one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named in the Buryakov case. ..."
"... Page, who cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was deported to Russia. ..."
"... House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said in August that exculpatory evidence on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case. ..."
"... If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated. ..."
UK and Australian intelligence agencies also played meaningful roles during the 2016 presidential election.
Britain's GCHQ was involved in
collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. In the summer of 2016, Robert
Hannigan, the head of GCHQ, flew from London to
meet personally
with then-CIA Director John Brennan, The Guardian reported.
Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers.
In the following year, Hannigan
abruptly announced
his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration.
As GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted
after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant
Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly
so.
Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele
retains close ties with Dearlove.
Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to
work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at
the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter
Page to attend.
Dearlove knows Halper through their
mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is
an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence
and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and
retains close ties to UK intelligence services.
Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has
co-authored two books.
Downer, who
met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting
established through a chain
of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt
from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still
maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish
the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times.
The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former
British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later
relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute,
to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017,
statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey.
Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations
-- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can
we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia.
In a Twitter post , Trump wrote that
the "key Allies called to ask not to release" the documents.
Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified
documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest
idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents?
Britain and Australia appear to know full well what those documents contain, and their attempt to prevent their public release
appears to be because they don't want their role in events surrounding the 2016 presidential election to be made public.
Fusion GPS/Orbis/Christopher Steele
Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is co-founder of Fusion GPS, along with Peter Fritsch and Tom Catan. Fusion
was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie to produce and disseminate the Steele dossier used against
Trump. The dossier would later be the primary evidence used to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016.
Christopher Steele, who retains close ties to UK intelligence, worked for MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009, when he
and his partner, Chris Burrows, founded Orbis Intelligence. Steele
maintains contact with British intelligence,
Sir Richard Dearlove
, and UK intelligence firm Hakluyt.
Steele appears to have been
represented
by lawyer Adam Waldman, who also represented Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. We know this from
texts sent by Waldman. On April 10, 2017, Waldman sent this to Sen. Mark Warner:
"Hi. Steele: would like to get a bi partisan letter from the committee; Assange: I convinced him to make serious and important
concessions and am discussing those w DOJ; Deripaska: willing to testify to congress but interested in state of play w Manafort.
I will be with him next tuesday for a week."
Steele also appears to have
lobbied on behalf of Deripaska, who was discussed in
emails between Bruce Ohr and Steele that were recently
disclosed by the Washington Examiner:
"Steele said he was 'circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting' on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a 'tool'
of the Kremlin. Steele said he would send the reporting to a name that is redacted in the email."
Fusion GPS was also employed by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in a previous case. Veselnitskaya was involved in litigation
pitting Russian firm Prevezon Holdings against British-American financier William Browder. Veselnitskaya hired U.S. law firm BakerHostetler,
who, in turn, hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Browder. Veselnitskaya was one of the participants at the June 2016 Trump Tower
meeting, at which she discussed the
Magnitsky Act .
Fox News reported on Nov. 9, 2017, that Simpson
met with Veselnitskaya immediately before and after the Trump Tower meeting.
A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court report released on April 26, 2017, revealed that government
agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, had improperly accessed Americans' communications. The FBI specifically provided outside
contractors with access to raw surveillance data on American citizens without proper oversight.
Communications and other data of members of the Trump campaign may have been accessed in this way.
Bruce and Nellie Ohr have
known Simpson since at least 2010 and have known Steele since at least 2006. The Ohrs and Simpson worked together on a
DOJ report in 2010 . In that report, Nellie Ohr's biography
lists her as working for Open Source Works, which is part of the CIA. Simpson met with Bruce Ohr
before and after the 2016 election.
Bruce Ohr had been in
contact repeatedly with Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign -- while Steele was constructing his dossier. Ohr later
actively shared information he received from Steele with the FBI, after the agency had terminated Steele as a source. Interactions
between Ohr and Steele stretched for months into the first year of Trump's presidency and were documented in a number of FD-302s
-- memos that summarize interviews with him by the FBI.
Spy Traps
In an effort to put forth evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, it appears that several different spy traps
were set, with varying degrees of success. Many of these efforts appear to center around Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos
and involve London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, who has
ties to Western intelligence, particularly in the UK.
Papadopoulos and Mifsud
both worked
at the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP). Mifsud appears to have joined LCILP around
November
2015 . Papadopoulos reportedly
joined
LCILP sometime in late February 2016 after leaving Ben Carson's presidential campaign. However, some
reports indicate Papadopoulos joined LCILP in November
or December of 2015. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths
until March 14, 2016, in Italy.
Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to several Russians, including Olga Polonskaya, whom Mifsud introduced as "Putin's niece," and
Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called the Russian International Affairs Council. Both Papadopoulos and
Mifsud were interviewed by the FBI. Papadopoulos was ultimately charged with a process crime and was recently sentenced to 14 days
in prison for lying to the FBI. Mifsud was never charged by the FBI.
Throughout this period, Papadopoulos continuously pushed for meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian contacts but
was ultimately unsuccessful in establishing any meetings.
Papadopoulos met with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer on May 10, 2016. The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting has been portrayed
as a
chance encounter in a bar. That does not appear to be the case.
Papadopoulos was introduced
to Downer through a chain of two intermediaries who said Downer wanted to meet with Papadopoulos. Another individual happened
to
be in London at exactly the same time: the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. The purpose of Priestap's visit
remains unknown.
The Papadopoulos–Downer
meeting was later used to establish the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. It was repeatedly
reported that Papadopoulos told Downer that Russia had Hillary Clinton's emails. This is incorrect.
According to Downer, Papadopoulos at some point
mentioned the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
"During that conversation, he [Papadopoulos] mentioned the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the
lead-up to the election, which may be damaging,'' Downer told
The Australian about the Papadopoulos meeting in an April 2018 article. "He didn't say dirt, he said material that could be damaging
to her. No, he said it would be damaging. He didn't say what it was."
Downer, while serving as Australia's foreign minister, was
responsible for one of the largest foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation: $25 million from the Australian government.
Unconfirmed media reports, including a Jan. 12, 2017,
BBC article , have suggested that the FBI attempted
to obtain two FISA warrants in June and July 2016 that were denied by the FISA court. It's likely that Papadopoulos was an intended
target of these failed FISAs.
Interestingly, there is no mention of Papadopoulos in the Steele dossier. Paul Manafort, Carter Page, former Trump lawyer Michael
Cohen, Gen. Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski are all listed in the Steele dossier.
Papadopoulos may have started out assisting the FBI or CIA and later discovered that he was being set up for surveillance himself.
After failing to obtain a spy warrant on the Trump campaign using Papadopoulos, the FBI set its sights on campaign volunteer Carter
Page. By this time, the counterintelligence investigation was in the process of being established, and we know now that it was formalized
with no official intelligence. The FBI needed some sort of legal cover. They needed a retroactive warrant. And they got one on Oct.
21, 2016. The Page FISA warrant would be renewed three times and remain in force until September 2017.
Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a
Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016
Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known
each other for years and maintain several mutual associations.
Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with
Page. Current information suggests there was only
one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named
in the Buryakov case.
Page, who
cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted
by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov
pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was
sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was
deported to Russia.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes
said in August that exculpatory evidence
on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence
likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case.
If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application
to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated.
Page has not been arrested or charged with any crime related to the investigation.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed
on Twitter @themarketswork.
"... DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the Office of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review. ..."
"... The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016. ..."
"... After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing numerous "about query" violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and reported his findings to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are not "to" or "from" the target. ..."
"... On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings of his audit. ..."
"... Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant. ..."
"... The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page. ..."
"... While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director. ..."
Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for
uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page
unsealed FISA
court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:
"The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.
"Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.
"Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."
The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:
"The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar
disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."
The FISA Court
disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to
the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.
In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of
improper
contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he
directed the NSA's Office
of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."
On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors
working for the FBI.
DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed
2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was
part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016,
report by the Office
of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose
Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.
The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin
announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.
After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing
numerous "about query"
violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and
reported his findings
to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are
not "to" or "from" the target.
On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance
on Carter Page from the FISA Court.
At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.
On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally
informed
the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings
of his audit.
The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.
Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions
at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.
The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a
recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.
The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing
to present his findings to the FISA Court.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed
on Twitter @themarketswork.
The insurance policy was the false flag operation directed at establishing the Trump–Russia collusion
narrative. The key part was the appointment of Special Prosecutor in which McCabe played an important if not the decisive role.
Notable quotes:
"... The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump campaign. ..."
"... The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation. ..."
Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance
policy," the term has been the subject of wide speculation.
Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to
monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump
campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying meaning of the
text.
The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion
narrative. It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the
Steele dossier and James Clapper's leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The
intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation into the Trump
campaign.
The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe
would end up running the investigation.
The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the
Democratic National Committee, served as the foundation for the Russia narrative.
The
intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the
dossier as a launching pad for creating their Intelligence Community assessment.
This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers
having only moderate confidence in its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the
narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.
Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the
narrative that Russia helped Trump win the elections was aggressively pushed throughout
2017.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be
followed on Twitter @themarketswork.
"... On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe. ..."
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate."
He directed the activities of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the
Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance policy" text
message.
McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.
On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He
was placed into a somewhat chaotic situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recluses
himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months earlier, on March
2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of
the ongoing investigation being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.
Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased
scrutiny as the result of actions taken leading up to and following the election, particularly
Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.
On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject
of the memo was "Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day.
McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration for
the permanent position.
On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the
FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016,
Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe" by Devlin
Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of
Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."
At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the
darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate fully known.
In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions,
regarding potential lack of candor before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with
Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.
Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.
On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly
record President Trump. This remark was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced
from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former FBI general
counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence.
Rosenstein issued a statement denying the accusations.
The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the
Justice Department to open an investigation into the president."
An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the
conversation somewhat differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying,
"What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"
Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met
with Mueller, reportedly as an interview for the FBI director job.
On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after
Rosenstein's encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.
The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from
the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any
expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.
Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed
-- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would have remained in charge of the Russia investigation.
McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was reportedly under
consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement
and the FBI would have retained control.
On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath
regarding authorization of the leaking to The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew
McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.
On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of
investigation and definition of authority" that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of
this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the new FBI
director.
Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks
investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray were tasked with overseeing all leak
investigations.
That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove
any residual FBI influence -- specifically that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The
appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely
neutralized.
On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and
is currently the subject of a grand jury investigation.
In some respects, the media has played the most disingenuous of roles. Areas of investigation that historically would have proven
irresistible to reporters of the past have been steadfastly ignored. False narratives have been all-too-willingly promoted and facts
ignored. Fusion GPS personally made a
series of payments to several as-of-yet-
unnamed reporters .
The majority of the mainstream media has represented positions of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.
Steele met with members of certain media with relative frequency. In
September 2016 ,
he met with a number of U.S. journalists for "The New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, the New Yorker and CNN," according
to The Guardian. It was during this period that Steele met with Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News.
In mid-October
2016, Steele returned to New York and met with reporters again. Toward the end of October, Steele spoke via Skype with Mother
Jones reporter David Corn.
Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted
version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence
community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern
that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken.
On April 3, 2017, BuzzFeed reporter Ali Watkins wrote the article "
A Former Trump Adviser Met With a Russian Spy ." In the article, she identified "Male-1," referred to in
court documents
relating to the case of Russian spy Evgeny Buryakov, as Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had provided the FBI with assistance
in the case. Just over a week later, on April 11, 2017, a Washington Post article, "
FBI Obtained FISA Warrant to Monitor Former Trump Adviser Carter Page ," confirmed the existence of the October 2016 Page FISA
warrant.
The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for
the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and
charged with one count of lying
to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment
alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time.
Reporter
Ali Watkins likely received the undredacted FISA application on Carter Page from James Wolfe.
It appears probable that Wolfe leaked unredacted copies of the Page FISA application.
According to the indictment
, Wolfe exchanged 82 text messages
with Watkins on March 17, 2017. That same evening they engaged in a 28-minute phone call.
The original Page FISA application is 83 pages long, including one final signatory page.
In the public version of the application, there are 37 fully redacted pages. In addition to that, several other pages have redactions
for all but the header. There are only two pages in the entire document that contain no redactions.
Why would Wolfe bother to send 37 pages of complete redactions? It seems more than plausible that Wolfe took pictures of the original
unredacted FISA application and sent them by text to Watkins.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has repeatedly
stated that evidence within the FISA application
shows the counterintelligence agencies were abused by the Obama administration. Most of the mainstream media has known this.
Despite this, most major news organizations for over two years have promoted the Russia-collusion narrative. Despite ample evidence
having come out to the contrary, they have not admitted they were wrong, likely because doing so would mean they would have to admit
their complicity.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed
on Twitter @themarketswork.
The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided
by Section
2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's
data-sharing
order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance
simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission.
Section 2.3 had been expected to be finalized by early to mid-2016. Instead, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't
sign off on Section 2.3 until Dec. 15, 2016. The order was finalized when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed it on Jan. 3, 2017.
The reason for the delay could relate to the fact that while the executive order made it easier to share intelligence between
agencies, it also limited certain types of information from going to the White House.
An example of this was provided by Evelyn Farkas during a March 2, 2017,
MSNBC interview , where she detailed how the Obama administration
gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:
"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as
much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'
"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try
to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the
leaking."
Many of the Obama administration's efforts appear to have been structural in nature, such as establishing new procedures or creating
impediments to oversight that enabled much of the surveillance abuse to occur.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed by Obama in 2011. From the very start, he found his duties throttled by the
attorney general's office. According to congressional
testimony by Horowitz:
"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply
a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going
to give us that information."
These new restrictions were
put in place by Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole.
On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general sent a
letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015,
with a 58-page
memorandum . The memo specifically denied the inspector general access to any information collected under Title III -- including
intercepted communications and national security letters.
The New York Times recently
disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump campaign.
At other times, the Obama administration's efforts were more direct. The
Intelligence Community assessment was released
internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the dossier with national
security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Yates. Rice would later send herself an email
documenting
the meeting.
The following day, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they
gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey,
Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the Intelligence Community assessment and the Steele dossier.
Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later
explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview
why:
"Because that was the part that the leaders of the Intelligence Community agreed he needed to be told about."
Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The
significance of the meeting was material, as Comey
noted in
a Jan. 7 memo he wrote:
"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write
that the FBI has the material."
The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey
briefed Trump that
CNN reported
on the dossier. It was later
revealed that DNI James Clapper personally leaked Comey's meeting with Trump to CNN.
The Obama administration also directly participated in a series of
intelligence unmaskings
, the process whereby a U.S. citizen's identity is revealed from collected surveillance. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha
Power reportedly engaged in hundreds of unmasking requests. Rice has admitted to doing the same.
The Obama administration engaged in the ultimately successful effort to oust Trump's newly appointed national security adviser,
Gen. Michael Flynn. Yates, along with Mary McCord, head of the DOJ's National Security Division,
led that effort
.
Executive Order 13762
President Barack Obama issued a last-minute executive order on Jan. 13, 2017, that altered the line of succession within the DOJ.
The action was not done in consultation with the incoming Trump administration.
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired on Jan. 30, 2017, by a newly inaugurated President Trump for refusing to uphold
the president's executive order limiting travel from certain terror-prone countries. Yates was initially supposed to serve in her
position until Jeff Sessions was confirmed as attorney general.
Obama's executive order placed the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia next in line behind the department's senior leadership.
The attorney at the time was Channing Phillips.
Phillips was first hired by former Attorney General Eric Holder in 1994 for a position in the D.C. U.S. attorney's office. Phillips,
after serving as a senior adviser to Holder, stayed on after he was replaced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
It appears the Obama administration was hoping the Russia investigation would default to Channing in the event Sessions was forced
to recuse himself from the investigation. Sessions, whose confirmation hearings began three days before the order, was already coming
under intense scrutiny.
The implementation of the order may also tie into Yates's efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn over his call with the Russian
ambassador.
Trump ignored the succession order, as he is legally allowed to do, and instead appointed Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the
Eastern District of Virginia, as acting attorney general on Jan. 30, 2017, the same day Yates was fired.
Trump issued a new executive order on Feb. 9, 2017, the same day Sessions was sworn in, reversing Obama's prior order.
On March 10, 2017, Trump fired 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys, including Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. These firings
appear to have been unexpected.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed
on Twitter @themarketswork.
"... The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting." This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program. ..."
"... One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely. ..."
"... I am confident that a survey of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially, his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone unless their name is in an intelligence report. ..."
"... Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from a registered FBI informant. ..."
"... That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, ..."
"... Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ..."
"... Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's Henry Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6 [British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking " ..."
"... I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI for launching the investigation into George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," The Times reported. ..."
"... Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially, he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network reported in a January 2016 exclusive: ..."
"... I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government? ..."
"... Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution. ..."
"... Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before the country move forward on any front. ..."
"... So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal. ..."
Do not focus on July 2016 as the so-called start of the counter intelligence investigation of Donald Trump. That is a lie. We
know, thanks to the work of Judicial Watch, that the FBI had signed up Christopher Steele as a Confidential Human Source (aka CHS)
by February of 2016. It is incumbent on Attorney General Barr to examine the contact reports filed by Steele's FBI handler (those
reports are known as FD-1023s). He also, as I have noted in a previous post, needs to look at the FD-1023s for Felix Sater and Henry
Greenberg. But these will only tell a small part of the story. There is a massive intelligence side to this story.
The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer
of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate. John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive
steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration. Regardless of motives,
the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie
Sanders. This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research. The information being gathered identified
the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails. This
information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting."
This was not put into normal classified channels. This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program.
One person who needs to be called on the carpet and asked some hard questions is current CIA Director Gina Haspel. She was
CIA Chief of Station in London at the time and was a regular attendee at the meeting of the Brit's Joint Intelligence Committee aka
the JIC. I suppose it is possible she was cut out of the process, but I believe that is unlikely.
This initial phase of intelligence collection produced a great volume of intelligence that allowed analysts to identify key personnel
and the people they were communicating with overseas. You don't have to have access to intelligence information to understand this.
For example, you simply have to ask the question, "how did George Papadopoulos get on the radar." I am confident that a survey
of NSA and CIA liaison reporting will show that George Papadopoulos was identified as a possible target by the fall of 2015. Initially,
his name was "masked." But we now know that many people on the Trump campaign had their names "unmasked." You cannot unmask someone
unless their name is in an intelligence report. We also know that Felix Sater, a longtime business associate of Donald Trump
and an FBI informant since December 1998 (he was signed up by Andrew Weismann), initiated the proposal to do a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Don't take my word for it, that's what Robert Mueller reported:
In the late summer of 2015, the Trump Organization received a new inquiry about pursuing a Trump Tower project in Moscow. In approximately
September 2015, Felix Sater . . . contacted Cohen (i.e., Michael Cohen) on behalf of I.C. Expert Investment Company (I.C. Expert),
a Russian real-estate development corporation controlled by Andrei Vladimirovich Rozov. Sater had known Rozov since approximately
2007 and, in 2014, had served as an agent on behalf of Rozov during Rozov's purchase of a building in New York City. Sater later
contacted Rozov and proposed that I.C. Expert pursue a Trump Tower Moscow project in which I.C. Expert would license the name and
brand from the Trump Organization but construct the building on its own. Sater worked on the deal with Rozov and another employee
of I.C. Expert. (see page 69 of the Mueller Report).
Sater's communication with Rozov were intercepted by western intelligence agencies -- GCHQ and NSA. I do not know which agency
put it into an intel report, but it was put into the system. The Sater FD-1023 will tell us whether or not Sater did this at the
direction of the FBI or acted on his own initiative. The key point is that the "bait" to do something with the Russians came from
a registered FBI informant.
By December of 2015, the Hillary Campaign decided to use the Russian angle on Donald Trump. Thanks to Wikileaks we have Campaign
Manager John Podesta's email exchange in December 2015 with Democratic operative Brent Budowsky:
" That's good, sooner it's clarified the better, and the stronger the better, " Budowski replies, later adding: "
Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin , but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria ."
The program to slaughter Donald Trump using Russia as the hatchet was already underway. This was more the opposition research.
This was the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence assets to attack political opponents. Hillary had covered the opposition
research angle in London by hiring a firm comprised of former MI6 assets--
Hakluyt: there was a second, even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm lurking about
with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against
Donald Trump.
Meet London-based Hakluyt & Co. , founded by three former British intelligence
operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations
pay huge sums. . . .
Hakluyt is described by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism's
Henry
Williams as " one of the more secretive firms within the corporate investigations world " and as "a retirement home for ex-MI6
[British foreign intelligence] officers, but it now also recruits from the worlds of management consultancy and banking "
I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, was the one credited by the FBI
for launching the investigation into
George Papadopolous : It was Downer who told the FBI of Papodopoulos' comments, which became one of the "driving factors that
led the FBI to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's
associates conspired," The Times reported.
Downer, a long-time Aussie chum of Bill and Hillary Clinton, had been on Hakluyt's advisory board since 2008. Officially,
he had to resign his Hakluyt role in 2014, but his informal connections continued uninterrupted, the News Corp. Australian Network
reported in a January 2016 exclusive:
But it can be revealed Mr. Downer has still been attending client conferences and gatherings of the group, including a client
cocktail soirée at the Orangery at Kensington Palace a few months ago.
His attendance at that event is understood to have come days after he also attended a two-day country retreat at the invitation
of the group, which has been involved in a number of corporate spy scandals in recent times.
Much remains to be uncovered in this plot. But this much is certain--there is an extensive documentary record, including TOP SECRET
intelligence reports (SIGINT and HUMINT) and emails and phone calls that will show there was a concerted covert action operation
mounted against Donald Trump and his campaign. Those documents will tell the story. This cannot be allowed to happen again.
Having watched interviews of Papadopoulos on TeeVee I would say that this creature would be easy to manipulate. His ego is so
enormous that a minimal effort would be required.
I'm curious why they went after minor characters in the Trump campaign and not Jared or one of Trump's sons? From what
I've read of Hoover, it seems he was constantly building "dossiers" of the powerful and those he considered "subversives" so that
he would remain preeminent. Then there was the Church Committee investigation. Is this qualitatively different? Can we ever expect
that law enforcement & intelligence with so much secretive power are not the 4th branch of government?
The guts of the matter was well expressed by Judge T.S. Ellis when he made the distinction between different results which
can be expected from exerting pressures on witnesses: they may 'sing' - which is, commonly, in the interests of justice - but,
there again, they may 'compose', which is not.
Also involved - and I think Judge Ellis was very well aware of this - is a fundamental distinction relating to what law
enforcement authorities are trying to achieve. If Mueller was honestly - even of perhaps misguidedly - trying to get witnesses
to 'sing', that is hardly a mortal sin. If he was trying to get them to 'compose', then the question becomes whether he should
be under indictment for subversion of the Constitution.
Yes, indeed, many a composition have been elicited by prosecutors in criminal cases. The issue is there is no penalty for prosecutorial
misconduct while the advancement points ratchet up with each conviction. The incentives are aligned perfectly for the "institution"
to run rough shod on ordinary Americans. Only those wealthy enough to fight the unlimited funds of the government have a chance.
But of course in matters relating to national security there is the added twist of state secrets that protects government malfeasance.
I don't know how the national security state we continue to build ever gets rolled back. A small victory would be for Trump
to declassify all documents and communications relating to the multifaceted spying on his campaign and as Larry so eloquently
writes to frame him as a Manchurian Candidate. At least the public will learn about what their grandchildren are paying for. But
it seems that Trump prefers tweeting to taking any kind of action. Not that it would matter much as half the country will still
believe that Trump deserves it until the tables are turned on their team. While most Americans will say to use Ben Hunt's phrasing
Yay! Constitution. Yay! Liberty. they sure don't care as the state oligarchy tighten their chokehold.
Yes, he seems young and ambitious enough to be easy (and willing) prey. Having been involved in some local political campaigns
though, I've observed that more and more than before, young people like him are hyper-concerned with networking. Papadopoulos'
ego aside, of course he and many people who sign on hope to make self-serving connections. Not only that, it's also been my observation
that casual sexual hook-ups go with the territory, and not only among young, single guys like him. I have to say I've been shocked
a few times by how risky and cavalier some liaisons have been that've come to my attention, considering "public figures" are involved.
No doubt that's why a "honeypot" was dispatched to try to help entrap Papadopoulos.
Why aren't the MSM having a hissy fit about the real, documented election interference by the British Commonwealth/5 Eyes
spooks in the 2016 campaign (and before)? The hoax of projecting onto Putin what they themselves have done must be exposed before
the country move forward on any front.
So, was Skripal one of Steele's so-called Kremlin insiders? I see Pablo Miller is connected to both Porton Down and Steele
via the ironically titled II's media pods. And Miller is certainly connected to Skripal.
Papadopolos was very young hence the nativity getting sucked in. The ego helped for sure. Probably exciting to be part of something
important probably for the first time since he started working for Trump campaign
One thing that's always concerned me about Larry's informative and insightful essays on these matters is how can we be assured
that the IC documentation mentioned has been filled out honestly and accurately -- or that the forms even still exist and haven't
been conveniently "lost" or surreptitiously destroyed?
"... I don't think the US government should use operating systems made in China for the same reason that most governments shouldn't use operating systems made in the US and in fact we just got proof since Microsoft is now known to be telling the NSA about bugs in Windows before it fixes them. ..."
"... All the major western tech companies cooperate with the western security services. In Murder in Samarkand I gave the first public revelation that the government can and does listen through your mobile phone microphone even when the phone is ostensibly switched off, a fact that got almost no traction until Edward Snowden released documents confirming it six years later. China is full of western devices with backdoors that are exploited by western intelligence. That the tables turn as Chinese technology advances is scarcely surprising. ..."
Theresa May almost certainly sacked Gavin Williamson not just on the basis of a telephone billing record showing he had a phone
call with a Telegraph journalist, but on the basis of a recording of the conversation itself.
It astonishes me that still, after Snowden and his
PRISM revelations, after Wikileaks
Vault 7 releases , and after numerous other sources including
my own humble contribution, people still manage to avoid the cognitive dissonance that goes with really understanding how much we
are surveilled and listened to. Even Cabinet Ministers manage
to pretend
to themselves it is not happening.
The budget of the NSA, which does nothing else but communications intercept, is US $14.2 billion this year. Think about that enormous
sum, devoted to just communications surveillance, and what it can achieve. The budget of the UK equivalent, GCHQ, is £1.2 billion,
of which about 10% is paid by the NSA. Domestic surveillance in the UK has been vastly expanded and many taboos broken. But the bedrock
of the system with regard to domestic intercepts is still that legal restrictions are dodged, as the USA's NSA spies on UK citizens
while the UK's GCHQ spies on US citizens, and then the information is swapped. It was thus probably the NSA that harvested Williamson's
phone call, passing the details on. Given official US opposition to the UK employing Huawei technology, Williamson's call would have
been a "legitimate" NSA target.
Mass surveillance works on electronic harvesting. Targeted phone numbers apart, millions of essentially random calls are listened
to electronically using voice recognition technology and certain key words trigger an escalation of the call. Williamson's call discussing
Huawei, China, the intelligence services, and backdoors would certainly have triggered recording and been marked up to a human listener,
even if his phone was not specifically targeted by the Americans – which it almost certainly was.
Williamson of course is relying on the security services' secrecy about their methods to maintain his protests of innocence, secure
in the knowledge that the recording of him would not be produced. The existence of the recording – of which I am extremely confident
– is the only possible explanation for May's degree of certainty and swift action against one of her very few loyal allies.
All of which of course throws into stark relief the stunning hypocrisy of those who are worried that Huawei will be used for electronic
eavesdropping, when they are up to their ears in electronic eavesdropping themselves. One of my heroes is the great Richard Stallman,
who put it this way six years ago:
RMS: Well, it's perfectly reasonable suspicion to me. I don't think the US government should use operating systems made in
China for the same reason that most governments shouldn't use operating systems made in the US and in fact we just got proof since
Microsoft is now known to be telling the NSA about bugs in Windows before it fixes them.
RSS: I was just going to bring this up exactly, so I was saying that the NSA recently received notifications about the zero-day
holes in advance and [incomprehensible] the NSA and the CIA to just crack PCs abroad for espionage purposes.
RMS: Now, [incomprehensible] that this proves my point, which is that you have to be nuts if you were some other country and
using Windows on your computers. But, you know, given that Windows has a universal back door in it, Microsoft would hardly need
to tell the NSA about any bugs, it can tell the NSA about the mal-feature of the universal back door and that would be enough
for the NSA to attack any computer running Windows, which unfortunately is a large fraction of them.
All the major western tech companies cooperate with the western security services. In Murder in Samarkand I gave the first public
revelation that the government can and does listen through your mobile phone microphone
even when the phone is ostensibly switched off, a fact that got almost no traction until Edward Snowden released documents confirming
it six years later. China is full of western devices with backdoors that are exploited by western intelligence. That the tables turn
as Chinese technology advances is scarcely surprising.
Personally I do not want the Chinese, Americans, Russians or British eavesdropping on me, or on each other, and I wish that they
would stop. The spy games will of course continue, as they make money for a lot of well-connected people. But for any side to claim
moral superiority in all of this is just nonsense.
"It is the ultimate irony that how the old Soviet Union's judiciary used to function is
now becoming standing operating procedure in the United States."
When you consider how many of today's Democrat luminaries were self described as dedicated
Communists in the 60's, 70's, and 80's it is not surprising at all.
If, the information in this article is true, I feel bad for this young lady getting hemmed
up in international shenanigans.
If a person loves her country (her home), wants the opportunity for fellow citizens to be
free with a right to bare arms, and seeks out the assistance of the USA both as a model for
having the 2nd Amendment, and an organization that leads in advocating for personal firearms
ownership, the NRA, how is she committing any crime? She should not be locked up for pursuing
God given, inalienable rights for her fellow countrymen. She should be encouraged and
sponsored by Pro2A groups and manufacturers. Again, if the information as presented is
true.
Thank you DOJ. There's no need for guns in Russia. These people intoxicated by the alcohol
and hard drugs will kill one another by the thousands. I feel for Masha Butina, but as far
away she is from Russia, as better for this poor country. Luckily she is in US and even
better in prison. Thank you Russophobes, warmongers and sheep that neocons will send to the
slaughterhouse, you can not do any better.
Our courts are totally corrupt. There's a prosecutor/FBI/judge cabal which convicts 98+%
of its victims at trials. The excessive long sentences are used to convince the large
majority unable to afford a slightly possible defense to bargain a plea. The Exceptional
morons selected for juries think, why would the FBI lie. They lie to be promoted. What do you
think happens to an agent whose testimony aids the defense?
Kangaroo courts would be more honest in their convictions.
If a case is merely "plausible", that's not enough to indict.
Based on that thread-bare criterion, the FBI could probably come up with "plausible" cause
to indict half the US population for something or other. Never mind Russians, all of whom
might "plausibly" be suspected as secret agents for the Kremlin because they know other
Russians.
The true criminals are attempting to cover their tracks through diversion. The magnitude
of the scheme they are executing now is commensurate with the magnitude of their own crimes
against the United States.
I agree, it was much more scary in the 80's hiding under our desks at school and learning
each week how many times one country could blow up the world, multiple times over. Now, so
many people around the world call ********, not because MAD doesn't exist, but everyone
realized no matter the quality of your bunker and fortitude of cement, those things only mean
you die slower than those outside near the big flash. Hypersonic weapons seem like a step
backwards in the whole 'my missile is bigger than your missile' game of Coldwar 2.0.
The Obama adminstration knew about the Russian attempts, yet did not alert the Trump
campaign. Instead the Obama administration sent spies to entrap low level operatives, with
the hope of eventually nailing Trump himself or a close advisor. Why?
Because the intelligence community wanted that insurance policy on Trump. Not to remove
him from office, but to control him in the event he won. The intelligence community and
defense community wants and needs perpetual war and conflict to justify themselves. Trump was
campaigning on better relations with Russia and pulling back the us global defense footprint.
This was not acceptable to them, so they needed to make sure they could control him. Do what
we want or certain information is released.
Somehow, they lost control over the operation, which resulted in the appointmemt of
Mueller. Forcing the plot against Trump out into the open is the best thing that could have
happened to Trump. Trump now holds all the cards in his control and possible retaliation
against the wrongdoers. I predict no action against any of the real wrongdoers, so Trump
maintains his control over a severly wounded intelligence community. He has the power over
them now, by threating prosecutions and disclosure of what they really did.
1 week ago
"Sprawling" How many CIA fucksticks, or boondoggle procuring disinformation spewing,
sell-their-own-mother contractors, like New Knowledge, are out there conspiring to screw
people over and install some goomed poodle puppet of the empire like Juan Guido? Jesus
titty-fucking Christ. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Look! Russians!
"[Risen and his ilk] are engaged in a calculated rear-guard campaign to prevent the public
from moving on to the next level of implications. Since the MSM and deep state PTB were so
clearly willing and able to fabricate 'collusion', what other articles of faith are
fabrications? WMDs of course.
But then there are the others: ISIS and Al Qaeda were our enemies? The news media tells
the truth? Syrian government gas attacks? Iran is a menace? Russian "invasion" of Ukraine?
[Anita Hill and Christine Blasey were 'abused' by being asked questions?]
Assertions that Qadafi and now Maduro were/are bad guys?
America is a free country? Mass immigration is AOK? The rich create wealth?
The 9/11 attacks were the work of a handful of Arab guys? Israel is our true friend and
wants peace?
The whole edifice is undermined and Congressional and media reciters [and deep state
shills posting here like Alberto, Lela, Felix95, and Mike5000] have the job of diverting the
public from thinking the unthinkable."
1 week ago
"Too little too late."
Not for all of us. A significant number of progressives who ardently rejected the
evidence-free hysteria retain credibility to press for all of those things.
1 week ago
"If you or Glenn cared about any of those things, you'd be writing incessantly about them,
but you don't."
Even if that were true, it would not alter that we were right about this Russiagate moral
panic, and many of you were recklessly wrong
"It's not a non sequitur to say so."
It is. (As is your peculiar fixation on Pierre Omidyar.) See above.
1 week ago
that's a reply to Mona above...
1 week ago
" let's look at gun control, climate change, immigration, infrastructure, medical needs,
college debt, abortion rights, justice for people of color, gerrymandering, voting
rights"
What progressives and Democrats should have been doing the last three years, not promoting
and agitating for a baseless -- and recklessly dangerous -- moral panic. Direction for how to
proceed should come from those who had the wisdom and reason to reject the evidence-free
mania.
1 week ago
Instead of telling others what they should be doing, why don't you do it yourself?
Too exhausted trying to control what you can't?
1 week ago
" why don't you do it yourself?"
I do. Part of that effort is making clear to one and all that many progressives never
promoted a baseless moral panic that made Democrats and the media look like Alex Jones. Some
of us can be trusted to be evidence-based.
1 week ago
And you dont think that was part of the purpose?
You think the DNC cares about any of those important things? Keeping the focus off the
democrats was the most important objective of Russiagate.That and starting another cold war
which makes them even more dangerous than Trump.
1 week ago
you won't find it on the 2020 Democratic Party platform either ... which is still stuck on
2016:
Hopefully, this the coda of the Russiagate saga. From my perspective it revealed more
about America's Deep State than it did about Russia's alleged malign intent.
The Deep State has entered into mainstream American politics. We know it is there and that
it is a potent threat to American self rule, far more dangerous than Russia or any of the
external challenges.
Many things remain unanswered. For example, in an interconnected, internet world, where
does big tech fit in? Are Google, Facebook et al American companies? Do they enforce American
policy? Is it just America or do they whore for anybody with money? Does it mean that people
in China and Russia are not allowed to use these platforms even though it is freely available
on the net? One thing remains the same. The Establishment likes a rigged game.
It's nasty mess and over all looms the specter of the Deep State.
1 week ago
Absolutely. Also, all this banter about Russia influence and Trump, will not change the
*fact* that Mueller did not recommend to indict Trump on the 'collusion/conspiracy' issue,
nor the 'obstruction' issue. It's fact. Fact. Meaning it can't go backwards. Meaning all the
howling and screaming is not going to change anything from that report. Mueller would have
nailed Trump to the proverbial wall if he could, but didn't, because he Just.Didn' t.Have.It .
Secondly, we have a much more serious issue. We have the Deep State who has infiltrated
our political system, to the point that they attempted a coup. Like they do in totalitarian
countries. Right here in the good ole USA.
While voters naively went to vote in 2016, the intelligence agencies coupled with the
strong arm of HRC and the DNC conspired to upend the election because they wanted their
favorite to win. And they were so sure she was going to win, that they all jumped on
it...gleefully.
They committed sedition. They all need to go to jail.
They did far more damage to this country and our laws, our Constitution, and our belief in
an honest voting system than all the Russian bots around. Add in a conspiring media, who
spewed lies and half truths and glaring omissions of facts to the American people..
What more do you folks need? This isn't about Trump. It's about the rule of law. If they
get away with this travesty, you can kiss our elections goodbye. Totalitarianism here we
come.
1 week ago (Edited)
"You can kiss our elections goodbye"
I did that back in 2004 when our voting system turned into a Black Box with
moronic/ignorant government officials overseeing a cabal of opportunistic, conflict of
interest ridden, behind-closed-doors contractors, running a back door littered, populace
duping sham.
1 week ago
How about December 12, 2000, when the Supreme Court lawlessly intervened to hand the
presidency to Bush and the entire political establishment submitted with barely a peep? That
was a judicial coup, and we cannot escape the consequences.
1 week ago
Yes. That, too.
But now we have stinging evidence that the coup was attempted and they used false
information to obtain FISAs to unmask people in their scheme to get Trump to take him
down.
I don't like Trump. But I will stick up for any President who is duly elected by the
people. For the people, by the people, of the people. Anyone who tries to take away our
rights because THEY feel they are arbiters of who becomes President, needs to have their
proverbial heads on a platter. Put orange suits on all of them, and let them ponder about
their stupidity and arrogance behind bars.
And that goes also for Missy Hillary, the ringleader.
1 week ago
Understatement of the year - hell, the millennia:
The Deep State has entered into mainstream American politics. We know it is there and that
it is a potent threat to American self rule, far more dangerous than Russia or any of the
external challenges.
The U.S. Deep State most likely did that in November, 1963, and has been
ensconced in power ever since.
1 week ago
They dont even hide it anymore.Heck they are out front cheer leading this ruse...How do
criminals like Brennan and Clapper and Haden get jobs at MSNBC and CNN?
They belong in prison.
1 week ago
The classic rumor I remember was the Russians employing a killer whale with a bear trap
attached as an anti-personnel device esp. against SEAL types.
1 week ago
We need to address the Clientelist War Wing of the Dem Party that has formed an ugly
alliance with our intelligence apparatus, before we can even start confronting Trump.Repeat
after me, "The Russiagate Spin has actually worked in Trump's favor"..
Chomsky: "By Focusing On Russia, Democrats Handed Trump A "Huge Gift" And Possibly The
2020 Election"
Did Trump lie the world into wars?
That madman wanted to work with Russia and not start WW3.....
That madman wanted to pull out of Syria and Afghanistan and make peace with N korea
That madman hasnt started any new wars and wouldn't be in Venezuela if not for Russia
gate.
Trump is lot of unsavory thing but the real madmen are the people who pushed this
Russiagte ruse and another Cold War with Russia based on lies and there is this....
The Mueller Report Indicts the Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory The real Russiagate scandal
is the damage it has done to our democratic system and media. By Aaron Maté
Since, as Woody Allen once famously observed 90% of life is just showing up, I might
recommend you'd have a better sense of accomplishment if you didn't waste all your time on an
internet comment board. Then maybe you could earn some kind of descriptive label beyond TDS
victim.
1 week ago
THIS:
This dead end conspiracy theory is the only weapon Trump will have in 2020 and he will use
it mercilessly. Provided him by clowns like you.
Russiagters have handed Donald Trump a pretty package going into the 2020
election. Now he can accurately say the establishment media and Democrats traffic in
conspiracies and delusional lies. That he is also a deluded lying freak won't destroy the
value of the gift -- delivered with a big lovely bow called the Mueller Report.
1 week ago (Edited)
Even if every accusation, every hyped news story, every rumour of the Russian
"interference" in the US election, an "interference" that we are bizarrely told did not
influence the outcome of the election, were true, it would amount to an existential madness
by a species whose "sell by" date has long passed on this planet.
Prove that Russian "interference," as opposed to Israeli or Saudi or every other
interference, influenced the results of an election where lobbies and billionaires hold sway,
where political party corruption determines the candidate, where the loser refuses to concede
the results, where local corruption and disenfranchisement determine state results, where
corporations are considered human beings and where Americans cannot vote directly for
President in an undemocratic system and you will have grounds to fulfill the wish of
blindered journalists like James Risen whose unwitting obsession is to extinguish human life
on Earth, a consequence that, truth be told, is only conditionally negative.
1 week ago
More embarrassing, paranoid nonsense from Intercept's house Russiagater, James Risen. I
usually skim the works of Risen, just to make sure he's still as lunatic as ever. This is the
line that sums up the entire laughably dangerous farrago of Risen-think above:
"Manafort and Butina may have been on two sides of a complex new kind of spy game that few
outsiders understand."
Boy, you got that right, James. C'mon, Mr. Insider, explain it to us Outsiders again.
1 week ago
The first casualty of Russia's sprawling spy game seems to have been the mental health of
large swathes of America's 4th Estate.
Just because Sergei Millain is Johnny Foreigner (or Ivan Foreigner if you prefer), it
doesn't follow he is in Putin's pocket.
Sergei Millain offered money to George Papadopolous for the sole reason of justifying the
FBI's FISA warrant. Because Papadopolous refused Millain's offer they had to claim they
believed he was an agent of Israel.
1 week ago
Stephen F. Cohen: Mueller Probe Hysteria Endangers National Security By Preventing Trump
From Talking With Russia
And the Rachel Maddow prize for investigative conspiracy theorising goes to...
1 week ago
The point of these articles is not to make Liberals hate Trump, it is to make liberals
hate Russia. Why is that? Why did Obama and his admin, including Neocons Susan Powers, Susan
Rice, Victoria Nuland and Billary Clinton want to create a new cold war. Of all the nations
to be worried about influencing our elections, Russia is way down on the list.
Just embarrassing. Come out and say it. You are a voice for the lobbies and special
interests
1 week ago
When can we expect Mr. Risen's series of articles about Israel's documented and
undocumented interference in our elections, ongoing spy campaign and/or (much) worse?
We await with bated breath.
1 week ago
LOL. James Risen article with "Russia" in headline. Stopped reading went straight to
comments.
1 week ago
Same. Risen is a one-dimensional hack.
1 week ago
"Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
The above statement completely negates any impact from Risen's article, as the entire
wretched thing is innuendo.
1 week ago
Maddow shows how Russiagate borders on clinically significance delusion:
Glenn Greenwald Verified account @ggreenwald
Maddow is claiming the Republic is existentially threatened because YouTube recommended
a show hosted by Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer-winning ex-NYT reporter, talking to @aaronjmate,
Izzy Award winner, all because it's hosted on RT. Both have more journalistic achievements
then she. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1122552675445420032
1 week ago (Edited)
Jesus Christ.....rather than let the Bush era neocon/rightwing nonsense peter out or
self-destruct, the so-called liberal corporate MIC/Wall Street-captured MSM and establishment
insiders have decided to fully discredit themselves too by doubling down on the Fox News
model. I doubt they or their followers really grasp the magnitude of the implications. And
they've been silent on the gubmint's big data approach to warehousing all of our
communications in any format which they've been illegally intercepting for at least two
decades. The Intercept is now silent on this, perhaps in part because of Omidyar's
conflicting financial interests.
Sadly, or perhaps mercifully, we will be put out of our collective misery by the AI
killer-bot army that will begin to exert its control within the next 10 years.
1 week ago
Watch Aaron Maté Destroy Russiagate Propagandist and "Collusion" Author Luke
Harding
What Risen is really proposing is that Obama ignored all this even while spying on
everyone
Thats called logic
1 week ago
Yes and No.
Risen, like a lot people I believe, is simply unable to accept the hard, cold reality that
his neighbors, friends, countrymen ~ Americans ~ actually, truly voted for the creature from
the black lagoon. It's too painful. The mind reels.
*therefore, in Risen's mind, Putin did it.
1 week ago
"The mind reels. *therefore, in Risen's mind, Putin did it."
This is true for a great many. I had my own rather severe emotional crisis in the weeks
after the 2016 election -- and a close friend who is a therapist reported that this was
virtually all that most of her clients wanted to discuss.
Fear and shock do odd things to the mind. None of us is immune, some just got particularly
afflicted and along came Russiagate into which to direct their distorted and distressed
minds.
1 week ago
If regurgitating the same theme over and over again is the game for Mr. Risen, well, we
can all play at that game, can't we? Here, however, is a fact-based narrative that nobody on
any side of Russiagate seems to want to discuss, not the RT-sector, not the
billionaire-foundation neoliberal sector (Intercept fits in here), the corporate
shareholder-military-industrial sectors (MSNBC, Fox, etc.). It's really very strange.
One of the more fundamental flaws in the Russiagate story that's important to understand
is that Trump really hasnʼt changed direction on the core US policy towards Russia - the
evidence for that is Trumpʼs assault on the Nordstream 2 pipeline deal that would bring
Russian gas to Germany via an undersea pipeline across the Baltic, bypassing Ukraine (which
is basically now a US client state, since the 2014 coup). That's been US policy on Russia
since about 2003, unchanged under Bush, Obama, and Trump - it's about who gets to sell gas to
Europe and oil to the world, basically, and where the money from those sales is parked.
What the likes of Risen will not go into is how the US and Wall Street had a positive view
of Putin up till about 2003. Steve Collʼs Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power
outlines the break point in US-Russian relations, when ExxonMobil tried to acquire a majority
interest in Russian oil in 2003, and Putin rejected the offer and arrested Mikhail
Khodorkovsky on tax evasion charges; thatʼs officially when Russia became the bad guy,
as he was clearly not going to become a Saudi-like partner in the global petrodollar
recycling scheme.
This opened the door to the pipeline wars over who was going to deliver oil and gas to
European markets; this was a central story in Georgia, Ukraine, Syria, and continues to this
day with the US trying to sell LNG shipments to Europe while Russia tries to build Nordstream
2 to Germany, bringing us up to today. Clearly, US fossil fuel corporations want to ship LNG
to Europe, and Nordstream 2 is competition, and Trump, like Obama is a tool of US corporate
interests who really want that market:
However, there is a confounding factor - and also, one of the main reasons to distrust the
corporate media narrative on this story - i.e. the refusal to bring ExxonMobil into the
picture. ExxonMobil has lost several billion dollars over the Russia sanctions (over oil
deals more than gas), and as a private company, really wants a piece of the Russian oil
production:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/business/energy-environment/exxon-mobil-russia-sanctions-waiveroil.html
The PR monkeys in the corporate media (including Risen & Co.) and the "humanitarians"
in the State Department wonʼt touch this story, because it reveals too much about
whatʼs really going on - i.e. that this kind of oil/gas policy by Trump is largely what
Clinton would have done (i.e. opposed Nordstream), and that the whole Russiagate story is
merely political theater run on behalf of war profiteers and the diehard Hilllary Clinton
camp in the Democratic Party. Everything else - Manfort in the Ukraine, Trump Tower in
Moscow, etc. - is just business as usual in the American Empire, as seen in the Clinton
Foundation, Viktor Pinchuk, Uranium One, Frank Giustra, come on...
Leaving nothing but this hysterical spy game nonsense ... utter garbage, just like the
KGB-CIA private meeting rules story that Risen hyped recently - pure neocon propaganda
"President Reagan and Mikhail S. Gorbachev held three more private meetings today and
agreed to conclude their conference here with a joint appearance on Thursday morning, Larry
Speakes, the White House spokesman, announced tonight. . . Mr. Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev
began their second day of talks with a private meeting that had been scheduled to last 15
minutes but ran for nearly 70 minutes, with only interpreters present. They met in a small
room in the Soviet Mission, with the Soviet leader seated in a small armchair and Mr.
Reagan on a sofa. In the afternoon, they meet alone for a little over 20 minutes and then
again for 90 minutes. All told, the two leaders have spent 4 hours and 51 minutes alone,
except for interpreters, over the two days here."
These kind of private meetings at diplomatic events are entirely not unusual. In
fact anything that gets world leaders to talk to one another is a good idea, that can lead
to, for example, talks on nuclear weapons reductions.
Risen, turned into a PR monkey for the National Security State... that's just sad. Why
don't you parachute him into Yemen so he can see up close the results of what he's
cheerleading for?
1 week ago
Not a single American voter was influenced by Russian bots. No American voter was
strong-armed in the voting booth when they voted for Trump. Hillary lost after she ignored
great swathes of ordinary working class folks and called them 'irredeemable deplorables'....
because they voted for Trump.
She didn't even have the insight to understand that they voted for him over her because
she had a smug, condescending 'tude and it rankled.
The Democrats will have to unseat Trump under a strong economy. The average American
working class stiff is not spending sleepless nights worried about climate change. They are
worried about how they will pay their bills.
All the other issues are secondary to this. Democrats will have to get up at home base and
bat it out of the ballpark. Or they will lose again. Mocking religious people, particularly
Christians, is not a good idea, unless you think denigrating voters are going to make them
want to vote for you. The contempt for these white, Christian, Catholic, Jewish voters is
wide and long within the Democrat party.
Not wise.
1 week ago
The Democrats will have to unseat Trump under a strong economy. The average American
working class stiff is not spending sleepless nights worried about climate change. They are
worried about how they will pay their bills.
Partly true, but the economy is not actually very strong. The corporate media
won't tell you this - and that is proof that they're not "liberal" in any meaningful fashion,
but the indicators are being skewed and lied about.
But keep believing your "black unemployment" at a record low propaganda as such. At least
you might be retired and the inevitable crash that is coming after Trump's re-election won't
hurt you much. In any case, if it does you can bet that Trump will attack Iran, as he is a
complete stooge to Israel and Saudi Arabia at this point - just like his swamp neocon
cabinet.
1 week ago
I think Trump is pragmatic...financially. He ran on "no more wars' that leave our economy
in shreds and killing millions of innocents and thousands of our soldiers. He was explicit
about this, so if he turn now to attacking Iran, he will have lost his head completely.
Everyone knows a war in the ME will ignite another Holocaust, Armageddon if you will. It
will be certainly, WWIII.
No, I have no idea, nor anyone else, if the economy improve or plummets, but I still
believe it is the bread and butter issues that cause the American voter to push that lever.
And they one they trust most; that they feel understand them best.
1 week ago
Borrowing one from Tom Drake though he agrees with your conclusions more than I do,
Jim.
I'm old enough to remember when Jim Risen wrote about the sprawling American spy
game.
1 week ago
Fer chrissake, Jim, give it up! You are becoming like the Japanese soldier who didn't know
World War 2 ended 20 years earlier and his side LOST!
1 week ago
Butina was "not a spy in the traditional sense," the Justice Department now says.
This is true .. . traditional spies rarely "infiltrate the NRA (National Rifle
Association)" and various associated "right wing groups".
*what could the NRA possibly have of value?
1 week ago
She wanted to sell guns and make money.....You do know the USA is the biggest arms dealer
on the planet right ?......bar none?
1 week ago
Maybe I misunderstood? Did I miss the irony? I thought he was saying that Butina was a
Russian spy? And her association with the NRA was a link to that? Putin is vociferously
against gun rights and she was under constant surveillance from Putin.
1 week ago
Heres another unanswered question....
Why did the FBI allow a private company with proved Bias against Russia and worked for the
DNC to investigate the servers?......Wasnt this a crime scene and then hacking was blamed on
Russia based on this bogus and biased investigation?
"Both the DNC and the security firm Crowdstrike, hired to respond to the breach, have said
repeatedly over the years that they gave the FBI a "COPY"of all the DNC images back in 2016."
"The FBI was given" IMAGES" of servers, forensic "COPIES", as well as a host of other
forensic information we collected from our systems," said Adrienne Watson, the DNC's deputy
communications director.
"We were in close contact and worked cooperatively with the FBI and were always responsive
to their requests. Any suggestion that they were denied access to what they wanted for their
investigation is completely incorrect." The FBI declined comment for this story, but in
testimony before the House Intelligence Committee last year, then-director James Comey said
that Crowdstrike "ultimately shared with us their forensics.
"At that same hearing, Comey complained that the DNC didn't give the FBI direct access to
the DNC's servers" Comey: DNC denied FBI's requests for access to hacked servers
By Joe Lauria The two sources that originated the allegations claiming that Russia meddled
in the 2016 election -- without providing convincing evidence -- were both paid for by the
Democratic National Committee, and in one instance also by the Clinton campaign: the Steele
dossier and the CrowdStrike analysis of the DNC servers.
They always forget the disclaimer: "No animals were harmed in the writing of this story,
only humans."
1 week ago
You know what they are still pushing this right?.......to get Assange and criminalize real
journalism.
They have already tried to tie Assange to Stone....who is a liar and fraud
And they need this ruse to tie Assange to Russia and Trumps election....its about
criminalizing journalism and overturning a USA election.
1 week ago (Edited)
"Manafort and Butina may have been on two sides of a complex new kind of spy game that few
outsiders understand." - Risen
If that's so, why aren't you busting the chops of Mueller and our "intelligence"
agencies for not doing their job? Hell, the Mueller report cost more than the Russians
allegedly spent to influene both our election and Trump.
Also, specifically regarding Butina, who was actually quite overt in her activities during
the years preceding this imbroglio, the only "conspiracy" seems to be the "conspiracy" to act
as an agent for a foreign government (which is not being a "spy") and which has never
garnered this type of charge or sentencing based on the evidence that existed or what was
actually presented at trial.
It's this ongoing Russiagate hysteria that The Intercept, via Risen, Reed, Schwarz, et al
keep promoting for all the wrong reasons that gives us a world where journalists and
publishers like Assange are facing jail time in a foreign country; where Chelsea Manning is
in jail right now for refusing to cooperate with charades like this; and where harmless
foreigners like Butina are tortured in solitary confinement, then sentenced to prison by
misusing the law in order to punish them.
How in the world can the article here even approach the Intercepts own standards
of: "holding the powerful accountable...[with] in-depth investigations and unflinching
analysis..." when it starts with an unverified premise that hasn't been corroborated
independently and ends with the exact same theme?
"[Russiagate is] a complex new kind of spy game that few outsiders understand." - Risen
& The Intercept editors
Again - this type of "journalism" is what prevents me and many others from donating to
The Intercept. We simply won't pay for elaborate and unqualified hearsay.
1 week ago
Real journalism... The Spy who Wasnt
The U.S. government went looking for someone to blame for Russia's interference in the
2016 election -- and found Maria Butina, the perfect scapegoat. By James Bamford
But internally, some employees say Greenwald's presence undermines the site's work.
"People assume Glenn's tweets reflect some sort of internal consensus, but the truth is I
don't think there's a single other person here who agreed with him on Trump/Russia," says
one Intercept staffer. "I'd hope people don't view us as less legitimate just because of
one guy."
No they view TI as less legit because of James Risen, Mehdi Hasan, Juan
Thompson, Betsy Reed, and Beto Mackey.
Exactly...
1 week ago
The last sentence mentioning Manafort and Butina is unsettling.
Already Manafort, an acknowledged operative for hire, got the shaft.
Risen bringing in Butina, who already spent a good time in solitary confinement smells really
bad.
She got no justice.
She is the new symbol of mind-boggling Russophobia.
1 week ago
"Risen bringing in Butina, who already spent a good time in solitary confinement smells
really bad. She got no justice."
It really is a travesty of justice. James Bamford published this in The New Republic:
"The Russian Spy Who Wasn't: The U.S. government went looking for someone to blame for
Russia's interference in the 2016 election -- and found Maria Butina, the perfect
scapegoat."https://newrepublic.com/article/153036/maria-butina-profile-wasnt-russian-spy
Prosecutors were hoping to get her to plead guilty rather than go to trial, and had even
agreed to drop the major charge against her: acting as an unregistered foreign agent of
Russia. Born and raised in Siberia, she is terrified of solitary confinement. Fifteen days
later, still in solitary, she signed the agreement, pleading guilty to the lesser charge,
one count of conspiracy. During our interviews before her arrest, Butina told me
that she was "a huge fan" of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. "I love the story," she
said. "For some reason it fascinates me. It seems to be simple, but it's so complicated a
story." Stepping off the plane to begin grad school at the start of the Trump-Russia
maelstrom, she, like Alice, began her tumble down the rabbit hole.
1 week ago
It is mind boggling. I would expect a man of Risen' s experience to have the nous to start
rowing back now. Instead he's doubling down, getting wilder, allowing the very last vestiges
of his credibility to circle the drain. Very sad to witness.
1 week ago
Maybe he is crying for help....his hysteria and hyperbole are almost comical.
the deep state seems to have gotten him and good
1 week ago
It's reminiscent of what Risen did to Mr Wen Ho Lee who also served time in solitary and
did so because Risen had singled him out to be the spy of the century.
Ultimately Risen's former employer, The New York Times, apologized for their coverage of
Lee but that may have had something to do with Lee's lawsuit against the Times and other
major outlets in which he ultimately won.
But having a 1.3 million in legal fees, loss of his job, 9 months in solitary, reputation
obliterated does make the 1.6 million award seem merely symbolic. Risen's career continued
and now he's doing the same thing to others here. In this country, scoundrels are rewarded
while their victims suffer more under the system.
Butina's treatment under our "justice" system is even worse than Lee's and being a non
citizen, she may have fewer recourse available to her to address this injustice.
1 week ago
Democrats didnt protest when Obama tortured Manning to try to get her to lie about
Assange....this is the new normal
Washington Has Destroyed Western Liberty: The Era of Tyranny Has Begun
"The entire Western world is adopting Washington's approach to Assange and criminalizing
the practice of journalism, thus protecting governments' criminality. If you reveal a
government crime, as Wikileaks did, you will be prosecuted by the criminal government for
doing so. It is like permitting a criminal to prosecute the police and prosecutor who want
him arrested."
The "war on terror" was a disguise for an attack on the US Constitution, an attack that
has succeeded. The worst act of treason in history is the US government's destruction of the
US Constitution. The era of tyranny has begun. Elections cannot stop it. "
Risen is desperately trying to revive his career by reanimating this Russia zombie.
His sprawling narrative has gone from "Trump committed treason" to "Trump conspired" to
"Trump and co made illicit contacts". At each step, what has motivated the change in
narrative is cold hard reality.
He's a grifter. We can all see this.
1 week ago
Risen is right that there are plenty of unanswered questions. Just not the ones he is
asking
Special Counsel Mueller: Disingenuous and Dishonest Larry C. Johnson "The impetus, the
encouragement for the Moscow project came from one man -- Felix Sater. This produced nothing.
No deal, no trip. But Sater persisted, targeting Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer and
an executive in the Trump Organization To reiterate -- if the Steele Dossier were based on
truthful intelligence then the Trump Organization only had to sit back, stretch out its hands
and seize the moment. Instead, little Felix Sater keeps coming back to the well. "Why was
Felix Sater the one repeatedly identified pushing to arrange deals with the Russians and yet
did not face any subsequent charges by the Mueller team? Sater had been working as part of
the Trump team since 2003. Why is it that the proposed deals and travel to Moscow came
predominantly from Felix Sater? As I noted in my previous piece -- The FBI Tried and Failed
to Entrap Trump -- Sater was an active FBI undercover informant. He had been working with the
FBI since 1998. When he agreed to start working as an undercover informant aka cooperator in
December 1998 guess who signed off on the deal? Andrew Weissman, a member of Mueller's
special counsel team.You can see the deal here.
It was signed Dec. 10, 1998." "An honest prosecutor would have and should have disclosed this
fact. He, Sater, was the one encouraging the Trump team to cozy up to Russia. Mueller does
not disclose one single instance of Trump or Cohen or any of the Trump kids calling Sater on
the carpet and chewing his ass for not bringing them deals and not opening doors in Russia.
Omitting this key fact goes beyond simple disingenuity. It is a conscious lie. The
circumstantial evidence indicates that Sater was doing this at the behest of FBI handlers. We
do not yet know who they are."
Larry C. Johnson is a former CIA analyst and counterterrorism official at the State
Department.
1 week ago
Stefan Halper was also an FBI 'player' who was feeding information to Papadopoulos, and
Joseph Midsuf, Alexander Downer and Christopher Steele were also working for the Brits and
American intelligence groups (although the FBI cut off paying Steele for lying to them).
Natalya Veselnitskaya was the Russian lawyer who met with the Trump people. She had meetings
with Fusion GPS both before and after her meetings with Trump's campaign, and since Fusion
GPS was also working with the Ohrs and FBI/Justice department with the Kremlin dossier, it
seems Russiagate was an elaborate entrapment scheme by the DNC/ Obama administration that
failed. Once Hillary stated that Trump was a Putin puppet, that made it official and the
wheels started turning.
Moreover as Risen notes Manafort and Kelly went to jail for lying under oath. Mueller lied
under oath about WMD in Iraq, and Clapper and Brennan also lied under oath about illegally
surveilling Americans. Hopefully they'll also be in jail soon.
1 week ago
Dont hold your breath.....Criminals are now in complete control.No matter how much "evidence" is provided there is no
consequence for them.
ask Bush and Cheney who lied the world into war.....and worse.....
Clapper and Brennan and Haden and Haskel were all promoted FOR LYING....{As was
Mueller.}.. and even given jobs on MSNBC and CNN........!!
Apparently the more heinous the crime the higher you get in the USA government.Isnt that
the only lesson here?And democrats are the cheerleader for the Bush criminals?
I afraid the only people who will see the inside of a jail cell are the ones who go
against them....and they are being purged from the internet left and right!!
1 week ago
The real sprawling Russian spy games were on the democrats side.
The bogus Steele Dossier was compiled from top Russian government officials and used to
illegally spy on the Trump campaign.
Halper a FBI Informant in the U.K. pushed Trump advisors to seek out dirt on Hillary as
did FBI Informant Felix Sater
The Russian lawyer who met with Trump jr worked for Fusion GPS and had nothing.
The FBI never saw the servers but used the company that worked for the DNC and has proved
anti Russia bias to do the "investigation "
Wasnt this a crime scene?
Now all the "evidence " of Russian "hacking " is tainted and can't be used in any trials
or court.
Both Assange and Ambassador Craig Murray say that it was a leak and not a hack and neither
of them have ever been interviewed by the FBI even though they both offered to.
Worse than Watergate and it went to the very Top!
FBI texts: Obama 'wants to know everything we're doing'
Thats the only spy games and Russian collusion that can be proved.
1 week ago
So, Mike5000, why do you think millions of Democratic-leaning and Democratic voters
didn't turn out to vote for Hillary Clinton? Was it all the "Buff Bernie" coloring books St.
Petersberg trolls were pitching on FB?
1 week ago
Mueller is a bush criminal who hates Trump
FBI texts: Obama 'wants to know everything we're doing'
A rather significant "unanswered question" that predates Trump slightly is why Obama
didn't initiate both investigation and counter measures to attempts he claimed had been going
on for years .... (because the internet is porous and hackers will hack, regardless of
"motive" (like the bear and the mountain**) or even reward.
** The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see.
1 week ago
Risen omitting the fact that Manafort was working with the Podesta Group seems quite the
oversight.
Obama and Biden were well aware of Manaforts efforts in the Ukraine. Manafort was working
against Russian interests. Remember that the USA backed a coup in the Ukraine with Nazis with
PNAC Victoria " F the EU" Nuland support. Manafort's pro-Ukraine lobbying campaign reached
Obama, Biden
"Alan Friedman, a former journalist based in Europe who helped Manafort launch the group,
told Manafort after the meeting that the member of the Hapsburg Group "delivered the message
of not letting 'Russians steal Ukraine from the West,'" prosecutors say."
What the USA did in the Ukraine was the real crime.
1 week ago
yes, Trump in a crook, a conman, a liar and a racist and is oddly "collateral damage", a
bit part, in this passion play that began when Putin took office and eventually took the
reins to the Russian economy back from the wanna-be American rulers of the universe. I
saw/heard a day or so ago a brilliant Max Blumental 3 minute oral summary of this ongoing
vendetta against Putin for thwarting American interests in gutting Russia.
There probably is a real scandal here ... just not the one the media is interested in
...
1 week ago
Exactly!!
Putin dares to fight back against the looting and starvation of the Russian people.
Start here
The usual suspects
Can We Blame Larry Summers for the Collapse of Russia?
Man, this Risen guy sure has a serious case of TDS.
GIVE IT UP, RISEN; THERE'S NO GOOD REASON TO TREAT RUSSIA AS AN ENEMY, and LOTS of good
reasons NOT to!
It's called THERMONUCLEAR WAR, silly.
Don't beat the drum of war with them, you just might get it!
1 week ago
Trump couldn't even get the tower project through and never talked to anyone above a
secretary and asked Stone to connect with Wikileaks
If he was at all colluding with Putin he wouldn't have needed Wikileaks
All Logic has disappeared from these people.
1 week ago
Russian ruling class oligarchs colluding with American ruling class oligarchs? Oh so
unbelievable! Ties and lies --- shocking, just shocking. I'm sure we will have the
oligarchy-owned mainstream media to black this rumor out and telling us it just ain't so.
1 week ago
Much of this is being pushed by the olygarchs Putin kicked out!
They went to the UK and USA and are working to depose Putin.
1 week ago
The problem with your thinking is that the American oligarchs hate Trump, and loved
Hillary, while the Russian oligarchs hate the American oligarchs because the American
oligarchs want to crush them.
And the best way for AMERICAN oligarchs to keep the American public from voting in an
antiTrump (not a pseudoliberal of the Clinton and Obama type, but an ACTUAL liberal of the
MLK type, whose antioligarch stances have been almost edited away) is to divert attention
away from the flaws in the American system he lays bare (the cheating, thieving, and racism
endemic amongst the oligarchs) is to create a 'hidden enemy of the people' (The same tactic
that a certain short Austrian used in Germany)
1 week ago
Like the one Israeli govt has been doing, especially as uncovered in the Al Jazeera
documentary?
In the end, Mueller's investigators could not find evidence that Manafort coordinated his
actions with the sophisticated Russian cybercampaign to help Trump win. But the report
makes clear that there were many instances in which Mueller wasn't able to get to the
bottom of things and often couldn't determine the whole story behind the Trump-Russia
contacts.
For whatever reason, the pro-Trump narrative leaves out the fact that Mueller
was repeatedly stonewalled or lied to by members of the Trump team.
I think they leave out this crucial bit of information because they think it's fine for
their side to lie, dissemble and stonewall investigations, but not for the
other side. It's hypocritical and a double standard, but it's worse than that because it
makes clear that lying, stonewalling and all the rest is OK and getting away with it is
admirable -- depending of course on who gets away with it. If it's Trump,
whoo-hoo! If it's Hillary or Obama, booooooooo! These are examples of pure
partisanship but the process extends well beyond political calculations.
Risen, of all people, should be all too familiar with the process, as he was very deeply
involved as a reporter and conduit of misinformation and scapegoating in the Wen Ho Lee
debacle. A reporter is in a tough position when s/he is lied to and stonewalled, but as I
often say, "skepticism is a virtue," regardless of who is doing the lying and
stonewalling.
Instead of normalizing this behavior, we should be refusing to accept the lack of
accountability by our leaders, whoever they are, and we should reject a double standard that
encourages impunity and immunity depending on one's status.
1 week ago
"Manafort coordinated his actions with the sophisticated Russian cybercampaign to
help Trump win."
Yes, we know your pro-Trump narrative is one of denial about what was going on during the
2016 campaign and what is documented in the Mueller Report -- which itself is incomplete.
Yes, it's objectively "pro-Trump" to have panic attacks about Facebook ads advising that
Jesus will help masturbating young lads "beat it together." pfffft
Oh, I'm sure Kellyanne is deeply concerned about the dread scourge of masturbating
American youth. Just so long as she doesn't also support the dire Russian threats Risen
alludes to, the ones that seek to exploit those poor suffering, self-abusing children of god.
Lured to the Kremlin's lair by Yosemite Sam!
1 week ago
If you ever bother to read the report -- or even if you have more than superficial
memories of what was going on during the 2016 election campaign -- you'll find out that your
continued denials are simply stupid. You really should be skeptical of the White House's
spin, Greenwald's triumphalism, Maté's authority, and yes, Mueller's incomplete
report.
Laugh while you can. Blowback is a bitch.
1 week ago
A wee-tad over the top, Felix
phase two of the Kubler Ross "Five Stages of Grief".
Sadly, there is no one in the Cult of Mueller who can help you.
You need to understand that many good progressives contend that Russiagate actually served
Trump; so, please chill it.
1 week ago
Whut? You're really out of your depth.
Reread:
You really should be skeptical of the White House's spin, Greenwald's triumphalism,
Maté's authority, and yes, Mueller's incomplete report.
Then tell me again about the Cult of Mueller.
Mona, Glenn, Barr, Trump and many others like to mischaracterize what's in the Mueller
Report in order to keep their "exoneration" narrative going. They would be delighted if Trump
were kept in the White House after the 2020 election. If they can celebrate his
invincibility, so much the better.
Whether or not the myriad investigations into Trump's corruption and criminality are
helping him is beside the point.
If he didn't have the kind of help he needs from the right people who matter, whether
media, politicians, billionaires or the smartest people in the room, he wouldn't be in
office. So long as those people are happy enough with Trump, he stays, no matter what the
Dems do or don't do.
"Progressives" have no say in the matter.
Well, maybe except for that "progressive" named "Pierre."
Have a nice day.
1 week ago
Now see, Felix, this is no the product of a temperate mind with a capacity for sound
reasoning:
Mona, Glenn, Barr, Trump and many others like to mischaracterize what's in the Mueller
Report in order to keep their "exoneration" narrative going. They would be delighted if
Trump were kept in the White House after the 2020 election.
I've read the Mueller Report -- parts of it multiple times. Nothing therein salvages the
Russian trolls as anything but the silly, financially motivated goofballs my quotes of
their adolescent output show them to be. That you take their childish junk with the
utmost seriousness suggests disturbing things about your emotional health.
1 week ago
Guess what? I don't believe you have read the report. I think you're lying again. If you
think the only thing Mueller describes Russian interests doing is buying a few ads on
Facebook (just as Jared was saying the other day) you couldn't have read it, nor could you
have any memory at all what was taking place during the 2016 campaign.
Losing one's mind to perpetuate a false narrative is a terrible thing. Watching your
deterioration as Mueller's report makes mincemeat of your pathetic revisionism and Glenn's
triumphalism is sad.
1 week ago
This is...like arguing evolution with a creationist fundamentalist:
"Watching your deterioration as Mueller's report makes mincemeat of your pathetic
revisionism and Glenn's triumphalism is sad."
"Mueller describes Russian interests doing is buying a few ads on Facebook"
Like what, and please be specific about the three most serious.
1 week ago
What happened during the campaign was Hillary Clinton picked Trump and cheated Sanders and
conspired with the FBI and DOJ to blackmail and illegally spy on the Trump campaign and put
moles in his campaign and with the help of Fusion GPS and FBI informants Halper I'm the UK
and Felix Sater pushed meetings with Russians.
Not a mention of Fusion GPS and the bogus Steele Dossier that the FBI used to lie to the
FISA court and illegally spy on Trump campaign.
Thats quite the omission.
We need to get Steele and Halper and Fusion GPS CEO under oath to testify.
1 week ago
None of the " lies" had anything to do with Russia collusion.Most of the "Lies" didn't
even have an underlying crime.
Gen Flynn didn't lie but they did bankrupt him and blackmail him and destroy his life.And
got him to plea guilty to make it stop.
Comey Told Congress FBI Agents Didn't Think Flynn Lied
In the end, Mueller's investigators could not find evidence that Manafort coordinated his
actions with the sophisticated Russian cybercampaign to help Trump win.
Narrator: "Risen never mentioned in his piece that Manafort was found in
the investigation to have been working with the Ukrainian government, trying to get them to
move away from Russia, and embrace the West in economic policies. That the reality of what
Manafort was doing undercut the core Russiagate allegation that Manafort was working as a
go-between for Russia and Trump didn't seem to perturb Risen one bit."
The report doesn't offer any other explanation for the release of the Podesta emails on
what turned out to be one of the most important days of the 2016 campaign.
Narrator: "Risen seems to argue that, in the absence of any evidence that
his conspiracy theory is true, the absence of any counter-explanation is nonetheless evidence
in favor of his conspiracy theory."
1 week ago
"In the end, Mueller's investigators could not find evidence [of] the sophisticated Russian
cybercampaign to help Trump win."
It's garbage journalism that allows this uncorroborated assertion to take
what has always been the first step in the downward spiral of hysteria that is Russiagate.
Everything that follows this argument is based on this claim being true. Without this
claim there would be no Russiagate.
Again, it's journalistic malpractice to allow this claim to remain unchallenged - yet Jim
Risen, Jon Schwarz, and the Intercept editorial staff just continue the ruse.
I'm not saying it didn't happen; I'm saying there's not enough independent
corroboration to allow for the amount of coverage here (of all places) and elsewhere
based on the single-source- consensus (our intelligence agencies) that this continues to
receive.
Is The Intercept is buying into the gateway drug of "Russia Attacks!" because they either
want to be "fair and balanced" or they want the traffic generated by the articles to attract
readership?
Creating content that, whatever the subject, 1) assumes an allegation to be true, 2)
posits further possible outcomes based on that assumption is not journalism, it's reading tea
leaves.
Aaron reports he's been blackballed from this site since his one piece (on Rachel Maddow
and Russigate) in 2017. (Scahill had Aaron on a podcast, but the site refused to publish
anything Aaron submitted.) Instead we get the dreck above, notwithstanding that Aaron won
an Izzy Award for his Russigate reporting.
1 week ago
Greenwald extensively addresses the dynamics with his Intercept colleagues -- and with the
world of journalism more broadly -- in this podcast with Michael Tracey from a few days ago:
"Glenn Greenwald on Mueller Report fallout and media corruption - Glennzilla shares his
insights on the horrendous conduct of the American media in relation to the spellbindingly
deluded fallout from the Mueller Report."https://www.patreon.com/posts/26365124
1. RUSSIAGATE WITHOUT RUSSIA
2. RUSSIAGATE'S PREDICATE LED NOWHERE
3. SERGEY KISLYAK HAD "BRIEF AND NON-SUBSTANTIVE" INTERACTIONS WITH THE TRUMP CAMP
4. TRUMP TOWER MOSCOW HAD NO HELP FROM MOSCOW
5. AND TRUMP DIDN'T ASK COHEN TO LIE ABOUT IT
6. THE TRUMP TOWER MEETING REALLY WAS JUST A "WASTE OF TIME"
7. MANAFORT DID NOT SHARE POLLING DATA TO MEDDLE IN THE US ELECTION
8. THE STEELE DOSSIER WAS FICTION
9. THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN HAD NO SECRET CHANNEL TO WIKILEAKS
10. THERE WAS NO COVER-UP
About Point 1, Aaron writes:
The report contains no evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin
representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian ambassador
and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a
conspiracy (more on them later).
It should be no surprise, then, to learn from Mueller that, when "Russian government
officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new
administration" after Trump's election victory, they did not know whom to call.
These powerful Russians, Mueller noted, "appeared not to have preexisting contacts and
struggled to connect with senior officials around the President-Elect." If top Russians
did not have "preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with" the people that they
supposedly conspired with, perhaps that is because they did not actually conspire.
This podcast interview with Lisa Pease on her new 500-page primary-sourced book, A Lie Too
Big To Fail, on the RFK assassination, is fascinating, sobering, terrifying.
It should put to rest any notion that US elections have fundamentally mattered since 1963.
Amazing the stuff the CIA pulled off in quick succession in the 60's. Also did not yet know
the likely Israel connection in the RFK assassination and the convenient framing of Sirhan
Sirhan as "the first Palestinian terrorist..." RFK was according to Pease going to demand
that Israel register its lobbying actions, and other connections to the six-day war also
noted by interviewers...
Laurent Guyénot has some good pieces at Unz Review on this topic. I don't think I
can post a link to Unz here, but this piece covers both JFK and Bobby: "Did Israel Kill
the Kennedys?" It shouldn't be hard to find over there, the search is good.
The incentive for Israel to kill JFK was large. Bobby was running for the presidency in
order to reopen the investigation. Apparently the Kennedy family has never forgotten. John F.
Kennedy, Jr was grooming himself for that same presidential run. He was killed when his small
plane crashed, mysteriously.
Thanks for that reference to the laurent guyenot piece. It holds together very well as a
unified account of the JFK and RFK murders and contains several bits of info about the JFK
assassination I was not aware of. It would seem to me that if we accept that Israel was
behind both assassinations it must have been with *at least* the foreknowledge of and likely
cooperation with certain elements within the CIA. The extent of direct CIA involvement in the
RFK murder is likely (and surprisingly for most) easier to demonstrate than in the earlier
JFK killing; and that makes sense, given Johnson's complicity in the murder and five-years of
state cover up. By 1968, many people in the CIA had almost as much to fear as Israel did at
the prospect of RFK's reinvestigating his brother's murder, so that the RFK was likely a
joint operation between the two groups. At least I find it hard to imagine that the CIA was
not actively involved in the latter. I also--and here perhaps I differ from
Guyénot--do not believe that *if* elements of the CIA were involved in either murder
it was only or largely due to these same elements having ties to Israel. Perhaps this is so;
but I think it is likely not. Good ole American evil existed before foreign Zionist evil and,
while
the two have often been inextricably linked since the mid 20th-century, I do not think either
finally reduces to the other. I say this not because I believe you think this, but only to
try to articulate my one quibble with Guyenot's approach. Yet it is a very minor quibble and
I thank you again for pointing me to her work.
"... "What if you substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me). ..."
"... "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Israel?" ..."
"... The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller pulled the plug, I can’t say. ..."
Second hour: Journalist and TV host Ken Meyercord (also based in Washington, DC)
writes:
"I attended an event at the Brookings Institution yesterday on the Mueller Report. As is
sadly customary at DC think tanks, the panelists and the moderator were all of one mind.
Nevertheless, one panelist, a former US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (a
court notorious for rubber-stamping any charge the government brings against those who
disrupt the smooth functioning of our foreign policy apparatus), made a curious analogy,
arguing that the contacts Trump and his associates had with Russians would be culpable even
if the contacts were with some other, less hostile country:
His remark got me to thinking, so in the Q & A I sought to ask him "What if you
substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look
right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me).
I don't know what his response would have been; but if he said it would still apply, I
would have followed up with "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller
investigation into possible collusion with Israel?"
"The more I think about it, the more intriguing I find Mr. Rosenberg's remark. He seemed
to think the sheer number of contacts by Trump folks with Russians proved culpability. It
might be interesting to compare Trump's contacts with the Russians during the campaign with
his contacts with Israelis. I suspect the latter were more numerous and of greater
significance. Certainly, Trump's acts as President would seem to indicate he's more
Netanyahu's puppet than Putin's: moving the embassy to Jerusalem, cutting off aid to the
Palestinians, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Imagine if Putin
proposed naming a village in Russia after Trump in appreciation, as Netanyahu has proposed
doing in the Golan Heights!
"P.S. Ueli Maurer is the President of the Swiss Confederation."
The entire Western media is the enemy of the people. The Demogangsters and the mediocrats,
Public Enemy #1, were angry that Trump won the election, so they fabricated a scam called
contacts with Russians.
They are saying that Trump and his people talked to the Russians as private citizens
before the election, so it is illegal.
What? Talking to Russians is illegal? Really? Says who?
They will not tell you the law that was allegedly broken, because the law that was
allegedly broken itself is illegal.
It is the Logan Act which “criminalizes negotiations by unauthorized persons with
foreign governments having a dispute with the United States.”
Only in America—the criminal Democrats have investigated an innocent man for a
non-existent crime of violating an unconstitutional law.
While I would not say this happens only in America, this sort of thing is actually
long-standing policy in the US. As long ago as 1944 in Wickard vs. Filburn, the Democrat
Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man for not merely raising food on his own land, but
for failing to offer the food for sale, on the rationale that the non-sale affected
Interstate Commerce as much as if he had offered it for sale. Since then it has been
‘constitutional’ to find federal jurisdiction over even private vegetable gardens
grown exclusively for domestic consumption. Under this theory, even breathing oxygen places
one under federal jurisdiction because it is followed by exhaling CO2.
One of the most surprising things I discovered when I began to practice law was the fact
that no one is ‘innocent’. I.e, there is always some law somewhere that is being
‘broken’ no matter what one does, which means that if the government wants
someone, they can always convict him because the government can always find some law he has
broken. I’m speaking ironically, of course. Many of these laws should be
unconstitutional. Just don’t bet that SCOTUS will ever rule that way because, as
Gorsuch recently pronounced, “that’s all been settled.”
The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s
impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller
pulled the plug, I can’t say.
"... Former American spies have been complaining for years that capturing the keystrokes of all people in America 24/7 produces information overload -- too much data to sift through when searching for those trying to harm our way of life. ..."
But the American intelligence community should have known. It captures all the fiber optic
communications of all people in America. This mass suspicionless surveillance is unlawful and
unconstitutional, but the leadership of our 60,000-person strong domestic spying apparatus has
persuaded every president since George H.W. Bush that all this spying keeps America safe. We
now know that it doesn't. It didn't find a single Russian spy bent on influencing the
election.
Former American spies have been complaining for years that capturing the keystrokes of
all people in America 24/7 produces information overload -- too much data to sift through when
searching for those trying to harm our way of life.
"... Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan. ..."
"... The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long? The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the FBI. ..."
"... McCabe and Rosenstein are enemies within! ..."
"... When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots only work under orders they don't think on their own. ..."
"... Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one of yours. ..."
"... The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail. These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards. ..."
"... Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions of power. ..."
"... Deep State poster boy. Full of hubris and entitlement. Power corrupts. ..."
"... McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected president. ..."
"... So McCabe appointed himself the FBI, Pratorian Guard, to protect us against Russia? ..."
Kevin Brock, former FBI assistant director for intelligence, and Terry Turchie, former
deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division, fire back at former FBI Director
Andrew McCabe.
Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the
Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan.
The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long?
The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing
Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the
FBI.
When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and
communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it
to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI
folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots
only work under orders they don't think on their own.
Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing
about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He
tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one
of yours.
The fix was in. The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of
admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the
FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail.
These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards.
Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a
crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions
of power. Mr Trump upset their world with his electoral victory. President Trump is hated by
the political class because he has come as the destroyer of their world.
McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected
president. He should be behind bars rather than selling his book on TV. Lock up McCabe,
Rosenstein and the rest of the Deep State coup gang and DRAIN-THE-SWAMP.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussed his career, the FBI, and his firing from
the Bureau. He was interviewed by New York Times reporter Adam Goldman.
There Was Spying: NYT Admits Obama Admin Used 'Honeypot' To Spy Against Trump Campaign In
2016
My response: Why would the MSM want to get out in front of what is coming by issuing this
news story? May be they are implicated as well! Below is the list of MSM career criminals who
are facing the real possibility of jail time.
=== List of MSM Career Criminals Guilty of TREASON, SEDITION and/or SUBVERSIVE
activities!! ===
These reporters and networks have been named in the WikiLeaks to have colluded with the
DNC or Hillary campaign during the 2016 election cycle:
ABC – Cecilia Vega ABC - David Muir ABC – Diane Sawyer ABC – George Stephanoplous ABC – Jon Karl ABC – Liz Kreutz AP – Julie Pace AP – Ken Thomas AP – Lisa Lerer AURN – April Ryan Bloomberg – Jennifer Epstein Bloomberg – John Heillman Bloomberg/MSNBC – Jonathan Alter Bloomberg – Mark Halperin Buzzfeed – Ben Smith Buzzfeed – Ruby Cramer CBS – Gayle King CBS – John Dickerson CBS – Norah O'Donnell CBS – Steve Chagaris CBS – Vicki Gordon CNBC – John Harwood CNN – Brianna Keilar CNN – Dan Merica CNN – David Chailan CNN – Erin Burnett CNN – Gloria Borger CNN – Jake Tapper CNN – Jeff Zeleny CNN - Jeff Zucker CNN – John Berman CNN – Kate Bouldan CNN – Maria Cardona CNN – Mark Preston CNN – Sam Feist Daily Beast – Jackie Kucinich GPG – Mike Feldman HuffPo – Amanda Terkel HuffPo – Arianna Huffington HuffPo – Sam Stein HuffPo – Whitney Snyder LAT – Evan Handler LAT – Mike Memoli McClatchy – Anita Kumar MORE – Betsy Fisher Martin MSNBC – Alex Seitz-Wald MSNBC – Alex Wagner MSNBC – Andrea Mitchell MSNBC - Beth Fouhy MSNBC – Ed Schultz MSNBC – Joe Scarborough MSNBC – Mika Brzezinski MSNBC – Phil Griffin MSNBC – Rachel Maddow MSNBC – Rachel Racusen MSNBC – Thomas Roberts National Journal – Emily Schultheis NBC – Chuck Todd NBC – Mark Murray NBC – Savannah Gutherie New Yorker – David Remnick New Yorker – Ryan Liza NPR – Mike Oreskes NPR – Tamara Keith NY Post – Geofe Earl NYT – Amy Chozik NYT – Carolyn Ryan NYT – Gail Collins NYT – John Harwoodje NYT – Jonathan Martin NYT – Maggie Haberman NYT – Pat Healey PBS – Charlie Rose People – Sandra Sobieraj Westfall Politico – Annie Karni Politico – Gabe Debenedetti Politico – Glenn Thrush Politico – Kenneth Vogel Politico – Mike Allen Reuters – Amanda Becker Tina Brown – Tina Brown The Hill – Amie Parnes Univision – Maria-Elena Salinas Vice – Alyssa Mastramonoco Vox – Jon Allen WaPo – Anne Gearan WaPo – Greg Sargent WSJ – Laura Meckler WSJ – Peter Nicholas WSJ – Colleen McCain Nelson Yahoo – Matt Bai
"... Zero Percent of Elite Commentators Oppose Regime Change in Venezuela ..."
"... It's so frustrating to see the current lunacy in the mainstream media, and the idiotocracy at work in Washington DC, regardless of political party or who's fat ass sits in the oval office. Tulsi Gabbard is about the only sane person in DC right now on foreign affairs - forget Sanders, Warren and 'regular guy' Joe Biden ..."
< somewhat surprising to me at first glance, but with a little further thought, as to be
expected - the US media is corporate controlled, pro-militarism, pro-interventionism,
pro-armaments sales, and totally pro-regime change - anywhere in the world. All
editorialists are neo-colonialists and imperialists at heart, regardless of who occupies
the white house>
Zero Percent of Elite Commentators Oppose Regime Change in Venezuela
A FAIR survey of US opinion journalism on Venezuela found no voices in elite corporate
media that opposed regime change in that country. Over a three-month period (1/15/19 --
4/15/19), zero opinion pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post took an anti --
regime change or pro-Maduro/Chavista position.
Not a single commentator on the big three
Sunday morning talkshows or PBS NewsHour came out against President Nicolás Maduro
stepping down from the Venezuelan government.....
Let's make a mess of Venezuela, you know, like the US has done across the middle
east/north Africa since.... well since almost forever....
It's so frustrating to see the current lunacy in the mainstream media, and the idiotocracy
at work in Washington DC, regardless of political party or who's fat ass sits in the oval
office. Tulsi Gabbard is about the only sane person in DC right now on foreign affairs -
forget Sanders, Warren and 'regular guy' Joe Biden
It is not amazing. That's about intelligence agencies control, nothing else.
Notable quotes:
"... Zero Percent of Elite Commentators Oppose Regime Change in Venezuela ..."
"... It's so frustrating to see the current lunacy in the mainstream media, and the idiotocracy at work in Washington DC, regardless of political party or who's fat ass sits in the oval office. Tulsi Gabbard is about the only sane person in DC right now on foreign affairs - forget Sanders, Warren and 'regular guy' Joe Biden ..."
< somewhat surprising to me at first glance, but with a little further thought, as to be
expected - the US media is corporate controlled, pro-militarism, pro-interventionism,
pro-armaments sales, and totally pro-regime change - anywhere in the world. All
editorialists are neo-colonialists and imperialists at heart, regardless of who occupies
the white house>
Zero Percent of Elite Commentators Oppose Regime Change in Venezuela
A FAIR survey of US opinion journalism on Venezuela found no voices in elite corporate
media that opposed regime change in that country. Over a three-month period (1/15/19 --
4/15/19), zero opinion pieces in the New York Times and Washington Post took an anti --
regime change or pro-Maduro/Chavista position.
Not a single commentator on the big three
Sunday morning talkshows or PBS NewsHour came out against President Nicolás Maduro
stepping down from the Venezuelan government.....
Let's make a mess of Venezuela, you know, like the US has done across the middle
east/north Africa since.... well since almost forever....
It's so frustrating to see the current lunacy in the mainstream media, and the idiotocracy
at work in Washington DC, regardless of political party or who's fat ass sits in the oval
office. Tulsi Gabbard is about the only sane person in DC right now on foreign affairs -
forget Sanders, Warren and 'regular guy' Joe Biden
"Russiagate without Russia" actually means "Isrealgate". This individual points that he mentions below does not matter. Russiagate was a carefully planned and
brilliantly executed false flag operation run by intelligences
agencies (with GB agencies playing an important in some episodes decisive role) and headed probably by Obama himself via Brennan. There
were two goals: (1) to exclude any possibility of detente with Russia and (2) to block any Trump attempts to change the USA foreign
policy including running foreign war that enrich Pentagon contractors and justify supersized budget for intelligence agencies. As such
is was a great success.
The fact that no American was indicted and that Mueller attempt to prosecute Russian marketing agneces failed does not matter. The
atmosphere is now posoned for a generation. Americans are brainwashed and residue of Russiagate will stay for a long, long time. Neocons
Bolton and Pompeo now run Trump administration foreign policy with Trump performing most ceremonial role in foreign policy domain.
In this sense Skripals poisoning was another false flag operation, which was the logical continuation of Russiagate. And Magnitsky
killing (with Browder now a primary suspect) was a precursor to it. Both were run from Great Britain.
It is actually interesting how Mueller report swiped under the carpet the role of Great Britain in unleashing the Russiagate hysteria.
Two important foreign forces in the 2016 US Presidential elections was the Israel lobby and Great Britain. Trump proved to be a
marionette not of Russia but of Israeli lobby. so sad...
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later). ..."
For more than two years, leading US political and media voices promoted a narrative that Donald Trump conspired with or was compromised
by the Kremlin, and that Special Counsel Robert Mueller would prove it. In the process, they overlooked countervailing evidence and
diverted anti-Trump energies into fervent speculation and prolonged anticipation. So long as Mueller was on the case, it was possible
to believe that " The Walls Are Closing In " on the
traitor /
puppet / asset in the
White House
.
The long-awaited completion of Mueller's probe, and the release of his redacted report, reveals this narrative -- and the expectations
it fueled -- to be unfounded. No American was indicted for conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Mueller's report
does lay out extensive evidence that Trump sought to impede the investigation, but it declines to issue a verdict on obstruction.
It presents no evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with an alleged effort by the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton,
and instead renders this conclusion: "Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the [Trump] Campaign coordinated or conspired
with the Russian government in its election-interference activities." As a result, Mueller's report provides the opposite of what
Russiagate promoters led their audiences to expect: Rather than detailing a sinister collusion plot with Russia, it presents what
amounts to an extended indictment of the conspiracy theory itself.
1. Russiagate Without Russia
The most fundamental element of a conspiracy is contact between the two parties doing the conspiring. Hence, on the eve of the
report's release, The New York
Times noted that among the "outstanding questions" that Mueller would answer were the nature of "contacts between Kremlin
intermediaries and the Trump campaign."
Mueller's report does answer that question: There were effectively no "Kremlin intermediaries." The report contains no evidence
that anyone from the Trump campaign spoke to a Kremlin representative during the election, aside from conversations with the Russian
ambassador and a press-office assistant, both of whom were ruled out as having participated in a conspiracy (more on them later).
It should be no surprise, then, to learn from Mueller that, when "Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen
began trying to make inroads into the new administration" after Trump's election victory, they did not know whom to call. These powerful
Russians, Mueller noted, "appeared not to have preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with senior officials around the President-Elect."
If top Russians did not have "preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with" the people that they supposedly conspired with,
perhaps that is because they did not actually conspire.
To borrow a phrase from Nation contributing editor Stephen F. Cohen, when it comes to the core question of contacts between
Trump and the Russian government, we are left with a "Russiagate without Russia." Instead we have a series of interactions where
Trump associates speak with Russian nationals, people with ties to Russian nationals, or people who claim to have ties to
the Russian government. But none of these "links," "ties," or associations ever entail a member of the Trump campaign interacting
with a Kremlin intermediary. Russiagate promoters have nonetheless fueled a dogged media effort to track
every
known instance in which someone in Trump's orbit
interacted with " the Russians ," or
someone who can be linked
to them . There is nothing illegal or inherently suspect about speaking to a Russian national -- but there is something xenophobic
about implying as much.
2. Russiagate's Predicate Led Nowhere
The most glaring absence of a Kremlin intermediary comes in the case that ostensibly prompted the entire Trump-Russia investigation.
During an April 2016 meeting in Rome, a London-based professor named Joseph Mifsud reportedly informed Trump campaign aide George
Papadopoulos that "the Russians" had obtained "thousands of emails" containing "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. That information made its
way to the FBI, which used it as a pretext to open the "Crossfire Hurricane" probe on July 31, 2016. Papadopoulos was later indicted
for lying to FBI agents about the timing of his contacts with Mifsud. The case stoked speculation that Papadopoulos acted as an
intermediary between
Trump and Russia
.
But Papadopoulos played no such role. And while the Mueller report says that Papadopoulos "understood Mifsud to have substantial
connections to high-level Russian government officials," it never asserts that Mifsud actuall y had those connections.
Since Mifsud's suspected Russian connections were the purported predicate for the FBI's initial Trump-Russia investigation, that
is a conspicuous non-call. Another is the revelation from Mueller that
Mifsud made false statements to FBI investigators
when they interviewed him in February 2017 -- but yet, unlike Papadopoulos, Mifsud was not indicted. Thus, even the interaction that
sparked the Russia-collusion probe did not reveal collusion.
3. Sergey Kislyak Had "Brief and Non-Substantive" Interactions With the Trump Camp
Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak's conversations with Trump campaign officials and associates during and after the 2016 election
were the focus of intense controversy and speculation, leading to the recusal of
Jeff Sessions, then attorney
general, and to the indictment of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
After an exhaustive review, Mueller concluded that Kislyak's interactions with Trump campaign officials at public events "were
brief, public, and non-substantive." As for Kislyak's
much –
ballyhooed meeting which Sessions in September 2016, Mueller saw no reason to dispute that it "included any more than a passing
mention of the presidential campaign." When Kislyak spoke with other Trump aides after the August 2016 Republican National Convention,
Mueller "did not identify evidence in those interactions of coordination between the Campaign and the Russian government."
The same goes for Kislyak's post-election conversations with Flynn. Mueller indicted Flynn for making "false statements and omissions"
in an interview with the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak during the transition in December 2016. The prevailing supposition was
that Flynn lied in order to hide from the FBI an
election-related payoff or "
quid pro quo
" with the Kremlin. The report punctures that thesis by reaffirming the facts in Flynn's indictment: What Flynn hid from agents
was that he had "called Kislyak to request Russian restraint" in response to sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration,
and that Kislyak had agreed. Mueller ruled out the possibility that Flynn could have implicated Trump in anything criminal by noting
the absence of evidence that Flynn "possessed information damaging to the President that would give the President a personal incentive
to end the FBI's inquiry into Flynn's conduct."
4. Trump Tower Moscow Had No Help From Moscow
The November 2018 indictment of Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was widely seen as damning, possibly impeachment-worthy,
for Trump. Cohen admitted to giving false written answers to Congress in a bid to downplay Trump's personal knowledge of his company's
failed effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. To proponents of the collusion theory, Cohen's admitted lies were proof that "
Trump is compromised by
Russia ," " full stop ."
But the Mueller report does not show any such compromise, and, in fact, shows there to be no Trump-Kremlin relationship. Cohen,
the report notes, "requested [Kremlin] assistance in moving the project forward, both in securing land to build the project and with
financing." The request was evidently rejected. Elena Poliakova, the personal assistant to Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov,
spoke with Cohen by phone after he e-mailed her office for help. After their 20-minute call, the report says, "Cohen could not recall
any direct follow-up from Poliakova or from any other representative of the Russian government, nor did the [Special Counsel's] Office
identify any evidence of direct follow-up."
5. and Trump Didn't Ask Cohen to Lie About It
The Mueller report not only dispels the notion that Trump had secret dealings with the Kremlin over Trump Tower Moscow; it also
rejects a related impeachment-level "bombshell." In January, BuzzFeed News
reported that Mueller had evidence that Trump "directed" Cohen to lie to Congress about the Moscow project. But according to
Mueller, "the evidence available to us does not establish that the President directed or aided Cohen's false testimony," and that
Cohen himself testified "that he and the President did not explicitly discuss whether Cohen's testimony about the Trump Tower Moscow
project would be or was false." In a de-facto retraction, BuzzFeed updated its story with an
acknowledgment
of Mueller's conclusion .
6. The Trump Tower Meeting Really Was Just a "Waste of Time"
The June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower was
widely
dubbed
the
" Smoking
Gun ." An e-mail chain showed that Donald Trump Jr. welcomed an offer to accept compromising information about Clinton as "part
of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." But the pitch did not come from the meeting's Russian participants, but instead
from Rob Goldstone, a British music publicist acting on their behalf. Goldstone said that he invented "publicist puff" to secure
the meeting, because in reality,
as he told NPR , "I had no idea what I was talking about."
Mueller noted that Trump Jr.'s response "showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist
candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information [emphasis mine]."
The report further recounts that during the meeting Jared Kushner texted then-Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort that it was a "waste
of time," and requested that his assistants "call him to give him an excuse to leave." Accordingly, when "Veselnitskaya made additional
efforts to follow up on the meeting," after the election, "the Trump Transition Team did not engage."
7. Manafort Did Not Share Polling Data to Meddle in the US Election
In January, Mueller accused Manafort of lying to investigators about several matters, including sharing Trump polling data and
discussing a Ukraine peace plan with a Ukrainian-Russian colleague, Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 campaign. According to Mueller,
the FBI "assesses" that Kilimnik has unspecified "ties to Russian intelligence." To collusion proponents, the revelation was dubbed
" the closest we've seen yet to real, live, actual
collusion " and even the "
Russian collusion smoking gun ."
Mueller, of course, reached a different conclusion: He "did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort's sharing polling
data and Russia's interference in the election," and, moreover, "did not establish that Manafort otherwise coordinated with the Russian
government on its election-interference efforts." Mueller noted that he "could not reliably determine Manafort's purpose in sharing"
the polling data, but also acknowledged (and bolstered) the explanation of his star witness, Rick Gates, that Manafort was motivated
by proving his financial value to former and future clients.
Mueller also gave us new reasons to doubt the assertions that Kilimnik himself is a Russian intelligence asset or spy. First,
Mueller did not join
media pundits in asserting such about
Kilimnik. Second, to support his vague contention that Kilimnik has, according to the FBI, "ties to Russian intelligence," Mueller
offered up a list of " pieces of the Office's
Evidence" that contains no direct evidence. For his part, Kilimnik has repeatedly stated that he has no such ties, and recently
told The Washington Post that Mueller never attempted to interview him.
8. The Steele Dossier Was Fiction
The Steele dossier -- a collection of Democratic National Committee-funded opposition research alleging a high-level Trump-Russia
criminal relationship -- played a critical role in the Russiagate saga. The FBI relied on it for leads and evidentiary material in
its investigation of the Trump campaign ties to Russia, and prominent
politicians ,
pundits , and
media
outlets promoted it as
credible .
The Mueller report,
The New York Times
noted last week , has "underscored what had grown clearer for months some of the most sensational claims in the dossier appeared
to be false, and others were impossible to prove." Steele reported that low-level Trump aide Carter Page was offered a 19 percent
stake in the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft if he could get Trump to lift Western sanctions. In October 2016 the FBI, citing
the Steele dossier, told the FISA court that it "believes that [Russia's] efforts are being coordinated with Page and perhaps other
individuals associated with" the Trump campaign. The Mueller report, however, could "not establish that Page coordinated with the
Russian government in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election."
The Steele dossier claimed that Michael Cohen visited Prague to meet Russian agents in the summer of 2016. In April 2018, McClatchy
reported to much fanfare that Mueller's team "has evidence" that placed Cohen in Prague during the period in question. Cohen later
denied the claim under oath, and Mueller agreed, noting that Cohen "never traveled to Prague."
After reports emerged in August 2016 that the Trump campaign had rejected an amendment to the Republican National Committee platform
that called for arming Ukraine, Steele claimed that it was the result of a quid pro quo. The Mueller report "did not establish that"
the rejection of the Ukraine amendment was "undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia."
9. The Trump Campaign Had No Secret Channel to WikiLeaks
In January, veteran Republican operative and conspiracy theorist Roger Stone caused a stir when he was indicted for lying to Congress
about his efforts to make contact with WikiLeaks. But Mueller's indictment actually showed that Stone
had no communications with WikiLeaks
before the election and no privileged information about its releases . Most significantly, it revealed that Trump officials were
trying to learn about the WikiLeaks releases through Stone -- a fact that underscored that the Trump campaign neither worked with
WikiLeaks nor had advance knowledge of its e-mail dumps.
Mueller's final report does nothing to alter that picture. Its sections on Stone are heavily redacted, owing to Stone's pending
trial. But they do make clear that Mueller conducted an extensive search to establish a tie between WikiLeaks, the Trump campaign,
and Stone -- and came up empty. New
reporting from The Washington Post underscores just how far their farcical efforts went. The Mueller team devoted
time and energy to determine whether far-right conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, best known for promoting the false claim that Barack
Obama was born outside the United States, served as a link between Stone and WikiLeaks. Mueller's prosecutors "spent weeks coaxing,
cajoling and admonishing the conspiracy theorist, as they pressed him to stick to facts and not reconstruct stories," the Post
reports. "At times, they had debated the nature of memory itself." It is unsurprising that this led Mueller's prosecutors to
ultimately declare, according to Corsi's attorney, "We can't use any of this."
10. There Was No Cover-Up
The Mueller report does not just dispel the conspiracy theories that have engulfed political and media circles for two years;
it puts to rest the most popular, recent one: that Attorney General William Barr engaged in a
cover-up . According to the dominant narrative, Barr was
somehow concealing Mueller's damning evidence
, while Mueller, even more improbably, stayed silent.
One could argue that Barr's summary downplays the obstruction findings, though it accurately relays that Mueller's report does
"not exonerate" Trump. It was Mueller's decision to leave the verdict on obstruction to Barr and make clear that if Congress disagrees,
it has the power to indict Trump on its own. Mueller's office assisted with Barr's redactions, which proved to be, as Barr had pledged,
extremely limited. Despite containing numerous embarrassing details about Trump, no executive privilege was invoked to censor the
report's contents.
In the end, Mueller's report shows that the Trump-Russia collusion narrative embraced and evangelized by the US political and
media establishments to be a work of
fiction . The American public
was presented with a far different picture from what was expected, because leading pundits, outlets, and politicians ignored the
countervailing facts and promoted maximalist interpretations of others. Anonymous officials also leaked explosive yet uncorroborated
claims, leaving behind many stories that were subsequently discredited, retracted, or remain unconfirmed to this day.
It is too early to assess the damage that influential Russiagate promoters have done to their own reputations; to public confidence
in our democratic system and media; and to the prospects of defeating Trump, who always stood to benefit if the all-consuming conspiracy
theory ultimately collapsed. The scale of the wreckage, confirmed by Mueller's report, may prove to be the ultimate Russiagate scandal.
"... The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth, along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks. ..."
"... Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper policy motivation: why it was done. ..."
"... President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office, Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth, and the truth would set them free. ..."
"... The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street, or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase the American Declaration of Independence, ..."
"... According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. ..."
"... This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. ..."
"... Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage control. ..."
"... In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine. Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department. ..."
"... The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA. ..."
"... As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the National Endowment for Democracy. ..."
"... Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda, against Russia. ..."
"... The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department. Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly, in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected. ..."
"... This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest. ..."
"... Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did you know: ..."
"... War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff. ..."
"... The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages. ..."
"... That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony Blair are lyers and mass murderers. ..."
The British Role in 'Russiagate' Is About to Be Fully Exposed April 8, 2019
20190408-russiagate-exposed-brits.pdf
The "fake news" media has now dropped its pretense of having ever had any intention of allowing the truth -- as documented in
U.S. Attorney General Barr's summary of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller's report, exonerating President Donald Trump of having
"conspired or coordinated with the Russian government" -- to thoroughly refute the Russiagate "Big Lie." Soon, however, it is certain
that the deliberate, British Intelligence-originated, military-grade disinformation campaign carried out against the United States,
including to this day, will be exposed.
The truth is, that a foreign government did indeed meddle in the American Presidential election, in a failed attempt to fix
the outcome, but it was not Russia. It was the City of London, and the Five Eyes imperial intelligence services of the British Commonwealth,
along with treasonous, "Tory" American elements. If that admission is forced to the surface, through the vigorous actions of all
that oppose the presently dominant Big Lie tyranny, that revelation will shock and liberate people all over the world. The mental
stranglehold of "fake news" media outlets can be permanently broken. That is the task of the next days and weeks.
"It's hard to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat," says the Chinese proverb. Yet, although the Mueller
report was called a "nothing burger," it was not: it still presented the potentially lethal lie that twelve Russian gremlins, code-named
Guccifer 2.0, hacked the DNC. Sundry media meatheads thus continue to blog and broadcast about "what else is really there."
The false Russian hack story, still being repeated, marches on, undeterred, like the emperor without any clothes. One lame-brained
variation, promoted in order to cover up the British role, states that Hillary Clinton, rather than Trump, colluded with the Russians.
It is being repeated by Republicans and Democrats alike, some of them malicious, some of them confused, and all of them completely
wrong. The media, such as the failed New York Times and various electronic media, must be forced to either admit the truth,
or be even more thoroughly discredited than they already have been. They must stop their constant repetition of this Joseph Goebbels-like
Big Lie. There must be a vigorous dissemination of the truth by all those journalists, politicians, activists and citizens that love
truth more than their own assumptions, including about President Trump, or other dearly-held systems of false belief.
Apart from documenting the presence of "former" British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, former MI6 head Sir Richard
Dearlove, and former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan at the center of the Russiagate campaign against President Trump for the past several
years, we must, in order to expose this successfully, identify not only what was actually done and who was doing it, but the deeper
policy motivation: why it was done.
A New Cultural Paradigm
The world is actually on the verge of ending the military conflicts among the major world powers, such as Russia, China, the United
States, and India. These four powers, and not the City of London, are the key fulcrum around which a new era in humanity's future
will be decided. A new monetary and credit system brought into being through these four powers would foster the greatest physical
economic growth in the history of humanity. In addition, discussions involving Italy working with China on the industrialization
of the African continent (discussions which could soon also involve the United States) show that sections of Europe want to join
China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and leave the dying trans-Atlantic financial empire behind.
The recent announcement of a United States commitment to return to the Moon by 2024 can, in particular, become the basis for a
proposal to other nations -- for example, China, Russia, and India, all of whom are space powers of demonstrated capability -- to
resolve their differences on Earth in a higher, joint mission. As Russia's Roscosmos Director Dmitry Rogozin said in a recent interview:
"I am a fierce proponent of international cooperation, including with Americans, because their country is big and technologically
advanced, and they can make good partners Especially since personal and professional relations between Roscosmos and NASA at the
working level are great."
There is also the possibility of ending the danger of thermonuclear war. President Trump, speaking on April 4 of the prospects
for world peace, stated:
"Between Russia, China, and us, we're all making hundreds of billions of dollars worth of weapons, including nuclear, which is
ridiculous. I think it's much better if we all got together and didn't make these weapons those three countries I think can come
together and stop the spending and spend on things that are more productive toward long-term peace."
This is a statement of real importance. Such an outlook is a rejection of the "perpetual crisis/perpetual war" outlook of the
Bush-Obama Administration, a four-term "war presidency" which was abruptly, unexpectedly ended in 2016. The British were not amused.
It is to stop this new cultural paradigm, pivoted on the Pacific and the potential Four Powers alliance, that British imperial
forces have deployed. The 2016 election of President Trump, and his personal friendship with President Xi Jinping and desire to work
with President Putin, are an intolerable strategic threat to the eighteenth-century geopolitics of the British empire. They have
repeatedly used Russiagate to disrupt the process of deliberation among Presidents Xi, Trump, and Putin, thus increasing the danger
of war. Russiagate, in the interest of international security, must be ended by exposing it for the utter fraud that it is.
The Truth Set Free
President Donald Trump has no vested interest in protecting the British "special relationship." From his second day in office,
Trump declared that he would clean out the intelligence agencies. If Trump were to do that, however, the real, tragic history of
America's last 50 years would be exhumed from that swamp. Shining a light into that darkness would illuminate the world. The American
people would stop playing Othello to the City of London's Iago. They would denounce the British "special relationship," never again
to fight imperial wars for the greater glory of the British Empire. They would learn the true story of Vietnam, of Iraq 1991 and
Iraq 2003, of Libya 2011, and many other conflicts, special operations, and assassinations. The American people would know the truth,
and the truth would set them free.
The current insurrection against the United States Presidency is part of a global strategic battle: will a conspiracy of republican
forces overcome the modern day British imperial system, centered in the hot money centers of the City of London and Wall Street,
or will the oligarchical system once again triumph, immiserating all but the very wealthy? That is the real issue of the insurrection
against the maverick American president being conducted by the London and NATO-centered enforcers of the old world. To paraphrase
the American Declaration of Independence,
"The history of the present Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
undermining of the United States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."
DOCUMENTATION
While Robert Mueller found that there was "no collusion" between Donald Trump or the Trump Campaign and Russia, he also filed
two indictments regarding alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. The first alleges that 12 members of Russian Military
Intelligence hacked the DNC and John Podesta and delivered the purloined files to WikiLeaks for strategic publication before the
July 2016 Democratic National Convention and in October 2016, one month before the election. The second indictment charges the Internet
Research Agency, a Russian internet merchandising and marketing firm, with running social media campaigns in the U.S. in 2016 designed
to impact the election. When the fuller version of the Mueller report becomes public, it is certain to recharge the claims of Russian
interference based on the so-called background "evidence" supporting these indictments.
The good news, however, is that investigations in the United States and Britain, have unearthed significant contrary evidence
exposing British Intelligence, NATO, and, to a lesser extent, Ukraine, as the actual foreign actors in the 2016 U.S. presidential
election. We provide a short summary of the main aspects of that evidence to spark further investigations of the British intelligence
networks, entities, and methods at issue, internationally. More detailed accounts concerning specific aspects of what we recite here
can be found on our website.
The Russian Hack That Wasn't
The Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, an association of former U.S. intelligence officials, have demonstrated that
the Russian hack of the DNC alleged by Robert Mueller, was more likely an internal leak,
rather than a hack conducted
over the internet. William Binney, who conducted the main investigations for the VIPS, spent 30 years at the National Security Agency,
becoming Technical Director. He designed the sorts of NSA programs that would detect a Russian hack if one occurred. Binney conducted
an actual forensic examination of the DNC files released by WikiLeaks, and the related files circulated by the persona Guccifer 2.0,
who Robert Mueller claims is a GRU creation. Binney has demonstrated that the calculated transfer speeds and metadata characteristics
of these files are consistent with downloading to a thumb drive or storage device rather than an internet-based hack. This supports
the account by WikiLeaks of how it obtained the files. According to WikiLeaks and former Ambassador Craig Murray, they were obtained
from a person who was not a Russian state actor of any kind, in Washington, D.C. WikiLeaks offered to tell the Justice Department
all about this, and actual negotiations to this effect were proceeding in early 2017, when Senator Mark Warner and FBI Director James
Comey acted to sabotage and end the negotiations.
Further, as opposed to the hyperbole in the media and in Robert Mueller's indictment, analysis of the Internet Research Agency's
alleged "weaponization" of Facebook in 2016 involved
a paltry total of $46,000 in Facebook
ads and $4,700 spent on Google platforms . In an election in which the major campaigns spend tens of thousands of dollars every
day on these platforms, whatever the IRA thought it was doing in its amateurish and juvenile memes and tropes was like throwing a
stone in the ocean. Most of these activities occurred after the election and never mentioned either candidate. The interpretation
that these ads were designed to draw clicks and website traffic, rather than influence the election, must be considered.
The "evidence" for Mueller's GRU hacking indictment was provided, in part, by CrowdStrike, the DNC vendor that originated the
claims that the Russians had hacked that entity. CrowdStrike is closely associated with the Atlantic Council's Digital Research Lab
(DRL), an operation jointly funded by NATO's Strategic Communications Center and the U.S. State Department, to counter Russian "hybrid
warfare." CrowdStrike has been caught more than once falsely attributing hacks to the Russians and the Atlantic Council's DRL is
a font of anti-Russian intelligence operations.
The British Target Trump
According to CIA Director John Brennan's Congressional testimony, the British began complaining loudly about candidate Trump
and Russia in late 2015. Brennan's statements were echoed in articles in The Guardian . According to Brennan, intelligence
leads about Trump and Russia had been forwarded to Brennan from both British intelligence and from Estonia. The former head
of the Russia Desk for MI6 and protégé of Sir Richard Dearlove, Christopher Steele, fresh from working for British Intelligence,
the FBI, and U.S. State Department in the 2014 Ukraine coup, assembled in 2016 a phony dossier called Operation Charlemagne, claiming
widespread Russian interference in European elections, including in the Brexit vote. By the spring of 2016, Steele was contributing
to a British/U.S. intelligence task force on the Trump Campaign which had been convened at CIA headquarters under John Brennan's
direction.
This task force targeted Trump campaign volunteers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in entrapment operations on British
soil, using British agents, during the spring and summer of 2016. The personnel employed in these operations all had multiple
connections to the British firm Hakluyt, to Steele's firm Orbis, and to the British military's Integrity Initiative. Sometime in
the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, then head of GCHQ, flew to Washington to brief John Brennan personally. Hannigan abruptly
resigned from GCHQ shortly after the election, sparking widespread speculation that the British were making an attempt at damage
control.
Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort were already on the radar and under investigation by the same British, Dearlove-centered intelligence
network and by Christopher Steele specifically. Flynn had been defamed by Dearlove and Stefan Halper, as a possible Russian agent
way back in 2014 because he spoke to Russian researcher Svetlana Lokhova at a dinner sponsored by Dearlove's Cambridge Security Forum.
Or, at least that was the pretext for the targeting of Flynn, who otherwise defied British intelligence by exposing Western support
for terrorist operations in Syria and sought a collaborative relationship with Russia to counter ISIS. Manafort was under FBI investigation
throughout 2014 and 2015, largely in retaliation for his role in steering the Party of the Regions to political power in Ukraine.
In 2016, the Manafort investigation migrated to the Democratic National Committee with direct assistance provided by Ukrainian
state intelligence. This effort was led by Alexandra Chalupa, an admirer of Stepan Bandera and other heroes of Nazi history in Ukraine.
Chalupa also had deep connections to British-oriented networks at the U.S. State Department.
In or around June 2016, Christopher Steele began writing his dirty and bogus dossier about Trump and Russia. This is the dossier
which claimed that Trump was compromised by Putin and that Putin was coordinating with Trump in the 2016 election. The main "legend"
of this full-spectrum information warfare operation run from Britain, was that Donald Trump was receiving "dirt" on Hillary Clinton
from Russia. The operations targeting Page and Papadopoulos consisted of multiple attempts to plant fabricated evidence on them which
would reflect what Steele himself was fabricating in the dirty dossier. At the very same time, the infamous June 2016 meeting at
Trump Tower was being set up. That meeting involved the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who, it was alleged in a series of
bizarre emails written by British publicist Ron Goldstone to set up the meeting, could deliver "dirt" on Hillary Clinton direct from
the Russian government. Veselnitskaya didn't deliver any such dirt. But the entire operation was being monitored by State Department
intelligence agent Kyle Parker, an expert on Russia. Parker's emails reveal deep ties to the highest levels of British intelligence
and much chatter between them about Trump and Russia.
A now-changed version of the website for Christopher Steele's firm, Orbis, trumpeted an expertise in information warfare operations,
and the networks in which Steele runs are deeply integrated into the British military's Integrity Initiative. The Integrity Initiative
is a rapid response propaganda operation using major journalists in the United States and Europe to carry out targeted defamation
campaigns. Its central charge, according to documents posted by the hacking group Anonymous, is selling the United States and Western
Europe on the immediate need for regime change in Russia, even if that involves war.
Much has been made by Republicans and other lunkheads in the U.S. Congress of Steele's contacts with Russians for his dossier.
They claim that such contacts resulted in a Russian disinformation operation being run through the duped Christopher Steele. Nothing
could be further from the truth.
MI6's Dirty Dossier on Donald Trump: Full-Spectrum Information Warfare
On its face, Steele's dossier would immediately be recognized as a complete fabrication by any competent intelligence analyst.
He cites some 32 sources inside the Russian government for his fabricated claims about Trump. What they allegedly told him is specific
enough in time and content to identify them. To believe that the dossier is true or that actual Russians contributed to it, you must
also believe that that the British government was willing to roll up this entire network, exposing them, since the intention was
for the dossier's wild claims to be published as widely as possible. By all accounts, Britain and the United States together do not
have 32 highly placed sources inside the Russian government, nor would they ever make them public in this way or with this very sloppy
tradecraft. Steele's fabrication also uses aspects of readily available public information, such as the sale of 19% of the energy
company Rosneft, (the alleged bribe offered to Carter Page for lifting sanctions) to concoct a fictional narrative of high crimes
and misdemeanors.
Other claims in the dossier were published, publicly, in various Ukrainian publications. The famous claim that Trump directed
prostitutes to urinate on a bed once slept upon by Barack Obama seems to be plagiarized from similarly fake 2009 British propaganda
stories about Silvio Berlusconi spending the night with a prostitute in a hotel room in Rome, "defiling" Putin's bed. According to
various sources in the United States, this outrageous claim was made by Sergei Millian. George Papadopoulos has stated that he believes
Millian is an FBI informant, recounting in his book how a friend of Millian's blurted this out when Millian, Papadopoulos and the
friend were having coffee.
The final nail in this case has been provided by The Hill 's John Solomon. He says that Steele told former Associate
Attorney General Bruce Ohr about the sources for the dirty dossier. According to Solomon, Ohr's notes reveal one main source, a former
senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States. But, as anyone familiar with the territory would know, there is
no such retired senior Russian intelligence official living in the United States whose entire life is not controlled by the CIA.
Despite its obvious fake pedigree, Steele's dossier was laundered into the Justice Department repeatedly, by the CIA and State
Department and the Obama White House. It was used to obtain FISA surveillance warrants turning key members of the Trump Campaign
into walking microphones. It was circulated endlessly by the Clinton Campaign to a network of reporters in the U.S. known to serve
as scribes for the intelligence community. John Brennan used it to conduct a special emergency briefing of the leading members of
the U.S. Congress charged with intelligence responsibilities in August of 2016 and to brief Harry Reid, who was Senate Majority Leader
at the time. All of this activity meant that the salacious accusation that Trump was a Putin pawn and the FBI was investigating the
matter, leaked out and was used by the Clinton Campaign to defame Trump for its electoral advantage. When Trump won, Steele's nonsense
received the stamp of the U.S. intelligence community and official currency in the campaign to take out the President.
As a result of Congressional investigations of Russiagate, it has become abundantly clear that the British operation against
Trump was aided and abetted by the Obama White House, the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, and personalities associated with the
National Endowment for Democracy. The individuals involved might be named Veterans of the 2014 Ukrainian Coup, since all of
them also worked on this operation. It is no accident that Victoria Nuland, the case agent for the Ukraine coup, played a major role
in bolstering Steele's credentials for the purpose of selling his dirty dossier to the media and to the Justice Department. This
went so far as Steele giving a full scale briefing on his fabricated dossier at the State Department in October 2016.
Out of the Ukraine coup, an entire military-centered propaganda apparatus arose, first through NATO, and then out from there
to military units and diplomatic centers in the U.S., Europe, and Britain, to run low intensity operations, and black propaganda,
against Russia.
The British end of the operation includes the Integrity Initiative, the 77th Brigade, and NATO's Strategic Communications
Center. In the United States, the Integrity Initiative has been integrated into the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. State Department.
Most certainly, this operation is poised again to intervene in the U.S. elections; the British House of Lords have stated explicitly,
in their December 2018 report, British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order, that Donald Trump must not be re-elected.
This is why the British are yelping that under no circumstances can the classified documents concerning their role in the
attempted coup against Donald Trump be declassified. It would end their leverage over the United States and much of Europe. That
is why these documents must indeed be declassified, and parallel investigations by citizens and government officials concerned with
ending the imperial system, otherwise known as the current "war party," must begin in earnest.
"in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe"
Perhaps add mainstream media to the list of such sincere believers, they will fire their own real journalists.
David Walters , April 24, 2019 at 13:14
"This doesn't mean that Russia would never use hackers to interfere in world political affairs or that Vladimir Putin is some
sort of virtuous girl scout, it just means that in a post-Iraq invasion world, only herd-minded human livestock believe the unsubstantiated
assertions of opaque and unaccountable government agencies about governments who are oppositional to those same agencies."
Absolutely correct.
Anyone who still believes what the IC says if a moron. As Pompeo recently said to the student body of Texas A&M University,
my alma matta, the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steel. He went on the explain that the CIA has courses to teach their agent
that dark "art".
Right, David Walters, and see Pompous Pompeo now. The only truths he's told was to a student body of Texas A&M University –
his own alma mater – the CIA's job is to lie, cheat and steal.
Even though he's left his post as CIA Director and assumed his current post of Secretary of State. Pompous Pompeo continues his
CIA traits of lying, cheating, and stealing. It's in a way similar to a phrase, "A leopard never changes its spots". This is why
the DPRK govt issued a Persona Non Grata on Pompous Pompeo – that he isn't a bona fide diplomat, but a CIA official.
CWG , April 22, 2019 at 17:15
Here's my take on the 'Russian Collusion Deep State LIE.
There was NO Russian Collusion at all to get Trump in the White House. Most probably, Putin would have favored Clinton, since
she could be bought. Trump can't.
What did happen was illegal spying on the Trump campaign. That started late 2015, WITHOUT a FISA warrant. They only obtained
that in 2016, through lying to the FISA Court. The basis for that first warrant was the Fusion GPS Steele Dossier.
Ever since Trump won the election, they real conspirators knew they had a problem. That was apparent ever after Devin Nunes
did the right thing by informing Trump they were spying on him.
Since they obtained those FISA warrant through lying to the FISA Court (which is treason) they needed to cover that up as quickly
as possible.
So what did they do? Instead of admitting they lied to the FISA Court they kept on lying till this very day. The same lie through
which they obtained the FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign was being pushed openly.
The lie is and was 'Trump colluded with the Russians in order to win the Presidential Election'.
They knew from day one Trump didn't do anything wrong. They did know they spied on Trump through lying to the FISA Court, which
again, is treason. According to the Constitution, lying to the FISA court= Treason.
In order to avoid being indicted and prosecuted, they somehow needed to 'take down' the Attorney General. At all costs, they
needed to try and hide what really happened.
So there they went. 'Trump colluded with the Russians. Not just Trump, but the entire Trump campaign!'.
'Sessions should recuse himself', the propaganda MSM said in unison. 'Recuse, recuse'.
Sessions, naively recused himself. Back then, even he probably didn't know the entire story. It was only later on that Sarah
Carter and Jon Solomon found out it had been Hillary who ordered and paid the Steele Dossier.
The real conspirators hoped that through the Special Counsel rat Mueller they might be able to achieve three main objectives.
1: Convince the American people Russia indeed was meddling in the Presidential Election.
2: Find any sort of dirt on Trump and/or people who helped him win the Election in order to 'take them down'.
Many people were indicted, some were prosecuted. Yet NONE of them were convicted for a crime that had ANYTHING to with with
the elections. NONE.
They stretched it out as long as possible. 'The longer you repeat a lie, the more people are willing to believe the lie'.
So that is what they did. They still do it. Mueller took TWO years to brainwash as many people as possible. 'Russian Collusion,
Russian Collusion. Russia. Russia. Russia. Russia. Rusiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh ..
Why did they want to make sure they could keep telling that lie as long as possible?
Because they FEAR people will learn the truth. There was NEVER any Russian Collusion with the Trump campaign.
There was spying on the Trump campaign by Obama in order to try and make Hillary win the Presidential Election.
That is the actual COLLUSION between the Clinton Campaign and a weaponized Obama regime!!
So what did 'Herr Mueller' do?
He took YEARS to come up with the conclusion that the Trump campaign did NOT collude with Russia.
The MSM tried to make us all believe it was about that. Yet it was NOT.
His conclusive report is all about the question 'did or didn't the Trump campaign collude with the Russians'.
Trump exonerated, and the MSM only talks about that. Trump, Trump, Trump.
They still want us all to believe that was what the Mueller 'investigation' was all about. Yet it was not.
The most important objective of the Mueller 'investigation' was not to 'investigate'.
It was to 'instigate' that HUGE lie.
The same lie which they used to obtain the FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.
"Russia'.
So what has 'Herr Mueller' done?
A: He finds ZERO evidence at all which proves the Trump campaign colluded with ANY Russians.
And now the huge lie, which after all was the main objective right from the get go. (A was only a distraction)
B: Russians hacked the DNC.
That is what they wants us all to believe. That Russia somehow did bad stuff.
Now it was not Russia who did bad stuff.
It was Obama working together with the Clinton campaign. Obama weaponized his entire regime in order to let Clinton win the
Presidency.
That is the REAL collusion. The real CRIME. Treason!
In order to create a 'cover up' Mueller NEEDED to instigate that Russia somehow did bad things.
That's what the Mueller Dossier is ALL about. They now have 'black on white' 'evidence' that Russia somehow did bad things.
Because if Russia didn't do anything like that, it would make us all ask the fair question 'why did Obama spy on the Trump
Campaign'.
Let's go a bit deeper still.
Here's a trap Mueller created. What if Trump would openly doubt the LIE they still push? The HUGE lie that Russia did bad things?
After all, they NEED that LIE in order to COVER UP their own crime.
If Trump would say 'I do not believe Russia did anything to influence the elections, I think Mueller wrote that to COVER UP
the real crime', what would happen?
They would say 'GOTCHA now, see Trump is colluding with Russia? He even refuses to accept Russia hacked the DNC, this ultimately
proofs Trump indeed is a Russian asset'.
They believe that trap will work. They needed that trap, since if Russia wasn't doing anything wrong, it would show us all
THEY were the criminals.
They NEED that lie, in order to COVER UP.
That is the 'Insurance Policy' Stzrok and Page texted about. Even Sarah Carter and Jon Solomon still don't seem to see all
that.
They should have attacked the HUGE lie that Russia was somehow hacking the DNC. That is simply not true. It's a Mueller created
LIE.
That LIE = the Insurance Policy.
What did they need an Insurance Policy for? They want us all to believe that was about preventing Trump from being elected.
Although true, that is only A.
They NEEDED an Insurance Policy in the unlikely case Trump would become President and would find out they were illegally spying
on him!
The REAL crime is Obama weaponized the American Government to spy on even a duly elected President.
What's the punishment for Treason?
About Assange and Seth Rich.
Days after Mueller finishes his 'mission' (Establish the LIE Russia did bad things) which seems to be succesfull, the Deep
State arrest the ONLY source who could undermine that lie.
Assange Since he knows who is (Seth Rich?) and who isn't (Russia) the source.
If Assange could testify under oath the emails did not come from Russia, the LIE would be exposed.
No coincidences here. I fear Assange will never testify under oath. I actually fear for his life.
Deniz , April 23, 2019 at 13:48
While I wholeheartedly agree with you that Obama and Clinton are criminals, the far less convincing part of your argument is
that Trump is not now beholden to the same MIC interests. Bolton, Abrahams, Pompeo, Pence his relationship with Netanyahu, the
overthrow of Madura are all glaring examples that contradict the Rights narrative that he is some type of hero. Trump may not
have colluded with Russia, but he does seem to be colluding with Saudia Arabia, Israel, Big Oil and the MIC.
Whether one is on the Right or Left, the house is still made of glass.
boxerwars , April 22, 2019 at 17:13
RE: "A Russian Agent Smear"
:::
Was Pat Tillman Murdered?
JUL 30, 2007
I don't know, but it seems increasingly conceivable. Just absorb these facts:
O'Neal said Tillman, a corporal, threw a smoke grenade to identify themselves to fellow soldiers who were firing at them. Tillman
was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat [expletive] Tillman, damn it!" again and again when he was killed,
O'Neal said
In the same testimony, medical examiners said the bullet holes in Tillman's head were so close together that it appeared the
Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
The motive? I don't know. It's still likeliest it was an accident. But there's some mysterious testimony in the SI report about
nameless snipers. A reader suggests the following interpretation:
News this weekend said that there were "snipers" present and the witnesses didn't remember their names. I believe that's code
in the Army–these guys were Delta. In the Tillman incident, these snipers weren't part of the unit and they were never mentioned
publicly before. That's a key indicator that they weren't supposed to be acknowledged.
If you've ever read Blackhawk Down, Mark Bowden explains how he grew frustrated because interviewed Rangers kept referring
to "soldiers from another unit" while claiming they didn't know the unit ID or the soldiers' names. It took him months to crack
the unit ID and find people from Delta who were present at the fight.
Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon, the Delta operators who earned Medals of Honor in Mogadishu, have always been identified as
snipers, too.
If my theory is correct, the Delta guys could have fired the shots – a three-round burst to the forehead from 50 yards is impossible
for normal soldiers and Rangers, but is probably an easy shot for those guys. But because Delta doesn't officially exist and Tillman
was a hero, nobody in the Army would want to have to explain exactly how the event went down. Easier just to claim hostile fire
until the family forced them to do otherwise.
This makes some sense to me, although we shouldn't dismiss the chance he was murdered. Tillman was a star and might have aroused
jealousy or resentment. He also opposed the Iraq war and was a proud atheist. In Bush's increasingly sectarian military, that
might have stirred hostility. I don't know. But I know enough to want a deeper investigation. My atheist readers will no doubt
admire the way Tillman left this world, according to the man who was with him:
As bullets flew above their heads, the young soldier at Pat Tillman's side started praying. "I thought I was praying to myself,
but I guess he heard me," Sgt. Bryan O'Neal recalled in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press. "He said something like,
'Hey, O'Neal, why are you praying? God can't help us now."'
(Maybe the Congress can )
////// The USA is aghast with "smears" and "internal investigations" and promised but never produced "White Papers" 'as the
world turns' and circles continents Dominated by American Military Power / Predominantly Barbarous / Uncivilized Use of Force
/ and Arrogantly Effective in it's use of Dominating Military Power.
\\\\ The Poorer Peoples of the World accept their lots-in-life with some acceptance of reality vis-a-vis the "lot-in-life"
they've been alleged/assigned.
/// But How Do We Accept The Fact that our Self-Sacrificiing Hero,Pat Tillman, was slaughtered in Afghanistan,
(WITH POSITIVE PROOF) – by his own Fellow American soldiers – ???
!!!! What i'm say'n is, if Tillman represents the Life Surrendering "American Hero"
WHY DID HIS FELLOW "AMERICAN SOLDIERS" ASSASSINATE & MURDER HIM ???????
AND WHY IS THIS STORY BURIED ALONG WITH MANY OTHER SMEAR Stories
that provide prophylactic protection for all the Trump pianist prophylaxis cover
Up for the Right Wing theft of American Democracy under FDR
In favor of Ayn Rand's prevalent OBJECTIVISM under Trump.
"Capitalism and Altruism
are incompatible
capitalism and altruism
cannot coexist in man,
or in the same society".
President Trump represents
Stark & Total Capitalism
Just as "Conservative Party"
Core is in The Confederacy
AKA; The RIGHT WING
The Right Wing of US Gov't
Is All About PRESERVING
Confederate States' Laws
Written by Thomas Jefferson
Prior to The Constitution, which
became the Received/Judicial
Constitutional Law of the Land in
The Republic of the "United States"
It's not enough that Trump is clearly a classic narcissist whose behavior will continue to deteriorate the more his actions
and statements are attacked and countered? You know what happens when narcissists are driven into a corner by people tearing them
down? They get weapons and start killing people.
There is already more than ample evidence to remove Donald Trump from office, not the least being he's clearly mentally unfit.
Yet the Democrats, some of whom ran for office on a promise to impeach, are suddenly reticent to act without "more investigation".
Nancy Pelosi stated on the record prior to release of the Mueller report impeachment wasn't on the agenda "for now". She's now
making noises in the opposite direction, but that's all they are: noise.
The bottom line is the Clintonite New Democrats currently running the party have only one issue to run on next year: getting
rid of Donald Trump. They still operate under the delusion they will be able to use him to draw off moderate Republican voters,
the same ones they were positive would come out for Hillary Clinton in '16. Their multitude of candidates pay lip service to progressive
policy then carefully walk back to the standard centrist positions once the donations start coming, but the common underlying
theme was and continues to be "Donald Trump is evil, and we need to elect a Democrat."
In short, without Donald Trump in the Oval Office, the Democrat Party has no platform. They need him there as a target, because
Mike Pence would be impossible for them to beat. They are under orders, according to various writers who've addressed the Clinton
campaign, to block Bernie Sanders and his platform at all costs; and they will allow the country to crash and burn before they
disobey those orders. That means keeping Donald Trump right where he is through next November.
Eddie S , April 24, 2019 at 21:14
Exactly right, EKB -- - you can't ballroom dance without a partner! Also reminds me of the couples you occasionally run into
where one partner repeatedly runs-down the other, and you get the feeling that the critical partner doesn't have much going on
in his/her life so they deflect that by focusing on the other partner
Johnny Ryan S , April 22, 2019 at 13:38
Why did the DNC not allow the FBI to investigate the so-called" Russian hacked" emails? Rather, they hire CrowdStrike did
you know:
1)Obama Appoints CrowdStrike Officer To Admin Post Two Months Before June 2016 Report On Russia Hacking DNC
2) CrowdStrike Co-Founder Is Fellow On Russia Hawk Group, Has Connections To George Soros, Ukrainian Billionaire
3) DNC stayed that the FBI never asked to investigate the servers – that is a lie.
4) CrowdStrike received $100 million in investments led by Google Capital (since re-branded as CapitalG) in 2015. CapitalG is
owned by Alphabet, and Eric Schmidt, Alphabet's chairman, was a supporter of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. More than just
supporting Clinton, leaked emails from Wikileaks in November 2016 showed that in 2014 he wanted to have an active role in the
campaign.
-daily caller and dan bongino have been bringing these points up since 2016.
Deniz , April 22, 2019 at 12:36
The Right is currently salivating over the tough law enforcement rhetoric coming out of Barr and Trump.
It reminds me of when Obama was running for office in 2008 when everyone, including myself, was in awe of him. What kept slipping
into his soaring anti-intervention speeches, was a commitment to the good war in Afghanistan, which seemed totally out of place
with the rest of his rhetoric. The fine print was far more reflective of his administration actions as the rest of it his communications
turned out to be just telling people what they wanted to hear.
War with Afghanistan was Obama's payoff to the MIC, just as Russia is now Trump's payoff.
The argument about not inserting Rich and the download is a good one as a defense strategy but doesn't help with finding the
truth about the emails. We can only hope that pursuing the truth and producing it will have a cumulative effect and the illusory
truth effect will include this truth.
Red Douglas , April 22, 2019 at 16:00
>>> ". . . doesn't help with finding the truth about the emails."
The important truth about the emails is in their authenticity and in the contents. No one has even attempted to claim that
they are not authentic or that the contents we've seen are other than the actual contents of the authentic messages.
Why should we much care how they were acquired and provided to the publisher?
Lily , April 22, 2019 at 17:55
That is what i think. People should not concentrate on how, who and where. This is just a smokescreen to avoid talking about
the content of the emails and Hillary Clinton's disgusting actions. She is a criminal and a murderess just like Obama and Tony
Blair are lyers and mass murderers.
All three of them are free, earning millions with their publicity whereas two brave persons who were telling the truth have
been tortured and are still in jail. Reality has become like the most horrible nightmare. Everything simply seems to have turned
upside down. No writer would invent such a primitive plot. And yet it is the unbelievable reality.
Dump Pelousy , April 23, 2019 at 13:21
I totally agree with you, and in fact believe that this whole 22month expensive and mind numbing circus has been played out
JUST to keep the public from knowing what the emails actually said. Can you imagine Madcow focusing with such ferocity on John
Pedesta as she has on Putin, by discussing what he wrote during a presidential campaign to "influence the election" ? We'd be
a different country now, not fighting our way thru the McCarthite Swamp she helped create.
It's a dog & pony show. Trump folded very quickly, in april 2017 or three moth after inauguration. He proved
to be no fighter, a weakling, a marionette. Appointment of Bolton and Pompeo just added insult to injury. this is classic bait and
switch similar to what was executed by Obama after then election. In a way Trump is a Republican version of Obama.
I wonder if he did not want to fight to the death and sacrifice himself for the course, why he entered the Presidential race at
all ? He is not stupid enough not to understand the he will be covered with dirt and all skeletons in his closet will be dug
out for display by the US intelligence agencies, which protect that interest of Wall Street and MIC (Israel is a part of the
US MIC -- its biggest lobbyist and beneficiary) , not the USA as a sovereign state.
Notable quotes:
"... Mueller did none of these things which simply proves that his final report was what many people had expected from the very beginning; a purely political document that twists the truth to achieve Mueller's particular objectives. But to understand what those objectives are, we need to determine what the real goals of the investigation were. ..."
"... To help sabotage Trump's political agenda ..."
"... To create a cloud of illegitimacy over Trump's election ..."
"... And to prevent Trump from implementing his plan to normalize relations with Russia. ..."
"... These were the real objectives of the investigation, to create a forth branch of government (Special Counsel) that had the power to keep Trump permanently on the defensive while the media made him out to be either an unwitting accomplice in Russian espionage or, even worse, a traitor. ..."
"... The aim was to reign him in and keep the pressure on until a case could be made for his impeachment. Mueller played a key role in this travesty. His assignment was undermine Trump's moral authority by brandishing the cudgel of criminal indictment over his head. This is how a D.O.J. appointee, who had never held public office in his life, became the most powerful man in Washington. ..."
"... "We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments . Our goal is stability not chaos, because we want to rebuild our country [the United States] We will partner with any nation that is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism In our dealings with other countries, we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good will." ..."
"... Imagine how terrified the foreign policy establishment must have been when they heard Trump utter these words. No more regime change wars? Are you kidding me? That's what we do: Regime-Change-Is-Us., ..."
"... Interesting, isn't it? Here's Hillary, the "liberal" Democrat, pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria even though the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, stated clearly that "Right now for us to control all of the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia." In other words, if Hillary had been elected, she was all ready to flip the switch and start WW3 ASAP. Is it any wonder why the establishment loved her? ..."
"... War, war and more war, that's the Hillary Doctrine in a nutshell. It was Hillary's relentless hawkishness that pushed leftists into the Trump camp, not that they ever believed that Trump was anything more than what he appeared to be, an unprincipled narcissist with an insatiable lust for power. But they did hope that his dovish comments would steer the country away from nuclear annihilation. That was the hope at least, but then everything changed. And after it changed, Mueller released his report saying: "Trump is not guilty after all!" ..."
"... Think about it: In mid December 2018, Trump announced the withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Syria within 30 days. But instead of withdrawal, the US has been sending hundreds of trucks with weapons to the front lines. The US has also increased its troop levels on the ground, the YPG (Kurdish militia, US proxies) are digging in on the Syria-Turkish border, and the US hasn't lifted a finger to implement its agreements with NATO-ally Turkey under the Manbij Roadmap. The US is not withdrawing from Syria. Washington is beefing up its defenses and settling in for the long-haul. But, why? Why did Trump change his mind and do a complete about-face? ..."
"... Trump made these outrageous demands knowing that they would never be accepted. Which was the point, because the foreign policy establishment doesn't want a deal. They want regime change, they've made that perfectly clear. But wasn't Trump supposed to change all that? Wasn't Trump going to pursue "a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past"? ..."
"... There are other signs of capitulation too; like providing lethal weapons to the Ukrainian military, or nixing the short-range nuclear missile ban, or joining the Saudi's genocidal war on Yemen, or threatening to topple the government of Venezuela, or stirring up trouble in the South China Sea. At every turn, Trump has backtracked on his promise to break with tradition and "stop toppling regimes and overthrowing governments." ' At every turn, Trump has joined the ranks of the warhawks he once criticized. ..."
"... Trump is now marching in lockstep with the foreign policy establishment. In Libya, in Sudan, in Somalia, in Iran, in Lebanon, he is faithfully implementing the neocon agenda. Trump "the peacemaker" is no where to be found, while Trump the 'madman with a knife' is on the loose. ..."
Why did Robert Mueller end the Russia investigation when he did? He could have let it drag it out for another year or so and severely
hurt Trump's chances for reelection. But he didn't do that. Why?
Of course, we're assuming that the investigation was never intended to uncover the truth. If it was, then Mueller would have interviewed
Julian Assange, Craig Murray and retired members of the Intelligence Community (Ray McGovern, Bill Binney) who have shown that the
Podesta emails were leaked by an insider (on a thumbdrive) not hacked by foreign agents. Mueller would have also seized the servers
at DNC headquarters and done the necessary forensic investigation, which he never did.
He also would have indicted senior-level agents
at the FBI and DOJ who improperly obtained FISA warrants by withholding critical information from the FISA court. He didn't do that
either.
Mueller did none of these things which simply proves that his final report was what many people had expected from the very
beginning; a purely political document that twists the truth to achieve Mueller's particular objectives. But to understand what those
objectives are, we need to determine what the real goals of the investigation were. So, here they are:
To help sabotage Trump's political agenda
To create a cloud of illegitimacy over Trump's election
And to prevent Trump from implementing his plan to normalize relations with Russia.
These were the real objectives of the investigation, to create a forth branch of government (Special Counsel) that had the power
to keep Trump permanently on the defensive while the media made him out to be either an unwitting accomplice in Russian espionage
or, even worse, a traitor.
The aim was to reign him in and keep the pressure on until a case could be made for his impeachment. Mueller
played a key role in this travesty. His assignment was undermine Trump's moral authority by brandishing the cudgel of criminal indictment
over his head. This is how a D.O.J. appointee, who had never held public office in his life, became the most powerful man in Washington.
My question is simply this: Why did Mueller give up all that power when he did?
I think I can answer that, but first, we need a little more background. Check out this quote from candidate Trump in 2016:
"We will pursue a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past We will stop looking to topple regimes
and overthrow governments . Our goal is stability not chaos, because we want to rebuild our country [the United States] We will
partner with any nation that is willing to join us in the effort to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism In our dealings
with other countries, we will seek shared interests wherever possible and pursue a new era of peace, understanding, and good will."
Imagine how terrified the foreign policy establishment must have been when they heard Trump utter these words. No more regime
change wars? Are you kidding me? That's what we do: Regime-Change-Is-Us., and now this upstart, New York real estate tycoon is promising
to do a complete 180 and move in another direction altogether. No more destabilizing coups, no more bloody military interventions,
instead, we're going to work collaboratively with countries like Russia and China to see if we can settle regional disputes and fight
terrorism together? Really?
At the same time Trump was promising this new era of "peace, understanding, and good will," Hillary Clinton was issuing her war
whoop at every opportunity. Here's candidate Hillary trying to drum up support for taking on the Russians in Syria:
"The situation in Syria is catastrophic. And every day that goes by, we see the results of the Assad regime in partnership
with the Iranians on the ground, and the Russians in the air When I was Secretary of State, I advocated and I advocate today a
no-fly zone and safe zones."
Interesting, isn't it? Here's Hillary, the "liberal" Democrat, pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria even though the Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, stated clearly that "Right now for us to control all of the airspace in Syria
would require us to go to war against Syria and Russia." In other words, if Hillary had been elected, she was all ready to flip the
switch and start WW3 ASAP. Is it any wonder why the establishment loved her?
"We have to work more closely with our partners and allies on the ground," boomed Hillary, meaning that she fully supported
the continued use of jihadist proxies in the fight against Assad. "I do think the use of special forces, the use of enablers and
trainers in Iraq, which has had some positive effects, are very much in our interests, and so I do support what is happening."
War, war and more war, that's the Hillary Doctrine in a nutshell. It was Hillary's relentless hawkishness that pushed leftists into the Trump camp, not that they ever believed that Trump was anything
more than what he appeared to be, an unprincipled narcissist with an insatiable lust for power. But they did hope that his dovish
comments would steer the country away from nuclear annihilation. That was the hope at least, but then everything changed. And after
it changed, Mueller released his report saying: "Trump is not guilty after all!"
So, what changed? Trump changed.
Think about it: In mid December 2018, Trump announced the withdrawal of all U.S. troops in Syria within 30 days. But instead of
withdrawal, the US has been sending hundreds of trucks with weapons to the front lines. The US has also increased its troop levels
on the ground, the YPG (Kurdish militia, US proxies) are digging in on the Syria-Turkish border, and the US hasn't lifted a finger
to implement its agreements with NATO-ally Turkey under the Manbij Roadmap. The US is not withdrawing from Syria. Washington is beefing
up its defenses and settling in for the long-haul. But, why? Why did Trump change his mind and do a complete about-face?
The same thing happened in Korea. For a while it looked like Trump was serious about cutting a deal with Kim Jong un. But then,
sometime after the first summit, he began to backpeddle. He never honored any of his commitments under the Panmunjom Declaration
and he never reciprocated for Kim's cessation of all nuclear weapons and ballistic missile testing. Trump has made no effort to "build
a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula" or to strengthen trust between the two leaders. Then, at the Hanoi Summit,
Trump blindsided Kim by making demands that had never even been previously discussed. Kim was told that the North must destroy all
of its chemical and biological weapons as well as its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs before the US will take reciprocal
steps. In other words, Trump demanded that Kim completely and irreversibly disarm with the feint hope that the US would eventually
lift sanctions.
Trump made these outrageous demands knowing that they would never be accepted. Which was the point, because the foreign policy
establishment doesn't want a deal. They want regime change, they've made that perfectly clear. But wasn't Trump supposed to change
all that? Wasn't Trump going to pursue "a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past"?
Yes, that was Trump's campaign promise. So, what happened?
There are other signs of capitulation too; like providing lethal weapons to the Ukrainian military, or nixing the short-range
nuclear missile ban, or joining the Saudi's genocidal war on Yemen, or threatening to topple the government of Venezuela, or stirring
up trouble in the South China Sea. At every turn, Trump has backtracked on his promise to break with tradition and "stop toppling
regimes and overthrowing governments." ' At every turn, Trump has joined the ranks of the warhawks he once criticized.
Trump is now marching in lockstep with the foreign policy establishment. In Libya, in Sudan, in Somalia, in Iran, in Lebanon,
he is faithfully implementing the neocon agenda. Trump "the peacemaker" is no where to be found, while Trump the 'madman with a knife'
is on the loose.
Is that why Mueller let Trump off the hook? Was there a quid pro quo: "You follow our foreign policy directives and we'll make
Mueller disappear?
It sure looks like it. play_arrow 2 Reply reply Report flag
the report was finished last august. hed got all the juice in that squeeze. but i also guess he got a call from somebodys in
the GOG mafia[continuity of .gov] deepstate after all is their little bitch
He had to stop before he implicated himself. For instance, still waiting on "the why" he never put Steele or McCabe or Hillary
or Perkins Coie or Rosenstein or Comey etc under oath when it was...THEY... who supplied false evidence to a FISA court
, "evidence gathered" (according to Steele) from...ta daaah!...Russians ;-)
You can drive yourself crazy wondering whether it was all theater from the start, or whether they put a gun to the head of
the guy who was going to expose it was theater until he started playing along. End result, theater.
exactly. Just like you can wonder why Justice John Roberts turned on Obamacare and **** on conservatives. Was he sincere or
did he get a 3:00 am phone call that if he didn't uphold it, his wife and kids would die in an unfortunate accident?
Oh, I dunno...maybe because even with a crack team of demoncraft operatives, Deep State Hillary deadenders and a limitless
supply of federal funding even they couldn't come up with "Russian collusion" because...none ever existed? ;-)
While I knew about Nellie Ohr and her DOJ husband , what I didn't know was that while she
worked for Fusion GPS , fusion was a FBI contractor that had access to NSA database until
Admiral Rogers shut it down .
Sounds Like Brennan's CIA laundered information to EX-CIA Nellie Ohr when she was working
for Fusion GPS who then laundered this info to Steele , another person employed by Fusion who
then gave this back to Bruce Ohr of DOJ who then gave it to the FBI . And they all got paid
for their " research " . This then was used to deceive the FISA court . But Admiral Rogers
went to this court and warned Trump of the spying and violations of constitutional rights .
Shortly after Obama fired admiral Rogers . Sounds fishy to me ? what do you think ?
"... Significantly, Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing on December 11th, 2018 that "ad accounts linked to Russia" spent about $4,700 in advertising" to politically influence Americans during the 2016 presidential election season. ..."
The Mueller Report is now public, and our Mainstream Media have filled the airways with all sorts of commentaries and interpretations.
We know that - despite the very best efforts of the dedicated Leftist attorneys on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's staff - there
was absolutely no coordination between members of the Trump campaign, or any of his staffers, with Russians. No additional charges
have come as a result, other than accusations made earlier of "process crimes" (e.g. failure to report earnings on tax forms, failure
to report lobbying work, or not telling investigators what they demanded to hear -- "crimes" that practically every politician in
Washington has been guilty of at one time or another and would normally not cause much of a stir). None of these involved Russia.
Of course, that finding has not satisfied many Democrats or the unhinged Leftist crazies in the media, who continue to have visions
of "collusion" -- a kind of communications Alzheimers that has poisoned our media now for years. Thus, Representative Eric Swalwell
(who is one of nearly two dozen Democrats running for president) continues to assert that there was "collusion," as does the irrepressible
(and irresponsible) Adam Schiff: "it's there in plain sight," they insist, "if you just look hard enough, and maybe squint just a
bit -- or maybe have those specialized 3-D Russia glasses!"
Such political leaders -- along with those further out in the Leftist loonysphere like Representatives Maxine Waters and Alexandra
Ocasio-Cortes -- continue down their Primrose path of post-Marxist madness.
But beyond the collusion/coordination issue, the past couple of weeks have been filled with a swirling controversy concerning
what is called "obstruction of justice." And once again, the fundamental issues have been incredibly politicized. Special Counsel
Robert Mueller had an obligation, if he and his minions discovered "obstruction of justice," that is, concerted and illegal attempts
to obstruct the investigations by the president or his staff, to present charges to the Department of Justice. Yet, all he was able
to do was assemble a farrago of "he said/she said" instances, none of which rose to the level of criminal activity. Apparently President
Trump told a subaltern "I wish would you fire Mueller," or he wished in a speech in his joking style that "if the Russians had Hillary's
emails, they would release them," or he had a private conversation with Vladimir Putin when they met (as all national leaders do!),
or his son met with a Russian attorney who supposedly had some "dirt" on the Hillary Clinton campaign (which did not turn out to
be the reason for the Trump Tower meeting at all).
None of the ten or eleven cited instances came anywhere close to being actionable or criminal under settled law. In each instance
cited, the president's actions (or desires) fell within his purview and authority under Article II of the Constitution. And regarding
Trump's desire to fire Mueller, he was on solid legal ground; the Supreme Court in its 1997 decision, Edmonds vs. the United States
, declared that "inferior" officials, including an independent counsel, could be removed by presidential action as part of
his delegated powers . And, in any case, Mueller
was not dismissed.
Mueller had an obligation after examining these situations to make a finding; he did not. By so doing, by avoiding decisions and
stringing out such instances in an obviously political sense, he abdicated his responsibility and did his best to impugn Donald Trump
and his administration and thus offer grist for continued Democrat attacks on the president all the way through the 2020 election.
Mueller left it up to the Attorney General William Barr and Congress to decide how to proceed. And that is where we are today.
The one issue that both Democrats and most Republicans seem to agree on, the issue which both say is "proven conclusively" by
Mueller is that the Russians "attempted to interfere and did interfere" in our 2016 election.
Interesting, is it not, that the Republicans who zealously defend the president and attack the obviously political nature of the
Mueller Report would accept, as if on faith and without question, the accusations of Russian interference, also contained in the
report?
Turn on Fox and watch, say, Martha MacCallum (e.g., "The Story," April 24, 2019) declare "we all know now without doubt that the
Russians tried to interfere" in our elections, or listen to most any GOP congressman repeat that same narrative with unquestioning
certitude.
But that assertion - is it truly backed up factually? Where is the evidence, other than largely questionable information sourced
from our largely discredited intelligence agencies which, as we know, had a determined goal of overthrowing the president by any
means possible?
Almost three years have passed from the first fake news that appeared in the media on the subject of "Russian collusion," a concerted
effort launched to discredit at first the Donald Trump candidacy and then sabotage his presidency, including his efforts to stabilize
Russian-American relations.
As proof of Russian actions, the Mueller Report cites the indictments against twenty-five Russian citizens who were indicted for
attempted "interference" (those Russians are, let us add, quite conveniently out of the country and thus not prosecutable). When
those indictments were issued, Russia pointed out the flimsy, unsupported and transparently made-up nature of the charges, and demanded
that American authorities provide conclusive proof. Such requests were rebuffed.
In order to evaluate the evidence, the Russian government proposed reestablishing the bilateral expert group on information security
that the Obama Administration had terminated, which could have served as a platform for conversation on these matters. The American
side was also invited to send Justice Department officials to Russia to attend the proposed public questioning of the Russian citizens
named by Mueller. Additionally, Russia offered to publicize the exchanges between the two countries following the publication of
the accusations of cyberattacks, exchanges which were conducted through existing channels between October 2016 and January 2017.
Our government refused every offer.
A careful analysis, in fact, fails to show any substantial evidence of Russian cyberattacks and attempts to "subvert democracy."
By some estimates, possibly $160,000 -- a paltry sum -- was spent by the Russians during 2016 on social media activities in the United
States. Does anyone wish to discover and compare the amount the Chinese Communists or the Saudis would have expended during the same
period, for their continued influence and power in Washington and inside-the-Beltway?
It is helpful to examine the charges that have been made, some included in the Mueller Report and accepted blindly by most pundits
and politicians, both on the Left and by establishment conservatives.
The Russian government, via their embassy in Washington, has published
a 120 page "white paper,"
The Russiagate Hysteria: A Case of Severe Russiaphobia , responding to the accusations made against them since 2016. Obviously,
the Russian document has a particular viewpoint and very specific goal, but that should not deter us from examining it and evaluating
its arguments. (I have written on Russia and its relations with the United States on a number of occasions since 2015 and had pieces
published by The Unz Review , Communities Digital News , and elsewhere.
On my blog , "MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey," I have authored
a dozen columns addressing this question).
Here following I list twenty-one claims made regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election and in American domestic affairs.
I follow each claim with the Russian response and how others, as noted, have also responded. In most cases I retain the original
text, at times with my editing, but, in every case, with all the referenced sources.
These twenty-one claims should be examined more closely and more calmly, and the "Russophobic" hysteria we have experienced during
the past several years needs to be put aside for the sake of rational investigative inquiry -- and discovering how the Managerial
State and global elites have attempted a "silent coup" against what's left of our republic.
These claims and the responses deserve respectful consideration and detailed responses:
CLAIM: Russia "meddled" in the U.S. elections by conducting influence operations, including through social media.
FACT
All of the claims of Russian trolls that surfaced over the last few years (such as Russians using the Pokémon Go mobile
game and sex toy ads
to meddle in the elections
– ) are so preposterous and contradictory that they virtually disprove themselves.
Not to mention the absurdity of the whole notion of 13 persons and 3 organizations (whichever country they might represent)
charged on February 16, 2018, by Robert Mueller with criminally interfering with the elections, affecting in any way electoral
processes in a country of more than 300 million people.
It is telling that when pressed about the scope of the alleged influence campaign, representatives of American social media
companies give numbers, that even if they were valid (and there's no evidence of a connection to the Russian government), are
so minuscule as to be basically non-existent. For example, Facebook has identified 3,000 Russia-linked ads costing a total
of about $100,000. That's a
miniscule number of ads
and a fraction of Facebook's revenues, which totaled $28 billion. Facebook estimates that 126 million people might – the
emphasis is on the word "might" – have seen this content. But this number represents just 0.004% of the content those people
saw on the Facebook platform.
Significantly, Google CEO Sundar Pichai
testified
to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing on December 11th, 2018 that "ad accounts linked to Russia" spent
about $4,700 in advertising" to politically influence Americans during the 2016 presidential election season.
To further cast doubt on the allegations, an American watchdog group "Campaign for Accountability" ("CFA") admitted on September
4th, 2018, that it deliberately posted propaganda materials on Google disguised as "Russian hackers from the Internet Research
Agency" to check how they would be filtered for "foreign interference". Google officials then accused the CFA as having ties
to a rival tech company "Oracle". In other words,
corporate intrigues disguised
as "Russian interference".
As American media has admitted, out of several dozen pre-election rallies supposedly organized by Russians, Special Counsel
Mueller mentions in his indictment that only a couple actually appear to have successfully attracted anyone, and those that
did were sparsely attended and, almost without exception, in deep-red enclaves that
would have voted for Trump anyway
.
Amidst all the hysteria about the alleged Russian meddling it is worth reading various research studies which show, quoting
"The Washington Post", that it is Americans, in particular our intelligence service,
that peddle disinformation
and hate speech.
According to Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, the scale and scope of domestic
disinformation is much larger than any foreign influence operation. And academics from the Harvard's Shorenstein Center on
Media, Politics and Public Policy document in their study that there had been major spikes in outright fabrication and misleading
information proliferating online before the 2018 U.S. election. A "significant portion" of the disinformation appeared to come
from Americans, not foreigners, the Harvard researchers said.
CLAIM:Russian hackers accessed computer servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and leaked materials through Wikileaks
and other intermediaries
FACT
As President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin noted in his interview with NBC on June 5, 2017, when flatly denying
any allegations of Russia interfering in internal affairs of the U.S., that today's technology is such that the final internet
address can be masked and camouflaged to an extent that no one will be able to understand the origin of that address. It is possible
to set up any entity that may indicate one source when, in fact,
the source is completely different .
No evidence has been presented linking Russia to leaked emails. In fact, there are credible studies arguing that DNC servers
are much more likely to have been breached by someone with immediate and physical access. In 2017 a group of former officers of
the U.S. intelligence community, members of the "Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity" (VIPS), met with then-CIA Director
Mike Pompeo to present their findings.
Another counterargument to the "Russian hackers" claim is that the DNC files published by Wikileaks were initially stored under
the FAT (File Allocation System) method which is not related to internet transfers and can only be forwarded to an external device
such as a thumb drive.
It is also suspicious that the DNC prohibited the FBI from examining the servers. Instead, a third-party tech firm was hired,
"Crowd Strike", which is known for peddling the "Russian interference" claims. And soon enough it, indeed, announced that "Russian
malware" has been found, but again no solid evidence was produced.
According to the respected former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter,
the indictment by the Mueller
team on July 13, 2018 of the 12 supposed Russian operatives was
a politically motivated fraud . As Ritter explains, Mueller seems to have borrowed his list from an organizational chart of
a supposed Russian military intelligence unit, contained in a classified document from the NSA titled "Spear-Phishing Campaign
TTPs Used Against U.S. And Foreign Government Political Entities", which
was published by The Intercept online. As stated in that document, this is just a subjective judgement, not a known fact.
Ritter concludes, that this is a far cry from the kind of incontrovertible proof that Mueller's team suggests as existing to support
its indictment.
Moreover, it is telling that the indictment
was released just before the
meeting between President Putin and Trump in Helsinki on July 16, 2018, seemingly as if the aim was to intentionally derail the
bilateral summit.
CLAIM: Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections.
FACT
As concluded in the summary of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report, the investigation did not find that the Trump campaign
or anyone associated with
it conspired
or coordinated with Russia
If the Mueller team, having all the resources of the U.S. government, after 22 months of work,
many millions
of dollars spent , more than 2800 subpoenas issued, nearly 500 search warrants and 500 witness interviews, didn't find any
evidence of "collusion", it is simply because there was never any. The whole claim of collusion was launched and peddled by the
same group of Democrats, liberal-leaning media and the so-called "Never Trump Republicans", as it became clear that Donald Trump
had real chances of winning the election. And later it morphed into a campaign to derail the newly-elected President agenda, including
his efforts to mitigate the damage done to U.S.-Russian relations.
CLAIM: Hacking of American political institutions was personally ordered by the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
FACT
This claim is based on nothing else but the infamous fraudulent
"Steele Dossier" , paid for by political opponents [i.e., the Hilary Clinton campaign] of Donald Trump, and
wild conjectures that "nothing in Russia happens without Putin's approval" .
Needless to say, zero proof is presented. By the same logic, nothing in the U.S. happens without the President's approval.
For example, is he also responsible for Edward Snowden? After all, Mr. Snowden was doing work for the U.S. intelligence services.
Or the deaths of all the civilians killed abroad by U.S. drone strikes? Every minute detail approved by the President?
CLAIM: Russia did not cooperate with the U.S. in tracing the source of the alleged hacking.
FACT
Russia has repeatedly offered to set up a professional and de-politicized dialogue on international information security only
to be rebuffed by the U.S. State Department. For instance, following the discussion between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald
Trump in Hamburg on July 7, 2017, Russia forwarded to the U.S. a proposal to reestablish a bilateral working group on cyber threats
which would have been a perfect medium to discuss American concerns. Moreover, during his meeting with Donald Trump in Helsinki
on July 17, 2018, Vladimir Putin offered to allow U.S. representatives to be present at an interrogation of the Russian citizens
who were previously accused by the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller of
being guilty of electoral interference.
Furthermore, in February 2019 the Russian government suggested publishing bilateral correspondence on the subject of unsanctioned
access to U.S. electronic networks, which was conducted between Washington and Moscow through the Nuclear Threat Reduction Centers
in the period from October 2016 to the end of January 2017.
Needless to say, all Russian offers were rejected. A conclusion is naturally reached that American State Department officials
have little interest in hearing anything that contradicts their own narrative or the discredited version of the CIA.
CLAIM: Russia is interfering in elections all over the world
FACT
No credible evidence has been produced not only of Russia's supposed meddling in the U.S. political processes, but to support
similar allegations made by the U.S. in respect to other countries. For example, former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster
insinuated that Russia was interfering in
the Mexican presidential elections of 2018. However, Mexican officials,
including
the president of the Mexican Senate Ernesto Cordero Arroyo, and Ambassador to Russia Norma Pensado
during a press conference in Moscow in February, 2018, debunked
this baseless claim.
Another example of fake news were reports saying that U.S.
was increasingly convinced that Russia hacked French election on May 9, 2017. However, on June 1, 2017, the head of the French
government's cyber security agency said no trace
was found of the claimed Russian hacking group behind the attack. On the other hand, the history of U.S. interfering in other
countries' elections
is well documented by American sources (see: ).
For example, a Carnegie Mellon scholar, Dov H. Levin, has scoured the historical record and
found 81 examples of U.S. election influence operations from 1946- to 2000. Often cited examples include Chile in 1964, Guyana
in 1968, Nicaragua in 1990, Yugoslavia in 2000, Afghanistan in 2009, Ukraine in 2014, not to mention Russia in 1996! And how else
could the current situation in Ukraine and Venezuela be described, with U.S. representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker openly pressuring
Ukrainian voters
to support the incumbent , and Washington
possibly plotting a
coup in Caracas?
CLAIM: The lawsuit of the Democratic National Committee against the Russian Federation related to "interference in the election"
has a legal standing.
FACT
The DNC filed a civil lawsuit on April 20, 2018 against the Russian Federation and other entities and individuals. Named as
defendants in the lawsuit are the Russian Federation; the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU); the
GRU operative using the pseudonym "Guccifer 2.0"; Aras Iskenerovich Agalarov; Emin Araz Agalarov; Joseph Mifsud; WikiLeaks; Julian
Assange; the Trump campaign (formally "Donald J. Trump for President, Inc."); Donald Trump, Jr.; Paul Manafort; Roger Stone; Jared
Kushner; George Papadopoulos; Richard W. Gates; and unnamed defendants sued as John Does 1–10. The DNC's complaint accuses the
Trump campaign of engaging in a racketeering enterprise in conjunction with Russia and WikiLeaks.
Even irrespective of the fact that there was no "interference" in the first place, the case has no legal standing. Exercise
of U.S. jurisdiction over the pending case with respect to the Russian Federation is a violation of the international law, specifically,
violation of jurisdictional immunities of the Russian Federation arising from the principle of the sovereign equality of states.
CLAIM: Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak was a spy.
FACT
In March of 2017 U.S. media
began libeling
Sergey Kislyak a "top spy and spy-recruiter" This preposterous claim was based on nothing but his contacts with Trump confidant
Senator Jeff Sessions – carrying out work any ambassador would do. Per the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961,
among core diplomatic functions is ascertaining
by all lawful means conditions
and developments in the receiving state, and that certainly includes openly meeting leaders of Congress on Capitol Hill. Even
former CIA Director John McLaughlin
noted that Mr. Kislyak is an experienced diplomat, not a spy.
CLAIM: Russian Embassy retreat in Maryland was an intelligence base
FACT.
Among the unlawful acts that U.S. administrations undertook was the expropriation of a legal Russian property in Maryland,
a summer retreat near the Chesapeake Bay under the pretext
it was used for intelligence gathering. But where is the supposed-treasure trove of alleged spy equipment that U.S. authorities
reportedly found there? Why not show them publicly to back up the claim? After the expropriation and the claims, not a word –
silence.
The retreat, "dacha" as Russians would call it, was bought by the former Soviet Union in 1972. Since then, it was used for
recreation, including hosting a children's summer camp and regularly entertaining American visitors. One of the more popular events
was the stop-over during the annual Chesapeake Regatta, completed with an expansive tour of the property. Presumably U.S. intelligence
services could have used this for years to inspect the property. Why was nothing ever mentioned before the Obama Administration
action?
CLAIM: The meeting in Trump Tower in New York on June 9, 2016 between Trump campaign officials and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya
was to discuss compromising materials that Russian had on Hillary Clinton.
FACT
According
to testimony provided to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms. Veselnitskaya focused on explaining the illicit activities
of U.S.-British investor Bill Browder, wanted in Russia for crimes, and brought attention to the adverse effects of the so-called
"Magnitskiy Act", adopted by U.S. Congress in 2012 and lobbied for by Browder.
CLAIM: Donald Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, met with Russians in Prague to "collude".
FACT
It was reported in American media that the Justice Department special counsel had evidence that Donald Trump's personal lawyer,
Michael Cohen, secretly made a trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign to meet with Russian representatives,
a fact also mentioned
in the discredited "Steele Dossier". This was given as further evidence of "collusion". But Cohen vehemently denied this –
under oath. Passport records
indicate
that he never was in Prague. He was actually on vacation with his son at the supposed time. Given that he publicly turned
on his former boss and still denied the fact of ever going to Prague disproves this claim further.
CLAIM: Former member of the Trump campaign team Carter Page was a Russian intelligence asset.
FACT
According to members of Congress and journalistic investigations, the redacted declassified documents of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court (FISC, also called the FISA Court)
show that the main source used by U.S. counterintelligence to justify spying on Mr. Page was the fraudulent so-called "Steele
Dossier".
Thus, Mr. Page for obvious reasons was not accused by the team of Robert Mueller of being involved in a "Russian conspiracy".
CLAIM: On August 22, 2018, The Democratic National Committee filed a claim with the FBI, accusing the "Russian hackers" of
infiltrating its electoral database.
FACT
Several days later members of the Democratic Party
admitted that it was a "false alarm", as it was simply a security check-up performed at the initiative of the Democratic Party's
affiliate in Michigan.
CLAIM: On August 8, 2018 U.S. Senator Bill Nelson accused Russia of breaching the infrastructure of the voter registration
systems in several local election offices of Florida.
FACT
Florida's Department of State spokesperson, Sarah Revell, stated on August 9, 2018, that Florida's government had not received
any evidence from competent authorities that Florida's voting systems or election records had been compromised. The U.S. Department
of Homeland Security and the FBI also
could not confirm in any manner the accusations.
CLAIM: In September, 2017 the U.S. media, referring to the Department of Homeland Security, accused Russia of "cyberattacks"
on electoral infrastructure in 21 states during the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections.
FACT
On September 27, 2017, Wisconsin and California authorities stated that their electoral systems were not targeted by cyberattacks.
On November 12, 2017, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said in a CBS interview that the "hackers' activity" had
no significant consequences and did not influence the outcome of the elections. And, indeed, the
source of those attacks was not clear.
CLAIM: Russia meddled in the Alabama 2017 Senate elections to help the Republican candidate.
FACT
Despite
the initial claims , it turned out that a group of Democratic tech experts decided to imitate so-called "Russian tactics"
in the fiercely contested Alabama Senate racе. Even more jarring is the fact that one participant in the "Alabama project", Jonathon
Morgan, is chief executive of "New Knowledge", a cyber security firm that
wrote a scathing account
of Russia's social media operations in the 2016 election that was released in 2018 by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Once
again, we have one of the main private sector players in hyping the Russian threat caught red-handed.
CLAIM: Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's presidential campaign chairman, was a secret link to Russian intelligence.
FACT
Trump's former campaign chairman was hit with two indictments from Mueller's office. However, even as American media notes,
both cases have nothing to do with Russia and stemmed from his years as a political consultant for the Ukrainian government and
his failure to pay taxes on the millions he earned, his failure to report the foreign bank accounts he used to stash that money,
and his failure to report his work to the US government. In his second case in Virginia,
he was also charged with committing bank fraud to boost his assets when the Ukraine work dried up.
In fact, serious concerns have been raised in the U.S. that it was Ukrainian officials who tried to influence the 2016 elections
by leaking compromising
materials on Mr. Manafort.
The Ukrainian connection is also prevalent in the case of money transferred to accounts of American politicians. For instance,
according to a "New York Times" article, Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk
donated over
10 million dollars to the "Clinton Foundation while just 150 thousand dollars to the "Trump Foundation".
CLAIM: Russia compromised the Vermont power grid.
FACT
On December 31, 2016, "The Washington Post", accused "Russian hackers" of compromising the Vermont power grid. The local company,
"Burlington Electric", allegedly traced a malware code in a laptop of one of its employees. It was stated that the same "code"
was used to hack the Democratic Party servers in 2016. However, the "Wordfence" cybersecurity firm checked "Burlington Electric"
for hacking, and said that the malware code was openly available, for instance, on a web-site of Ukrainian hackers . The attackers
were using IP-addresses from across the world. "The Washington Post"
later admitted that conclusions on Russia's involvement were false.
CLAIM: Russian Alfa Bank was used as a secret communication link with the Trump campaign .
FACT
In October 2016 a new "accusation" appeared,
alleging that a message exchange between the Alfa Bank server and Trump organizations indicated a "secret" Trump – Russia
communication channel.
CLAIM: Russia cracked voter registration systems during the 2016 U.S. elections.
FACT
In July 2016 the U.S. Department of Homeland Security accused Russia of gaining unauthorized access to electronic voter registration
systems in Arizona. But on April 8, 2018, "Reuters",
referring to a high-ranking U.S. administration official, wrote there was no proof Russia had anything to do with the mentioned
cyberattack.
CLAIM: Russian Embassy bank transactions were linked to "election interference".
FACT
American publication "Buzzfeed"
repeatedly claimed that U.S. authorities flagged Russian Embassy financial transfers as suspicious, many of them dated around
the 2016 election. In reality, the media outlet, by twisting the facts and placing them out of context, made routine banking transactions
– salary transfers, payments to contractors – look nefarious.
It is not
uncommon for embassy personnel to receive larger payouts, transfer or withdraw larger sums of money at the end of their work.
Furthermore, leaking of confidential banking information of persons and organizations protected by diplomatic immunity raised
concerns about the likely involvement of security services.
The
arrest in October 2018 of a U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network official, charged with leaking
information both about the Russian Embassy accounts and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, provides further proof to
the theory of political skullduggery.
* * *
Most of these responses have not been fully examined or addressed by major media, nor, for that matter, by Fox News, dominated
as it is by an almost instinctive Neoconservative Russophobia (the one possible exception being Tucker Carlson).
For the American Left, since the collapse of Communism and the growth of a traditionalist nationalism (under Vladimir Putin),
Russia has become a convenient target. When the Soviets were in power prior to 1991, the USSR was seen as a "progressive" presence
in the world, even if by the requirements of American politics the Left was forced to make ritualistic condemnations of the more
extreme elements of Soviet statecraft. Now that post-Communist Russia bans same sex marriage, glorifies the traditional family,
and the conservative Russian Orthodox Church occupies a special position of esteem and prominence, that admiration has turned
to fear and loathing. And that Russia and its president have been viewed as favorable to the hated Donald Trump doubly confirms
that hostility and targeting.
For the dominant Neoconservatives and many Republicans, contemporary Russia is seen as "anti-democratic," "reactionary," and
a threat to American world hegemony (and the refusal to bow to that hegemony, whether economically, politically, or culturally).
Indeed, as a major intellectual force, Neoconservatism owes much of its origins to Eastern European and Russia Jews, many of whose
ancestors were at direct odds with the old pre-1917 Tsarist state. That animus, those nightmares of pogroms and oppression, have
never completely subsided. A modern traditionalist, Orthodox Russia is viewed as antithetical to their more liberal, even Leftwing
ideas (e.g., increasing "conservative" acceptance of same sex marriage, "moderate" feminism, and a whole panoply of "forward looking"
views on civil rights issues -- all of which are present on Fox News.)
Memory of "the bad old days" has never disappeared.
None of this history should prevent a close examination of the current accusations against Russia, nor our search for the truth.
Much -- perhaps the future of Western civilization itself -- depends on it.
"... Russia, and specifically President Putin, were presented as the ultimate global bogeyman after Crimea's 2014 reunification and Moscow's 2015 anti-terrorist military intervention in Syria changed the balance of power around the world and unquestionably ushered in the multipolar era after two and a half decades of American unipolarity. ..."
"... It was therefore thought by the ruling anti-Trump faction of the US' permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies ("deep state") at the time that they could easily convince the electorate to vote against the seemingly "anti-systemic" political insurgent by implying that he's a "Russian puppet" and then later, after that didn't work, manufacturing so-called "evidence" purporting to prove this through unverified fake news claims designed to defame him. ..."
Mueller report proved that Russiagate was one long series of hoaxes designed to discredit
Trump and pave the way for his impeachment
It's finally official -- Trump and his team didn't "collude" with Russia like the Democrats
and their supporters incessantly claimed for nearly the past three years. Positive coverage of
candidate Trump's promising foreign policy platform by Russian international media and truthful
reporting about Clinton's aggressive one don't amount to "hacking" an election, nor do some
internet researchers from Russia supposedly sharing some political memes on Facebook. It's now
been revealed that Russiagate was one long series of hoaxes designed to discredit Trump and
pave the way for his impeachment after it first failed to stop him from winning the presidency.
Like the American leader himself has said on several occasions already, Russiagate was an
unconstitutional coup attempt against the country's democratically elected leadership, which
deserves to be analyzed more in depth.
Russia, and specifically President Putin, were presented as the ultimate global bogeyman
after Crimea's 2014 reunification and Moscow's 2015 anti-terrorist military intervention in
Syria changed the balance of power around the world and unquestionably ushered in the
multipolar era after two and a half decades of American unipolarity.
It was therefore thought by the ruling anti-Trump faction of the US' permanent military,
intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies ("deep state") at the time that they could easily
convince the electorate to vote against the seemingly "anti-systemic" political insurgent by
implying that he's a "Russian puppet" and then later, after that didn't work, manufacturing
so-called "evidence" purporting to prove this through unverified fake news claims designed to
defame him.
Psyops and propaganda have a cumulative effect on the thought processes of the target
populations. After 9/11 it became legal for our intelligence services to turn these insidious
weapons on our own people. The result is a metastasis of political polarization into fear and
loathing in more vulnerable minds. These Dark State practitioners are manipulating the
outcomes and expect cult-like (or occult) spasms of mass murder. The crude scapegoating, the
Orwellian menagerie of enemies, the contamination of public forums with trolls, the false
flags, and constant promotion of political hysteria, has a methodology that we have seen in
the 20th Century. I am always grateful when b reminds us of this danger.
Mediastan: A Wikileaks Road Movie: Due to the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the
arrests of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, Sixteen Films and Journeyman Pictures are
providing a time-limited free access to the Wikileaks road movie Mediastan. Mediastan is a
documentary film directed by Johannes Wahlström and co-produced by Julian Assange,
detailing the publication of the very documents for which both Assange and Manning have
been incarcerated.
"... Deerlove was also directly involved in setting up several Trump Campaign operatives for fake links to Russia (George Papadopolous, Carter Page, Gen. Flynn), together with British intelligence assets Joseph Mifsud and CIA asset Stefan Halper, a close ally of Deerlove at Cambridge. ..."
"... Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News Tuesday that he will immediately investigate three cases of suspected "set ups," efforts to create fake connections between the Trump campaign and the Russians, all directly run by British operatives: the Mifsud role with Australian Ambassador Alexander Downer in falsely connecting George Papadopoulos to Russian spies; Halper and Deerlove setting up Gen. Flynn with fake Russian connections; and the infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer, set up by the slimy British operative Rob Goldstone. ..."
On Thursday morning, Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to release the Mueller
report, with redactions, according to laws regarding security and the privacy of Grand Jury
proceedings. While the Trump haters and conspirators are preparing various operations to keep
Russiagate going, despite the report's exoneration of Trump's imagined "collusion," the reality
that the British ran the entire operation, as identified from the beginning by EIR, is now
bursting out into the open, and is threatening to be the subject of criminal investigations in
the Department of Justice and in the Congress.
The Daily Caller's Chuck Ross on Tuesday ran an article titled: "Former British Spymaster
Has Flown Under the Radar in Russia Probe, Despite Links to Key Figures." He names Richard
Deerlove, MI6 chief from 1999 to 2004, as a key operative working with fellow MI6 operative
Christopher Steele, the author of the now discredited dossier on Trump's supposed collusion
with Russia. Deerlove was also directly involved in setting up several Trump Campaign
operatives for fake links to Russia (George Papadopolous, Carter Page, Gen. Flynn), together
with British intelligence assets Joseph Mifsud and CIA asset Stefan Halper, a close ally of
Deerlove at Cambridge.
Meanwhile, Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, told
Fox News Tuesday that he will immediately investigate three cases of suspected "set ups,"
efforts to create fake connections between the Trump campaign and the Russians, all directly
run by British operatives: the Mifsud role with Australian Ambassador Alexander Downer in
falsely connecting George Papadopoulos to Russian spies; Halper and Deerlove setting up Gen.
Flynn with fake Russian connections; and the infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian
lawyer, set up by the slimy British operative Rob Goldstone.
What's more, the VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) issued a public
Memorandum for President Trump on Tuesday, called "The Fly in the Mueller Ointment," warning
him that the Mueller report, despite finding no evidence of collusion, maintains the lie that
the Russians hacked leading Democratic Party computers and provided their emails to Wikileaks,
falsely described as a Russian front. Detailing their forensic proof that the emails were
downloaded, not hacked, the VIPS warn the President that if these lies are allowed to stand,
the idea that Trump was elected due to Russian "interference" in the election will remain, "and
that melody will linger on for the rest of your presidency, unless you seize the moment.... You
are the President, and there may be no better time than now to face them down." (see Bill Binney interview with
LPAC.)
03/28/2016 With the increasing propaganda wars, we thought a reminder of just how naive many
Westerners are when it comes to their news-feed. As
Arjun Walia, of GlobalResearch.ca, notes, Dr. Ulfkotte went on public television stating
that he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agents under his own name, also adding
that noncompliance with these orders would result in him losing his job.
He recently made an appearance on RT news to share these facts:
I've been a journalist for about 25 years, and I was educated to lie, to betray, and not
to tell the truth to the public.
But seeing right now within the last months how the German and American media tries to
bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia -- this is a point of no return and
I'm going to stand up and say it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate
people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do and have
done in the past because they are bribed to betray the people, not only in Germany, all over
Europe.
The ceding of democracy to an unaccountable deep state in the US is at the heart of many of
the world's woes.
'The Devils Chessboard' (by DAvid Talbot) provides a riveting account of how cold war
paranoia became the engine to so much US thinking culminating in the murder of JFK (by the
CIA) once Kennedy became the first president to meaningfully challenge the authority of the
security apperatus.
The murderous policies Kennedy tried and failed to confront have only mushroomed since
then so that today we have a form of cryptofascism in the US that the media are in absolute
denial about.
JFK was gunned down.
Julian Assange will be consigned to solitary if the deep state has it's way.
But this doesn't stop MPs like jess Phillips, hacks like Hadley Freeman or other assorted
phonies in the 'liberal media' cheering them on – this is what we are up against.
Except JFK didn't do anything of the sort: and conducted a fair few murderous policies of his
own – inter alia: against Cuba and South Vietnam. But I am tired of arguing the point
with actual facts. What I will say, is that this pseudo-historic construct hides the and
heroifies the crimes of Empire and Unpeoples more than half the world. And normalises
Armageddon as a game of nuclear brinksmanship. We won't be so lucky again following the
satandardised diplomatic "13 Days" diplomacy. [That was a typo: but its staying as far more
eloquent than 'standardised']. A point I have made consistently for about two years: with
evidence. But opinion is averse to contradictory facticity. It would be nice to see a
symmetric history emerging: one that returns the humanity to the dehumanised of the world.
Not one that focuses on and normalises the murderous hagiography of the Great Men of Empire
but hey, ho. Loading...
What we do know is that JFK was preceived as sufficiently threating (to the interests of the
deep state) that the CIA blew his brains out.
It is this fundemental power dynamic that I am mostly alluding to – in other words
the way in which the intelligence apperatus rose above the law so that by '63 even the
president of the USA was not safe from their nefarious scheming.
By comparison a whitleblower is a far more vulnerable target and it appears the CIA have
been prepared to bide their time while a sham legal process goes through the motions in order
to create an illusion that justice is being served when in facts it's not, because as we all
know Asssange's fate has already been sealed.
I take your point about JFKs failings but given the fascistic nature of US power it is
very unlikely that an untainted politician could negotiate the many hurdles the prevent less
amoral individuals from reaching such rarefied heights.
With all due respect, Harry, we do not know that JFK was perceived as a 'threat' at all. That
is a retroactive conclusion drawn from a fabricated virtual JFK. I've shown he was not
turning to peace, not withdrawing from Vietnam, the MIC was doing rather well out of him
– particularly the Rand Corporation that was driving policy in Vietnam. He doubled the
nuclear arsenal and ordered a whole fleet of Polaris subs, alongside massively strengthening
his conventional forces – including his counterinsurgency forces that were currently
raping, torturing and murdering their way round any designated 'gooks' in Vietnam. He even
gave them a valedictory shoutout in his last recorded speech. And added that Vietnam would
fall overnight without them.
Millions of man hours and a trillion dollar industry have shone very little light on the
why. Speculation abounds. What he did do was really piss off a whole bunch of psychopaths (my
money is on Lyman Lemnitzer). The whole metaconspiracy thing seems contrived to me –
especially as it does not fit the evidence.
Points about the power structure are well made. The CIA and international intelligence
agencies – not strictly limited to 'Five Eyes' or even 'Fourteen Eyes' – seem to
have at least some integrated policy and are out of control.
Any derogatory remarks about the medias alternative Labour leader – Jess Phillips
– are welcome too.
BigB. Wrong again. A Washington journalist 3 weeks before the assassination wrote about the
CIA being out of control in Vietnam. His highly placed source reckoned too that a coup would
more likely come from the CIA before the Pentagon. The source in all likelihood was JFK. Just
because you are ignorant of something doesn't mean it wasn't so. Loading...
Well, Hugh – what can I say? You have steadfastly refused to even contemplate that the
Douglass pulp fiction is tripe. I have offered to go through the key pages and
cross-reference with any of Sheldon Stern's Excomm books – that show how contrived a
narrative fiction it is. You will not hear it. Nor will you hear anything of the murderous
policies of the Diem clan – and their forced Catholicisation and cultural genocide. Now
you are countering what I have adequately referenced in the past with "a reporter said".
Reporters say a lot of things: not necessarily linked to reality. Can you substantiate what
this anonymous reporter said?
His well chronicled persecution of, inter alia, the Cubans and the South Vietnamese speaks
volumes to those who have ears to hear. I believe the first thing he did was sign a
counterinsurgency order against North Vietnam – but I can't be bothered to check. His
whole programme there was illegal, contra International Humanitarian Law, contra the Geneva
Accords, contra humanity, contra life. They still have deformed children and environmental
problems from the rainbow of chemical warfare defoliants used in Operation Ranch Hand –
every run signed off by JFK initially. And still you defend him, denigrating the unpeopled
and deformed Other because a reporter said? Get real: he is not worthy of anyone's adulation.
You can't hide behind the CIA forever. He made plenty of anti-human decisions on his own.
Some of which nearly precipitated Armageddon.
Coming right back at ya: just because you are ignorant of something doesn't mean it wasn't
so.
Looks like tail wags the dog -- CIA controls the US foreign policy and in the last elections
also played active role in promoting Hillary. A the level of top brass we have
several people mentioned by Giraldi who are probably as dangerous as Allen Dulles was. Brennan
is one example.
The parade of rogues that Philip describes is really
alarming. Each with agenda that directly harms
the USA as a country promoting the interest of military-industrial complex and neocon
faction within the government...
Notable quotes:
"... Indeed, one can start with Tenet if one wants to create a roster of recent CIA Directors who have lied to permit the White House to engage in a war crime. Tenet and his staff knew better than anyone that the case against Saddam did not hold water, but President George W. Bush wanted his war and, by gum, he was going to get it if the CIA had any say in the matter. ..."
"... Back then as now, international Islamic terrorism was the name of the game. It kept the money flowing to the national security establishment in the false belief that America was somehow being made "safe." But today the terror narrative has been somewhat supplanted by Russia, which is headed by a contemporary Saddam Hussein in the form of Vladimir Putin. If one believes the media and a majority of congressmen, evil manifest lurks in the gilded halls of the Kremlin. Russia has recently been sanctioned (again) for crimes that are more alleged than demonstrated and President Putin has been selected by the Establishment as the wedge issue that will be used to end President Donald Trump's defiance of the Deep State and all that pertains to it. The intelligence community at its top level would appear to be fully on board with that effort. ..."
"... Remarkably, he also said that there is only "minimal evidence" that Russia is even fighting ISIS. The statement is astonishing as Moscow has most definitely been seriously and directly engaged in support of the Syrian Arab Army. Is it possible that the head of the CIA is unaware of that? It just might be that Pompeo is disparaging the effort because the Russians and Syrians have also been fighting against the U.S. backed "moderate rebels." That the moderate rebels are hardly moderate has been known for years and they are also renowned for their ineffectiveness combined with a tendency to defect to more radical groups taking their U.S. provided weapons with them, a combination of factors which led to their being denied any further American support by a presidential decision that was revealed in the press two weeks ago. ..."
"... Pompeo's predecessor John Brennan is, however, my favorite Agency leader in the category of totally bereft of his senses. ..."
"... Brennan is certainly loyal to his cause, whatever that might be. At the same Aspen meeting attended by Pompeo, he told Wolf Blitzer that if Trump were to fire special counsel Robert Mueller government officials should "refuse to carry out" his orders. In other words, they should begin a coup, admittedly non-violent (one presumes), but nevertheless including federal employees uniting to shut the government down. ..."
"... And finally, there is Michael Morell, also a former Acting Director, who was closely tied to the Hillary Clinton campaign, apparently driven by ambition to become Director in her administration. Morell currently provides commentary for CBS television and is a frequent guest on the Charlie Rose show. Morell considerably raised the ante on Brennan's pre-electoral speculation that there had been some Russian recruitment of Trump people. He observed in August that Putin, a wily ex-career intelligence officer, "trained to identify vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them [did exactly that] early in the primaries. Mr. Putin played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation." ..."
"... Nothing new. In the '50s CIA was making foreign wars and cultivating chaos at home, and blaming all of it on Russia. In the '80s CIA was cultivating anti-nuke groups to undermine Reagan, and blaming it on Russia. CIA has been the primary wellspring of evil for a long time. ..."
"... Yes you read that right and they are going to the rotten core of this coup against the United States by presenting a report stating that the DNC was "Leaked" not hacked. The real hacking came from President Obama's weaponizing of our intelligence agencies against Russia. ..."
"... The CIA is the USA's secret army, it is not comparable to a real intelligence organization like the British MI5. The CIA is more like WWII SOE, designed to set fire to Europe, Churchill's words. ..."
"... As has been the case for decades the Deep State allows Presidents and legislators to make minor decisions in our government as long as those decisions do not in any way interfere with the Deep State's goals of total world hegemony and increase in overwhelming power and wealth. Those who make the important decisions in this country are not elected. The elected 'officials' are sycophants of the Deep State. ..."
"... The term is appropriated from the use to describe the mutually loyal corps of Ataturkians in the Turkish military and intelligence services who were united in service to uphold the ideal of Ataturkian secular modernisation. The term implies no public accountability or publicity unnecessary to its purposes. ..."
"... The CIA's source, its birth, is from British secret service. Brit spying. And Brit secret service, long before the official founding of MI5, did exactly the kinds of things you note the CIA has done. ..."
"... The Mossad is another direct fruit of Brit secret service, as is the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency. ..."
"... While there can be no doubt about the crackpots in high positions of the most powerful bureaucracies, it seems to me that the CIA loonies are merely shock troops for an even worse bunch of evil psychos, the bankster mafiosi. ..."
"... I am a retired CIA operations officer (something none of the men mentioned by Giraldi are – Brennan was a failed wanna be, couldn't cut it as an ops officer). He is spot on in his comments. The majority of people in the CIA, the ones who do the heavy lifting, are patriotic Americans who are proud of serving their country. I am sure that most voted for Trump as they all know too well the truth about the Clintons and Obama. ..."
"... Giraldi is not the only one to notice the upward progress of the most incompetent yes-men in the Agency. A close look at most of them reveals a track record of little or no operational success balanced by excellent sucking up skills. These characters quickly figured out how to get ahead and doing your job in the field is not it. Of course, most are ego maniacs so they are totally oblivious to their own uselessness. ..."
"... How "Russiagate" began: After the primaries, both Hillary and Donald faced divided political parties even though they had won the nomination. These divisions were worse than the normal situation after contested primaries. On the Democratic side, Hillay had just subverted the will of the voters of her party, who seemed to favor Bernie Sanders over her. Hillay had won with corrupt collusion and rigging amongst the DNC, the higher ranks of the Democratic Party, and major media such as the NYT and CNN. ..."
"... Then, a leak of emails from the DNC HQ publicized her interference in the democratic processes of the Democratic Party. This threatened to ene the Hillary for President campaign right then and there. If the majority of Democrats who'd favored Bernie refused to support Hillary because of her corruption and collusion in denying democracy within the party, she was a sure loser in the fall election. The Hillary camp then immediately started blaming Russia for the exposure of her corruption and rigging of the Democratic process. And that's how "Russiagate" began. ..."
"... Take that bunch of mediocre thinkers, and then make most of them obsessed with their own career advancement above all else. The most dangerous place for a career-obsessed individual is outside the group consensus. ..."
"... So, for instance, Trump should veto the act of war known as the recent sanctions bill. Who cares if it gets overridden? Then he goes back to the voters, who are clearly sick of endless war and who for obvious reasons don't want a nuclear war, and he says this is where I stand. Support me by electing Fill-In-The-Blank to Congress. With the nuclear Doomsday Clock pushing ever closer to midnight, he might just win that fight over the big money and media opposition he's sure to face. ..."
"... Not only has Trump failed to even try to fight the Deep State, but he's also failing to set himself up for success in the next elections. ..."
"... What we are seeing now is The Donald's role in the serial Zionist THEATER. Think deeper about the motive behind Mr. Giraldi's choice to use the Orwellian word "Groupthink" in characterizing the CIA zeitgeist? In the classic work "1984," one observes Big Brother as the catalyst in control of the proles' thought pattern & subsequent action. ..."
"... To rise & FALL as a POTUS is a matter of theater and the American proles are entertained by the political for either 4 or 8 years and the Zionists get their next Chosen actor/actress dramatically sworn in on a bible. ..."
Long ago, when I was a spear carrying middle ranker at CIA, a colleague took me aside and said
that he had something to tell me "as a friend," that was very important. He told me that his wife
had worked for years in the Agency's Administrative Directorate, as it was then called, where she
had noticed that some new officers coming out of the Career Trainee program had red tags on their
personnel files. She eventually learned from her boss that the tags represented assessments that
those officers had exceptional potential as senior managers. He added, however, that the reverse
appeared to be true in practice as they were generally speaking serial failures as they ascended
the bureaucratic ladder, even though their careers continued to be onward and upward on paper. My
friend's wife concluded, not unreasonably, that only genuine a-holes had what it took to get promoted
to the most senior ranks.
I was admittedly skeptical but some recent activity by former and current Directors and Acting
Directors of CIA has me wondering if something like my friend's wife's observation about senior management
might indeed be true. But it would have to be something other than tagging files, as many of the
directors and their deputies did not come up through the ranks and there seems to be a similar strain
of lunacy at other U.S. government intelligence agencies. It might be time to check the water supply
in the Washington area as there is very definitely something in the kool-aid that is producing odd
behavior.
Now I should pause for a moment and accept that the role of intelligence services is to identify
potential threats before they become active, so a certain level of acute paranoia goes with the job.
But at the same time, one would expect a level of professionalism which would mandate accuracy rather
than emotion in assessments coupled with an eschewing of any involvement in the politics of foreign
and national security policy formulation. The enthusiasm with which a number of senior CIA personnel
have waded into the Trump swamp and have staked out positions that contradict genuine national interests
suggests that little has been learned since CIA Director George Tenet sat behind Secretary of State
Colin Powell in the UN and nodded sagaciously as Saddam Hussein's high crimes and misdemeanors were
falsely enumerated.
Indeed, one can start with Tenet if one wants to create a roster of recent CIA Directors who
have lied to permit the White House to engage in a war crime. Tenet and his staff knew better than
anyone that the case against Saddam did not hold water, but President George W. Bush wanted his war
and, by gum, he was going to get it if the CIA had any say in the matter.
Back then as now, international Islamic terrorism was the name of the game. It kept the money
flowing to the national security establishment in the false belief that America was somehow being
made "safe." But today the terror narrative has been somewhat supplanted by Russia, which is headed
by a contemporary Saddam Hussein in the form of Vladimir Putin. If one believes the media and a majority
of congressmen, evil manifest lurks in the gilded halls of the Kremlin. Russia has recently been
sanctioned (again) for crimes that are more alleged than demonstrated and President Putin has been
selected by the Establishment as the wedge issue that will be used to end President Donald Trump's
defiance of the Deep State and all that pertains to it. The intelligence community at its top level
would appear to be fully on board with that effort.
The most recent inexplicable comments come from the current CIA Director Mike Pompeo, speaking
at the Aspen Institute Security Forum. He began by asserting that Russia had interfered in the U.S.
election
before saying that the logic behind Russia's Middle Eastern strategy is to stay in place in Syria
so Moscow can "stick it to America." He didn't define the "it" so one must assume that "it" stands
for any utensil available, ranging from cruise missiles to dinner forks. He then elaborated, somewhat
obscurely, that "I think they find anyplace that they can make our lives more difficult, I think
they find that something that's useful."
Remarkably, he also said that there is only "minimal evidence" that Russia is even fighting
ISIS. The statement is astonishing as Moscow has most definitely been seriously and directly engaged
in support of the Syrian Arab Army. Is it possible that the head of the CIA is unaware of that? It
just might be that Pompeo is disparaging the effort because the Russians and Syrians have also been
fighting against the U.S. backed "moderate rebels." That the moderate rebels are hardly moderate
has been known for years and they are also renowned for their ineffectiveness combined with a tendency
to defect to more radical groups taking their U.S. provided weapons with them, a combination of factors
which led to their being denied any further American support by a presidential decision that was
revealed in the press two weeks ago.
Pompeo's predecessor John Brennan is, however, my favorite Agency leader in the category of
totally bereft of his senses. In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee back in May,
he suggested that some Trump associates might have been recruited by the Russian intelligence service.
He testified that
"I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions
between Russian officials and US persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about
because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. It raised questions in my mind whether
or not Russia was able to gain the co-operation of those individuals."
In his testimony, Brennan apparently forgot to mention that the CIA is not supposed to keep tabs
on American citizens. Nor did he explain how he had come upon the information in the first place
as it had been handed over by foreign intelligence services, including the British, Dutch and Estonians,
and at least some of it had been sought or possibly inspired by Brennan unofficially in the first
place. Brennan then used that information to request an FBI investigation into a possible Russian
operation directed against potential key advisers if Trump were to somehow get nominated and elected,
which admittedly was a longshot at the time. That is how Russiagate started.
Brennan is certainly loyal to his cause, whatever that might be. At the same Aspen meeting
attended by Pompeo, he
told Wolf Blitzer that if Trump were to fire special counsel Robert Mueller government officials
should "refuse to carry out" his orders. In other words, they should begin a coup, admittedly non-violent
(one presumes), but nevertheless including federal employees uniting to shut the government down.
A lesser known former CIA senior official is
John McLaughlin,
who briefly served as acting Director in 2004. McLaughlin was particularly outraged by Trump's recent
speech to the Boy Scouts, which he described as having the feel "of a third world authoritarian's
youth rally." He added that "It gave me the creeps it was like watching the late Venezuelan [President
Hugo] Chavez."
And finally, there is Michael Morell, also a former Acting Director, who was closely tied
to the Hillary Clinton campaign, apparently driven by ambition to become Director in her administration.
Morell currently provides commentary for CBS television and is a frequent guest on the Charlie Rose
show. Morell considerably raised the ante on Brennan's pre-electoral speculation that there had been
some Russian recruitment of Trump people.
He observed in August that Putin, a wily ex-career intelligence officer, "trained to identify
vulnerabilities in an individual and to exploit them [did exactly that] early in the primaries. Mr.
Putin played upon Mr. Trump's vulnerabilities In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr.
Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."
I and others noted at the time that Putin and Trump had never met, not even through proxies, while
we also wondered how one could be both unwitting and a recruited agent as intelligence recruitment
implies control and taking direction. Morell was non-plussed, unflinching and just a tad sanctimonious
in affirming that his own intelligence training (as an analyst who never recruited a spy in his life)
meant that "[I] call it as I see it."
One could also cite Michael Hayden and James Clapper, though the latter was not CIA They all
basically hew to the same line about Russia, often in more-or-less the same words, even though no
actual evidence has been produced to support their claims. That unanimity of thinking is what is
peculiar while academics like Stephen Cohen, Stephen Walt, Andrew Bacevich, and John Mearsheimer,
who have studied Russia in some depth and understand the country and its leadership far better than
a senior CIA officer, detect considerable nuance in what is taking place. They all believe that the
hardline policies current in Washington are based on an eagerness to go with the flow on the comforting
inside-the- beltway narrative that paints Russia as a threat to vital interests. That unanimity of
viewpoint should surprise no one as this is more of less the same government with many of the same
people that led the U.S. into Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. They all have a vested interested in the
health and well-being of a fully funded national security state.
And the other groupthink that seems to prevail among the senior managers except Pompeo is that
they all hate Donald Trump and have done so since long before he won the election. That is somewhat
odd, but it perhaps reflects a fear that Trump would interfere with the richly rewarding establishment
politics that had enabled their careers. But it does not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of CIA
employees. Though it is admittedly unscientific analysis on my part, I know a lot of former and some
current CIA employees but do not know a single one who voted for Hillary Clinton. Nearly all voted
for Trump.
Beyond that exhibition of tunnel vision and sheer ignorance, the involvement of former senior
intelligence officials in politics is itself deplorable and is perhaps symptomatic of the breakdown
in the comfortable bipartisan national security consensus that has characterized the past fifty years.
Once upon time former CIA officers would retire to the Blue Ridge mountains and raise Labradors,
but we are now into something much more dangerous if the intelligence community, which has been responsible
for most of the recent leaks, begins to feel free to assert itself from behind the scenes. As Senator
Chuck Schumer
recently warned "Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community -- they have six ways
from Sunday at getting back at you."
In jumping this fascist nihilist shark, the groupthinkers have closed themselves off from the
logical conclusion to their viewpoint, which is final annihilation.
Brennan, Morell, and Pompeo should better find ways to justify their salaries: the U.S. has
suffered the greatest breach in cybersecurity on their watch:
" an enormous breach of the United States Security Apparatus by as many as 80 Democrat members
of Congress (past and present). We rail on about the Russians and Trump, but t he media avoids
providing nightly updates about these 5 spies that have compromised Congress ."
"In total, Imran's firm was employed by 31 Democrats in Congress, some of whom held extremely
sensitive positions on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House
Committee on Foreign Affair s."
Nothing new. In the '50s CIA was making foreign wars and cultivating chaos at home, and
blaming all of it on Russia. In the '80s CIA was cultivating anti-nuke groups to undermine Reagan,
and blaming it on Russia. CIA has been the primary wellspring of evil for a long time.
And back to reality we have VIPS Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Yes you read that right and they are going to the rotten core of this coup against the
United States by presenting a report stating that the DNC was "Leaked" not hacked. The real hacking
came from President Obama's weaponizing of our intelligence agencies against Russia.
That is war, World War Three and it would seem now that Congress is marching that way, but
the report below hold the key to fighting back.
One of the VIPS is William Binney fomer NSA Technical Director, an important expert. leading
the group is Ray McGovern with some whit and grace, well yes how about some sanity, to which humor
is important to the insight and to stay in the sights of what is clever thievery and worse. Much
worse,
and there is a twinkle in the eye when realize that it is straight forward.
And Congress could stop it tout sweet, but well old habits but they have taken an Oath of Office,
so, so what, yeah they did go after Bernie, so will you challenge your elected officials, either
do their sworn duty or resign, for what this sanctions bill against Russia and Iran is a declaration
of war, not only against Russia and Iran, but a declaration of war against the United States.
for there is no reason to do this against Russia when indeed there are great opportunities to
get along, but war is the insanity as it is sedition and treason. Tell them that,
I wonder if groupthink exists.
In any organisation people know quite well why the organisation exists, what the threats are to
its existence.
If they think about this, I wonder.
The CIA is the USA's secret army, it is not comparable to a real intelligence organization like
the British MI5.
The CIA is more like WWII SOE, designed to set fire to Europe, Churchill's words.
If indeed Trump changes USA foreign policy, no longer trying to control the world, the CIA is
obsolete, as obsolete as NATO.
" but President George W. Bush wanted his war and, by gum, he was going to get it if the CIA
had any say in the matter."
Not to defend the CIA, but didn't Rumsfeld, doubt the enthusiasm of the CIA for providing the
slanted, bogus, "sexed up" intelligence the Executive required to make its "destroy Iraq now"
case ? So Rumsfeld therefore set up an independent intelligence agency within the Defence Dept
to provide/create the required "intelligence" ?
I think they find anyplace that they can make our lives more difficult, I think they find
that something that's useful."
Yeah, because that's what resource-constrained countries with limited ability to tap the global
capital markets do. Methinks Mr. Pompeo is projecting his and the neocons' fantasies on the Russians.
As has been the case for decades the Deep State allows Presidents and legislators to make minor
decisions in our government as long as those decisions do not in any way interfere with the Deep
State's goals of total world hegemony and increase in overwhelming power and wealth. Those who
make the important decisions in this country are not elected. The elected 'officials' are sycophants
of the Deep State.
Being resistant to jargon and catch phrases it is only slowly that I have accepted that "Deep
State" is not entirely pretentious waffle when used to describe aspects of the US. However I may
not be your only reader PG who would appreciate a clear explanatory description of the American
Deep State and how it works.
Here are some suggested parameters.
The term is appropriated from the use to describe the mutually loyal corps of Ataturkians in
the Turkish military and intelligence services who were united in service to uphold the ideal
of Ataturkian secular modernisation. The term implies no public accountability or publicity unnecessary
to its purposes.
And its origins imply that it is not just one in a number of major influences ln government or
those who vote for it.
So one has to acknowledge that in the US the Deep State has to be different in the important
respect that levers of power are observably wielded by lobbies for the aged, gun owners and sellers,
Israel, Wall Street, bio fuels, sugar and other ag, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, the arms industry,
Disney and other Hollywood and media, health insurers and the medical profession, and I could
go on.
These are all relevant to legal events like votes on impeachment or to hold up appointments.
The CIA and FBI together completely united (and note how disunited 9/11 showed them to be) wouldn't
remotely approach the old Turkish Deep State's ability to stage a coup. Are all of the putative
elements of the Deep State together today as powerful as J.Edgar Hoover with his dirt files on
everyone? (A contrast and compare exercise of today's presumed Deep State configuration and modus
operandi with the simpler Hoover days might shine some light on who does what and how today. And
how effectively).
To avoid lack of focus can a convincing account of the US Deep State be best given in terms
of a plausible scenario for
getting rid of Trump as President and/or
maintaining the lunacy and hubris which has the US wasting its substance on totally unnecessary
antagonistic relations with China and Russia and interference in the ME?
I would read such accounts with great interest. (Handwavers need not apply).
Of course the US Deep State must hate Russia. First, Jews have a very long history of hating Russia and Russians. That never changed. The
USSR was not Russia; the USSR was Marxism replacing Russia. Jews tended to love that. Rich Jews
from across the world, from the US and the UK of most interest to us, sent money to support the
Bolshevik Revolution.
Russia managed to survive the USSR and is slowly coming back around to Russian common sense
from the Christian perspective. Neither Jews nor their WASP BFFs can ever forgive that. They want
Russia to act now to commit cultural and genetic suicide, like Western Europe and the entire Anglosphere
are doing.
@polistraThe CIA's source, its birth, is from British secret service. Brit spying. And Brit secret service,
long before the official founding of MI5, did exactly the kinds of things you note the CIA has
done.
The Mossad is another direct fruit of Brit secret service, as is the Saudi General Intelligence
Presidency.
While there can be no doubt about the crackpots in high positions of the most powerful bureaucracies,
it seems to me that the CIA loonies are merely shock troops for an even worse bunch of evil psychos,
the bankster mafiosi.
But doing so would mean a voluntary end to playing the role of Sauron, determined to find and
wear the One Ring to Rule Them All. The average Elite WASP, and his Jewish BFF, definitely would
prefer to destroy the world, at least outside their gated compounds of endless luxury, than to
step down from that level of global domination.
@Wizard
of Oz Wiz – Here is an article I did on the Deep State two years ago. It was one of the first
in the US media looking at the issue. It would have to be updated now in light of Trump, but much
of what it states is still more-or-less correct.
But we need to make certain that your use of the word 'mafiosi' does not lead anyone to assume
that group has more than a handful of Italians. Jews, WASPs, and continental Germanics each will
outnumber Italians by at least 30 to 1.
I am a retired CIA operations officer (something none of the men mentioned by Giraldi are –
Brennan was a failed wanna be, couldn't cut it as an ops officer). He is spot on in his comments.
The majority of people in the CIA, the ones who do the heavy lifting, are patriotic Americans
who are proud of serving their country. I am sure that most voted for Trump as they all know too
well the truth about the Clintons and Obama.
Giraldi is not the only one to notice the upward progress of the most incompetent yes-men in the
Agency. A close look at most of them reveals a track record of little or no operational success
balanced by excellent sucking up skills. These characters quickly figured out how to get ahead
and doing your job in the field is not it. Of course, most are ego maniacs so they are totally
oblivious to their own uselessness.
Well before he was elected I had a letter delivered to President Trump in which I outlined in
detail what would happen to him if he did not immediately purge the CIA of these assholes. I know
that at least some people on his staff read it but, of course, my advice was ignored. Trump has
paid dearly for not listening to an ordinary CIA guy who wanted to give him a reality brief on
those vicious snakes.
Historical facts teach humanity that Anglo-Saxon group of Nations was built on slavery, thuggery
and theft of other peace loving Civilizations.
We Slavs are the New "niggers", hate is the glue that holds you "toGether".
People of color have been successfully conditioned and practice it as well.
Time will tell how well it holds when balloon bursts and 99% gets called to serve as cannon fodder.
Terrorizing UNARMED and WEAKER is not true test of "superiority" and "exceptionalism".
Tiny, extremely tiny minority of Anglo-Saxons and Satraps understand this.
How "Russiagate" began: After the primaries, both Hillary and Donald faced divided political parties even though they
had won the nomination. These divisions were worse than the normal situation after contested primaries.
On the Democratic side, Hillay had just subverted the will of the voters of her party, who seemed
to favor Bernie Sanders over her. Hillay had won with corrupt collusion and rigging amongst the
DNC, the higher ranks of the Democratic Party, and major media such as the NYT and CNN.
Then, a leak of emails from the DNC HQ publicized her interference in the democratic processes
of the Democratic Party. This threatened to ene the Hillary for President campaign right then
and there. If the majority of Democrats who'd favored Bernie refused to support Hillary because
of her corruption and collusion in denying democracy within the party, she was a sure loser in
the fall election. The Hillary camp then immediately started blaming Russia for the exposure of her corruption
and rigging of the Democratic process. And that's how "Russiagate" began.
It probably does as do group psychoses and group fantasies.. Anyone who's ever served in a beuaracracy
knows that groupthink exists.
Take a bunch of mediocre minds. And, they do exist, as Garrison Keiler once famously made a
joke out of with his line Welcome to Lake Woebegone, where all the children are above average.
Take that bunch of mediocre thinkers, and then make most of them obsessed with their own career
advancement above all else. The most dangerous place for a career-obsessed individual is outside
the group consensus. If everyone is wrong, then there is safety in the group. After all, if they
are wrong, so was everyone else in the organization. Thus they are immune to attack and censure
for being wrong. But if someone takes a position outside of the group consensus, that can be a
career-ending move if they are wrong, as now everyone else will be in the I-told-U-So camp. And
even if they are correct, they will still be hated and shunned just for being the person who pointed
out to the group that they are wrong.
So, you take your typical average mind, and not only do they not have any great insights of
their own, but they tend to stick to the group out of sheer survival and then when you take a
mass of these mediocre minds you have 'groupthink'.
If only Trump would really clean the swamp - particularly the neo-cons and other traitors and
globalists. One can dream ....
What we've learned from Trump is that 'Draining the Swamp' will
take more than an individual. It will take a political movement.
One sees this on the fringes of politics. Someone gets the idea of running for President, and
they point out all that is wrong. But, they focus only on their own campaign, their own goal,
and they thus gloss over the fact that they'll be outnumbered and powerless even if they win.
Seen this often on the Left. The most recent example is Bernie Sanders. Likewise, had Bernie
been elected President, he too would face an entrenched establishment and media with only a small
fraction of the Congress supporting him.
Change has to be built from the bottom up. There are no shortcuts. Electing a Trump, or a Nader
or a Bernie does not lead to real change. Step one is to build the political movement such that
it has real voting block power and which has already won voting majorities in the legislature
before the movement achieves the election of a President.
What Trump has needed to be doing for this first two years is to form clear divisions that
he could then take to his voters in the mid-term elections. He's needed to lay out his own agenda.
So what if he loses votes in Congress? He then takes that agenda back to the voters in 2018 with
a nationwide slate of Congressional candidates who support that agenda and runs a midterm campaign
asking the voters to help him drain that swamp.
So, for instance, Trump should veto the act of war known as the recent sanctions bill. Who
cares if it gets overridden? Then he goes back to the voters, who are clearly sick of endless
war and who for obvious reasons don't want a nuclear war, and he says this is where I stand. Support
me by electing Fill-In-The-Blank to Congress. With the nuclear Doomsday Clock pushing ever closer
to midnight, he might just win that fight over the big money and media opposition he's sure to
face.
Not only has Trump failed to even try to fight the Deep State, but he's also failing to set
himself up for success in the next elections.
It is a serious error to consider President Trump "naive."
What we are seeing now is The Donald's role in the serial Zionist THEATER. Think deeper about the motive behind Mr. Giraldi's choice to use the Orwellian word "Groupthink"
in characterizing the CIA zeitgeist? In the classic work "1984," one observes Big Brother as the catalyst in control of the proles'
thought pattern & subsequent action.
To rise & FALL as a POTUS is a matter of theater and the American proles are entertained by
the political for either 4 or 8 years and the Zionists get their next Chosen actor/actress dramatically
sworn in on a bible.
Mr. Trump is neither naive nor stupid. Sheldon Adelson would not donate $millioms to any POTUS
wannabe who could not effectively lead the American Groupthink tradition. Subsequently, the political
horror show is brought to you in the understandable form of the perpetually elusive Deep State
which gets annual Academy Award.
"Carnage needs to destroyed" mentality is dominant among the USA neoliberal elite and drives the policy toward Russia.
They all supported neoconservative extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda directed on weakening Russian and
establishing of world dominance. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this
Notable quotes:
"... There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this. ..."
"... This agenda has involved hopes for 'régime change' in Russia, whether as the result of an oligarchic coup, a popular revolt, or some combination of both. Also central have been hopes for a further 'rollback' of Russia influence in the post-Soviet space, both in areas now independent, such as Ukraine, and also ones still part of the Russian Federation, notably Chechnya. ..."
"... And, crucially, it involved exploiting the retreat of Russian power from the Middle East for 'régime change' projects which it was hoped would provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. ..."
"... Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky. ..."
"... it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep.. ..."
"... I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields. Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence". ..."
"... It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of defiance which they will not tolerate. ..."
"... And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear. That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that. ..."
"... Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ..."
"... They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress West's posture; say 2040 ..."
"... In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. ..."
"... State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis" and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union ..."
"... About relation Steele-MI6, well, you never leave your IS. Or to put it in another way, you are never out of the scope of your past IS ..."
"... No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming. ..."
"... Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons. ..."
"... Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing. ..."
"... Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before any Steele's Dossier. This was a program. ..."
"... IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war. ..."
"... The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem for regular people, to worry about. ..."
"... A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario Scaramella. ..."
"... Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality? Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear. ..."
Steele, Shvets, Levinson, Litvinenko and the 'Billion Dollar Don.'
In the light of the suggestion in the Nunes memo that Steele was 'a longtime FBI source' it seems worth sketching out some background,
which may also make it easier to see some possible reasons why he 'was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate
about him not being president.'
There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements
in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign
policy agenda for a very long time. It also seems clear that influential journalists, such as Glenn Simpson was before founding Fusion
GPS, along with his wife Mary Jacoby, have been strongly involved in this.
This agenda has involved hopes for 'régime change' in Russia, whether as the result of an oligarchic coup, a popular revolt, or
some combination of both. Also central have been hopes for a further 'rollback' of Russia influence in the post-Soviet space, both
in areas now independent, such as Ukraine, and also ones still part of the Russian Federation, notably Chechnya.
And, crucially, it involved exploiting the retreat of Russian power from the Middle East for 'régime change' projects which it
was hoped would provide a definitive solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the
area.
Important support for these strategies was provided by the 'StratCom' network centred around the late Boris Berezovsky, which
clearly collaborated closely with MI6. As was apparent from the witness list at Sir Robert Owen's Inquiry into the death of Alexander
Litvinenko, which produced a report based essentially on a recycling of claims made by the network's members, key players were on
your side of the Atlantic – notably Alex Goldfarb, Yuri Shvets, and Yuri Felshtinsky.
The question of what links these had, or did not have, with elements in U.S. intelligence agencies is thus a critical one.
In making some sense of it, the fact that one key figure we know to have been involved in this network was missing at the Inquiry
– the former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007 – is important.
Unfortunately, I only recently came across a book on Levinson published in 2016 by the 'New York Times' journalist Barry Meier,
which is now hopefully winging its way across the Atlantic. From the accounts of the book I have seen, such as one by Jeff Stein
in 'Newsweek', it seems likely that its author did not look at any of the evidence presented at Owen's Inquiry.
Had he done so, Meier might have discovered that his subject had been, as it were, 'top supporting actor' in the first fumbling
attempt by Christopher Steele et al to produce a plausible-sounding scenario as to the background to Litvinenko's death. A Radio
4 programme on 16 December 2006, presented by the veteran BBC presenter Tom Mangold, had been wholly devoted to an account by Shvets,
backed up by Levinson. Both of these were, like Litvinenko, supposed to be impartial 'due diligence' operatives.
The notion that any of them might have connections with Western intelligence agencies was not considered. The – publicly available
– evidence of the involvement of Shvets, whose surname means 'cobbler' or 'shoemaker' in Ukrainian, in the processing of the tapes
of conversations involving the former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma supposedly recorded by Major Melnychenko, which had played
a crucial role in the 2004-5 'Orange Revolution' was not mentioned.
Still less was it mentioned that claims that the – very dangerous – late Soviet Kolchuga system, which made it possible the kind
of identification of incoming aircraft which radar had traditionally done, without sending out signals which made the destruction
of the facilities doing it possible, had been sold by Kuchma to Iraq had proven spurious.
What Shvets had done had been to take – genuine – audio in which Kuchma had discussed a possible sale, and edit it to suggest
a sale had been completed.
(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)
As a former television current affairs producer, I can talk to you of the marvels which London audio editors can produce, very
happily. Unfortunately, the days when not all BBC and 'Guardian' journalists were corrupt stenographers for corrupt and incompetent
spooks, as Mangold and his like have been for Steele and Levinson, are long gone.
All this has become particularly relevant now, given that Simpson has placed the notorious Jewish Ukrainian mobster Semyon Mogilevich
and the 'Solntsevskaya Bratva' mafia group centre stage in his accounts not simply of Trump and Manafort, but also of William Browder.
For most of the 'Nineties, Levinson had been a, if not the, lead FBI investigator on Mogilevich.
(On this, see the 1999 BBC 'Panorama' programme 'The Billion Dollar Don', also presented by Tom Mangold, which has extensive interviews
both with Mogilevich and Levinson at
In the months leading up to Levinson's disappearance, a key priority for the advocates of the strategy I have described was to
prevent it being totally derailed by the patently catastrophic outcome of the Iraqi adventure.
Compounding the problem was the fact that this had created the 'Shia Crescent', which in turn exacerbated the potential 'existential
threat' to Israel posed by the steadily increasing range, accuracy and numbers of missiles available to Hizbullah in hardened positions
north of the Litani.
These, obviously, provided both a 'deterrent' for that organisation and Iran, and also a radical threat to the whole notion that
somehow Israel could ever be a 'safe haven' for Jews, against the supposedly ineradicable disposition of the 'goyim' sooner or later
to, as it were, revert to type. The dreadful thought that Israel might not be necessary had to be resisted at all costs.
What followed from the disaster unleashed by the – Anglo-American – 'own goal' in toppling Saddam was, ironically, a need on the
part of key players to 'double down.' Above all, it was necessary for many of those involved to counter suggestions from the Russian
side that going around smashing up 'régimes' that one might not like sometimes blew up in one's face.
Even more threatening were suggestions from the Russian side that it was foolish to think one could use jihadists without risking
'blowback', and that there might be an overwhelming common interest in combating Islamic extremism.
Another priority was to counter the pushback in the American 'intelligence community' and military, which was to produce the drastic
downgrading of the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear programme in the November 2007 NIE and then the resignation of Admiral William
Fallon as head of 'Centcom' the following March.
So in 2005 Shvets came to London. He and his audio editors had another 'bite at the cherry' of the Melnychenko tapes, so that
material that did in fact establish that both the SBU and FSB had collaborated with Mogilevich could be employed to make it seem
that Putin had a close personal relationship with the mobster.
All kinds of supposedly respectable American and British academics, like Professors Karen Dawisha and Robert Service, have fallen
for this, hook, line and sinker. It gives a new meaning to the term 'useful idiot.'
(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)
In a letter sent in December that year by Litvinenko to the 'Mitrokhin Commission', for which his Italian associate Mario Scaramella
was a consultant, this was used in an attempt to demonstrate that Mogilevich, while acting as an agent for the FSB and under Putin's
personal 'krysha', had attempted to supply a 'mini atomic bomb' – aka 'suitcase nuke' – to Al Qaeda. Shortly after the letter was
sent Scaramella departed on a trip to Washington, where he appears to have got access to Aldrich Ames.
(See http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160613090333/https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/evidence .)
At precisely this time, as Meier explains, Levinson was in the process of being recruited by a lady called Anne Jablonski who
then worked as a CIA analyst. It appears that she was furious at the failure of the operational side at the Agency to produce evidence
which would have established that Iran did indeed have an ongoing nuclear programme, and she may well have hoped would implicate
Russia in supplying materials.
There are grounds to suspect that one of the things that Berezovsky and Shvets were doing was fabricating such 'evidence.' Whether
Levinson was involved in such attempts, or genuinely looking for evidence he was convinced must be there, I cannot say. It appears
that he fell for a rather elementary entrapment operation – which could well have been organised with the collaboration of Russian
intelligence. (People do get fed up with being framed, particular if 'régime change' is the goal.)
It also seems likely that, quite possibly in a different but related entrapment operation, related to propaganda wars in which
claims and counter claims about a polonium-beryllium 'initiator' as the crucial missing part which might make a 'suitcase nuke' functional,
Litvinenko accidentally ingested fatal quantities of polonium. A good deal of evidence suggests that this may have been at Berezovsky's
offices on the night before he was supposedly assassinated.
It was, obviously, important for Steele et al to ensure that nobody looked at the 'StratCom' wars about 'suitcase nukes.' Here,
a figure who has played a key role in such wars in relation to Syria plays an interesting minor one in the story.
Some time following the destruction of the case for an immediate war by the November 2007 NIE, a chemical weapons specialist called
Dan Kaszeta, who had worked in the White House for twelve years, moved to London.
In 2011, in addition to founding a consultancy called 'Strongpoint Security', he began a writing career with articles in 'CBRNe
World.' Later, he would become the conduit through which the notorious 'hexamine hypothesis', supposedly clinching proof that the
Syrian government was responsible for the sarin incidents at Khan Sheikhoun, Ghouta, Saraqeb, and Khan Al-Asal, was disseminated.
Having been forced by the threat of a case being opened against them under human rights law into resuming the inquest into Litvinenko's
death, in August 2012 the British authorities appointed Sir Robert Owen to conduct it. (There are many honest judges in Britain,
but obviously, if one sets out to find someone who will 'cover up' for the incompetence and corruption of people like Steele, as
Lord Hutton did before him, you can find them.)
That same month, a piece appeared in 'CBRNe World' with the the strapline: 'Dan Kaszeta looks into the ultimate press story: Suitcase
nukes', and the main title 'Carry on or checked bags?' Among the grounds he gives for playing down the scare:
'Some components rely on materials with shelf life. Tritium, for example, is used in many nuclear weapon designs and has a twelve
year half-life. Polonium, used in neutron initiators in some earlier types of weapon designs, has a very short halflife. US documents
state that every nuclear weapon has "limited life components" that require periodic replacement (do an internet search for nuclear
limited life components and you can read for weeks).'
What Kaszeta has actually described are the reasons why polonium is a perfect 'StratCom' instrument. In terms of scientific plausibility,
in fact there were no 'suitcase nukes', and in any case 'initiators' using polonium had been abandoned very early on, in favour of
ones which lasted longer.
For 'StratCom' scenarios, as experience with the 'hexamine hypothesis' has proved, scientific plausibility can be irrelevant.
What polonium provides is a means of suggesting that Al Qaeda have in fact got hold of a nuclear device which they could easily
smuggle into, say, Rome or New York, or indeed Moscow, but there is a crucial missing component which the FSB is trying to provide
to them. By the same token, of course, that missing component could be depicted as one that Berezovsky and Litvinenko are conspiring
to suppl to the Chechen insurgents.
In addition, the sole known source of global supply is the Avangard plant at Sarov in Russia, so the substance is naturally suited
for 'StratCom' directed against that country, which its intelligence services would – rather naturally – try to make 'boomerang.'
According to Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele is a 'boy scout.' This seems to me quite wrong – but, even if it were true, would
you want to unleash a 'boy scout' into these kinds of intrigue?
As it is not clear why Kaszeta introduced his – accurate but irrelevant – point about polonium into an article which was concerned
with scientific plausibility, one is left with an interesting question as to whether he cut his teeth on 'StratCom' attempting to
ensure that nobody seriously interested in CBRN science followed an obvious lead.
In relation to the question of whether current FBI personnel had been involved in the kind of 'StratCom' exercises, I have been
describing, a critical issue is the involvement of Shvets and Levinson in the Alexander Khonanykhine affair back in the 'Nineties,
and the latter's use of claims about the Solntsevskaya to prevent the key figure's extradition. But that is a matter for another
day.
A corollary of all this is that we cannot – yet at least – be absolutely confident that the account in the Nunes memo, according
to which Steele was suspended and then dismissed as an FBI source for what the organisation is reported to define as 'the most serious
of violations' – the unauthorised disclosure of a relationship with the organisation – is necessarily wholly accurate.
Who did and did not authorise which disclosures to the media, up to and including the extraordinary decision to have the full
dossier, including claims about Aleksej Gubarev and the Alfa oligarchs, in flagrant disregard of the obvious risks of defamation
suits, and who may be trying to pass the buck to others, remains I think less than totally clear.
thanks david... fascinating overview and conjecture..
it seems to me the usa and uk have been tied at the hip for a very long time... when it comes to foreign affairs policy
and wars - the one will always vouch for the other without hesitation... it tells me the relationship is really deep..
Thank you very. As ever you have illuminated a few more things for me. Kaszeta's involvement is interesting. He is someone
I am in the middle of researching in relation to Higgins and Bellingcat.
I think the English are using you, they are unsentimental empirical people that only do these that benefit the Number One.
The chief beneficiary of the Coup in Iran was England and not US.
That Newsweek piece about Levinson is very superficial to me.
Re: Levinson
# Who suggested to who 'first' the Iran caper...Anne Jablonski to Levinson or Levinson to Jablonski? It was reported earlier
by Meier that in December 2005, when Levinson was pitching Jablonski on projects he might take on when his CIA contract was approved
he sent her a lengthy memo about Dawud's potential as an informant.
# Ira Silverman, the Iran hating NBC guy, pitched a Iraq caper to Levinson with Dawud Salahuddin, as his Iran contact and Levinson
went to Jablonski with it.
# And what was with Boris Birshstein, a Russian organized crime figure who had fled to Israel and Oleg Deripaska, the "aluminum
czar" of Russia whose organized crime contacts have kept him from entering the United States jumping in to help find Levinson?
The FBI allowed Deripaska in for two visits in 2009 in exchange for his alleged help in locating Levinson but obviously nothing
came of it.
I think there were more little agents/agendas in this than Levinson and Jablonski and US CIA.
As usual a wonderful analysis. I admire your insight, integrity and courage. I wish you could write more on why the Borg
is so much against Trump, even though they have Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference for them.
I and my friends consider it a given that most, if not all, anglo-zionist moves in the ME are to "provide a definitive
solution to the – inherently intractable – security problems of a Jewish settler state in the area. " It is an open secret that
the izzies are the reason why a few Russians, some Turks, lots of Kurds and countless Arabs are dying in the Syrian battlefields.
Another open secret: the takfiris and kurds have been, and are, supported by the West. That the "masters of the universe™" have
been conceiving and doubling down on such disastrous policies give lie to their much-vaunted "intelligence".
"There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements
in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign
policy agenda for a very long time. "
David as usual fascinating work connecting the dots. One question that comes to my mind is about the above point you are making.
Is it your understanding or believe that these IC individuals on both side of Atlantic, are pursuing/forcing their (on behalf
of the Borg) foreign policy agenda outside of their respected seating governments? If not, why is it that incoming administration
cannot stop them? So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but
not fundamentally.
I am not David Habakkuk, obviously. But I will venture a little opinion anyway. It is not enough that the Borgists get their
policy preferences. If it were, then Kushner, Adelson and Co. running interference would be enough for them.
It is the very FACT of Trump even getting elected at ALL which outrages and terrifies them so much. They are used to seeing
themselves as successful manipulators and engineers of every major event. They were engineering the whole electoral battlespace
to get Clinton elected. The mere fact of Trump's victory in the teeth of their Electoral Engineering for Clinton is an act of
defiance which they will not tolerate.
And if they fail to bring Trump down at all, they will stand revealed as being defeatable. And this is their big fear.
That if people see they have defeated the Borg once on keeping Trump in the teeth of Borg's efforts, that people might try to
defeat and smash down the Borg on another issue. And then another. And then another after that.
So that is why the Borg cares so much. They view the Trump election as an insurgency, and they view themselves as waging a
counterinsurgency, which they dare not lose.
Thanks for your analysis. I always enjoy and learn from your posts. I wish you would post more often.
In my non-expert opinion, the Borg and the media were all in for Hillary. They were convinced that she was gonna win. To curry
favor with the Empress who would be certainly crowned after the election they were eager and convinced that their lawlessness
would become a badge for promotion and plum positions in her administration. In their conceit, they believed they could kill two
birds with one stroke. They could vilify Putin and create the mass hysteria to checkmate him, while at the same time disparage
and frame Trump as The Manchurian Candidate to seal their certain electoral victory.
Unfortunately for them voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin didn't buy their sales pitch despite the overwhelming
media barrage from all corners. Even news publications who have only endorsed Republican candidates for President for over a century
endorsed her.
Trump's election win caused panic among the political establishment, the media and the Deep State. They were already all-in.
Their only choice was to double down and get Trump impeached. Now their conspiracy is beginning to unravel. They are doing everything
possible to forestall their Armageddon. Of course they have many allies. This battle is gonna be interesting to watch. Trump is
clearly getting many Congressional Republicans on side as his base of Deplorables remains solidly behind him. That is what's befuddling
the Borg pundits.
So far I can't see any strategic changes on US foreign policy toward ME or Russia, at tactical level yes but not fundamentally.
Because it is not possible to do on fundamental level yet, especially with US foreign policy establishment and so called
consensus being built almost entirely, in ideological and, most importantly, cadres senses, on the ultimate exceptionalist agenda
in which Russia is the ultimate obstacle and enemy. Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp.
This swamp (Borg, deep state, etc.) still thinks that it can use Cold War 1.0 Playbook and address very real and dangerous
American economic issues. They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with.
They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress
West's posture; say 2040.
You are right CWII is very much desired and on agenda, but i am not sure of setup, the setup/board has been changed tremendously
and IMO benefits the Asian side of Bosphorus, for one thing technology is no longer exclusive, and financial burden is heavier
on atlantic side.
''Establishment in saturated with neocons and likes. They are the swamp. ''
The locust keep trying and trying, destruction is their life's work.
'1977-1981: Nationalities Working Group Advocates Using Militant Islam Against Soviet Union'
In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG)
dedicated to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. The Islamic populations are regarded
as prime targets. Richard Pipes, the father of Daniel Pipes, takes over the leadership of the NWG in 1981. Pipes predicts that
with the right encouragement Soviet Muslims will "explode into genocidal fury" against Moscow. According to Richard Cottam, a
former CIA official who advised the Carter administration at the time, after the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1978, Brzezinski
favored a "de facto alliance with the forces of Islamic resurgence, and with the Republic of Iran." [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 241,
251 - 256]
'November 1978-February 1979: Some US Officials Want to Support Radical Muslims to Contain Soviet Union'
State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used
against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the
Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task
force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition
of Ayatollah Khomeini. This idea is based on ideas from British Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization
of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis"
and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union
"There is reason to suspect that some former and very likely current employees of the FBI have been colluding with elements
in other American and British intelligence agencies, in particular the CIA and MI6, in support of an extremely ambitious foreign
policy agenda for a very long time."
Yes, that is what appears to be just what is coming to light. I wonder just what position Trey Gowdy is going to have since
he won't be running for re-election. The rage from the left is palpable. I'm sure the next outraged guy on the left will know
how to shoot straighter than the ones who shot up Congressman Scalise or the concert goers at Mandalay Bay.
"They are wrong, since most of them didn't read the playbook correctly to start with."
-- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders."
Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.
England preferred NAZI Germany to USSR, this is well known. As to what would have happened, the outcome of the war, in my opinion,
did not depend on US participation in the European Theatre. All of Europe would have become USSR satellite or joined USSR.
"unsentimental empirical people"? Absolutely disagree with you. Now the Iranians, they strike me as a singularity unsentimental
people. Just general impressions, mind you.
Yes, US was the first country to proudly deliver Manpads to be used by "rebels" (Mojahadin later Taleban) against USSR in Afghanistan
back in 80s. And, as per the architect of support for the rebels (Zbigniew Brzezinski) very proud of it with no regret. With that
in mind, I don't see how western politicians, the western governments and their related proxy war planers, will be regretting,
even sadden, once god forbid we see passenger planes with loved ones are shot down taking off or landing at various western airports
and other places around the word. Just like how superficialy with crocodile tears in their eyes they acted in aftermath of the
terrorist events in various western cities in this past 16 years. Gods knows what will happens to us if the opposite side start
to supply his own proxies with lethal anti air weapons. "Proudly", I don't think anybody in west cares or will regret of such
an escalation.
I think it likely that what Meier produces is only a 'limited hangout', and am hoping that when the book arrives it will contain
more pointers.
It is important to be clear that one is often dealing with people playing very complicated double games.
An interesting document is the 'Petition for Writ of Habeus Corpus' made on behalf of Khodorkovsky's close associate Alexander
Konanykhin back in 1997,when the Immigration and Naturalization Service were – apparently at least – cooperating with Russian
attempts to get hold of him. An extract:
'During the immigration hearing FBI SA Robert Levinson, an INS witness, confirmed that in 1992 Petitioner was kidnapped and
afterwards pursued by assassins of the Solntsevskaya organized criminal group. This organized criminal group is reportedly the
largest and the most influential organized criminal group in Russia, and operates internationally.'
Note the similarities between the 'StratCom' that Khonanykin and his associates were producing in the 'Nineties, and that which
Simpson and his associates have been producing two decades later.
Another useful example is provided by a 2004 item in the 'New American Magazine', reproduced on Konanykhin's website:
'One of those who testified on behalf of Konanykhine was KGB defector Yuri Shvets, who declared: "I have a firsthand knowledge
on similar operations conducted by the KGB." Konanykhine had brought trouble on himself, Shvets continued, when he "started bringing
charges against people who were involved with him in setting up and running commercial enterprises. They were KGB people secretly
smuggling from Russia hundreds of millions of dollars . This is [a] serious case, and I know that KGB ... desperately wants to
win this case, and everybody who won't step to their side would face problems."'
So – 'first hand knowledge', from a Ukrainian nationalist – look at what the Chalupas have been doing, it seems not much has
changed.
For a rather different perspective on what Konanykhin had actually been up to, from someone in whose honesty – if not always
judgement – I have complete confidence, see the testimony of Karon von Gerhke-Thompson to the House Committee on Banking and Financial
Services hearings on Russian Money Laundering. In this, she described how she had been approached by him in 1993:
'"Konanykhine alleged that Menatep Bank controlled $1.7bn [£1bn] in assets and investment portfolios of Russia's most prominent
political and social elite," she recalled. She said he wanted to move the bank's assets off shore and asked her to help buy foreign
passports for its "very, very special clients".
'In her testimony to the committee Ms Von Gerhke-Thompson said she informed the CIA of the deal, and the agency told her that
it believed Mr Konanykhine and Mr Khodorkovsky "were engaged in an elaborate money laundering scheme to launder billions of dollars
stolen by members of the KGB and high-level government officials".
Coming back to Steele's 'StratCom', in July 2008, an item appeared on the 'Newnight' programme of the BBC – which some of us
think should by then have been rechristened the 'Berezovsky Broadcasting Corporation' – in which the introduction by the presenter,
Jeremy Paxman, read as follows:
'Good evening. The New Russian President, Dmitri Medvedev, was all smiles and warm words when he met Gordon Brown today. He
said he was keen to resolve all outstanding difficulties between the two countries. Yada yada yada. Gordon Brown smiled, but he
must know what Newsnight can now reveal: that MI5 believes the Russian state was involved in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko
by radioactive poisoning. They also believe that without their intervention another London-based Russian, Boris Berezovsky, would
have been murdered. Our diplomatic editor, Mark Urban, has this exclusive report.'
When Urban repeated the claims on his blog, there was a positive eruption from someone using the name 'timelythoughts', about
the activities of someone she referred to as 'Berezovsky's disinformation specialist' – when I came across this later, it was
immediately clear to me that she was Karon von Gerhke, and he was Shvets.
She then described a visit by Scaramella to Washington, details of which had already been unearthed by my Italian collaborator,
David Loepp. Her claim to have e-mails from Shvets, from the time immediately prior to Litvinenko's death, directly contradicting
the testimony he had given, fitted with other evidence I had already unearthed.
Later, we exchanged e-mails over a quite protracted period, and a large amount of material that came into my possession as
a result was submitted by me to the Inquest team, with some of it being used in posts on the 'European Tribune' site.
What I never used publicly, because I could only partially corroborate it from the material she provided, was an extraordinary
claim about Shvets:
'He was responsible for bringing in a Kremlin initiative that was walked Vice President Cheney's office on a US government
quid pro quo with the Kremlin FSB SVR involving the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky – a cease and desist on allegations of a politically
motivated arrest of Khodorkovsky, violations of rules of law and calls from Russia's expulsion from the G 8 in exchange for favorable
posturing of U.S. oil companies on Gazprom's Shtokman project and intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq,
Iran and Syria, all documented in reports I submitted to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and MI6.
'Berezovsky's DS could not be on both sides on that isle. His Kremlin FSB SVR sources had been vetted by the CIA and by the
National Security Council. They proved to be as represented. As we would later learn, however, he was on Berezovsky's payroll
at same time. The FSB SVR general he was coordinating the Kremlin initiative through was S. R. Subbotin, the same FSB SVR general
who was investigating Berezovsky's money laundering operations in Switzerland during the same timeframe. His FSB SVR sources surrounding
Putin were higher than any Lugovoy could have ever hoped to affiliate with.
'R. James Woolsey (former CIA DCI), Marshall Miller (former law partner of the late CIA DCI William Colby), who I coordinated
the Kremlin initiative through that Berezovsky's DS had brought in were shocked to learn that he was affiliated with Berezovsky
and Litvinenko. He was in Berezovsky's inner circle and engaged in vetting Russian business with Litvinenko. He operated Berezovsky's
Ukraine website, editing and dubbing the now infamous Kuchma tapes throughout the lead up to the elections in the Ukraine. Berezovsky
contributed $41 million to Viktor Yushchenko's campaign, which he used in an attempt to force Yushchenko to reunite with Julia
Tymoschenko. It failed but would succeed later after Berezovsky orchestrated a public relations initiative through Alan Goldfarb
in the U.S. on behalf of Tymoschenko.'
Having got to know Karon von Gerhke quite well, and also been able to corroborate a great deal of what she told me about many
things, and discussed these matters with her, it is absolutely clear to me that she was neither fabricating nor fantasising. What
later became apparent, both to her and to me, was that in the 'double game' that Shvets was playing, he had succeeded in fooling
her as to the side for which he was working.
It seems likely however that the reason Shvets could do what he did was that quite precisely that many high-up people in the
Kremlin and elsewhere were playing a 'double game.' In this, Karon von Gerhke's propensity for indiscretion – of which I, like
others, was both beneficiary and victim – could be useful.
An exercise in 'positioning', which could be used to disguise the fact that Shvets was indeed 'Berezovsky's disinformation
specialist', could be used to make it appear that 'intelligence on weapon sales during the Yeltsin era to Iraq, Iran and Syria'
was actually credible.
This could have been used to try to rescue Cheney, Bush and their associates from the mess they had got into as a result of
the failure of the invasion to provide any evidence whatsoever supporting the case which had been made for it. It could also have
been used to provide the kind of materials justifying military action against Iran for which Levinson and Jablonski were looking,
and for similar action against Syria.
Among reasons for bringing this up now is that we need to make sense of the paradox that Simpson – clearly in collusion with
Steele – was using Mogilevich and the 'Solnsetskaya Bratva' both against Manafort and Trump and against Browder.
There are various possible explanations for this. I do not want to succumb to my instinctive prejudice that this may have been
another piece of 'positioning', similar to what I think was being done with Shvets, but the hypothesis needs to be considered.
A more general point is that people in Washington and London need to 'wise up' to the kind of world with which they are dealing.
This could be done quite enjoyably: reading some of Dashiell Hammett's fictions of the United States in the Prohibition era, or
indeed buying DVDs of some of the classics of 'film noir', like 'Out of the Past' (in its British release, 'Build My Gallows High')
might be a start.
Very much of the coverage of affairs in the post-Soviet space since 1991 has read rather as though a Dashiell Hammett story
had been rewritten by someone specialising in sentimental children's, or romantic, fiction (although, come to think of it, that
is really what Brigid O'Shaughnessy does in 'The Maltese Falcon.')
The testimony of Glenn Simpson seems a case in point. The sickly sentimentality of these people does, rather often, make one
feel as though one wanted to throw up.
"They act and believe that they are Olympians. You have to wait for them to age and die before any substantive change in Fortress
West's posture; say 2040.}
No, three years at tops and could be much sooner if dimes starting dropping by exposed people that don't want to take the
fall for their superiors whom they always detested. One possible thing to get the process started sooner is if the recent Russian
Intelligence delegation to DC that Smoothie mentions on another thread gave the current administration, as a diplomatic courtesy
of course, the audio recordings of Madame Sectary Nuland's infamous mental meltdown at Kaliningrad. No telling what beans were
spilled in her moment of panic, but I am willing to bet key names were dropped. Either way the time is coming.
- If they have read the important books at all... The ongoing scandal has been revealing a stunning incompetence of the "deciders."
Too often they look comical, ridiculous, undignified. This is dangerous, considering their power.
My coming book is precisely about that. Especially, once American policy-makers who saw and experienced war (Ike, George
Marshall's generation) departed things started to roll down hill with Reagan bringing on board a whole collection of neocons.
Unawareness is always dangerous, a complete blackout in relations between two nuclear powers is more than dangerous--it
is completely reckless. Again, the way CW 1.0 is perceived in the current US "elites" it becomes extremely tempting to repeat
it. Electing Hillary was another step in unleashing CW 2.0 by people who have no understanding of what they were doing.
Obama started crushing US-Russian relations before any campaigns were launched and before Trump was even seriously considered
a GOP nominee, let alone a real contender. New confrontation hinged on HRC being elected. In fact, she was one of the major driving
forces behind a serious of geopolitical anti-Russian moves. Visceral Russo-phobia became a feature in HRC campaign long before
any Steele's Dossier. This was a program.
I think the failure of Deciders is nothing new - Fath Ali Shah attacking Russia, or the abject failure of the Deciders in 1914.
Europe is still not where she was in 1890.
I read the post and responses early on, so forgive me if this point has been addressed in the meantime. If the memo information
on non-disclosure of material evidence to the warrant issuing court is accurate, as soon as that information came to the attention
of the authorities (clearly some time ago) there was a duty on them (including the judge(s) who issued the warrants) to have the
matter brought back before the court toot sweet. If that had happened it would surely be in the public domain, so on the assumption
the prosecutors and maybe even the judge didn't see the need to review the matter, even purely on a contempt/ethics basis, the
memo information only seems convincing if the FISA system is a total sham. I really doubt that.
IMO, the bigger problem for American not shying away from wars, or being silent about them , is when your home, your mom and
dad' home, the town you grew up in, are immune and away from the war.
The security and safety of the two oceans, encourages or at least, in an all volunteer military makes it a secondary problem
for regular people, to worry about. As I remember that wasn't the case at the end of VN war when i first landed here. At
that time even though the war was on the other side of the planet and away from homeland, still people, especially young ones
in colleges were paying more attention to the cost of war.
Diana West has uncovered some interesting "Red Threads" (6 part article at dianawest-dot-net) on all the Fusion GPS folks. Seems
ole Russian speaking Nellie Ohr got herself a ham radio license recently. Wonder why she would suddenly need one of those? They
are all Marxists with potential connections back to Russia.
Been there. I am also a latecomer to SST. You have to read the back numbers. How? My IT expertise dates from the dawn of the internet
and was lamentable then but I find Wayback sometimes allows easier searches than the SST search engine. A straight search on google
also allows searches with more than one term. This link -
- gets you to a chronological list and for recent material is sometimes quicker than fiddling around with search engines. "Categories"
on the RH side is useful but then you don't get some very informative comments that cross-refer.
If those sadly elementary procedures fail resort to the nearest infant. There's a blur of fingers on the keyboard and what
you want then usually appears. Never ask them how they did it. They get so fed up when you ask them to explain it again.
"Who is David Habakkuk?" That's a quantum computer sited, from internal evidence you pick up from time to time, somewhere in
the Greater London area. Cross references like you wouldn't believe and over several fields, so maybe he's two quantum computers.
The "Borg"?. Try Wittgenstein. Likely a prog but you can't be choosy these days. Early on in "Philosophical Investigations"
(hope I get this right) he discusses the problem of how you can view as an entity something that has ill-defined or overlapping
boundaries. The "Borg" is that "you know it when you see it" sort of thing. A great merit of this site is that the owner and many
of the contributors know it from inside.
In general you may regard your new found site as a microcosm of the great battle that is raging in the West. It's a battle
between the (probably apocryphal but adequately stated) Roveian view of reality that regards truth as an adjunct to or as a by-product
of ideology and Realpolitik and the objective view of reality as something that is damned difficult to get at, and sometimes impossible,
but that has a truth in it somewhere that is independent of the views and convictions of the observer. It's a battle that's never
going to be won but unless it tilts back closer to common sense it can certainly be lost and the West with it.
Clearly the Labor Party in the UK preferred the USSR to Nazi Germany. (cepting that short interlude where the Soviets signed the
Agreement with Hitler, and the Left Organized Leadership all across Europe, for the most part, lined up with Hitler). But for
the most part, Labor was Left.
Elements (the ones that won out in the end) of the Conservative Party loathed both Hitler and Stalin. An element of the Conservative
Party was sympathetic, but only up to a certain point, with the Nazis. This ended in 1939, sept.
So I don't think it fair, or accurate, to say 'England prefered the Nazis....and even if it not those things, it certainly
not "well known", except to the people who have used the false premise to butter their wounds from supporting Stalin in his Pact
with Hitler. Or are inclined to bash the British in general.
All right, perhaps I should have said "The English Government". Google "Litvinov", you may discover how the English Government
pushed Stalin to make a deal with Hitler to buy USSR time.
Witness the infamous State Department protest memo calling for more war on Syria.
The State Department employees that signed that memo were sure that HRC would win and that their diligent work in pushing the
Deep State agenda would sure be rewarded.
Since entering office, Trump appears to have taken the line that if he gives the Deep State everything it demands, he will
be allowed to remain in office, even if he is not allowed to remain in power.
jonst That's broadly accurate, but specifically Attlee brought the motion of no confidence in Chamberlain, which the conservative
appeasers won but which led to Churchill's opportunity. Attlee was essential in cabinet to Churchill's resistance after the retreat
of the BEF.
FM
What are you doing here? You said you dislike the military. Are you really in the Spanish Basque country? Bilbao maybe? break
- David Habakkuk is a private scholar of the Litvinenko murder and Soviet/Russian politics and intelligence affairs. His surname
comes from Wales where in the 18th (?) Century the ancestral village were all "chapel" and changed their surnames to Old Testament
names. His father was master of one of the Cambridge colleges and David is himself a graduate of Cambridge. pl
The hard, blinding truth:
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/05/will-conspiracy-trump-american-democracy-go-unpunished/
"In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it,
and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting
their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations." – Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
This troll showed up recently at b's place doing the same accusations. There is group that is running sacred and pulling out
all the stops in "info ops" side of the spectrum. The damn fools don't or, most probably, won't get thru their thick heads and
even thicker hearts that it is a failed strategy that turns bystanders into their opponents.
Here for your edification is the definitive analysis of the GOP memo by Alexander Mercouris over at The Duran.
And it is a masterpriece - and quite long, possibly his longest analysis of anything so far. He buries the counterarguments
being passed around by the Democratic opposition and the anti-Trump media.
Mercouris writes on legal affairs alongside his foreign policy stuff and he writes with a lawyer's precision. And in this article
he points out that the GOP memo is writter as a legal document - probably by Trey Gowdy - with additional political insertions
by Nunes. So it should properly be referred to as the "GOP memo" or the "Gowdy memo", not the Nunes memo."
Why this is important is that the GOP memo is basically written as a defense lawyer would in contesting a case -- this case
being the FISA warrant application. Which means its orientation is proving failure to disclose relevant and material information
to the FISA court and in some cases rising to the point of contempt of court.
"Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging," Grassley said in a statement after posting a heavily
redacted version of the criminal referral that he and GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina sent to the Justice Department
last month. " The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn't secret. "
I suppose DOJ/FBI believe that by obstructing, stalling and obfuscating they can buy time and that the Republicans in Congress
will get tired of the games and go home. This seems like a pretty straightforward memo, highlighting the discrepancy between Steele's
court filings and the FBI's version of Steele's discussions with them. Grassley is pointing out that either Steele or the FBI
is lying.
What is interesting is the difference in process and ability between the House & Senate. The House can release their memos
on its own, even if not declassified by the Executive, whereas the Senate requires the Executive to declassify it's memos that
are based on classified documents.
We have not had a self declared communist on SST before although LeaNder in her youth may have come close to that exalted status.
You might want to read the wiki on me and the CV I have posted on the blog to avoid tedious accusations of this or that. I am
thought by some to have some knowledge of the ME so please do not try to lecture me about how much you love the Arabs. I speak
their language and have lived with them for a long time. There are people who write to SST who are pro-Trump and some who are
anti-Trump. I seek a mixture of views so long as personal insult and invective are eschewed. Personally, I do not belong to a
political party and would describe myself as an original intent, strict constructionist.
Trump is the constitutionally and legally elected president of the United States. Your descriptors with regard to him are,
in my opinion, only plausible if seen from the point of view of various kinds of leftist including Marxist-Leninists like you.
You sound very smug and self-satisfied but we will see if you can have an open mind at all. pl
Found him, Ali Babacan XVPM, XFM and M of finance. Yes god forbid, if he is a decendent of Ardisher Babakan and another claimant
to Iranian throne, which CIA and Soros can jump on. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Babacan MBA from
Northeestern
I do not believe Trump is a misogynists - he stated publicly that he likes beautiful women. I also do not think he is a racist.
I think he is the first US leader in many decades who has been willing to publicly talk about US problems. For most other US politicians
- they largely live in "the best of all possible worlds".
Colonel - sincere apologies if my comment above disrupted the discussion on a fascinating article.
David Habakkuk - I should say that "Quantum Computer" referred solely to the ability to gather and collate great amounts of
material. It's an ability I admire. On Steele, you are among other things setting out something that is unfamiliar to me though
not to most others here, I imagine, and that is the milieu in which he is or was working as a UK Intelligence operative. That
you have also done in previous articles; it doesn't seem to be a particularly savoury milieu. As far as Steele's US activities
are concerned, from you I'm not getting the picture of a lone operative, all ties with MI6 neatly severed, working solo in the
States on some chance assignment in 2016. I'm getting the picture of someone still very much in the swim and selected because
of that.
The only problem with that second picture is the dossier, or the 30% or so of it - what Comey, I think it was, described as
"salacious and unverified". Surely that's got to be amateur night. Not something that a practised professional working with other
professionals would put his hand to. Does that not support the picture of an ex-operative who's gone off the rails and is fumbling
around unsupervised?
The Steele affair touched a nerve. One is always I suppose aware that IC professionals are getting up to all sorts and it doesn't
seem improbable that "all sorts" includes political stuff and smear campaigns. But it's not heaps of corpses in Syria or farm
boys being sent to certain death in the Ukraine. And even within the UK Intelligence Community and their contractors or whatever
they're called, compared with what our IC people have done in the ME or compared with what one fears Hamish de Bretton Gordon
might have got himself involved in, Christopher Steele's just a choirboy. Nevertheless there's something deeply repellent about
what he did. Whatever your view of Trump there he was, newly elected, obviously wanting to make a go of it, and already faced
with difficulties. Then some chancer throws "Golden Showers" in his face and makes his position, not maybe for the insiders but
for the general public, that bit more untenable.
So from a UK perspective the question of whether Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK becomes important. If he
was truly working solo then that from a UK point of view is regrettable but one of those things. In that case MI6 would just have
to tighten up its controls on what ex-operatives get up to, put out the appropriate disclaimers, and that's the end of it as far
as the UK is concerned. But if Golden Showers and the rest of it was a "Welcome Mr President" from UK IC professionals as a group
then those professionals should be hung drawn and quartered together with whoever set them on.
I've read your article several times now and apart from the fact that much of what you pull together isn't material I'm up
on, it doesn't seem to me that you're definitely coming to one conclusion or the other. There are many more facts to come out
so perhaps this question is premature, but do you think Steele was acting in concert with others in the UK or was he, at least
as far as the UK is concerned, working solo?
Most Iranian females Named Fatima/ Fatimah after prophet' daughter, call themselves Fati, and if they are of aristocrat type,
they are called Bibi Fati Khanam, which is honorable lady Fati and if they are westernized they become Fay or Fifi.
Much of your commentary seems directed to David Habakkuk and PT rather than I. I don't think the FBI would have started to
pay him until he left UK service. pl
Colonel - Further apologies - I should have submitted comment 79 as two items.
Yes, the question about Steele was in response to DH's article. The UK side of the affair is I suppose only a small part of
the question you and your Committee are examining but it's a dubious part however one looks at it. Although it's early days yet
I was hoping DH, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the UK intelligence scene, might feel able to cast more light on that UK
side.
Cortes - " ... where, exactly, do you expect the great public to look beyond the initial scabrously defamatory storytelling about
the "golden showers"? "
I don't think one can expect the public, at least in the UK, to look very far beyond the initial scandal. The investigations
and enquiries presently under way in the US are complex and are taking place in a different system. This member of the UK public
wouldn't be able to give you a coherent account of those enquiries and I doubt many of my fellows could.
So we have to take on trust, most of us, what we're told. As far as I can tell the underlying theme from the BBC and the media
is generally that Trump is subverting the American Justice system in order to ensure his own misdemeanours aren't investigated.
Some of us take that as gospel. Others of us assume that the politicians and the media are untrustworthy and ignore them. I
doubt many of us go into much more detail than that. Therefore the original story will stick in our minds.
But for some in the UK there are questions in there as well. How come the UK got mixed up in all this? How much did the UK
get mixed up in it?
When I belatedly started looking at the Litvinenko mystery, as a result of a strange email provoked by comments of mine on
SST which arrived in my inbox in March 2007 from someone who turned out to be a key protagonist, it was rather obvious that improvised
and chaotic 'StratCom' operations had been put into place on both the Russian and British sides to cover up what had happened.
A particular interesting feature of those on the British side – in which we now know Christopher Steele must have played
a leading role – were the bizarre gyrations those responsible were going through trying to explain away the extraordinary fact
that when he had broken the story of his poisoning, Litvinenko had pointed the finger of suspicion at his Italian associate Mario
Scaramella.
When I started delving, I came across some very interesting pieces on Scaramella and related matters posted on the 'European
Tribune' website by a Rome-based blogger using the name 'de Gondi' in the period after the story broke.
His actual name is David Loepp, by profession he is an artisan jeweller specialising in ancient and traditional goldsmith techniques,
and I already knew and respected his work from his contributions to the transnational internet investigation into the Niger uranium
forgeries – an earlier MI6 clusterf**ck.
So in May 2008 I posted a longish piece on that site, setting out the problems with the evidence about the Litvinenko case
as I saw them, in the hope of reactivating his interest. This paid off in spades, when he linked to, and translated a key extract
from, the request from Italian prosecutors to use wiretaps of conversations with Senator Paolo Guzzanti in connection with their
prosecution of Scaramella for 'aggravated calumny.'
The request, which up to not so long ago was freely available on the website of the Italian Senate, was denied, but the extensive
summaries of the transcripts provided a lot of material.
The extract from the wiretap request which David Loepp posted, which like Litvinenko's letter containing the claims he and
Yuri Shvets had concocted about Putin using Mogilevich to attempt to supply Al Qaeda with a 'mini nuclear bomb' is dated 1 December
2005, contains key pointers to the conspiracy. It concludes:
'A passage on Simon Moghilevic and an agreement between the camorra to search for nuclear weapons lost during the Cold War
to be consigned to Bin Laden, a revelation made by the Israeli. According to Scaramella the circle closes: camorra, Moghilevic-
Russian mafia- services- nuclear bombs in Naples.'
Subsequent conversations make clear that Scaramella left on 6 December 2005 for Washington, on a trip where he was to meet
Shvets. The summary of a report on this to Guzzanti reads:
'12) conversation that took place on number [omissis] on December 18, 2005, at 9:41:51 n. 1426, containing explicit references
to the authenticity of the declarations of Alexander Litvinenko acquired by Scaramella, to the trustworthiness of the affirmations
made by Scaramella in his reports to the commission and to the meetings Scaramella had with Talik after having denounced them
[presumably Talik and his alleged accomplices]. (They can talk with HEIMS thanks to the help of MILLER. SHVEZ says that he had
been a companion of CARLOS at the academy; SHVEZ has already made declarations and is willing to continue collaboration. Guzzanti
warns that a document in Russian arrived in commission in which the name of SCARAMELLA appears several times, these [sic] say
that directives to the contrary had been given to Litvinenko. Scaramella says that he went to the meeting with TALIK in the company
of two treasury [police] and a cop, Talik spoke of a person from the Ukrainian GRU who would be willing to talk and a strange
Chechen ring in Naples. Assassination attempt against the pope, CASAROLI was a Soviet agent.)'
The summary of a later conversation also refers to 'MILLER':
'conversation that took place on number [omissis] on January 13, 2006, at 11:22:11 n. 2287, containing references to Scaramella's
sources in relation to facts referred in the Commission, the means by which they were obtained by Scaramella from declarations
made abroad, the role of Litvinenko, also on the occasion of declarations made by third parties and the credibility of the news
and theses given by Scaramella to the commission (Scaramella reads a text in English on the relation between the KGB and PRODI.
Guzzanti asks if its credibility can be confirmed and if the taped declarations can be backed up; Scaramella answers that there
were two testimonies, Lou Palumbo and Alexander (Litvinenko), and that the registration made in London at the beginning of the
assignment [Scaramella's?] had been authenticated by a certain BAKER of the FBI. As he translates the text from English, Scaramella
notes that the person testifying does not say he knows Prodi but only that he thinks that Prodi ...; all those who worked for
the person testifying in Scandinavia said that Prodi was "theirs." The affair in Rimini, Bielli is preparing the battle in Rimini.
Meetings with MILLER for the three things that are needed. Polemic about Pollari over the pressure exerted on Gordievski.)'
In the exchanges on my May 2008 post, I mentioned and linked to some extraordinary comments on a crucial article by Edward
Jay Epstein, in which Karon von Gerhke claimed that his sceptical account fitted with what her contacts in the British investigation
had told her. When that July I came across her equally extraordinary claims in response to the BBC's Mark Urban piece of stenography
– which Steele may also have had a hand in organising – I found she was referring to precisely that visit to Washington by Scaramella
which had been described in the wiretap request.
As you can perhaps imagine, the fact that 'Miller' had featured in the conversations with Guzzanti both as a key contact, who
could introduce Scaramella to Aldrich Ames (which is who 'Heims' clearly is), and with whom there had been meetings about 'the
three things that are needed' made me inclined to take seriously what Karon von Gerhke said about his role.
In December 2008, I put up another post on 'European Tribune', putting together the material from David Loepp and that from
Karon von Gerhke – but not discussing the references to 'Miller.' As I had hoped, this led to her getting in touch.
Among the material with which she supplied me, which I in turn supplied to the Solicitor to the Inquest, were covers of faxes
to John Rizzo, then Acting General Counsel of the CIA. From a fax dated 23 October 2005.
'John: See attached email to Chuck Patrizia. Berezovsky alleges he is in possession of a copy of a classified file given to
the CIA by Russia's FSB, which he further alleges the CIA disseminated to British, French, Italian and Israeli intelligence agencies
implicating him in business associations with the Mafia and to ties with terrorist organizations. Yuri Shvets was authorised/directed
by Berezovsky to raise the issue with Bud McFarlane scheduled for Thursday. McFarlane is unaware the issue will be raised with
him.'
From a fax dated 7 November 2005:
'John: I am attaching an email exchange between Yuri Shvets and me re: 1) article he published on his Ukraine website on alleged
sale of nuclear choke to Iran, which I reproached him on as having been planted by Berezovsky and 2 the alleged FSB/CIA document
file that Berezovsky obtained from Scaramella, which Yuri acknowledges in his e-mail to me. Like extracting wisdom teeth to get
him to put anything on paper, especially in an e-mail! [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is the source McFarlane referred Yuri to re:
Berezovsky's visa issue. She proposed meeting Berezovsky in London. Alleged it would take a year to clear up USG issues and even
then could not guarantee him a visa. She too has access to USG intelligence on Berezovsky. Open book.'
From a fax dated 5 December 2005:
'John. From Mario Scaramella to Yuri Shvets to my ears, the DOJ has authorised Mario Scaramella to interview Aldrich Ames with
regard to members of the Italian Intelligence Service agent recruited by Ames for the KGB. Scaramella, as you may recall, is who
gave Boris Berezovsky's aide, a former FSB Colonel [LITVINENKO – DH], that alleged document number to the FSB file that the CIA
disseminated on Berezovsky – a file that Bud McFarlane's "Madam Visa" [NAME REDACTED BY ME – DH] is alleged is totting off to
London for a meeting with Berezovsky, who has agreed to retain her re: his visa issue. Quid pro quo's with Berezovsky and Scaramella
on the CIA agent currently facing kidnapping charges for the rendition of the Muslim cleric? Scott Armstrong has a most telling
file on Scaramella. Not a single redeeming quality.'
In the course of very extensive exchanges with Karon von Gerhke subsequently, we had some rather acute disagreements. It was
unfortunate that her filing was a shambles – a crucial hard disk failed without a backup, and the 'hard copies' appeared to be
in a chaotic state.
However, the only occasion when I can recall having reason to believe that was deliberately lying to me was when David Loepp
unearthed a cache of documentation including the full Italian text of the letter from Litvinenko containing the 'StratCom' designed
to suggest that Putin had attempted to supply a 'mini nuclear bomb' to Al Qaeda. Having been asked to keep this between ourselves
for the time being, Karon insisted on immediately sending it to her contacts in Counter Terrorism Command, and then produced bogus
justifications.
Time and again, moreover, I found that I could confirm statements that she made – see for example the two posts I put up on
the legal battles following the death in February 2008 of Berezovsky's long-term partner Arkadi 'Badri' Patarkatsishvili in June
and July 2009, which were based on careful corroboration of what she told me.
(I should also say that I acquired the greatest respect for her courage.)
And while Owen and his team suppressed all the evidence from her, and almost all of that from David Loepp, which I had I provided
to them, the dossier about Berezovsky is described in a statement made by Litvinenko in Tel Aviv in April 2006, presented in evidence
in the Inquiry.
Other evidence, moreover, strongly inclines me to believe that there were overtures for a 'quid pro quo', purporting to come
from Putin, but that this was a ruse orchestrated by Berezovsky.
Part of the purpose of this would almost certainly have been to supply probably bogus 'evidence' about arms sales in the Yeltsin
years to Iraq, Iran and Syria. Moreover, I think there was an article on the second 'Fifth Element' site run by Shvets about the
supposed sale of a nuclear 'choke' – whatever that is – to Iran.
The likelihood of the involvement of elements in the FBI in these shenanigans seems to quite high, given what has already emerged
about the activities of Levinson. Also relevant may be the fact that the 'declaration' which was part of the attempt to frame
Romano Prodi was authenticated, in London, by 'a certain BAKER of the FBI.')
I know something of spectroscopy. The critical issue here is the provenance of the samples and not the sophistication of the techniques used in the analysis
itself or its instrumentation. The paragraph that you have quoted:
"To figure out signatures based on various synthetic routes and conditions, Chipuk says that the synthetic chemists on his
team will make the same chemical threat agent as many as 2,000 times in an ..." reeks of intellectual intimidation - trying to
brow-beat any skeptic by the size of one's instrument - as it were."
And then there is a little matter of confidence level in any of the analysis - such things are normally based on prior statistics
- which did not and could not exist in this situation.
David, it's no doubt interesting to watch how attention on Victor Ivanov in another deficient inquiry on the British Isles, was
managed in that inquiry. If I may, since he pops up again in the Steele dossier. You take what's available? Is that all there
is to know?
I know its hard to communicate basics if you are deeply into matters. Usually people prefer to opt out. It's getting way too
complicated for them to follow. You made me understand this experience. But isn't this (fake) intelligence continuity "via" Yuri
Svets what connects your, no harm meant I do understand your obsession with the case, with what we deal with now in the Steele
Dossier? Again, one of the most central figures is Ivanov.
Of course later reports in the Steele Dossier go hand in hand with a larger public relations campaign. Creating reality?
Irony alert: as informer/source I would by then know what the other side wants to hear.
By the way, babbling mode, I found your Tom Mangold transcription. It felt it wasn't there on the link you gave. I used the
date, and other search terms. Maybe I am wrong. Haven't looked at what the judge ruled out of the collection. Yes, cozy session/setting.
why California, Kooshy #18? California among other things left this verbal trace, since I once upon time thought a luggage storage
in SF might be free/available now: this is my home, lady.
Tourists from many -- but not all -- foreign nations wishing to enter Kish Free Zone from legal ports are not required to
obtain any visa prior to travel. For those travelers, upon-arrival travel permits are stamped valid for 14 days by Kish officials.
Who are the not all? Can we assume Britain is not one of those? The German link is different. How about the Iranian? or isn't this the Kish we are talking about?
another Ivanov. I struggled with names (...) in Russian crime novels, admittedly. But that's long ago from times Russian crime
and Russian money flows and rogues getting hold of its nuclear material surfaced more often in Europe. 90s
"... North Stream is a problem as the goal is to economically weaken Russia, tie the EU to the USA via energy supplies and support
our new client state -- Ukraine. ..."
"... But this is also related to attempts to prevent/weaken the alliance of Russia and China. As geopolitical consequences of this
alliance for the USA-led neoliberal empire are very bad ..."
Best bet is for Russia to want to trade with the US and Europe. The gas pipeline will not be enough leverage on Germany
as it provides 9% of their needs.
Yes. And that's against the USA interests (or more correctly the US-led neoliberal empire interests). North Stream is a
problem as the goal is to economically weaken Russia, tie the EU to the USA via energy supplies and support our new client state
-- Ukraine.
As you know, nothing was proven yet in Russiagate (and DNC hacks looks more and more like a false flag operation, especially
this Guccifer 2.0 personality ), but sanctions were already imposed. And when the US government speaks "Russia" in most cases
they mean "China+Russia" ;-). Russia is just a weaker link in this alliance and, as such, it is attacked first. Russiagate is
just yet another pretext after MH17, Magnitsky and such.
To me the current Anti-Russian hysteria is mainly a smokescreen to hide attempt to cement cracks in the façade of the USA neoliberal
society that Trump election revealed (including apparent legitimization of ruling neoliberal elite represented by Hillary).
And a desperate attempt to unite the society using (false) war propaganda which requires demonization of the "enemy of the
people" and neo-McCarthyism.
But this is also related to attempts to prevent/weaken the alliance of Russia and China. As geopolitical consequences of
this alliance for the USA-led neoliberal empire are very bad (for example, military alliance means the end of the USA global
military domination; energy alliance means that is now impossible to impose a blockade on China energy supplies from Middle East
even if Iran is occupied)
In this sense the recent descent into a prolonged fit of vintage Cold War jingoistic paranoia is quite understandable. While,
at the same time, totally abhorrent. My feeling is that unless Russia folds, which is unlikely, the side effects/externalities
of this posture can be very bad for the USA. In any case, the alliance of Russia and China which Obama administration policies
forged spells troubles to the global neoliberal empire dominated by the USA.
Trump rejection of existing forms of neoliberal globalization is one sign that this process already started and some politicians
already are trying to catch the wind and adapt to a "new brave world" by using preemptive adjustments.
Which is why all this Trump-Putin summit hysteria is about.
Neither hard, nor soft neoliberals want any adjustments. They are ready to fight for the US-led neoliberal empire till the
last American (excluding, of course, themselves and their families)
"... Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender. That would explain Sater's early attempts at apparent entrapment. Since that didn't work, a different strategy had to be devised to deny the presidency to someone over whom the intelligence services lacked sufficient leverage. ..."
"... Hillary gladly cooperated and raised the specter of collusion with Russia, which she trumpeted in the debates, downplaying other issues that could have resonated more with voters. Since she thought she was a slam dunk, she thought she could afford to cooperate. It could only help ingratiate her with the borg. ..."
"... On the other hand, Brennan and others in the borg used their allies in the media to promote and propagate the story, which mushroomed when Trump defied the odds and won. Hillary was eager to play the victim as a way to excuse her failure. And the borg began hyping the story to cripple Trump unless he heeled. Initially Trump resisted, firing Comey. But with Bolton now ensconced as the National Security Advisor, it is clear that the borg has won, and the lack of any conspiracy could now be revealed. ..."
"... IMO the FBI leadership, Clapper, Brennan and his flunkies were working with the Brits at some senior level of their IO apparatus to screw Trump. Mueller's testimony before the Congress should be revelatory of his true position. ..."
"... Don't hold your breath .The so called deep state which in reality are our plutocratic oligarchical class that win. Look at the new boss same as the old boss. ..."
"... Look at all the hair triggers that have been laid out with the TRUMP regime since he became POTUS with regards to the ME and the Russian Federation. ..."
"... both Dems and Repub are trying to introduce a bill that labels the Russian Federation as a sponsor of terrorism. You just can't make this stuff up. Least we forget replacing the meme of ASSAD HAS TO GO TO MADURRO HAS TO GO. War is a racket and as per usual we the sheeple just fall for it. Ret. Col Wilkerson lays all out at last years Israeli influence conference. ..."
"... It appears that Bill Barr's light editing may have been intended to expose the bias and sloppiness of Mueller and his team. ..."
"... The most farcical thing in the Mueller report is that he did not fill obstruction charges or even recommend that it should be filled, but yet he did not "exonerate" Trump. ..."
"... In other words, Mueller did not think that he had enough to make an obstruction case in the courts of justice, and keep in mind that an indictment requires only "probable cause", not the "beyond a reasonable doubt" required for a criminal conviction, but nevertheless he went out of his way to leave the obstruction sword hanging over Trump`s head so the political infighting does not end. ..."
Makes me wonder if this started out as a standard operation by the FBI to gain leverage over a presidential contender. That would
explain Sater's early attempts at apparent entrapment. Since that didn't work, a different strategy had to be devised to deny
the presidency to someone over whom the intelligence services lacked sufficient leverage.
Hillary gladly cooperated and raised the specter of collusion with Russia, which she trumpeted in the debates, downplaying
other issues that could have resonated more with voters. Since she thought she was a slam dunk, she thought she could afford to
cooperate. It could only help ingratiate her with the borg.
On the other hand, Brennan and others in the borg used their allies in the media to promote and propagate the story, which
mushroomed when Trump defied the odds and won. Hillary was eager to play the victim as a way to excuse her failure. And the borg
began hyping the story to cripple Trump unless he heeled. Initially Trump resisted, firing Comey. But with Bolton now ensconced
as the National Security Advisor, it is clear that the borg has won, and the lack of any conspiracy could now be revealed.
Such a scenario would explain why Sater, Mufid, Steele and apparent attempts at entrapment got buried. And, with obstruction
still hanging over Trump's head, the borg's leverage is still there if needed.
IMO the FBI leadership, Clapper, Brennan and his flunkies were working with the Brits at some senior level of their IO
apparatus
to screw Trump. Mueller's testimony before the Congress should be revelatory of his true position.
Don't hold your breath .The so called deep state which in reality are our plutocratic oligarchical class that win. Look at the
new boss same as the old boss.
It was obvious from way back in June 2016 when most of the fabricated /novella known as the
Steele Dossier was floating around and the role Fusion GPS played in the Clinton POTUS machine. There is a lot out there but as
per usual smokey mirrors and deception.
I live you with this one thought.
Look at all the hair triggers that have been laid out with the TRUMP regime since he became POTUS with regards to the ME and
the Russian Federation.
THe IRGC being labeled a terrorist organization and further more both Dems and Repub are trying to introduce
a bill that labels the Russian Federation as a sponsor of terrorism. You just can't make this stuff up. Least we forget replacing the meme of ASSAD HAS TO GO TO MADURRO HAS TO GO. War is a racket and as per usual we the sheeple just fall for it. Ret. Col Wilkerson lays all out at last years Israeli influence
conference.
Special Relationship? All it's possible for the outsider to see in that are questions.
The UK stands shoulder to shoulder with the US in repelling the Russian threat. Also, along with France, helps with any R2P
that needs doing. That's a consistent if by now bedraggled story.
But Europe, including the UK, is now going hell for leather at the "European Army" project. How long will it be before that
becomes a respectable independent force? A decade?
In the meantime all recognise that the US is the only significant European defence force. It's not just the money. The US ties
the European components of NATO together and provides the big reserves of men and equipment. Even Mr Blair accepts that reality.
I've been listening to his talk at the Munich Security Conference.
So the US is to hold the fort in Europe while the Europeans prepare to supplant NATO? Do the Europeans plan to be a military
superpower themselves eventually?
And where does Trump fit in? Trumpphobia is as strong as Russophobia in the UK and stronger than Russophobia in continental
Europe. So Trump is supposed to sit there placidly defending Europe until the Europeans are strong enough to dispense with the
American alliance, and that while the Europeans, including the UK, throw mud at him?
Neither in neocon terms nor in terms of sensible defence are these various stories compatible. Is there any sort of coherent
defense policy in this respect on either side of the Atlantic? Or are they all just winging it and ignoring the inconsistencies?
Bravo ! One word "Bravo!!!" This is a very good, probably the best so far in depth analysis of Mueller's final report. And your phase "disingenuous and dishonest" is like a stamp on Mueller's hatchet job:
A careful reading of the report reveals that Mueller has issued findings that are both disingenuous and dishonest. The report
is a failed hatchet job.
Part of the failure can be attributed to the amount of material that Attorney General Barr allowed to be released.
It appears that Bill Barr's light editing may have been intended to expose the bias and sloppiness of Mueller and his team.
The most farcical thing in the Mueller report is that he did not fill obstruction charges or even recommend that it should be
filled, but yet he did not "exonerate" Trump.
In other words, Mueller did not think that he had enough to make an obstruction case in the courts of justice, and keep in
mind that an indictment requires only "probable cause", not the "beyond a reasonable doubt" required for a criminal conviction,
but nevertheless he went out of his way to leave the obstruction sword hanging over Trump`s head so the political infighting does
not end.
IMO, that is the biggest evidence that the whole thing was an attempt at facilitating a political power grab instead of a serious
criminal investigation.
"... Nevertheless, while it appeared to the Clinton partisans in the Obama White House, in the DoJ, the CIA, the FBI and overseas in the UK, that the e-mail case had been quashed sufficiently to preserve the likelihood of Clinton's accession, they had enough reservations to exploit a garbage pail of political dirt to take out an "insurance policy." ..."
Who is taking the over/under on whether Barr will actually investigate the origins of the attempted entrapment of Trump in Russia
collusion and the roles played by key players in US law enforcement and intelligence agencies as well as the Brits & Aussie government
agencies therein?
I'm willing to bet that it will all be swept under the rug and that Clapper, Brennan, Comey, Lynch & Rice will not be testifying
to any grand jury. Barr has received multiple criminal & conspiracy referrals from Rep. Devin Nunes. However, Trump himself disregarded
Nunes recommendation to declassify several documents & communications including the FISA application on Carter Page. The question
is does Trump want to get to the bottom of the conspiracy? So far all he's done is tweet. IMO, Barr is the epitome of a Swamp
Rat.
"Let your plans be dark and as impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt." – Sun Tzu
I have a feeling that President Trump will declassify and release the relevant documents in a manner that they will have maximum
effect. It is stunning that the entirety of federal law enforcement, intelligence, and State department embraced and fortified
Russian misinformation in their jihad against Trump.
This must never happen again. At least the operation was run by political hacks, former analysts who fancied themselves as
operators. Their ham- fisted prints are over this shit storm. Thank you God for Comey, Brennan, and Clapper -- the three stooges
of espionage.
I suppose that it's possible that AG Barr's DoJ will mount a serious investigation into the many tentacles ongoing governmental
debacle that began with the Lynch DoJ providing political direction and cover for Comey's FBI to lie down on the Clinton e-mail
investigation. Which came first, the cover up, or the capitulation, is not completely clear. Perhaps it was a hand in glove affair.
Suffice it to say that by any standard of competence, it was a faux effort.
In my opinion, what was not done should constitute the elements of an obstruction violation. It would be a difficult charge
to argue before a jury. Was the level of incompetence such that a reasonable person could not believe that it could not exist
in the FBI, that there had to be malicious intent?
Nevertheless, while it appeared to the Clinton partisans in the Obama White House, in the DoJ, the CIA, the FBI and overseas
in the UK, that the e-mail case had been quashed sufficiently to preserve the likelihood of Clinton's accession, they had enough
reservations to exploit a garbage pail of political dirt to take out an "insurance policy."
Once again the question, could they possibly have been so incompetent. "What the heck" appears to have been the launching pad;
Clinton's going to win anyway, Trump will be crushed under the unmaskings, leaks, and innuendo; and no one will ever find out.
But Trump wins, and the unwholesome political cabal is now stuck with an investigation of an incoming President whom they had
tried to frag on the skimpiest evidentiary grounds imaginable. And worse, he appears to be sensing there is something rotten in
the state of Denmark, and Cardinal Jim Comey is a shitty liar, and now he's out, and what is going to happen to this garbage scow
they've launched, now with Comey gone. How do they kill this thing? Worse, how do they kill the political riot this thing has
caused. They can't; they double down; they take out another insurance policy - Jim Comey's good bud, Bob Mueller with a posse
of partisan attorneys, many vets of the Obama DoJ, a couple of squads of FBI Agents, including two who were prominent in the e
mail case and the Steele inquiry, and a set up akin to a shadow DoJ. What could go wrong? They would hound the bastard out of
office.
Which returns us to the question of whether Barr will mount a serious investigation into the political scandal of the last
100 years, at least. I suppose it is possible, but right now I'm not optimistic. For one thing Barr appeared at the big press
conference with Rod Rosenstein. Rod Rosenstein is at minimum a critical witness. There is every reason to suspect that Comey,
McCabe, Mueller, and Rosenstein conferred before Comey's leak to the NYT via a lawyer friend in furtherance of Mueller's appointment.
Going side by side with Rosenstein at this juncture doesn't augur well.
On the other hand, the continuing lunatic behavior of the demented left may give Barr no other choice but to sort the mess
out once and for all for the good of the country. We'll see.
The biggest take I got out of the Mueller report is that Trump is a sleazy character and that is not what I want from the president,
the Face of America to the rest of the world. Whether the Deep State went after Trump in an organized fashion is just noise in
my ears. To me that is just normal political infighting the same as Trump and other Republicans went after Obama for being an
illegitimate President as a non-citizen.
Sorry, but it IS NOT "normal political infighting" for the cabal to have sought and still to seek the overthrow of of the legitimate
head of state and government.
"... John Pilger, among few others, has already stressed how a plan to destroy WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was laid out as far back as 2008 – at the tail end of the Cheney regime – concocted by the Pentagon's shady Cyber Counter-Intelligence Assessments Branch. ..."
"... But it was only in 2017, in the Trump era, that the Deep State went totally ballistic; that's when WikiLeaks published the Vault 7 files – detailing the CIA's vast hacking/cyber espionage repertoire. ..."
"... This was the CIA as a Naked Emperor like never before – including the dodgy overseeing ops of the Center for Cyber Intelligence, an ultra-secret NSA counterpart. ..."
"... The monolithic narrative by the Deep State faction aligned with the Clinton machine was that "the Russians" hacked the DNC servers. Assange was always adamant; that was not the work of a state actor – and he could prove it technically. ..."
"... The DoJ wanted a deal – and they did make an offer to WikiLeaks. But then FBI director James Comey killed it. The question is why. ..."
"... Some theoretically sound reconstructions of Comey's move are available. But the key fact is Comey already knew – via his close connections to the top of the DNC – that this was not a hack; it was a leak. ..."
"... Ambassador Craig Murray has stressed, over and over again (see here ) how the DNC/Podesta files published by WikiLeaks came from two different US sources; one from within the DNC and the other from within US intel. ..."
"... he release by WikiLeaks in April 2017 of the malware mechanisms inbuilt in "Grasshopper" and the "Marble Framework" were indeed a bombshell. This is how the CIA inserts foreign language strings in source code to disguise them as originating from Russia, from Iran, or from China. The inestimable Ray McGovern, a VIPS member, stressed how Marble Framework "destroys this story about Russian hacking." ..."
"... No wonder then CIA director Mike Pompeo accused WikiLeaks of being a "non-state hostile intelligence agency" ..."
"... Joshua Schulte, the alleged leaker of Vault 7, has not faced a US court yet. There's no question he will be offered a deal by the USG if he aggress to testify against Julian Assange. ..."
"... George Galloway has a guest who explains it all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VvPFMyPvHM&t=8s ..."
"... Escobar is brain dead if he can't figure out that Trumpenstein is totally on board with destroying Assange. As if bringing on pukes like PompAss, BoltON, and Abrams doesn't scream it. ..."
The Made-by-FBI indictment of
Julian Assange does look like a dead man walking. No evidence. No documents. No surefire
testimony. Just a crossfire of conditionals...
But never underestimate the legalese contortionism of US government (USG) functionaries. As
much as Assange may not be characterized as a journalist and publisher, the thrust of the
affidavit is to accuse him of conspiring to commit espionage.
In fact the charge is not even that Assange hacked a USG computer and obtained classified
information; it's that he may have discussed it with Chelsea Manning and may have had the
intention to go for a hack. Orwellian-style thought crime charges don't get any better than
that. Now the only thing missing is an AI software to detect them.
Assange legal adviser Geoffrey Robertson – who also happens to represent another
stellar political prisoner, Brazil's Lula – cut
straight to the chase (at 19:22 minutes);
"The justice he is facing is justice, or injustice, in America I would hope the British
judges would have enough belief in freedom of information to throw out the extradition
request."
That's far from a done deal. Thus the inevitable consequence; Assange's legal team is
getting ready to prove, no holds barred, in a British court, that this USG indictment for
conspiracy to commit computer hacking is just an hors d'oeuvre for subsequent espionage
charges, in case Assange is extradited to US soil.
All about Vault 7
John Pilger, among few others, has already stressed how a plan to
destroy WikiLeaks and Julian Assange was laid out as far back as 2008 – at the tail end
of the Cheney regime – concocted by the Pentagon's shady Cyber Counter-Intelligence
Assessments Branch.
It was all about criminalizing WikiLeaks and personally smearing Assange, using "shock
troops enlisted in the media -- those who are meant to keep the record straight and tell us the
truth."
This plan remains more than active – considering how Assange's arrest has been covered
by the bulk of US/UK mainstream media.
By 2012, already in the Obama era, WikiLeaks detailed the astonishing "scale of the US Grand
Jury Investigation" of itself. The USG always denied such a grand jury existed.
"The US Government has stood up and coordinated a joint interagency criminal investigation
of Wikileaks comprised of a partnership between the Department of Defense (DOD) including:
CENTCOM; SOUTHCOM; the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA); Defense Information Systems Agency
(DISA); Headquarters Department of the Army (HQDA); US Army Criminal Investigation Division
(CID) for USFI (US Forces Iraq) and 1st Armored Division (AD); US Army Computer Crimes
Investigative Unit (CCIU); 2nd Army (US Army Cyber Command); Within that or in addition,
three military intelligence investigations were conducted. Department of Justice (DOJ) Grand
Jury and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of State (DOS) and Diplomatic
Security Service (DSS). In addition, Wikileaks has been investigated by the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Office of the National CounterIntelligence
Executive (ONCIX), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); the House Oversight Committee; the
National Security Staff Interagency Committee, and the PIAB (President's Intelligence
Advisory Board)."
But it was only in 2017, in the Trump era, that the Deep State went totally ballistic;
that's when WikiLeaks published the Vault 7 files – detailing the CIA's vast
hacking/cyber espionage repertoire.
This was the CIA as a Naked Emperor like never before – including the dodgy
overseeing ops of the Center for Cyber Intelligence, an ultra-secret NSA counterpart.
WikiLeaks got Vault 7 in early 2017. At the time WikiLeaks had already published the DNC
files – which the unimpeachable Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
systematically proved was a leak, not a hack.
The monolithic narrative by the Deep State faction aligned with the Clinton machine was
that "the Russians" hacked the DNC servers. Assange was always adamant; that was not the work
of a state actor – and he could prove it technically.
There was some movement towards a deal, brokered by one of Assange's lawyers; WikiLeaks
would not publish the most damning Vault 7 information in exchange for Assange's safe passage
to be interviewed by the US Department of Justice (DoJ).
The DoJ wanted a deal – and they did make an offer to WikiLeaks. But then FBI
director James Comey killed it. The question is why.
It's a leak, not a hack
Some theoretically sound
reconstructions of Comey's move are available. But the key fact is Comey already knew
– via his close connections to the top of the DNC – that this was not a hack; it
was a leak.
Ambassador Craig Murray has stressed, over and over again (see
here ) how the DNC/Podesta files published by WikiLeaks came from two different US sources;
one from within the DNC and the other from within US intel.
There was nothing for Comey to "investigate". Or there would have, if Comey had ordered the
FBI to examine the DNC servers. So why talk to Julian Assange?
T he release by WikiLeaks in April 2017 of the malware mechanisms inbuilt in
"Grasshopper" and the "Marble Framework" were indeed a bombshell. This is how the CIA inserts
foreign language strings in source code to disguise them as originating from Russia, from Iran,
or from China. The inestimable Ray McGovern, a VIPS member, stressed how Marble Framework
"destroys this story about Russian hacking."
No wonder then CIA director Mike Pompeo accused WikiLeaks of being a "non-state hostile
intelligence agency", usually manipulated by Russia.
Joshua Schulte, the alleged leaker of Vault 7,
has not faced a US court yet. There's no question he will be offered a deal by the USG if he
aggress to testify against Julian Assange.
It's a long and winding road, to be traversed in at least two years, if Julian Assange is
ever to be extradited to the US. Two things for the moment are already crystal clear. The USG
is obsessed to shut down WikiLeaks once and for all. And because of that, Julian Assange will
never get a fair trial in the "so-called 'Espionage Court'" of the Eastern District of
Virginia, as
detailed by former CIA counterterrorism officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou.
Meanwhile, the non-stop demonization of Julian Assange will proceed unabated, faithful to
guidelines established over a decade ago. Assange is even accused of being a US intel op, and
WikiLeaks a splinter Deep State deep cover op.
Maybe President Trump will maneuver the hegemonic Deep State into having Assange testify
against the corruption of the DNC; or maybe Trump caved in completely to "hostile intelligence
agency" Pompeo and his CIA gang baying for blood. It's all ultra-high-stakes shadow play
– and the show has not even begun.
Not to mention the Pentagram has silenced 100,000 whistleblower complaints by
Intimidation, threats, money or accidents over 5 years . A Whistleblower only does this when
know there is something seriously wrong. Just Imagine how many knew something was wrong but
looked the other way.
Maybe President Trump will maneuver the hegemonic Deep State into having Assange testify
against the corruption of the DNC; or maybe Trump caved in completely to "hostile
intelligence agency" Pompeo and his CIA gang baying for blood.
Escobar is brain dead if he can't figure out that Trumpenstein is totally on board with
destroying Assange. As if bringing on pukes like PompAss, BoltON, and Abrams doesn't scream it.
assange and wikileaks are the real criminals despite being crimeless. the **** is a
sanctioned criminal, allowed to be criminal with the system because the rest of the
sanctioned criminals would be exposed if she was investigated.
this is not the rule of laws. this is the law of rulers.
"... Almost by accident, I had launched my academic career by doing something a bit different. Embedded within that study of drug trafficking was an analytical approach that would take me, almost unwittingly, on a lifelong exploration of U.S. global hegemony in its many manifestations, including diplomatic alliances, CIA interventions, developing military technology, recourse to torture, and global surveillance. Step by step, topic by topic, decade after decade, I would slowly accumulate sufficient understanding of the parts to try to assemble the whole. In writing my new book, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power , I drew on this research to assess the overall character of U.S. global power and the forces that might contribute to its perpetuation or decline. ..."
"... In the process, I slowly came to see a striking continuity and coherence in Washington's century-long rise to global dominion. CIA torture techniques emerged at the start of the Cold War in the 1950s; much of its futuristic robotic aerospace technology had its first trial in the Vietnam War of the 1960s; and, above all, Washington's reliance on surveillance first appeared in the colonial Philippines around 1900 and soon became an essential though essentially illegal tool for the FBI's repression of domestic dissent that continued through the 1970s. ..."
"... After occupying the Philippines in 1898, the U.S. Army, facing a difficult pacification campaign in a restive land, discovered the power of systematic surveillance to crush the resistance of the country's political elite. Then, during World War I, the Army's "father of military intelligence," the dour General Ralph Van Deman, who had learned his trade in the Philippines, drew upon his years pacifying those islands to mobilize a legion of 1,700 soldiers and 350,000 citizen-vigilantes for an intense surveillance program against suspected enemy spies among German-Americans, including my own grandfather. In studying Military Intelligence files at the National Archives, I found "suspicious" letters purloined from my grandfather's army locker. In fact, his mother had been writing him in her native German about such subversive subjects as knitting him socks for guard duty. ..."
"... In the 1950s, Hoover's FBI agents tapped thousands of phones without warrants and kept suspected subversives under close surveillance, including my mother's cousin Gerard Piel, an anti-nuclear activist and the publisher of Scientific American magazine. During the Vietnam War, the bureau expanded its activities with an amazing array of spiteful, often illegal, intrigues in a bid to cripple the antiwar movement with pervasive surveillance of the sort seen in my own FBI file. ..."
"... What about using the historical method to explore the nature of USA's reducing EU nations to "vassals" – and keeping them in the status of vassals, such that they can be depended on to undermine their own economies and sovereignty for the sake of USA's global initiatives? ..."
"... An interesting question might be whether the NATO-to-Afghanistan highway (truck route for munitions, etc.), c. 2010, was also, on the back-haul – Afghanistan to EU – the major supply route for heroin throughout the EU and thus the key to corruption of EU governments (and of Russia) and domination of those governments by USA's neocon operatives? (E.g., was/is the distribution system of the "Chocolate King" Petro Poroshenko, President of Ukraine, delivering something besides just chocolate?) ..."
"... The Puppet Masters Behind Georgia President Saakashvili http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20569.htm ..."
In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington pursued its elusive enemies across the landscapes of Asia and Africa, thanks
in part to a massive expansion of its intelligence infrastructure, particularly of the emerging technologies for digital surveillance,
agile drones, and biometric identification. In 2010, almost a decade into this secret war with its voracious appetite for information,
the Washington Post reported that the
national security state had swelled into a "fourth branch" of the federal government -- with 854,000 vetted officials, 263 security
organizations, and over 3,000 intelligence units, issuing 50,000 special reports every year.
Though stunning, these statistics only skimmed the visible surface of what had become history's largest and most lethal clandestine
apparatus. According to classified documents that Edward Snowden
leaked in 2013, the nation's 16 intelligence agencies alone had 107,035 employees and a combined "black budget" of $52.6 billion,
the
equivalent of 10% percent of the vast defense budget.
By sweeping the skies and probing the worldwide web's undersea cables, the National Security Agency (NSA) could surgically penetrate
the confidential communications of just about
any leader on the
planet, while simultaneously sweeping up
billions of
ordinary messages. For its classified missions, the CIA had access to the Pentagon's Special Operations Command, with
69,000 elite troops (Rangers, SEALs, Air Commandos)
and their agile arsenal. In addition to this formidable paramilitary capacity, the CIA
operated 30 Predator and Reaper drones
responsible for more
than 3,000 deaths in Pakistan and Yemen.
While Americans practiced a collective form of duck and cover as the Department of Homeland Security's
colored alerts pulsed nervously from yellow to red,
few paused to ask the hard question: Was all this security really directed solely at enemies beyond our borders? After half a century
of domestic security abuses -- from the "red scare" of the 1920s through the FBI's illegal harassment of antiwar protesters in the
1960s and 1970s -- could we really be confident that there wasn't a hidden cost to all these secret measures right here at home?
Maybe, just maybe, all this security wasn't really so benign when it came to us.
From my own personal experience over the past half-century, and my family's history over three generations, I've found out in
the most personal way possible that there's a real cost to entrusting our civil liberties to the discretion of secret agencies. Let
me share just a few of my own "war" stories to explain how I've been forced to keep learning and relearning this uncomfortable lesson
the hard way.
On the Heroin Trail
After finishing college in the late 1960s, I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Japanese history and was pleasantly surprised when Yale
Graduate School admitted me with a full fellowship. But the Ivy League in those days was no ivory tower. During my first year at
Yale, the Justice Department indicted Black Panther leader Bobby Seale for a local murder and the May Day protests that filled the
New Haven green also shut the campus for a week. Almost simultaneously, President Nixon ordered the invasion of Cambodia and student
protests closed hundreds of campuses across America for the rest of the semester.
In the midst of all this tumult, the focus of my studies shifted from Japan to Southeast Asia, and from the past to the war in
Vietnam. Yes, that war. So what did I do about the draft? During my first semester at Yale, on December 1, 1969, to be precise, the
Selective Service cut up the calendar for a lottery. The first 100 birthdays picked were certain to be drafted, but any dates above
200 were likely exempt. My birthday, June 8th, was the very last date drawn, not number 365 but 366 (don't forget leap year) -- the
only lottery I have ever won, except for a Sunbeam electric frying pan in a high school raffle. Through a convoluted moral calculus
typical of the 1960s, I decided that my draft exemption, although acquired by sheer luck, demanded that I devote myself, above all
else, to thinking about, writing about, and working to end the Vietnam War.
During those campus protests over Cambodia in the spring of 1970, our small group of graduate students in Southeast Asian history
at Yale realized that the U.S. strategic predicament in Indochina would soon require an invasion of Laos to cut the flow of enemy
supplies into South Vietnam. So, while protests over Cambodia swept campuses nationwide, we were huddled inside the library, preparing
for the next invasion by editing a book of essays on Laos for the publisher Harper & Row. A few months after that book appeared,
one of the company's junior editors, Elizabeth Jakab, intrigued by an account we had included about that country's opium crop, telephoned
from New York to ask if I could research and write a "quickie" paperback about the history behind the heroin epidemic then infecting
the U.S. Army in Vietnam.
I promptly started the research at my student carrel in the Gothic tower that is Yale's Sterling Library, tracking old colonial
reports about the Southeast Asian opium trade that ended suddenly in the 1950s, just as the story got interesting. So, quite tentatively
at first, I stepped outside the library to do a few interviews and soon found myself following an investigative trail that circled
the globe. First, I traveled across America for meetings with retired CIA operatives. Then I crossed the Pacific to Hong Kong to
study drug syndicates, courtesy of that colony's police drug squad. Next, I went south to Saigon, then the capital of South Vietnam,
to investigate the heroin traffic that was targeting the GIs, and on into the mountains of Laos to observe CIA alliances with opium
warlords and the hill-tribe militias that grew the opium poppy. Finally, I flew from Singapore to Paris for interviews with retired
French intelligence officers about their opium trafficking during the first Indochina War of the 1950s.
The drug traffic that supplied heroin for the U.S. troops fighting in South Vietnam was not, I discovered, exclusively the work
of criminals. Once the opium left tribal poppy fields in Laos, the traffic required official complicity at every level. The helicopters
of Air America, the airline the CIA then ran, carried raw opium out of the villages of its hill-tribe allies. The commander of the
Royal Lao Army, a close American collaborator, operated the world's largest heroin lab and was so oblivious to the implications of
the traffic that he opened his opium ledgers for my inspection. Several of Saigon's top generals were complicit in the drug's distribution
to U.S. soldiers. By 1971, this web of collusion ensured that heroin, according to a later
White House survey of a thousand veterans, would be "commonly used" by 34% of American troops in South Vietnam.
None of this had been covered in my college history seminars. I had no models for researching an uncharted netherworld of crime
and covert operations. After stepping off the plane in Saigon, body slammed by the tropical heat, I found myself in a sprawling foreign
city of four million, lost in a swarm of snarling motorcycles and a maze of nameless streets, without contacts or a clue about how
to probe these secrets. Every day on the heroin trail confronted me with new challenges -- where to look, what to look for, and,
above all, how to ask hard questions.
Reading all that history had, however, taught me something I didn't know I knew. Instead of confronting my sources with questions
about sensitive current events, I started with the French colonial past when the opium trade was still legal, gradually uncovering
the underlying, unchanging logistics of drug production. As I followed this historical trail into the present, when the traffic became
illegal and dangerously controversial, I began to use pieces from this past to assemble the present puzzle, until the names of contemporary
dealers fell into place. In short, I had crafted a historical method that would prove, over the next 40 years of my career, surprisingly
useful in analyzing a diverse array of foreign policy controversies -- CIA alliances with drug lords, the agency's propagation of
psychological torture, and our spreading state surveillance.
The CIA Makes Its Entrance in My Life
Those months on the road, meeting gangsters and warlords in isolated places, offered only one bit of real danger. While hiking
in the mountains of Laos, interviewing Hmong farmers about their opium shipments on CIA helicopters, I was descending a steep slope
when a burst of bullets ripped the ground at my feet. I had walked into an ambush by agency mercenaries.
While the five Hmong militia escorts whom the local village headman had prudently provided laid down a covering fire, my Australian
photographer John Everingham and I flattened ourselves
in the elephant grass and crawled through the mud to safety. Without those armed escorts, my research would have been at an end and
so would I. After that ambush failed, a CIA paramilitary officer summoned me to a mountaintop meeting where he threatened to murder
my Lao interpreter unless I ended my research. After winning assurances from the U.S. embassy that my interpreter would not be harmed,
I decided to ignore that warning and keep going.
Six months and 30,000 miles later, I returned to New Haven. My investigation of CIA alliances with drug lords had taught me more
than I could have imagined about the covert aspects of U.S. global power. Settling into my attic apartment for an academic year of
writing, I was confident that I knew more than enough for a book on this unconventional topic. But my education, it turned out, was
just beginning.
Within weeks, a massive, middle-aged guy in a suit interrupted my scholarly isolation. He appeared at my front door and identified
himself as
Tom Tripodi , senior agent for the Bureau of Narcotics, which later became the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). His agency,
he confessed during a second visit, was worried about my writing and he had been sent to investigate. He needed something to tell
his superiors. Tom was a guy you could trust. So I showed him a few draft pages of my book. He disappeared into the living room for
a while and came back saying, "Pretty good stuff. You got your ducks in a row." But there were some things, he added, that weren't
quite right, some things he could help me fix.
Best of all, there was the one about how the Bureau of Narcotics caught French intelligence protecting the Corsican syndicates
smuggling heroin into New York City. Some of his stories, usually unacknowledged, would appear in my book,
The Politics of Heroin in Southeast
Asia . These conversations with an undercover operative, who had trained Cuban exiles for the CIA in Florida and later investigated
Mafia heroin syndicates for the DEA in Sicily, were akin to an advanced seminar, a master class in covert operations.
In the summer of 1972, with the book at press, I went to Washington to testify before Congress. As I was making the rounds of
congressional offices on Capitol Hill, my editor rang unexpectedly and summoned me to New York for a meeting with the president and
vice president of Harper & Row, my book's publisher. Ushered into a plush suite of offices overlooking the spires of St. Patrick's
Cathedral, I listened to those executives tell me that Cord Meyer, Jr., the CIA's deputy director for covert operations, had called
on their company's president emeritus, Cass Canfield, Sr. The visit was no accident, for Canfield, according to an
authoritative history , "enjoyed prolific links to the world of intelligence, both as a former psychological warfare officer
and as a close personal friend of Allen Dulles," the ex-head of the CIA Meyer denounced my book as a threat to national security.
He asked Canfield, also an old friend, to quietly suppress it.
I was in serious trouble. Not only was Meyer a senior CIA official but he also had impeccable social connections and covert assets
in every corner of American intellectual life. After graduating from Yale in 1942, he served with the marines in the Pacific, writing
eloquent war dispatches published in the Atlantic Monthly . He later worked with the U.S. delegation drafting the U.N. charter.
Personally recruited by spymaster Allen Dulles, Meyer joined the CIA in 1951 and was soon running its International Organizations
Division, which, in the words of that
same history , "constituted the greatest single concentration of covert political and propaganda activities of the by now octopus-like
CIA," including " Operation Mockingbird " that
planted disinformation in major U.S. newspapers meant to aid agency operations. Informed sources told me that the CIA still had assets
inside every major New York publisher and it already had every page of my manuscript.
As the child of a wealthy New York family, Cord Meyer moved in elite social circles, meeting and marrying Mary Pinchot, the niece
of Gifford Pinchot, founder of the U.S. Forestry Service and a former governor of Pennsylvania. Pinchot was a breathtaking beauty
who later became President Kennedy's mistress, making dozens of
secret visits to the White House. When she was found
shot dead
along the banks of a canal in Washington in 1964, the head of CIA counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton, another Yale alumnus,
broke into her home in an unsuccessful attempt to secure her diary. Mary's sister Toni and her husband, Washington Post editor
Ben Bradlee, later found the diary and gave it to Angleton for destruction by the agency. To this day, her unsolved murder remains
a subject of mystery and
controversy.
Cord Meyer was also in the Social Register of New York's fine families along with my publisher, Cass Canfield, which added
a dash of social cachet to the pressure to suppress my book. By the time he walked into Harper & Row's office in that summer of 1972,
two decades of CIA service had
changed Meyer (according to that same authoritative history) from a liberal idealist into "a relentless, implacable advocate
for his own ideas," driven by "a paranoiac distrust of everyone who didn't agree with him" and a manner that was "histrionic and
even bellicose." An unpublished 26-year-old graduate student versus the master of CIA media manipulation. It was hardly a fair fight.
I began to fear my book would never appear.
To his credit, Canfield refused Meyer's request to suppress the book. But he did allow the agency a chance to review the manuscript
prior to publication. Instead of waiting quietly for the CIA's critique, I contacted Seymour Hersh, then an investigative reporter
for the New York Times . The same day the CIA courier arrived from Langley to collect my manuscript, Hersh swept through Harper
& Row's offices like a tropical storm, pelting hapless executives with incessant, unsettling questions. The next day, his exposé
of the CIA's attempt at censorship appeared on the paper's
front page . Other national media organizations followed his lead. Faced with a barrage of negative coverage, the CIA gave Harper
& Row a critique full of unconvincing
denials . The book was published unaltered.
My Life as an Open Book for the Agency
I had learned another important lesson: the Constitution's protection of press freedom could check even the world's most powerful
espionage agency. Cord Meyer reportedly learned the same lesson. According to his
obituary in the Washington Post , "It was assumed that Mr. Meyer would eventually advance" to head CIA covert operations,
"but the public disclosure about the book deal apparently dampened his prospects." He was instead exiled to London and eased into
early retirement.
Meyer and his colleagues were not, however, used to losing. Defeated in the public arena, the CIA retreated to the shadows and
retaliated by tugging at every thread in the threadbare life of a graduate student. Over the next few months, federal officials from
the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare turned up at Yale to investigate my graduate fellowship. The Internal Revenue Service
audited my poverty-level income. The FBI tapped my New Haven telephone (something I learned years later from a class-action lawsuit).
In August 1972, at the height of the controversy over the book, FBI agents told the bureau's director that they had "conducted
[an] investigation concerning McCoy," searching the files they had compiled on me for the past two years and interviewing numerous
"sources whose identities are concealed [who] have furnished reliable information in the past" -- thereby producing an 11-page report
detailing my birth, education, and campus antiwar activities.
A college classmate I hadn't seen in four years, who served in military intelligence, magically appeared at my side in the book
section of the Yale Co-op, seemingly eager to resume our relationship. The same week that a
laudatory review of my book appeared on the front page of the New York Times Book Review , an extraordinary achievement
for any historian, Yale's History Department placed me on academic probation. Unless I could somehow do a year's worth of overdue
work in a single semester, I faced dismissal.
In those days, the ties between the CIA and Yale were wide and deep. The campus residential colleges screened students, including
future CIA Director Porter Goss, for possible careers in espionage. Alumni like Cord Meyer and James Angleton held senior slots at
the agency. Had I not had a faculty adviser visiting from Germany, the distinguished scholar
Bernhard Dahm who was a stranger to this covert nexus,
that probation would likely have become expulsion, ending my academic career and destroying my credibility.
During those difficult days, New York Congressman Ogden Reid, a ranking member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, telephoned
to say that he was sending staff investigators to Laos to look into the opium situation. Amid this controversy, a CIA helicopter
landed near the village where I had escaped that ambush and flew the Hmong headman who had helped my research to an agency airstrip.
There, a CIA interrogator made it clear that he had better deny what he had said to me about the opium. Fearing, as he later told
my photographer, that "they will send a helicopter to arrest me, or soldiers to shoot me," the Hmong headman did just that.
At a personal level, I was discovering just how deep the country's intelligence agencies could reach, even in a democracy, leaving
no part of my life untouched: my publisher, my university, my sources, my taxes, my phone, and even my friends.
Although I had won the first battle of this war with a media blitz, the CIA was winning the longer bureaucratic struggle. By silencing
my sources and denying any culpability, its officials convinced Congress that it was innocent of any direct complicity in the Indochina
drug trade. During Senate hearings into CIA assassinations by the famed
Church Committee three years later,
Congress accepted the agency's assurance that none of its operatives had been directly involved in heroin trafficking (an allegation
I had never actually made). The committee's report did confirm the core of my critique, however, finding that "the CIA is particularly
vulnerable to criticism" over indigenous assets in Laos "of considerable importance to the Agency," including "people who either
were known to be, or were suspected of being, involved in narcotics trafficking." But the senators did not press the CIA for any
resolution or reform of what its own inspector general had called the "particular dilemma" posed by those alliances with drug lords
-- the key aspect, in my view, of its complicity in the traffic.
During the mid-1970s, as the flow of drugs into the United States slowed and the number of addicts declined, the heroin problem
receded into the inner cities and the media moved on to new sensations. Unfortunately, Congress had forfeited an opportunity to check
the CIA and correct its way of waging covert wars. In less than 10 years, the problem of the CIA's tactical alliances with drug traffickers
to support its far-flung covert wars was back with a vengeance.
During the 1980s, as the crack-cocaine epidemic swept America's cities, the agency, as its own Inspector General later
reported , allied itself with the largest drug
smuggler in the Caribbean, using his port facilities to ship arms to the Contra guerrillas fighting in Nicaragua and protecting him
from any prosecution for five years. Simultaneously on the other side of the planet in Afghanistan, mujahedeen guerrillas imposed
an opium
tax on farmers to fund their fight against the Soviet occupation and, with the
CIA's tacit consent , operated heroin labs along the Pakistani border to supply international markets. By the mid-1980s, Afghanistan's
opium harvest had grown 10-fold and was providing 60% of the heroin for America's addicts and as much as
90% in New York City.
Almost by accident, I had launched my academic career by doing something a bit different. Embedded within that study of drug
trafficking was an analytical approach that would take me, almost unwittingly, on a lifelong exploration of U.S. global hegemony
in its many manifestations, including diplomatic alliances, CIA interventions, developing military technology, recourse to torture,
and global surveillance. Step by step, topic by topic, decade after decade, I would slowly accumulate sufficient understanding of
the parts to try to assemble the whole. In writing my new book,
In the Shadows of the American Century:
The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power , I drew on this research to assess the overall character of U.S. global power
and the forces that might contribute to its perpetuation or decline.
In the process, I slowly came to see a striking continuity and coherence in Washington's century-long rise to global dominion.
CIA torture techniques emerged at the start of the Cold War in the 1950s; much of its futuristic robotic aerospace technology had
its first trial in the Vietnam War of the 1960s; and, above all, Washington's reliance on surveillance first appeared in the colonial
Philippines around 1900 and soon became an essential though essentially illegal tool for the FBI's repression of domestic dissent
that continued through the 1970s.
Surveillance Today
In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, I dusted off that historical method, and used it to explore the origins and character
of domestic surveillance inside the United States.
After occupying the Philippines in 1898, the U.S. Army, facing a difficult pacification campaign in a restive land, discovered
the power of systematic surveillance to crush the resistance of the country's political elite. Then, during World War I, the Army's
"father of military intelligence," the dour General Ralph Van Deman, who had learned his trade in the Philippines, drew upon his
years pacifying those islands to mobilize a legion of 1,700 soldiers and 350,000 citizen-vigilantes for an intense surveillance program
against suspected enemy spies among German-Americans, including my own grandfather. In studying Military Intelligence files at the
National Archives, I found "suspicious" letters purloined from my grandfather's army locker. In fact, his mother had been writing
him in her native German about such subversive subjects as knitting him socks for guard duty.
In the 1950s, Hoover's FBI agents tapped thousands of phones without warrants and kept suspected subversives under close surveillance,
including my mother's cousin Gerard Piel, an anti-nuclear activist and the publisher of Scientific American magazine. During the
Vietnam War, the bureau expanded
its activities with an amazing array of spiteful, often illegal, intrigues in a bid to cripple the antiwar movement with pervasive
surveillance of the sort seen in my own FBI file.
Memory of the FBI's illegal surveillance programs was largely washed away after the Vietnam War thanks to Congressional reforms
that required judicial warrants for all government wiretaps. The terror attacks of September 2001, however, gave the National Security
Agency the leeway to launch renewed surveillance on a previously unimaginable scale. Writing for TomDispatch in 2009, I
observed that coercive methods first tested in the Middle East
were being repatriated and might lay the groundwork for "a domestic surveillance state." Sophisticated biometric and cyber techniques
forged in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq had made a "digital surveillance state a reality" and so were fundamentally changing
the character of American democracy.
Four years later, Edward Snowden's leak of secret NSA documents revealed that, after a century-long gestation period, a U.S. digital
surveillance state had finally arrived. In the age of the Internet, the NSA could monitor tens of millions of private lives worldwide,
including American ones, via a few hundred computerized probes into the global grid of fiber-optic cables.
And then, as if to remind me in the most personal way possible of our new reality, four years ago, I found myself the target yet
again of an IRS audit, of TSA body searches at national airports, and -- as I discovered when the line went dead -- a tap on my office
telephone at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Why? Maybe it was my current writing on sensitive topics like CIA torture and NSA
surveillance, or maybe my name popped up from some old database of suspected subversives left over from the 1970s. Whatever the explanation,
it was a reasonable reminder that, if my own family's experience across three generations is in any way representative, state surveillance
has been an integral part of American political life far longer than we might imagine.
At the cost of personal privacy, Washington's worldwide web of surveillance has now become a weapon of exceptional power in a
bid to extend U.S. global hegemony deeper into the twenty-first century. Yet it's worth remembering that sooner or later what we
do overseas always seems to come home to haunt us, just as the CIA and crew have haunted me this last half-century. When we learn
to love Big Brother, the world becomes a more, not less, dangerous place.
Alfred W. McCoy, a
TomDispatch regular
, is the Harrington professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of the now-classic book The
Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade , which probed the conjuncture of illicit narcotics and covert operations
over 50 years, and the forthcoming In
the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power (Dispatch Books, September) from which this piece
is adapted. (Republished from
TomDispatch by permission
of author or representative)
"In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, I dusted off that historical method, and used it to explore the origins and character
of domestic surveillance inside the United States." -- Alfred McCoy
What about using the historical method to explore the nature of USA's reducing EU nations to "vassals" – and keeping them
in the status of vassals, such that they can be depended on to undermine their own economies and sovereignty for the sake of USA's
global initiatives?
An interesting question might be whether the NATO-to-Afghanistan highway (truck route for munitions, etc.), c. 2010, was
also, on the back-haul – Afghanistan to EU – the major supply route for heroin throughout the EU and thus the key to corruption
of EU governments (and of Russia) and domination of those governments by USA's neocon operatives? (E.g., was/is the distribution
system of the "Chocolate King" Petro Poroshenko, President of Ukraine, delivering something besides just chocolate?)
"Just over one third of all cargo goes on routes dubbed the "northern distribution network" through Central Asia, and the Caucasus
or Russia. " -- Reuters, 2011
Just a thought, speculative, based in part on the assumption that such trucks would not be subject to narcotics search-and-seizure
going across borders.
"... Today, it seems, the best description of the FBI's main activity is corporate enforcer for the white-collar mafia known as Wall Street. There is an analogy to organized crime, where the most powerful mobsters settled disputes between other gangs of criminals. Similarly, if a criminal gang is robbed by one of its own members, the mafia would go after the guilty party; the FBI plays this role for Wall Street institutions targeted by con artists and fraudsters. Compare and contrast a pharmaceutical company making opiates which is targeted by thieves vs. a black market drug cartel targeted by thieves. In one case, the FBI investigates; in the other, a violent vendetta ensues (such as street murders in Mexico). ..."
"... The FBI executives are rewarded for this service with lucrative post-retirement careers within corporate America – Louis Freeh went to credit card fraudster, MBNA, Richard Mueller to a corporate Washington law firm, WilmerHale, and Comey, before Obama picked him as Director, worked for Lockheed Martin and HSBC (cleaning up after their $2 billion drug cartel marketing scandal) after leaving the FBI in 2005. ..."
"... Some say they have a key role to play in national security and terrorism – but their record on the 2001 anthrax attacks is incredibly shady and suspicious. The final suspect, Bruce Ivins, is clearly innocent of the crime, just as their previous suspect, Steven Hatfill was. Ivins, if still alive, could have won a similar multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit against the FBI. All honest bioweapons experts know this to be true – the perpetrators of those anthrax letters are still at large, and may very well have had close associations with the Bush Administration itself. ..."
"... Comey's actions over the past year are certainly highly questionable, as well. Neglecting to investigate the Clinton Foundation ties to Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments and corporations, particularly things like State Department approval of various arms deals in which bribes may have been paid, is as much a dereliction of duty as neglecting to investigate Trump ties to Russian business interests – but then, Trump has a record of shady business dealings dating back to the 1970s, of strange bankruptcies and bailouts and government sales that the FBI never looked at either. ..."
I made the mistake of listening to NPR last week to find out what Conventional Wisdom had to say
about Trump firing Comey, on the assumption that their standardized Mister-Rogers-on-Nyquil voice
tones would rein in the hysteria pitch a little. And on the surface, it did-the NPR host and guests
weren't directly shrieking "the world is ending! We're all gonna die SHEEPLE!" the way they were
on CNN. But in a sense they were screaming "fire!", if you know how to distinguish the very minute
pitch level differences in the standard NPR Nyquil voice.
The host of the daytime NPR program asked his guests how serious, and how "unprecedented" Trump's
decision to fire his FBI chief was. The guests answers were strange: they spoke about "rule of law"
and "violating the Constitution" but then switched to Trump "violating norms"-and back again, interchanging
"norms" and "laws" as if they're synonyms. One of the guests admitted that Trump firing Comey was
100% legal, but that didn't seem to matter in this talk about Trump having abandoned rule-of-law
for a Putinist dictatorship. These guys wouldn't pass a high school civics class, but there they
were, garbling it all up. What mattered was the proper sense of panic and outrage-I'm not sure anyone
really cared about the actual legality of the thing, or the legal, political or "normative" history
of the FBI.
For starters, the FBI hardly belongs in the same set with concepts like "constitutional" or "
rule of law." That's because the FBI was never established by a law. US Lawmakers refused to approve
an FBI bureau over a century ago when it was first proposed by Teddy Roosevelt. So he ignored Congress,
and went ahead and set it up by presidential fiat. That's one thing the civil liberties crowd hates
discussing - how centralized US political power is in the executive branch, a feature in the constitutional
system put there by the holy Founders.
In the late 1970s, at the tail end of our brief Glasnost, there was a lot of talk in Washington
about finally creating a
legal charter for the FBI -70 years after its founding. A lot of serious ink was spilled trying
to transform the FBI from an extralegal secret police agency to something legal and defined. If you
want to play archeologist to America's recent history, you can find this in the New York Times' archives,
articles with headlines like
"Draft of Charter for F.B.I. Limits Inquiry Methods" :
The Carter Administration will soon send to Congress the first governing charter for the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. The proposed charter imposes extensive but not absolute restrictions
on the bureau's employment of controversial investigative techniques, .including the use of informers,
undercover agents and covert criminal activity.
The charter also specifies the duties and powers of the bureau, setting precise standards and
procedures for the initiation ,and conduct of investigations. It specifically requires the F.B.I.
to observe constitutional rights and establishes safeguards against unchecked harassment, break‐ins
and other abuses.
followed by the inevitable lament, like this editorial from the Christian Science Monitor a year
later, "Don't Forget the
FBI Charter". Which of course we did forget-that was Reagan's purpose and value for the post-Glasnost
reaction: forgetting. As historian Athan Theoharis
wrote , "After 1981, Congress never seriously considered again any of the FBI charter proposals."
The origins of the FBI have been obscured both because of its dubious legality and because of
its original political purpose-to help the president battle the all-powerful American capitalists.
It wasn't that Teddy Roosevelt was a radical leftist-he was a Progressive Republican, which sounds
like an oxymoron today but which was mainstream and ascendant politics in his time. Roosevelt was
probably the first president since Andrew Jackson to try to smash concentrated wealth-power, or at
least some of it. He could be brutally anti-labor, but so were the powerful capitalists he fought,
and all the structures of government power. He met little opposition pursuing his imperial Social
Darwinist ambitions outside America's borders-but he had a much harder time fighting the powerful
capitalists at home against Roosevelt's most honorable political obsession: preserving forests, parks
and public lands from greedy capitalists. An early FBI memo to Hoover about the FBI's origins explains,
"Roosevelt, in his characteristic dynamic fashion, asserted that the plunderers of the public
domain would be prosecuted and brought to justice."
According to New York Times reporter Tim Wiener's Enemies: A History of the FBI , it
was the Oregon land fraud scandal of 1905-6 that put the idea of an FBI in TR's hyperactive mind.
The scandal involved leading Oregon politicians helping railroad tycoon Edward Harriman illegally
sell off pristine Oregon forest lands to timber interests, and it ended with an Oregon senator and
the state's only two House representatives criminally charged and put on trial-along with dozens
of other Oregonians. Basically, they were raping the state's public lands and forests like colonists
stripping a foreign country-and that stuck in TR's craw.
TR wanted his attorney general-Charles Bonaparte (yes, he really was a descendant of that
Bonaparte)-to make a full report to on the rampant land fraud scams that the robber barons were
running to despoil the American West, and which threatened TR's vision of land and forest conservation
and parks. Bonaparte created an investigative team from the US Secret Service, but TR thought their
report was a "whitewash" and proposed a new separate federal investigative service within Bonaparte's
Department of Justice that would report only to the Attorney General.
Until then, the US government had to rely on private contractors like the notorious, dreaded Pinkerton
Agency, who were great at strikebreaking, clubbing workers and shooting organizers, but not so good
at taking down down robber barons, who happened to also be important clients for the private detective
agencies.
In early 1908, Attorney General Bonaparte wrote to Congress asking for the legal authority (and
budget funds) to create a "permanent detective force" under the DOJ. Congress rebelled, denouncing
it as a plan to create an American okhrana . Democrat Joseph Sherley wrote that "spying
on men and prying into what would ordinarily be considered their private affairs" went against "American
ideas of government"; Rep. George Waldo, a New York Republican, said the proposed FBI was a "great
blow to freedom and to free institutions if there should arise in this country any such great central
secret-service bureau as there is in Russia."
So Congress's response was the opposite, banning Bonaparte's DOJ from spending any funds at all
on a proposed FBI. Another Congressman wrote another provision into the budget bill banning the DOJ
from hiring Secret Service employees for any sort of FBI type agency. So Bonaparte waited until Congress
took its summer recess, set aside some DOJ funds, recruited some Secret Service agents, and created
a new federal detective bureau with 34 agents. This was how the FBI was born. Congress wasn't notified
until the end of 1908, in a few lines in a standard report - "oh yeah, forgot to tell you-the executive
branch went ahead and created an American okhrana because, well, the ol' joke about dogs
licking their balls. Happy New Year!"
The sordid history of America's extralegal secret police-initially named the Bureau of Investigation,
changed to the FBI ("Federal") in the 30's, is mostly a history of xenophobic panic-mongering, illegal
domestic spying, mass roundups and plans for mass-roundups, false entrapment schemes, and planting
what Russians call "kompromat"- compromising information about a target's sex life-to blackmail or
destroy American political figures that the FBI didn't like.
The first political victim of J Edgar Hoover's kompromat was Louis Post, the assistant secretary
of labor under Woodrow Wilson. Post's crime was releasing over 1,000 alleged Reds from detention
facilities near the end of the FBI's Red Scare crackdown, when they jailed and deported untold thousands
on suspicion of being Communists. The FBI's mass purge began with popular media support in 1919,
but by the middle of 1920, some (not the FBI) were starting to get a little queasy. A legal challenge
to the FBI's mass purges and exiles in Boston ended with a federal judge denouncing the FBI. After
that ruling, assistant secretary Louis Post, a 71-year-old well-meaning progressive, reviewed the
cases against the last 1500 detainees that the FBI wanted to deport, and found that there was absolutely
nothing on at least 75 percent of the cases. Post's review threatened to undo thousands more FBI
persecutions of alleged Moscow-controlled radicals.
So one of the FBI's most ambitious young agents, J Edgar Hoover, collected kompromat on Post and
his alleged associations with other alleged Moscow-controlled leftists, and gave the file to the
Republican-controlled House of Representatives-which promptly announced it would hold hearings to
investigate Post as a left subversive. The House tried to impeach Post, but ultimately he defended
himself. Post's lawyer compared his political persecutors to the okhrana (Russia, again!):
"We in America have sunk to the level of the government of Russia under the Czarist regime," describing
the FBI's smear campaign as "even lower in some of their methods than the old Russian officials."
Under Harding, the FBI had a new chief, William Burns, who made headlines blaming the terror bombing
attack on Wall Street of 1920 that killed 34 people on a Kremlin-run conspiracy. The FBI claimed
it had a highly reliable inside source who told them that Lenin sent $30,000 to the Soviets' diplomatic
mission in New York, which was distributed to four local Communist agents who arranged the Wall Street
bombing. The source claimed to have personally spoken with Lenin, who boasted that the bombing was
so successful he'd ordered up more.
The only problem was that the FBI's reliable source, a Jewish-Polish petty criminal named Wolf
Lindenfeld, turned out to be a bullshitter-nicknamed "Windy Linde"-who thought his fake confession
about Lenin funding the bombing campaign would get him out of Poland's jails and set up in a comfortable
new life in New York.
By 1923, the FBI had thoroughly destroyed America's communist and radical labor movements-allowing
it to focus on its other favorite pastime: spying on and destroying political opponents. The FBI
spied on US Senators who supported opening diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union: Idaho's William
Borah, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; Thomas Walsh of the Judiciary Committee, and
Burton K Wheeler, the prairie Populist senator from Montana, who visited the Soviet Union and pushed
for diplomatic relations. Harding's corrupt Attorney General Dougherty denounced Sen. Wheeler as
"the Communist leader in the Senate" and "no more a Democrat than Stalin, his comrade in Moscow."
Dougherty accused Sen. Wheeler of being part of a conspiracy "to capture, by deceit and design, as
many members of the Senate as possible and to spread through Washington and the cloakrooms of Congress
a poison gas as deadly as that which sapped and destroyed brave soldiers in the last war."
Hoover, now a top FBI official, quietly fed kompromat to journalists he cultivated, particularly
an AP reporter named Richard Whitney, who published a popular book in 1924, "Reds In America" alleging
Kremlin agents "had an all-pervasive influence over American institutions; they had infiltrated every
corner of American life." Whitney named Charlie Chaplin as a Kremlin agent, along with Felix Frankfurter
and members of the Senate pushing for recognition of the Soviet Union. That killed any hope for diplomatic
recognition for the next decade.
Then the first Harding scandals broke-Teapot Dome, Veterans Affairs, bribery at the highest rungs.
When Senators Wheeler and Walsh opened bribery investigations, the FBI sent agents to the senators'
home state to drum up false bribery charges against Sen. Wheeler. The charges were clearly fake,
and a jury dismissed the charges. But Attorney General Dougherty was indicted for fraud and forced
to resign, as was his FBI chief Burns-but not Burns' underling Hoover, who stayed in the shadows.
"We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in
sex-life scandals and plain blackmail This must stop."
With the Cold War, the FBI became obsessed with homosexuals as America's Fifth Column under Moscow's
control. Homosexuals, the FBI believed, were susceptible to Kremlin kompromat-so the FBI collected
and disseminated its own kompromat on alleged American homosexuals, supposedly to protect America
from the Kremlin. In the early 1950s, Hoover launched the Sex Deviates Program to spy on American
homosexuals and purge them from public life. The FBI built up 300,000 pages of files on suspected
homosexuals and contacted their employers, local law enforcement and universities to "to drive homosexuals
from every institution of government, higher learning, and law enforcement in the nation," according
to Tim Weiner's book Enemies. No one but the FBI knows exactly how many Americans' lives and careers
were destroyed by the FBI's Sex Deviants Program but Hoover-who never married, lived with his mother
until he was 40, and traveled everywhere with his
"friend" Clyde Tolson .
In the 1952 election, Hoover was so committed to helping the Republicans and Eisenhower win that
he compiled and disseminated a 19-page kompromat file alleging that his Democratic Party rival Adlai
Stevenson was gay. The FBI's file on Stevenson was kept in the Sex Deviants Program section-it included
libelous gossip, claiming that Stevenson was one of Illinois' "best known homosexuals" who went by
the name "Adeline" in gay cruising circles.
In the 1960s, Hoover and his FBI chiefs collected kompromat on the sex lives of JFK and Martin
Luther King. Hoover presented some of his kompromat on JFK to Bobby Kennedy, in a concern-trollish
way claiming to "warn" him that the president was opening himself up to blackmail. It was really
a way for Hoover to let the despised Kennedy brothers know he could destroy them, should they try
to Comey him out of his FBI office. Hoover's kompromat on MLK's sex life was a particular obsession
of his-he now believed that African-Americans, not homosexuals, posed the greatest threat to become
a Kremlin Fifth Column. The FBI wiretapped MLK's private life, collecting tapes of his affairs with
other women, which a top FBI official then mailed to Martin Luther King's wife, along with a note
urging King to commit suicide.
FBI letter anonymously mailed to Martin Luther King Jr's wife, along with kompromat sex tapes
After JFK was murdered, when Bobby Kennedy ran for the Senate in 1964, he recounted another disturbing
FBI/kompromat story that President Johnson shared with him on the campaign trail. LBJ told Bobby
about a stack of kompromat files - FBI reports "detailing the sexual debauchery of members of the
Senate and House who consorted with prostitutes." LBJ asked RFK if the kompromat should be leaked
selectively to destroy Republicans before the 1964 elections. Kennedy recalled,
"He told me he had spent all night sitting up and reading the files of the FBI on all these
people. And Lyndon talks about that information and material so freely. Lyndon talks about everybody,
you see, with everybody. And of course that's dangerous."
Kennedy had seen some of the same FBI kompromat files as attorney general, but he was totally
opposed to releasing such unsubstantiated kompromat-such as, say, the Trump piss files-because doing
so would "destroy the confidence that people in the United States had in their government and really
make us a laughingstock around the world."
Imagine that.
Which brings me to the big analogy every hack threw around last week, calling Trump firing Comey
"Nixonian." Actually, what Trump did was more like the very opposite of Nixon, who badly wanted to
fire Hoover in 1971-2, but was too afraid of the kompromat Hoover might've had on him to make the
move. Nixon fell out with his old friend and onetime mentor J Edgar Hoover in 1971, when the ailing
old FBI chief refused to get sucked in to the Daniel Ellsberg/Pentagon Papers investigation, especially
after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the New York Times. Part of the reason Nixon created his
Plumbers team of black bag burglars was because Hoover had become a bit skittish in his last year
on this planet-and that drove Nixon crazy.
Nixon called his chief of staff Haldeman:
Nixon: I talked to Hoover last night and Hoover is not going after this case [Ellsberg] as
strong as I would like. There's something dragging him.
Haldeman: You don't have the feeling the FBI is really pursuing this?
Nixon: Yeah, particularly the conspiracy side. I want to go after everyone. I'm not so interested
in Ellsberg, but we have to go after everybody who's a member of this conspiracy.
Hoover's ambitious deputies in the FBI were smelling blood, angling to replace him. His number
3, Bill Sullivan (who sent MLK the sex tapes and suicide note) was especially keen to get rid of
Hoover and take his place. So as J Edgar was stonewalling the Daniel Ellsberg investigation, Sullivan
showed up in a Department of Justice office with two suitcases packed full of transcripts and summaries
of illegal wiretaps that Kissinger and Nixon had ordered on their own staff and on American journalists.
The taps were ordered in Nixon's first months in the White House in 1969, to plug up the barrage
of leaks, the likes of which no one had ever seen before. Sullivan took the leaks from J Edgar's
possession and told the DOJ official that they needed to be hidden from Hoover, who planned to use
them as kompromat to blackmail Nixon.
Nixon decided he was going to fire J Edgar the next day. This was in September, 1971. But the
next day came, and Nixon got scared. So he tried to convince his attorney general John Mitchell to
fire Hoover for him, but Mitchell said only the President could fire J Edgar Hoover. So Nixon met
him for breakfast, and, well, he just didn't have the guts. Over breakfast, Hoover flattered Nixon
and told him there was nothing more in the world he wanted than to see Nixon re-elected. Nixon caved;
the next day, J Edgar Hoover unceremoniously fired his number 3 Bill Sullivan, locking him out of
the building and out of his office so that he couldn't take anything with him. Sullivan was done.
The lesson here, I suppose, is that if an FBI director doesn't want to be fired, it's best to
keep your kompromat a little closer to your chest, as a gun to hold to your boss's head. Comey's
crew already released the piss tapes kompromat on Trump-the damage was done. What was left to hold
back Trump from firing Comey? "Laws"? The FBI isn't even legal. "Norms" would be the real reason.
Which pretty much sums up everything Trump has been doing so far. We've learned the past two decades
that we're hardly a nation of laws, at least not when it comes to the plutocratic ruling class. What
does bind them are "norms"-and while those norms may mean everything to the ruling class, it's an
open question how much these norms mean to a lot of Americans outside that club.
The USA doesn't have a legal basis either, it is a revolting crown colony of the British Empire.
Treason and heresy all the way down. Maybe the British need to burn Washington DC again?
Wondered how Comey thought he could get away with his conviction and pardon of Sec Clinton.
Seems like part of the culture of FBI is a "above and beyond" the law mentality.
Back in the early 1970s a high school friend moved to Alabama because his father was transferred
by his employer.
My friend sent a post card describing among other things the fact that Alabama had done away
with the requirement of a math class to graduate high school, and substituted a required class
called "The Evils of Communism" complete with a text-book written by J. Edgar Hoover; Masters
of Deceit.
In Dallas,Texas my 1959 Civics class had to read the same book. We all were given paperback
copies of it to take home and read. It was required reading enacted by Texas legislature.
So I'd guess you weren't fooled by any of those commie plots of the sixties, like the campaigns
for civil rights or against the Vietnamese war.
I can't really brag, I didn't stop worrying about the Red Menace until 1970 or so, that's when
I started running into returning vets who mostly had no patience for that stuff.
We've learned the past two decades that we're hardly a nation of laws, at least not when
it comes to the plutocratic ruling class. What does bind them are "norms"
Or as David Broder put it (re Bill Clinton): he came in and trashed the place and it wasn't
his place.
It was David Broder's place. Of course the media play a key role with all that kompromat since
they are the ones needed to convey it to the public. The tragedy is that even many of the sensible
in their ranks such as Bill Moyers have been sucked into the kompromat due to their hysteria over
Trump. Ames is surely on point in this great article. The mistake was allowing secret police agencies
like the FBI and CIA to be created in the first place.
Sorry, my initial reaction was that people who don't know the difference between "rein" and
"reign" are not to be trusted to provide reliable information. Recognizing that as petty, I kept
reading, and presently found the statement that Congress was not informed of the founding of the
FBI until a century after the fact, which seems implausible. If in fact the author meant the end
of 1908 it was quite an achievement to write 2008.
Interesting to the extent it may be true, but with few sources, no footnotes, and little evidence
of critical editing who knows what that may be?
Who he is is irrelevant. I don't take things on faith because "the Pope said" or because Mark
Ames said. People who expect their information to be taken seriously should substantiate it.
So anything the FBI does to get rid of him must by definition be ok! Besides, surely our civic-minded
IC would never use their power on the Good Guys™!
Ah yes, the voice of "caution." And such attention to the lack of footnotes, in this day when
the curious can so easily cut and paste a bit of salient text into a search engine and pull up
a feast of parse-able writings and video, from which they can "judiciously assess" claims and
statements. If they care to spend the time, which is in such short supply among those who are
struggling to keep up with the horrors and revelations people of good will confront every blinking
day
Classic impeachment indeed. All from the height of "academic rigor" and "caution." Especially
the "apologetic" bit about "reign" vs "rein." Typos destroy credibility, don't they? And the coup
de grass (sic), the unrebuttable "plausibility" claim.
One wonders at the nature of the author's curriculum vitae. One also marvels at the yawning
gulf between the Very Serious Stuff I was taught in grade and high school civics and history,
back in the late '50s and the '60s, about the Fundamental Nature Of Our Great Nation and its founding
fathers and the Beautiful Documents they wrote, on the one hand, and what we mopes learn, through
a drip-drip-drip process punctuated occasionally by Major Revelations, about the real nature of
the Empire and our fellow creatures
PS: My earliest memory of television viewing was a day at a friend's house - his middle-class
parents had the first "set" in the neighborhood, I think an RCA, in a massive sideboard cabinet
where the picture tube pointed up and you viewed the "content" in a mirror mounted to the underside
of the lid. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5onSwx7_Cn0
The family was watching a hearing of Joe McCarthy's kangaroo court, complete with announcements
of the latest number in the "list of known Communists in the State Department" and how Commyanism
was spreading like an unstoppable epidemic mortal disease through the Great US Body Politic and
its Heroic Institutions of Democracy. I was maybe 6 years old, but that grainy black and white
"reality TV" content had me asking "WTF?" at a very early age. And I'd say it's on the commentor
to show that the "2008" claim is wrong, by something other than "implausible" as drive-by impeachment.
Given the content of the original post, and what people paying attention to all this stuff have
a pretty good idea is the general contours of a vast corruption and manipulation.
Interesting article on the history of the FBI, although the post-Hoover era doesn't get any
treatment. The Church Committee hearings on the CIA and FBI, after the exposure of notably
Operation CHAOS (early
60s to early 70s) by the CIA and
COINTELPRO(late 1950s to
early 1970s) by the FBI, didn't really get to the bottom of the issue although some reforms
were initiated.
Today, it seems, the best description of the FBI's main activity is corporate enforcer for
the white-collar mafia known as Wall Street. There is an analogy to organized crime, where the
most powerful mobsters settled disputes between other gangs of criminals. Similarly, if a criminal
gang is robbed by one of its own members, the mafia would go after the guilty party; the FBI plays
this role for Wall Street institutions targeted by con artists and fraudsters. Compare and contrast
a pharmaceutical company making opiates which is targeted by thieves vs. a black market drug cartel
targeted by thieves. In one case, the FBI investigates; in the other, a violent vendetta ensues
(such as street murders in Mexico).
The FBI executives are rewarded for this service with lucrative post-retirement careers within
corporate America – Louis Freeh went to credit card fraudster, MBNA, Richard Mueller to a corporate
Washington law firm, WilmerHale, and Comey, before Obama picked him as Director, worked for Lockheed
Martin and HSBC (cleaning up after their $2 billion drug cartel marketing scandal) after leaving
the FBI in 2005.
Maybe this is legitimate, but this only applies to their protection of the interests of large
corporations – as the 2008 economic collapse and aftermath showed, they don't prosecute corporate
executives who rip off poor people and middle-class homeowners. Banks who rob people, they aren't
investigated or prosecuted; that's just for people who rob banks.
When it comes to political issues and national security, however, the FBI has such a terrible
record on so many issues over the years that anything they claim has to be taken with a grain
or two of salt. Consider domestic political activity: from the McCarthyite 'Red Scare' of the
1950s to COINTELPRO in the 1960s and 1970s to targeting of environmental groups in the 1980s and
1990s to targeting anti-war protesters under GW Bush to their obsession with domestic mass surveillance
under Obama, it's not a record that should inspire any confidence.
Some say they have a key role to play in national security and terrorism – but their record
on the 2001 anthrax attacks is incredibly shady and suspicious. The final suspect, Bruce Ivins,
is clearly innocent of the crime, just as their previous suspect, Steven Hatfill was. Ivins, if
still alive, could have won a similar multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit against the FBI.
All honest bioweapons experts know this to be true – the perpetrators of those anthrax letters
are still at large, and may very well have had close associations with the Bush Administration
itself.
As far as terrorist activities? Many of their low-level agents did seem concerned about the
Saudis and bin Laden in the late 1990s and pre-9/11 – but Saudi investigations were considered
politically problematic due to "geostrategic relationships with our Saudi allies" – hence people
like John O'Neil and Coleen Rowley were sidelined and ignored, with disastrous consequences. The
Saudi intelligence agency role in 9/11 was buried for over a decade, as well. Since 9/11, most
of the FBI investigations seem to have involved recruiting mentally disabled young Islamic men
in sting operations in which the FBI provides everything needed. You could probably get any number
of mentally ill homeless people across the U.S., regardless of race or religion, to play this
role.
Comey's actions over the past year are certainly highly questionable, as well. Neglecting to
investigate the Clinton Foundation ties to Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments and corporations,
particularly things like State Department approval of various arms deals in which bribes may have
been paid, is as much a dereliction of duty as neglecting to investigate Trump ties to Russian
business interests – but then, Trump has a record of shady business dealings dating back to the
1970s, of strange bankruptcies and bailouts and government sales that the FBI never looked at
either.
Ultimately, this is because FBI executives are paid off not to investigate Wall Street criminality,
nor shady U.S. government activity, with lucrative positions as corporate board members and so
on after their 'retirements'. I don't doubt that many of their junior members mean well and are
dedicated to their jobs – but the fish rots from the head down.
As far as terrorist activities? Many of their low-level agents did seem concerned about
the Saudis and bin Laden in the late 1990s and pre-9/11 – but Saudi investigations were considered
politically problematic due to "geostrategic relationships with our Saudi allies" – hence people
like John O'Neil and Coleen Rowley were sidelined and ignored, with disastrous consequences.
The Clinton Administration had other priorities. You know, I think I'll let ex-FBI Director
Freeh explain what happened when the FBI tried to get the Saudis to cooperate with their investigation
into the bombing of the Khobar Towers.
"That September, Crown Prince Abdullah and his entourage took over the entire 143-room Hay-Adams
Hotel, just across from Lafayette Park from the White House, for six days. The visit, I figured,
was pretty much our last chance. Again, we prepared talking points for the president. Again,
I contacted Prince Bandar and asked him to soften up the crown prince for the moment when Clinton,
-- or Al Gore I didn't care who -- would raise the matter and start to exert the necessary pressure."
"The story that came back to me, from "usually reliable sources," as they say in Washington,
was that Bill Clinton briefly raised the subject only to tell the Crown Prince that he certainly
understood the Saudis; reluctance to cooperate. Then, according to my sources, he hit Abdullah
up for a contribution to the still-to-be-built Clinton presidential library. Gore, who was
supposed to press hardest of all in his meeting with the crown Prince, barely mentioned the
matter, I was told." -Louis J. Freeh, My FBI (2005)
In my defense I picked the book up to see if there was any dirt on the DNC's electoral funding
scandal in 1996. I'm actually glad I did. The best part of the book is when Freeh recounts running
into a veteran of the Lincoln Brigade and listens to how Hoover's FBI ruined his life despite
having broken no laws. As if a little thing like laws mattered to Hoover. The commies were after
our precious bodily fluids!
I'm not sure there are many functioning norms left within the national political leadership.
Seemed to me Gingrich started blowing those up and it just got worse from there. McConnell not
allowing Garland to be considered comes to mind
Thanks to Mark Ames now we know what Pres. Trump meant when he tweeted about his tapes with
AG Comey. Not some taped conversation between Pres. Trump & AG Comey but bunch of kompromat tapes
that AG Comey has provided Pres. Trump that might not make departing AG Comey looked so clean.
"... "I have never felt more uncomfortable than I do today," warns former CIA Director Jack Devine, saying that, with "frankly uncivilized" ISIS, there is a greater risk of violence worldwide than ever before. ..."
"... Devine argued that dismantling ISIS's command structure is crucial for minimizing the danger it presents, much like al Qaeda before them. "We killed three-fourths of their leadership," he said of al Qaeda. "We have to do the same thing with ISIS. "We have to destroy their refuge over there. When they start to lose, their recruiting numbers start to fall." ..."
"... My guess is that Iran have done a deal with Putin in that once ISIS is swept away Iran gets to build a gas pipeline through Iraq (which it controls) and through Syria into Europe. Russia is allowing Iran into the European gas market because Bandar threatened Sochi, and Putin wants to end the House of Saud in retaliation. Two weeks from now the world is going to make laws that pushes countries towards natural gas and away from coal and oil. ..."
"... I would say that's accurate, since the U.S. put ISIS there to block the Iran - Iraq - Syria pipeline. When Russia destroys ISIS, the previously planned pipeline can proceed. It has nothing to do with Russian 'permission' - Putin expects someone to eventually be sending gas up from the Middle East once the slaughter stops. He doesn't care who it is or how much. It's not going to displace more than a fraction of the Russian supply to Europe. Syria rejected the Qatari pipeline for its own reasons - probably because Qatar was planning on killing Assad and replacing him with a Western stooge well before the Qatari-Turkey pipeline was announced. In fact, the announcement was pretty much an insult to Syria. Qatar quite arrogantly announced that they WOULD be building the pipeline through Syria without bothering to ask them. ..."
"... Putin negotiates with everyone. He was even talking with Israel about helping them with the Leviathan pipeline. The U.S. seems to favor 'regime change' as the preferred strategy to expand its oil interests where it has no business doing so. ..."
"... The CIA serves no master, it is the fucking master. It does deals that are anti American, and they don't care, because America is just a sugar daddy to them. We are the chumps who pay their bills, while they put half of all honest Americans on their enemies list. ..."
"... CIA is international, not American. They are the hit men for the biggest corporations on earth, and most especially the biggest energy firms. Oil and CIA go together, and there is the Saudi connection. ..."
"... CIA is the lead agent if world Islamic extremism, they don't fight it, they nurture it! Their long term goal is to use mass Islamic terror armies to do what the CIA and Corporate masters want done. Need a police state in America? Do a hit on America 9/11. Need to eliminate Russia? Create ISIS and direct them against Russia's allies. And you can take it from there. It will continue on as before. Nobody left has the power to take down the CIA terror rings. ..."
"... No shit, sherlock, and it's because of you and the most vile mass murderer of all time, the CIA (and DIA, and NSA, and FBI, etc.), but predominantly the CIA and the Pentagon, that ISIS and such exists today! Whether it was Allen Dulles coordinating the escape of endless number of mass murderering Nazis, who would end up in CIA-overthrown countries, aiding and abetting their secret police (Example: Walter Rauff, who was responsible for at least 200,000 deaths, ending up as an advisor to Augusto Pinochet's secret police or DINA) or the grandson of the first chairman of the Bank for International Settlements, Richard Helms and his MKULTRA, you devils are to blame. ..."
"I have never felt more uncomfortable than I do today," warns former CIA Director Jack Devine, saying that, with
"frankly uncivilized" ISIS, there is a greater risk of violence worldwide than ever before.
"I think this is the most dangerous time in terms of sustained violence," he said on "The Cats Roundtable"
in an interview airing Sunday on New York's AM-970.
"I have never felt more uncomfortable than I do today," he told host John Catsimatidis. "Some percentage of the world today
is always either unbalanced or radicalized. When you have a small group of people who are willing to lose their lives and kill
anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."
Devine cited the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as an unprecedented threat in terms of its wanton disregard for human
life...
"I dealt with terrorists in South America in the 1970s, but they never attacked innocent women and children indiscriminately,"
he said.
"You have a group in ISIS today that is frankly uncivilized. These folks could get stronger and stronger.
We basically have to destroy ISIS over there," Devine said.
Devine argued that dismantling ISIS's command structure is crucial for minimizing the danger it presents, much like al
Qaeda before them. "We killed three-fourths of their leadership," he said of al Qaeda. "We have to do the same thing with ISIS.
"We have to destroy their refuge over there. When they start to lose, their recruiting numbers start to fall."
Devine, who mainly served during the Cold War, said ISIS is a scourge without parallel because it has no concern for self-preservation.
"There is nothing that can be compared with nuclear weapons and their use," he said of tensions between the U.S. and the former
Soviet Union.
"[But] people felt safe in the sense there was countervailing balance," he added. "Early in our contest with
the Russians, it was clear we had checks and balances."
Finally Devine admits...
"If there's blame to be put, it's on our failure to have done that by this point."
Selected Skeptical Comments
i_call_you_my_base
"I dealt with terrorists in South America in the 1970s..."
"And by dealt I mean trained and funded."
Looney
John Kerry to the MSM:
Do not use "Al Qaeda" or "Al Nustra" - just call them "Allies" (pronounced Al Lies). ;-)
Looney
Vatican_cameo
"I have never felt more uncomfortable than I do today," he told host John Catsimatidis. "Some percentage of the world today
is always either unbalanced or radicalized. When you have a small group of people who are willing to lose their lives and kill
anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."
By small group he means CIA, Right? I thought he would have been a little clearer.
Occident Mortal
My guess is that Iran have done a deal with Putin in that once ISIS is swept away Iran gets to build a gas pipeline through
Iraq (which it controls) and through Syria into Europe. Russia is allowing Iran into the European gas market because Bandar threatened
Sochi, and Putin wants to end the House of Saud in retaliation. Two weeks from now the world is going to make laws that pushes
countries towards natural gas and away from coal and oil.
Paveway IV
"...once ISIS is swept away Iran gets to build a gas pipeline through Iraq (which it controls) and through Syria into Europe..."
I would say that's accurate, since the U.S. put ISIS there to block the Iran - Iraq - Syria pipeline. When Russia destroys
ISIS, the previously planned pipeline can proceed. It has nothing to do with Russian 'permission' - Putin expects someone to eventually
be sending gas up from the Middle East once the slaughter stops. He doesn't care who it is or how much. It's not going to displace
more than a fraction of the Russian supply to Europe. Syria rejected the Qatari pipeline for its own reasons - probably because
Qatar was planning on killing Assad and replacing him with a Western stooge well before the Qatari-Turkey pipeline was announced.
In fact, the announcement was pretty much an insult to Syria. Qatar quite arrogantly announced that they WOULD be building the
pipeline through Syria without bothering to ask them.
The U.S. blocked the first Iran pipeline (called the Persian Pipeline) FROM IRAN to Iraq in 2010 by forcing the Swiss company
that partnered with Iran to back out due to Israeli - ooops, 'Western' sanctions on Iran. The second Iran-sourced NG pipeline
from Iran through Iraq and Syria - called the Friendship Pipeline - was agreed to in 2012 by the countries involved. That's when
the U.S. launched it's failed coup attempt in Syria and let its ISIS mad-dogs loose in Iraq. Tyler usually refers to this by the
derogatory label of "Islamic Pipeline" - a snide label that Kagan-PNAC and Western oil companies used. Tyler never refers to the
Western-backed Qatari pipeline as the Jihadi Pipeline, nor does he refer to the Kirkuk-Haifa oil pipeline as the Jewish Pipeline.
I'm not sure about the inconsistency - maybe he's trying to make some point.
Putin negotiates with everyone. He was even talking with Israel about helping them with the Leviathan pipeline. The U.S.
seems to favor 'regime change' as the preferred strategy to expand its oil interests where it has no business doing so.
goldhedge
The CIA guy doesn't mention the House of Saud.
Pfft.
Jack Burton
Good catch! And there never do.
CIA and House of Saud have done a long term deal to look out for each other in this world. The CIA serves no master, it
is the fucking master. It does deals that are anti American, and they don't care, because America is just a sugar daddy to them.
We are the chumps who pay their bills, while they put half of all honest Americans on their enemies list.
CIA is international, not American. They are the hit men for the biggest corporations on earth, and most especially the
biggest energy firms. Oil and CIA go together, and there is the Saudi connection.
CIA is the lead agent if world Islamic extremism, they don't fight it, they nurture it! Their long term goal is to use
mass Islamic terror armies to do what the CIA and Corporate masters want done. Need a police state in America? Do a hit on America
9/11. Need to eliminate Russia? Create ISIS and direct them against Russia's allies. And you can take it from there. It will continue
on as before. Nobody left has the power to take down the CIA terror rings.
"I dealt with terrorists in South America in the 1970s, but they never attacked innocent women and children indiscriminately,"
he said.
No shit, sherlock, and it's because of you and the most vile mass murderer of all time, the CIA (and DIA, and NSA, and
FBI, etc.), but predominantly the CIA and the Pentagon, that ISIS and such exists today!
Whether it was Allen Dulles coordinating the escape of endless number of mass murderering Nazis, who would end up in CIA-overthrown
countries, aiding and abetting their secret police (Example: Walter Rauff, who was responsible for at least 200,000 deaths, ending
up as an advisor to Augusto Pinochet's secret police or DINA) or the grandson of the first chairman of the Bank for International
Settlements, Richard Helms and his MKULTRA, you devils are to blame.
Recommended reading (to better understand why the USA is known as the Great Satan):
Funny how these fucks can come out and say this kind of shit and get away with it. The fucker's basically pleading guilty to murder,
FFS.
Ms No
They didn't kill anybody in South America my ass.... The school of Americas, Operation Condor, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia,
Nicaragua, Guatamala, El Salvador .... who the hell are they kidding? The CIA has always been covered and nobody ever cared.
Perimetr
"If there's blame to be put. . ."
It's on the CIA for running its global terrorist operations, funded by the $1 trillion dollars a year coming from its Afghanistan
heroin operation.
sirs and madams,
.
"Christmas celebration this year is going to be a charade because the whole world is at war. We are close to Christmas. There
will be lights, there will be parties, bright trees, even Nativity scenes – all decked out – while the world continues to wage
war.
It's all a charade. The world has not understood the way of peace. The whole world is at war. A war can be justified, so to
speak, with many, many reasons, but when all the world as it is today, at war, piecemeal though that war may be-a little here,
a little there-there is no justification.
What shall remain in the wake of this war, in the midst of which we are living now? What shall remain? Ruins, thousands of
children without education, so many innocent victims, and lots of money in the pockets of arms dealers."
The discovery of America by Europe had to happen. The savages had to be eliminated and The Revolutionary War had to happen.
Slavery had to begin, and after it, segregation had to begin, but, what must be, will be, slavery and segregation had to end.
Old School colonization of poor nations had to happen. The Boer War had to happen. The Spanish American War had to happen. The
Main had to be sunk. WWI had to happen. Calvary charges had to end. Totalitarian Communism had to happen. Germany's 20's depression
had to happen, reactionary jingoism had to happen, and Kristallnacht and the Reichstag fire had to happen. The Allies had to win
WWII, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had to be publicity stunts, and the Cold War had to begin. JFK had to be wacked, the Vietnam War
had to happen, the FED still was happening. Civil Rights laws had to be passed. Recognition of China had to happen, going off
the gold standard had to happen, and Nixon had to be kicked out of office. Corporate Globalization had to begin. After Carter
an actor had to be President. Unions had to be stifled. Perestroika and glasnost had to happen. The Berlin Wall had to come down.
The MIC had to find another enemy, and suddenly 9/11 had to happen.
Over population has to happen, poisoning the environment has to happen, and the NWO has to happen.
Ladies and gentlemen, the NWO is here, and there is nothing you can do, and nothing you could have done to stop it.
Edit. I see none of our supposed enemies 'truth bombing' 9/11, 7/7, and the 13th Paris attacks. I see no trade embagoes, I
see no arguments in the Security Council over the illegality of US/Nato bombing in Syria.
blindman
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/jimmy-carter-is-correct-t_b_79...
Jimmy Carter Is Correct That the U.S. Is No Longer a Democracy
Posted: 08/03/2015 11:48 am EDT
.
On July 28, Thom Hartmann interviewed former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and, at the very end of his show (as if this massive
question were merely an afterthought), asked him his opinion of the 2010 Citizens United decision and the 2014 McCutcheon decision,
both decisions by the five Republican judges on the U.S. Supreme Court. These two historic decisions enable unlimited secret money
(including foreign money) now to pour into U.S. political and judicial campaigns. Carter answered:
It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it's just an oligarchy with unlimited
political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies
to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we've just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff
to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. ... At the present
time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that
is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell." ...
.
it is the money "system", man.
blindman
corporations and hoodwink powers ride on the indifference of the damned, the silence of the dead and doomed.
Dinero D. Profit
The Satus Quo can rely upon the loyalty of their employees, Congress, the military, the military industrial contractors, their
workers and family members, the crime control establishment, all Uniersity professors and employees, and every employee of all
publically traded companies, and every person employed by the MSM.
The dead and doomed are irrelevant. If you have an establishment job, you'll obey and ask no vital questions.
Dick Buttkiss
Sunnis and Shiites hate each other far more than they hate Christians, Jews, or anyone else. If it weren't for oil, the USG wouldn't
give a flyiing fuck if they anihilated each other. Instead, it conspires with them in ways far beyond its ability to comprehend,
much less navigate. Thus is the US ship of state heading for the shoals of its destruction, the only question being how much of
the country and the outside world it takes down with it.
ross81
thats bullshit Western propaganda that Shiites hate Sunnis and vice versa. In the same way that the Brits stirred up Protestant
hatred of Catholics in Ulster for centuries, the US/Israel/Saudi does the same with Sunnis vs Shiites on a much bigger scale in
the Middle East. Divide and Conquer.
geno-econ
This is getting scary in that one or two more attacks will result in travel freezes, flow of Middle East oil and result in huge
increase in military as well as Homeland security costs. A depression or economic collapse a real possibility Perhaps time for
a Peace Conference of all interested parties. The US started this shit and should be the first to call for a Peace Conference.
Macho talk will only make things worse.
moonmac
We can print trillions out of thin air at the drop of a hat but we can't kill a small group of terrorists. Got it!
sgt_doom
Or, we pour billions of dollars every year into the CIA, NSA, and DIA, and only a poor old fart such as myself can figure out
that Bilal Erdogan is the ISIS connection to oil trading (Turkish president, Erdogan's son) and Erdogan's daughter is with ISIS?
GRDguy
Ex-CIA boss gets it wrong, again.
"When you have a small group of people who are willing to lose their lives and kill anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."
should be:
"When you have a small group of financial sociopaths willing to lie-to, steal-from and kill anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."
and you'll probably be punished, jailed or shot for tryin' to protect yourself and your family.
Ban KKiller
War profiteer. That is it. Along wth James Comey, James Clapper, Jack Welch and the list is almost endless...
BarnacleBill
"When you have a small group of people who are willing to lose their lives and kill anyone they can, we're all vulnerable."
Simply take out the word "their", and the description perfectly fits the CIA, MI6 and their like. For them, it's all a business
deal, nothing more - a massive slum-clearance project. Destroy people's houses, provide accommodation and food, ship them somewhere
else; do it again and again until the money-printing machine conks out. It's money for old rope.
And, yes, we're all vulnerable. The man got that right.
Duc888
"You get the politicians you deserve."
CIA types are appointed, not elected.
Duc888
I do not know if there are any Catherine Austin Fitts fans on this web site but this is definitely worth the time. The FEDGOV
came after her non stop for 6 years when she worked for HUD under Bush Sr. If nothing else this lady is tenacious. In this presentation
she uncorks exactly HOW the deep black budgets are paid for...and it ain't your tax dollars. What she uncovered while at HUD was
simply amazing..... and she made an excellent point. At the top... it's NOT "fraud" because that's how it was all deigned right
from the get go after wwII. It brings to mind the funny computer saying....."it's a feature, not a bug".
She digs right into how the CIA was funded... Truly amazing stuff. ...of course the dick head brigade will come along here
and deride her because of the conference she is speaking at.... well, who the fuck cares, her presentation is excellent and filled
with facts.
Yes it is 1 hour 20 minutes long but imho it is well worth the watch...
"... And I have yet to hear a mainstream journo challenge or question that word or ask what could be at stake that requires protective secrecy even as the U.S. government seemingly threatens to collapse around Michael Flynn, America's national security advisor for three weeks, and his relationship to Russia. Is there really any there there? ..."
"... I'm not suggesting that there isn't, or that it's all fake news. Trump and pals are undoubtedly entwined financially with Russian oligarchs, which of course is deeply problematic. And maybe there's more. And maybe some of that "more" is arguably classified for a valid reason, but I want, at the very least, to know why it's classified. What I read and hear feels, instead, like collusion: journalists unquestioningly honoring bureaucratic keep-out signs as objective, even sacred, stopping points. Public knowledge must go no further because . . . you know, national security. But the drama continues! ..."
"... And this is troubling to me because, for starters, nations built on secrecy are far more unstable than those that aren't. ..."
"... The United States is engaged in endless war, at unbelievable and never-discussed cost, to no end except destruction in all directions. Those who have launched and perpetuated the wars remain the determiners of what's classified and what isn't. And Russia lurks silently in the background as a new Cold War gestates. And the media participate not in reporting the news but promoting the drama. ..."
"... Occasionally this has not been the case. Remember the Pentagon Papers? Daniel Ellsberg photocopied a multi-thousand-page secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971 and handed it over to the New York Times. It was classified! But papers printed it. And Sen. Mike Gravel later read portions of the text aloud at a Senate subcommittee hearing. ..."
"... "These portions," notes history.com , "revealed that the presidential administrations of Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had all misled the public about the degree of US involvement in Vietnam, from Truman's decision to give military aid to France during its struggle against the communist-led Viet Minh to Johnson's development of plans to escalate the war in Vietnam as early as 1964, even as he claimed the opposite during that year's presidential election." ..."
"... Our own government, in short, is as untrustworthy as the governments of our allies and our enemies. Government officials left to operate free of public scrutiny – bereft of public input – have proven themselves over and over to be shockingly shortsighted and cold-blooded in their decision-making, and indifferent to the impact they have on the future. ..."
"... "It is nearly a truism," writes Jeffrey Sachs , "that US wars of regime change have rarely served America's security needs. Even when the wars succeed in overthrowing a government, as in the case of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Moammar Khadafy in Libya, the result is rarely a stable government, and is more often a civil war. ..."
Classified America: Why Is the US Public Allowed To Know So Little?
by Robert Koehler
, May 13, 2017
Print This | Share This
For a journalist – especially one covering government and politics – the most suspicious, least
trustworthy word in the language ought to be: "classified."
As the drama continues to swirl around Russiagate, or whatever the central controversy of the
Trump administration winds up being known as, that word keeps popping up, teasingly, seductively:
"It appeared that there was a great deal more (former acting Attorney General Sally) Yates wished
she could share," the
Washington Post informed us the other day, for instance, "but most of the information surrounding
everything that happened remains classified."
And the drama continues! And I have yet to hear a mainstream journo challenge or question
that word or ask what could be at stake that requires protective secrecy even as the U.S. government
seemingly threatens to collapse around Michael Flynn, America's national security advisor for three
weeks, and his relationship to Russia. Is there really any there there?
I'm not suggesting that there isn't, or that it's all fake news. Trump and pals are undoubtedly
entwined financially with Russian oligarchs, which of course is deeply problematic. And maybe there's
more. And maybe some of that "more" is arguably classified for a valid reason, but I want, at the
very least, to know why it's classified. What I read and hear feels, instead, like collusion:
journalists unquestioningly honoring bureaucratic keep-out signs as objective, even sacred, stopping
points. Public knowledge must go no further because . . . you know, national security. But the drama
continues!
And this is troubling to me because, for starters, nations built on secrecy are far more unstable
than those that aren't. Job #1 of a free, independent media is the full-on, continuous challenge
to government secrecy. Such a media understands that it answers to the public, or rather, that it's
a manifestation of the public will. Stability and freedom are not the result of private tinkering.
And peace is something created openly. The best of who we are is contained in the public soul, not
bequeathed to us by unfathomably wise leaders.
So I cringe every time I hear the news stop at the word "classified." Indeed, in the Trump era,
it seems like a plot device: a way to maintain the drama. ". . . there was a great deal more Yates
wished she could share, but most of the information surrounding everything that happened remains
classified."
Stay tuned, and keep your imaginations turned to high! This is Russia we're talking about. They
messed with our election. They "attacked" us in cyberspace. We'd tell you more about how bad things
are, but . . . you know, national security.
If nothing else, this endless retreat behind the word "classified" is a waste of the Trump presidency.
This administration's recklessness is opening all sorts of random doors on national secrets that
need airing. It's not as though the country was sailing along smoothly and keeping the world safe
and peaceful till Donald Trump showed up.
Trump could well be making a bad situation worse, but, as
William Hartung pointed out: "After all, he inherited no less than seven conflicts from Barack
Obama: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen."
The United States is engaged in endless war, at unbelievable and never-discussed cost, to
no end except destruction in all directions. Those who have launched and perpetuated the wars remain
the determiners of what's classified and what isn't. And Russia lurks silently in the background
as a new Cold War gestates. And the media participate not in reporting the news but promoting the
drama.
Occasionally this has not been the case. Remember the Pentagon Papers? Daniel Ellsberg photocopied
a multi-thousand-page secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971 and handed it over to the New York
Times. It was classified! But papers printed it. And Sen. Mike Gravel later read portions of the
text aloud at a Senate subcommittee hearing.
"These portions," notes
history.com
, "revealed that the presidential administrations of Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John
F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had all misled the public about the degree of US involvement in
Vietnam, from Truman's decision to give military aid to France during its struggle against the communist-led
Viet Minh to Johnson's development of plans to escalate the war in Vietnam as early as 1964, even
as he claimed the opposite during that year's presidential election."
Our own government, in short, is as untrustworthy as the governments of our allies and our
enemies. Government officials left to operate free of public scrutiny – bereft of public input –
have proven themselves over and over to be shockingly shortsighted and cold-blooded in their decision-making,
and indifferent to the impact they have on the future.
"It is nearly a truism," writes
Jeffrey Sachs , "that US wars of regime change have rarely served America's security needs. Even
when the wars succeed in overthrowing a government, as in the case of the Taliban in Afghanistan,
Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Moammar Khadafy in Libya, the result is rarely a stable government, and
is more often a civil war. A 'successful' regime change often lights a long fuse leading to
a future explosion, such as the 1953 overthrow of Iran's democratically elected government and installation
of the autocratic Shah of Iran, which was followed by the Iranian Revolution of 1979."
All of this, and so much more, preceded Trump. He's only the tail end of our troubles.
"... Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers. ..."
"... Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him to act. This was the beginning of downward slope. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer. ..."
"... The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have been there anyway. ..."
"... No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful way ..."
"... " ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American people." ..."
"... All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests. ..."
"... A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated the 98% poor, to stay rich. When there were insurrections federal troops restored order. Also FDR put down strikes with troops. ..."
"... The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter. ..."
"... "The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story after another would achieve the desired result " ..."
"... But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world. ..."
"... I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and facts don't matter! ..."
"... Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about intimidating them. ..."
"... The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was, and that means as bad as Hell itself. ..."
"... Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the 60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally flawed. I would say more so. ..."
"... Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than during Obama administration. ..."
"... That pre-9/11 "cooperation" nearly destroyed Russia. Nobody in Russia (except, perhaps, for Pussy Riot) wants a return to the Yeltsin era. ..."
"... The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it. ..."
"... [The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank. ..."
"... Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran. ..."
"... Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington. ..."
"... Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who dictates what they can and can't say. ..."
"... Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt, compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into something much worse. ..."
"... Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six month actions – they go on and on.) ..."
"... Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are we attacking with drones? Where is congress? ..."
"... Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies. ..."
Sadly, Brennan's propaganda coup only works on what the Bell Curve crowd up there would call
the dumbest and most technologically helpless 1.2σ. Here is how people with half a
brain interpret the latest CIA whoppers.
Again Mike Whitney does not get it. Though in the first part of the article I thought he
would. He was almost getting there. The objective was to push new administration into the
corner from which it could not improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he
wanted to during the campaign.
Convincing Americans in Russia's influence or Russia collusion
with Trump was only a tool that would create pressure on Trump that together with the fear of
paralysis of his administration and impeachment would push Trump into the corner from which
the only thing he could do was to worsen relations with Russia. What American people believe
or not is really secondary. With firing of Gen. Flynn Trump acted exactly as they wanted him
to act. This was the beginning of downward slope.
Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than
during Obama administration. Trump can concentrate on Iran in which he will be supported by
all sides and factions including the media. Even Larry David will approve not only the
zionist harpies like Pam Geller, Rita Katz and Ilana Mercer.
The only part that is absurd is that Russia posed a bona fide threat to the US. I'm fine
with the idea that he ruined Brennen's plans in Syria. But thats just ego we shouldn't have
been there anyway.
No one really cares about Ukraine. And the European/Russian trade zone? No one cares. The
Eurozone has its hands full with Greece and the rest of the old EU. I have a feeling they
have already gone way too far and are more likely to shrink than expand in any meaningful
way
The one thing I am not positive about. If the elite really believe that Russia is a
threat, then Americans have done psych ops on themselves.
The US was only interested in Ukraine because it was there. Next in line on a map. The
rather shocking disinterest in investing money -- on both sides -- is inexplicable if it was
really important. Most of it would be a waste -- but still. The US stupidly spent $5 billion
on something -- getting duped by politicians and got theoretical regime change, but it was
hell to pry even $1 billion for real economic aid.
" ..factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American
people."
All the more powerfully put because of its recognisably comical. understatement. Thank you Mr Whitney. Brilliant article that would be all over the mainstream media were
the US MSM an instrument of American rather than globalist interests.
I am reading Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the USA, 1492 to the Present.
A sad story, how the USA always was a police state, where the two percent rich manipulated
the 98% poor, to stay rich.
When there were insurrections federal troops restored order.
Also FDR put down strikes with troops.
You should be aware that Zinn's book is not, IMO, an honest attempt at writing history. It
is conscious propaganda intended to make Americans believe exactly what you are taking from
it.
The elephant in the room is Israel and the neocons , this is the force that controls America
and Americas foreign policy , Brennan and the 17 intel agencies are puppets of the mossad and
Israel, that is the brutal fact of the matter.
Until that fact changes Americans will continue to fight and die for Israel.
"The absence of evidence suggests that Russia hacking narrative is a sloppy and
unprofessional disinformation campaign that was hastily slapped together by over confident
Intelligence officials who believed that saturating the public airwaves with one absurd story
after another would achieve the desired result "
But it DID achieve the desired result! Trump folded under the pressure, and went full out
neoliberal. Starting with his missile attack on Syria, he is now OK with spending trillions
fighting pointless endless foreign wars on the other side of the world.
I think maybe half the US population does believe the Russian hacking thing, but that's
not really the issue. I think that the pre-Syrian attack media blitz was more a statement of
brute power to Trump: WE are in charge here, and WE can take you down and impeach you, and
facts don't matter!
Sometimes propaganda is about persuading people. And sometimes, I think, it is about
intimidating them.
Whitney is another author who declares the "Russians did it" narrative a psyop. He then
devotes entire columns to the psyop, "naww Russia didn't do it". There could be plenty to write about – recent laws that do undercut liberty, but no,
the Washington Post needs fake opposition to its fake news so you have guys like Whitney in
the less-mainstream fake news media.
So Brennan wanted revenge? Well that's simple enough to understand, without being too
stupid. But Whitney's whopper of a lie is what you're supposed to unquestionably believe. The
US has "rival political parties". Did you miss it?
The US is doing nothing more than acting as the British Empire 2.0. WASP culture was born of a Judaizing heresy: Anglo-Saxon Puritanism. That meant that the
WASP Elites of every are pro-Jewish, especially in order to wage war, physical and/or
cultural, against the vast majority of white Christians they rule.
By the early 19th century, The Brit Empire's Elites also had a strong, and growing, dose
of pro-Arabic/pro-Islamic philoSemitism. Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and
most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which
means being pro-Wahhabi and permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite
Mohammedans.
So, by the time of Victoria's high reign, the Brit WASP Elites were a strange brew of
hardcoree pro-Jewish and hardcore pro-Arabic/islamic. The US foreign policy of today is an
attempt to put those two together and force it on everyone and make it work.
The Brit secret service, in effect, created and trained not merely the CIA but also the
Mossad and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Presidency. All four are defined by endless
lies, endless acts of utterly amoral savagery. All 4 are at least as bad as the KGB ever was,
and that means as bad as Hell itself.
Fair enough. I didn't know that about the foreword. If accurate, that's a reasonable
approach for a book.
Here's the problem.
Back when O. Cromwell was the dictator of England, he retained an artist to paint him. The
custom of the time was for artists to "clean up" their subjects, in a primitive form of
photoshopping.
OC being a religious fanatic, he informed the artist he wished to be portrayed as God had
made him, "warts and all." (Ollie had a bunch of unattractive facial warts.) Or the artist
wouldn't be paid.
Traditional triumphalist American narrative history, as taught in schools up through the
60s or so, portrayed America as "wart-free." Since then, with Zinn's book playing a major
role, it has increasingly been portrayed as "warts-only," which is of course at least equally
flawed. I would say more so.
All I am asking is that American (and other) history be written "warts and all." The
triumphalist version is true, largely, and so is the Zinn version. Gone With the Wind
and Roots both portray certain aspects of the pre-war south fairly accurately..
America has been, and is, both evil and good. As is/was true of every human institution
and government in history. Personally, I believe America, net/net, has been one of the
greatest forces for human good ever. But nobody will realize that if only the negative side
of American history is taught.
"There must be something really dirty in Russigate that hasn't yet come out to generate
this level of panic."
You continue to claim what you cannot prove.
But then you are a Jews First Zionist.
Russia-Gate Jumps the Shark
Russia-gate has jumped the shark with laughable new claims about a tiny number of
"Russia-linked" social media ads, but the US mainstream media is determined to keep a
straight face
Most of that group became ardently pro-Sunni, and most of the pro-Sunni ones eventually
coalescing around promotion of the House of Saud, which means being pro-Wahhabi and
permanently desirous of killing or enslaving virtually all Shiite Mohammedans.
Thanks for the laugh. During the 19th century, the Sauds were toothless, dirt-poor hicks
from the deep desert of zero importance on the world stage.
The Brits were not Saudi proponents, in fact promoting the Husseins of Hejaz, the guys
Lawrence of Arabia worked with. The Husseins, the Sharifs of Mecca and rulers of Hejaz, were
the hereditary enemies of the Sauds of Nejd.
After WWI, the Brits installed Husseins as rulers of both Transjordan and Iraq, which with
the Hejaz meant the Sauds were pretty much surrounded. The Sauds conquered the Hejaz in 1924,
despite lukewarm British support for the Hejaz.
Nobody in the world cared much about the Saudis one way or another until massive oil
fields were discovered, by Americans not Brits, starting in 1938. There was no reason they
should. Prior to that Saudi prominence in world affairs was about equal to that of Chad
today, and for much the same reason. Chad (and Saudi Arabia) had nothing anybody else
wanted.
'Putin stopped talking about the "Lisbon to Vladivostok" free trade area long ago" --
Michael Kenney
Putin was simply trying to sell Russia's application for EU membership with the
catch-phrase "Lisbon to Vladivostok". He continued that until the issue was triply mooted (1)
by implosion of EU growth and boosterism, (2) by NATO's aggressive stance, in effect taken by
NATO in Ukraine events and in the Baltics, and, (3) Russia's alliance with China.
It is surely still true that Russians think of themselves, categorically, as Europeans.
OTOH, we can easily imagine that Russians in Vladivostok look at things differently than do
Russians in St. Petersburg. Then again, Vladivostok only goes back about a century and a
half.
Anyway, the mission was accomplished and the relations with Russia are worse now than
during Obama administration.
I generally agree with your comment, but that part strikes me as a bit of an exaggeration.
While relations with Russia certainly haven't improved, how have they really worsened? The
second round of sanctions that Trump reluctantly approved have yet to be implemented by
Europe, which was the goal. And apart from that, what of substance has changed?
It's not surprising that 57 percent of the American people believe in Russian meddling.
Didn't two-thirds of the same crowd believe that Saddam was behind 9/11, too? The American
public is being brainwashed 24 hours a day all year long.
The CIA is the world largest criminal and terrorist organization. With Brennan the worst
has come to the worst. The whole Russian meddling affair was initiated by the Obama/Clinton
gang in cooperation with 95 percent of the media. Nothing will come out of it.
This disinformation campaign might be the prelude to an upcoming war.
Right now, the US is run by jerks and idiots. Watch the video.
Only dumb people does not know that TRUMP IS NETANYAHU'S PUPPET.
The fifth column zionist jews are running the albino stooge and foreign policy in the
Middle East to expand Israel's interest against American interest that is TREASON. One of
these FIFTH COLUMNISTS is Jared Kushner. He should be arrested.
[The key figures who had primary influence on both Trump's and Bush's Iran policies held
views close to those of Israel's right-wing Likud Party. The main conduit for the Likudist
line in the Trump White House is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, primary foreign
policy advisor, and longtime friend and supporter of Netanyahu. Kushner's parents are also
long-time supporters of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank.
Another figure to whom the Trump White House has turned is John Bolton, undersecretary of
state and a key policymaker on Iran in the Bush administration. Although Bolton was not
appointed Trump's secretary of state, as he'd hoped, he suddenly reemerged as a player on
Iran policy thanks to his relationship with Kushner. Politico reports that Bolton met with
Kushner a few days before the final policy statement was released and urged a complete
withdrawal from the deal in favor of his own plan for containing Iran.
Bolton spoke with Trump by phone on Thursday about the paragraph in the deal that vowed it
would be "terminated" if there was any renegotiation, according to Politico. He was calling
Trump from Las Vegas, where he'd been meeting with casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the third
major figure behind Trump's shift towards Israeli issues. Adelson is a Likud supporter who
has long been a close friend of Netanyahu's and has used his Israeli tabloid newspaper Israel
Hayomto support Netanyahu's campaigns. He was Trump's main campaign contributor in 2016,
donating $100 million. Adelson's real interest has been in supporting Israel's interests in
Washington -- especially with regard to Iran.]
Putin's dream of Greater Europe is the death knell for the unipolar world order. It
means the economic center of the world will shift to Central Asia where abundant resources
and cheap labor of the east will be linked to the technological advances and the Capital
the of the west eliminating the need to trade in dollars or recycle profits into US
debt. The US economy will slip into irreversible decline, and the global hegemon will
steadily lose its grip on power. That's why it is imperative for the US prevail in
Ukraine– a critical land bridge connecting the two continents– and to topple
Assad in Syria in order to control vital resources and pipeline corridors. Washington
must be in a position where it can continue to force its trading partners to denominate
their resources in dollars and recycle the proceeds into US Treasuries if it is to maintain
its global primacy. The main problem is that Russia is blocking Uncle Sam's path to
success which is roiling the political establishment in Washington.
American dominance is very much tied to the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency,
and the rest of the world no longer want to fund this bankrupt, warlike state –
particularly the Chinese.
First, it confirms that the US did not want to see the jihadist extremists
defeated by Russia. These mainly-Sunni militias served as Washington's proxy-army
conducting an ambitious regime change operation which coincided with US strategic
ambitions.
The CIA run US/Israeli/ISIS alliance.
Second, Zakharova confirms that the western media is not an independent news
gathering organization, but a propaganda organ for the foreign policy establishment who
dictates what they can and can't say.
They are given the political line and they broadcast it.
The loosening of rules governing the dissemination of domestic propaganda coupled with
the extraordinary advances in surveillance technology, create the perfect conditions for
the full implementation of an American police state. But what is more concerning, is
that the primary levers of state power are no longer controlled by elected officials but by
factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American
people. That can only lead to trouble.
At some point Americans are going to get a "War on Domestic Terror" cheered along by the
media. More or less the arrest and incarceration of any opposition following the Soviet
Bolshevik model.
On the plus side, everyone now knows that the Anglo-US media from the NY Times to the
Economist, from WaPo to the Gruniard, and from the BBC to CNN, the CBC and Weinstein's
Hollywood are a worthless bunch of depraved lying bastards.
Such a truthful portrait of reality ! The ruling elite is indeed massively corrupt,
compromised, and controlled by dark forces. And the police state is already here. For most
people, so far, in the form of massive collection of personal data and increasing number of
mandatory regulations. But just one or two big false-flags away from progressing into
something much worse.
The thing is, no matter how thick the mental cages are, and how carefully they are
maintained by the daily massive injections of "certified" truth (via MSM), along with
neutralizing or compromising of "troublemakers", the presence of multiple alternative sources
in the age of Internet makes people to slip out of these cages one by one, and as the last
events show – with acceleration.
It means that there's a fast approaching tipping point after which it'd be impossible for
those in power both to keep a nice "civilized" face and to control the "cage-free"
population. So, no matter how the next war will be called, it will be the war against the
free Internet and free people. That's probably why N. Korean leader has no fear to start
one.
All government secrecy is a curse on mankind. Trump is releasing the JFK murder files to the public. Kudos! Let us hope he will follow up with a full 9/11 investigation.
The objective was to push new administration into the corner from which it could not
improve relations with Russia as Trump indicated that he wanted to during the campaign.
Good point. That was probably one of the objectives (and from the point of view of the
deep-state, perhaps the most important objective) of the "Russia hacked our democracy"
narrative, in addition to the general deligitimization of the Trump administration.
And, keep in mind, Washington's Sunni proxies were not a division of the Pentagon; they
were entirely a CIA confection: CIA recruited, CIA-armed, CIA-funded and
CIA-trained.
Clearly the CIA was making war on Syria. Is secret coercive covert action against sovereign
nations Ok? Is it legal? When was the CIA designated a war making entity – what part of the constitution OK's
that? Isn't the congress obliged by constitutional law to declare war? (These are NOT six
month actions – they go on and on.)
Are committees of six congressman and six senators, who meet in secret, just avoiding the
grave constitutional questions of war? We the People cannot even interrogate these
politicians. (These politicians make big money in the secrecy swamp when they leave
office.)
Syria is only one of many nations that the CIA is attacking – how many countries are
we attacking with drones? Where is congress?
Spying is one thing – covert action is another – covert is wrong – it
goes against world order. Every year after 9/11 they say things are worse – give them
more money more power and they will make things safe. That is BS!
9/11 has opened the flood gates to the US government attacking at will, the various
peoples of this Earth. That is NOT our prerogative.
We are being exceptionally arrogant.
Close the CIA – give the spying to the 16 other agencies.
"... Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. ..."
"... The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment, as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player. ..."
"... Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time. The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence of NATO, for instance. ..."
"... Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown. Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline. ..."
"... Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues, will consolidate its economic domination. ..."
"... A fundamental weakness of American foreign policy is its inability to understand war in all its different dimensions ..."
"... Despite the need to see through Trump's true intentions beyond his pomp and circumstance, there is an important warning to be made. Trump's eventual inability to fulfill his promises, combined with his bravado and America's incapacity to take a more sobering approach to world events is a dangerous combination. ..."
Donald Trump's presidency, like preceding ones, is trapped by the interests of the power elite
that has ruled America since World War II. The constraints imposed on domestic policy by this elite
inevitably have a direct impact on America's foreign policy. Alternative social forces, like
the ones behind Trump's presidential triumph, only have a limited impact on domestic and ultimately
on foreign policy. A conceptual detour and a brief on history and on Trump's domestic setting when
he was elected will help clarifying these theses.
Beyond the different costumes that it wears (dealing with ideology, international law, and even
religion), foreign policy follows domestic policy. The domestic policy actors are the social forces
at work at a given point of time, mainly the economic agents and their ambitions (in their multiple
expressions), including the ruling power elite. Society's aspirations not only relate to material
welfare, but also to ideological priorities that population segments may have at a given point of
time.
From America's initial days until the mid 1800s, there seems to have been a broad alignment of
US foreign policy with the wishes of its power elite and other social forces. America's expansionism,
a fundamental bulwark of its foreign policy from early days, reflected the need to fulfill its growing
population's ambitions for land and, later on, the need to find foreign markets for its excess production,
initially agricultural and later on manufacturing. It can be said that American foreign policy was
broadly populist at that time. The power elite was more or less aligned in achieving these expansionist
goals and was able to provide convenient ideological justification through the writings of Jefferson
and Madison, among others.
As the country expanded, diverging interests became stronger and ultimately differing social forces
caused a significant fracture in society. The American Civil War was the climax of the conflicted
interests between agricultural and manufacturing led societies. Fifty years later, a revealing manifestation
of this divergence (which survived the Civil War), as it relates to foreign policy, is found during
the early days of the Russian Revolution when, beyond the ideological revulsion of Bolshevism, the
US was paralyzed between the agricultural and farming businesses seeking exports to Russia and the
domestic extractive industries interested in stopping exports of natural resources from this country.
The growing misalignment between government policies and people's yearnings coincides with the
ascent of the military establishment within the power elite that rules America. Despite the country's
aggressive expansionism, America's power elite was initially driven mainly by political and economic
forces and much less by its growing military strength. It is fair to say that the military establishment,
as an influential component of the American power elite, only appeared in the context of World War
II. Nowadays, it is a dominant player.
Today's power elite in America is fundamentally the same as the one that emerged after World War
II and which was accurately described by C. Wright Mills in the 1950s. Consequently, the main forces
shaping US domestic and foreign policies have not changed since then. The collapse of the Soviet
Union and the end of the Cold War did not make irrelevant the existing power elite at that time.
The elite only became more vocal in its efforts to justify itself and this explains today's existence
of NATO, for instance.
Despite its economic and entrepreneurial might, the US distilled version of capitalism is unable
to attain the needs of a growing number of its population, as the Great Recession of 2008 has shown.
Within the OECD, arguably the club with the highest levels of economic and social development in
the world, US rankings are abysmal, for instance concerning education and health, as it lays at the
bottom in learning metrics and on critical health measures such as obesity. The wealth gap has widened
and the social fabric is broken. American economic decline is evident and growing social conflict
across economic, social and geographic lines is just a reaction to this decline.
Trump won his presidency because he was able to get support from the country's growing frustrated
white population. His main social themes (bringing jobs to America by stopping the decline of its
manufacturing industry, preventing further US consumer dependence on foreign imports and halting
immigration) fitted well with the electors' anger. Traditional populist themes linked to foreign
policy (like Russophobia) did not play a big role in the last election. But whether or not the Trump
administration can align with the ruling power elite in a manner that addresses the key social and
economic needs of the American people is still to be seen.
Back to foreign policy, we need to distinguish between Trump's style of government and his administration's
actions. At least until now, focusing excessively on Trump's style has dangerously distracted from
his true intentions. One example is the confusion about his initial stance on NATO which was simplistically
seen as highly critical to the very existence of this organization. On NATO, all that Trump really
cared was to achieve a "fair" sharing of expenditures with other members and to press them to
honor
their funding commitments.
From immigration to defense spending, there is nothing irrational about Trump's foreign policy
initiatives, as they just reflect a different reading on the American people's aspirations and, consequently,
they attempt to rely on supporting points within the power elite which are different from the ones
used in the past.
Concerning China, Trump is learning about the limits of his ability to successfully challenge
it economically. It seems virtually impossible to reverse China's momentum which, if it continues,
will consolidate its economic domination. A far-reaching lesson, although still being ignored, is
that China's economic might is showing that capitalism as understood in the West is not winning,
much less in its American format. It also shows that democracy may not be that relevant, as it is
not necessarily a corollary or a condition for economic development. Perhaps it even shows the superiority
Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This image shows Crowdstrike in their network. Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker network. In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The network communication goes through a secondary source.
Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it's the official twitter account for Ukraine's Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence. The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could be on the list.
click to watch video
