"... "Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public," McCain said. "Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI. That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue." ..."
Sen. John McCain admitted Wednesday that he gave the FBI a dossier detailing claims of a Russian blackmail plot against President-elect
Donald Trump.
The Arizona lawmaker, a longtime Trump critic, made the public statement as questions piled up about his alleged role in spreading
an unverified and error-riddled document that Trump has denounced as "a complete and total fabrication."
"Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public," McCain said.
"Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director
of the FBI. That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue."
The fact that he is employed by Guardia tells a lot how low Guardian fall. It's a yellow press (owned by intelligence agencies
if we talk about their coverage of Russia).
Notable quotes:
"... In theory, it would be hard to find two journalists more qualified to debate each side of this important issue. In practice, it was a one-sided thrashing that The Intercept 's Jeremy Scahill accurately described as "brutal". ..."
"... Russiagate only works if you allow it to remain zoomed out, where the individually weak arguments of this giant Gish gallop fallacy form the appearance of a legitimate argument. ..."
"... That's not how you're going to get the truth about Russia. He's all appeals to authority - Steele's most of all, even name dropping Kerry. To finally land on "oh well if you would read my whole book" is just getting to the silly season. Also "well this is the kind of person Putin is" is a terrible argument. This isn't about either Putin or Trump really, its about the long history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred. Also, the ubiquitous throwing around of accusations of the murder of journalists in Russia is a straw man argument, especially when it is just thrown in as some sort of moral shielding for a shabby argument. ..."
Have you ever wondered why mainstream media outlets, despite being so fond of dramatic panel
debates on other hot-button issues, never have critics of the Russiagate narrative on to debate
those who advance it? Well, in a recent Real News interview we received an extremely
clear answer to that question, and it was so epic it deserves its own article.
Real News host and producer Aaron Maté has recently emerged as one of the most
articulate critics of the establishment Russia narrative and the Trump-Russia conspiracy
theory, and has published in The Nation some of the
clearest
arguments against both that I've yet seen. Luke Harding is a journalist for The Guardian
where he has been
writing prolifically in promotion of the Russiagate narrative, and is the author of
New
York Times bestseller Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald
Trump Win.
In theory, it would be hard to find two journalists more qualified to debate each side of
this important issue. In practice, it was a one-sided thrashing that The Intercept 's Jeremy
Scahill accurately described as "brutal".
The term Gish gallop
, named after a Young Earth creationist who was notoriously fond of employing it, refers to a
fallacious debate tactic in which a bunch of individually weak arguments are strung together in
rapid-fire succession in order to create the illusion of a solid argument and overwhelm the
opposition's ability to refute them all in the time allotted. Throughout the discussion the
Gish gallop appeared to be the only tool that Luke Harding brought to the table, firing out a
deluge of feeble and unsubstantiated arguments only to be stopped over and over again by
Maté who kept pointing out when Harding was making a false or fallacious claim.
In this part here , for
example, the following exchange takes place while Harding is already against the ropes on the
back of a previous failed argument. I'm going to type this up so you can clearly see what's
happening here:
Harding: Look, I'm a journalist. I'm a storyteller. I'm not a kind of head of the CIA or
the NSA. But what I can tell you is that there have been similar operations in France, most
recently when President Macron was elected ? -
Harding: Yeah. But, if you'll let me finish, there've been attacks on the German parliament ?
-
Maté: Okay, but wait Luke, do you concede that the France hack that you just claimed
didn't happen?
Harding: [pause] What? -- ?that it didn't happen? Sorry?
Maté: Do you concede that the Russian hacking of the French election that you just
claimed actually is not true?
Harding: [pause] Well, I mean that it's not true? I mean, the French report was inconclusive,
but you have to look at this kind of contextually. We've seen attacks on other European
states as well from Russia, they have very kind of advanced cyber capabilities.
Maté: Where else?
Harding: Well, Estonia. Have you heard of Estonia? It's a state in the Baltics which was
crippled by a massive cyber attack in 2008, which certainly all kind of western European and
former eastern European states think was carried out by Moscow. I mean I was in Moscow at the
time, when relations between the two countries were extremely bad. This is a kind of ongoing
thing. Now you might say, quite legitimately, well the US does the same thing, the UK does
the same thing, and I think to a certain extent that is certainly right. I think what was
different last year was the attempt to kind of dump this stuff out into kind of US public
space and try and influence public opinion there. That's unusual. And of course that's a
matter of congressional inquiry and something Mueller is looking at too.
Maté: Right. But again, my problem here is that the examples that are frequently
presented to substantiate claims of this massive Russian hacking operation around the world
prove out to be false. So France as I mentioned; you also mentioned Germany. There was a lot
of worry about Russian hacking of the German elections, but it turned out? -- ?and there's
plenty of articles since then that have acknowledged this? - ? that actually there was no
Russian hack in Germany.
In the above exchange, Maté derailed Harding's Gish gallop, and Harding actually
admonished him for doing so, telling him "let me finish" and attempting to go on listing more
flimsy examples to bolster his case as though he hadn't just begun his Gish gallop with a
completely
false example .
That's really all Harding brought to the debate. A bunch of individually weak arguments, the
fact that he speaks Russian and has lived in Moscow, and the occasional straw man where he tries to imply that
Maté is claiming that Vladimir Putin is an innocent girl scout. Meanwhile Maté
just kept patiently dragging the debate back on track over and over again in the most polite
obliteration of a man that I have ever witnessed.
The entire interview followed this basic script. Harding makes an unfounded claim,
Maté holds him to the fact that it's unfounded, Harding sputters a bit and tries to zoom
things out and point to a bigger-picture analysis of broader trends to distract from the fact
that he'd just made an individual claim that was baseless, then winds up implying that
Maté is only skeptical of the claims because he hasn't lived in Russia as Harding
has.
jeremy scahill 0
@jeremyscahill
This @aaronjmate interview is brutal. He makes mincemeat of Luke Harding, who can't seem to
defend the thesis, much less the title, of his own book: Where's the 'Collusion' -
YouTube
11:03 AM-Dec 25, 2017
Q 131 11597 C? 1,148
The interview ended when Harding once again implied that Maté was only skeptical of
the collusion narrative because he'd never been to Russia and seen what a right-wing oppressive
government it is, after which the following exchange took place:
Maté: I don't think I've countered anything you've said about the state of Vladimir
Putin's Russia. The issue under discussion today has been whether there was collusion, the
topic of your book.
Harding: Yeah, but you're clearly a kind of collusion rejectionist, so I'm not sure what sort
of evidence short of Trump and Putin in a sauna together would convince you. Clearly nothing
would convince you. But anyway it's been a pleasure.
At which point Harding abruptly logged off the video chat, leaving Maté to wrap up
the show and promote Harding's book on his own.
You should definitely watch this debate for yourself , and enjoy
it, because I will be shocked if we ever see another like it. Harding's fate will serve as a
cautionary tale for the establishment hacks who've built their careers advancing the Russiagate
conspiracy theory , and it's highly unlikely that any of them will ever make the mistake of
trying to debate anyone of Maté's caliber again.
The reason Russiagaters speak so often in broad, sweeping terms? - saying there are too many
suspicious things happening for there not to be a there there, that there's too much smoke for
there not to be fire? - ? is because when you zoom in and focus on any individual part of their
conspiracy theory, it falls apart under the slightest amount of critical thinking (or as
Harding calls it, "collusion rejectionism"). Russiagate only works if you allow it to remain
zoomed out, where the individually weak arguments of this giant Gish gallop fallacy form the
appearance of a legitimate argument.
Well, Harding did say he's a storyteller.
* * *
Thanks for reading! My work here is entirely reader-funded so if you enjoyed this piece
please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following me on Twitter , bookmarking my website , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , or buying my new book
Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers . Our Hidden History4
days ago (edited) That Harding tells Mate to meet Alexi Navalny, who is a far right
nationalist and most certainly a tool of US intelligence (something like Russia's Richard
Spencer) was all I needed to hear to understand where Luke is coming from.
He's little more than an intelligence asset himself if his idea of speaking to "Russians" is
to go and speak to a bunch of people who most certainly have their own ties back to the western
intelligence agencies.
That's not how you're going to get the truth about Russia. He's all appeals to authority -
Steele's most of all, even name dropping Kerry. To finally land on "oh well if you would read
my whole book" is just getting to the silly season. Also "well this is the kind of person Putin
is" is a terrible argument. This isn't about either Putin or Trump really, its about the long
history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred. Also, the ubiquitous throwing around
of accusations of the murder of journalists in Russia is a straw man argument, especially when
it is just thrown in as some sort of moral shielding for a shabby argument.
Few in the US know
about these cases or what occurred, or of the many forces inside of Russia that might be
involved in murdering journalists just as in Mexico or Turkey. But these cases are not
explained - blame is merely assigned to Putin himself. Of course if someone here discusses he
death of Michael Hastings, they're a "conspiracy theorist", but if the crime involves a Russian
were to assign the blame to Vladimir Putin and, no further explanation is required.
"... "Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public," McCain said. "Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI. That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue." ..."
Sen. John McCain admitted Wednesday that he gave the FBI a dossier detailing claims of a Russian blackmail plot against President-elect
Donald Trump.
The Arizona lawmaker, a longtime Trump critic, made the public statement as questions piled up about his alleged role in spreading
an unverified and error-riddled document that Trump has denounced as "a complete and total fabrication."
"Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public," McCain said.
"Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director
of the FBI. That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue."
Finally an opportunity comes to offer B and MoA commenters a nice little Christmas present,
courtesy of ZeroHedge who have in the past reposted some of B's articles on their site.
True, ZH reposted this priceless gift from Caitlin Johnstone's own site but she seems to
have given her permission for the reposting.
Why priceless? - well who doesn't want to see the ever smug Luke Harding and his idiotic
and baseless arguments about Russian intrigue and inteference in US and European politics
taken down in a well-deserved thrashing by Aaron Mate?
Priceless to read the transcript and priceless to watch.
Luke Harding gets exposed for the fraud he really is and in such a way then!
If b has time I think he should make a post just about that interview/harding because he
seems to fool alot of people with these claims he is making.
I did watch the Luke Harding interview, largely as a result of Caitlin Johnstone, who I
have enormous respect for. However, I do not do Twitter. Incidentally, Julian Assange of all
people, brilliantly exposed Luke Harding (and the Guardian) in 2015. You can smell the sense
of betrayal.
The man who says he acted as a "go-between" last year to inform Sen. John McCain about the
controversial "dossier" containing salacious allegations about then-candidate Donald Trump is
speaking out, revealing how the ex-British spy who researched the document helped coordinate
its release to the FBI, the media and Capitol Hill.
"My mission was essentially to be a go-between and a messenger, to tell the senator and
assistants that such a dossier existed," Sir Andrew Wood told Fox News in an exclusive
interview with senior executive producer Pamela K. Browne.
Fox News spoke to Wood at the 2017 Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia,
Canada. As Britain's ambassador to Moscow from 1995-2000, Wood witnessed the end of Russian
President Boris Yeltsin and the rise of Vladimir Putin.
Just after the U.S. presidential election in November 2016, Arizona GOP Sen. McCain spoke
at the same security conference. Wood says he was instructed -- by former British spy
Christopher Steele -- to reach out to the senior Republican, whom Wood called "a good man,"
about the unverified document.
Wood insists that he's never read the dossier that his good friend and longtime colleague
prepared. It was commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS and funded by the
Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign.
In August 2016, "[Steele] came to me to tell me what was in it, and why it was important,"
Wood said. "He made it very clear yes, it was raw intelligence, but it needed putting into
proper context before you could judge it fully."
August 2016 is a critical period, just after the FBI opened the Russia meddling probe, and
after then-director James Comey recommended against prosecution for Clinton's mishandling of
classified information.
Wood said Steele had "already been in contact with the FBI" at the time.
"He said there was corroborating evidence in the United States, from which I assumed he
was working with an American company," Wood said.
British court records reviewed by Fox News as well as U.S. congressional testimony
revealed that Steele was directed and paid at least $168,000 by Fusion GPS founder Glenn
Simpson to push the research that fall to five American media outlets. According to British
court documents, Steele met with The New York Times (twice), The Washington Post (twice),
CNN, The New Yorker and Yahoo News (twice).
"Each of these interviews was conducted in person and with a member of Fusion also
present," according to the records associated with separate civil litigation against Steele
and Fusion GPS.
Wood said he'd heard of Fusion GPS, as the group Steele was working with, but had "never
heard of Mr. Simpson."
Three weeks after Trump won the presidential election, at the Canadian security
conference, the details were finalized for the dossier hand-off to McCain.
Along with the senator, Wood and McCain Institute for International Leadership staffer
David J. Kramer attended the Canadian conference.
British court records state McCain ordered Kramer to get a personal briefing from Steele
in Surrey, just outside of London, and then return to Washington, D.C., where Fusion GPS
would provide McCain with hard copies.
In January, McCain officially gave the dossier to the FBI, which already had its own copy
from Steele.
Of note, listed in the official program for the 2016 November Canadian conference as a
participant was Rinat Akhmetshin -- the same Russian lobbyist who was at Trump Tower five
months earlier in June for a highly scrutinized meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and others.
The senator's office noted to Fox News that McCain said in January 2017 he had no contact
with Akhmetshin. "Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made
public. Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy,
I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI. That has been the extent of my
contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue."
It is not known whether Akhmetshin had any contact with Kramer. Fusion GPS and Kramer did
not respond to requests for comment from Fox News.
Doesn't this make McCain guilty of offenses under the Logan act; the very offense that was
commonly levelled against Trump and called "collusion" in the press.
This confirms that Congressional Senators and Congressmen should operate under time limits
as well as be harshly punished for treasonous activity, meaning they are policed.
Exactly, as this will go on forever just to escape any scandal and other involvements of a
dubious nature. The US "justice" system is obviously primitive enough to allow this kind of
nonsense to continue.
"According to British court documents, Steele met with The New York Times (twice), The
Washington Post (twice), CNN, The New Yorker and Yahoo News (twice)."
Right there are your "fake news" propaganda sources. What do you want to bet they are all
Jewish owned...yet Trump kisses judea'sass?
Well, at the least it makes John McCain a total stooge who let his bias against Trump
override his ability to use good judgement, which by the way is already lacking.
"... Comey FBI also used the largely debunked Trump dossier, which alleged Russian ties to the President's campaign associates, to convince a judge to grant them a FISA warrant, allowing them to secretly monitor Trump campaign official Carter Page. ..."
"... Remember..."It is honourable to deceive the 'infidel'." This is just an 'inkling' of how far our mainstream media and 'establishment politicians' have waded into this 'cesspool'.... ..."
Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson spoke with US House investigators in a closed-door
meeting Tuesday, and confirmed what many in the non-establishment media already knew that
Fusion GPS never verified the Dossier claims before passing on the ridiculous document to the
corrupt establishment press.
According to
The Gateway Pundit , Herridge also said that her source told her that Glenn Simpson was
"upset" when Comey re-opened Hillary's email investigation at the end of October and wanted to
push back.
And he did
On October 31st, 2016 with just days to go until election day, David Corn of Mother Jones broke the story of a 'veteran spy' who gave the FBI information on
Trump's alleged connections to Russia. Christopher Steele, British spy and author of the
garbage dossier was not named in this Mother Jones report. Only hints of the dossier were
published; the salacious claims were omitted.
Hillary Clinton was disappointed the entire dossier hadn't been published in full prior to
the election. After all, she paid millions of dollars for the smear document.
The author of the dossier, Christopher Steele was also desperate to get the salacious
document out to the public. He told David Corn of
Mother Jones, "The story has to come out."
A week later, Hillary Clinton and the Democrats were in utter shock when Trump won the
presidential election. Desperate to delegitimatize him,
BuzzFeed published the entire dossier on January 10th, right before the inauguration.
According to the Washington Post , the FBI agreed to pay the British Spy who
compiled the garbage dossier after the election to continue to dig up dirt on Trump and
Russia.
The FBI pulled out of this arrangement once the author of the dossier, Christopher Steele
was publicly identified in media reports.
Comey FBI also used the largely debunked Trump dossier, which alleged Russian ties to the
President's campaign associates, to
convince a judge to grant them a FISA warrant, allowing them to secretly monitor Trump
campaign official Carter Page.
Totally BUSTED ! Scam artists that they are. So how much money is the wild goose chase
going to cost American taxpayers. When are they going to start indicting some of these
scumbags, this is getting old already.
Remember..."It is honourable to deceive the 'infidel'." This is just an 'inkling' of how
far our mainstream media and 'establishment politicians' have waded into this
'cesspool'....
The alleged Russian computer Hacker named Guccifer 2.0 whom the Democrat National Committee
has publicly blamed for hacking its emails and giving them to WIkiLeaks before the Election in
order for Russia to help Donald Trump, was really a fiction created by an Obama White House
Staffer in order to prevent the exposure of why DNC Staffer Seth Rich was murdered and also try
to pin the exposure of DNC emails on Russia and Trump.
Democrat operatives had pushed the fictional Guccifer 2.0 story as the supposed Russian
hacker who broke into DNC servers and downloaded thousands of emails, then sent them to the
Russians, who then sent them to Wikileaks so Hilary Clinton could be defeated.
Never mind that it has now been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the download speed
was far too great to have been done by anyone but a DNC insider like Seth Rich. Because
Internet speeds are not nearly sufficient to support download speed that the meta data,
embedded in the emails, reported.
Never mind that the same meta data shows that the download came from the eastern time zone
of the US, not Romania or Russia.
A five minute video (below) proves Guccifer 2.0 was an invention of someone using a version
of Microsoft Word that was originally registered to a DNC / White House Staffer named Warren
Flood.
Here are two screen shots from warren floods Facebook page. Notice that warren worked for
"Obama for America," the DNC, and the White House . He lives in LaGrange, GA.
The video below does a great job explaining who is behind the original Trump opposition
research leaked via WikiLeaks AND the later (same) document allegedly obtained by Guccifer 2.0
by "hacking."
EVIDENCE OF DNC/WHITE HOUSE STAFFER BEING "RUSSIAN HACKER GUCCIFER
2.0″
If you have ever accidentally tried to open a Microsoft Word document in a simple text
editor like Notepad, you can see the meta data behind each word document, including WHO that
copy of Word belongs to.
The video below explains who the author of the original opposition research document was and
how we know:
. . . it also includes who the AUTHOR of the document of is. It gets that information from
the name that was entered when you installed your copy of Microsoft Office. Inside the
original trump opposition research, the document later released by WikiLeaks, the author of
the document is listed as Lauren Dillon , DNC Research Director.
This is Lauren Dillion from the DNC:
The metadata in the WikiLeaks release of Trump Opposition research shows that it was created
by Lauren Dillon, as show below:
_______________
HOWEVER, that same document later released by Guccifer 2.0 shows a CHANGE in who authored
Document; this later copy showing the Author as Warren Flood . . . . who worked in the White
House!
Thus, the entire claim by Guccifer 2.0 that he was a Russian Hacker who stole the DNC
emails, was a deliberate deception attributable to a staffer in the Obama White House: Warren
Flood.
Here's the kicker, the version of Trump's opposition research file that was originally
released by WikiLeaks, and later released to the Main-Stream-Media (MSM), was never attributed
to the DNC, it was attributed to the Russian Hacker "Guccifer 2.0 -- A man jailed in Romania
for hacking.
THE DNC/WHITE HOUSE "FATAL MISTAKE"
It just wouldn't do, to have the head of research for the DNC be the Leaker to WikiLeaks or
to have the later Guccifer 2.0 release to come from a White House staffer, it had to
be attributable to someone connected to the Russians. The Romanian guy was the FALL GUY.
The one fatal mistake the DNC and the Obama White House made was that no one remembered
about the Microsoft Word metadata which reveals the owner of that particular copy of the Word
software. So, according to the evidence, Guccifer 2.0 was actually DNC/White House Staffer,
Warren Flood.
Yes, you read that correctly: EVIDENCE. Not speculation, or rumor, or innuendo. Actual real
life, hard copy EVIDENCE.
Guccifer 2.0 was an invention of the DNC/White House to cover-up who the real leaker was;
and at the same time start the Russian Hacking rumors that persist today.
INTERESTINGLY, the Wikipedia entry for Guccifer 2.0, describes an interview he did with
MotherBoard via an online chat. Guccifer 2.0 insisted he was Romanian but, when pressed to use
the Romanian language in an interview with an Interview with Motherboard via an online chat, he
used such clunky grammar and terminology that experts believe he was using an online
translator.
Bottom line: The Obama White House invention of Guccifer 2.0, apparently through its Staffer
Warren Flood, accomplished three things:
1) It covered DNC research director Lauren Dillon. Whatever sort of opposition research she
authored was later claimed by Guccifer 2.0.
2) It covered for Seth Rich. This is the BIG ONE, because he was killed in an obvious
assassination staged to look like street robbery -- the only problem is, the robbers didn't
take anything. He still had all his cash and his Rolex watch when police arrived. And Guccifer
2.0 took also credit for the Podesta emails which were actually downloaded by Seth Rich and
given to WikiLeaks.
AND;
3) It created the conduit to "Russian Intelligence" to fortify the claim that it was the
Russians who leaked the DNC emails to WikiLeaks, and therefore Trump "was in collusion with the
Russians" to defeat Clinton.
The whole claim of "Russian Hacking" and "Trump colluding with Russians" has come unraveled
because it was ALL a complete fraud.
What remains is how this fraud is STILL affecting our nation to this very day, and how the
Congress of the United States, acting late last month upon this totally FALSE "Russian Hacking"
claim, has now enacted further sanction upon Russia – sanctions that will very likely
lead to war.
VIDEO EVIDENCE
Here is the video containing the EVIDENCE that the Wikileaks original Trump Opposition
document was created by a user whose Microsoft Word software was registered to DNC Research
Director Lauren Dillon, and the later exact same document, allegedly hacked by "GUccifer
2.0″ was done by DNC/White House Staffer William Flood
So nations participates in the witch hunt, because they do not like Trump. Nice... The level of degradation of the
remnants of US left is simply incredible.
And they cite "intelligence community conclusion" (a group of hacks personally selected by Brennan for hactchet job which, as
we now know, included Peter Strzok)
"... Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win ..."
"... Couple that with the intelligence community's conclusions about Russia's active-measures campaign, and the fact that, as both a candidate and as president, Trump has consistently staked out positions that perfectly align with Moscow's, and it's clear that this is all far from a partisan "witch hunt." ..."
"... I think this is a huge story. Without wanting to come across as hyperbolic, I think it's bigger than Watergate because this isn't one set of Americans doing dirty tricks to another set of Americans, as was the case back in the '70s. This is one set of Americans basically contracting with a powerful foreign power to help it cripple an opponent, Hillary Clinton. The stakes are much larger. ..."
Luke Harding's new book, Collusion:
Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win , doesn't claim
to have definitive proof that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to win the election.
Still, Harding, who served as The Guardian 's Moscow bureau chief for four years
before being thrown out of the country for his critical reporting on Vladimir Putin's
government, presents a powerful case for Russian interference, and Trump campaign collusion, by
collecting years of reporting on Trump's connections to Russia and putting it all together in a
coherent narrative.
It's the sheer breadth of connections, many of them dating back 20 years or
more, between Trump and his associates and Russians with close ties to the Kremlin that put the
lie to Trump's repeated claims that he has no ties to Russia.
If all of these dealings were on
the up-and-up, Trump and his crew wouldn't have gone to such great lengths to obscure them. Couple that with the intelligence community's conclusions about Russia's active-measures
campaign, and the fact that, as both a candidate and as president, Trump has consistently
staked out positions that perfectly align with Moscow's, and it's clear that this is all far
from a partisan "witch hunt."
In an interview with The Nation , Harding was quick to acknowledge that there's a
lot that we don't know. "I think when it comes to following the money, we only have maybe 10 or
15 percent of the story," he said. "I think 85 percent of that story is still submerged."
Nonetheless, he says that what we do know so far is significant.
I think this is a huge story. Without wanting to come across as hyperbolic, I think it's
bigger than Watergate because this isn't one set of Americans doing dirty tricks to another
set of Americans, as was the case back in the '70s. This is one set of Americans basically
contracting with a powerful foreign power to help it cripple an opponent, Hillary Clinton.
The stakes are much larger.
I think [Vladimir] Putin has kind of done this quite cleverly. He's not some kind of evil
villain in a cave flipping red switches. He's essentially an opportunist who has very
adroitly taken advantage of problems in the West, and divisions in American society --
whether they're cultural or racial or political -- and he's sought to exploit and
instrumentalize them for his own purposes.
There are also really interesting questions about how far back Russia's relationship with
Donald Trump goes. One thing my book makes clear, or seeks to make clear, is that the
Russians play a very long game. They've been interested in Donald Trump for a very long
time.
"... Well, they didn't renew his accreditation, which is the same thing. They pretended it was because he didn't have the right paperwork for an extended visa and offered him a short extension so his kids could finish up at school. But Luke knew it was actually a Soviet-style expulsion. Because Luke can always see the real game when most of us just can't. ..."
"... He demanded to know if President Medvedev had been told – personally – that Luke was going home. The person in the press department he was speaking to just sort of looked at him and didn't say anything. Luke was pretty sure he worked for the FSB. So he went home, got on the lecture circuit and wrote a book all about his terrible experiences in Vladimir Putin's neo-Stalinist hell. ..."
"... Is Luke Harding: "the reporter Russia hated" an "enemy of Putin" a borderline psychotic paranoiac, whose narcissistic delusions have been deliberately encouraged and exploited by an intelligentsia that will use any old crap it can find to further its agenda a bit of a tosser ..."
"... Luke Harding is indeed a piss-poor journalist. He is one of the reasons I gave up on the Grauniad after 20 years; and I persuaded my siblings to look farther afield for real news. Such an irrational man, unless of course you assume that he is not a hack but a low-level CIA stooge. ..."
"... Being serious for a change, one has to ask: if Luke Harding is so lousy as a journalist, and The Guardian had to pay some compensation to The eXile for plagiarising Mark Ames and another guy's work, why didn't the paper send Harding back to journalism school to do an ethics course, as The Independent had to do with Johann Hari when he was caught plagiarising other work? Or why didn't The Guardian get rid of Harding? ..."
"... Is LDH with The Guardian for the same reason that American news media like The New York Times and The Washington Post among others always had someone in their offices who couldn't spell or write to save their own lives, much less others' lives, but who rose up the ranks quickly nevertheless – because they were really working for the CIA? ..."
"... In terms of honesty and journalistic integrity when it comes to geopolitics, he is simply the worst journalist I've ever had the misfortune to read. When the whole Ukraine thing started and the Guardian thought all their readers were insular and stupid, they had our hero writing a whole slew of anti-Russia articles .alongside opening their comments section. Bad "mistake" on their part. ..."
"... Luke saw Russian tanks cross the border into Ukraine despite being 26 miles from the border crossing with a Russian aid convoy ..."
"... Actually it was that other bastion of serous journalism Shaun Walker who saw the invisible invasion. Luke would be too scared of getting zapped by mind rays to get that close to a Russian tank. ..."
Luke Daniel Harding
(born 1968) studied English at University College, Oxford. While there he edited the student
newspaper Cherwell . He worked for The Sunday Correspondent , the Evening
Argus in Brighton and then the Daily Mail before joining The Guardian in
1996. He was the Guardian's Russia correspondent from 2007-11.
Aside from his more publicly known achievements, it's worth noting Harding was accused of plagiarism by Mark Ames and Yasha
Levine of the eXile for publishing an
article under his own name that lifted large passages almost verbatim from their work. The
Guardian allegedly redacted portions of Harding's article in response to these accusations.
According to his own testimony , Luke
Harding is the guy who realised he was in the siloviki cross hairs one day when, during his
stay in Moscow as the Guardian's bureau chief, he came home and found one of his bedroom
windows open.
A less situationally-aware person would have made the fatal mistake of thinking one of his
kids or his wife had done it, or he'd done it himself and just forgotten, or that his landlord
had popped in to air the rooms (a bit of a tendency in
Russia apparently). But Luke was sure none of his family had opened the window. So it
had to have been the FSB.
You see, Luke isn't confined as we are by the constraints of petty mundanity. That was why
it had been so clear to him, even
without any evidence , that the FSB had murdered Litvinenko. And that was why Luke took one
look at that open window and realised the entire Russian intelligence machine was out to get
him .
The dark symbolism of the open window in the children's bedroom was not hard to decipher:
take care, or your kids might just fall out. The men – I assume it was men – had
vanished like ghosts.
And that was only the start of the vicious campaign that was to follow. Tapes were left in
his cassette deck, when he knew he hadn't put them there. An alarm clock went off when he knew
he hadn't set it. Luke was filled with " a feeling of horror, alarm, incredulity, bafflement
and a kind of cold rational rage."
Things developed rapidly. Luke went to visit a woman called Olga who warned him to take
care, because he was "an enemy of Putin." He was sure someone had hacked his email account.
Whenever he said the name "Berezovsky" his phone line would go dead, so he started using the
word "banana" instead. A person from the Russian president's office called and asked for his
mobile number. Unable to imagine a single good reason why a Russian government official would
need a cell phone number for the Guardian's Russia bureau chief, he refused.
That wily Putin wasn't going to catch him that easily. The game of cat and mouse had
begun.
A middle-aged woman with a bad haircut knocked at his door at 7am, and walked away when he
opened it. Had she just gone to the wrong door? Of course not, it was the FSB taunting him. At
the airport on his way back to London a man with a Russian accent (in Moscow!) tapped him on
the back and told him there was something wrong with his jacket. Noticing the man was wearing a
leather coat, which meant he must be from the KGB, Luke immediately rushed to the gents and
took off all his clothes to find the "bugging device" the man had planted on him. He didn't
find one, but that didn't mean it wasn't there.
When the Russian government launched its prosecution of Berezovsky for fraud, someone from
the FSB phoned Luke and asked him to come in and make a statement about the interview he'd
conducted with the man a short time before. They also advised him to bring a lawyer, which
seemed sinister to Luke. A man called Kuzmin interviewed him for 55 minutes. Luke got quite
thirsty, but wouldn't drink the fizzy water he was offered, because he was pretty sure it had
been tampered with. Surprisingly Kuzmin didn't interrogate him as expected, but Luke decided
this was because the FSB were trying to intimidate him. They probably didn't need to do an
interrogation, thought Luke, since they'd been breaking in to his flat almost every day for
like – ever , switching on his alarm clock and probably also bugging his
phone.
After the western-backed Georgian invasion of South Ossetia Luke was amazed to note there
was widespread antagonism toward western journalists in Moscow. And the FSB just would not
leave him alone. Worried by this "campaign of brutishness" he decided to keep a log of the
dreadful things they were doing. Reading this we find not only did they continue to regularly
open his windows, they once turned off his central heating, made phantom ringing sounds happen
in the middle of the night (Luke couldn't find where they were coming from), deleted a screen
saver from his computer and left a book by his bed about getting better orgasms.
All this would have broken a lesser man. But Luke didn't break. Maybe that's why in the end,
they knew they'd have to expel him like in the old Soviet days. Which is what they did. Well,
they didn't renew his accreditation, which is the same thing. They pretended it was because he
didn't have the right paperwork for an extended visa and offered him a short extension so his
kids could finish up at school. But Luke knew it was actually a Soviet-style expulsion. Because
Luke can always see the real game when most of us just can't.
He demanded to know if President Medvedev had been told – personally – that Luke
was going home. The person in the press department he was speaking to just sort of looked at
him and didn't say anything. Luke was pretty sure he worked for the FSB. So he went home, got on the lecture circuit and wrote a book all about his terrible
experiences in Vladimir Putin's neo-Stalinist hell. But just when he thought all his espionage
problems were over, they started
up again when he began his book about Edward Snowden.
This time it was the NSA, GCHQ and a host of other western agencies stalking him. The PTB
obviously realised that Luke's book would be much much more of a threat to national
security than even Snowden himself, and did everything they could to try to stop him writing
it. They followed him around (he knew they were agents because they had iPhones) and even used
spy technology to remote-delete sentences from his computer – while he was typing
them. Especially when he was writing mean things about the NSA. But after he typed "I don't
mind you reading my manuscript but I'd be grateful if you don't delete it", they realised
they'd met their match and stopped.
He wasn't sure if the culprits were NSA, GCHQ or a Russian hacker, but one thing it
definitely wasn't was a glitchy keyboard.
I mean that would just be stupid.
NOTE: In case any of our readers are (understandably) inclined to think we must be
making this up or exaggerating, we encourage them to read about it here and here
in Luke's own words. You'll find we have merely summarised them.
Yes, he really does believe everything attributed to him in this article. He really does
think the FSB were opening his windows. And he really did run to the public toilet and take all
his clothes off because a man tapped him on the back in an airport.
We also recommend you take in this opinion
piece by Julian Assange, and this one by a Brit ex-pat
in Moscow.
After that feel free to complete the following questionnaire:
Is Luke Harding: "the reporter Russia hated" an "enemy of Putin" a borderline psychotic
paranoiac, whose narcissistic delusions have been deliberately encouraged and exploited by an
intelligentsia that will use any old crap it can find to further its agenda a bit of a tosser
Luke Harding is indeed a piss-poor journalist. He is one of the reasons I gave up on the
Grauniad after 20 years; and I persuaded my siblings to look farther afield for real news.
Such an irrational man, unless of course you assume that he is not a hack but a low-level CIA
stooge.
The force once again fails to materialise for Luke as TheRealNews Aaron Maté sends him
scurrying back to his conspiracy theories safespace during this brutal interview on Luke's
latest fictional release titled "Collusion".
Luke Harding's article on Grozny and Chechnya is a classic of the sour grapes variety. "The once war-torn country has been transformed, but change has come at a price"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/feb/22/russia To the best of my knowledge, Chechnya is still enjoying its peace and prosperity –
totally unsupportable.
You have to remember that without old Luke we'd not have as much fun reading pages like
this!!! That's likely the only positive outcome of what he writes but a very important one.
In this 'insane asylum' light relief coupled with 'some decent perspectives' is a god
send. For those that like this page / the humour you might like this site: http://ckm3.blogspot.co.uk/
So, the time has come. Surrounded by the KGB (they no longer exist Ed) Surrounded by the KGB
(they no longer exist!! Ed) i, Luke Harding pen this my last will and testament. For though
the end has come, (Hurrah! Ed) my enemies made one final mistake, by thinking they could take
me alive. They left me the Book, the noble karma sutra
No Walter Mitty I, I carry no arsenic pills about me for such a mournful deed as this. No, I,
a writer, a cavalier of the epistolary kind, shall use The Book they left me on my bedside
table, the noble Kama sutra. And now, gently removing the cellophane – to my children I
bequeath my writing talent, to Pussy Minor disturbance (here he seems to be attempting to
outwit the KGB Ed.) my gift for self promotion, and to my wife, Phoebe, my greatest
possession, my reputation. And now, gently removing the cellophane, (you see, phoebe, your
bootless cries at bedtime fell not on deaf ears, I will use it once, as I promised) and
turning the page, I see the very position with which to foil my enemies (who must almost be
upon me, for I heard the catflap flap) – "Chicken Butter pasanda, also known as the
headless chicken". (How ironic, Ed.) Like the chicken, my head also shall be hidden from
view. Here goes! England, though I never knew you (very true, Ed) perhaps you will vouchsafe
me a place among the poets? Here goes again! Butter? Tick. Dilate? Tick. Bloody hell, I never
realised I had such a big head! Push! Push! They shall not catch me alive!
Like a candle in the wind .oooff! I really shouldn't have had extra beans. England, I do it
for thee! But hold, what's this I see? Tracks? Caterpillar tracks? Tank tracks?!! My god!
Wait till Shaun sees these, it's the biggest scoop of all time! And it's mine! I must stop
this foolshness now. KGB, be damned! Maybe they'll now take me back at the Daily Mail. I must
remove my head from my .
(at this point, the recording ends Ed. he will be missed Ed the world will be a sadder place
Ed there will be less laughter in the world without him. Phew. Got it. Ed)
Being serious for a change, one has to ask: if Luke Harding is so lousy as a journalist, and
The Guardian had to pay some compensation to The eXile for plagiarising Mark Ames and another
guy's work, why didn't the paper send Harding back to journalism school to do an ethics
course, as The Independent had to do with Johann Hari when he was caught plagiarising other
work? Or why didn't The Guardian get rid of Harding?
Is LDH with The Guardian for the same reason that American news media like The New York
Times and The Washington Post among others always had someone in their offices who couldn't
spell or write to save their own lives, much less others' lives, but who rose up the ranks
quickly nevertheless – because they were really working for the CIA?
I ventured out the next morning. My laptop was in the unlocked safe. (It didn't contain any
secrets; merely a work in progress.) A tall American immediately accosted me. He suggested we
go sightseeing. He said his name was Chris. "Chris" had a short, military-style haircut, new
trainers, neatly pressed khaki shorts, and a sleek steel-grey T-shirt. He clearly spent time
in the gym. Tourist or spook? I thought spook.
I decided to go along with Chris's proposal: why didn't we spend a couple of hours
visiting Rio's Christ the Redeemer statue? Chris wanted to take my photo, buy me a beer, go
for dinner. I declined the beer and dinner, later texting my wife: "The CIA sent someone to
check me out. Their techniques as clumsy as Russians." She replied: "Really? WTF?"
Shortly before I was banned from Komment Macht Frei, Mr. Harding popped up in the CiF column
in which I had just made a comment ridiculing his "journalism" to state that he believed that
I am probably a member of the FSB.
Luke Harding is not a journalist; he is the perennial centrefold in an imaginary magazine
called "Smug Prick". There is an irreconcilable gap between the Luke Harding he sees in the
mirror and the chowderhead we all know and mock. The Guardian keeps him on because it does
not give a tin weasel why you read, just as long as you read. It does not care if you do so
with gritted teeth, murmuring obscenities.
In terms of honesty and journalistic integrity when it comes to geopolitics, he is simply the
worst journalist I've ever had the misfortune to read.
When the whole Ukraine thing started and the Guardian thought all their readers were
insular and stupid, they had our hero writing a whole slew of anti-Russia articles .alongside
opening their comments section. Bad "mistake" on their part.
It did not take long for readers to start pointing out the hilarious lies, half truths and
smears in Mr Harding's articles.
How did he/they respond ?
Not only did he start moderating comments himself, he (and Shaun Walker) had readers
banned for highlighting the "inconsistency" in their reporting. Ha! Good luck with that.
It was quite pitiful to see him yesterday on the Grauniad's 'Troll Factory' story
maoaning, whining and blaming the readers for not beliveing his "truthful" reporting on
Russia haha.
It's going to be fascinating to see how he and his pals report the upcoming battle in
Syria between Russia/Syria/Iran/China VS America/ISIS/Israel and Saudi Arabia.
"The dark symbolism of the open window in the children's bedroom was not hard to decipher:
take care, or your kids might just fall out. The men – I assume it was men – had
vanished like ghosts."
That there is just pure gold, it was written as a serious piece but even if it wasn't it
would still be brilliant piece of comedy and sarcasm, but the fact that it's unintentionally
funny and not a sarcasm is what makes it one of the greatest arrangements of words ever. Man
sees an open window and "deciphers" that it was secret agents who opened it for the whole
purpose of leaving him a "message" and then "vanished like ghosts". A whole script from an
open window. Perhaps next time they will make an offer he can't refuse? Brilliant sketch,
someone mentioned Inspector Clouseau in the comments but I have to say that Clouseau has
nothing on this level of deduction skills, self importance and delusions of grandeur, or
delusions in general. I read that thing many times now and its still hilarious as first time
"The dark symbolism of the open window .."
There is a video of Carl Sagan where he explains how not to do science and logic and uses
clouds on Venus as an example how to get a grand and completely wrong conclusion out of
nothing, now know as The Venutian Dinosaur Fallacy:
"I can't see a thing on the surface of Venus. Why not? Because it's covered with a dense
layer of clouds. Well, what are clouds made of? Water, of course. Therefore, Venus must have
an awful lot of water on it. Therefore, the surface must be wet. Well, if the surface is wet,
it's probably a swamp. If there's a swamp, there's ferns. If there's ferns, maybe there's
even dinosaurs. -Observation: we can't see a thing on Venus. Conclusion: dinosaurs."
I think that Harding perhaps gave us even better example.
Luke saw Russian tanks cross the border into Ukraine despite being 26 miles from the border
crossing with a Russian aid convoy. Despite there being a 5000 foot elevation between where he
actually was to where the border crossing was.Despite there being EU monitors at the border
crossing who did not see any tanks.When I pointed this out to Luke,as a comment on his
Guardian article,the article comments section disappeared and the placement of Russian tanks
at the border changed to a different border crossing.All of my previous comments were
purged,any other comments were moderated meaning an effectual ban and Luke carried on as if
nothing had happened.Something did happen,he stopped saying he personally saw Russian tanks
because he had been busted.In my opinion he is paid handsomely to post,anything,negative
against Russia and sometimes he just makes shit up when his wife needs a new kitchen
appliance.He is obviously a tosser to boot.
Actually it was that other bastion of serous journalism Shaun Walker who saw the invisible
invasion. Luke would be too scared of getting zapped by mind rays to get that close to a
Russian tank.
Yeah that was good old shaun. shaun also saw a Russian vehicle somewhere in ukraine with peacekeeping symbols from
Chechnya. there was actually a photo of that one. unfortunately it was impossible to verify where and when the photo was taken and no other
such vehicle with those markings has ever been seen before or since in ukraine. the woman who supposedly took the photo had a long history of photographing Russia
vehicles in Chechnya.
Luke wouldn't even have taken any photos of the Russian tanks. He would have thought the
tanks were sent after him and he would taken off like a rabbit. Even if the tanks were going
in the other direction.
BTW Luke's wife Phoebe Taplin (also a journalist) wrote a series of books about walking in
Moscow at different times of the year according to season and exploring the city's parks and
open spaces on foot while they were stationed there. Folks, make of that what you will.
I think he has survived as a journalist which is in a way commendable. However, he irritated
Glenn Greenwald, when he interviewed him because Glenn could see the details Luke was
interested in writing about were literally going to be the material for a book, and I think
Glenn had not finished his own at that point! So a bit exploitive to say the least. It's an
irony that the Snowden film produced/directed by Oliver Stone is going to be based on Luke's
version not Glenn, guess who gains financially for example.
On the other hand, you have to give him credit for foresight – moving from the Daily
Mail to the Guardian before it was fashionable. Maybe his talents alone explain the lack of
substantive difference between these two organs of State.
If I didn't know that Luke Harding was a journalist, I'd have thought he was a comedian in
the tradition of Peter Sellers overdoing Inspector Clouseau in too many Pink Panther sequels.
Mr Harding is a huge threat to the ruthless Russian government due to his fearless
journalism, but rather than off him with some polonium tea or crumpets they decided to leave
a sex manual by his bed.
Was the idea that Mr Harding would die from over exertion?
Even the sudden appearance of the Kama Sutra in English by the bedside table would have
aroused LDH's suspicions. What, he would have wondered, were the terrifying secrets encoded
in the manual?
The alleged Russian computer Hacker named Guccifer 2.0 whom the Democrat National Committee
has publicly blamed for hacking its emails and giving them to WIkiLeaks before the Election in
order for Russia to help Donald Trump, was really a fiction created by an Obama White House
Staffer in order to prevent the exposure of why DNC Staffer Seth Rich was murdered and also try
to pin the exposure of DNC emails on Russia and Trump.
Democrat operatives had pushed the fictional Guccifer 2.0 story as the supposed Russian
hacker who broke into DNC servers and downloaded thousands of emails, then sent them to the
Russians, who then sent them to Wikileaks so Hilary Clinton could be defeated.
Never mind that it has now been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the download speed
was far too great to have been done by anyone but a DNC insider like Seth Rich. Because
Internet speeds are not nearly sufficient to support download speed that the meta data,
embedded in the emails, reported.
Never mind that the same meta data shows that the download came from the eastern time zone
of the US, not Romania or Russia.
A five minute video (below) proves Guccifer 2.0 was an invention of someone using a version
of Microsoft Word that was originally registered to a DNC / White House Staffer named Warren
Flood.
Here are two screen shots from warren floods Facebook page. Notice that warren worked for
"Obama for America," the DNC, and the White House . He lives in LaGrange, GA.
The video below does a great job explaining who is behind the original Trump opposition
research leaked via WikiLeaks AND the later (same) document allegedly obtained by Guccifer 2.0
by "hacking."
EVIDENCE OF DNC/WHITE HOUSE STAFFER BEING "RUSSIAN HACKER GUCCIFER
2.0″
If you have ever accidentally tried to open a Microsoft Word document in a simple text
editor like Notepad, you can see the meta data behind each word document, including WHO that
copy of Word belongs to.
The video below explains who the author of the original opposition research document was and
how we know:
. . . it also includes who the AUTHOR of the document of is. It gets that information from
the name that was entered when you installed your copy of Microsoft Office. Inside the
original trump opposition research, the document later released by WikiLeaks, the author of
the document is listed as Lauren Dillon , DNC Research Director.
This is Lauren Dillion from the DNC:
The metadata in the WikiLeaks release of Trump Opposition research shows that it was created
by Lauren Dillon, as show below:
_______________
HOWEVER, that same document later released by Guccifer 2.0 shows a CHANGE in who authored
Document; this later copy showing the Author as Warren Flood . . . . who worked in the White
House!
Thus, the entire claim by Guccifer 2.0 that he was a Russian Hacker who stole the DNC
emails, was a deliberate deception attributable to a staffer in the Obama White House: Warren
Flood.
Here's the kicker, the version of Trump's opposition research file that was originally
released by WikiLeaks, and later released to the Main-Stream-Media (MSM), was never attributed
to the DNC, it was attributed to the Russian Hacker "Guccifer 2.0 -- A man jailed in Romania
for hacking.
THE DNC/WHITE HOUSE "FATAL MISTAKE"
It just wouldn't do, to have the head of research for the DNC be the Leaker to WikiLeaks or
to have the later Guccifer 2.0 release to come from a White House staffer, it had to
be attributable to someone connected to the Russians. The Romanian guy was the FALL GUY.
The one fatal mistake the DNC and the Obama White House made was that no one remembered
about the Microsoft Word metadata which reveals the owner of that particular copy of the Word
software. So, according to the evidence, Guccifer 2.0 was actually DNC/White House Staffer,
Warren Flood.
Yes, you read that correctly: EVIDENCE. Not speculation, or rumor, or innuendo. Actual real
life, hard copy EVIDENCE.
Guccifer 2.0 was an invention of the DNC/White House to cover-up who the real leaker was;
and at the same time start the Russian Hacking rumors that persist today.
INTERESTINGLY, the Wikipedia entry for Guccifer 2.0, describes an interview he did with
MotherBoard via an online chat. Guccifer 2.0 insisted he was Romanian but, when pressed to use
the Romanian language in an interview with an Interview with Motherboard via an online chat, he
used such clunky grammar and terminology that experts believe he was using an online
translator.
Bottom line: The Obama White House invention of Guccifer 2.0, apparently through its Staffer
Warren Flood, accomplished three things:
1) It covered DNC research director Lauren Dillon. Whatever sort of opposition research she
authored was later claimed by Guccifer 2.0.
2) It covered for Seth Rich. This is the BIG ONE, because he was killed in an obvious
assassination staged to look like street robbery -- the only problem is, the robbers didn't
take anything. He still had all his cash and his Rolex watch when police arrived. And Guccifer
2.0 took also credit for the Podesta emails which were actually downloaded by Seth Rich and
given to WikiLeaks.
AND;
3) It created the conduit to "Russian Intelligence" to fortify the claim that it was the
Russians who leaked the DNC emails to WikiLeaks, and therefore Trump "was in collusion with the
Russians" to defeat Clinton.
The whole claim of "Russian Hacking" and "Trump colluding with Russians" has come unraveled
because it was ALL a complete fraud.
What remains is how this fraud is STILL affecting our nation to this very day, and how the
Congress of the United States, acting late last month upon this totally FALSE "Russian Hacking"
claim, has now enacted further sanction upon Russia – sanctions that will very likely
lead to war.
VIDEO EVIDENCE
Here is the video containing the EVIDENCE that the Wikileaks original Trump Opposition
document was created by a user whose Microsoft Word software was registered to DNC Research
Director Lauren Dillon, and the later exact same document, allegedly hacked by "GUccifer
2.0″ was done by DNC/White House Staffer William Flood
If this is true, then this is definitely a sophisticated false flag operation. Was malware Alperovich people injected specifically
designed to implicate Russians? In other words Crowdstrike=Fancy Bear
Images removed. For full content please thee the original source
One interesting corollary of this analysis is that installing Crowdstrike software is like inviting a wolf to guard your chicken.
If they are so dishonest you take enormous risks. That might be true for some other heavily advertized "intrusion prevention" toolkits.
So those criminals who use mistyped popular addresses or buy Google searches to drive lemmings to their site and then flash the screen
that they detected a virus on your computer a, please call provided number and for a small amount of money your virus will be removed
get a new more sinister life.
"... Disobedient Media outlines the DNC server cover-up evidenced in CrowdStrike malware infusion ..."
"... In the article, they claim to have just been working on eliminating the last of the hackers from the DNC's network during the past weekend (conveniently coinciding with Assange's statement and being an indirect admission that their Falcon software had failed to achieve it's stated capabilities at that time , assuming their statements were accurate) . ..."
"... To date, CrowdStrike has not been able to show how the malware had relayed any emails or accessed any mailboxes. They have also not responded to inquiries specifically asking for details about this. In fact, things have now been discovered that bring some of their malware discoveries into question. ..."
"... there is a reason to think Fancy Bear didn't start some of its activity until CrowdStrike had arrived at the DNC. CrowdStrike, in the indiciators of compromise they reported, identified three pieces of malware relating to Fancy Bear: ..."
"... They found that generally, in a lot of cases, malware developers didn't care to hide the compile times and that while implausible timestamps are used, it's rare that these use dates in the future. It's possible, but unlikely that one sample would have a postdated timestamp to coincide with their visit by mere chance but seems extremely unlikely to happen with two or more samples. Considering the dates of CrowdStrike's activities at the DNC coincide with the compile dates of two out of the three pieces of malware discovered and attributed to APT-28 (the other compiled approximately 2 weeks prior to their visit), the big question is: Did CrowdStrike plant some (or all) of the APT-28 malware? ..."
"... The IP address, according to those articles, was disabled in June 2015, eleven months before the DNC emails were acquired meaning those IP addresses, in reality, had no involvement in the alleged hacking of the DNC. ..."
"... The fact that two out of three of the Fancy Bear malware samples identified were compiled on dates within the apparent five day period CrowdStrike were apparently at the DNC seems incredibly unlikely to have occurred by mere chance. ..."
"... That all three malware samples were compiled within ten days either side of their visit makes it clear just how questionable the Fancy Bear malware discoveries were. ..."
Of course the DNC did not want to the FBI to investigate its "hacked servers". The plan was well underway to excuse Hillary's
pathetic election defeat to Trump, and
CrowdStrike would help out by planting evidence to pin on those evil "Russian hackers." Some would call this
entire DNC server hack an
"insurance policy."
"... It's very interesting. But there is one thing that is certain according to McAffee (the McAffee) "If it looked like it was the Russians, then I can guarantee it WASN'T the Russians." ..."
"... Good comment and reading the last line, it has just reminded me of 'Vault 7' and what Wiki Leaks had to say. ..."
"... Vault 7 CIA Hacking Tools Revealed.docx... https://www.scribd.com/docu... ..."
Getting closer all the time, but Mueller's job will continue till the mid-term elections just to see if they can get away
with their scheming. The tale within a tale: FBI investigates and discovers they themselves are also part of this tale. The
story will have a tail: will it be a tragic, Shakespearean end or repentance by Hillary and Mueller (Duh...).
It's about the date / time stamps on the files, and the HACKER (Guciffer 2.0) was acutely
an Obama aid called: WARREN FLOOD. Warren Flood pretended to hack the DNC and made himself
out to be Russian with an alias of Guciffer 2.0. That was the smoke screen the Democrats put
out on top of the Crowdstrike false evidence job. It's excellent reading.
Thank you for the link and must admit it has made me laugh. A line I will use in the
future. '50 Shades of Pissed Off' - no doubt I will use it as my Mantra for 2018.
Yes, that Guccifer 2.0 stuff and the clear evidence that it was not a hack was published
before but you are now updating us by identifying the guy who did it, which should also
change the process. Thanks for that!
Update: Just see what Libby and Trauma2000 mean: yes, that makes sense!
In actual fact, it was Seth Ritch who 'leaked' the material (if you believe that Huma Abdeen was the original leaker and used Seth as a 'go between' then that is up to you). When
the DNC found out Seth was the leaker, the murdered him and had to 'think up a story' hence
Guccifer 2.0. There are several DNC employees involved but Warren Flood is the 'fall guy'
along with a girl (her name is out there) whom had her name on the software licenses that
were used to doctor the emails.
It's very interesting. But there is one thing that is certain according to McAffee (the
McAffee) "If it looked like it was the Russians, then I can guarantee it WASN'T the
Russians."
For me it is because of the truth: there is not much point being on this or that "side",
but when the truth is so twisted it becomes perversion and that should be uncovered.
Flood had already stopped working as Biden's IT director back in 2011, the only place he'd
likely have had his name on a license under the company name GSA based on his work history -
was there.
So, Guccifer 2.0's first docs were most likely constructed using a computer that had
resided in the West Wing office on June 15, 2016 at the exact same time as Pyatt, Nuland and
others (also connected to the Ukraine coup in 2014) were meeting there.
source:
http://g-2.space
(the person behind it is the person who originally wrote this "Fancy Fraud, Bogus Bears..."
article too)
RE: The Eastern timezone. - If referring to the NGP-VAN analysis, the timestamps
themselves don't show timezones but the timezone can be evaluated due to how timestamps on
files (that appear to be part of the same batch transfer on July 5, 2016) are displayed in
the 7zip archive root versus those in various RAR files contained within (and the different
methods of timestamp storage used by the different archive formats) and how this changes
depending on what your computer's timezone is set to (the time changes in the 7zip but not in
the RARs and the only timezone in which these have a close correlation is Eastern).
There was an article, that I read, just before Christmas Day, that supports what you say.
That Mueller has got to keep the narrative running, until they have sorted out the Mid-Term
Elections, that the Dems believe will work to their advantage. Is it something to do with the
Dems hoping to control Congress and managing to close any investigations that Trump is
working on?
Surprised with Fox. Considering old Murdoch has a problem with Russia, no doubt owing to
his interests in Genie Energy. However, not complaining, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and now
the ex-NSA on Fox News. Nice.
This is just the beginning: just read New Trump Executive Order Targets Clinton-Linked
Individuals, Lobbyists And Perhaps Uranium One on
Zerohedge.com
1. It will have huge consequences for all those who made shady deals with dictators and
criminals (adding to the coffers of the Clinton Foundation etc.etc.). Perhaps this is what
Trump was waiting for to start in the new year:his fireworks response to all the mud slung
around?
2. Seth Rich and distraction by Guccifer 2.0: Trauma200 comments below is BIG and makes the
connection to SETH RICH's murder, which also shows how Assange made it necessary for the
complete the search and expose with evidence what was going on.
What I am curious about, is will he use it for that or will he go for any foreigner that
Washington DC has a problem with. Such as anybody who is a friend of President Putin, just to
cause problems, before the Russian Presidential Campaign.
Or am I being cynical. I seriously hope he uses it for the Russia Gate crowd and no doubt,
he has good reason and he is not known to like being insulted, with no payback. However, I
can also see him using it as another form of punishment on non-nationals.
One additional point: Thomas Rid and most of the mainstream media keeps saying that German
intelligence fingered Russia for the German Parliament attacks. While this is partly true,
German intelligence in fact never said directly that APT 29 or "Fancy Bear" WAS DEFINITELY
Russian state sponsored. They said they ASSUMED Russia was conducting hacks on Germany.
See here:
Digital Attack on German Parliament: Investigative Report on the Hack of the Left Party
Infrastructure in Bundestag
https://netzpolitik.org/201...
Jeffrey Carr made this point early on in his Medium article:
One of the strongest pieces of evidence linking GRU to the DNC hack is the equivalent of
identical fingerprints found in two burglarized buildings: a reused command-and-control
address -- 176.31.112[.]10 -- that was hard coded in a piece of
malware found both in the German parliament as well as on
the DNC's servers. Russian military intelligence was identified by the German domestic
security agency BfV as the actor responsible for the Bundestag breach. The infrastructure
behind the fake MIS Department domain was also linked to the Berlin intrusion through at
least one other element, a shared SSL certificate.
This paragraph sounds quite damning if you take it at face value, but if you invest a
little time into checking the source material, its carefully constructed narrative falls
apart.
Problem #1:
The IP address 176.31.112[.]10 used in the Bundestag breach as a Command and Control server
has never been connected to the Russian intelligence services. In fact, Claudio Guarnieri, a
highly regarded security researcher, whose technical analysis was referenced by Rid, stated
that "no evidence allows to tie the attacks to governments of any particular country."
Problem #2: The Command & Control server (176.31.112.10) was using an outdated version
of OpenSSL vulnerable to Heartbleed attacks. Heartbleed allows attackers to exfiltrate data
including private keys, usernames, passwords and other sensitive information.
The existence of a known security vulnerability that's trivial to exploit opens the door
to the possibility that the systems in question were used by one rogue group, and then
infiltrated by a second rogue group,
making the attribution process even more complicated. At the very least, the C2 server should
be considered a compromised indicator.
Problem #3: The BfV published a newsletter in January 2016 which assumes that the GRU and
FSB are responsible because of technical indicators, not because of any classified finding;
to wit: "Many
of these attack campaigns have each other on technical similarities, such as malicious
software families, and infrastructure -- these are important indicators of the
same authorship. It is assumed that both the
Russian domestic intelligence service FSB and the military foreign intelligence service GRU
run cyber operations."
Professor Rid's argument depended heavily on conveying hard attribution by the BfV even
though the President of the BfV didn't disguise the fact that their attribution was based on
an assumption and not hard evidence.
Thanks for the article and reminding us of Crowd Strike. Must admit, I read an interesting
article, over on Oped News, by George Eliason, with regards Crowd Strike. Plus a few other
reminders.
Does anybody remember the Awan Brothers from Pakistan and what they were arrested for,
with regards the DNC and computers?
Then you have Google and Soros and their links into Crowd Strike. Hasn't the CEO of Google
just stepped down, the same day that Trump signed a Presidential Order, that might prove a
problem for some, in the future?
QANON EXPOSES DEM CONSPIRACY TO FRAME TRUMP, CLAIMS GOOGLE'S SCHMIDT PLAYED PIVOTAL
ROLE
QAnon also claims Debbie Wasserman Schultz contracted MS-13 gang to kill Seth Rich...
https://www.infowars.com/qa...
Remember, Crowd Strike, Dmitry Alperovic and his links back to The Atlantic Council? Then
you have the Ukrainian Oligarch Pinchuk, who happily invested $25 million in the Clinton
Foundation. Remember his Yalta Summits and the one back in September 2013? Now who attended
and what were the various topics that they discussed?
Then you have Obama giving Crowd Strike
a White House Commission for Cyber Security. Plus, the DNC refusing the FBI access to their
servers, but, having no problem giving Crowd Strike full access. Now why was that? Funny how
often Ukraine comes up, when looking into Clinton, Fusion, Crowdstrike, Old Ukrainian Malware
and The Trump Dossier? Coincidence or what?
If this is true, then this is definitely a sophisticated false flag operation. Was malware Alperovich people injected specifically
designed to implicate Russians? In other words Crowdstrike=Fancy Bear
Images removed. For full content please thee the original source
One interesting corollary of this analysis is that installing Crowdstrike software is like inviting a wolf to guard your chicken.
If they are so dishonest you take enormous risks. That might be true for some other heavily advertized "intrusion prevention" toolkits.
So those criminals who use mistyped popular addresses or buy Google searches to drive lemmings to their site and then flash the screen
that they detected a virus on your computer a, please call provided number and for a small amount of money your virus will be removed
get a new more sinister life.
"... Disobedient Media outlines the DNC server cover-up evidenced in CrowdStrike malware infusion ..."
"... In the article, they claim to have just been working on eliminating the last of the hackers from the DNC's network during the past weekend (conveniently coinciding with Assange's statement and being an indirect admission that their Falcon software had failed to achieve it's stated capabilities at that time , assuming their statements were accurate) . ..."
"... To date, CrowdStrike has not been able to show how the malware had relayed any emails or accessed any mailboxes. They have also not responded to inquiries specifically asking for details about this. In fact, things have now been discovered that bring some of their malware discoveries into question. ..."
"... there is a reason to think Fancy Bear didn't start some of its activity until CrowdStrike had arrived at the DNC. CrowdStrike, in the indiciators of compromise they reported, identified three pieces of malware relating to Fancy Bear: ..."
"... They found that generally, in a lot of cases, malware developers didn't care to hide the compile times and that while implausible timestamps are used, it's rare that these use dates in the future. It's possible, but unlikely that one sample would have a postdated timestamp to coincide with their visit by mere chance but seems extremely unlikely to happen with two or more samples. Considering the dates of CrowdStrike's activities at the DNC coincide with the compile dates of two out of the three pieces of malware discovered and attributed to APT-28 (the other compiled approximately 2 weeks prior to their visit), the big question is: Did CrowdStrike plant some (or all) of the APT-28 malware? ..."
"... The IP address, according to those articles, was disabled in June 2015, eleven months before the DNC emails were acquired meaning those IP addresses, in reality, had no involvement in the alleged hacking of the DNC. ..."
"... The fact that two out of three of the Fancy Bear malware samples identified were compiled on dates within the apparent five day period CrowdStrike were apparently at the DNC seems incredibly unlikely to have occurred by mere chance. ..."
"... That all three malware samples were compiled within ten days either side of their visit makes it clear just how questionable the Fancy Bear malware discoveries were. ..."
Of course the DNC did not want to the FBI to investigate its "hacked servers". The plan was well underway to excuse Hillary's
pathetic election defeat to Trump, and
CrowdStrike would help out by planting evidence to pin on those evil "Russian hackers." Some would call this
entire DNC server hack an
"insurance policy."
If there is a smoking gun that proves that Trump is beholden to Russia, I want to know about
it. Having slogged through this book, though, I can tell you that the smoking gun is not here.
That is disappointing, because the cover of the book implies that proof of collusion will be
provided. Instead, the book provides a series of "it seemed as if something more was going on"
types of speculations. It also restates everything you already know about the alleged
scandal.
Some readers will be happy with this book -- primarily those who are already certain that
Trump is controlled by Russia, despite the lack of evidence to that effect. If you are a
liberal looking for confirmation bias, this book will make you nod knowingly.
Other readers should note that this book accepts the controversial "Russian dossier" about
Trump on face value, even though the dossier has been debunked by Newsweek, Bob Woodward, and
others, while the New York Times (embarrassed by initially treating the dossier as legitimate)
has called it "unsubstantiated." This book's perspective on the dossier is to the left of even
the New York Times. At one point, the book references the publication Mother Jones as a
mainstream news source -- that says everything you need to know about the author's political
slant.
This book is very deceptive! beware of confirmation bias!
I just got through reading this and I have to say if you are looking for a book with
nothing but conjecture and shaky circumstantial evidence built upon a "dossier" filled with
VERIFIABLE lies from an operative that was hired by the Clintons, then this will be a delight
to read! This book will do nothing but reinforce your confirmation bias!
"... The irony of the NZ interviewer calling RT a Kremlin propaganda outlet while she works for a state run broadcaster and promotes Harding's rubbish book is stunning. ..."
The New Zealand flagship National Radio channel recently played an interview of the above
mentioned plagiarist Luke Harding https://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018624819
It is interesting to compare the free ride he is given by the interviewer, Kim Hill,
noticeably anti-Russian, and the far more intelligent approach from Aaron Mate of the Real
News.
The irony of the NZ interviewer calling RT a Kremlin propaganda outlet while she works for a
state run broadcaster and promotes Harding's rubbish book is stunning.
"... Well done interview Aaron. I want to see Trump go down, but we do need to have proof. That is called justice. He may have colluded to get dirt on Hilary, just like Hilary getting dirt on Obama and Trump as well but the outcome of our recent presidential election was the fault of the DNC itself. If PROOF comes out on Trumps wrong doing, then that is when you write a book about it. Not a book on trying to build a ridiculous connecting of the dots of similar situations. Yes, looking at past history is important but to make a fabricated scenario is irresponsible journalism. Until we have solid proof of actual tampering then we should do it the right way. I agree that Israel had more collusion and tampering with Trump yet this writer ignores that. Thank you Aaron for asking the real-questions. Much respect to you. Peace. ..."
"... Bravo Aaron! This interview made me even happier I was able to scrounge up a few bucks to throw your guys way recently. Harding seems a raging establishment shill, with his connections and past (journalist based in Russia, big opposition fan, Oxford educated, Guardian) I would be shocked if he isn't at the least friendly with Mi5/6. ..."
"... I see Russiagate as a reverse Birther - Obama might be a US citizen but he grew up in Indonesia so lets give him shit for it - All of Wall street has been taking Russian money for years, but if ur President? - so now they can slowly dig up innuendo and possibly evidence of dodgy transactions all the while minimizing Wikileaks and the systemic corruption it revealed - I think its mainly a containment strategy while keeping Trump isolated and its working well but for people paying attention we are seeing the system at work and what its capacities are, how much empty propaganda can be pushed even after something like the Iraq war. Also part of a pattern with past outlier presidencies where there is a concerted push to restrict them to one term and in this case amplified by embedded Clinton allies. ..."
"... Wait. Did he say Steele was involved in the Ukraine Coup? :)) ..."
"... A kitten trying to climb out of a wood chipper. This was not easy to watch. It bordered on abuse. The assault on this conspiracy opportunist parasite was a fine example of real investigative journalism. By publishing this nonsense and then agreeing to go on an interview about it in public, he subjects himself to the most brutal humiliation. ..."
How can this guy write a whole book about the "collusion" and not give a single clear
proof in the interview. He is a prime example of the Russiagate supporters. Good Job
Aaron!
Aaron is boss in this interview... damn I've watched 5 mins so far and this "author" has
shown himself already to be a complete tool. The only opportunist I see here is him cashing
in on this anti Russian craze that only serve the interests of Intel agencies and the
Democratic party insiders.
Well done interview Aaron. I want to see Trump go down, but we do need to have proof. That
is called justice. He may have colluded to get dirt on Hilary, just like Hilary getting dirt
on Obama and Trump as well but the outcome of our recent presidential election was the fault
of the DNC itself. If PROOF comes out on Trumps wrong doing, then that is when you write a
book about it. Not a book on trying to build a ridiculous connecting of the dots of similar
situations. Yes, looking at past history is important but to make a fabricated scenario is
irresponsible journalism. Until we have solid proof of actual tampering then we should do it
the right way. I agree that Israel had more collusion and tampering with Trump yet this
writer ignores that. Thank you Aaron for asking the real-questions. Much respect to you.
Peace.
Aaron Maté, you are gold. This so-called journalist was condescending and highly
unprofessional throughout the interview to point where he most likely cut the line because he
couldn't handle being interviewed by a real journalist and seeker of truth. His failure to
directly answer Aaron's questions regarding evidence of collusion show his inability to be
factual and impartial. The 'evidence' the author presents seems circumstantial at best and
unconvincing. Thank you, the Real News Network. Your high standard of journalism is always
appreciated by your loyal viewers.
I love you, Aaron. You and the Real New are one of the few who actually challenges this
ridiculous narrative. Trump is a horrible man but so is the rest of the US plutocracy. Making
him out as some sort of special sort of evil is pathetic. He wasn't hired because of the
Russians. He was hired because Americans cannot seem to understand that the changes they want
from the economic system here in this country will not happen if they exclusively use voting
as their change mechanism. Especially if they keep voting in the two fake opposition parties
for all positions. Also, Mr. Harding, we don't need to read your book. We've been hearing
this garbage through the mainstream media for over the last year. You are not providing
anything new or any actual proof.
Aaron: "What evidence is there of this?" Luke: "I was a Moscow correspondent for four
years!" Aaron: "What evidence is there of this?" Luke: "Trump is nice to Putin and rude to
other world leaders!" Aaron: "What evidence is there of this?" Luke: "What do you think
Russian spy agencies do all day if not spy? Huh?"
I despise Trump, but where the fuck is Harding's evidence for collusion? He responds to
direct questions with, "weeell..." and goes onto talking about obscure meetings with musical
producers or vague connections with Russian business men. Or, worse still, reminding us how
awful Putin is (what does that prove in regards to collusion?). And how dare he claim that
he's living in the "empirical world," when he can't substantiate his headline - collision.
Stunningly, he even suggests later on that skeptical people can't appreciate Putin! Cash-in,
little more. Good job, Aaron.
Luke is full of shit as he pushes hacking of the 2016 election. William Edward Binney[3]
is a former highly placed intelligence official with the United States National Security
Agency (NSA)[4] turned whistleblower who resigned on October 31, 2001, after more than 30
years with the agency. He was a high-profile critic of his former employers during the George
W. Bush administration, and later criticized the NSA's data collection policies during the
Barack Obama administration. In 2016, he said the U.S. intelligence community's assessment
that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election was false.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(U.S._intelligence_official)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv0-Lnv0d0khttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoeJeWfoSpQ
Aarons calm, but critical, questioning/demand for evidence is very refreshing. It has to
be very uncomfortable for a guest that is acustomed to mainstream neo-libs/con
journalists.
So this guy's whole body of evidence can be summarized as because Russia engages in
espionage then that proves the collusion? Great interview Aaron, he wasn't expecting you
to call out his bullshit, thought he didn't seemed at all phased by it. 10:30"I'm a story
teller." I think that sums this guy up pretty nicely.
Funny he lost his cool so fast and went into teacher mode, LOL! Good job interviewer this
is how "stories" get vetted no matter how favorable they are to you position. :o)
Watching this interview was like a breath of fresh air. You NEVER see a "journalist"
challenge their guests on network TV (probably because guests are pre-screened to fit the
prevailing orthodoxy). If we just had an army of Aarons doing the news, I think the world
would be in a lot better shape.
Good job, Aaron, thank you. It's not the first time I've been impressed by your objective
questioning and reasoning that may offend a guest but leads to the truth. Good, unbiased
journalism seems very rare these days
Bravo Aaron! This interview made me even happier I was able to scrounge up a few bucks to
throw your guys way recently. Harding seems a raging establishment shill, with his
connections and past (journalist based in Russia, big opposition fan, Oxford educated,
Guardian) I would be shocked if he isn't at the least friendly with Mi5/6.
And I wouldn't be
surprised if he had done work for them, which means he effectively still works for them (you
never leave the intelligence club, you keep getting fat wads of cash on occasion while
understanding that very bad things will happen if you turn on them). Again and again, he
presented arguments which were whole cloth bullshit, either 'facts' that were proven untrue
(like the bare-faced lie about Russian interference in the French elections) with laughable
ease by Aaron, or threw a word salad of tales of nefarious Russia being nefarious to somehow
'prove' something completely unrelated, that Russia got Trump elected with a bunch of random,
laughably tiny, obtuse efforts (a couple of ads on FB, some supposed Twitter trolls, RT,
Pokeman f-ing Go (!) ) which are all that has been openly claimed.
And there is NO REAL
EVIDENCE for that crap either, just the word of the always trustworthy spooks (a hand
selected group from 3 agencies, btw) and some heavily leaned on establishment toadies in
Silicon Valley. This book (I am guessing here- no, I have not nor will I waste my time
reading it) appears to be a disgusting cash grab on the level of 'What Happened?', selling
self-serving vacuous BS to credulous morons looking to feel better about the epic failure of
their disgusting, characterless idol. Also will undoubtedly be a big hit with the McCain wing
of right wing nuts, who have been itching for the fun of a REAL WAR (oh boy oh boy oh boy!
mass tank clashes in Poland! carrier battle groups attacking Vladivostok!!!) with the always
evil Reds... errr, Russians.
Disinformation trolls like this guy are willing to put in their
two cents toward making that happen. How the fuck they look themselves in the mirror,
especially if the have young people they care about, baffles me. But considering the Oxford
background and government connections, his kids sure as hell won't be digging a trench
frantically in ESTONIA (which I also have heard of, btw, you pompous, pompous puke). THANK
YOU REAL NEWS! MORE LIKE THIS PLEASE!! :)
this is another nothing burger by a member of the UK MSM this time who should know better
- Citing Chris Steele as a source for info is a complete joke - this guy needs to go back to
Journo school .
What a great debate by Aaron. Slapped that jackass so many times & revealed how
deceptive & outright false his position is. He has no evidence & is so
condescending/arrogant despite the baselessness of his position.
I find blinking isn't usually a good sign - I do think Trump has had Russian money, some
of it laundered, through his properties for decades and Russians probably have enough to
place pressure on him in the same way Hillary could be compromised by Uranium One, he might
have considerable debts owing. However Trump like Tillerson/Exxon and many others just want
to get into Russia and start doing deals.
They are over this Brezinzski like need to crush
Russia for all time that the deep state has got lined up.
I see Russiagate as a reverse Birther - Obama might be a US citizen but he grew up in Indonesia so lets give him shit for
it - All of Wall street has been taking Russian money for years, but if ur President? - so
now they can slowly dig up innuendo and possibly evidence of dodgy transactions all the while
minimizing Wikileaks and the systemic corruption it revealed - I think its mainly a
containment strategy while keeping Trump isolated and its working well but for people paying
attention we are seeing the system at work and what its capacities are, how much empty
propaganda can be pushed even after something like the Iraq war. Also part of a pattern with
past outlier presidencies where there is a concerted push to restrict them to one term and in
this case amplified by embedded Clinton allies.
A kitten trying to climb out of a wood chipper. This was not easy to watch. It bordered on
abuse. The assault on this conspiracy opportunist parasite was a fine example of real
investigative journalism. By publishing this nonsense and then agreeing to go on an interview
about it in public, he subjects himself to the most brutal humiliation.
Luke is part of the UK metropolitan liberal elite. Still in shock that HRC was rejected by
the US voters . Still in shock that UK deplorables voted for Brexit . His monumental
arrogance is such that he believes we were too stupid to understand the issues and therefore
were 'guided' by Russian propaganda. Aaron exposes Lukes lack of evidence
perfectly.
Kudos to Aaron Mate and the Real News for asking Harding serious questions; the upshot is
that this Harding character did not have shit to prove that Russia meddled with the US
election. Good job Aaron Mate and the Real News.
"... Tisdall's weekly spiel about the Evil Empire and its Dark Lord made many CiFers comment that he must report regularly to Chatham House, London, at weekends for briefings, after which he'd knock out some good, blood-curdling copy about Russia in order to please his masters. ..."
"... As a matter of fact, I think many British "journalists" Tisdall and Harding being prime examples thereof primarily work for the British not-so-secret secret service, that they were recruited at university and were slotted into journalist employment to do their business of propagandizing. ..."
Tisdall's weekly spiel about the Evil Empire and its Dark Lord made many CiFers comment that he must report regularly to
Chatham House, London, at weekends for briefings, after which he'd knock out some good, blood-curdling copy about Russia in order
to please his masters.
I don't think that's far from the truth actually. As a matter of fact, I think many British "journalists" Tisdall and
Harding being prime examples thereof primarily work for the British not-so-secret secret service, that they were recruited at
university and were slotted into journalist employment to do their business of propagandizing. That might explain why Harding
is such a god awful journalist that has had on occasion to take recourse to a spot of cut and paste plagiarism.
Tisdall and Harding being prime examples thereof primarily work for the British not-so-secret secret service, that they were
recruited at university and were slotted into journalist employment to do their business of propagandizing. That might explain
why Harding is such a god awful journalist that has had on occasion to take recourse to a spot of cut and paste plagiarism.
The book contains nothing but conjecture and shaky circumstantial evidence built upon a "dossier" filled with verifiable lies
from an operative that was hired by the Clintons
I think many British "journalists" Tisdall and Harding being prime examples thereof primarily work for the British
not-so-secret secret service, that they were recruited at university and were slotted into journalist employment. But at the same
time he is so pathetic that this would be embarrassment for MI6 to cooperate with such bottom feeders.
Notable quotes:
"... Luke Harding has found it, finally! The real, complete, final proof of COLLUSION between Donald Trump and the Russian government! Secret NSA intercepts, perhaps? Deep dark banking secrets? Sorry, folks. It's just Donald, Jr's email exchange with private lawyer and occasional Kremlin emissary Natalia Veselnitskaya. These emails have been picked through by every media organization in the world by now (why? Because Don Jr. made them public, all three of them), and they have all come up short. But for Harding, these emails finally gives us "proof of collusion." And it took him 249 pages just to get to this point, after spinning every looney-tunes conspiracy theory and crackpot allegation ever aired against Donald Trump. ..."
"... I call this the wouda-couda shouda school of pseudo-journalism, a crock pot spiced with insinuation and allusion. At one point, Harding even wants us to believe that Donald Trump's first wife, Ivana Zelnichova might have been a Czech spy! ..."
"... DNC CORRUPTION and GASLIGHTING with the Steele dossier being bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton herself. The knowledge that Hillary's emails were not stolen by Russian hackers but by DNCs failure to secure their systems and not click on phishing emails ..."
"... This seems like yet another attempt to divert blame from the guilty. Maybe Imran Awan should be asked, I bet he and his family have some interesting stories to tell about what was really happening at the DNC. This book is laughable, at best. None of the speculation within has been verified and has overall been disproven ..."
"... I am perplexed that Harding's account doesn't appear to coincide with Steele's under-oath court testimony. Was he lying to the courts or to this author? Can this book be used against Steele in the various libel lawsuits he is defending? ..."
Luke Harding has found it, finally! The real, complete, final proof of COLLUSION between
Donald Trump and the Russian government! Secret NSA intercepts, perhaps? Deep dark banking
secrets? Sorry, folks. It's just Donald, Jr's email exchange with private lawyer and
occasional Kremlin emissary Natalia Veselnitskaya. These emails have been picked through by
every media organization in the world by now (why? Because Don Jr. made them public, all
three of them), and they have all come up short. But for Harding, these emails finally gives
us "proof of collusion." And it took him 249 pages just to get to this point, after spinning
every looney-tunes conspiracy theory and crackpot allegation ever aired against Donald
Trump.
I call this the wouda-couda shouda school of pseudo-journalism, a crock pot spiced with
insinuation and allusion. At one point, Harding even wants us to believe that Donald Trump's
first wife, Ivana Zelnichova might have been a Czech spy! [p219]. As someone who has spent
the past thirty-five years as a war correspondent and investigative journalist, I find it a
bit disappointing to think that this is the best the Left has to offer. A more shoddy piece
of work I have rarely seen.
DNC CORRUPTION and GASLIGHTING
with the Steele dossier being bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton herself. The
knowledge that Hillary's emails were not stolen by Russian hackers but by DNCs failure to
secure their systems and not click on phishing emails.
This seems like yet another attempt to
divert blame from the guilty. Maybe Imran Awan should be asked, I bet he and his family have
some interesting stories to tell about what was really happening at the DNC. This book is
laughable, at best. None of the speculation within has been verified and has overall been
disproven.
I am perplexed that Harding's account doesn't appear to coincide with Steele's under-oath
court testimony. Was he lying to the courts or to this author? Can this book be used against
Steele in the various libel lawsuits he is defending?
The book contains nothing but conjecture and shaky circumstantial evidence built upon a "dossier" filled with verifiable lies
from an operative that was hired by the Clintons
I think many British "journalists" Tisdall and Harding being prime examples thereof primarily work for the British
not-so-secret secret service, that they were recruited at university and were slotted into journalist employment. But at the same
time he is so pathetic that this would be embarrassment for MI6 to cooperate with such bottom feeders.
Notable quotes:
"... Luke is just a fucking story teller, and thats it! Making money off of a book, in the middle of mass hysteria and group think! Great business move. I think ill write a book and call it "Got Him, Donald Trump will Eventually Go Down"! ..."
The Problem With Espionage The purpose of espionage is to keep your opponent at a
disadvantage by cultivating an alternate reality in their mind that is different from the
facts. Whatever the government or agency they work for an agent wants to distort your
impressions of them and their own personal capabilities. All agents want you to believe that
they don't have the capabilities, contacts, or powers that they actually do posses. By the
same token secret agents want you to believe that they DO have capabilities, contacts, or
powers that they, in fact, do NOT have. When deception is such an integral part of the game
you are playing it makes sense to assume that you know less than you think you do. That's
what actual journalism is about -- particularly when dealing with spies and espionage. In
this video Aaron Mate' is acting like a real journalist. Luke Harding is not. "Real News" is
getting the story right. Thank you! We need more real journalism.
Luke is just a fucking story teller, and thats it! Making money off of a book, in the
middle of mass hysteria and group think! Great business move. I think ill write a book and
call it "Got Him, Donald Trump will Eventually Go Down"!
Imho, this guy's full of shit. Not quite ready for a 'Reynolds Wrap' hat, but seeing smoke
where there's mist. Takes me back to when there were definitely WMD's in Iraq. To TRN's
credit, they did give him a hearing. Which is more than the MSM gives to say, Chomsky or
Hedges.
He speaks Russian and has lived in Russia -- so I guess that settles it. LOL Maybe
somebody ought to ask Sarah Palin about it, since you can actually see Russia from parts of
Alaska. And the French intelligence report is inconclusive but if you get more context from
reading his book, you will see that it may be inconclusive but is actually conclusive. (It's
complicated.) And of course, he's lived in Berlin and he knows people there, so that proves
the German elections were hacked too. And only the most hidebound skeptic could fail to see
the smiley face connection. If you read his book you'll find out all this great context and
facts that prove the Russians did it. It's too bad he couldn't provide any of that for us in
this interview. (This whole thing has a sort of dog-ate-my-homework feel to it.)
The main question NOBODY'S been able to answer me is that "What policies has Trump
enacted, political, economic, military or otherwise, that benefits the interests of the
Russian state?" As far as I can tell, Trump is either indifferent to the interests of the
state of Russia, or is hostile, directly or indirectly, to them.
I tried really hard to follow this story as credible without prejudice and it was just a
bunch of babble without any evidence whatsoever.. this is just a re-print and re-title of the
Steel dossier updated with MSNBC and CNN reportage
This entire collusion scheme is occurring because the Democrats can't admit that Hillary
ran a horrible campaign and she's a murderer and a war criminal. I'm glad Mate is putting a
fire under Harding's arse and trying to make him accountable for these specious speculations.
I'm not a fan of either Putin or Trump, but this whole "scandal" has been little more than a
massive distraction. I've speculated that the entire election was a CIA psychological
operation to influence foreign policy to appease certain elements of the Deep
State.
I dislike Trump as much as the next man but when the Guardian publishes this BS it will
only bolster Trump when the lies dissolve over time and the facts eventually come out. Sadly
you might have never heard of Dr Udo Ulfkotte and his exposure that the CIA has an army of
journalists on its payroll, especially in Europe. So why are you not questioning the
integrity of this individual in more detail. These are the type of CIA and MI6 stooges that
Tony Blair used to promote the illegal war against Iraq. When this CIA stooge says,
08:25 "I
think that Russia played a role in last year's election is a matter of fact. This is only
what US intelligence agencies believe" he must be assuming the majority of the US population
are just ignorant fools. The US Intelligence agencies also believed Iraq had WMDs and the
British Intelligence believed Saddam was sourcing nuclear material from Africa. This
deceitful idiot Harding still pushes the idea the MI6 published Trump-Putin Dossier when it
has been shown it was paid for by the DNC. So would you believe any intelligence agency whose
motive is a push for war? And the best way to achieve this goal and have the misinformed
population back the corrupted corporate government would be to promote this BS from this
sleazy CIA puppet. If you get a chance, have a look at some other YouTube videos of the BS
this CIA journalist produces: "The KGB left a sex manual after breaking into my home" or
"Putin is Building an Empire" or the ever popular "Putin May Secretly Be One Of The World's
Richest Men". Then may I suggest you look at any story on Russia by the truth-tellers, the
whistleblowers that have actually been prosecuted for telling the truth in this fascist
system: William Binney, Thomas Drake, John Kiriakou, or Ray McGovern. So there will always be
some imbeciles that believe this fabrication just as there were some that believed the New
York Times and the Washington Post about the Bush-Blair Iraq War rhetoric when the oligarchs'
real intentions were so clearly stated by General Wesley Clark in his admission of "7
countries in 5 years". I am interested to know if TRN approached Harding or Harding was
offered up to TRN as a CIA stooge to spew their propaganda. It is sad to see the Guardian
employ such a hack; sure they are now a mouthpiece for the Empire but they have done some
good work over the years. It is clear that Harding writes to influence the apathetic and the
stupid; he conflates innuendo and supposition with fact in his attempt to distort perception
and for the imbecile with no intellectual honesty; this is very effective. I find it
frustrating that TRN attempts to expose this garbage when the oligarchs' MSM would lap it up.
You would never hear the BBC or Maddow questioning this MI6-CIA stooge like Aaron Maté
did. Aaron has done a competent job; not an effective job like one would expect from Paul Jay
at questioning this farce but sadly, this is the best TRN has to offer. There will always be
a number of scared and pathetic individuals within the population that will always be
incapable of differentiating between fact and fantasy or between truth and lies. These are
the Useful Idiots of Empire and they have been used to justify and instigate Imperial
aggression since the beginning of time.
Maté wiped the floor with Harding. It's also interesting that Harding appeared to
confuse Russian espionage with what is essentially Mossad-driven sexpionage when he mentioned
the "swallows." He seems woefully ill-informed when it comes to dual nationality,
Russian-Jewish mafia ties with Israel and Anglo-American foreign policy. This is also why
Trump has been encircled with Russian corporate interests to a certain degree - they are
connected to Russian-Israeli underworld objectives. Hence, the real conspiracy here is via
Israeli intelligence working through its traditional syanim in both Russia and the United
States.
This lunatic Harding is trying to sell USA and CIA as pillars of truth, democracy and
integrity, playing positive role in international affairs. How stupid and sold can a writer
get?!
I love how this guy keeps harping the point that Mate should have read his entire book.
This is so sad to watch, our media should be as critical as this, and this shows how far they
are from that.
Interviewer: "Your book is called Collusion. What evidence do you present for an act of
collusion?" Author: "Well, you see, Russians are bad and they do bad things, and you have to
see a pattern of bad things, and Trump is bad, so <waves hands> you know, context."
Interviewer: "I didn't hear any actual evidence there" Author: "Did you read my book? Because
I say stuff in there that suggests that my title is true. Also, go to Russia and ask
Russians, because you can trust them about what they have to say about the US election. Don't
listen to me, listen to them." At this point I'm wondering if the author read his own
book...
That guy had become unhinged by the end of the interview. This is the same behavior I've
seen from Russia-gaters when every talking point they bring up gets immediately debunked. I'm
surprised he didn't start ranting xenophobic nonsense about how the interviewer was also a
Russian agent. I've seen this conversation play out this way so many times over the past year
that the fact we're still talking about this is asinine.
This is Journalism. You need to answer the questions with hard evidence, facts, links and
ties. Names, Dates, Times these have to add up. Donate to The Real News!!
Seems Luke wasn't expecting a grilling from an outlet like the real news. He's probably
not used to a left-leaning American news outlet that tolerates dissenting opinions on the
Russia narrative. A sad reflection on what the atmosphere must be like at the Guardian.
Thanks again Aaron.
This is a great exchange between a believer of Russiagate and a sceptic. Both guys did a
great job pushing their arguments. Shame you don't see this on the msm. They're too busy
pushing their editorial lines instead of being challenged.
What is easier? Russia pulling off collusion OR Russia convincing idiots that they pulled
off collusion. I think that both have the same effect on delegitimizing our electoral
process, one is just a lot easier.
ALSO if the kgb is so good and so well trained at this then why is it so obvious? The
perfect crime is one that your enemy thinks you committed yet has no proof of, because
spoiler, you didn't commit it.
Thank you Aaron for being a JOURNALIST unlike the guy trying to well a book, why not every
body ids entitle to profit from a nation which from here seem to be populated by MORONS! The
Guardian lost its way back in 2001 by toeing the official White House Line, it asked very
little questions, it was very thick on speculation (a bit like this moron)!
This "author" or hack journalist is absolutely ignorant. Clearly he hates Russia and Puti.
And is just fine to create lies and stories. This was a great interview by Aaron! Excellent
job asking valid, intelligent questions and holding his feet (and fables) to the fire. People
creating and spreading this type of propaganda should all be held to the standards Aaron just
held this doofus to! When asked real questions, for proof of their statements of fact and
confronted with opposing information, you just get stuttering and the same old line of Putin
is bad so therefore my lies must be true! No proof yet people r still writing books and
profiting from spreading a very dangerous type of propaganda!
This is hilarious. Everytime TRN interviews anyone about the Russian case, they - the
interviewee - ends up being flustered, frustrated. I am waiting for that obscenities laden
outburst one of these interviews
Very good Aaron! Finally someone's called out the fabulilt Harding, arguably the worst
Anglophone reporter from Russia, and there's stiff competition.
I'm getting fed up with this shit. Trump just sent lethal weapons to Ukraine. This guy and
his administration have done nothing but escalate tensions with Russia since he took office.
Sanctions, banning RT, Syria strike, buzzing Russian jets, the latest Ukraine BS, that Obama
refused to do because it would escalate tensions. I wish this guy was Putin's puppet, but he
is more likely to give us a nuclear exchange with Russia.
It was the USSR until 1991, then the US Oligarchs pillages the New formed Russia.I don't
even think that Psychics would have fathomed Trump ever running for President 35+ years
later... Idiot....
Trump is crocked in my opinion, but who cares about my opinion--NO ONE. So why don't we
just wait for the evidence to come forward after the investigation. If he is guilty of
something then we will know. Clearly Mueller and his team is NOT going to put evidence out in
the public if indeed they do have something at this time. So everyone is just speculating,
BUT that does not mean the investigation should be over because SOME people feel there is
nothing there. That just does not make sense to me. Let the investigation conclude just like
they wanted it to conclude when Bill Clinton. By the way, he should read the book (not skim
it) and then get quotes to ask. The author is right to call out the interviewer for not
reading his book, but wants to talk about---the BOOK! Really?
Just what is the proof that Trump is Putin's puppet? Is it the NATO troops moving ever
eastward in Europe, holding war games on Russia's borders? Is it the extra billions earmarked
for nuclear war preparations? Or perhaps the US troops and bases illegally placed in Russia's
ally Syria? One has to be an idiot to believe this Russiagate nonsense.
Luke Harding is so full of shite, I'm surprised it's not oozing out of his pores. He says
nothing new in this interview he just rehashes the narrative. Intentionality? Luke is
obviously not used to being questioned on his storytelling.
This fella seems to be more interested in advertising his book than answering the
questions. These Guardian article writers may as well write for Daily Express or The Sun or
any other gutter press
I wonder if Luke Harding thought that doing this interview would sell a few copies of his
book. If so, he will be disappointed - he doesn't seem to be very knowledgeable, to say the
least.
this guy is pissed of with Putin, and thinks he knows everything just because he is a rich
boy from Oxbridge elite, yet this wanker has not a single fact supported with solid evidence.
That sums up the state of liberal fascists. Oh God!
Harding never voiced any proof or real evidence of collusion. Speculation, speculation,
speculation and inference. I'm so tired of this. And yes, Putin's not a nice guy.
The guy said go to Russia, meet Navalny (a man with less than 1% support)..lol. go to any
country on earth and meet the opposition and see if they will have anything positive to say
about the running government.. they are opposition for a reason... smh
I heard a really, disappointing softball interview on KCRW (NPR affiliate in LA) with this
same author where he was presenting correlations as causation and making the same broad
generalizations with nary a challenge from Warren Olney (who could be an excellent
interviewer) , but rather exclamations of approval. Aaron Mate on the other hand does a
fabulous job of showing the Emperor has no clothes. So, big big kudos to him for leaving this
fraud in a stumbling, stuttering pout of ineffective arguments. This author is at best making
a buck jumping on the Russian hysteria bandwagon, and at worst is part of a concerted
propaganda effort by those who would benefit from a new Cold War. One can oppose Trump for
not only his vulgarity but more importantly he does, policy-wise. Unfortunately, many of
those policies are the same or just a bit more radical than many of the politicians whose
style is less overly vulgar and divisive.
At the end Harding implies that definitive proof of collusion would be Trump and Putin in
a sauna. That would actually only be proof both men like a good steam.
Luke: There are only two honorable ways to respond to the charge of lack of proof for your
bold claims. 1. Point to proof 2. Admit there is no proof. Only a pathetic weasel with zero
intellectual integrity would take another course. After this interview I don't even believe
you know any Russian beyond "can I have the check please" Oh, and Hillary Clinton is a
deranged mad woman. Who else would laugh like a hyena about being accessory to Qaddafi's
gruesome murder?
Mate' is nobody's fool. This is what an interview should be, not a beaming love-fest
between "journalist" and guest. It's wonderful to see a strong journalist who's informed and
not rubber-stamping BS to crawl up the ass of someone with connections. You go, Aaron!!! Much
respect to RT.
Aaron. Probably the best journalistic interview that I have ever seen. Anyone watching
this will realise this collusion stuff is nonsense. And yes, i despise Trump and Putin's
corruption.
"The people who promote the "Russian influence" nonsense are political operatives or
hacks. Take for example Luke Harding of the Guardian who just published a book titled
Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win. He was taken
apart in a Real News interview (vid) about the book. The interviewer pointed out that there
is absolutely no evidence in the book to support its claims. When asked for any proof for his
assertion Harding defensively says that he is just "storytelling" - in other words: its
fiction. Harding earlier wrote a book about Edward Snowden which was a similar sham. Julian
Assange called it "a hack job in the purest sense of the term". Harding is also known as
plagiarizer. When he worked in Moscow he copied stories and passages from the now defunct
Exile, run by Matt Taibbi and Mark Ames. The Guardian had to publish an apology."
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/12/27/from-snowden-russia-gate-cia-and-media.html
Thank you, Aaron, for convincingly exposing a shill for the Imperialist agenda and
committed cheerleader for the "deep state." Harding could do nothing more, in the face of
demands for evidence, than splutter endlessly on irrelevancies and assertions that the
Russians don't like us (gee, I wonder why not?!?!?). Excellent job Aaron: you are a credit to
true journalism.
This is the best video on the Russiagate conspiracy theory I have seen all year. I wish
people would remember that there is equal evidence that the US kills journalists; when you
hear people say that about other countries they're clearly propagandists.
That was awkward viewing.....but you can see why people like me in England went from
buying the guardian everyday to being dismayed to see the publication have such a skewed
agenda on politics that I now avoid clicking on their online articles. Basically the media
here is "London thinks this, so you should too"
Your sign off with a plug for the propagandist book, despite his abrupt fleeing of your
interview, was very civilised. Great job, I enjoyed the squirm and deflecting done by Luke. I
think he was well grilled by the time he left.
It should be acrime for so called Journalists to be allowed to propagate this abaloute
disgraceful nonsense. The guy is talking about 1987 - a single time Trump visited Russia
during the 80's. Next time he wsa there was about 5 years ago for miss universe contest. Yet
this is evidence or him being a Russian puppet. Total nonsense! No, this is communists
realizing Trump is a sledgehammer to their narrative. They are looking at political
wilderness across the west if Trump can do what he wants to do so in desperation they attempt
to drag out anything they can to keep their bs narrative going even going back almost 30
years...
Just to be clear: Russia hacked both DNC and Macron emails, and released them, mixed with
false information, in a disinformation campaign. The DNC emails became source of conspiracy
on facebook. Macron emails were never allowed to be published in any form.
When subjected to some skepticism, Harding's assertions collapse into vague "because the
intel agencies told us" nonsense. Hats off to Aaron for knocking down the Russia hysteria
once again.
Pretty embarrassing interview with this British guy... When he gives that snarky "oh too
bad you didnt read the book.." line i really wanted to hear the interveiwer say "Oh its
really too bad you didnt think to memorize one fact about the subject your being interveiwed
about..."
Now he leans on whether Aaron has read the whole book or not. I know I won't read it, as
the man as not said a convincing word in the entire interview.
Russiagate is a conspiracy theory. Let's be frank. It presupposes it's conclusion and
finds circumstantial and hearsay evidence to support it. "Collusion-rejectionist" Mate points
this out time and time again (not only to this guy) and this guy says 'go talk to people; the
russians do things this way; everybody knows; you are a fringe character for not agreeing' -
it just doesn't hold water. No doubt Trump has shady deals with Russians among others. The
idea that such a buffoon been cultivated since the mid-80s by the KGB as a Manchurian
Candidate wouldn't make for a plausible pop spy thriller plot - maybe a good satire of one,
however.
Omg this was fun. Btw, we can all agree that Pyutin made Luke to wrote that idiotic book
just to toss a doubt how he did not collude with Tryump, because there's no limit of his
cunningness.
Luke's stories, just like the whole collusion theme, is a nothing burger left out of the
fridge too long. So now it stinks and needs to be thrown in the garbage where it
belongs.
He probably published the book half cooked just for the best timing of the sale. Maybe
they need a better guests? This doesn't prove anything that Trump is clear of the
allegation.. Far from it. Probe will continue.
Crappiest interview ever. You don't read the book and then you spout your pre-conceived
notions of the its subject matter. Cherry on top, with a pro-Trump bias.
He obviously didn't bother to read the book , why bother to interview the guy ? They are
talking past each other , if he had read the book they could have had a descent debate . This
is as bad a Fox News segment . Terrible .
This clown only response is to stammer and stutter until the regurgitated corporate
propaganda eventually spews out of his mouth with very very little confidence lol
This conspiracist has not listened to Putin speak. If he had, he would not be painting
such a one-dimensional, comic book character of him. Can we please move on from such naively
simplistic analyses of global power structures? Any leader unable to manage Intelligence is
at the mercy of a Deep State -- as we have learned time and again in the US. Before
cheerleading for World War, start by watching some of the hours and hours of footage showing
Putin engaging deeply with citizens and world leaders. Try critiquing that. Maybe learn some
history.
In watching the video interview it is obvious this 'Journalist' has his own Personal
Agenda regarding Putin and wants to get Putin any which way he can even if it means lying to
the America People. He is no true journalist. Great Interviewer!
The more I hear "experts" push this stupid Russia-phobic conspiracy theory the less I
believe it...This is why I like the Real news and you're worth supporting. You haven't fallen
for the mainstream narrative... There are many legitimise things to criticise Trump on. The
Trump-Russia conspiracy theory is NOT one of them.
Opposition Research on oligarch Hillary and Don Jr goes to find out what they've got.
That's it? We already know that the DNC emails were an inside job and subsequent DNC coverup
to blame Russia. We KNOW that (see VIPs report on consortium.) Stop blaming Russia! Luke
Harding is a delusional red-baiting Russophobe. Were I the Guardian, I would sack him! He's
an embarrassment! Don't buy his book!
Hillary's rush to threaten military action toward Russia over leaked/hacked DNC e-mails,
which simply exposed some of their corruption during the Democratic primary process, likely
did more to further harm her chances in the general election than any memes or any efforts by
anybody else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz_dZ2SlPgw
aaron mate! thank you for putting this Guardian hack into account! brilliant stuff! once
more the Real News is exceeding my expectations, this was superb journalism and holding the
media gatekeepers an extension of the establishment into account.
Luke kinda had his mind made up prior to setting up this interview. Russian collusion?
IDK, but let's just see what turns up. Mueller's already indicted some people. The issue with
the Russia investigation is the excitement over it on both sides. Everyone needs to just lay
back and let it happen regardless of how you feel. Close your eyes and think of England, and
maybe something comes out of it. I would rather we were investigating how we got into Iraq
and the abuses that happened after we invaded, but no one should be opposed to an
investigation where people have already been indicted. Media pushing the war with Russia
narrative are being silly, but the same with media saying we shouldn't investigate anything
about this. ON the left we also shouldn't expect too much to come from this. Great if we can
use this investigation to get Trump out of office for something; if not, useful political
theater if the Dems would just recognize the importance of that.
How fair to give him a platform. Will you invite Alex Jones next? How about some flat
earthers? ahh right, it's only ok when it's mainstream conspiracy theory, sorry, totally
forgot
Aaron challenges Russia assertion : Guy goes onto tell some story how he lived there and
he just knows "Believe him" Because he lived in Russia for 4 years... ??????????? Goes to
assert further... Aaron responds.. "proof" Response to that "Well the history from the
1970's.... " PROOOOOF?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Look. I am fine with the fact that Russia might have
interfered with the election. JUST GIVE ME SOME FUCKING PROOF. Until then? Fuck off... There
are real problems to deal with.
LOL I loved Mate's performance in this interview. He totally flipped the script on this
crackpot realist. He felt like a dissenting person feels on MSM, if they ever bother to have
one on.
Telling how this "person" being interviewed spouts of a word like empirical when it comes
to an accusation with no supporting evidence so to him if you are accused of something that
in itself is empirical evidence?=horse shit propagandist no offense to horses. He first won't
accept there is no proof but when asked what the proof is he starts talking about his
personal feelings as if they are proof(superiority complex).
So? The "real" news is now doing book-promos? Shame on you - this is unmitigated garbage.
(edit: after watching the whole article, I'm still not satisfied. The problem with a public
"hatchet-job" is you give oxygen to your "victim" and get seen with a hatchet in your hand.
That does not look good. And in your victim's dying breaths, he will plant a curse on you via
those who saw you with the hatchet. Sun Tzu warns us to not give your enemy no-way-out ..
your forces are no match to those fighting for their very lives. It is abundantly clear from
the actual evidence that the 2016 election was willfully lost by Hillary Clinton, not won by
Trump. This is a result of Clinton being high in the cluster-B spectrum -she gets sexual
pleasure from torture and ugly death [Qaddafi] - whereas, Trump is lower on the spectrum: not
a sociopath/psychopath, but clearly a narcissist bordering on malignant. And I pause to add
that probably ALL global leaders are on the cluster-B spectrum of personality disorder. The
thing you have to know about cluster-B in this context, is that those within the cluster-B
are outside of normal social influence, such as "honey-traps" etc, because they lack the
compassion link to empathy - i.e. they do not respond to the tools which work on healthy
humans and tend to only respond to their own "world-view" in which the entire universe is
composed of themselves. Next: I tried to influence the US election by donating to Sanders -
so who is investigating the Australian "collusion" .. gimme a break - we all wanted Sanders.
Clinton gave us the choice of a sociopath against a narcissist - and we chose the narcissist.
And there he is doing the work he was made to do - to destroy the entire world-order so we
can, at least, start over. With Clinton - we all knew - it was lights-out for all of us. At
least with trump, the game is still in play. The lesser of evils. SO stop giving gas to the
commercial-distractionists - they are remnants of the lights-out brigade who are eating,
drinking, and being merry, because tomorrow, they intend to die .. the self-condemned. And
none of them asked me, or any of the others who would like to see life continue. The whole
thing disgusts me - dust your feet and leave the show - the finale is not worth sticking
around for.)
PS: NSA is currently monitoring, downloading and repeatedly viewing some of our children
for "security reason" ... Youth who are legally earning a living in the US as porn stars on
the net in order to eat, get an education pay student loan debt and survive in a nation which
gives little F about providing the true security realized via the the provision of privacy,
organic food from local heritage seed, pure potable H2O, clean air, access to free Integrated
Medicine, free and equal education and a comfortable roof over their heads, NOT based on how
much potential they have to move money for the corporatist-elite or the ethnicity of their
forefathers. How low will, WE stoop? @TheRealNews Pathetic
Aaron Mate that was absolutely BRILLIANT!!! You picked his bullshit story apart. Another
journalist making money on Russiagate. I can't believe I called him a journalist. Bill Binney
has already solved the hacking issue....lets move on. Awesome interview. Keep up the great
work...I bow to you.
I've never heard of the interviewer needing to read the book before interviewing the
author? Isn't it the author's "job" to plug his own book and inform the viewers of its
contents? It's really obvious that Harding had nothing to counter with- it was awkward to
watch as his Russian gate conspiracy fell to shit. Great job Mate!
Ugh. Another opportunistic "journalist" trying to capitalize on Russia panic (PUTIN!).
Great interview. You gave him plenty of time and room to make his case, and he just couldn't
seem to defend his position.
The Guardian was once a respectable news outlet. It both saddens and angers me that
journalists such as Luke Harding and Shaun Walker, neither of whom seem to have any real
grasp on the subjects they cover, are touted by The Guardian as leading experts on Putin and
Russia. Almost as embarrassing as anger-making.
Sadly typical of what the Guardian has become. This reminds me why I can't read it
anymore, just too much bullshit and innuendo sold off as fact. Good work, Aaron.
Aaron: "Are you inferring that because two Russians used a smiley face that's proof that
Manafort's associate was a tool of the Russian government?" 20:23 . HaHaHa!!! I don't miss
Louis CK anymore. This is the goddamn funniest shit ever!
Donald Trump just authorized the sale of sophisticated weapons to Ukraine. This ensures
that fighting will intensify on Russia's border. We can thank Russia conspiracy theorists
like Rachel Maddow, Marcy Wheeler and Luke Harding for providing a media environment that
enabled/pushed Trump to move in this direction. Mission accomplished, propagandists! World
War 3 in 2018?
the only collusion i saw in 2016 was rothschild zionazis, saudi arabia, isis, israhell,Fox
msnbc cnn trump, and clinton against bernie sanders and the people
''Kind of, sort of....air quotes...sort of...'' If Trump colluded with anyone it was
Netanyahu and other ultra nationalist Zionists inside Washington and Tel Aviv. It certainly
is not in the interests of America to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. And who
is Gerard Kushner batting for? America...or Israel?
This Harding hack is a perfect example of why The Guardian - a once proudly liberal
publication - has become another neoliberal propaganda rag. He also wrote articles cheering
ISIL in Syria, literally comparing them to the Republican Brigade who went to Spain to fight
against the Franco Fascists in Spain in the 1930s.
No, "you don't have to just take a look", this is more BULLSHIT for book sales. No way
Russia colluded in the election, no hacking either. This Russia story was thought up by
Podesta back in 2015. Peace
"I'm a writer & I once lived in Russia so I have to be right!" AND he says, "I'm a
storyteller." Well, that's the problem. Storytelling is also a synonym for lying.
That so-called journalist was so obviously bereft of facts and wore his blatant biases
proudly. That kind of crap might play well on MSM shows, but doesn't work very well with a
well-informed and neutral interviewer. Well done. "Collusion"? Maybe "My Cold War Fantasy
World" would have been a better title for his book.
Excellent interviewer, disappointing interviewee. Harding's red herrings, guilt by
association, appeals to "context," and repeated well-poisoning do not constitute
*evidence*.
It is because of these journalists is why I believe journalism is no longer a professional
of finding and presenting the truth. It's more of floating around a narrative to serve the
interests of their masters
The disturbing thing about this interview is Luke Harding not only is unable to respond to
Aaron's request for evidence but he doesn't even seem to understand that his conclusions are
based on surmise and implications gleamed from irrelevant material. I have to assume Harding
has had some education in the journalistic rules of evidence, at least enough to land a
prestigious job with the Guardian. And yet he is not only unable to submit forensic evidence
of collusion between Trump and Putin but he doesn't seem to understand what would be required
to actually identify that evidence to make his case. I have to assume the book only relies on
inference and innuendo to establish its case: Putin is a bad man who will resort to anything
to achieve his ends, hence he is guilty of resorting to any means to influence a Trump
victory. This kind of "evidence" only goes to motivation and says nothing about ability or
opportunity. (two of the three linchpins of circumstantial evidence. Of course this kind of
shoddy thinking is nearly endemic today among not only journalists and pundits, who ought to
know better, but also among the general public (most of my friends in particular). This
epidemic is so vast and persistent that I am afraid it will only be staunched by a
thermonuclear war. "We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and
then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we
were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time:
the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality,
usually on a battlefield." George Orwell
This guy is Mr Word Salad, Aaron really twists his balls in the best possible way. What a
pathetic shill, you can tell this idiot works for the Guardian. "Where is the evidence of
collusion?" "Putin is bad." "Yes but where is the evidence?" "Estonia, France, my friends
died, Putin is bad." "Where's the evidence?" "Putin is bad." Idiot.
It's ironic that Mate presents himself (by virtue of the association implied with Real
News) as somehow different from the (again implied) not-so-real news and then pursues a
pretty familiar "gotcha" approach to this interview. Mate appears more interested in proving
himself correct with his skepticism rather than at all curious about the author's point of
view as it applies to his work. This is more of the Same News I think. Or at least the same
games that talking heads favour. Mate, in addition, seems very amused with himself. That's
hardly productive to anyone interested in learning something about the author or the author's
premise.
I love how Aaron is making this guy squirm with simple, logical questions. Taking the
guest's own advice, he should venture out into the reality world out of his book's bubble.
The icing on the cake is when the guest starts (around 8 minute mark) flailing his arms like
a monkey in a zoo, to the delight of children observing the animal.
No offense to my Estonian friends, but Harding using them as an example of the broader
hacking trend seems bullshitty to me. I don't think any leftists skeptical of the Russiagate
narrative would say that Russia doesn't hack, or Russia doesn't attempt to influence foreign
elections. But if you're going to say that Russia has the capacity to do it in the USA,
showing they did it in France or Germany would be a decent analog, Estonia (formerly occupied
by the USSR and in Russia's sphere of geopolitical influence) is not. Am I missing
something?
It is NOT about Donald Trump. It is about USA and the foundational principles of our
democracy. IF there is even a small chance that the formation of our government is influenced
by the forces from a hostile nation, this IS the problem. Go to hell Aaron Mate. Idiot Aaron,
go to Russia and meet and the HR activists and see what the country is truly like before you
interview, mofo idiot Aaron Mate
Even if Putin directly helped trump get elected using his own personal computer, these ppl
are gonna fuck up proving it up tripping all over themselves with adolescent anticipation and
opportunism
Sounds like the Brits are stirring the pot, bringing the Russian 'axis of evil' back into
the mix. Think.. Did we ever have US sovereignty? What really happened back in 1775? Maybe
the US is just the military arm of the UK and is still hell bent on achieving global
domination after all. And the US has been annexed by them all along. Why else is this Brit
demanding that the Russians are still a cold war enemy when Trump obviously has nothing
against them? I'm having serious questions as to the strategic alliance and geopolitical
relationship we have with Britain because of this guy's views. That being said, there may
well have been collusion by the Russians to help Trump get into office. But that alone, still
doesn't prove Russia the 'axis of evil' or anything near to being our enemy. It's about
global domination. The NWO remember? The Brits/Rothschild banking cartel have been hell bent
for it for centuries. Russia? Not so much.
Mr. Harding is definitely having a hard time finding any collusion and he wrote the book
on it!? Instead of addressing our unfair, closed and black box elections we waste time on a
guy who can't seem to form a coherent sentence!?
Although there may have been collusion, Russia did not help Trump win. Hillary's record
helped Trump win. After learning of her speech to Wall st., it made it impossible for me to
vote for her. How dare she tell them one story and tell us what she thinks we want to
hear.
great interview Aaron, i also am very skeptical of the whole "Russia did it" meme. great
job asking for proof, i didnt hear any either, color me not impressed with the interviewee or
his hypothesis,
Manafort was a recommendation of Roger Stone, friend of Trump. Manafort and Stone had
companies together since the eighties. Harding doesn't know what he is talking
about.
Wow, a real journalist. MSM would have covered this conspiracy theory as absolute truth.
No questions asked, which is why nobody trusts them. Harding has nothing but speculation and
an obvious bias. I wonder who paid him to write the book.
Ooh this Harding dude was squirming in his shoes. At the end, very sweatie, voice is
cracking. It's impressive how he's able to lie for so long but he stayed consistent with his
questioning
Given Harding's long chain of illogical arguments in this interview, I suspect his four
year stint in Russia was heavily influenced by Russian vodka, from which he has yet to
recover.
That included a lot of criticism of Russia and Putin for a supposed Russian controlled new
out let. Again, there is no direct evidence of collusion and no evidence that Russia cost
Clinton the election
The guy's got nothing. I'd love to see some real proof but this guy is equivocating at
every turn. Re: the "France hacks" he says it was "inconclusive" but due to a laundry list of
unrelated other examples of Russians possibly doing some nefarious stuff he's willing to
accept it as a fact. That is not what I would call "empirical." "Muckraking" would be a
better term...
this poor conspiracy author was depthcharged by this artfull and rather demeaning
interviewer. it demonstrates the need to be able to back claims unless they are presented as
theories. I have not read this book but apparently claims were made as"common knowledge" that
could not be supported by "empiracle data". this also points out why no massive claims have
been announced by Mueller's team. all conclusions must be backed by solid data. I believe one
would be naive to conclude anything from this interview except that claims made in this book
are not supported by accepteddata -- yet.
Much like the circular arguments put forth by the pro Hillary anti Stein people. No matter
how much you request the EVIDENCE they keep repeating suspicion, someone said, everyone
knows....and CANNOT produce any evidence....and do not understand how that type of response
is acutely reminiscent of Joe McCarthy waving of the paper with those names...one never gots
to see.
On the allegation of Russian meddling in the French election, if I remember correctly, it
was not Putin who cut a campaign video ad for one of the candidates, I remember correctly, it
was Obama who cut a campaign ad for the French Candidate who won.
The reason mainstream media focuses on Russia is because of ratings but it is a huge
nothing burger. No proof no real connections and all the "smoking guns" turned out to be
cigarette lighters and the lamestream never retracts it or anything just goes on like all is
well. Good to see some journalistic integrity. The author was making a leap from "He's a
repressive dictator ao he must be guilty" with no evidence at all.
Excellent interview Aaron. Crushed it. Your guest has 28 minutes to make at least one
salient point and he is unable to do that. Wow! However, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting
for the next Russiagate shill to consent to an interview with you though Aaron. Just saying!
:) :) PS - Oh, darn, I forgot and gave you the secret code of two Emoji smilies!
Drats!
Luke Harding talks like he presumes all the rest of us just fell off the turnip truck 10
minutes ago. Uh... yeah dude... we DO know the history of the KGB and FSB, and yeah dude, we
know about "honey pots" and that KGB and _______________________ (fill in Intel agency
of your choice____) did them too... for... oh... lets see... a few centuries anyway. So what
are you trying to sell? You constantly keep using past circumstance as "proof" when it is no
such thing. You would get thrown out of a court for that... and ANYONE capable of critical
thinking knows, all you are selling is "LOGICAL FALLACIES". Hey... I don't dispute that you
will surely sell copies of your book to low information Kool Aid drinkers (You going to cite
THAT as proof that your book is "true" now as well?)
Is there any empirical evidence of Trump/Putin collusion in this fairy tale? Lol Why does
Luke insist we read this without providing real, objective evidence? He expects us to just
take his and his "sources'" word for it?
Re-watching this interview, I'm absolutely astounded by the vacuity and ridiculous
attempts on the part of Harding to misdirect the conversation at the same time that he tries
to prop up his own credibility. This is literally a primer in the 'art' of
Imperialist/careerist 'journalism.'
Why H.R.C. 'lost'? "And it's deadly. Doubtless, Crosscheck delivered Michigan to Trump who
supposedly "won" the state by 10,700 votes. The Secretary of State's office proudly told me
that they were "very aggressive" in removing listed voters before the 2016 election. Kobach,
who created the lists for his fellow GOP officials, tagged a whopping 417,147 in Michigan as
potential double voters."
http://www.gregpalast.com/trump-picks-al-capone-vote-rigging-investigate-federal-voter-fraud/
"it's opportunistic it's very often 04:45 pretty low-budget the kind
of hacking 04:47 operation to hack the
Democratic Party 04:49 was done by two separate
groups of kind 04:52 of Kremlin hackers
probably not owning 04:54 kind of huge sums of money
and and so 04:58 some of it is kind of
improvisational 05:00 the most important thing
is that you you 05:02 have people with access
which in this . . . " Wikileaks hacked the Democratic Party?
Oregon's Democrats vote for and support attacks on our civil liberties, love the emergence
of censorship in social media and the press, vote for the criminalization of protest, vote
for the militarization of police and the unconstitutional massive expansion of the
surveillance state. Democrats Hate All Life on Mother Earth. Love torture. Love Killing
millions of brown folk overseas. Democrats are steamy piles of Horse Manure. Republicans
& Democrats are criminal organizations and are EVIL and war for profit groups; they do
the bidding of foreign dictators before they listen to the American People.
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html
Hi NRDC; I have made many monetary contributions to your organization. You are evoking the
fear of Trump in this year end fund drive. Fighting against Trump is a democratic stance.
Democrats cheated Bernie Sanders and gave us Trump; both parties are corrupt and enemies of
all life on earth. Your organization is used for politics chiefly. I will find organizations
to donate to that are for the people, not war and corruption and not run by selected leaders
picked for their political powers and hate of common man and that actually love Mother earth.
Politics is 100% lies and that makes you guys liars and cheats just like the democrats.
Oregon Green Energy
Harding, show us the evidence. If you had any real, objective evidence, you would all want
to share it. You have shared NOTHING. None of you Russia-gaters share anything other than
circumstantial. Nobody who is "skeptical," or who uses logic and critical thinking skills has
ever said Russia and Putin weren't shady and oppressive, but that is not the
argument.
Why on Earth isn't Mueller investigating radical democrats for embezzling taxpayer money
for the Climate Change hoax? Maybe Mueller needs to be investigated for fraud and collusion
with North Korea and Iran.
Nice job of keeping this insane relentlessly endless narrative of Russian's changing the
election in any meaningful way. This is McCarthyism the modern day Maddowism. It's all
mainstream wants to talk about. Meanwhile in real life: 1) The majority of the population
doesn't have $500 in the bank to cover emergencies. 2) The War Machine continues to ramp up
to epic levels 3) The USA continues to employ their regime change diplomacy 4) The Life
Expediency in the USA is going down. Opiod's largely to blame 5) The USA is not even in the
top ten among providing Quality Healthcare 6) The USA is Number ONE in passing on the HIGHEST
COST Healthcare I could go, on it's exhausting....
This man is delusional there is no evidence of any collusion why is RealNews interviewing
this hack...watch Aaron Mate show this hack up. The Guardian is a right wing rag now don't
follow it end any association with them. Aaron Mate well done.
The DNC/Hillary corruption was revealed in the emails and they have successfully
distracted the public with a the dangerous fabrication of Russia collusion when the
conversation should be about the corruption of the democratic process. There are too many
complicit media and politicians so willing to go along with it but thankfully most Americans
are awake to the scheme.
In order to read the book I would have to buy the book, get it? An author should be able
to articulate their main arguments in an interview. The emoticons colluding was disturbing
though.
If you ask for actual facts of collusion you are a 'collusion rejectionist'. Hillarious.
Harding is a 'collusion conspiracy theorist'. Harding throws in the murder of Litvinenko as
if this, in any way, relates to the US election. It doesn't. Yes, Russian, US and Israeli
Intelligence kill people regularly for political reasons. Do I need to give Luke Harding a
history lesson? The smiley face emoticon issue, which Harding tried to swerve away from,
shows the level of journalistic quality Harding delivers. Harding deals in smear, supposition
and innuendo to sell books. The misleading cover and title show his journalistic credibility.
He actually raised as evidence of collusion, that Trump wasn't rude to Putin in interviews.
Is he serious? What a hack writer. As a side note, the CIA wrote the book in interfering in
other country's elections and governments. This indignation is a joke. If this is true they
finally got some of their own back. See how it feels?
For the record, this is what these people sound like on Tucker Carlson, too. Tucker had
Adam Schiff on and subjected him to real questions rather than the head-nodding interviews
Schiff is used to. Needless to say, Schiff hasn't been on Tucker Carlson's show since. Pretty
soon they'll start calling people skeptical of the evidence provided thus far "collusion
deniers".
Noted right-wing hack Jeremy Scahill has it exactly right. This guy Harding is just an
opportunist who knows what the audience wants. And he knows that 99% of the people who cite
the book will never read beyond the cover; in fact, he's counting on it. Expect the rest of
his little book tour to look like this: CNN, NPR, BBC, The Young Turks, The David Pakman Show
(tee hee), Huff Po etc etc
*You really should have read the book though. You could have seen that coming a mile away.
Why give him the out? Read the book before you attempt to trap someone with it. You should
still marry me though.
Harding threw all the red herrings he could find! Just because the man has a British
accent doesnt make him above scrutiny. Remember Louise Mensch? This was the sum (or scam) of
all fears: the Cold War , "repressive regime, "opposition crackdown" ,Soviet KGB, throw in
bits of Russian words.This was funny & painful at the same time. I nearly fell off my
chair when Aaron said "emoticons", that part was kinda
surreal.Talk to my friends! Go to Russia! I lived in Russia! I talked to the opposition!
I speak Russian! I thought he was gonna add: my best friends are Russian! My wife is
Russian!Niding is right Luke wasnt prepapred at all.Was it me or was Luke perspiring because
he was struggling? Why was he throwing air quotes? Thanks Aaron!
Brutal interview and painful to watch. I never believed in the Trump/Russia collusion fake
narrative. It doesn't exist. It was made up (FBI insurance policy) against Trump.
Great job Aaron to hold this author's feet to the fire and discredit his conclusions of
Trump/Russian collusion. I hate Trump and would love to see him kicked out of office, but
this Russia-gate conspiracy theory so far has no legs and this author is a posture kid for
this nonsense.
The author repeatedly returns to his talking points when challenged for evidence to
support his assertions. This is how ALL INTERVIEWS SHOULD BE CONDUCTED. And the claim that
the interviewer had to read the whole book to rightly ask for evidence to support assertions
is utterly ridiculous.
This is a very biased interview. Mueller will tell the last word on Russia meddling Trump
campaign. But you can not question the content of a book you had not read in advance as this
young man does. I have followed the issue from the beginning in CNN and other media and I
have read the book Collusion, which is worth reading, very informative about. So this debate
lead me think this "journalist" may be paid by FSB/Putin.
I would say if you are going to critique the Christian idea of God it's essential you read
the bible if you are going to do it in any meaningful way . I take it you also have not read
the book . This is like debate climate denailists, it's the same tatic , they take some data
and misrepresent it to prove an ideological point . What I don't understand is why . And that
goes to my first point , why even bother debate it at all ? You say he offered no proof , but
he was just defending matte attachs , which if you look into it, are not that credible either
. If he thought he was going to debunk all the claims made in the book, he should of read it,
as he just looks stupid . But if you have not read it either, it's easy to agree with him, as
it's not a genuine debate .
Another Libtard bites the dust, grand claims of collusion without the necessary proof.
Going all the way back the 80' and 90' to justify hearsay. This libtard should be put in jail
for defamation and slander for not have enough proof for those claims.
Luke's book is already discounted, being peddled for barely half of its list price. The
man is a fraud with an anti-Putin vendetta he's trying to settle.
His entire argument is a gish gallop fallacy......... They're throwing dozens of
accusations at Trump, all of them individually weak arguments. If thier were actual fire,
they wouldn't need all of the smoke & mirrors.
It seems (opinion = fact ) in the UK , just walk around and ask ordinary Russians what
they think . The tactical guilt trip as a defensive tool , when you can't answer question .
This is another propagandist colluding with we're not sure who? , believe me anyway , how
dare you not believe me .
Wow!!! That's the best news interview I saw in ages... calmly, respectfully but surely
exposing that joke of a journalist for what he is: a fraud. Tnx Aaron!!! Keep on
truckin'...
Russia seem to have gotten almost nothing out of this Presidency. If there was something
transactional going on then Russian intelligence if far more incompetent than people are
being led to believe.
His answer to the very first Question explains everything, is the collusion ? we have to
go way back to 1987. (I thought this was during the campaign) (IGNORE THE NOISE IN THE MEDIA)
if you look at it, clinton payed many millions from KGB officers to get info on trump during
the campaign.
What a complete fraud this guy is. This is the book version of the "Steele Dossier", just
a bunch of crap telling people what they want to hear to make a quick buck. Bottom
feeders.
Why are we listening? Why did you interview an englishman of questionable character and
background about a case that is in investigation and has not found a single connection. This
book foremost is for profit and attention for the writer's benefit. Can he produce a single
documents to back his statements? My guess is no. Everything he says is hearsay and fiction.
The very first question asked is redirected... always when a question is redirected you can
bet it's all garbage. He's just another babbling backward British pompous bozo looking to
under mind and influence US citizens of our elected president. Brits by nature are globalist.
The small island has for century plagued the world with globalist ideals of using people all
over the world to enrich themselves. NEVER believe a Brit unless they are speaking ills of
their own country which basically has 2 classes, rich and poor.
Great work Aaron. Its great to see an interview that challenges the guest to rationally
explain the basis of proof for this nonsense red herring issue. Harding could not do it
without clear suppositions and assumptions - no proof. The Guardian - my how its prestige has
fallen.....and that guy wrote the book on the collusion and could not justify his case. That
is why his feed cut out - frustration he does not encounter thru corporate media
softball.
It is far too early to write off the investigation into Russian activities in the 2016
election or dismiss how long Russian operatives will cultivate a subject (POTUS Trump). They
often do not know how or where the people they cultivate will eventually end up, but they do
know that they have a hook in them, for future use. It's how they've done business for
decades.
Good job nailing him, however, " Putin is not a nice person" - what kind of BS is that?
Not a nice person, comparing to whom? The Russians seem to like him just fine and that's the
only thing that matters.
really i cringe listening to that guy - that's how that whole bullshit story implodes when
not all parties follow some scripts. thanks aaron - well done. merry xmas @ all.
Luke Harding talks a lot of Nonsense and which kind of secret meetings? What the Hell? He
just making Money with his Book and the truth doesn´t interst him
whatsover!
HARDING has no SHAME... the fact that he can blather this moronic nonsense without
laughing is mind blowing. Aaron just wants to laugh out loud so many times... Harding loves
to offer salacious antidotes regarding how evil Putin is, however there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO
EVIDENCE!
**IF THIS IS AN ACT OF WAR WE MUST HAVE EVIDENCE!** DID HARDING - "the reporter"
(used loosely) contact the DNC in order to find out whether they allowed the FBI to inspect
or examine the servers. This is PURE PROPAGANDA... Trump's phone calls have been monitored
according to retired NSA whistle blowers since 2005. If there was any conversation it would
have been leaked there is absolutely NO evidence what so ever of collusion. The FBI has no
evidence and STEELE has testified in court that other than Carter Page's trip to Moscow the
Dossier is ENTIRELY UNVERIFIED. When the entire thing is shown to have been a hoax will this
idiot retract his drivel. PREET BAHARA -Hillary donor - is the US atty who allowed the
Russian Lawyer into the country.
"... Russian collusion/ interference = FAKE NEWS; Israeli collusion/ interference = BINGO. Every Politician in the whole damn world knows this fact but nobody has the balls to say it, and ''Hello Jerusalem'' Wake up sheeple!!! ..."
"... I don't think that guy knows what the word "evidence" means. ..."
"... You know what's hilarious? This guy didn't even do the basic research required to know the kind of interview he was getting into. ..."
"... Thank you Aaron, you are now the most respected and honest journalist left in North America! Your professionalism and demeanor exemplify class and honesty, which so diametrically compared to Mr. Harding's lackings thereof, it illuminated how ridiculous and speculative this whole collusion fiction has become. ..."
"... This Luke is either a Shill trying to make a profit by selling to Trump haters or the worst journalist in the world, He has lotsa of innuendo but no hard proof. No evidence of tape that TRump agrees to Quid pro quo with Putin, No documents of a deal, nothing that could convict a spie, just innuendo. "Putin is a bad guy and hates America" That is all he has. ..."
"... I bet this clown sees Russian agents under his bed at night. ..."
"... This guy is better off appearing on Rachel Maddow show. he would get 0 push back from her ..."
"... Nowadays the facts and evidence are not part of the news .. it is enough giving a good speech and choose the correct words and you can even convince the people that the earth is flat ... the same is happening with the Russia gate, think tanks will continue with this no sense until the people give up and start believing in the Russia gate ..."
"... How many times & ways & years of Luke Harding being proven a fraudulent opportunist does it take for serious media platforms to simply stop paying him any attention?? ..."
"... the guardian, crap reporting innuendo and vague and propaganda ..."
"... Well done Aaron! This was a rare opportunity to dismantle a genuine, probably unwilling cog of corporate subversion and hysteria fueled by money chasing. Morons like this "storyteller" help harmful misunderstandings deepen. Wars and untold misery are started with stories like his. ..."
This moronic Brit wrote an entire book? Beginning with a visit to trump tower by a soviet
era diplomat who made a factual statement about how lovely Trump Tower is? It is a beautiful
tower, and had I seen the Donald on the streets of NYC, I would have said the same thing.
After a year of no implication.of collusion, we are left with delusion collusion. If the
moron wants to make a great case, how about researching the names of tenants of projects to
which Trump sold the right to his name? Or the Odessan taxi drivers who sometimes drove past
Trump Tower? After 7 minutes, I wondered how the interviewer had any patience for the moron,
except to get his worthless and lazy slime argument into the record. Click. The interviewer
had patience.
Another guy who, when asked for evidence to back up his assertions, answers with a
non-specific hand-wave :'( Nice interview, Aaron - you asked him questions he didn't like,
but you did it politely.
Luke, on the other hand, comes across as rude and petty... not a
great way to present a viewpoint. BTW, I think it's great that TheRealNews interviews people
with various opinions, and isn't afraid to ask them "hard" questions.
Russian collusion/ interference = FAKE NEWS; Israeli collusion/ interference = BINGO. Every
Politician in the whole damn world knows this fact but nobody has the balls to say it, and
''Hello Jerusalem'' Wake up sheeple!!!
Thank you Aaron, you are now the most respected and honest journalist left in North
America! Your professionalism and demeanor exemplify class and honesty, which so
diametrically compared to Mr. Harding's lackings thereof, it illuminated how ridiculous and
speculative this whole collusion fiction has become. e.g. Green Party Jill Stein's guilt for
being at the same table that Putin sat at for mere minutes long enough to be included in a
photo, now smeared by the press as a Russian asset. I never saw Aaron raise his hands and ape
and gesticulate for added performance. Ultimately, when no evidence was ever presented (as
there is none to be found), this hilariously unfunny supposed-journalist, moreover fiction
author, invented the new term collusion-rejectionist, and promptly grabbed his mouse to click
disconnect and terminate his utter embarassment so expertly elucidated in this interview.
Thank You, Happy Holidays and best of luck in 2018 Aaron!
Bullcrap! Hillary Clinton and her Cronies, secured Trumps win, by how they cheated Bernie
during the 2016 Primary! Trump did not need Russia's, whatever you think they did, Hillary
secured the win for Trump because of her DIRTY POLITICS, against the Democratic Base! Hillary
and her thugs keep this up, they will secure the Republican Control in Washington, and quite
honestly, its what they want! Because I firmly believe that the Clinton's and all whom
support them ARE undercover Republicans, out to, and HAVE, destroyed the Democratic
Party!
This Luke is either a Shill trying to make a profit by selling to Trump haters or the
worst journalist in the world, He has lotsa of innuendo but no hard proof. No evidence of
tape that TRump agrees to Quid pro quo with Putin, No documents of a deal, nothing that could
convict a spie, just innuendo. "Putin is a bad guy and hates America" That is all he
has.
This man is quite hilarious in that even if Putin did hack the election all this
storyteller relates is predicated on the fact that, WE THE PEOPLE are entirely idiotic in in
the US. 'Tis quite condescending @TheRealNews
LUKE= So I think there is proof from my point of view but I don't have any. Only a feeling
and theories that can't be proven. No Evidence but Russia is bad. All oligarchs and
billionaires work with each other to make more money. Of course Putin and Trump had meetings.
So does Jeff Besos and the CIA.
Nowadays the facts and evidence are not part of the news .. it is enough giving a good
speech and choose the correct words and you can even convince the people that the earth is
flat ... the same is happening with the Russia gate, think tanks will continue with
this no sense until the people give up and start believing in the Russia gate
One question: What kind of nation is modern day Russia? TOTALLY separate question: Did
they conduct some insidious assault on American elections (as though corporations don't do
this already)? These are totally unrelated issues. The human rights situation in Russia may
be- and is- awful. But we can imagine an extremely murderous nation internally that doesn't
happen to be much of a threat externally
Sez Corporatist Hack: "...The Russian media were portraying Hillary as some sort of
warmonger madwoman." Hello: That's EXACTLY what she is. She said one of her first acts as
President would be to declare a no-fly zone in Syria, which Gen. Dunford, testifying before
Congress, said would require going to war with Russia.
But Clinton is a front for the neocon
wing of the MIC, and they have been lusting for a new "Cold" War on the obvious grounds that
it would increase the already appalling amount of US and world resources they suck up. The
war corporations are so driven for profit that a little thing like the possibility of WWIII
is of no concern to them. So they tell themselves the story that the Russians would back down
and go home; the US would then be able to overthrow Assad so the oil companies could get
their damned pipeline across southern Syria; and the Russians, angry at the loss of face,
would ramp up their defense spending, which of course would require the US to ramp up theirs
even more.
Neat plan for never-ending profits, brought to you by Hillary Clinton and the
Warmongers. The problem is that Russia does not fear the US, and knows that it has the raw
power to win a conflict in Syria if it wants to respond that strongly (look up "Zircon"
hyper-sonic missile, which they have thousands of and against which US aircraft carriers have
no defense). And Russia, being legally invited by the legally-elected President of Syria, and
knowing the US to be acting illegally, might just decide to respond if the US attacks its
planes.
And if they send a carrier to the bottom of the Gulf to stop American fighters from
interfering with their legal activities in Syria, then President Clinton would have been
faced with a choice: Go nuclear or go home. Which do you think she would have done? It's a
damn good thing Trump won, detestable as he is. We are not at war with Russia, and that at
least is ahead of where we very likely would have been if the Shill had slimed her way into
power.
Sez Corporatist Hack: "I'm a story teller." No doubt about it, because he's told a bunch
of stories on this video. The Guardian is worthless corporatist trash, and Luke Harding is a
lying propagandist. I wonder who else KOFF*CIA*AHEM is paying his salary?
How many times & ways & years of Luke Harding being proven a fraudulent
opportunist does it take for serious media platforms to simply stop paying him any
attention??
Aaron batting out the park these regular talking points so easily, It looked like Harding
has never had pushback on this. Twas interesting seeing him on the backfoot.
the guardian, crap reporting innuendo and vague and propaganda....what an ass. thanks aaron, for keeping his feet to the fire and not letting him get away with lying. very
satisfying to see these a holes not get away with it for once.
Everything this guy sites happens all the time with many countries involved. So the
question is, why isolate one country? This another case of creating a narrative, and then
looking for non existent facts to back up said narrative. Sounds zealous. I cannot finish
watching this. Good job Aaron.
Tough interview, while he has a point the book should have been read thoroughly, it was a
shame he used that as a point to avoid answering the hard question, "where is the proof?". It
was interesting to hear about "Trump's ties to Russia", I think it was a shame the author
felt it was acceptable to defer to his mistrust (warranted) and bad feelings towards
Putin/Russian power structure in order to seemingly (from my point of view) justify the
position.
This interview goes to show how difficult REAL journalism is, and how REAL
scholarship is very valuable. While the author has a lot of interesting points, on this
issue, I only see this probe/issue as a political wedge used to disenfranchise the presiding
elected president, and the best thing about this whole process is a clear illustration about
how bankrupt and politically corrupt DC is.
The confidence game DC is pushing needs to be
brought down a few levels, and some power needs to go back to the people. We all have our own
part to play, and being a victim, I feel is a waste of time, except as a means of holding
people accountable.
smoke and mirrors. The evidence is so over-whelming that if anything was going
to be prosecuted the trial would already be completed.
This is getting a lot more complicated than it needs to be. The buzzphrase that most
Americans respond to (like Pavlov's dogs) is "Russia meddled in our election!" U.S. elections
have always been "meddled" with. It's enough to say Trump, Kushner & their ilk made a lot
of lucrative financial deals with Russia that turn out to be 1) conflicts of interest for ANY
elected official and 2) abuse of (presidential) power. Isn't that enough?
I know that this person is trying to sell a book, but I see the investigation wrapping up.
It would be pretty hard to carry on for another year. After all, Mueller has said it has
completed all the WH interviews - and the ones at the top of an investigation are always the
last ones questioned. Furthermore, in the first three week of November alone, 4,289 sealed
cases have appeared in federal dockets throughout the nation - including the territories.
There are probably more now. No one knows how many are Muellers, but the 4 unsealed cases are
part of the initial group of filings. My prediction - nothing on Trump and Hillary goes to
prison finally.
Well done Aaron! This was a rare opportunity to dismantle a genuine, probably unwilling
cog of corporate subversion and hysteria fueled by money chasing. Morons like this
"storyteller" help harmful misunderstandings deepen. Wars and untold misery are started with
stories like his.
Seriously, RNN? Why do you give this puppets book play. Good for you Erin for questioning
him. He's on the wrong side of this. There are so many connections among Obama FBI, DOJ,
State Dept, Clinton and DNC to Fusion GPS that you're have to be a complete moron not to want
to investigate THAT collusion to swing and election. They ere spying on trump and associates
all last year. If there was collusion the leaky DC swamp would have spilled the beans.With
regard to this collusion with Russia, Trump seems pretty clean. The NSA should know exactly
who hacked the DNC servers the collect every oversees packet transfer. Given they have not
come forward with that evidence I am more inclined to believe it was a leak, especially given
Former NSA cryptographer and IC pro Bill Binney pretty much proved it was a leak when he
showed the transfer rates were only achievable at a local port. Not over the Internet.
Impossible! Trump is an international businessman, some as Clinton's who have just as much
shady history with Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs. Follow the money there is a flow of money
from Russian banks and players to the Clinton Foundation while she was SoS.
So sad you cannot read the book and you cannot listen and dismiss a really serious threat
to our elections. You did not even know what happened in Estonia. You demonstrate a real lack
of willingness to explore the truth with an open mind.
That was great! The emoticon proof! Hahaha! His tenacity was quasi-religious, especially
in the wrap-up and boils down to "There is evidence of collusion, even though I cannot point
to any evidence."
1987 all the way back when it was called the Soviet Union and was communist country. I am
an Independent, but get a charge out of all the lying and BS going on in the USA and the 2
parties and their zombie followers. Empires going down and the 2 parties are just puppets for
the Military Industrial Congressional Complex/Deep State. Big war coming and need lots of
unemployeed young draftees.
Good job, Aaron! What does the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko have to do with Donald
Trump colluding with Russia to steal the election from the hideous witch?
"... It's very interesting. But there is one thing that is certain according to McAffee (the McAffee) "If it looked like it was the Russians, then I can guarantee it WASN'T the Russians." ..."
"... Good comment and reading the last line, it has just reminded me of 'Vault 7' and what Wiki Leaks had to say. ..."
"... Vault 7 CIA Hacking Tools Revealed.docx... https://www.scribd.com/docu... ..."
Getting closer all the time, but Mueller's job will continue till the mid-term elections just to see if they can get away
with their scheming. The tale within a tale: FBI investigates and discovers they themselves are also part of this tale. The
story will have a tail: will it be a tragic, Shakespearean end or repentance by Hillary and Mueller (Duh...).
It's about the date / time stamps on the files, and the HACKER (Guciffer 2.0) was acutely
an Obama aid called: WARREN FLOOD. Warren Flood pretended to hack the DNC and made himself
out to be Russian with an alias of Guciffer 2.0. That was the smoke screen the Democrats put
out on top of the Crowdstrike false evidence job. It's excellent reading.
Thank you for the link and must admit it has made me laugh. A line I will use in the
future. '50 Shades of Pissed Off' - no doubt I will use it as my Mantra for 2018.
Yes, that Guccifer 2.0 stuff and the clear evidence that it was not a hack was published
before but you are now updating us by identifying the guy who did it, which should also
change the process. Thanks for that!
Update: Just see what Libby and Trauma2000 mean: yes, that makes sense!
In actual fact, it was Seth Ritch who 'leaked' the material (if you believe that Huma Abdeen was the original leaker and used Seth as a 'go between' then that is up to you). When
the DNC found out Seth was the leaker, the murdered him and had to 'think up a story' hence
Guccifer 2.0. There are several DNC employees involved but Warren Flood is the 'fall guy'
along with a girl (her name is out there) whom had her name on the software licenses that
were used to doctor the emails.
It's very interesting. But there is one thing that is certain according to McAffee (the
McAffee) "If it looked like it was the Russians, then I can guarantee it WASN'T the
Russians."
For me it is because of the truth: there is not much point being on this or that "side",
but when the truth is so twisted it becomes perversion and that should be uncovered.
Flood had already stopped working as Biden's IT director back in 2011, the only place he'd
likely have had his name on a license under the company name GSA based on his work history -
was there.
So, Guccifer 2.0's first docs were most likely constructed using a computer that had
resided in the West Wing office on June 15, 2016 at the exact same time as Pyatt, Nuland and
others (also connected to the Ukraine coup in 2014) were meeting there.
source:
http://g-2.space
(the person behind it is the person who originally wrote this "Fancy Fraud, Bogus Bears..."
article too)
RE: The Eastern timezone. - If referring to the NGP-VAN analysis, the timestamps
themselves don't show timezones but the timezone can be evaluated due to how timestamps on
files (that appear to be part of the same batch transfer on July 5, 2016) are displayed in
the 7zip archive root versus those in various RAR files contained within (and the different
methods of timestamp storage used by the different archive formats) and how this changes
depending on what your computer's timezone is set to (the time changes in the 7zip but not in
the RARs and the only timezone in which these have a close correlation is Eastern).
There was an article, that I read, just before Christmas Day, that supports what you say.
That Mueller has got to keep the narrative running, until they have sorted out the Mid-Term
Elections, that the Dems believe will work to their advantage. Is it something to do with the
Dems hoping to control Congress and managing to close any investigations that Trump is
working on?
Surprised with Fox. Considering old Murdoch has a problem with Russia, no doubt owing to
his interests in Genie Energy. However, not complaining, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and now
the ex-NSA on Fox News. Nice.
This is just the beginning: just read New Trump Executive Order Targets Clinton-Linked
Individuals, Lobbyists And Perhaps Uranium One on
Zerohedge.com
1. It will have huge consequences for all those who made shady deals with dictators and
criminals (adding to the coffers of the Clinton Foundation etc.etc.). Perhaps this is what
Trump was waiting for to start in the new year:his fireworks response to all the mud slung
around?
2. Seth Rich and distraction by Guccifer 2.0: Trauma200 comments below is BIG and makes the
connection to SETH RICH's murder, which also shows how Assange made it necessary for the
complete the search and expose with evidence what was going on.
What I am curious about, is will he use it for that or will he go for any foreigner that
Washington DC has a problem with. Such as anybody who is a friend of President Putin, just to
cause problems, before the Russian Presidential Campaign.
Or am I being cynical. I seriously hope he uses it for the Russia Gate crowd and no doubt,
he has good reason and he is not known to like being insulted, with no payback. However, I
can also see him using it as another form of punishment on non-nationals.
One additional point: Thomas Rid and most of the mainstream media keeps saying that German
intelligence fingered Russia for the German Parliament attacks. While this is partly true,
German intelligence in fact never said directly that APT 29 or "Fancy Bear" WAS DEFINITELY
Russian state sponsored. They said they ASSUMED Russia was conducting hacks on Germany.
See here:
Digital Attack on German Parliament: Investigative Report on the Hack of the Left Party
Infrastructure in Bundestag
https://netzpolitik.org/201...
Jeffrey Carr made this point early on in his Medium article:
One of the strongest pieces of evidence linking GRU to the DNC hack is the equivalent of
identical fingerprints found in two burglarized buildings: a reused command-and-control
address -- 176.31.112[.]10 -- that was hard coded in a piece of
malware found both in the German parliament as well as on
the DNC's servers. Russian military intelligence was identified by the German domestic
security agency BfV as the actor responsible for the Bundestag breach. The infrastructure
behind the fake MIS Department domain was also linked to the Berlin intrusion through at
least one other element, a shared SSL certificate.
This paragraph sounds quite damning if you take it at face value, but if you invest a
little time into checking the source material, its carefully constructed narrative falls
apart.
Problem #1:
The IP address 176.31.112[.]10 used in the Bundestag breach as a Command and Control server
has never been connected to the Russian intelligence services. In fact, Claudio Guarnieri, a
highly regarded security researcher, whose technical analysis was referenced by Rid, stated
that "no evidence allows to tie the attacks to governments of any particular country."
Problem #2: The Command & Control server (176.31.112.10) was using an outdated version
of OpenSSL vulnerable to Heartbleed attacks. Heartbleed allows attackers to exfiltrate data
including private keys, usernames, passwords and other sensitive information.
The existence of a known security vulnerability that's trivial to exploit opens the door
to the possibility that the systems in question were used by one rogue group, and then
infiltrated by a second rogue group,
making the attribution process even more complicated. At the very least, the C2 server should
be considered a compromised indicator.
Problem #3: The BfV published a newsletter in January 2016 which assumes that the GRU and
FSB are responsible because of technical indicators, not because of any classified finding;
to wit: "Many
of these attack campaigns have each other on technical similarities, such as malicious
software families, and infrastructure -- these are important indicators of the
same authorship. It is assumed that both the
Russian domestic intelligence service FSB and the military foreign intelligence service GRU
run cyber operations."
Professor Rid's argument depended heavily on conveying hard attribution by the BfV even
though the President of the BfV didn't disguise the fact that their attribution was based on
an assumption and not hard evidence.
Thanks for the article and reminding us of Crowd Strike. Must admit, I read an interesting
article, over on Oped News, by George Eliason, with regards Crowd Strike. Plus a few other
reminders.
Does anybody remember the Awan Brothers from Pakistan and what they were arrested for,
with regards the DNC and computers?
Then you have Google and Soros and their links into Crowd Strike. Hasn't the CEO of Google
just stepped down, the same day that Trump signed a Presidential Order, that might prove a
problem for some, in the future?
QANON EXPOSES DEM CONSPIRACY TO FRAME TRUMP, CLAIMS GOOGLE'S SCHMIDT PLAYED PIVOTAL
ROLE
QAnon also claims Debbie Wasserman Schultz contracted MS-13 gang to kill Seth Rich...
https://www.infowars.com/qa...
Remember, Crowd Strike, Dmitry Alperovic and his links back to The Atlantic Council? Then
you have the Ukrainian Oligarch Pinchuk, who happily invested $25 million in the Clinton
Foundation. Remember his Yalta Summits and the one back in September 2013? Now who attended
and what were the various topics that they discussed?
Then you have Obama giving Crowd Strike
a White House Commission for Cyber Security. Plus, the DNC refusing the FBI access to their
servers, but, having no problem giving Crowd Strike full access. Now why was that? Funny how
often Ukraine comes up, when looking into Clinton, Fusion, Crowdstrike, Old Ukrainian Malware
and The Trump Dossier? Coincidence or what?
"... It should be Clinton-Gate not Russia-Gate. It seems that once again, as with late 02 and into 03, the populace has been hoodwinked into believing government falseness--as with the non-existent WMD and invasion of Iraq. ..."
It's very difficult to get the head wrapped around the Mueller investigation as a contrivance to avoid going after Clinton, which
shows a corrupted intelligence service working for political ends and saving the Democratic Party, which needs replacing. The
evidence against Clinton is much more substantial than the continuing Mueller foray into inconsequence.
If you need more on Clinton
beyond the massive email problems she had to avoid revealing how much pay money she was getting, search on the DNC convention
entirely corrupted over to her and then the Uranium One deal. Why is all this not being investigated?
It should be Clinton-Gate
not Russia-Gate. It seems that once again, as with late 02 and into 03, the populace has been hoodwinked into believing government
falseness--as with the non-existent WMD and invasion of Iraq.
It's very difficult to get the head wrapped around the Mueller investigation as a contrivance
to avoid going after Clinton, which shows a corrupted intelligence service working for
political ends and saving the Democratic Party, which needs replacing. The evidence against
Clinton is much more substantial than the continuing Mueller foray into inconsequence. If you
need more on Clinton beyond the massive email problems she had to avoid revealing how much
pay money she was getting, search on the DNC convention entirely corrupted over to her and
then the Uranium One deal. Why is all this not being investigated? It should be Clinton-Gate
not Russia-Gate. It seems that once again, as with late 02 and into 03, the populace has been
hoodwinked into believing government falseness--as with the non-existent WMD and invasion of
Iraq.
Essentially FBI has pushed Sunders under the bus and as such rigged the elections. In no way
Hillary can become candidate if she woouls have benn charged with "gross negligence". In this
sense they are criminals.
Notable quotes:
"... And so Hillary walked. Why is this suspicious? First, whether or not to indict was a decision that belonged to the Department of Justice, not Jim Comey or the FBI. His preemption of Justice Department authority was astonishing. Second, while Comey said in his statement that Hillary had been "extremely careless" with security secrets, in his first draft, Clinton was declared guilty of "gross negligence" -- the precise language in the statute to justify indictment. ..."
"... Who talked Comey into softening the language to look less than criminal? One man was FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife, Jill, a Virginia state senate candidate, received a munificent PAC contribution of $474,000 from Clinton family friend and big bundler Terry McAuliffe. ..."
"... Also urging Comey to soften the fatal phrase "gross negligence" was key FBI agent Peter Strzok. In text messages to his FBI lover Lisa Page, Strzok repeatedly vented his detestation of the "idiot" Trump. After one meeting with "Andy" (McCabe), Strzok told Page an "insurance policy" was needed to keep Trump out of the White House. ..."
"... JFK wanted to break the CIA into a million pieces and I think Trump needs to shatter the FBI into a million pieces after these latest revelations. The FBI stinks to high heaven and have for quite a long time now. They have become a highly politicized federal law enforcement agency ..."
"... If any Joe or Jane Shmo at Boeing or Lockheed-Martin had done what Hillary did he or she would have been fired and fined or jailed or both. His or hers security clearance would have been permanently revoked. So much for liberty and justice for all. ..."
"... What was the original mandate for Robert Mueller? If after all this time he has not been able to find any connection between Trump campaign and Putin then that phase of the investigation must end. The Justice Department appointed him and they should put a stop to that portion of the investigation. They can always give him a new mandate to investigate Hillary campaign's connection with Russia. These investigations should never be open ended. Lots of money is wasted and it gives the investigator an opportunity to satisfy personal vendetta. ..."
"... This connects the dots in a reasonable fashion on most of the major issues brought out by what this is: the Clinton crowd/deep state effort to "get" Trump. ..."
"... The only thing I would take exception with is to call the phony allegations of the GPS Steele dossier to be "Kremlin" based. They might have talked to Russians, but they were not acting on behalf of the Putin government when they talked. These individuals were doing no more than telling the Clinton researchers what they thought they would want to hear so that generous payments would be forthcoming. ..."
The original question the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign was to answer was a simple
one: Did he do it?
Did Trump, or officials with his knowledge, collude with Vladimir Putin's Russia to hack the
emails of John Podesta and the DNC, and leak the contents to damage Hillary Clinton and elect
Donald Trump?
A year and a half into the investigation, and, still, no "collusion" has been found. Yet the
investigation goes on, at the demand of the never-Trump media and Beltway establishment.
Hence, and understandably, suspicions have arisen.
Are the investigators after the truth, or are they after Trump?
Set aside the Trump-Putin conspiracy theory momentarily, and consider a rival explanation
for what is going down here:
That, from the outset, Director James Comey and an FBI camarilla were determined to stop
Trump and elect Hillary Clinton. Having failed, they conspired to break Trump's presidency,
overturn his mandate and bring him down.
Essential to any such project was first to block any indictment of Hillary for transmitting
national security secrets over her private email server. That first objective was achieved 18
months ago.
On July 5, 2016, Comey stepped before a stunned press corps to declare that, given the
evidence gathered by the FBI, "no reasonable prosecutor" would indict Clinton. Therefore, that
was the course he, Comey, was recommending. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, compromised by her
infamous 35-minute tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton -- to discuss golf and grandkids --
seconded Comey's decision.
And so Hillary walked. Why is this suspicious? First, whether or not to indict was a
decision that belonged to the Department of Justice, not Jim Comey or the FBI. His preemption
of Justice Department authority was astonishing. Second, while Comey said in his statement that
Hillary had been "extremely careless" with security secrets, in his first draft, Clinton was
declared guilty of "gross negligence" -- the precise language in the statute to justify
indictment.
Who talked Comey into softening the language to look less than criminal? One man was FBI
Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife, Jill, a Virginia state senate candidate, received a
munificent PAC contribution of $474,000 from Clinton family friend and big bundler Terry
McAuliffe.
Also urging Comey to soften the fatal phrase "gross negligence" was key FBI agent Peter
Strzok. In text messages to his FBI lover Lisa Page, Strzok repeatedly vented his detestation
of the "idiot" Trump. After one meeting with "Andy" (McCabe), Strzok told Page an "insurance
policy" was needed to keep Trump out of the White House.
Also, it appears Comey began drafting his exoneration statement of Hillary before the FBI
had even interviewed her. And when the FBI did, Hillary was permitted to have her lawyers
present.
One need not be a conspiracy nut to conclude the fix was in, and a pass for Hillary wired
from the get-go. Comey, McCabe, Strzok were not going to recommend an indictment that would
blow Hillary out of the water and let the Trump Tower crowd waltz into the White House.
Yet, if Special Counsel Robert Mueller cannot find any Trump collusion with the Kremlin to
tilt the outcome of the 2016 election, his investigators might have another look at the Clinton
campaign.
For there a Russian connection has been established.
Kremlin agents fabricated, faked, forged, or found the dirt on Trump that was passed to
ex-British MI6 spy Christopher Steele, and wound up in his "dirty dossier" that was distributed
to the mainstream media and the FBI to torpedo Trump.
And who hired Steele to tie Trump to Russia?
Fusion GPS, the oppo research outfit into which the DNC and Clinton campaign pumped millions
through law firm Perkins Coie.
Let's review the bidding.
The "dirty dossier," a mixture of fabrications, falsehoods and half-truths, created to
destroy Trump and make Hillary president, was the product of a British spy's collusion with
Kremlin agents.
In Dec. 26′s Washington Times, Rowan Scarborough writes that the FBI relied on this
Kremlin-Steele dossier of allegations and lies to base their decision "to open a
counterintelligence investigation (of Trump)." And press reports "cite the document's
disinformation in requests for court-approved wiretaps."
If this is true, a critical questions arises:
Has the Mueller probe been so contaminated by anti-Trump bias and reliance on Kremlin
fabrications that any indictment it brings will be suspect in the eyes of the American
people?
Director Comey has been fired. FBI No. 2 McCabe is now being retired under a cloud.
Mueller's top FBI investigator, Peter Strzok, and lover Lisa, have been discharged. And Mueller
is left to rely upon a passel of prosecutors whose common denominator appears to be that they
loathe Trump and made contributions to Hillary.
Attorney General Bobby Kennedy had his "Get Hoffa Squad" to take down Teamsters boss Jimmy
Hoffa. J. Edgar Hoover had his vendetta against Dr. Martin Luther King. Is history repeating
itself -- with the designated target of an elite FBI cabal being the President of the United
States?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That
Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."
JFK wanted to break the CIA into a million pieces and I think Trump needs to shatter the FBI
into a million pieces after these latest revelations. The FBI stinks to high heaven and have
for quite a long time now. They have become a highly politicized federal law enforcement
agency who often collaborate with mortal enemies of America like the ADL and other "watchdog"
groups in addition to assuming the biases of said organizations against certain groups of
Americans.
They behave like a bunch of cowboys and police state thugs and their treatment of and
unnecessary raid on Paul Manafort's home was just the tip of the iceberg. The FBI is becoming
a clear and present danger to civil liberties.
Trump was a bit of a wild card to the establishment elites. He lived in the public spotlight
for most of his adult life, so his foibles were well known, and he had too much money to be
bought off. Mueller was given his job to make sure Trump doesn't stray too far from the
elitists program. He appears to have been cowed and is walking the straight left of center
republican line, now.
"For there a Russian connection has been established.
Kremlin agents fabricated, faked, forged, or found the dirt on Trump that was passed to
ex-British MI6 spy Christopher Steele, and wound up in his "dirty dossier" that was
distributed to the mainstream media and the FBI to torpedo Trump."
No worries -- as long as somebody can still accuse "Kremlin agents" of something, the
Establishment will be just fine.
Time for Mr. Napolitano to take his turn at the spinning wheel?
Second, while Comey said in his statement that Hillary had been "extremely careless"
with security secrets, in his first draft, Clinton was declared guilty of "gross
negligence" -- the precise language in the statute to justify indictment.
If any Joe or Jane Shmo at Boeing or Lockheed-Martin had done what Hillary did he or she
would have been fired and fined or jailed or both. His or hers security clearance would have
been permanently revoked. So much for liberty and justice for all.
What was the original mandate for Robert Mueller? If after all this time he has not been
able to find any connection between Trump campaign and Putin then that phase of the
investigation must end. The Justice Department appointed him and they should put a stop to
that portion of the investigation. They can always give him a new mandate to investigate
Hillary campaign's connection with Russia. These investigations should never be open ended.
Lots of money is wasted and it gives the investigator an opportunity to satisfy personal
vendetta.
This connects the dots in a reasonable fashion on most of the major issues brought out by
what this is: the Clinton crowd/deep state effort to "get" Trump.
The only thing I would take
exception with is to call the phony allegations of the GPS Steele dossier to be "Kremlin"
based. They might have talked to Russians, but they were not acting on behalf of the Putin
government when they talked. These individuals were doing no more than telling the Clinton
researchers what they thought they would want to hear so that generous payments would be
forthcoming.
"... The letters come a week after speculation that Trump wanted Mueller fired over recent revelations that two former FBI agents, assigned to investigate the alleged collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia, had sent each other hundreds of 'anti-Trump' text messages during the campaign and election. ..."
More than 40 bipartisan former government officials and attorneys [Deep State globalists] are telling President Trump and Congress
to leave Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller alone so he can do his 'job.'
In two letters, the former U.S. attorneys and Republican and conservative officials pushed back against efforts to discredit the
special counsel investigating [alleged] Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The letters come a week after speculation that Trump wanted Mueller fired over recent revelations that two former FBI agents,
assigned to investigate the alleged collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia, had sent each other hundreds of 'anti-Trump' text
messages during the campaign and election.
The interests and sympathies of British government are clear form this peace:they are definitely afraid about reopening Clinton
investigation. If British government was behind Steele dossier that was a very dirty job.
Notable quotes:
"... All of it could be setting the ground for new investigations into the FBI or Democrat Hillary Clinton's actions while secretary of state - something Mr Trump himself has suggested - or perhaps even for the president to order the end of Mr Mueller's probe. ..."
In recent weeks, conservative commentators and politicians have begun arguing, with growing intensity, that Robert Mueller's investigation
into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia is the result of an intentional effort by biased investigators to undermine
the Trump presidency.
There are a number of components to the case they are presenting, from doubts about the impartiality of Mr Mueller and his team
to questions about the integrity of the FBI and the Obama-era Justice Department.
All of it could be setting the ground for new investigations into the FBI or Democrat Hillary Clinton's actions while secretary
of state - something Mr Trump himself has suggested - or perhaps even for the president to order the end of Mr Mueller's probe.
Such an action would provoke a major political crisis and could have unpredictable consequences. For Mr Trump's defenders, it
may be enough simply to mire Mr Mueller's investigation in a partisan morass. Here are some are some of the ways they're trying to
do that.
Tell-tale texts?
Peter Strzok, a senior counter-intelligence agent in the FBI and until this summer a top member of Mr Mueller's special counsel
team, has become Exhibit A of anti-Trump bias in the Russia investigation.
A Justice Department inspector general review of the FBI's handling of its 2016 election investigations unearthed text messages
between Mr Strzok and Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer who also temporarily worked on the Mueller investigation and with whom Mr Strzok was
having an extramarital affair.
Some of the messages, which were provided to reporters, showed the two had a hostility toward then-candidate Trump in 2016. Ms
Page called Mr Trump a "loathsome human" in March, as the candidate was cementing his lead in the Republican primary field. Three
months later - after Mr Trump had secured the nomination - Mr Strzok wrote that he was an "idiot" who said "bigoted nonsense".
In an August text, Mr Strzok discussed a meeting with then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe in which Ms Page apparently had mentioned
there was "no way" Mr Trump could be elected.
"I'm afraid we can't take that risk," Mr Strzok wrote. "It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're
40."
Some have theorised that the "insurance policy" in question was an FBI plan to destroy Mr Trump if he were to win. Others have
suggested that it was simply a reference to the need to continue working the Trump-Russia investigation even though his election
seemed unlikely.
Media caption President Trump renews attack on 'disgraceful' FBI
"It is very sad when you look at those documents," Mr Trump said on Friday, apparently referring to the texts. "And how they've
done that is really, really disgraceful, and you have a lot of very angry people that are seeing it." He said it was a shame what
had happened to the FBI and that it would be "rebuilt".
Since the first coverage of the story, reporters have reviewed more of the Strzok-Page texts and found the two made disparaging
comments about a wide range of public figures, including Chelsea Clinton, Democrat Bernie Sanders, then-Attorney General Eric Holder,
Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich, and Mrs Clinton.
"I'm worried about what happens if HRC is elected," Mr Strzok wrote, referring to Mrs Clinton by her initials.
Why it could matter: If Mr Strzok, a high-ranking member of the FBI who officially launched the initial investigation of ties
between the Trump campaign and Russia, harboured anti-Trump animus, there is the possibility it could have motivated him to influence
the investigation to the president's disadvantage.
Why it might not: Government employees are allowed to express political views as long as they don't influence their job performance.
The breadth of the Strzok-Page texts could indicate they were just gossiping lovers. Without context, Mr Strzok's "insurance" line
is vague. When Mr Mueller learned of the text this summer, Mr Strzok was removed from the independent counsel investigation and reassigned
to a human resources job.
The Clinton case
Mr Strzok also figures prominently in Republican concerns about the FBI's handling of its investigation into Hillary Clinton's
use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
Mr Strzok took part in interviews with key Clinton aides and
reportedly was involved
in drafting the report that concluded Mrs Clinton's actions did not warrant criminal charges, including changing the description
of her handling of classified material from "grossly negligent" - which might have suggested illegal behaviour - to "extremely careless".
During the campaign Mr Trump repeatedly insisted that the Justice Department should re-open its investigation into Mrs Clinton
and, after backing away from the idea early in his presidency, has once again renewed those calls.
"High ranking FBI officials involved in the Clinton investigation were personally invested in the outcome of the election and
clearly let their strong political opinions cloud their professional judgement," Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte said during
a House Judicial Committee hearing.
There's also the possibility that there were more communications between Ms Page and Mr Strzok about the Clinton investigation
that have yet to come to light.
"We text on that phone when we talk about Hillary because it can't be traced, you were just venting [because] you feel bad that
you're gone so much but it can't be helped right now," Ms Page wrote in one text.
Chuck Grassley, the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said he wants more information about the use of these
"untraceable" phones.
Why it could matter: If FBI agents backed off their investigation of Mrs Clinton in 2016 it could be further evidence of bias
within the bureau that could affect its ongoing investigation into Mr Trump. If public confidence in the FBI is eroded, the ultimate
findings of Mr Mueller's probe may be cast in doubt.
Why it might not: Lest anyone forget, Mrs Clinton's candidacy was the one wounded by FBI actions in the final days of the 2016
campaign. Then-Director James Comey's announcement of new evidence in the inquiry into her private email server - perhaps prompted
by anti-Clinton leaks from the bureau's New York office - dominated the headlines and renewed concerns about the former secretary
of state. News of the ongoing Trump-Russia investigation, on the other hand, didn't emerge until well after the election.
Marital woes
When it comes to the ongoing investigations into the investigations, it's not just the actions of the principals involved that
have come under the spotlight. Spouses have figured prominently, as well.
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the bureau's second-in-command, is married to Jill McCabe, a paediatrician who ran as a Democrat
for a Virginia state senate seat in 2015 (before Mr McCabe was promoted to his current position). During the hotly contested race,
Ms McCabe received $467,500 in campaign contributions from a political action committee controlled by Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe,
a close political ally of the Clinton family.
Conservatives contend that this donation should have disqualified Mr McCabe from involvement in the Clinton case - and was yet
another example of possible anti-Trump bias in the FBI's Russia investigation.
"If Mr McCabe failed to avoid the appearance of a partisan conflict of interest in favour of Mrs Clinton during the presidential
election, then any participation in [the Russia] inquiry creates the exact same appearance of a partisan conflict of interest against
Mr Trump," Senator Grassley wrote in a letter to then-Director Comey in March.
Meanwhile, the wife of Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce G Ohr was
recently reported as being employed in 2016 by Fusion GPS, the political research firm that produced the dossier containing unconfirmed
allegations of Mr Trump's Russia entanglements. Mr Ohr himself
has been connected to Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence agent who collected the material for the dossier.
Fusion GPS's anti-Trump research efforts were originally funded by a Republican donor and later backed by groups associated with
the Democratic Party and the Clinton presidential campaign.
Why it matters: "Power couples" - spouses with influential, complementary political jobs - are a Washington tradition, and the
actions of one partner are often considered to reflect on the views and behaviour of the other. In Mr McCabe's case, his wife's Democratic
activism and allegiances could shed light on his political sympathies. For Mr Ohr, his marriage could have served as a conduit to
inject Democratic-funded opposition research into the Justice Department.
Why it might not: Having a political spouse is not evidence of official bias. The identity of the individuals or groups that funded
and gathered anti-Trump research and how it ended up in government hands does not necessarily have a bearing on whether the information
is valid or merits further investigation.
Follow the money
The individuals working on the Russia investigation have been billed as a "dream team" by Democrats and liberal commentators hoping
the efforts will eventually topple the Trump presidency.
Many conservatives beg to differ.
In June, as details of the special counsel hires began to emerge, conservatives noted that some of the biggest names - Andrew
Weissmann, James Quarles, Jeannie Rhee and Michael Dreeben - had given money to Democratic presidential candidates.
"Republicans are delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair," former Republican Speaker of the House Newt
Gingrich tweeted . "Look who he is hiring."
Ms Rhee's private law work included representing Democrats, such as Obama Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes and the
Clinton Foundation in a lawsuit brought by a conservative activist group.
Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz recently travelled to Florida with Mr Trump and
said he
told the president that the independent counsel investigation was "infected with bias" against him - a view echoed in the conservative
press.
"What we've seen over the past seven months of the Mueller investigation reveals a lot about how big government can end up becoming
a threat to representative democracy," Laura Ingraham
said on her Fox News programme. "And the more we look at the web of Clinton and Obama loyalists who burrowed into Mueller's office,
the more obvious it all becomes."
Why it could matter: Political donations and legal work may be evidence of the ideological tilt of Mr Mueller's investigative
team. That he has assembled a group of lawyers that may lean to the left could mean the investigation itself is predisposed to findings
damaging to Mr Trump.
Why it might not: Investigators are adversarial by nature, and as long as Mr Mueller's team builds its cases with hard evidence,
personal political views should not matter. While political partisans may focus on staff-level appointments, the investigation will
rise and fall based on perceptions of Mr Mueller himself.
Mr Mueller's waiver
Prior to accepting the position as special counsel investigating possible Trump campaign ties to Russia, Mr Mueller requested
- and received - an "ethics waiver" for possible conflicts of interest from the US Department of Justice.
The government has confirmed the existence of the waiver but has not revealed any details, although speculation at the time was
that it had to do with Mr Mueller's work at the law firm WilmerHale, which represented former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort
- who Mr Mueller has since indicted on money-laundering charges - and the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Why it could matter: Without further information about the nature of the waiver,
some are
speculating that there is more to this request than simply routine ethical paperwork. Given that Mr Mueller is a former director
of the FBI, with ties to many of the bureau officials who are now coming under conservative scrutiny, Mr Mueller's own allegiances
are being called into question.
Why it might not: Mr Mueller is a decorated war veteran who, prior to taking the special counsel role was widely praised for his
independence and probity. He was appointed FBI head by Republican George W Bush in 2001. If Mr Mueller's waiver had explosive details
indicating clear bias, it probably would have leaked by now.
The second point we want to make, relates to Mueller himself whofar from being a "stand-up fellow" with a spotless record, and
an unshakable commitment to principleis not the exemplar people seem to think he is. In fact, his personal integrity and credibility
are greatly in doubt. Here's a little background on Mueller from former-FBI Special Agent Colleen Rowley who was named Time's Person
of the Year in 2002:
"Mueller's FBI was also severely criticized by Department of Justice Inspector Generals finding the FBI overstepped the law
improperly serving hundreds of thousands of "national security letters" to obtain private (and irrelevant) metadata on citizens,
and for infiltrating nonviolent anti-war groups under the guise of investigating "terrorism."
Comey and Mueller were complicit with implementing a form of martial law, perpetrated via secret Office of Legal Counsel memos
mainly written by John Yoo and predicated upon Yoo's singular theories of absolute "imperial" or "war presidency" powers, and
requiring Ashcroft every 90 days to renew certification of a "state of emergency."
Mueller was even okay with the CIA conducting torture programs after his own agents warned against participation. Agents were
simply instructed not to document such torture, and any "war crimes files" were made to disappear. Not only did "collect it all"
surveillance and torture programs continue, but Mueller's (and then Comey's) FBI later worked to prosecute NSA and CIA whistleblowers
who revealed these illegalities
Mueller didn't speak the truth about a war he knew to be unjustified. He didn't speak out against torture. He didn't speak
out against unconstitutional surveillance. And he didn't tell the truth about 9/11." ("Comey and Mueller: Russia-gate's Mythical
Heroes", Colleen Rowley, Counterpunch)
Illegal spying on American citizens? Infiltration of nonviolent anti-war groups? Martial law? Torture??
This is NOT how Mueller is portrayed in the media, is it?
The fact is, Mueller is no elder statesman or paragon of virtue. He's a political assassin whose task is to take down Trump at
all cost. Unfortunately for Mueller, the credibility of his investigation is beginning to wane as conflicts of interest mount and
public confidence dwindles. After 18 months of relentless propaganda and political skullduggery, the Russia-gate fiction is beginning
to unravel.
Please, let Mueller stay to become a poster boy for borgistas. With each day, the incompetence of the CIA' and FBI' brass has
been revealing with the greater and greater clarity. They have sold out the US citizenry for personal gains.
Rod Rosenstein' role in particular should be well investigated so that his name becomes tightly connected to the "dossier" and
all its racy tales.
" there was never sufficient reason to appoint a Special Counsel. The threshold for making such an appointment should have been
probable cause, that is, deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should have shown why he thought there was 'reasonable basis to
believe that a crime had been committed.' That's what's required under the Fourth Amendment, and that's the standard that
should have been met. But Rosenstein ignored that rule because it improved the Special Counsel's chances of netting indictments.
Even so, there's no evidence that a crime has been committed. None."
-- Anti-Consttutonal activity by Rod Rosenstein = Treason.
You mean, we should have better read the New Times and WaPo instead, in order to get the "gigantic scope of the investigation?"
-- Thank you very much. But these ziocons' nests have not provided any hard facts related to the main goal of this particular
investigation. However, a true and immense value of the investigation is the exposure of the incompetence of and political manipulations
by the FBI deciders -- as well as the sausage making under Clinton leadership in the DNC kitchen.
"It should have never been started. Trump and his administration screwed themselves."
Disagree.
The investigation is the best thing for the US. It has exposed traitors (leakers) in the US government, the corruption of the
FBI (which provided the leaks and did not investigate the allegedly hacked DNC computers and white-washed Clinton's criminal negligence),
and the spectacular incompetence of the DNC-FBI deciders (the cooperation with foreigners in order to derail the governance of
the US by the elected POTUS). Cannot wait to hear more about Awan affair (the greatest breach of the US cybersecurity under the
watch of the current FBI brass) and about the investigation of Seth Rich murder.
For those familiar with Mueller, the blunt-force approach taken toward the GSA is something of a signature of Mueller and
his heavy-handed associates like Andrew Weissmann. As I have previously written, Mueller has a controversial record in attacking
attorney-client privilege as well as harsh tactics against targets. As a U.S. attorney, he was accused of bugging an attorney-client
conversation, and as special counsel he forced (with the approval of a federal judge) the attorney of Paul Manafort to become
a witness against her own client. Weissmann's record is even more controversial, including major reversals in past prosecutions
for exceeding the scope of the criminal code or questionable ethical conduct.
Nor will any be produced either. If Trump were to drop dead tomorrow or, alternatively, decide to pack it in and go back to
running hotels, Mueller's Star Chamber Committee would close down the day after. Mueller is a tool of The Powers That Be. And
they want Trump OUT -- no matter what the cost.
Just hours after FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe delivered private testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, his boss,
FBI Director Christopher Wray, announced that the bureau's top lawyer would be leaving his post, an attempt to bring in "new blood"
to an agency whose reputation has been hopelessly compromised by revelations that agents' partisan bias may have influenced two high-profile
investigations involving President Donald Trump and his former campaign rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
As the
Washington Post reported, the FBI's top lawyer, James Baker, is being reassigned.
WaPo says Baker's removal is part of Wray's effort to assemble his own team of senior advisers while he tries to defuse allegations
of partisanship that have plagued the bureau in recent months.
James Baker
But reports published over the summer said Baker was "the top suspect" in an interagency leak investigation, as
we reported back in July
Three sources, with knowledge of the investigation, told Circa that Baker is the top suspect in an ongoing leak investigation,
but Circa has not been able to confirm the details of what national security information or material was allegedly leaked.
A federal law enforcement official with knowledge of ongoing internal investigations in the bureau told Circa, "the bureau
is scouring for leakers and there's been a lot of investigations."
The revelation comes as the Trump administration has ramped up efforts to contain leaks both within the White House and within
its own national security apparatus.
The news of the staff shakeup comes as Trump and his political allies have promised to "rebuild" the FBI to make it "bigger and
better than ever" following its "disgraceful" conduct over the Trump probe . Baker played a key role in the agency's handling of
major cases and policy debates in recent years, including the FBI's unsuccessful battle with Apple over the growing use of encryption
in cellphones.
Just like Clapper admitting to perjuring himself before congress and he is brought on TV to comment as if he is a decent person
instead of being thrown in prison like anyone else would be.
Yet another "national security parasite". Watt intentionally lied about wiretapping
Notable quotes:
"... "When he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, former FBI agent Clint Watts described how Russians used armies of Twitter bots to spread fake news using accounts that seem to be Midwestern swing-voter Republicans. ..."
"... In an interview Monday with NPR's Kelly McEvers, Watts, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, says the Russian misinformation campaign didn't stop with the election of President Trump. ..."
"... One example, he says, is Trump's claim that he was wiretapped at Trump Tower by the Obama administration. "When they do that, they'll then respond to the wiretapping claim with further conspiracy theories about that claim and that just amplifies the message in the ecosystem," Watts says. ..."
"... The White House has blamed Democrats for the allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. election, saying the theory is a way to shift the blame for their election loss. ..."
"How Russian Twitter Bots Pumped Out Fake News During The 2016 Election"
Listen 4:17
'Heard on All Things Considered' by Gabe O'Connor & Avie Schneider...April 3, 2017...4:53 PM ET
"When he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, former FBI agent Clint Watts described how Russians
used armies of Twitter bots to spread fake news using accounts that seem to be Midwestern swing-voter Republicans.
"So that way whenever you're trying to socially engineer them and convince them that the information is true, it's much more
simple because you see somebody and they look exactly like you, even down to the pictures," Watts told the panel, which is investigating
Russia's role in interfering in the U.S. elections.
In an interview Monday with NPR's Kelly McEvers, Watts, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, says
the Russian misinformation campaign didn't stop with the election of President Trump.
"If you went online today, you could see these accounts -- either bots or actual personas somewhere -- that are trying to connect
with the administration. They might broadcast stories and then follow up with another tweet that tries to gain the president's
attention, or they'll try and answer the tweets that the president puts out," Watts says.
Watts, a cybersecurity expert, says he's been tracking this sort of activity by the Russians for more than three years.
"It's a circular system. Sometimes the propaganda outlets themselves will put out false or manipulated stories. Other times,
the president will go with a conspiracy."
One example, he says, is Trump's claim that he was wiretapped at Trump Tower by the Obama administration. "When they do
that, they'll then respond to the wiretapping claim with further conspiracy theories about that claim and that just amplifies
the message in the ecosystem," Watts says.
"Every time a conspiracy is floated from the administration, it provides every outlet around the world, in fact, an opportunity
to amplify that conspiracy and to add more manipulated truths or falsehoods onto it."
Watts says the effort is being conducted by a "very diffuse network." It involves competing efforts "even amongst hackers between
different parts of Russian intelligence and propagandists -- all with general guidelines about what to pursue, but doing it at
different times and paces and rhythms."
The White House has blamed Democrats for the allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. election, saying the theory
is a way to shift the blame for their election loss.
But Watts says "it's way bigger" than that. "What was being done by nation-states in the social media influence landscape was
so much more significant than the other things that were being talked about," including the Islamic State's use of social media
to recruit followers, he says."
"... Comey, for his part, wrote a memo alleging Trump had asked him to drop his investigation into Flynn, an act which some say could constitute obstruction of justice and thus grounds for seeking Trump's impeachment. ..."
Comey, for his part, wrote a memo alleging Trump had asked him to drop his investigation into Flynn, an act which some say
could constitute obstruction of justice and thus grounds for seeking Trump's impeachment.
"... Scared and panicking Evelyn Farkas spilled the beans. By saying "I became very worried..." she's obviously trying to justify her behavior in case a legal bomb is dropped on her. This is a side effect of Nunes' dramatized little trip to the White House intelligence secure facilities: as long as they don't know Nunes and Trump's hands, panic will bring more people to come forward and look for some kind of justification and/or protection. ..."
Obama and Clinton thought they had the election in the bag. They broke surveillance laws thinking that Clinton would be in
the Whitehouse to cover it anyway. Imagine their shock on election day when they realized how many felonies would be exposed when
Trump took over.........cover-up.
Look at her face at 2:06 ... Scared and panicking
Evelyn Farkas spilled the beans. By saying "I became very worried..." she's obviously trying to justify her behavior in case a
legal bomb is dropped on her. This is a side effect of Nunes' dramatized little trip to the White House intelligence secure facilities:
as long as they don't know Nunes and Trump's hands, panic will bring more people to come forward and look for some kind of justification
and/or protection.
Congressman Tells Rod Rosenstein That James Comey BROKE THE LAW then Rosenstein Agrees! 12/13/17
Congressman Louie Gohmert brings up the fact that past FBI Director James Comey broke federal law and FBI employee policy by intentionally
leaking a memo of his conversations with President Donald Trump to a friend to then leak to the press. Deputy Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein then agrees with the Congressman.
"... In addition to Strzok's "gross negligence" --> "extremely careless" edit, McCabe's damage control team removed a key justification for elevating Clinton's actions to the standard of "gross negligence" - that being the " sheer volume " of classified material on Clinton's server. In the original draft, the "sheer volume" of material "supports an inference that the participants were grossly negligent in their handling of that information." ..."
"... It's also possible that the FBI, which was not allowed to inspect the DNC servers, was uncomfortable standing behind the conclusion of Russian hacking reached by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. ..."
"... Johnson's letter also questions an " insurance policy " referenced in a text message sent by demoted FBI investigator Peter Strzok to his mistress, FBI attorney Lisa Page, which read " I want to believe the path you threw out to 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...." ..."
"... One wonders if the "insurance policy" Strzok sent to Page on August 15, 2016 was in reference to the original counterintelligence operation launched against Trump of which Strzok became the lead investigator in "late July" 2016? Of note, Strzok reported directly to Bill Priestap - the director of Counterintelligence, who told James Comey not to inform congress that the FBI had launched a counterintelligence operation against then-candidate Trump, per Comey's March 20th testimony to the House Intelligence Committee. (h/t @TheLastRefuge2 ) ..."
"... That's not to say Hillary shouldn't have been prosecuted. But what we're seeing here looks like perfectly normal behavior once the decision has been made not to prosecute; get the statements to be consistent with the conclusion. In a bureaucracy, that requires a number of people to be involved. And it would necessarily include people who work for Hillary Clinton, since that's whose information is being discussed. ..."
"... And the stuff about how a foreign power might have, or might possibly have, accessed her emails is all BS too. We already know they weren't hacked, they were leaked. ..."
"... Maybe people who don't understand complicated organizations see something nefarious here, but nobody who does will. Nothing will come of this but some staged-for-TV dramatic pronouncements in the House, and on FOX News, and affiliated websites. There's nothing here. ..."
"... Debatable re. biggest story being kept quiet. The AWAN Brothers/Family is a Pakistani spy ring operating inside Congress for more than a decade, and we hear nothing. They had access to virtually everything in every important committee. They had access to the Congressional servers and all the emails. Biggest spy scandal in our nations hsitory, and........crickets. ..."
"... They have had a year to destroy the evidence. Why should the CIA controlled MSM report the truth? ..."
"... Precisely. That's actually a very good tool for decoding the Clintons and Obama. "You collaborated with Russia." Means "I collaborated with Saudi Arabia." It takes a little while and I haven't fully mastered it yet, but you can reverse alinsky-engineer their statements to figure out what they did. ..."
"... And get this, Flynn was set up! Yates had the transcript via the (illegal) FISA Court of warrant which relied on the Dirty Steele Dossier, when Flynn deviated from the transcript they charged him Lying to the FBI. Comey McCabe run around lying 24/7. Their is no fucking hope left! The swamp WINS ALWAYS. ..."
FBI Edits To Clinton Exoneration Go Far Beyond What Was Previously Known; Comey, McCabe, Strzok ImplicatedTyler Durden Dec 15, 2017 10:10 AM 0 SHARES
detailed in a
Thursday letter from committee chairman Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) to FBI Director Christopher Wray.
James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok
The letter reveals specific edits made by senior FBI agents when Deputy Director Andrew McCabe exchanged drafts of Comey's statement
with senior FBI officials , including Peter Strzok, Strzok's direct supervisor
, E.W. "Bill" Priestap, Jonathan Moffa, and an unnamed employee from the Office of General Counsel (identified by
Newsweek as DOJ Deputy General Counsel Trisha Anderson) - in what was a coordinated
conspiracy among top FBI brass to decriminalize Clinton's conduct by changing legal terms and phrases, omitting key information,
and minimizing the role of the Intelligence Community in the email investigation. Doing so virtually assured that then-candidate
Hillary Clinton would not be prosecuted.
Heather Samuelson and Heather Mills
Also mentioned in the letter are the immunity agreements granted by the FBI in June 2016 to top Obama advisor Cheryl Mills and
aide Heather Samuelson - who helped decide which Clinton emails were destroyed before turning over the remaining 30,000 records to
the State Department. Of note, the FBI agreed to destroy evidence on devices owned by Mills and Samuelson which were turned over
in the investigation.
Sen. Johnson's letter reads:
According to documents produced by the FBI, FBI employees exchanged proposed edits to the draft statement. On May 6, Deputy
Director McCabe forwarded the draft statement to other senior FBI employees, including Peter Strzok, E.W. Priestap, Jonathan Moffa,
and an employee on the Office of General Counsel whose name has been redacted. While the precise dates of the edits and identities
of the editors are not apparent from the documents, the edits appear to change the tone and substance of Director Comey's statement
in at least three respects .
It was already known that Strzok - who was demoted to the FBI's HR department after anti-Trump text messages to his mistress were
uncovered by an internal FBI watchdog - was responsible for downgrading the language regarding Clinton's conduct from the criminal
charge of "gross negligence" to "extremely careless."
"Gross negligence" is a legal term of art in criminal law often associated with recklessness. According to Black's Law Dictionary,
gross negligence is " A severe degree of negligence taken as reckless disregard ," and " Blatant indifference to one's legal duty,
other's safety, or their rights ." "Extremely careless," on the other hand, is not a legal term of art.
According to an Attorney briefed on the matter, "extremely careless" is in fact a defense to "gross negligence": "What my client
did was 'careless', maybe even 'extremely careless,' but it was not 'gross negligence' your honor." The FBI would have no option
but to recommend prosecution if the phrase "gross negligence" had been left in.
18 U.S. Code ง 793 "Gathering, transmitting or losing
defense information" specifically uses the phrase "gross negligence." Had Comey used the phrase, he would have essentially declared
that Hillary had broken the law.
In addition to Strzok's "gross negligence" --> "extremely careless" edit, McCabe's damage control team removed a key justification
for elevating Clinton's actions to the standard of "gross negligence" - that being the " sheer volume " of classified material on
Clinton's server. In the original draft, the "sheer volume" of material "supports an inference that the participants were grossly
negligent in their handling of that information."
Also removed from Comey's statement were all references to the Intelligence Community's involvement in investigating Clinton's
private email server.
Director Comey's original statement acknowledged the FBI had worked with its partners in the Intelligence Community to assess
potential damage from Secretary Clinton's use of a private email server. The original statement read:
[W]e have done extensive work with the assistance of our colleagues elsewhere in the Intelligence Community to understand what
indications there might be of compromise by hostile actors in connection with the private email operation.
The edited version removed the references to the intelligence community:
[W]e have done extensive work [removed] to understand what indications there might be of compromise by hostile actors in connection
with the personal e-mail operation.
Furthermore, the FBI edited Comey's statement to downgrade the probability that Clinton's server was hacked by hostile actors,
changing their language from "reasonably likely" to "possible" - an edit which eliminated yet another justification for the phrase
"Gross negligence." To put it another way, "reasonably likely" means the probability of a hack due to Clinton's negligence is above
50 percent, whereas the hack simply being "possible" is any probability above zero.
It's also possible that the FBI, which was not allowed to inspect the DNC servers, was uncomfortable standing behind the conclusion
of Russian hacking reached by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
The original draft read:
Given the combination of factors, we assess it is reasonably likely that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's
private email account."
The edited version from Director Comey's July 5 statement read:
Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton's personal
e-mail account.
Johnson's letter also questions an "
insurance policy " referenced in a text message sent by demoted FBI investigator Peter Strzok to his mistress, FBI attorney Lisa
Page, which read " I want to believe the path you threw out to 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...."
One wonders if the "insurance policy" Strzok sent to Page on
August 15, 2016 was in reference to the original counterintelligence operation launched against Trump of which Strzok became
the lead investigator in "late July" 2016? Of note, Strzok reported directly to
Bill Priestap - the director of Counterintelligence, who told James Comey not to inform congress that the FBI had launched a
counterintelligence operation against then-candidate Trump, per Comey's March 20th testimony to the House Intelligence Committee.
(h/t @TheLastRefuge2 )
Transcript , James Comey Testimony to House Intel Committee, March 20, 2016
The letter from the Senate Committee concludes; "the edits to Director Comey's public statement, made months prior to the conclusion
of the FBI's investigation of Secretary Clinton's conduct, had a significant impact on the FBI's public evaluation of the implications
of her actions . This effort, seen in the light of the personal animus toward then-candidate Trump by senior FBI agents leading the
Clinton investigation and their apparent desire to create an "insurance policy" against Mr. Trump's election, raise profound questions
about the FBI's role and possible interference in the 2016y presidential election and the role of the same agents in Special Counsel
Mueller's investigation of President Trump ."
Johnson then asks the FBI to answer six questions:
Please provide the names of the Department of Justice (DOJ) employees who comprised the "mid-year review team" during the
FBI's investigation of Secretary Clinton's use of a private email server.
Please identify all FBI, DOJ, or other federal employees who edited or reviewed Director Comey's July 5, 2016 statement .
Please identify which individual made the marked changes in the documents produced to the Committee.
Please identify which FBI employee repeatedly changed the language in the final draft statement that described Secretary Clinton's
behavior as "grossly negligent" to "extremely careless. " What evidence supported these changes?
Please identify which FBI employee edited the draft statement to remove the reference to the Intelligence Community . On what
basis was this change made?
Please identify which FBI employee edited the draft statement to downgrade the FBI's assessment that it was "reasonably likely"
that hostile actors had gained access to Secretary Clinton's private email account to merely that than [sic] intrusion was "possible."
What evidence supported these changes?
Please provide unredacted copies of the drafts of Director Comey's statement, including comment bubbles , and explain the
basis for the redactions produced to date.
We are increasingly faced with the fact that the FBI's top ranks have been filled with political ideologues who helped Hillary
Clinton while pursuing the Russian influence narrative against Trump (perhaps as the "insurance" Strzok spoke of). Meanwhile, "hands
off" recused Attorney General Jeff Sessions and assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein don't seem very excited to explore the
issues with a second Special Counsel. As such, we are now almost entirely reliant on the various Committees of congress to pursue
justice in this matter. Perhaps when their investigations have concluded, President Trump will feel he has the political and legal
ammunition to truly clean house at the nation's swampiest agencies.
All I see in this story is that the FBI edits their work to make sure the terminology is consistent throughout. This is not
a smoking gun of anything, except bureaucratic procedure one would find anywhere any legal documents are prepared.
That's not to say Hillary shouldn't have been prosecuted. But what we're seeing here looks like perfectly normal behavior once
the decision has been made not to prosecute; get the statements to be consistent with the conclusion. In a bureaucracy, that requires
a number of people to be involved. And it would necessarily include people who work for Hillary Clinton, since that's whose information
is being discussed.
Now, if Hillary hadn't been such an arrogant bitch, we wouldn't be having this conversation. If she had just take the locked-down
Android of iOS phone they issued her, instead of having to forward everything to herself so she could use her stupid Blackberry
(which can't be locked down to State Dep't. specs), everything would have been both hunky and dory.
And the stuff about how a foreign power might have, or might possibly have, accessed her emails is all BS too. We already know
they weren't hacked, they were leaked.
Maybe people who don't understand complicated organizations see something nefarious here, but nobody who does will. Nothing
will come of this but some staged-for-TV dramatic pronouncements in the House, and on FOX News, and affiliated websites. There's
nothing here.
That obongo of all crooks is involved is a sure fact, but I'd like to see how many remaining defenders of the cause are still
motivated to lose everything for this thing...
In other terms, what are the defection rates in the dem party, because now this must be an avalanche.
Please, EVERYONE with a Twitter account send this message Every Day (tell your friends on facebook):
Mr. President, the time to purge the Obama-Clinton holdovers has long passed. Please get rid of them at once. Make your base
happy. Fire 100+ from DOJ - State - FBI. Hire William K. Black as Special Prosecutor
Debatable re. biggest story being kept quiet. The AWAN Brothers/Family is a Pakistani spy ring operating inside Congress for
more than a decade, and we hear nothing. They had access to virtually everything in every important committee. They had access
to the Congressional servers and all the emails. Biggest spy scandal in our nations hsitory, and........crickets.
Of course, they may all be related, since Debbie Wasserman-Shits brought them in and set them up, then intertwined their work
in Congress with their work for the DNC.
Just more theater. Throwing a bone to the few citizens who think for themselves. Giving us false hope the US legal system isn't
corrupt. This will never be prosecuted, because the deep state remains in control. They've had a year to destroy the incriminating
evidence.
Ryan and his buddies in Congress will make strained faces (as if taking a dump) and wring their hands saying they must hire
a "Special" Investigator to cover up this mess.
They tweet that crap all the time. Usually just a repeat with different names, but always blaming a Ruskie. About every 6 months
they hit on a twist in the wording that causes it to go viral.
Before Trump was elected , I thought the only way to get our country back was through a Military Coup, but it appears there
may be some light at the end of the tunnel.
I wonder if that light is coming from the soon to be gaping hole in the FBI's asshole when the extent of this political activism
by the agency eventually seeps into the public conciousness.
you can't clean up a mess of this magnitude. fire everyone in washington---senator, representative, fbi, cia, nsa ,etc and
start over---has NO chance of happenning
the only hope for a non violent solution is that a true leader emerges that every decent person can rally behind and respect,
honor and dignity become the norm. unfortunately, corruption has become a culture and i don't know if it can be eradicated
Just expose the Congress, McCabe, Lindsey, McCabe, Clinton, all Dem judges, Media, Hollywood, local government dems as pedos;
that will half-drain the swamp.
If Trump gets the swamp cleaned without a military coup, he will be one of our greatest Presidents. There will be people who
hate that more than they hate being in jail.
Precisely. That's actually a very good tool for decoding the Clintons and Obama. "You collaborated with Russia." Means
"I collaborated with Saudi Arabia." It takes a little while and I haven't fully mastered it yet, but you can reverse alinsky-engineer
their statements to figure out what they did.
And get this, Flynn was set up! Yates had the transcript via the (illegal) FISA Court of warrant which relied on the Dirty
Steele Dossier, when Flynn deviated from the transcript they charged him Lying to the FBI. Comey McCabe run around lying 24/7.
Their is no fucking hope left! The swamp WINS ALWAYS.
I have - it's was NBC Nightly News - they spent time on the damning emails from Strozk. Maybe 2-3 minutes. Normal news segment
time. Surprised the hell out of me.
the "MSM" needs to cover their own asses ...like "an insurance policy" just in case the truth comes out... best to be seen
reporting on the REAL issue at least for a couple minutes..
"... You are correct that there is no public source yet confirming the FBI paid Steele. However, the FBI's refusal to turn over relevant documents regarding their relationship with Steele tells me there was money paid. What is indisputable is that th information in the dossier was used as a predicate to seek permission from a FISA court to go after Trump and his team. That is outrageous. ..."
"... This is increasingly my take as well -- the FBI, CIA and NSA do seem to have "conspired" to destroy Donald Trump. I finger Brennan, Clapper, Susan Rice, Benjamin Rhodes, and maybe Samantha Power as being involved in the flood of illegal leaks earlier in the year that did so much to pave the way for Mueller's appointment. ..."
You are correct that there is no public source yet confirming the FBI paid Steele. However, the FBI's refusal to turn over
relevant documents regarding their relationship with Steele tells me there was money paid. What is indisputable is that th information
in the dossier was used as a predicate to seek permission from a FISA court to go after Trump and his team. That is outrageous.
This is increasingly my take as well -- the FBI, CIA and NSA do seem to have "conspired" to destroy Donald Trump. I finger
Brennan, Clapper, Susan Rice, Benjamin Rhodes, and maybe Samantha Power as being involved in the flood of illegal leaks earlier
in the year that did so much to pave the way for Mueller's appointment.
What I fail to understand is why Democrats are sitting back and cheering as these agencies work together to destroy a duly
elected President of the USA. Does anyone really believe that if these agencies get away with it this time they will stop with
Trump?
All these agencies are out of control and are completely unaccountable.
"... An early draft of former FBI Director James Comey's statement closing out the Hillary Clinton email case accused the former Secretary of State of having been 'grossly negligent" in handling classified information, new memos to Congress show. ..."
"... "There is evidence to support a conclusion that Secretary Clinton, and others, used the email server in a manner that was grossly negligent with respect to the handling of classified information," reads the statement, one of Comey's earliest drafts. ..."
"... Of course, Comey's final statement, while critical of Hillary's email usage, alleged that no prosecutor would pursue charges against actions which he described only as "extremely careless." ..."
"... Meanwhile, Section 793 of federal law states that "gross negligence" with respect to the handling of national defense documents is punishable by a fine and up to 10 years in prison ...so you can see why that might present a problem for Hillary. ..."
"... ...that said, we're going to go out on a limb and question whether it just might have had something to do with that infamous meeting between Bill Clinton and then Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Comey's boss, that happened just 6 days before Comey made his statement? ..."
The Hill , early drafts of former FBI Director James Comey's statement on Hillary Clinton's email case accused the former Secretary
of State of "gross negligence" in her handling of classified information as opposed to the "extremely careless" phrase that made
its way into the final statement.
As The Hill further points out, the change in language is significant since federal law states that "gross negligence" in handling
the nation's intelligence can be punished criminally with prison time or fines whereas "extreme carelessness" has no such legal definition
and/or ramifications.
An early draft of former FBI Director James Comey's statement closing out the Hillary Clinton email case accused the former
Secretary of State of having been 'grossly negligent" in handling classified information, new memos to Congress show.
The tough language was changed to the much softer accusation that Clinton had been "extremely careless" in her handling of classified
information when Comey announced in July 2016 there would be no charges against her.
The draft, written weeks before the announcement of no charges, was described by multiple sources who saw the document both before
and after it was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee this past weekend.
"There is evidence to support a conclusion that Secretary Clinton, and others, used the email server in a manner that was
grossly negligent with respect to the handling of classified information," reads the statement, one of Comey's earliest drafts.
Those sources said the draft statement was subsequently changed in red-line edits to conclude that the handling of 110 emails
containing classified information that were transmitted by Clinton and her aides over her insecure personal email server was "extremely
careless."
Of course, Comey's final statement, while critical of Hillary's email usage, alleged that no prosecutor would pursue charges
against actions which he described only as "extremely careless."
"Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling
of the classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified
information."
"There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position or in the position of those
with whom she was corresponding about the matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation."
Meanwhile, Section 793 of federal law states that "gross negligence" with respect to the handling of national defense documents
is punishable by a fine and up to 10 years in prison ...so you can see why that might present a problem for Hillary.
"Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch,
photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national
defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in
violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally
removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or
destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer -- shall be
fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
Unfortunately, The Hill's sources couldn't confirm the most important detail behind this bombshell new revelation, namely who
made the call to the change the language...
The sources, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the memos show
that at least three top FBI officials were involved in helping Comey fashion and edit the statement, including Deputy Director Andrew
McCabe, General Counsel James Baker and Chief of Staff Jim Rybicki.
The documents turned over to Congress do not indicate who recommended the key wording changes, the sources said. The Senate Judiciary
Committee is likely to demand the FBI identify who made the changes and why, the sources said.
...that said, we're going to go out on a limb and question whether it just might have had something to do with that infamous
meeting between Bill Clinton and then Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Comey's boss, that happened just 6 days before Comey made his
statement?
The mere presence of a private server that sent/received classified information is THE EVIDENCE that she intended to mishandle
classified information. Jesus H. Christ on a cracker what are these people smoking? That's like saying that just because you were
drunk and decided to drive that you didn't intend to drive drunk.
" ...early drafts of former FBI Director James Comey's statement on Hillary Clinton's email case accused the former Secretary
of State of "gross negligence" in her handling of classified information as opposed to the "extremely careless" phrase that made
its way into the final statement."
The neoliberal "the new class" to which Clintons belong like nomenklatura in the USSR are above the law.
Notable quotes:
"... After months of inexplicable delays, the chairman of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), announced moments ago a joint investigation into how the Justice Department handled last year's investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server. ..."
"... Oh goody, Trey Gowdy doing another investigation. Isn't he 0 for many on his investigations. 0 as in zero, nada, nill, squat, zippo. He is another political empty suit with a bad haircut. ..."
"... Well said. The Clinton network leads to the real money in this game. Any real investigation would expose many of the primary players. It would also expose the network for what it is, that being a mechanism to scam both the American people and the people of the world. ..."
"... Perhaps a real investigation will now only be done from outside the system (as the U.S. political system seems utterly incapable of investigating or policing itself). ..."
"... You're probably right, but there's a chance this whole thing could go sidewise on Hillary in a hurry, Weinstein-style. ..."
"... We already know Honest Hill'rey's other IT guy (Bryan Pagliano) ignored subpoenas from congress...twice. ..."
"... Another classic case of "the Boy that cried wolf" for the Trumpettes to believe justice is coming to the Clintons. The House Judiciary and Oversight committees, will turn up nothing, apart from some procedural mistakes. A complete waste of time and tax payer money. Only the Goldfish will be happy over another charade. Killary is immune from normal laws. ..."
"... Potemkin Justice. Not a damn thing will come of it unless they find that one of Hillary's aides parked in a handicapped spot. ..."
"... The TV showed me Trump saying, "She's been through enough" and "They're good people" when referring to Hillary and Bill Clinton. ..."
"... Stopped reading at "they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status." ..."
Hillary's former IT consultant Paul Combetta who admitted to deleting Hillary's emails despite the existence of a Congressional
subpoena, it seems as though James Comey has just had his very own "oh shit" moment.
After months of inexplicable delays, the chairman of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and
Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), announced moments ago a joint investigation into how the Justice Department handled last year's investigation
into Hillary Clinton's private email server.
Among other things, Goodlatte and Gowdy said that the FBI must answer for why it chose to provide public updates in the Clinton
investigation but not in the Trump investigation and why the FBI decided to " appropriate full decision making in respect to charging
or not charging Secretary Clinton," a power typically left to the DOJ.
"Our justice system is represented by a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales. Those scales do not tip to the right or the
left; they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status. The impartiality of our justice system is the bedrock of our republic
and our fellow citizens must have confidence in its objectivity, independence, and evenhandedness. The law is the most equalizing
force in this country. No entity or individual is exempt from oversight.
"Decisions made by the Department of Justice in 2016 have led to a host of outstanding questions that must be answered. These
include, but are not limited to:
FBI's decision to publicly announce the investigation into Secretary Clinton's handling of classified information but not
to publicly announce the investigation into campaign associates of then-candidate Donald Trump;
FBI's decision to notify Congress by formal letter of the status of the investigation both in October and November of 2016;
FBI's decision to appropriate full decision making in respect to charging or not charging Secretary Clinton to the FBI rather
than the DOJ;
FBI's timeline in respect to charging decisions.
'The Committees will review these decisions and others to better understand the reasoning behind how certain conclusions were
drawn. Congress has a constitutional duty to preserve the integrity of our justice system by ensuring transparency and accountability
of actions taken."
Of course, this comes just one day after
Comey revealed his secret Twitter account which led the internet to wildly speculate that he may be running for a political office...which,
these days, being under investigation by multiple Congressional committees might just mean he has a good shot.
Finally, we leave you with one artist's depiction of how the Comey 'investigation' of Hillary's email scandal played out...
"Our justice system is represented by a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales. Those scales do not tip to the right or
the left; they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status. The impartiality of our justice system is the bedrock of our
republic..."
Oh goody, Trey Gowdy doing another investigation. Isn't he 0 for many on his investigations. 0 as in zero, nada, nill,
squat, zippo. He is another political empty suit with a bad haircut.
It's nice publicity to hear that the Congress is "investigating". It's NOT nice to know that the DOJ is doing nothing. Probably
50 top level people at the FBI need to be fired as well as another 50 at DOJ to get the ball rolling toward a Grand Jury. Until
then, it's all eyewash and BULLSHIT!
Well said. The Clinton network leads to the real money in this game. Any real investigation would expose many of the primary
players. It would also expose the network for what it is, that being a mechanism to scam both the American people and the people
of the world.
Perhaps a real investigation will now only be done from outside the system (as the U.S. political system seems utterly
incapable of investigating or policing itself). Though in time all information will surface, as good players leak the info
of the bad players into the open. Which of course is why the corrupt players go after the leakers, as it is one key way they can
be taken down. Also remember that they need the good players in any organization to be used as cover (as those not in the know
can be used to work on legit projects). Once the good players catch on to the ruse and corruption it is, beyond a certain tipping
point, all over, as the leaked information goes from drop to flood. There will simply be no way to deny it.
You're probably right, but there's a chance this whole thing could go sidewise on Hillary in a hurry, Weinstein-style.
If the criminal stench surrounding her gets strong enough, the rats will begin to jump ship. People will stop taking orders
and doing her dirty work. She's wounded right now, if there was ever a time to finish her, it would be now. Where the fuck is
the big-talking Jeff Sessions? I think they got to him--he even LOOKS scared shitless.
It's just not possible to have any respect for these politician people.
We already know Honest Hill'rey's other IT guy (Bryan Pagliano) ignored subpoenas from congress...twice. Remember
Chaffetz "subpoenas are not suggestions"? Yeah, well they are. Chaffetz turned around and sent a letter about this to "attorney
general" jeff sessions and he's done exactly shit about about it. (Look it up, that's a true story)
Then we've got president maverick outsider simply ignoring Julian Assange and Wikileaks while he squeals daily about fake news.
Wikileaks has exposed more fraud than Congress ever has.
Sessions is the Attorney General. Give the man some credit. He recused himself from the Russia/Trump collusion, and this decision
may very well save the republic.
If Sessions was actively involved, half the nation would never accept the findings, no matter the outcome. With Sessions voluntarily
sidelined, the truth will eventually expose the criminal conspirators; all the way to the top.
Wikileaks and Assange have documented proof of criminal behavior from Obama, Lynch, Holder, Hillary, W. Bush, and more. This
will be the biggest scandal to hit the world stage. Ever.
lol Another classic case of "the Boy that cried wolf" for the Trumpettes to believe justice is coming to the Clintons.
The House Judiciary and Oversight committees, will turn up nothing, apart from some procedural mistakes. A complete waste of time
and tax payer money. Only the Goldfish will be happy over another charade. Killary is immune from normal laws.
Congress can't do shit without DOJ and FBI, which are both compromised and corrupt to the core.
That should have been Sessions' first order of business.
He can still get it rolling by firing Rosenstein and replacing him with someone that will do the job.They can strike down the
Comey immunity deals and arrest people for violating Congressional subpeona.
They can also assemble a Grand Jury to indict Rosenstein and Mueller for the Russian collusion conspiracy to commit Espionage
and Sabotage of our National Security resources. Half of Mueller's staff will then be indicted, along with Clinton, Obama, Lynch,
Holder, and Comey.
Replacement of Rosenstein is the crucial first step.
All signs of sophisticated false flag operation, which probably involved putting malware into DNC servers and then
detecting and analyzing them
Notable quotes:
"... 6 May 2016 when CrowdStrike first detected what it assessed to be a Russian presence inside the DNC server. Follow me here. One week after realizing there had been a penetration, the DNC learns, courtesy of the computer security firm it hired, that the Russians are doing it. Okay. Does CrowdStrike shut down the penetration. Nope. The hacking apparently continues unabated. ..."
"... The Smoking Gun ..."
"... I introduce Seth Rich at this point because he represents an alternative hypothesis. Rich, who reportedly was a Bernie Sanders supporter, was in a position at the DNC that gave him access to the emails in question and the opportunity to download the emails and take them from the DNC headquarters. Worth noting that Julian Assange offered $20,000 for information leading to the arrest of Rich's killer or killers. 8. 22 July 2016. Wikileaks published the DNC emails starting on 22 July 2016. Bill Binney, a former senior official at NSA, insists that if such a hack and electronic transfer over the internet had occurred then the NSA has in it possession the intelligence data to prove that such activity had occurred. ..."
"... Notwithstanding the claim by CrowdStrike not a single piece of evidence has been provided to the public to support the conclusion that the emails were hacked and physically transferred to a server under the control of a Russian intelligence operative. ..."
"... Please do not try to post a comment stating that the "Intelligence Community" concluded as well that Russia was responsible. That claim is totally without one shred of actual forensic evidence. Also, Julian Assange insists that the emails did not come from a Russian source. ..."
"... Wikileaks, the protector of the accountability of the top, has announced a reward for finding the murderers of Seth Rich. In comparison, the DNC has not offered any reward to help the investigation of the murder of the DNC staffer, but the DNC found a well-connected lawyer to protect Imran Awan who is guilty (along with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz) in the greatest breach of national cybersecurity: http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/29/wasserman-schultz-seemingly-planned-to-pay-suspect-even-while-he-lived-in-pakistan/ ..."
"... I'm afraid you're behind the times. Wheeler is no longer relevant now that Sy Hersh has revealed an FBI report that explicitly says Rich was in contact with Wikileaks offering to sell them DNC documents. ..."
"... It's unfortunate for the Rich family, but now that the connection is pretty much confirmed, they're going to have to allow the truth to come out ..."
"... Mr. Dmitri Alperovitch, of Jewish descent (and an emigre from Russia), has been an "expert" at the Atlantic Council, the same organization that cherishes and provides for Mr. Eliot Higgins. These two gentlemen - and the directorate of Atlantic Council - are exhibit one of opportunism and intellectual dishonesty (though it is hard to think about Mr. Higgins in terms of "intellect"). ..."
"... Alperovitch is not just an incompetent "expert" in cybersecurity - he is a willing liar and war-mongering, for money. ..."
"... One could of course start earlier. What is the exact timeline of the larger cyberwar post 9/11, or at least the bits and pieces that surfaced for the nitwits among us, like: Stuxnet? ..."
"... Scott Ritter's article referenced in PT's post is terrific, covering a ton of issues related to CrowdStrike and the DNC hack. You need to read it, not just PT's timeline. In case you missed the link in PT's post: ..."
"... His article echoes and reinforces what Carr and others have said about the difficulty of attribution of infosec breaches. Namely that the basic problem of both intelligence and infosec operations is that there is too much obfuscation, manipulation, and misdirection involved to be sure of who or what is going on. ..."
"... The Seth Rich connection is pretty much a done deal, now that Sy Hersh has been caught on tape stating that he knows of an FBI report based on a forensic analysis of Rich's laptop that shows Rich was in direct contact with Wikileaks with an attempt to sell them DNC documents and that Wikileaks had access to Rich's DropBox account. Despite Hersh's subsequent denials - which everyone knows are his usual impatient deflections prior to putting out a sourced and organized article - it's pretty clear that Rich was at least one of the sources of the Wikileaks email dump and that there is zero connection to Russia. ..."
"... None of this proves that Russian intelligence - or Russians of some stripe - or for that matter hackers from literally anywhere - couldn't or didn't ALSO do a hack of the DNC. But it does prove that the iron-clad attribution of the source of Wikileaks email release to Russia is at best flawed, and at worst a deliberate cover up of a leak. ..."
Notwithstanding the conventional wisdom that Russia hacked into the DNC computers, downloaded emails and a passed the stolen missives
to Julian Assange's crew at Wikileaks, a careful examination of the timeline of events from 2016 shows that this story is simply
not plausible.
Let me take you through the known facts:
1. 29 April 2016 , when the DNC became aware its servers had been penetrated (https://medium.com/homefront-rising/dumbstruck-how-crowdstrike-conned-america-on-the-hack-of-the-dnc-ecfa522ff44f).
Note. They apparently did not know who was doing it. 2, 6 May 2016 when CrowdStrike first detected what it assessed to be a Russian
presence inside the DNC server. Follow me here. One week after realizing there had been a penetration, the DNC learns, courtesy of
the computer security firm it hired, that the Russians are doing it. Okay. Does CrowdStrike shut down the penetration. Nope. The
hacking apparently continues unabated. 3. 25 May 2016. The messages published on Wikileaks from the DNC show that 26 May 2016
was the last date that emails were sent and received at the DNC. There are no emails in the public domain after that date. In other
words, if the DNC emails were taken via a hacking operation, we can conclude from the fact that the last messages posted to Wikileaks
show a date time group of 25 May 2016. Wikileaks has not reported nor posted any emails from the DNC after the 25th of May. I think
it is reasonable to assume that was the day the dirty deed was done. 4. 12 June 2016, CrowdStrike purged the DNC server of all malware.
Are you kidding me? 45 days after the DNC discovers that its serve has been penetrated the decision to purge the DNC server is finally
made. What in the hell were they waiting for? But this also tells us that 18 days after the last email "taken" from the DNC, no additional
emails were taken by this nasty malware. Here is what does not make sense to me. If the DNC emails were truly hacked and the malware
was still in place on 11 June 2016 (it was not purged until the 12th) then why are there no emails from the DNC after 26 May 2016?
an excellent analysis of Guccifer's role : Almost immediately after the one-two punch of the Washington Post article/CrowdStrike
technical report went public, however, something totally unexpected happened -- someone came forward and took full responsibility
for the DNC cyber attack. Moreover, this entity -- operating under the persona Guccifer 2.0 (ostensibly named after the original
Guccifer , a Romanian hacker who stole the emails of a number of high-profile celebrities and who was arrested in 2014 and sentenced
to 4 ฝ years of prison in May 2016) -- did something no state actor has ever done before, publishing documents stolen from the DNC
server as proof of his claims.
Hi. This is Guccifer 2.0 and this is me who hacked Democratic National Committee.
With that simple email, sent to the on-line news magazine,
The Smoking
Gun , Guccifer 2.0 stole the limelight away from Alperovitch. Over the course of the next few days, through a series of
emails, online posts and
interviews
, Guccifer 2.0 openly mocked CrowdStrike and its Russian attribution. Guccifer 2.0 released a number of documents, including a massive
200-plus-missive containing opposition research on Donald Trump.
Guccifer 2.0 also directly contradicted the efforts on the part of the DNC to minimize the extent of the hacking,
releasing the very donor lists
the DNC specifically stated had not been stolen. More chilling, Guccifer 2.0 claimed to be in possession of "about 100 Gb of data"
which had been passed on to the online publisher, Wikileaks, who "will publish them soon." 7. Seth Rich died on 10 July 2016.
I introduce Seth Rich at this point because he represents an alternative hypothesis. Rich, who reportedly was a Bernie Sanders supporter,
was in a position at the DNC that gave him access to the emails in question and the opportunity to download the emails and take them
from the DNC headquarters. Worth noting that Julian Assange offered
$20,000 for information leading to the arrest of Rich's killer or killers. 8. 22 July 2016. Wikileaks published the DNC emails
starting on 22 July 2016. Bill Binney, a former senior official at NSA, insists that if such a hack and electronic transfer over
the internet had occurred then the NSA has in it possession the intelligence data to prove that such activity had occurred.Notwithstanding the claim by CrowdStrike not a single piece of evidence has been provided to the public to support the conclusion
that the emails were hacked and physically transferred to a server under the control of a Russian intelligence operative.Please do not try to post a comment stating that the "Intelligence Community" concluded as well that Russia was responsible.
That claim is totally without one shred of actual forensic evidence. Also, Julian Assange insists that the emails did not come from
a Russian source.
Wikileaks, the protector of the accountability of the top, has announced a reward for finding the murderers of Seth Rich.
In comparison, the DNC has not offered any reward to help the investigation of the murder of the DNC staffer, but the DNC found
a well-connected lawyer to protect Imran Awan who is guilty (along with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz) in the greatest breach of national
cybersecurity:
http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/29/wasserman-schultz-seemingly-planned-to-pay-suspect-even-while-he-lived-in-pakistan/
Seth Rich's family have pleaded, and continue to plead, that the conspiracy theorists leave the death of their son alone and have
said that those who continue to flog this nonsense around the internet are only serving to increase their pain. I suggest respectfully
that some here may wish to consider their feelings. (Also, this stuff is nuts, you know.)
"We also know that many people are angry at our government and want to see justice done in some way, somehow. We are asking
you to please consider our feelings and words. There are people who are using our beloved Seth's memory and legacy for their own
political goals, and they are using your outrage to perpetuate our nightmare."
"Wheeler, a former Metropolitan Police Department officer, was a key figure in a series of debunked stories claiming that Rich
had been in contact with Wikileaks before his death. Fox News, which reported the story online and on television, retracted it
in June."
I'm afraid you're behind the times. Wheeler is no longer relevant now that Sy Hersh has revealed an FBI report that explicitly
says Rich was in contact with Wikileaks offering to sell them DNC documents.
It's unfortunate for the Rich family, but now that the connection is pretty much confirmed, they're going to have to allow
the truth to come out.
Mr. Dmitri Alperovitch, of Jewish descent (and an emigre from Russia), has been an "expert" at the Atlantic Council, the same
organization that cherishes and provides for Mr. Eliot Higgins. These two gentlemen - and the directorate of Atlantic Council
- are exhibit one of opportunism and intellectual dishonesty (though it is hard to think about Mr. Higgins in terms of "intellect").
Take note how Alperovitch coded the names of the supposed hackers: "Russian intelligence services hacked the Democratic National
Committee's computer network and accessed opposition research on Donald Trump, according to the Atlantic Council's Dmitri Alperovitch.
Two Russian groups ! codenamed FancyBear and CozyBear ! have been identified as spearheading the DNC breach." Alperovitch
is not just an incompetent "expert" in cybersecurity - he is a willing liar and war-mongering, for money.
The DNC hacking story has never been about national security; Alperovitch (and his handlers) have no loyalty to the US.
PT, I make a short exception. Actually decided to stop babbling for a while. But: Just finished something successfully.
And since I usually need distraction by something far more interesting then matters at hand. I was close to your line of thought
yesters.
But really: Shouldn't the timeline start in 2015, since that's supposedly the time someone got into the DNC's system?
One could of course start earlier. What is the exact timeline of the larger cyberwar post 9/11, or at least the bits and
pieces that surfaced for the nitwits among us, like: Stuxnet?
But nevermind. Don't forget developments and recent events around Eugene or Jewgeni Walentinowitsch Kasperski?
The Russia thing certainly seems to have gone quiet.
Bannon's chum says the issue with pursuing the Clinton email thing is that you would end up having to indict almost all of
the last administration, including Obama, unseemly certainly. Still there might be a fall guy, maybe Comey, and obviously it serves
Trump's purposes to keep this a live issue through the good work of Grassley and the occasional tweet.
Would be amusing if Trump pardoned Obama. Still think Brennan should pay a price though, can't really be allowed to get away
with it
Scott Ritter's article referenced in PT's post is terrific, covering a ton of issues related to CrowdStrike and the DNC hack.
You need to read it, not just PT's timeline. In case you missed the link in PT's post:
Also, the article Carr references is very important for understanding the limits of malware analysis and "attribution". Written
by Michael Tanji, whose credentials appear impressive: "spent nearly 20 years in the US intelligence community. Trained in both
SIGINT and HUMINT disciplines he has worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the National
Reconnaissance Office. At various points in his career he served as an expert in information warfare, computer network operations,
computer forensics, and indications and warning. A veteran of the US Army, Michael has served in both strategic and tactical assignments
in the Pacific Theater, the Balkans, and the Middle East."
His article echoes and reinforces what Carr and others have said about the difficulty of attribution of infosec breaches.
Namely that the basic problem of both intelligence and infosec operations is that there is too much obfuscation, manipulation,
and misdirection involved to be sure of who or what is going on.
The Seth Rich connection is pretty much a done deal, now that Sy Hersh has been caught on tape stating that he knows of
an FBI report based on a forensic analysis of Rich's laptop that shows Rich was in direct contact with Wikileaks with an attempt
to sell them DNC documents and that Wikileaks had access to Rich's DropBox account. Despite Hersh's subsequent denials - which
everyone knows are his usual impatient deflections prior to putting out a sourced and organized article - it's pretty clear that
Rich was at least one of the sources of the Wikileaks email dump and that there is zero connection to Russia.
None of this proves that Russian intelligence - or Russians of some stripe - or for that matter hackers from literally
anywhere - couldn't or didn't ALSO do a hack of the DNC. But it does prove that the iron-clad attribution of the source of Wikileaks
email release to Russia is at best flawed, and at worst a deliberate cover up of a leak.
And Russiagate depends primarily on BOTH alleged "facts" being true: 1) that Russia hacked the DNC, and 2) that Russia was
the source of Wikileaks release. And if the latter is not true, then one has to question why Russia hacked the DNC in the first
place, other than for "normal" espionage operations. "Influencing the election" then becomes a far less plausible theory.
The general takeaway from an infosec point of view is that attribution by means of target identification, tools used, and "indicators
of compromise" is a fatally flawed means of identifying, and thus being able to counter, the adversaries encountered in today's
Internet world, as Tanji proves. Only HUMINT offers a way around this, just as it is really the only valid option in countering
terrorism.
All signs of sophisticated false flag operation, which probably involved putting malware into DNC servers and then
detecting and analyzing them
Notable quotes:
"... 6 May 2016 when CrowdStrike first detected what it assessed to be a Russian presence inside the DNC server. Follow me here. One week after realizing there had been a penetration, the DNC learns, courtesy of the computer security firm it hired, that the Russians are doing it. Okay. Does CrowdStrike shut down the penetration. Nope. The hacking apparently continues unabated. ..."
"... The Smoking Gun ..."
"... I introduce Seth Rich at this point because he represents an alternative hypothesis. Rich, who reportedly was a Bernie Sanders supporter, was in a position at the DNC that gave him access to the emails in question and the opportunity to download the emails and take them from the DNC headquarters. Worth noting that Julian Assange offered $20,000 for information leading to the arrest of Rich's killer or killers. 8. 22 July 2016. Wikileaks published the DNC emails starting on 22 July 2016. Bill Binney, a former senior official at NSA, insists that if such a hack and electronic transfer over the internet had occurred then the NSA has in it possession the intelligence data to prove that such activity had occurred. ..."
"... Notwithstanding the claim by CrowdStrike not a single piece of evidence has been provided to the public to support the conclusion that the emails were hacked and physically transferred to a server under the control of a Russian intelligence operative. ..."
"... Please do not try to post a comment stating that the "Intelligence Community" concluded as well that Russia was responsible. That claim is totally without one shred of actual forensic evidence. Also, Julian Assange insists that the emails did not come from a Russian source. ..."
"... Wikileaks, the protector of the accountability of the top, has announced a reward for finding the murderers of Seth Rich. In comparison, the DNC has not offered any reward to help the investigation of the murder of the DNC staffer, but the DNC found a well-connected lawyer to protect Imran Awan who is guilty (along with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz) in the greatest breach of national cybersecurity: http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/29/wasserman-schultz-seemingly-planned-to-pay-suspect-even-while-he-lived-in-pakistan/ ..."
"... I'm afraid you're behind the times. Wheeler is no longer relevant now that Sy Hersh has revealed an FBI report that explicitly says Rich was in contact with Wikileaks offering to sell them DNC documents. ..."
"... It's unfortunate for the Rich family, but now that the connection is pretty much confirmed, they're going to have to allow the truth to come out ..."
"... Mr. Dmitri Alperovitch, of Jewish descent (and an emigre from Russia), has been an "expert" at the Atlantic Council, the same organization that cherishes and provides for Mr. Eliot Higgins. These two gentlemen - and the directorate of Atlantic Council - are exhibit one of opportunism and intellectual dishonesty (though it is hard to think about Mr. Higgins in terms of "intellect"). ..."
"... Alperovitch is not just an incompetent "expert" in cybersecurity - he is a willing liar and war-mongering, for money. ..."
"... One could of course start earlier. What is the exact timeline of the larger cyberwar post 9/11, or at least the bits and pieces that surfaced for the nitwits among us, like: Stuxnet? ..."
"... Scott Ritter's article referenced in PT's post is terrific, covering a ton of issues related to CrowdStrike and the DNC hack. You need to read it, not just PT's timeline. In case you missed the link in PT's post: ..."
"... His article echoes and reinforces what Carr and others have said about the difficulty of attribution of infosec breaches. Namely that the basic problem of both intelligence and infosec operations is that there is too much obfuscation, manipulation, and misdirection involved to be sure of who or what is going on. ..."
"... The Seth Rich connection is pretty much a done deal, now that Sy Hersh has been caught on tape stating that he knows of an FBI report based on a forensic analysis of Rich's laptop that shows Rich was in direct contact with Wikileaks with an attempt to sell them DNC documents and that Wikileaks had access to Rich's DropBox account. Despite Hersh's subsequent denials - which everyone knows are his usual impatient deflections prior to putting out a sourced and organized article - it's pretty clear that Rich was at least one of the sources of the Wikileaks email dump and that there is zero connection to Russia. ..."
"... None of this proves that Russian intelligence - or Russians of some stripe - or for that matter hackers from literally anywhere - couldn't or didn't ALSO do a hack of the DNC. But it does prove that the iron-clad attribution of the source of Wikileaks email release to Russia is at best flawed, and at worst a deliberate cover up of a leak. ..."
Notwithstanding the conventional wisdom that Russia hacked into the DNC computers, downloaded emails and a passed the stolen missives
to Julian Assange's crew at Wikileaks, a careful examination of the timeline of events from 2016 shows that this story is simply
not plausible.
Let me take you through the known facts:
1. 29 April 2016 , when the DNC became aware its servers had been penetrated (https://medium.com/homefront-rising/dumbstruck-how-crowdstrike-conned-america-on-the-hack-of-the-dnc-ecfa522ff44f).
Note. They apparently did not know who was doing it. 2, 6 May 2016 when CrowdStrike first detected what it assessed to be a Russian
presence inside the DNC server. Follow me here. One week after realizing there had been a penetration, the DNC learns, courtesy of
the computer security firm it hired, that the Russians are doing it. Okay. Does CrowdStrike shut down the penetration. Nope. The
hacking apparently continues unabated. 3. 25 May 2016. The messages published on Wikileaks from the DNC show that 26 May 2016
was the last date that emails were sent and received at the DNC. There are no emails in the public domain after that date. In other
words, if the DNC emails were taken via a hacking operation, we can conclude from the fact that the last messages posted to Wikileaks
show a date time group of 25 May 2016. Wikileaks has not reported nor posted any emails from the DNC after the 25th of May. I think
it is reasonable to assume that was the day the dirty deed was done. 4. 12 June 2016, CrowdStrike purged the DNC server of all malware.
Are you kidding me? 45 days after the DNC discovers that its serve has been penetrated the decision to purge the DNC server is finally
made. What in the hell were they waiting for? But this also tells us that 18 days after the last email "taken" from the DNC, no additional
emails were taken by this nasty malware. Here is what does not make sense to me. If the DNC emails were truly hacked and the malware
was still in place on 11 June 2016 (it was not purged until the 12th) then why are there no emails from the DNC after 26 May 2016?
an excellent analysis of Guccifer's role : Almost immediately after the one-two punch of the Washington Post article/CrowdStrike
technical report went public, however, something totally unexpected happened -- someone came forward and took full responsibility
for the DNC cyber attack. Moreover, this entity -- operating under the persona Guccifer 2.0 (ostensibly named after the original
Guccifer , a Romanian hacker who stole the emails of a number of high-profile celebrities and who was arrested in 2014 and sentenced
to 4 ฝ years of prison in May 2016) -- did something no state actor has ever done before, publishing documents stolen from the DNC
server as proof of his claims.
Hi. This is Guccifer 2.0 and this is me who hacked Democratic National Committee.
With that simple email, sent to the on-line news magazine,
The Smoking
Gun , Guccifer 2.0 stole the limelight away from Alperovitch. Over the course of the next few days, through a series of
emails, online posts and
interviews
, Guccifer 2.0 openly mocked CrowdStrike and its Russian attribution. Guccifer 2.0 released a number of documents, including a massive
200-plus-missive containing opposition research on Donald Trump.
Guccifer 2.0 also directly contradicted the efforts on the part of the DNC to minimize the extent of the hacking,
releasing the very donor lists
the DNC specifically stated had not been stolen. More chilling, Guccifer 2.0 claimed to be in possession of "about 100 Gb of data"
which had been passed on to the online publisher, Wikileaks, who "will publish them soon." 7. Seth Rich died on 10 July 2016.
I introduce Seth Rich at this point because he represents an alternative hypothesis. Rich, who reportedly was a Bernie Sanders supporter,
was in a position at the DNC that gave him access to the emails in question and the opportunity to download the emails and take them
from the DNC headquarters. Worth noting that Julian Assange offered
$20,000 for information leading to the arrest of Rich's killer or killers. 8. 22 July 2016. Wikileaks published the DNC emails
starting on 22 July 2016. Bill Binney, a former senior official at NSA, insists that if such a hack and electronic transfer over
the internet had occurred then the NSA has in it possession the intelligence data to prove that such activity had occurred.Notwithstanding the claim by CrowdStrike not a single piece of evidence has been provided to the public to support the conclusion
that the emails were hacked and physically transferred to a server under the control of a Russian intelligence operative.Please do not try to post a comment stating that the "Intelligence Community" concluded as well that Russia was responsible.
That claim is totally without one shred of actual forensic evidence. Also, Julian Assange insists that the emails did not come from
a Russian source.
Wikileaks, the protector of the accountability of the top, has announced a reward for finding the murderers of Seth Rich.
In comparison, the DNC has not offered any reward to help the investigation of the murder of the DNC staffer, but the DNC found
a well-connected lawyer to protect Imran Awan who is guilty (along with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz) in the greatest breach of national
cybersecurity:
http://dailycaller.com/2017/07/29/wasserman-schultz-seemingly-planned-to-pay-suspect-even-while-he-lived-in-pakistan/
Seth Rich's family have pleaded, and continue to plead, that the conspiracy theorists leave the death of their son alone and have
said that those who continue to flog this nonsense around the internet are only serving to increase their pain. I suggest respectfully
that some here may wish to consider their feelings. (Also, this stuff is nuts, you know.)
"We also know that many people are angry at our government and want to see justice done in some way, somehow. We are asking
you to please consider our feelings and words. There are people who are using our beloved Seth's memory and legacy for their own
political goals, and they are using your outrage to perpetuate our nightmare."
"Wheeler, a former Metropolitan Police Department officer, was a key figure in a series of debunked stories claiming that Rich
had been in contact with Wikileaks before his death. Fox News, which reported the story online and on television, retracted it
in June."
I'm afraid you're behind the times. Wheeler is no longer relevant now that Sy Hersh has revealed an FBI report that explicitly
says Rich was in contact with Wikileaks offering to sell them DNC documents.
It's unfortunate for the Rich family, but now that the connection is pretty much confirmed, they're going to have to allow
the truth to come out.
Mr. Dmitri Alperovitch, of Jewish descent (and an emigre from Russia), has been an "expert" at the Atlantic Council, the same
organization that cherishes and provides for Mr. Eliot Higgins. These two gentlemen - and the directorate of Atlantic Council
- are exhibit one of opportunism and intellectual dishonesty (though it is hard to think about Mr. Higgins in terms of "intellect").
Take note how Alperovitch coded the names of the supposed hackers: "Russian intelligence services hacked the Democratic National
Committee's computer network and accessed opposition research on Donald Trump, according to the Atlantic Council's Dmitri Alperovitch.
Two Russian groups ! codenamed FancyBear and CozyBear ! have been identified as spearheading the DNC breach." Alperovitch
is not just an incompetent "expert" in cybersecurity - he is a willing liar and war-mongering, for money.
The DNC hacking story has never been about national security; Alperovitch (and his handlers) have no loyalty to the US.
PT, I make a short exception. Actually decided to stop babbling for a while. But: Just finished something successfully.
And since I usually need distraction by something far more interesting then matters at hand. I was close to your line of thought
yesters.
But really: Shouldn't the timeline start in 2015, since that's supposedly the time someone got into the DNC's system?
One could of course start earlier. What is the exact timeline of the larger cyberwar post 9/11, or at least the bits and
pieces that surfaced for the nitwits among us, like: Stuxnet?
But nevermind. Don't forget developments and recent events around Eugene or Jewgeni Walentinowitsch Kasperski?
The Russia thing certainly seems to have gone quiet.
Bannon's chum says the issue with pursuing the Clinton email thing is that you would end up having to indict almost all of
the last administration, including Obama, unseemly certainly. Still there might be a fall guy, maybe Comey, and obviously it serves
Trump's purposes to keep this a live issue through the good work of Grassley and the occasional tweet.
Would be amusing if Trump pardoned Obama. Still think Brennan should pay a price though, can't really be allowed to get away
with it
Scott Ritter's article referenced in PT's post is terrific, covering a ton of issues related to CrowdStrike and the DNC hack.
You need to read it, not just PT's timeline. In case you missed the link in PT's post:
Also, the article Carr references is very important for understanding the limits of malware analysis and "attribution". Written
by Michael Tanji, whose credentials appear impressive: "spent nearly 20 years in the US intelligence community. Trained in both
SIGINT and HUMINT disciplines he has worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the National
Reconnaissance Office. At various points in his career he served as an expert in information warfare, computer network operations,
computer forensics, and indications and warning. A veteran of the US Army, Michael has served in both strategic and tactical assignments
in the Pacific Theater, the Balkans, and the Middle East."
His article echoes and reinforces what Carr and others have said about the difficulty of attribution of infosec breaches.
Namely that the basic problem of both intelligence and infosec operations is that there is too much obfuscation, manipulation,
and misdirection involved to be sure of who or what is going on.
The Seth Rich connection is pretty much a done deal, now that Sy Hersh has been caught on tape stating that he knows of
an FBI report based on a forensic analysis of Rich's laptop that shows Rich was in direct contact with Wikileaks with an attempt
to sell them DNC documents and that Wikileaks had access to Rich's DropBox account. Despite Hersh's subsequent denials - which
everyone knows are his usual impatient deflections prior to putting out a sourced and organized article - it's pretty clear that
Rich was at least one of the sources of the Wikileaks email dump and that there is zero connection to Russia.
None of this proves that Russian intelligence - or Russians of some stripe - or for that matter hackers from literally
anywhere - couldn't or didn't ALSO do a hack of the DNC. But it does prove that the iron-clad attribution of the source of Wikileaks
email release to Russia is at best flawed, and at worst a deliberate cover up of a leak.
And Russiagate depends primarily on BOTH alleged "facts" being true: 1) that Russia hacked the DNC, and 2) that Russia was
the source of Wikileaks release. And if the latter is not true, then one has to question why Russia hacked the DNC in the first
place, other than for "normal" espionage operations. "Influencing the election" then becomes a far less plausible theory.
The general takeaway from an infosec point of view is that attribution by means of target identification, tools used, and "indicators
of compromise" is a fatally flawed means of identifying, and thus being able to counter, the adversaries encountered in today's
Internet world, as Tanji proves. Only HUMINT offers a way around this, just as it is really the only valid option in countering
terrorism.
"Only recently did the "collusion with Russia" nonsense suddenly die down."
My short letter to the editor of The New Yorker (see last sentence):
Raffi Katchadourian ("Julian Assange, a man without a country," Aug. 21, 2017) didn't mention Wikileak's Vault 7 release
includes revelation of CIA capability to allow it to misdirect the attribution of cyber attacks. According to Wikileaks, the
U.S. false-flag technology consists of "leaving behind the 'fingerprints' of the very groups that the attack techniques were
stolen from."
Karchadourian's omission belies his assertion: "Whatever one thinks of Assange's election disclosures, accepting his contention
that they shared no ties with the two Russian fronts requires willful blindness."
His article, of near-record length for the magazine, exhaustively attempts to resuscitate speculation about a Russian cyber
connection to the Clinton meltdown.
"... U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has revised and retracted statements it used to buttress claims of Russian hacking during last year's American presidential election campaign. The shift followed a VOA report that the company misrepresented data published by an influential British think tank. ..."
"... In December, CrowdStrike said it found evidence that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, contributing to heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine's war with pro-Russian separatists. ..."
"... VOA reported Tuesday that the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which publishes an annual reference estimating the strength of world armed forces, disavowed the CrowdStrike report and said it had never been contacted by the company. ..."
"... CrowdStrike was first to link hacks of Democratic Party computers to Russian actors last year, but some cybersecurity experts have questioned its evidence. The company has come under fire from some Republicans who say charges of Kremlin meddling in the election are overblown. ..."
"... After CrowdStrike released its Ukraine report, company co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch claimed it provided added evidence of Russian election interference. In both hacks, he said, the company found malware used by "Fancy Bear," a group with ties to Russian intelligence agencies. ..."
"... CrowdStrike's claims of heavy Ukrainian artillery losses were widely circulated in U.S. media. ..."
"... On Thursday, CrowdStrike walked back key parts of its Ukraine report. ..."
"... The company removed language that said Ukraine's artillery lost 80 percent of the Soviet-era D-30 howitzers, which used aiming software that purportedly was hacked. Instead, the revised report cites figures of 15 to 20 percent losses in combat operations, attributing the figures to IISS. ..."
"... Finally, CrowdStrike deleted a statement saying "deployment of this malware-infected application may have contributed to the high-loss nature of this platform" -- meaning the howitzers -- and excised a link sourcing its IISS data to a blogger in Russia-occupied Crimea. ..."
"... In an email, CrowdStrike spokeswoman Ilina Dmitrova said the new estimates of Ukrainian artillery losses resulted from conversations with Henry Boyd, an IISS research associate for defense and military analysis. She declined to say what prompted the contact. ..."
"... Dmitrova noted that the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community have also concluded that Russia was behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager. ..."
"... In a hearing with the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday afternoon outlining the intelligence agencies' findings on Russian election interference, Comey said there were "multiple requests at different levels" for access to the Democratic servers, but that ultimately a "highly respected private company" was granted access and shared its findings with the FBI. ..."
"... If you enjoyed this post, and want to contribute to genuine, independent media, consider visiting our Support Page . ..."
"... Open-source reporting indicates losses of almost 50% of equipment in the last 2 years of conflict amongst Ukrainian artillery forces and over 80% of D-30 howitzers were lost, far more than any other piece of Ukrainian artillery ..."
"... excluding the Naval Infantry battalion in the Crimea which was effectively captured wholesale, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost between 15% and 20% of their pre-war D30 inventory in combat operations.' ..."
"... With direct access to an IISS expert, this report could be easily improved. All it would need is a chart or table showing D-30 and other artillery losse from 2007-2017, as well as IISS's attributions of the breakdown of the year-to-year inventory changes (combat losses, non-combat capture, sales, disrepair, etc). Then we could tell whether D-30 combat losses were abnormally high or not. ..."
Last week, I published two posts on cyber security firm CrowdStrike after becoming aware of inaccuracies in one of its key reports
used to bolster the claim that operatives of the Russian government had hacked into the DNC. This is extremely important since the
DNC hired CrowdStrike to look into its hack, and at the same time denied FBI access to its servers.
Before reading any further, you should read last week's articles if you missed them the first time.
Now here are the latest developments courtesy of
Voice
of America :
U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has revised and retracted statements it used to buttress claims of Russian hacking
during last year's American presidential election campaign. The shift followed a
VOA report that the company misrepresented data published
by an influential British think tank.
In December, CrowdStrike said it found evidence that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, contributing to heavy
losses of howitzers in Ukraine's war with pro-Russian separatists.
VOA reported Tuesday that the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), which publishes an annual reference
estimating the strength of world armed forces, disavowed the CrowdStrike report and said it had never been contacted by the company.
CrowdStrike was first to link hacks of Democratic Party computers to Russian actors last year, but some cybersecurity experts
have questioned its evidence. The company has come under fire from some Republicans who say charges of Kremlin meddling in the
election are overblown.
After CrowdStrike released its Ukraine report, company co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch claimed it provided added evidence
of Russian election interference. In both hacks, he said, the company found malware used by "Fancy Bear," a group with ties to
Russian intelligence agencies.
CrowdStrike's claims of heavy Ukrainian artillery losses were widely circulated in U.S. media.
On Thursday, CrowdStrike walked back key parts of its Ukraine report.
The company removed language that said Ukraine's artillery lost 80 percent of the Soviet-era D-30 howitzers, which used
aiming software that purportedly was hacked. Instead, the revised report cites figures of 15 to 20 percent losses in combat operations,
attributing the figures to IISS.
Finally, CrowdStrike deleted a statement saying "deployment of this malware-infected application may have contributed to
the high-loss nature of this platform" -- meaning the howitzers -- and excised a link sourcing its IISS data to a blogger in Russia-occupied
Crimea.
In an email, CrowdStrike spokeswoman Ilina Dmitrova said the new estimates of Ukrainian artillery losses resulted from
conversations with Henry Boyd, an IISS research associate for defense and military analysis. She declined to say what prompted
the contact.
Dmitrova noted that the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community have also concluded that Russia was behind the hacks of
the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the email account of John Podesta, Hillary
Clinton's campaign manager.
Here's the problem. Yes, the FBI has agreed with CrowdStrike's conclusion, but the FBI did not analyze the DNC servers because
the DNC specifically denied the FBI access. This was noteworthy in its own right, but it takes on vastly increased significance given
the serious errors in a related hacking report produced by the company.
As such, serious questions need to be asked. Why did FBI head James Comey outsource his job to CrowdStrike, and why did he heap
praise on the company? For instance, back in January,
Comey referred to
CrowdStrike as a "highly respected private company."
In a hearing with the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday afternoon outlining the intelligence agencies' findings on
Russian election interference, Comey said there were "multiple requests at different levels" for access to the Democratic servers,
but that ultimately a "highly respected private company" was granted access and shared its findings with the FBI.
Where does all this respect come from considering how badly it botched the Ukraine report?
Something stinks here, and the FBI needs to be held to account.
If you enjoyed this post, and want to contribute to genuine, independent media, consider visiting our
Support Page .
As someone that prefers to see all the evidence before drawing conclusions, the latest Crowdstrike report is a step backwards.
One claim has been changed from
"Open-source reporting indicates losses of almost 50% of equipment in the last 2 years of conflict amongst Ukrainian artillery
forces and over 80% of D-30 howitzers were lost, far more than any other piece of Ukrainian artillery."
to
"(from Henry Boyd,IISS): 'excluding the Naval Infantry battalion in the Crimea which was effectively captured wholesale, the
Ukrainian Armed Forces lost between 15% and 20% of their pre-war D30 inventory in combat operations.' "
This leads to more questions than answers. There is an elephant in the room that is not addressed: what happened to the the
80% reduction in D-30 towed-artillery inventories?
Now a casual observer may infer that the 80% number has been revised to 15-20%. However, thsese numbers are measuring **different
metrics**: overall inventory reductions (80%) vs combat losses (15-20%). More importantly, the original 80% number was ALSO provided
by IISS (indirectly) and **has not been disputed** by them (to further muddy the water, Crowdstrike has deleted the reference
to their original IISS data source from which the 80% loss was derived).
The only thing that has really changed is that Crowdstrike had originally attrtibuted 100% of the inventory decline to combat
losses, while now they are going with the IISS assessment which attributes more than 75% of the inventory decline to non-combat
reasons (including the capture of the Naval Infantry Battalion).
Also lost in the new report is any comparison of the D-30 howitzer losses to the losses for other artillery, so we have no
way of knowing if this loss is proportionately higher than for other artillery pieces (which would support Crowdstrike's assertions
about a compromised app).
With direct access to an IISS expert, this report could be easily improved. All it would need is a chart or table showing
D-30 and other artillery losse from 2007-2017, as well as IISS's attributions of the breakdown of the year-to-year inventory changes
(combat losses, non-combat capture, sales, disrepair, etc). Then we could tell whether D-30 combat losses were abnormally high
or not.
At present, it looks a LOT like Shawn Henry & Dmitri Alperovitch (CrowdStrike executives), working for either the HRC campaign
or DNC leadership were very likely to have been behind the Guccifer 2.0 operation
Notable quotes:
"... CrowdStrike were recently exposed with their misattribution of quotes and fake information. ..."
"... In other words, CrowdStrike lied to you. ..."
"... CrowdStrike, the cyber-security firm that initially claimed Russia hacked the DNC and tilted the 2016 election in Donald Trump's favor, is being accused of misattribution of quotes in a December report. CrowdStrike have since walked back key and central claims in said report, calling their credibility into serious question. ..."
"... "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." ..."
"... At present, it looks a LOT like Shawn Henry & Dmitri Alperovitch (CrowdStrike executives), working for either the HRC campaign or DNC leadership were very likely to have been behind the Guccifer 2.0 operation." ..."
Voice of America (VOA) which is the largest U.S. international
broadcaster and also according to the not-for-profit and independent Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), CrowdStrike were
recently exposed with their misattribution of quotes and fake information.
In other words, CrowdStrike lied to you.
CrowdStrike, the cyber-security firm that initially claimed Russia hacked the DNC and tilted the 2016 election in Donald Trump's
favor, is being accused of misattribution of quotes in a December report. CrowdStrike have since walked back key and central claims
in said report, calling their credibility into serious question.
That article doesn't mention Wikileaks at all, so this is not the really the best place to discuss it. But in any case,
my response is: the VOA news article is a good source for the article
Fancy Bear , where it is already appropriately cited.
The VOA article or something like it might also be appropriate for the
CrowdStrike article, so long as we were extremely careful
to follow the source and avoid undue emphasis .
(We would, for instance, have to note CrowdStrike's defense, that its update to the report "does not in any way impact the
core premise of the report...").
Hi all :) For those interested to join or continue this discussion, I suggest we resume in
that other talk page . This would centralize discussion related to that news about CrowdStrike who walked back some of
their key and central claims. Thanks to contributor Neutrality for that suggestion :)
Yes, this is a good place to discuss it because whether Wikileaks was specifically mentioned at all or not, the fact is it's
a central component of what CrowdStrike was investigating so to say it's not appropriate to the article is ridiculous. As for
"does not in any way impact the core premise"...) that's the typical dissembling by entities caught making false claims and conclusions.
It's not a "defense." -- Preceding unsigned
comment added by 72.239.232.139
( talk
) 21:31, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
Michael Alperovitch/ Papa Bear/ Fancy Bear
"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."
At present, it looks a LOT like Shawn Henry & Dmitri Alperovitch (CrowdStrike executives), working for either the HRC campaign
or DNC leadership were very likely to have been behind the Guccifer 2.0 operation." --
87.159.115.250 (
talk )
17:54, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
And used this possibility again to advertize his hypothesis that Russians hacked the elections... Should not be a rule for former
CIA directors to keep mouth shut ?
Notable quotes:
"... And Brennan is not exactly a tabula rasa. As he observed in his comment, his ire derives from the claims over Russian alleged interference in the U.S. election, a narrative that Brennan himself has helped to create, to include his shady and possibly illegal contacting of foreign intelligence services to dig up dirt on the GOP presidential candidate and his associates. The dirt was dutifully provided by several European intelligence services which produced a report claiming, inter alia, that Donald Trump had urinated on a Russian prostitute in a bed previously slept in by Barack and Michelle Obama. ..."
I was particularly bemused by the
comment
by former CIA Chief John Brennan who denounced Trump's performance during the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg over the lack of
a hard line against Putin and his failure to support the "word of the U.S. intelligence community" about Russian interference in
the recent election. In an interview Brennan complained "He said it's an honor to meet President Putin. An honor to meet the individual
who carried out the assault against our election? To me, it was a dishonorable thing to say."
Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter
has demonstrated how the "word" of U.S. intel is not exactly what it might seem to be. And Brennan is not exactly a tabula
rasa. As he observed in his comment, his ire derives from the claims over Russian alleged interference in the U.S. election, a narrative
that Brennan himself has helped to create, to include his shady and possibly illegal contacting of foreign intelligence services
to dig up dirt on the GOP presidential candidate and his associates. The dirt was dutifully provided by several European intelligence
services which produced a report claiming, inter alia, that Donald Trump had urinated on a Russian prostitute in a bed previously
slept in by Barack and Michelle Obama.
And along the way I have been assiduously trying to figure out the meaning of last week's reports regarding the contacts of Trump
Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort with two alleged Russian agents while reportedly seeking the dirt on Hillary.
As it turns out, there
may not have been any discussion of Hillary, though possibly something having to do with irregularities in DNC fundraising surfaced,
and there may have been a bit more about the Magnitsky Act and adopting Russian babies.
Barring any new revelations backed up by actual facts revealing that something substantive like a quid pro quo actually took place,
the whole affair appears to be yet another example of a politically inspired fishing expedition. This observation is not necessarily
naivete on my part nor a denial that it all might have been an intelligence operation, but it is an acceptance of the fact that probing
and maneuvering is all part and parcel of what intelligence agencies do when they are dealing with adversaries and very often even
with friends. It does not necessarily imply that Moscow was seeking to overthrow American democracy even if it was trying to advance
its own interests.
max Book is just anothe "Yascha about Russia" type, that Masha Gessen represents so vividly.
The problem with him is that time of neocon prominance is solidly in the past and now unpleasant
question about the cost from the US people of their reckless foreign policies get into some
newspapers and managines. They cost the USA tremedous anount of money (as in trillions) and those
money consititute a large portion of the national debt. Critiques so far were very weak and
partially suppressed voices, but defeat of neocon warmonger Hillary signify some break with
the past.
Notable quotes:
"... National Interest ..."
"... Carlson's record suggests that he has been in the camp skeptical of U.S. foreign-policy intervention for some time now and, indeed, that it predates Donald Trump's rise to power. (Carlson has commented publicly that he was humiliated by his own public support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) According to Carlson, "This is not about Trump. This is not about Trump. It's the one thing in American life that has nothing to do with Trump. My views on this are totally unrelated to my views on Donald Trump. This has been going since September 11, 2001. And it's a debate that we've never really had. And we need to have it." He adds, "I don't think the public has ever been for the ideas that undergird our policies." ..."
"... National Interest ..."
"... But the fight also seems to have a personal edge. Carlson says, "Max Boot is not impressive. . . . Max is a totally mediocre person." Carlson added that he felt guilty about not having, in his assessment, a superior guest to Boot on the show to defend hawkishness. "I wish I had had someone clear-thinking and smart on to represent their views. And there are a lot of them. I would love to have that debate," Carlson told me, periodically emphasizing that he is raring to go on this subject. ..."
"... New York Observer ..."
"... National Interest ..."
"... Weekly Standard ..."
"... Weekly Standard ..."
"... Though he eschews labels, Carlson sounds like a foreign-policy realist on steroids: "You can debate what's in [the United States'] interest. That's a subjective category. But what you can't debate is that ought to be the basic question, the first, second and third question. Does it represent our interest? . . . I don't think that enters into the calculations of a lot of the people who make these decisions." Carlson's interests extend beyond foreign policy, and he says "there's a massive realignment going on ideologically that everybody is missing. It's dramatic. And everyone is missing it. . . . Nobody is paying attention to it, " ..."
This week's primetime knife fights with Max Boot and Ralph Peters are emblematic of the
battle for the soul of the American Right.
To be sure, Carlson rejects the term
"neoconservatism,"
and implicitly, its corollary on the Democratic side, liberal internationalism. In 2016, "the reigning
Republican foreign-policy view, you can call it neoconservatism, or interventionism, or whatever you
want to call it" was rejected, he explained in a wide-ranging interview with the National Interest
Friday.
"But I don't like the term 'neoconservatism,'" he says, "because I don't even know what it means.
I think it describes the people rather than their ideas, which is what I'm interested in. And to
be perfectly honest . . . I have a lot of friends who have been described as neocons, people I really
love, sincerely. And they are offended by it. So I don't use it," Carlson said.
But Carlson's recent segments on foreign policy conducted with Lt. Col.
Ralph Peters and the prominent neoconservative journalist and author
Max Boot were acrimonious even by Carlsonian standards. In a discussion on Syria, Russia and
Iran, a visibly upset Boot accused Carlson of being "immoral" and taking foreign-policy positions
to curry favor with the White House, keep up his
ratings , and by proxy, benefit financially. Boot says that Carlson "basically parrots whatever
the pro-Trump line is that Fox viewers want to see. If Trump came out strongly against Putin tomorrow,
I imagine Tucker would echo this as faithfully as the pro-Russia arguments he echoes today." But
is this assessment fair?
Carlson's record suggests that he has been in the camp skeptical of U.S. foreign-policy intervention
for some time now and, indeed, that it predates Donald Trump's rise to power. (Carlson has commented
publicly that he was humiliated by his own public support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) According
to Carlson, "This is not about Trump. This is not about Trump. It's the one thing in American life
that has nothing to do with Trump. My views on this are totally unrelated to my views on Donald Trump.
This has been going since September 11, 2001. And it's a debate that we've never really had. And
we need to have it." He adds, "I don't think the public has ever been for the ideas that undergird
our policies."
Even if Carlson doesn't want to use the label neocon to describe some of those ideas, Boot is
not so bashful. In 2005, Boot wrote an essay called
"Neocons May Get
the Last Laugh." Carlson "has become a Trump acolyte in pursuit of ratings," says Boot, also
interviewed by the National Interest . "I bet if it were President Clinton accused of colluding
with the Russians, Tucker would be outraged and calling for impeachment if not execution. But since
it's Trump, then it's all a big joke to him," Boot says. Carlson vociferously dissents from such
assessments: "This is what dumb people do. They can't assess the merits of an argument. . . . I'm
not talking about Syria, and Russia, and Iran because of ratings. That's absurd. I can't imagine
those were anywhere near the most highly-rated segments that night. That's not why I wanted to do
it."
But Carlson insists, "I have been saying the same thing for fifteen years. Now I have a T.V. show
that people watch, so my views are better known. But it shouldn't be a surprise. I supported Trump
to the extent he articulated beliefs that I agree with. . . . And I don't support Trump to the extent
that his actions deviate from those beliefs," Carlson said. Boot on Fox said that Carlson is "too
smart" for this kind of argument. But Carlson has bucked the Trump line, notably on Trump's April
7 strikes in Syria. "When the Trump administration threw a bunch of cruise missiles into Syria for
no obvious reason, on the basis of a pretext that I
question . . . I questioned [the decision] immediately. On T.V. I was on the air when that happened.
I think, maybe seven minutes into my show. . . . I thought this was reckless."
But the fight also seems to have a personal edge. Carlson says, "Max Boot is not impressive. .
. . Max is a totally mediocre person." Carlson added that he felt guilty about not having, in his
assessment, a superior guest to Boot on the show to defend hawkishness. "I wish I had had someone
clear-thinking and smart on to represent their views. And there are a lot of them. I would love to
have that debate," Carlson told me, periodically emphasizing that he is raring to go on this subject.
Boot objects to what he sees as a cavalier attitude on the part of Carlson and others toward allegations
of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and also toward the deaths of citizens of other countries.
"You are laughing about the fact that Russia is interfering in our election process. That to me is
immoral," Boot told Carlson on his show. "This is the level of dumbness and McCarthyism in Washington
right now," says Carlson. "I think it has the virtue of making Max Boot feel like a good person.
Like he's on God's team, or something like that. But how does that serve the interest of the country?
It doesn't." Carlson says that Donald Trump, Jr.'s emails aren't nearly as important as who is going
to lead Syria, which he says Boot and others have no plan for successfully occupying. Boot, by contrast,
sees the U.S. administration as dangerously flirting with working with Russia, Iran and Syrian president
Bashar al-Assad. "For whatever reason, Trump is pro-Putin, no one knows why, and he's taken a good
chunk of the GOP along with him," Boot says.
On Fox last Wednesday, Boot reminded Carlson that he originally supported the 2003 Iraq decision.
"You supported the invasion of Iraq," Boot said, before repeating, "You supported the invasion of
Iraq." Carlson conceded that, but it seems the invasion was a bona fide turning point. It's most
important to parse whether Carlson has a long record of anti-interventionism, or if he's merely
sniffing the throne of the president (who, dubiously, may have opposed the 2003 invasion). "I
think it's a total nightmare and disaster, and I'm ashamed that I went against my own instincts in
supporting it," Carlson told the New York Observer in early 2004. "It's something I'll never
do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who's smarter than I am, and I shouldn't have
done that. . . . I'm enraged by it, actually." Carlson told the National Interest that he's
felt this way since seeing Iraq for himself in December 2003.
The evidence points heavily toward a sincere conversion on Carlson's part, or preexisting conviction
that was briefly overcome by the beat of the war drums. Carlson did work for the Weekly Standard
, perhaps the most prominent neoconservative magazine, in the 1990s and early 2000s. Carlson today
speaks respectfully of William Kristol, its founding editor, but has concluded that he is all wet.
On foreign policy, the people Carlson speaks most warmly about are genuine hard left-wingers: Glenn
Greenwald, a vociferous critic of both economic neoliberalism and neoconservatism; the anti-establishment
journalist Michael Tracey; Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation ; and her husband,
Stephen Cohen, the Russia expert and critic of U.S. foreign policy.
"The only people in American public life who are raising these questions are on the traditional
left: not lifestyle liberals, not the Williamsburg (Brooklyn) group, not liberals in D.C., not Nancy
Pelosi." He calls the expertise of establishment sources on matters like Syria "more shallow than
I even imagined." On his MSNBC show, which was canceled for poor ratings, he cavorted with noninterventionist
stalwarts such as
Ron Paul , the 2008 and 2012 antiwar GOP candidate, and Patrick J. Buchanan. "No one is smarter
than Pat Buchanan," he said
last year of the man whose ideas many say laid the groundwork for Trump's political success.
Carlson has risen to the pinnacle of cable news, succeeding Bill O'Reilly. It wasn't always clear
an antiwar take would vault someone to such prominence. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio or Mitt Romney could
be president (Boot has advised the latter two). But here he is, and it's likely no coincidence that
Carlson got a show after Trump's election, starting at the 7 p.m. slot, before swiftly moving to
the 9 p.m. slot to replace Trump antagonist Megyn Kelly, and just as quickly replacing O'Reilly at
the top slot, 8 p.m. Boot, on the other hand, declared in 2016 that the Republican Party was
dead , before it went on to hold Congress and most state houses, and of course take the presidency.
He's still at the Council on Foreign Relations and writes for the New York Times (this seems
to clearly annoy Carlson: "It tells you everything about the low standards of the American foreign-policy
establishment").
Boot wrote in 2003 in the Weekly Standard that the fall of Saddam Hussein's government
"may turn out to be one of those hinge moments in history" comparable to "events like the storming
of the Bastille or the fall of the Berlin Wall, after which everything is different." He continued,
"If the occupation goes well (admittedly a big if ), it may mark the moment when the powerful
antibiotic known as democracy was introduced into the diseased environment of the Middle East, and
began to transform the region for the better."
Though he eschews labels, Carlson sounds like a foreign-policy realist on steroids: "You can debate
what's in [the United States'] interest. That's a subjective category. But what you can't debate
is that ought to be the basic question, the first, second and third question. Does it represent our
interest? . . . I don't think that enters into the calculations of a lot of the people who make these
decisions." Carlson's interests extend beyond foreign policy, and he says "there's a massive realignment
going on ideologically that everybody is missing. It's dramatic. And everyone is missing it. . .
. Nobody is paying attention to it, "
Carlson seems intent on pressing the issue. The previous night, in his debate with Peters, the
retired lieutenant colonel said that Carlson sounded like Charles Lindbergh, who opposed U.S. intervention
against Nazi Germany before 1941. "This particular strain of Republican foreign policy has almost
no constituency. Nobody agrees with it. I mean there's not actually a large group of people outside
of New York, Washington or L.A. who think any of this is a good idea," Carlson says. "All I am is
an asker of obvious questions. And that's enough to reveal these people have no idea what they're
talking about. None."
Curt Mills is a foreign-affairs reporter at the National Interest . Follow him on Twitter:
@CurtMills .
"... Cohen's appearance on Carlson's show last night demonstrated again at what a blistering pace public opinion in the West about Putin and Russia is shifting, for the better. ..."
"... Cohen is always good, but last night he nailed it, calling the media's coverage of Hamburg 'pornography'. ..."
"... It was just a year ago, pre-Trump, that professor Cohen was banned from all the networks, from any major media outlet, and being relentlessly pilloried by the neocon media for being a naive fool for defending Putin and Russia. ..."
"... "The first thing you notice is just how much the press is rooting for this meeting between our president and the Russian President to fail. It's a kind of pornography. Just as there's no love in pornography, there's no American national interest in this bashing of Trump and Putin. ..."
"... Carlson tried to draw Cohen out about who exactly in Washington is so against Assad, and why, and Cohen deflected, demurring - 'I don't know - I'm not an expert'. Of course he knows, as does Carlson - it is an unholy alliance of Israel, Saudi Arabia and their neocon friends in Washington and the media who are pushing this criminal policy, who support ISIS, deliberately. But they can't say so, because, ... well, because. Ask Rupert Murdoch. ..."
Cohen's appearance on Carlson's show last night demonstrated again at what a blistering pace public opinion in the West about
Putin and Russia is shifting, for the better.
Cohen is always good, but last night he nailed it, calling the media's coverage of Hamburg 'pornography'.
Ahh, the power of the apt phrase.
It was just a year ago, pre-Trump, that professor Cohen was banned from all the networks, from any major media outlet, and
being relentlessly pilloried by the neocon media for being a naive fool for defending Putin and Russia.
Last night he was the featured guest on the most watched news show in the country, being cheered on by the host, who has him on
as a regular. And Cohen isn't remotely a conservative. He is a contributing editor at the arch-liberal Nation magazine, of which
his wife is the editor. It doesn't really get pinker than that.
Some choice quotes here, but the whole thing is worth a listen:
"The first thing you notice is just how much the press is rooting for this meeting between our president and the Russian
President to fail. It's a kind of pornography. Just as there's no love in pornography, there's no American national interest in
this bashing of Trump and Putin.
As a historian let me tell you the headline I would write instead:
"What we witnessed today in Hamburg was a potentially historic new detente. an anti-cold-war partnership begun by Trump and
Putin but meanwhile attempts to sabotage it escalate." I've seen a lot of summits between American and Russian presidents, ...
and I think what we saw today was potentially the most fateful meeting ... since the Cold War.
The reason is, is that the relationship with Russia is so dangerous and we have a president who might have been crippled or
cowed by these Russiagate attacks ... yet he was not. He was politically courageous. It went well. They got important things done.
I think maybe today we witnessed president Trump emerging as an American statesman."
Cohen goes on to say that the US should ally with Assad, Iran, and Russia to crush ISIS, with Carlson bobbing his head up and
down in emphatic agreement.
Carlson tried to draw Cohen out about who exactly in Washington is so against Assad, and why, and Cohen deflected, demurring
- 'I don't know - I'm not an expert'. Of course he knows, as does Carlson - it is an unholy alliance of Israel, Saudi Arabia and
their neocon friends in Washington and the media who are pushing this criminal policy, who support ISIS, deliberately. But they can't
say so, because, ... well, because. Ask Rupert Murdoch.
Things are getting better in the US media, but we aren't quite able to call a spade a spade in the land of the free and the home
of the brave.
"... In an interview with Fox News' Eric Shawn, the former ambassador used the phrase "false flag operation" in reference to the CIA's purported assessment which concluded that Russia deliberately interfered with this year's US election to help Donald Trump secure the White House. ..."
"... "It is not at all clear to me, just viewing this from the outside, that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC was not a false flag operation," he told Fox News. ..."
In an interview with Fox News' Eric Shawn, the former ambassador used the phrase "false flag operation" in reference to the
CIA's purported assessment which concluded that Russia deliberately interfered with this year's US election to help Donald Trump
secure the White House.
Suggesting that the Obama administration's lack of transparency makes it impossible to definitively conclude that the Russians
were behind the hacking of US political parties, Bolton, who was reportedly appointed as Trump's deputy secretary of state (the second
highest position at the State Department), appeared to break away from his characteristically national security-first philosophy
to assert a theory about foul play at the highest levels of government,
"It is not at all clear to me, just viewing this from the outside, that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC was not a false
flag operation," he
told Fox News.
When asked to explain what he meant by the highly suggestive phrase "false flag," Bolton gave a hazy answer.
"We just don't know," stated Bolton, refusing to say whether the US government was purposely misleading the public, or worse,
had a hand in the "false flag operation."
"But I believe that intelligence has been politicized in the Obama administration to a very significant degree," said Bolton,
adding:
If you think the Russians did this, then why did they leave fingerprints
We would want to know who else might want to influence the election and why they would leave fingerprints that point to the
Russians. That's why I say until we know more about how the intelligence community came to this conclusion we don't know whether
it is Russian inspired or a false flag
Here's the transcript, detailing the relevant part of Bolton's interview with Eric Shawn:
Bolton's comments reflected echo the skeptical attitude of the Trump team in the wake of The Washington Post's report
on the CIA's unsettling findings about Russia's interference during the presidential election. Trump, himself, called the CIA's assessment
"ridiculous" in a pre-taped interview that aired Sunday.
"I think it's just another excuse. I don't believe it," the president-elect told Fox News' Chris Wallace. "Every week it's another
excuse." Trumped
added that "nobody really knows" who was behind the hacking of emails belonging to top Clinton advisors and DNC officials.
"... In an interview with Fox News' Eric Shawn, the former ambassador used the phrase "false flag operation" in reference to the CIA's purported assessment which concluded that Russia deliberately interfered with this year's US election to help Donald Trump secure the White House. ..."
"... "It is not at all clear to me, just viewing this from the outside, that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC was not a false flag operation," he told Fox News. ..."
In an interview with Fox News' Eric Shawn, the former ambassador used the phrase "false flag operation" in reference to the
CIA's purported assessment which concluded that Russia deliberately interfered with this year's US election to help Donald Trump
secure the White House.
Suggesting that the Obama administration's lack of transparency makes it impossible to definitively conclude that the Russians
were behind the hacking of US political parties, Bolton, who was reportedly appointed as Trump's deputy secretary of state (the second
highest position at the State Department), appeared to break away from his characteristically national security-first philosophy
to assert a theory about foul play at the highest levels of government,
"It is not at all clear to me, just viewing this from the outside, that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC was not a false
flag operation," he
told Fox News.
When asked to explain what he meant by the highly suggestive phrase "false flag," Bolton gave a hazy answer.
"We just don't know," stated Bolton, refusing to say whether the US government was purposely misleading the public, or worse,
had a hand in the "false flag operation."
"But I believe that intelligence has been politicized in the Obama administration to a very significant degree," said Bolton,
adding:
If you think the Russians did this, then why did they leave fingerprints
We would want to know who else might want to influence the election and why they would leave fingerprints that point to the
Russians. That's why I say until we know more about how the intelligence community came to this conclusion we don't know whether
it is Russian inspired or a false flag
Here's the transcript, detailing the relevant part of Bolton's interview with Eric Shawn:
Bolton's comments reflected echo the skeptical attitude of the Trump team in the wake of The Washington Post's report
on the CIA's unsettling findings about Russia's interference during the presidential election. Trump, himself, called the CIA's assessment
"ridiculous" in a pre-taped interview that aired Sunday.
"I think it's just another excuse. I don't believe it," the president-elect told Fox News' Chris Wallace. "Every week it's another
excuse." Trumped
added that "nobody really knows" who was behind the hacking of emails belonging to top Clinton advisors and DNC officials.
Before I get to the meat of this post, we need to revisit a little history. The cyber security firm
hired to inspect the DNC hack and determine who was responsible is a firm called Crowdstrike. Its
conclusion that Russia was responsible was released last year, but several people began to call its
analysis into question upon further inspection.
The FBI/DHS Joint Analysis Report (JAR) "
Grizzly Steppe " was released yesterday as part of the
White House's response to alleged Russian government interference in the 2016 election process.
It adds nothing to the call for evidence that the Russian government was responsible for hacking
the DNC, the DCCC, the email accounts of Democratic party officials, or for delivering the content
of those hacks to Wikileaks.
It merely listed every threat group ever reported on by a commercial cybersecurity company that
is suspected of being Russian-made and lumped them under the heading of Russian Intelligence Services
(RIS) without providing any supporting evidence that such a connection exists.
If ESET could do it, so can others. It is both foolish and baseless to claim, as Crowdstrike does,
that X-Agent is used solely by the Russian government when the source code is there for anyone to
find and use at will.
If the White House had unclassified evidence that tied officials in the Russian government to
the DNC attack, they would have presented it by now. The fact that they didn't means either that
the evidence doesn't exist or that it is classified.
Nevertheless, countless people, including the entirety of the corporate media, put total faith
in the analysis of Crowdstrike despite the fact that the FBI was denied access to perform its own
analysis. Which makes me wonder, did the U.S. government do any real analysis of its own on the DNC
hack, or did it just copy/paste Crowdstrike?
The FBI requested direct access to the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) hacked computer servers
but was denied, Director James Comey told lawmakers on Tuesday.
The bureau made "multiple requests at different levels," according to Comey, but ultimately struck
an agreement with the DNC that a "highly respected private company" would get access and share what
it found with investigators.
"We'd always prefer to have access hands-on ourselves if that's possible," Comey said, noting
that he didn't know why the DNC rebuffed the FBI's request.
This is nuts. Are all U.S. government agencies simply listening to what Crowdstike said in coming
to their "independent" conclusions that Russia hacked the DNC? If so, that's a huge problem. Particularly
considering what Voice of America published yesterday in a piece titled,
Cyber Firm at Center of Russian Hacking Charges Misread Data :
An influential British think tank and Ukraine's military are disputing a report that the U.S.
cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has used to buttress its claims of Russian hacking in the presidential
election.
The
CrowdStrike report, released in December , asserted that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery
app, resulting in heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine's war with Russian-backed separatists.
But the International Institute for Strategic Studies
(IISS) told VOA that CrowdStrike erroneously used IISS data as proof of the intrusion. IISS disavowed
any connection to the CrowdStrike report. Ukraine's Ministry of Defense also has claimed combat losses
and hacking never happened.
The challenges to CrowdStrike's credibility are significant because the firm was the first to
link last year's hacks of Democratic Party computers to Russian actors, and because CrowdStrike co-founder
Dimiti Alperovitch has trumpeted its Ukraine report as more evidence of Russian election tampering.
How is this not the biggest story in America right now?
Yaroslav Sherstyuk, maker of the Ukrainian military app in question, called the company's report
"delusional"
in a Facebook
post . CrowdStrike never contacted him before or after its report was published, he told VOA.
VOA first contacted IISS in February to verify the alleged artillery losses. Officials there initially
were unaware of the CrowdStrike assertions. After investigating, they determined that CrowdStrike
misinterpreted their data and hadn't reached out beforehand for comment or clarification.
In a statement to VOA, the institute flatly rejected the assertion of artillery combat losses.
"The CrowdStrike report uses our data, but the inferences and analysis drawn from that data belong
solely to the report's authors," the IISS said. "The inference they make that reductions in Ukrainian
D-30 artillery holdings between 2013 and 2016 were primarily the result of combat losses is not a
conclusion that we have ever suggested ourselves, nor one we believe to be accurate."
In early January, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense issued a statement saying artillery losses
from the ongoing fighting with separatists are "several times smaller than the number reported by
[CrowdStrike] and are not associated with the specified cause" of Russian hacking.
But Ukraine's denial did not get the same attention as CrowdStrike's report. Its release was widely
covered by news media reports as further evidence of Russian hacking in the U.S. election.
In interviews, Alperovitch helped foster that impression by connecting the Ukraine and Democratic
campaign hacks, which CrowdStrike said involved the same Russian-linked hacking group-Fancy Bear-and
versions of X-Agent malware the group was known to use.
"The fact that they would be tracking and helping the Russian military kill Ukrainian army personnel
in eastern Ukraine and also intervening in the U.S. election is quite chilling," Alperovitch said
in a
December 22 story by The Washington Post .
The same day,
Alperovitch told the PBS NewsHour : "And when you think about, well, who would be interested
in targeting Ukraine artillerymen in eastern Ukraine? Who has interest in hacking the Democratic
Party? [The] Russia government comes to mind, but specifically, [it's the] Russian military that
would have operational [control] over forces in the Ukraine and would target these artillerymen."
Alperovitch, a Russian expatriate and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council policy research center
in Washington, co-founded CrowdStrike in 2011. The firm has employed two former FBI heavyweights:
Shawn Henry, who oversaw global cyber investigations at the agency, and Steven Chabinsky, who was
the agency's top cyber lawyer and served on a White House cybersecurity commission. Chabinsky left
CrowdStrike last year.
CrowdStrike declined to answer VOA's written questions about the Ukraine report, and Alperovitch
canceled a March 15 interview on the topic. In a December statement to VOA's Ukrainian Service, spokeswoman
Ilina Dimitrova defended the company's conclusions.
In its report last June attributing the Democratic hacks, CrowdStrike said it was long familiar
with the methods used by Fancy Bear and another group with ties to Russian intelligence nicknamed
Cozy Bear. Soon after, U.S. cybersecurity firms Fidelis and Mandiant endorsed CrowdStrike's conclusions.
The FBI and Homeland Security report reached the same conclusion about the two groups.
If the company's analysis was "delusional" when it came to Ukraine, why should we have any confidence
that its analysis on Russia and the DNC is more sound?
"... So from now on any contact with Russians officials are assumed to be poisonous, a threat to the USA security, and should be reported to Intelligence services. Like in the USSR were contacts with Western officials. ..."
"... But now some fragments of the picture of DNC hack fall into place and one interesting hypothesis is that it was a false flag operation performed by the CrowdStrike, the same firm which were later assigned to investigate the hack. Which would be in best CIA traditions, stemming from JFK murder investigation and Warren commission. ..."
"... So I suspect all opinions of US intelligence agencies about this hack are just a part of color revolution scenario: the attempt to delegitimize the sitting government and install a new government via a coup d'้tat. ..."
"... The NSA document was very important. It basically proved, according to Scott Ritter, that the NSA had no real evidence of any Russian involvement, and relied on speculation from a single source: DNC contractor CrowdStrike, which recently had to retract a similar claim about Russian hacking of Ukrainian artillery. The real story behind 'Reality Winner' remains, I am sure, unknown. ..."
"... This makes the refusal of the DNC to let the FBI examine those servers even more suspect. OTOH, one can see the thought processes in the DNC: A breach was discovered. If we blame the Russians not only do we further the neo-con agenda, but we also get to call anyone who publishes or cites the material taken from the servers a Russian tool. ..."
"... In fact, if they knew they had internal leakers, it would still be worth claiming to have been hacked by the Russians, so that internally leaked material could be 'poisoned' as part of a Russian plot. ..."
"... Talking points to this effect were ubiquitous and apparently well coordinated, turning virtually every MSM discussion of the content of the leaks into a screed about stolen documents and Russian hackers. It also put a nice fresh coat of paint on the target painted on Assange, turning the undiscerning left against a once valuable ally. ..."
""I did not have communications with the Russians," Mr. Sessions said in response to a question no one asked - and despite the
fact that he had, in fact, met with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, at least twice during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The omission raised questions not only about his honesty, but also about why he would not disclose those meetings in the first
place."
That's neo-McCarthyism plain and simple. Congradulations! We got it. Now we need to fire all Russian sympathizers from the
government service, assuming that they exist. A very nice 17th century witch-hunt.
The only thing we do not have is resurrected Senator McCarthy (McCain is not good enough -- he does not drink).
So from now on any contact with Russians officials are assumed to be poisonous, a threat to the USA security, and should
be reported to Intelligence services. Like in the USSR were contacts with Western officials.
That means that the joke that Russia Foreign Ministry played on April 1 (Google it) about ordering Russian diplomat contact
for your political opponent proved to be true.
But now some fragments of the picture of DNC hack fall into place and one interesting hypothesis is that it was a false
flag operation performed by the CrowdStrike, the same firm which were later assigned to investigate the hack. Which would be in
best CIA traditions, stemming from JFK murder investigation and Warren commission.
And I am now not surprised that nobody investigated Comey for outsourcing (or forced to outsource by threats) the
"DNC hack" investigation to the very questionable firm with strong Ukrainian connections. Which might well be hired to perform
the hack and blame it on Russian to hide Seth Rich story.
If Trump would not be such an idiot, he would site this as a reason of firing Comey (gross unprofessionalism and criminal negligence)
and the level of fear in Clinton Mafia after that might help him to survive.
The truth is that FBI never has any access to DNC computers. None. Unlike in case of Hillary emailgate, they never were in
possession of actual hardware. And they never explored Ukrainian connection, so to speak. They took all results from CrowdStrike
investigation at face value.
So I suspect all opinions of US intelligence agencies about this hack are just a part of color revolution scenario: the attempt
to delegitimize the sitting government and install a new government via a coup d'้tat.
The fighting against Russiagate is about the defense of remnants of Democracy in the USA.
Regurgitation of MSM stories, like Fred is doing, does not add much value to this blog. It is essentially a propaganda exercise.
If your urge to share them is too strong, as Mr.Bill mentioned a simple link would be enough (actually the desire to read on this
topic NYT might be considered as an early sign of dementia, or Alzheimer)
The NSA document was very important. It basically proved, according to Scott Ritter, that the NSA had no real evidence
of any Russian involvement, and relied on speculation from a single source: DNC contractor CrowdStrike, which recently had
to retract a similar claim about Russian hacking of Ukrainian artillery. The real story behind 'Reality Winner' remains, I
am sure, unknown.
This might well be a ploy to undermine the anti-Russia hype, though the media cartel has trumpeted it uncritically for the
short-term rush of goosing the Comey spectacle.
This makes the refusal of the DNC to let the FBI examine those servers even more suspect. OTOH, one can see the thought
processes in the DNC: A breach was discovered. If we blame the Russians not only do we further the neo-con agenda, but we also
get to call anyone who publishes or cites the material taken from the servers a Russian tool.
In fact, if they knew they had internal leakers, it would still be worth claiming to have been hacked by the Russians,
so that internally leaked material could be 'poisoned' as part of a Russian plot.
Talking points to this effect were ubiquitous and apparently well coordinated, turning virtually every MSM discussion
of the content of the leaks into a screed about stolen documents and Russian hackers. It also put a nice fresh coat of paint
on the target painted on Assange, turning the undiscerning left against a once valuable ally.
"... Given the stakes involved in the Russia-gate investigation now including a possible impeachment battle over removing the President of the United States wouldn't it seem logical for the FBI to insist on its own forensics for this fundamental predicate of the case? Or could Comey's hesitancy to demand access to the DNC's computers be explained by a fear that FBI technicians not fully briefed on CIA/NSA/FBI Deep State programs might uncover a lot more than he wanted? ..."
"... "In the case of the DNC, and, I believe, the DCCC, but I'm sure the DNC, we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. But we didn't get direct access." ..."
"... "Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?" ..."
"... "It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks the people who were my folks at the time is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016." ..."
"... Burr demurred on asking Comey to explain what amounts to gross misfeasance, if not worse. Perhaps, NBC could arrange for Megyn Kelly to interview Burr to ask if he has a clue as to what Putin might have been referring to when he noted, "There may be hackers, by the way, in the United States who very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia." ..."
"... Given the congressional intelligence "oversight" committees' obsequiousness and repeated "high esteem" for the "intelligence community," there seems an even chance that no doubt because of an oversight the CIA/FBI/NSA deep-stage troika failed to brief the Senate "oversight committee" chairman on WikiLeaks "Vault 7" disclosures even when WikiLeaks publishes original CIA documents. ..."
Given the stakes involved in the Russia-gate investigation now including a possible impeachment battle over removing the
President of the United States wouldn't it seem logical for the FBI to insist on its own forensics for this fundamental predicate
of the case? Or could Comey's hesitancy to demand access to the DNC's computers be explained by a fear that FBI technicians not fully
briefed on CIA/NSA/FBI Deep State programs might uncover a lot more than he wanted?
Comey was asked again about this curious oversight on June 8 by Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr:
BURR: "And the FBI, in this case, unlike other cases that you might investigate did you ever have access to the actual hardware
that was hacked? Or did you have to rely on a third party to provide you the data that they had collected?"
COMEY:"In the case of the DNC, and, I believe, the DCCC, but I'm sure the DNC, we did not have access to the devices themselves.
We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. But we didn't get direct
access."
BURR: "But no content?"
COMEY: "Correct."
BURR:"Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?"
COMEY:"It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks the people who were my folks at the time is that they had
gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016."
Burr demurred on asking Comey to explain what amounts to gross misfeasance, if not worse. Perhaps, NBC could arrange for Megyn
Kelly to interview Burr to ask if he has a clue as to what Putin might have been referring to when he noted, "There may be hackers,
by the way, in the United States who very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia."
Given the congressional intelligence "oversight" committees' obsequiousness and repeated "high esteem" for the "intelligence
community," there seems an even chance that no doubt because of an oversight the CIA/FBI/NSA deep-stage troika failed to brief
the Senate "oversight committee" chairman on WikiLeaks "Vault 7" disclosures even when WikiLeaks publishes original CIA documents.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.
He was an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and CIA analyst for a total of 30 years and now servers on the Steering Group of Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Reprinted with permission from
Consortium News .
"... Given the stakes involved in the Russia-gate investigation now including a possible impeachment battle over removing the President of the United States wouldn't it seem logical for the FBI to insist on its own forensics for this fundamental predicate of the case? Or could Comey's hesitancy to demand access to the DNC's computers be explained by a fear that FBI technicians not fully briefed on CIA/NSA/FBI Deep State programs might uncover a lot more than he wanted? ..."
"... "In the case of the DNC, and, I believe, the DCCC, but I'm sure the DNC, we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. But we didn't get direct access." ..."
"... "Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?" ..."
"... "It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks the people who were my folks at the time is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016." ..."
"... Burr demurred on asking Comey to explain what amounts to gross misfeasance, if not worse. Perhaps, NBC could arrange for Megyn Kelly to interview Burr to ask if he has a clue as to what Putin might have been referring to when he noted, "There may be hackers, by the way, in the United States who very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia." ..."
"... Given the congressional intelligence "oversight" committees' obsequiousness and repeated "high esteem" for the "intelligence community," there seems an even chance that no doubt because of an oversight the CIA/FBI/NSA deep-stage troika failed to brief the Senate "oversight committee" chairman on WikiLeaks "Vault 7" disclosures even when WikiLeaks publishes original CIA documents. ..."
Given the stakes involved in the Russia-gate investigation now including a possible impeachment battle over removing the
President of the United States wouldn't it seem logical for the FBI to insist on its own forensics for this fundamental predicate
of the case? Or could Comey's hesitancy to demand access to the DNC's computers be explained by a fear that FBI technicians not fully
briefed on CIA/NSA/FBI Deep State programs might uncover a lot more than he wanted?
Comey was asked again about this curious oversight on June 8 by Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr:
BURR: "And the FBI, in this case, unlike other cases that you might investigate did you ever have access to the actual hardware
that was hacked? Or did you have to rely on a third party to provide you the data that they had collected?"
COMEY:"In the case of the DNC, and, I believe, the DCCC, but I'm sure the DNC, we did not have access to the devices themselves.
We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. But we didn't get direct
access."
BURR: "But no content?"
COMEY: "Correct."
BURR:"Isn't content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?"
COMEY:"It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks the people who were my folks at the time is that they had
gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016."
Burr demurred on asking Comey to explain what amounts to gross misfeasance, if not worse. Perhaps, NBC could arrange for Megyn
Kelly to interview Burr to ask if he has a clue as to what Putin might have been referring to when he noted, "There may be hackers,
by the way, in the United States who very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia."
Given the congressional intelligence "oversight" committees' obsequiousness and repeated "high esteem" for the "intelligence
community," there seems an even chance that no doubt because of an oversight the CIA/FBI/NSA deep-stage troika failed to brief
the Senate "oversight committee" chairman on WikiLeaks "Vault 7" disclosures even when WikiLeaks publishes original CIA documents.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington.
He was an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer and CIA analyst for a total of 30 years and now servers on the Steering Group of Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Reprinted with permission from
Consortium News .
"... After the alleged hacking, the DNC retained a private security firm - CrowdStrike - which made the determination that the Russian government was responsible, setting into motion a chain of Russia-related events that continue to unfold even now. ..."
"... TYT can report that at the same time CrowdStrike was working on behalf of the DNC, the company was also under contract with the FBI for unspecified technical services. ..."
"... The most prominent "private, non-partisan security firm" is CrowdStrike, and despite Kelly's use of the term "non-partisan" to describe the firm, its fiduciary relationship with the DNC suggests otherwise. As the journalist Yasha Levine wrote in The Baffler ..."
"... Far from establishing an airtight case for Russian espionage, CrowdStrike made a point of telling its DNC clients what it already knew they wanted to hear: after a cursory probe, it pronounced the Russians the culprits. Mainstream press outlets, primed for any faint whiff of great-power scandal and poorly versed in online threat detection, likewise treated the CrowdStrike report as all but incontrovertible. ..."
"... In April 2016, two months before the June report was issued, former President Barack Obama appointed Steven Chabinsky, "general counsel and Chief Risk officer" for CrowdStrike, to a presidential "Commission for Enhancing Cybersecurity," further demonstrating CrowdStrike's intermingling with powerful Democratic Party factions. ..."
"... Neither the FBI nor CrowdStrike responded to requests for comment on the nature of the services provided. As of yet, the only entity known to receive primary access to the DNC servers is CrowdStrike. At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in January, Comey testified that the FBI had been denied access to the servers by the DNC after repeated requests. And unnamed FBI officials told reporters , "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." ..."
"... Effectively, information that is now central to massively consequential geopolitical disputes has been "privatized" and held exclusively by a profit-seeking entity. CrowdStrike's findings continue to be repeated by journalists and politicians with unflinching certainty - despite the fact that it was forced to retract a central element of another report involving related malware attribution, raising doubts about the reliability of its DNC conclusions. As Jeffrey Carr, a security researcher who has been critical of CrowdStrike's methods, told me: "The foundation of placing the blame on Russia was false." ..."
"... Power to determine world events is increasingly being concentrated in the hands of a tiny group of self-proclaimed "experts" who aren't accountable to the public, but to clients and investors. CrowdStrike, evidently benefitting from the surge in PR, announced last month that it had been valued at one billion dollars. ..."
Claims of "Russian interference" have been ubiquitous in U.S. political discourse for almost a full year now; these often amount
to a m้lange of allegations ranging from "hacking" to "influence campaigns" to "online trolls" sent by the Kremlin to harangue unsuspecting
Midwestern voters. "Hacking," however, remains the centerpiece of the narrative - the idea that Russian state actors "hacked" the
Democratic National Committee and exfiltrated emails is routinely cited as the centerpiece of the overall "interference" thesis.
After the alleged hacking, the DNC retained a private security firm - CrowdStrike - which made the determination that the Russian
government was responsible, setting into motion a chain of Russia-related events that continue to unfold even now.
TYT can report that at the same time CrowdStrike was working on behalf of the DNC, the company was also
under contract with the FBI for unspecified technical services. According to a US federal government spending database, CrowdStrike's
"period of performance" on behalf of the FBI was between July 2015 and July 2016. CrowdStrike's findings regarding the DNC server
breach - which continue to this day to be cited as authoritative by everyone from former FBI Director James Comey, to NBC anchor
Megyn Kelly - were
issued in June
2016, when the contract was still active.
Last week at a forum with Vladimir Putin, Kelly listed
all the authoritative American entities which she claimed have corroborated the conclusion that Russian state actors "interfered"
in the 2016 presidential election. (Notwithstanding its vagueness and imprecision, the term "interference" has come to be the standard
term American media personalities invoke when seeking to describe how "Russians" maliciously undermined the sanctity of the 2016
US election process.) Querying Putin, Kelly repeated the
canard that "17 intelligence agencies" had
all independently concluded that Russia indeed "interfered" - whatever that means, exactly. She then continued: "Even private, non-partisan
security firms say the same that Russia interfered with the US election."
The most prominent "private, non-partisan security firm" is CrowdStrike, and despite Kelly's use of the term "non-partisan" to
describe the firm, its fiduciary relationship with the DNC suggests otherwise. As the journalist Yasha Levine
wrote in The Baffler,
Far from establishing an airtight case for Russian espionage, CrowdStrike made a point of telling its DNC clients what it already
knew they wanted to hear: after a cursory probe, it pronounced the Russians the culprits. Mainstream press outlets, primed for
any faint whiff of great-power scandal and poorly versed in online threat detection, likewise treated the CrowdStrike report as
all but incontrovertible.
In April 2016, two months before the June report was issued, former President Barack Obama
appointed Steven Chabinsky, "general counsel and Chief Risk officer" for CrowdStrike, to a presidential "Commission for Enhancing
Cybersecurity," further demonstrating CrowdStrike's intermingling with powerful Democratic Party factions.
Neither the FBI nor CrowdStrike responded to requests for comment on the nature of the services provided. As of yet, the only
entity known to receive primary access to the DNC servers is CrowdStrike. At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in January,
Comey testified that the FBI had been
denied access
to the servers by the DNC after repeated requests. And unnamed FBI officials
told reporters , "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."
Comey's long-awaited Congressional testimony on Thursday may provide additional insight into the FBI's reliance on the firm.
Effectively, information that is now central to massively consequential geopolitical disputes has been "privatized" and held
exclusively by a profit-seeking entity. CrowdStrike's findings continue to be repeated by journalists and politicians with unflinching
certainty - despite the fact that it was
forced
to retract a central element of another report involving related malware attribution, raising doubts about the reliability of
its DNC conclusions. As Jeffrey Carr, a security researcher who has been critical of CrowdStrike's methods, told me: "The foundation
of placing the blame on Russia was false."
Power to determine world events is increasingly being concentrated in the hands of a tiny group of self-proclaimed "experts"
who aren't accountable to the public, but to clients and investors. CrowdStrike, evidently benefitting from the surge in PR,
announced last month that it had been valued
at one billion dollars.
That's too simplistic: DNC leak did caused damage for Clinton campaign.
Notable quotes:
"... What is particularly suspicious is that CrowdStrike is the only cybersecurity entity that has ever been given unfettered access to the DNC servers. ..."
"... CrowdStrike can't even be trusted to perform illegal hacking proficiently, much less confirm the true source of the DNC email hack. Therefore, if CrowdStrike asserts that the hackers were Russian, we know that Russia had absolutely nothing to do with it. ..."
"... CTO Dmitri Alperovitch is a creation of Deep State , and was carefully set up as the point man for the hacking scheme. His entire family history reflects a pattern of double agents who were easily enlisted to work for the US government in order to maintain their "in-country status". All the evidence even points to Alperovitch working for Ukraine intelligence, which significantly demonstrates his motives to pin the hacking on the Kremlin.[1] ..."
Would you trust this guy with technically verifying who perpetrated the alleged Russian hack? Believe it or not, the above photo of CTO Dmitri Alperovitch was taken directly from CrowdStrike's official website, the "American
cybersecurity technology company" tasked with the digital sleuthing of the DNC server hack.
Key Point: CrowdStrike has since been proven to be a criminal hacking organization by Internet investigators. The shadowy cyber-firm
was founded by a Russian-American so that the U.S. Intelligence Community could use it to perpetrate 'Russian' hacks. In this way,
CrowdStrike methodically fabricates fake evidence on demand for the CIA/NSA/FBI which can then be blamed on Russia.
In the fictitious Russian election hack case, CrowdStrike was the CIA contractor paid to create digital evidence with fake
Russian "signatures" in order to incriminate the Kremlin. This fabrication of evidence appears to have been perpetrated in collusion
with the creators of Guccifer 2.0.
Did Guccifer 2.0 Fake "Russian Fingerprints?"
Here's another fake report produced by CrowdStrike regarding a hacked "Ukrainian artillery app" during the Ukrainian War. It's
important to note that the following mainstream media account was published by Voice of America (VOA) -- "a United States government-funded
multimedia news outlet".
What is particularly suspicious is that CrowdStrike is the only cybersecurity entity that has ever been given unfettered access
to the DNC servers.
CrowdStrike can't even be trusted to perform illegal hacking proficiently, much less confirm the true source of the DNC email
hack. Therefore, if CrowdStrike asserts that the hackers were Russian, we know that Russia had absolutely nothing to do with it.
As a matter of documented fact, it was actually CrowdStrike who hacked the DNC server before the 2016 election. The following
expos้ is a MUST READ for anyone who wants to know the real back story.
DNC
Russian Hackers Found!
The plot to frame Russia -- for the DNC's own criminal conspiracy -- was closely coordinated between the DNC and the CIA and
carried out with the full support of the Obama Administration. Given that the heads of virtually all 17 agencies within the U.S.
Intelligence Community were ready and willing to support the necessary crime wave, it was an obvious brainchild of Deep State
.
CTO Dmitri Alperovitch is a creation of Deep State , and was carefully set up as the point man for the hacking scheme.
His entire family history reflects a pattern of double agents who were easily enlisted to work for the US government in order to
maintain their "in-country status". All the evidence even points to Alperovitch working for Ukraine intelligence, which significantly
demonstrates his motives to pin the hacking on the Kremlin.[1]
The preceding graphic delineates the time frame according to which CrowdStrike was stealthily employed by the DNC to eventually
identify the fictitious 'Russian' hackers. They even named the alleged state actor COZY BEAR and FANCY BEAR. That's because all they
do -- 24/7 -- is hunt Russian bear even where they don't exist.
BOTTOM LINE
There are very good reasons why this story will not go away, and only gets bigger with each passing day.
When
the CIA, DNC, CrowStrike et al. started off with such a flagra... Because this complex and convoluted criminal conspiracy is
being used as a basis to instigate a war against Russia, it's really just another classic false flag operation. Such CIA-conceived
black ops, that are then used as NSA-driven global PsyOps, can only come this far when Deep State so orders it. Their ultimate
goal is to overthrow the Trump presidency before their New World Order agenda is thwarted any further.
CONCLUSION
Perhaps these highly radioactive details explain the now-notorious grin worn by Dmitri Alperovitch in his company photo posted
above.
Key Point: CrowdStrike has since been proven to be a criminal hacking organization by Internet investigators. The shadowy cyber-firm
was founded by a Russian-American so that the U.S. Intelligence Community could use it to perpetrate 'Russian' hacks. In this way,
CrowdStrike methodically fabricates fake evidence on demand for the CIA/NSA/FBI which can then be blamed on Russia.
In the fictitious Russian election hack case, CrowdStrike was the CIA contractor paid to create digital evidence with fake
Russian "signatures" in order to incriminate the Kremlin. This fabrication of evidence appears to have been perpetrated in collusion
with the creators of Guccifer 2.0.
Well there you go America you have your Russian hacker, and it's a CIA contractor who is in charge of running the DNC computer
system. This is how Democrats are claiming the Russian hack of the election and they're computer systems were rigged by Russia, because
the owner of CrowdStrike who runs the DNC computer systems is Russian.
This officially destroys the Russia/Trump collusion Democrat conspiracy theory, because the DNC hired a Russian to run the
parties computer system to make it look like a Russian hack just in case Trump won the election. Trump needs to bring up this man
on Twitter, because the mentioning of this man by the President would absolutely destroy the Russia/Trump collusion. This kills the
narrative by Democrats on Russia/Trump collusion for one reason only...The DNC has colluded with a Russian hacker to work on their
computer system.
TYT Politics reporter Michael Tracey (http://www.twitter.com/mtracey)
reports that CrowdStrike, the cyber-security firm retained by the DNC to analyze its "hacked" servers, had a contract with the FBI.
So these guys had FBI contacts and they had Clinton contacts
Something was really wrong with Comey. Such an unprofessionalism is not excusable.
Notable quotes:
"... Three days after his discovery, Alperovitch was on a plane to Washington. He'd been asked to vet a paragraph in a speech by the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton . She'd decided, for the first time, to call out another country for a cyberattack. "In an interconnected world," she said, "an attack on one nation's networks can be an attack on all." ..."
"... Alperovitch removed the word China from his analysis, calling the operation Shady Rat instead. He told me that James's intervention accelerated his plans to leave Intel. ..."
"... So these guys had FBI contacts and they had Clinton contacts. What else did they have? Would anyone believe connections to DHS : ..."
"... To recap, all the claims of Russian involvement with DNC (and by extension Team Trump) is based on claims by a firm with roots back to the Obama FBI, to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and to DHS? This is the only evidence we have of Russian efforts to tilt this election (as opposed to efforts by Democrat operatives in the Deep State to tilt the election)? ..."
"... note: this site is a bit tinfoil hat for me, but I liked the way these paragraphs summarized where we are on this ..."
"... 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. ..."
"... The ridiculously fake cyber-attack assessment done by Alperovitch and CrowdStrike na๏vely flies in the face of the fact that a DNC insider admitted that he had released the DNC documents. ..."
"... I just seems crazy that all this diversion by the news media and Democrats is based on the unsubstantiated claims of a company that epitomizes what it means to be part of the Political Industrial Complex ..."
"... The Political Industrial Complex encompasses all those elites whose livelihoods are predicated on central-control of resources and who determine who is allowed to succeed in society. It is a bipartisan exclusive club. It includes the Politicians and their career staffers. It includes crony donors and lobbyists who reap government windfalls and special treatment that average citizens cannot obtain. It includes the PIC industrial base of pollsters, consultants, etc. And it includes the pliant news media, whose success rest on access to those in power, and in return for access making sure no bad news will disrupt said power. ..."
The fantasy story line inside the Political Industrial Complex* (PIC) is that Team Trump colluded
with Russia to tilt last year's election to Trump. Of course the endless screw ups by Team Clinton,
and the high level of frustration across this great land with PIC and its elites, had nothing
to do with the election results. It has to be those pesky Russkies!
The story goes that the FBI and all 16 intelligence agencies concur that the Russians were
targeting the Democrats, and this began with the exposure of DNC emails prior to the Democrat convention
last year.
Well, that's ONE STORY
A fuller picture is becoming evident. One where nearly all the conclusions of Russian influence
are based upon a report from one company
a company contracted by the DNC --
On Thursday, a senior law enforcement official
told CNN that the DNC "rebuffed" the agency's request to physically examine its computer servers
after the alleged hacking. Instead, the FBI relied on CrowdStrike's assessment that the servers
had most likely been hacked by Russian agents.
"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," CNN
quoted the senior law enforcement official as saying. "This left the FBI no choice but to rely
upon a third party for information.
Sounds just like Hillary Clinton and her email server where the government cannot do a real
investigation of the actual computer evidence. If this sounds fishy, it is. Because this company
is not a middle of the road, independent agent.
It is, in fact, a young start-up with much of its prior success tied to the Obama administration
(less now than when it began 6 years ago), and of course its future rests in the hands of the Intelligence
Community and the niche community of federal cyber-security specialists. All who make their living
off the federal government in one way or the other. They know who is lining their bank accounts
One of the founders is Dmitri Alperovitch who was born in Moscow, Russia in 1980 and who moved
with his family to the US in 1990. Clearly he had not forged nefarious ties to Putin's regime by
the age of 10 when he emigrated, so his Russian background is not really of much interest. But he
does have an interesting past, which I will get to in a second.
Founder Dmitri Alperovitch has been the best known face of CrowdStrike, partly due to the
profile feature done on him by Esquire in late 2016. But his co-founder, George Kurtz
like Alperovitch, a former executive at McAfee has had a high professional profile as well.
Worth noting at the outset is that Kurtz obtained a $26 million financing deal for the CrowdStrike
start-up in February 2012
from equity giant Warburg Pincus , after Kurtz had been serving there as the "entrepreneur
in residence."
This equity firm is where the initial seed money for CrowdStrike came from (Warburg was the
only capital investor at the beginning; Google came in with the $100 million in 2015).
Warburg Pincus remains a primary investor in CrowdStrike, along with Google and
Accel Partners . In 2016, Warburg, whose
president since
2014 has been Tim Geithner , Obama's former secretary of the treasury,
raised $29,709 for Hillary Clinton , the largest single recipient of campaign funds raised
by Warburg employees and PACs. (No contributions were made through Warburg-related entities to
Donald Trump.)
That's partly because Chabinsky was Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Cyber Division and
Chief of the FBI's Cyber Intelligence Section before he left the Bureau for private life in 2012
(the year he
joined CrowdStrike ).
But there's more. [Shawn] Henry is the president of CrowdStrike Services, and the Chief Security
Officer (CSO) for the company. But when he
came on with CrowdStrike, in April 2012 , he was coming off his final position with the FBI:
Executive Assistant Director of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Service Branch. (Or, as he
was usually referred to, the "FBI's top cyber official.")
In other words, CrowdStrike scored the FBI's two biggest Obama-era cybersecurity names Henry
and Chabinsky the year it was formed as a start-up .
Strong ties to Obama's FBI, and one would assume FBI Director Comey. Hmmm .
Alperovitch's first big break in cyberdefense came in 2010 , while he was at McAfee. The head
of cybersecurity at Google told Alperovitch 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.
Three days after his discovery, Alperovitch was on a plane to Washington. He'd been asked
to vet a paragraph in a speech by the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton . She'd decided, for
the first time, to call out another country for a cyberattack. "In an interconnected world," she
said, "an attack on one nation's networks can be an attack on all."
Now just hold on one second here. How in the world does a nobody at MacAfee get on a plane to
meet the Secretary of State in just 3 days? No vetting? No preliminaries with underlings? Just fly
out to DC to review a single paragraph??
This has to be fictional drama.
BTW, earlier in the same article we have this contrary story line:
In 2011, he was working in Atlanta as the chief threat officer at the antivirus software firm
McAfee. While sifting through server logs in his apartment one night, he discovered evidence of
a hacking campaign by the Chinese government. Eventually he learned that the campaign had been
going on undetected for five years, and that the Chinese had compromised at least seventy-one
companies and organizations, including thirteen defense contractors, three electronics firms,
and the International Olympic Committee.
While Alperovitch was writing up his report on the breach, he received a call from Renee James,
an executive at Intel, which had recently purchased McAfee. According to Alperovitch, James told
him, "Dmitri, Intel has a lot of business in China. You cannot call out China in this report."
Alperovitch removed the word China from his analysis, calling
the operation Shady Rat instead. He told me that James's intervention accelerated his plans to
leave Intel.
So which story-line is the right one? Not sure, but let's just say not just anyone gets called
to review Hillary's speeches.
So these guys had FBI contacts and they had Clinton contacts. What else did they have? Would
anyone believe
connections to DHS :
Through their common roots in McAfee, Alperovitch and Kurtz have an extensive history with
top cyber expert Phyllis Schneck, who appears in the Esquire piece from October. In fact,
Alperovitch and Schneck were at Georgia Tech together (see the Esquire article), and
later were
vice presidents
of McAfee at the same time Kurtz was McAfee's chief technology officer (CTO). Alperovitch
has obviously had a close professional relationship with Schneck; their names are both on
four separate patent applications .
To recap, all the claims of Russian involvement with DNC (and by extension Team Trump) is
based on claims by a firm with roots back to the Obama FBI, to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
and to DHS? This is the only evidence we have of Russian efforts to tilt this election (as opposed
to efforts by Democrat operatives in the Deep State to tilt the election)?
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.
The ridiculously fake cyber-attack assessment done by Alperovitch and CrowdStrike na๏vely
flies in the face of the fact that a DNC insider admitted that he had released the DNC documents.
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.
I just seems crazy that all this diversion by the news media and Democrats is based on the
unsubstantiated claims of a company that epitomizes what it means to be part of the Political Industrial
Complex*
* The Political Industrial Complex encompasses all those elites whose livelihoods are predicated
on central-control of resources and who determine who is allowed to succeed in society. It is a bipartisan
exclusive club. It includes the Politicians and their career staffers. It includes crony donors and
lobbyists who reap government windfalls and special treatment that average citizens cannot obtain.
It includes the PIC industrial base of pollsters, consultants, etc. And it includes the pliant news
media, whose success rest on access to those in power, and in return for access making sure no bad
news will disrupt said power.
"... John O. Brennan, the former director of the CIA, said publicly for the first time Tuesday that he was concerned about possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign ..."
"... Mr. Brennan became so concerned last summer about signs of Russian election meddling that he held urgent, classified briefings for eight senior members of Congress, speaking with some of them over secure phone lines while they were away on recess. In those conversations, he told lawmakers there was evidence that Russia was specifically working to elect Mr. Trump as president. ..."
"... Mr. Brennan was also one of a handful of officials who briefed both President Barack Obama and Mr. Trump in January on a broad intelligence community report revealing that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had personally ordered an "influence campaign" targeting the presidential election. ..."
John O. Brennan, the former director of the CIA, said publicly for the first time Tuesday that he was concerned about possible
ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
President Trump asked two top intelligence officials to deny the existence of any evidence of collusion between his campaign and
Russia, former officials said. Both of the intelligence officials are testifying before lawmakers on Tuesday.
Mr. Brennan, the former CIA director, said Tuesday that he became concerned last year that the Russian government was trying to
influence members of the Trump campaign to act - wittingly or unwittingly - on Moscow's behalf.
"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 that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals,"
Mr. Brennan told lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee.
It raised questions in my mind about whether Russia was able to gain the cooperation of those individuals," he said, adding that
he did not know whether the Russian efforts were successful. He added, "I don't know whether such collusion existed." It was the first time he publicly acknowledged that he was concerned about possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
He said he left office in January with many unanswered questions about the Russian influence operation. Intelligence officials
have said that Russia tried to tip the election toward Mr. Trump.
Mr. Brennan became so concerned
last summer about signs of Russian election meddling that he held urgent, classified briefings for eight senior members of Congress,
speaking with some of them over secure phone lines while they were away on recess. In those conversations, he told lawmakers there
was evidence that Russia was specifically working to elect Mr. Trump as president.
Mr. Brennan was also one of a handful of officials who briefed both President Barack Obama and Mr. Trump in January on a broad
intelligence community report revealing
that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had personally ordered an "influence campaign" targeting the presidential election.
FBI agents say the bureau is alarmed over Director James Comey deciding not to suggest that the Justice Department prosecute Hillary
Clinton over her mishandling of classified information.
According to an interview transcript given to The Daily Caller, provided by an intermediary who spoke to two federal agents with
the bureau last Friday, agents are frustrated by Comey's leadership.
"This is a textbook case where a grand jury should have convened but was not. That is appalling," an FBI special agent who has
worked public corruption and criminal cases said of the decision. "We talk about it in the office and don't know how Comey can keep
going."
The agent was also surprised that the bureau did not bother to search Clinton's house during the investigation.
"We didn't search their house. We always search the house. The search should not just have been for private electronics, which
contained classified material, but even for printouts of such material," he said.
"There should have been a complete search of their residence," the agent pointed out. "That the FBI did not seize devices is unbelievable.
The FBI even seizes devices that have been set on fire."
Another special agent for the bureau that worked counter-terrorism and criminal cases said he is offended by Comey's saying: "we"
and "I've been an investigator."
After graduating from law school, Comey became a law clerk to a U.S. District Judge in Manhattan and later became an associate
in a law firm in the city. After becoming a U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, Comey's career moved through the
U.S. Attorney's Office until he became Deputy Attorney General during the George W. Bush administration.
After Bush left office, Comey entered the private sector and became general counsel and Senior Vice President for Lockheed Martin,
among other private sector posts. President Barack Obama appointed him to FBI director in 2013 replacing out going-director Robert
Mueller.
"Comey was never an investigator or special agent. The special agents are trained investigators and they are insulted that Comey
included them in 'collective we' statements in his testimony to imply that the SAs agreed that there was nothing there to prosecute,"
the second agent said. "All the trained investigators agree that there is a lot to prosecuted but he stood in the way."
He added, "The idea that [the Clinton/e-mail case] didn't go to a grand jury is ridiculous."
According to Washington D.C. attorney Joe DiGenova, more FBI agents will be talking about the problems at bureau and specifically
the handling of the Clinton case by Comey when Congress comes back into session and decides to force them to testify by subpoena.
DiGenova told WMAL radio's Drive at Five last week, "People are starting to talk. They're calling their former friends outside
the bureau asking for help. We were asked to day to provide legal representation to people inside the bureau and agreed to do so
and to former agents who want to come forward and talk. Comey thought this was going to go away."
He explained, "It's not. People inside the bureau are furious. They are embarrassed. They feel like they are being led by a hack
but more than that that they think he's a crook. They think he's fundamentally dishonest. They have no confidence in him. The bureau
inside right now is a mess."
He added, "The most important thing of all is that the agents have decided that they are going to talk."
In the political swamp that is Washington, and in the press swamp, motor boats began speeding
every which way in the wake of Trump's decision to fire FBI Director Comey.
People in the boats are holding up signs to explain the reason for the firing.
The first sign was: COMEY LIED. Comey lied the other day. He lied in testimony before Congress,
when he said Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's long-time aide, had sent "hundreds and thousands" of
emails to her husband, Anthony Weiner, some of which contained classified information. The truth
was, the FBI says, contradicting Comey, a great many of those emails were merely "backed up" on Weiner's
laptop via "backup devices." Huh? Does that actually mean something? Weiner obtained those emails
out of the sky, delivered by a chariot, and not from Huma? Weiner's laptop was serving as a storage
device, a personal little cloud? Somebody not connected to the Hillary campaign was using the social-media's
porn star as a backup for classified data? Who would that be? Putin? Putin hacked the Hillary/DNC
emails, and sent them to both WikiLeaks and Anthony Weiner? "Hi Anthony. Vlad here. Keep these thousands
of emails for posterity."
The next motor boat running through the swamp featured a sign that said: COMEY SCREWED UP THE
HILLARY INVESTIGATION. This sign can be interpreted several ways, depending on who is in the boat.
One, Comey didn't press the investigation into Hillary's personal email server far enough last summer
and fall. He stalled it. He didn't ask for an indictment. That's why Trump fired him yesterday. Trump
didn't fire Comey right after he was elected president, when it would have been a simple bye bye.
No, Trump waited five months and then lowered the boom. Sure.
The other meaning of COMEY SCREWED UP THE HILLARY INVESTIGATION is: Comey improperly told the
world (last summer) that the FBI was investigating Hillary. His announcement influenced the election.
The FBI is supposed to keep absolutely quiet about ongoing investigations. Comey didn't. Then he
publicly closed the book on the investigation, opened it again, and closed it again. That's why Trump
just fired him. Again, Trump waited five months after the election and then got rid of Comey. And
of course, Trump was morally outraged that Comey exposed Hillary in the first place, when Comey should
have remained silent. Sure. That makes a lot of sense.
The next motor boat speeding across the swamp held up a big sign that said, TRUMP FIRED COMEY
TO STOP THE FBI FROM INVESTIGATING THE TRUMP-RUSSIA CONNECTION. You see, for five months, Trump happily
left Comey in place, knowing Comey was investigating him, Trump, and yesterday Trump had enough of
that, so he fired the FBI director. Right.
The next motor boat in the swamp held up a sign that said, THIS IS NIXON ALL OVER AGAIN, THIS
IS TRUMP'S WATERGATE. The sign refers to the last sign, but ups the ante. And there is another sign
that says, in the same vein, NOW WE CAN IMPEACH TRUMP. And another one that says, APPOINT AN INDEPENDENT
COUNSEL TO INVESTIGATE THE TRUMP-RUSSIA CONNECTION.
I'm waiting for Bob Woodward of Watergate fame to step in and say, "It's all right, folks, I'm
on the case. I'll handle it. I was just eating lunch and sipping a fine wine in my underground parking
garage when a shadowy figure stepped out of the gloom and whispered, 'My throat is deep, and I'll
spoon-feed you secrets for the next year, but you'll have to dig up the facts. Everybody is involved
in the cover-up. Comey, Sessions, Pence, Bannon, Conway, Ivanka, Putin, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Stalin."
So why did Trump fire Comey yesterday?
I don't know, but the short answer might be: Comey's boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, told
Trump to get rid of Comey. Sessions made the call.
Sessions now has a specific plan to make the FBI over in the image he prefers. Sessions wants
to shape the Bureau according to his agendas. Sessions has looked into the Bureau and he now knows
which people he wants to fire. He wants to get rid of the Obama crowd. He wants loyalists. He doesn't
want a Dept. of Justice that is going in one direction, while the FBI is going in another. Sessions
wants a predictable FBI. His own.
Joel Pollak, writing at Breitbart, has a simpler answer to the question, why fire Comey now?
Pollak writes :
"But why fire Comey now? The answer is simple. The day before, President Barack Obama's former
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper repeated, under oath, what he told NBC News' Chuck
Todd on Meet the Press on March 5 - that he had seen no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign
and the Russian government. That gave the Trump administration the breathing room to dismiss Comey
- which it simply did not have before."
In other words, now Trump can't be accused of firing Comey to stop "the truth" emerging about
a Trump-Russia collusion, because there isn't any collusion.
Theoretically, that might be the case-but the spin machine doesn't care about the truth or who
is right and who is wrong. The machine keeps running. Those motor boats keep moving across the swamp.
Signs come out. People yell and scream.
Chuck Schumer may soon compare Trump to Benedict Arnold.
For the past 65 years, the CIA has been infiltrating media and promoting many messages. In certain
cases, an op involves promoting CONFLICTING messages, because the intent is sowing discord, chaos,
and division. In this instance (Comey/Trump), it's a walk in the park (or a ride in the swamp). All
sorts of people on both sides already have steam coming out of their ears, without any nudging or
provocation.
"... More specifically, whether true or not, the Democrats are likely to use this move to claim that Comey was fired for digging too hard into Trump-Russia connections ..."
"... The official story is that attorney general Jeff Session and his deputy attorney general Rosenstein wanted Comey's head. And since the FBI does report to the Department of Justice, Sessions is within his rights to demand the firing of the head of the FBI and expect the President to respect his request. So if this proves to have been a reckless move, it will reflect Trump's poor judgment in selecting Sessions as his AG, who was a controversial pick from the outset. ..."
"... I support the firing of Comey, and would have supported it if done by Clinton, Obama, Sanders or Trump. His actions wrt "intent" in handling classified information, and his unilateral (in public at least) decision on leveling charges against Clinton (which was not his job) render him unfit for office. ..."
"... Both the Right and the Left are disinclined to believe in or care about any scandal involving Russia. And it was actually the Clinton partisans who demanded Comey's head in the first placeand we all know the Clinton history with independent prosecutors. So the Democrats who whine about this or call for an independent prosecutor just end up looking like the partisan hypocrites they are. ..."
"... What this does, after a few days, is get the Russian hacking investigation out of the news, so everyone can focus firmly on debating how many people need to lose their health care to satisfy the tax-cut gods. ..."
"... I'm already seeing Twitter Dems doubling down on the Russia stuff. The Russia hysteria is setting us up so that there will be absolutely no political incentive for future Presidents to be friendly with Russia. I wonder if they don't know (or just don't care) that they aren't going to be able to put this genie back in the bottle after Trump is gone. ..."
"... All it does is reinforce existing bias. Dems are even more convinced about Russian ties, Reps are even more concerned the wheels are off, TrumpNation is even more convinced there's an evil plot out to get their guy. And the media has a click frenzy to drive ad rates. ..."
"... being anti Russian is in the very DNA of the repubs. Would the repubs turn on Trump because Trump isn't fervently anti Russian enough? I very much think so .they have a good repub vice president that I am sure ALL of them much prefer .. ..."
"... Its important to remember the disdain the country has for Versailles in general. Trump became President despite universal support for Hillary and to a lesser extent Jeb on the shores of the Potomac.The Republican Id is dedicated to hating Democrats. Bill Clinton and Obama could play Weekend at Bernie's with Reagan corpse and kill Social Security, and Republicans would still hate them. ..."
"... Communists and other boogeymen of the past are secondary to this drive. The Versailles Republicans, a different breed, could never deliver Republican votes outside of Northern Virginia for one simple reason their base despises Democrats more than they might hate Stalin. They will never give credit to a Democrat. Remember the liberal whining about how Republicans never gave Obama credit for his right wing policy pushes. ..."
"... The other key point to the GOP voter relationship is Trump WON. He beat Jeb and his sheepdogs and then he beat Hillary (Hillary and the Dems lost). Trump is the their winner so to speak. As long as Trump is denounced by the usual suspects for bizarre reasons, Trump will maintain his hold. ..."
"... fbi sorta sat on gulen charter school investigation and it would certainly help emperor trompe and prince erdo relationship if Fethu found his old self on an express flight to Ankara considering the bean "kurd" thing recently added on the takeout menu ..."
"... People are fed up. Savings & Loan mess & Iran Contra & & & & yawn Wall Street destroys the economy & no one goes to jail, Medical Industrial Complex management bloodsuckers insure that sickness leads to penury ..."
"... I am no fan of Comey. I think his self-righteousness makes him a dangerous FBI Director and a loose cannon. However, people who think this is going to hurt Trump are likely wrong. If Trump knows there's nothing in the Russia story, but he continues to string out the Democrats with it, then they're the ones who are going to look foolish after having invested so much political capital in it. ..."
"... Since you can't prove a negative, the innuendo can continue ad nauseam. ..."
"... I suspect the Democrats are unaware they are indirectly insulting the Trump voters by the Russian influence story.. They are in effect saying Trump voters were played by the "evil" Russians into voting for Trump, despite the 1Billion spend by Clinton and her considerable support in the US media. I don't imagine the Trump voters like this message. ..."
"... If Trump indirectly destroys both the Democratic and Republican parties, he might rank as one of our more important Presidents, quite unintentionally. ..."
"... Why doesnt he fire the top 10 layers of CIA instead? They are wreaking havoc for real everywhere domestically and abroad. ..."
"... If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology. ( ) ..."
Posted on May 9, 2017 by
Yves Smith Trump's sudden and unexpected firing of
FBI director James Comey is likely to damage Trump. The question is whether this move will simply serve as the basis for sowing further
doubts in the mainstream media against Trump, or will dent Trump's standing with Republicans.
Comey made an odd practice of making moves that were arguably procedurally improper in his handling of the Clinton e-mail investigation,
but some favored Clinton while others were damaging, given an impression of impartiality to the general public via getting both parties
riled with Comey at various points in time. And regardless of what one thinks of his political and legal judgment, Comey had a reputation
of being a straight shooter.
And more generally, the director of the FBI is perceived to be a role above the partisan fray. Firing him is fraught with danger;
it has the potential of turning into in a Nixonian Saturday Night Massacre, where the firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox
led the press and public to see Nixon as desperate to stymie an investigation into Watergate charges. It was the archetypal "the
coverup is worse than the crime".
To minimize risk, Trump's would have needed to have engaged in a whispering campaign against Comey, or least have notified some
key figures in Congress that this was about to happen and give the rationale for the turfing out. And it appears he did do that to
at least a degree, in that (as you will see below), Lindsay Graham, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made a statement
supporting the firing. But given the surprised reaction in the press, it looks like any ground-sowing for this move was minimal.
Caution and preparation don't rank high as Trump Administration priorities.
More specifically, whether true or not, the Democrats are likely to use this move to claim that Comey was fired for digging
too hard into Trump-Russia connections .
We'll know more in the coming hours and days. The official story is that attorney general Jeff Session and his deputy attorney
general Rosenstein wanted Comey's head. And since the FBI does report to the Department of Justice, Sessions is within his rights
to demand the firing of the head of the FBI and expect the President to respect his request. So if this proves to have been a reckless
move, it will reflect Trump's poor judgment in selecting Sessions as his AG, who was a controversial pick from the outset.
In a letter to Mr. Comey, the president wrote, "It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public
trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission."
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in a statement thanked Mr. Comey for his years
of service to the country but said that a change in leadership at the bureau might be the best possible course of action.
"Given the recent controversies surrounding the director, I believe a fresh start will serve the FBI and the nation well. I
encourage the President to select the most qualified professional available who will serve our nation's interests," said Mr. Graham,
a South Carolina Republican.
Comey, who has led an investigation into Russia's meddling during the 2016 election and any possible links to Trump aides and
associates, is only the second FBI chief to have been fired. In 1993, President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno dismissed
William Sessions.
Trump's decision means that he will get to nominate Comey's successor while the agency is deep into the Russia inquiry. The
move quickly intensified Democratic calls for a special prosecutor.
Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that Trump "has catastrophically
compromised the FBI's ongoing investigation of his own White House's ties to Russia. Not since Watergate have our legal systems
been so threatened, and our faith in the independence and integrity of those systems so shaken."
Mr Comey's sudden dismissal shocked Republicans and Democrats. Brendan Boyle, a Democratic congressman, said the "stunning"
action "shows why we must have a special prosecutor like our nation did in Watergate".
The proof of the pudding is whether Trump and Sessions will be able to ride out demands for a special prosecutor. Given how much
noise and how little signal there has been, I would have though it was possible for Trump to tough this out. With the Democrats having
peripheral figures like Carter Page as their supposed smoking guns, all they had was innuendo, amplified by the Mighty Wurlitzer
of the media. But that may have gotten enough to Trump and his team to distort their judgment. Stay tuned.
Update 5/10, 12:15 AM . The Hill reports
Dems ask Justice Dept, FBI to 'preserve any and all files' on Comey firing / Despite much howling for blood in the comments section,
some readers there were able to provide what I was looking for, which is whether Congress had any basis for getting the info. Here
are the two key remarks:
I support the firing of Comey, and would have supported it if done by Clinton, Obama, Sanders or Trump. His actions wrt
"intent" in handling classified information, and his unilateral (in public at least) decision on leveling charges against Clinton
(which was not his job) render him unfit for office.
Anyone opposing this firing should note they share opinions w/ John McCain, which ought to give any non-neocon pause
Both the Right and the Left are disinclined to believe in or care about any scandal involving Russia. And it was actually
the Clinton partisans who demanded Comey's head in the first placeand we all know the Clinton history with independent prosecutors.
So the Democrats who whine about this or call for an independent prosecutor just end up looking like the partisan hypocrites they
are.
What this does, after a few days, is get the Russian hacking investigation out of the news, so everyone can focus firmly
on debating how many people need to lose their health care to satisfy the tax-cut gods.
Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D-IL) made the biggest impression, going to the Senate floor about an hour after the
announcement to clearly outline the stakes.
"Any attempt to stop or undermine this FBI investigation would raise grave constitutional issues," he told colleagues.
Interestingly, Fed directors have a term of ten years and since Hoover, there has been only one to make it the full term. That
would be Mr. Mueller who went twelve years as director directly following 911.
FBI Director is one of those jobs where if you do a good job you should suffer burnout regardless of who you are. A 10 year
term is bizarre if you expect a quality job. I would expect resignation and early retirement if the job is being taken seriously.
Then you have to consider the quality of staff and team work arrangements at any given time and how much workload a FBI Director
or Cabinet Secretary has to deal with.
I'm already seeing Twitter Dems doubling down on the Russia stuff. The Russia hysteria is setting us up so that there will
be absolutely no political incentive for future Presidents to be friendly with Russia. I wonder if they don't know (or just don't
care) that they aren't going to be able to put this genie back in the bottle after Trump is gone.
Thanks I love it and they just don't care and hoping the lame stream corp. owned media will carry their propaganda. Demodogs
message is we didn't fail but those looser didn't vote for us the party of corp. Amerika. Double down
@Matt I don't think the Twitter Dems can conceive of the notion that there is a genie or even a bottle in this situation.
They are so caught up in the Russia!, Russia! hysteria that there is no room in their thinking for any kind of rational thought
or any consideration of consequences.
You're more hopeful that I am. I think the more militaristic among them are so cavalier about conflict with Russia because
of the Hitler-level delusions many of them have about the military capacity of Russia.
"Just kick in the door, and the whole rotten structure will come down"
"We'll be greeted as liberators when we defeat the tyrant Putin!"
Just look at that SNL sketch that aired a few months ago. They think these people are frozen, ignorant peasants.
Personally I would be no good at power. My reading has led me to believe that you need a very strong stomach to endure what
you have to deal with, whether it be human gore, hypocrisy, or the dark side of any civilization. I don't have that stomach, and
if you take Comey's words at face value neither does he.
Nah, ask Obomber. Once you get past a little queasiness, getting "pretty good at killing folks" is a piece of cake. It's just
business as usual. Ask any Civil War or WW I general officer, or Bomber Harris, or Lemay or the young guy, farm boy from Iowa
who was a door gunner I knew on Vietnam. Just no problem killing gooks. His moral line was killing the water buffalo. "I know
how I'd feel if someone blew away my John Deere."
Re: The youg guy with the agricultural machinery sensibilities:
Although he was the manipulator of terrible power, I see him as a victim (in the scheme of things), not a member of the power-elite.
And the other military you mention, were they in the power-elite? Eisenhower should have been on your list, as he straddled the
divide.
I'm curious how this will be interpreted by people who get their news mostly via headlines. (I also wonder what proportion
of the voting population that is.)
The headlines I've seen so far, if they give a reason, just make reference to the Clinton email investigation. I sort of think
this will be interpreted by many mostly-headline news gatherers as meaning that Trump fired Comey because he did not, in fact,
lock her up. Indeed, even those who dig deeper may still believe that this is the real reason.
So, like so many things raged about in the media, I'm not sure this really hurts Trump amongst his voters. Probably helps,
really.
And for something completely different, Snowden is not a fan:
All it does is reinforce existing bias. Dems are even more convinced about Russian ties, Reps are even more concerned the
wheels are off, TrumpNation is even more convinced there's an evil plot out to get their guy. And the media has a click frenzy
to drive ad rates.
"Trump's sudden and unexpected firing of FBI director James Comey is likely to damage Trump."
How neutral or unconcerned with what the Establishment views as the requisite dogma regarding Russia is Trump? Articles about
Trump being unhappy about McMaster gives the impression that Trump still believe he (Trump) is the boss.
Yes, the dems have ridiculous notions about Russians as an excuse for Hillary. But being anti Russian is in the very DNA
of the repubs. Would the repubs turn on Trump because Trump isn't fervently anti Russian enough? I very much think so .they have
a good repub vice president that I am sure ALL of them much prefer ..
You're right, the red party is a virulently anti-red outfit. I can see the die hard GOPers turning on the Trumpster, but will
his base stand for it? The Trumpster does have a bit of a cult of personality going on in some circles.
Its important to remember the disdain the country has for Versailles in general. Trump became President despite universal
support for Hillary and to a lesser extent Jeb on the shores of the Potomac.The Republican Id is dedicated to hating Democrats.
Bill Clinton and Obama could play Weekend at Bernie's with Reagan corpse and kill Social Security, and Republicans would still
hate them.
Communists and other boogeymen of the past are secondary to this drive. The Versailles Republicans, a different breed,
could never deliver Republican votes outside of Northern Virginia for one simple reason their base despises Democrats more than
they might hate Stalin. They will never give credit to a Democrat. Remember the liberal whining about how Republicans never gave
Obama credit for his right wing policy pushes.
The other key point to the GOP voter relationship is Trump WON. He beat Jeb and his sheepdogs and then he beat Hillary
(Hillary and the Dems lost). Trump is the their winner so to speak. As long as Trump is denounced by the usual suspects for bizarre
reasons, Trump will maintain his hold.
They still have to have a case to make and there is none. Impeachment is just as much a fantasy as it was several months ago.
In fact they no longer even have the argument that Trump must be stifled and prevented from doing all his crazy promises since
they don't seem to be happening anyway.
Frankly I say good for Trump rather than letting Comey go all Janet Reno on him. If this country is going to be run by the
NYT and the WaPo and CNN then we are truly sunk. He had it right when he was attacking this bunch rather than kowtowing to them.
Although the Mighty Wurlitzer is going to take this firing and run with it, I wonder if anyone's really going to care outside
of folks that watch a ton of CNN and MSNBC. I think scalping him at this point in his administration is likely to generate more
protests and demonstrations than not scalping him.
Well don trumpioni may have stepped in it although, maybe this has less to do with russia perhaps fbi sorta sat on gulen
charter school investigation and it would certainly help emperor trompe and prince erdo relationship if Fethu found his old self
on an express flight to Ankara considering the bean "kurd" thing recently added on the takeout menu
Can easily imagine potus & his not ready for prime time players wanting to use the hoover building as a bludgeon against people
who dont fall in line the blob counterforce
comey the straight shooter methynx is a bit of a "legend" but even the most slick and corrupt have certain lines they wont
cross
Can easily imagine potus & his not ready for prime time players wanting to use the hoover building as a bludgeon against
people who dont fall in line the blob counterforce
The FBI would be the preferred outfit for this sort of thing due to their many decades of experience bludgeoning those who
don't fall in line.
"Will Trump's Firing of FBI Director James Comey Be His Saturday Night Massacre?'
It would be interesting to take a poll on what percentage of citizens know that "Saturday Night Massacre" is not a horror film.
I'd be willing to bet a beer that this kerfuffle will be confined to the Beltway media and Sunday talk shows and will fade
from the news cycle/Facebook feeds rather quickly.
People are tapped out mentally with political talk.
People are fed up. Savings & Loan mess & Iran Contra & & & & yawn Wall Street destroys the economy & no one goes to jail,
Medical Industrial Complex management bloodsuckers insure that sickness leads to penury
1973 was 28 years after 1945. 1973 was 44 years ago. The post WW2 psuedo consensus is looooooooong gone.
I thought we hated Comey cuz of what he did to HRC? Today we hate Trump cuz Comey was going after the Russians? Crap I hate
missing the 2 minute hate.
I am no fan of Comey. I think his self-righteousness makes him a dangerous FBI Director and a loose cannon. However, people
who think this is going to hurt Trump are likely wrong. If Trump knows there's nothing in the Russia story, but he continues to
string out the Democrats with it, then they're the ones who are going to look foolish after having invested so much political
capital in it. It may be the Russian story will be proven to be nonsense about October, 2018.
I suspect the Democrats are unaware they are indirectly insulting the Trump voters by the Russian influence story.. They
are in effect saying Trump voters were played by the "evil" Russians into voting for Trump, despite the 1Billion spend by Clinton
and her considerable support in the US media. I don't imagine the Trump voters like this message.
It is truly remarkable, the Russians spend about 10% of what the USA does on "Defense" and are able to influence a US electorate
that is largely unaware and unconcerned about world affairs.
I believe enough voters know that Clinton played fast and loose with the email server to avoid FOIA and the Clinton Foundation
pulled in a lot of money from foreign governments as payment in advance to President Hillary Clinton..
The harping on the "Russia influenced the election enough to elect Trump" will bite the Democrats as they avoid the jobs, medical
and economic issues that actually influenced the voters for Trump.
If Trump indirectly destroys both the Democratic and Republican parties, he might rank as one of our more important Presidents,
quite unintentionally.
I've taken to using doge speak in my comments on Yahoo articles and WaPo articles. I figure that's about as much intelligence
the publishers are investing into the articles and into the audience, that I therefore tune my intelligence accordingly.
If it has to do with the Russian electorial witch hunt stupidity, then yes, I think Comey ought to have been fired. For crying
out loud, enough already! Delicate matters are being attempted in the Middle East, and there is no sense in pursuing that craziness.
I don't understand why that shouldn't be a perfectly acceptable reason to change direction and start attending to real issues
with someone in the office who would support Trump's legitimate claim (and Putin's) that there was no there there.
I would imagine the CIA/Intel guys are way harder to get rid of. To quote the late, great Sen. Frank Church:
If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity
that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way
to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately
it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology. ( )
Because people here are smart enough to be skeptical of hysterical MSM headlines with no real goods, you act as if you are
some sort of smart contrarian, when you are just echoing a Democratic party/media narrative?
You do not seem to recognize that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The idea that billionaire, who was already
famous in the US by virtue (among other things) of having a TV show that ran for 14 years and got billions of free media coverage
during his campaign, is somehow owned by Putin, is astonishing on its face. Trump had to have been the focus of extensive Republican
and Democratic party opposition research while he was campaigning.
And perhaps most important, the night he won, Trump clearly did not expect to win. His longstanding friend Howard Stern stated
a view similar to ours, that Trump ran because it would be good PR and the whole thing developed a life of its own. And before
you try saying politics doesn't work that way, the UK is now on a path to Brexit for the same reasons.
All the Dems and the media have come up with are some kinda-sorta connections to Russia. Trump as a very rich man who also
has assembled a large team of political types in short order, would have people who knew people in all corners of the world. "X
has done business with Y" is hardly proof o of influence, particularly with a guy like Trump, who is now famous for telling people
what they want to hear in a meeting and backstabbing them the next day.
We've been looking at this for months. The best they can come up with is:
1. Manafort, who worked for Trump for all of four months and was fired. Plus his Russia connections are mainly through Ukraine.
Podesta has strong if not stronger Russia ties, is a much more central play to Clinton and no one is making a stink about that.
And that's before you get to the Clinton involvement in a yuuge uranium sale to Russia, which even the New York Times confirmed
(but wrote such a weedy story that you have to read carefully to see that).
2. Carter Page, who was even more peripheral
3. Flynn, again not a central player, plus it appears his bigger sin involved Turkey
4. The conversation with the Russian ambassador, which contrary to the screeching has plenty of precedent (in fact, Nixon and
Reagan did far more serious meddling)
5. The various allegations re Trump real estate and bank loans. Trump did have a really seedy Russian involved in a NYC development.
One should be more worried that the guy was a crook than that he was Russian. Third tier, not even remotely in the oligarch class.
There are also vague allegations re money laundering. The is crap because first, every NYC real estate player has dirty money
in high end projects (see the big expose by the New York Times on the Time Warner Center, developed by the Related Companies,
owned by Steve Ross). But second, the party responsible for checking where the money came from, unless it was wheelbarrows of
cash, is the bank, not the real estate owner. Since the NYT expose there have been efforts to make developers/owners responsible
too, but those aren't germane to Trump since they aren't/weren't in effect.
So please do not provide no value added speculation. If you have something concrete, that would be interesting, but I've been
looking and I've seen nothing of any substance.
Very few condos there are occupied for more than a few days per year, and most of the residents I encountered during my tenure
there were not US citizens.
We were all very entertained when the Times broke the story.
Just FYI, Ross does not own the TWC outright, he only has a stake in the place albeit a sizable one since aquiring TIme Warner's
office/studio unit.
Trump a crook, but not any other oligarchs? The old saying goes something like behind every great fortune is a great crime.
They clean up the image with a few rewrites and something like public office or foundations. The Presidency is Trump's ca-ching.
And the pauses on the promises and the falling in line (bombs away!). He'll be right in the club.
Mr Comey also made some statements recently about Clinton emails and Mr Wiener, statements that seemed to be in need of significant
reinterpretation. That might also have been the cause.
Corporate Government messaging has fallen apart. The description of Anthony Weiner's laptop went from "explosive" to "careless
but not criminal" to "just several" Clinton e-mails on it.
Democrats are generally supported by Wall Street, GOP by military contractors; but, together they are one war party. The new
Saturday Night Massacre shows that with Donald Trump's triumph, the government has split apart into nationalist and globalist
factions. No doubt the James Comey firing buries the Russian interference investigation. However, with the wars in Syria and Afghanistan
re-surging; this episode shows that nothing the government says or the media reports is near the truth.
"... But the political dimension of the dismissal is not about the Clinton email affair at all. It is about the "Russia interfered with the election" nonsense Clinton invented as excuse for her self-inflicted loss of the vote. The whole anti-Trump/anti-Russia campaign run by neocons and "Resistance" democrats, is designed to block the foreign policy - detente with Russia - for which Trump was elected. The anti-Russia inquisition is dangerous groupthink . ..."
"... He could have been sacked early on while the media's attention was focused on Trump's choices to fill the various Cabinet posts. ..."
"... It's likely the world will witness the POTUS get his wings clipped. Mr. Trump has never been confronted with existential adversity, his wealth has always protected him from that prospect. He is now captive in a golden cage of political power and has neither the personal experience, resources nor the capacity to conduct governance. Be prepared to watch Trump's G๖tterdไmmerung. Put a fork in, Trump is done. ..."
"... Curiously I've come to the opposite conclusion: Hillary Clinton is done. Mark my words. ..."
"... This sort of stuff barely registers with me any more, since the one fact we can all rest assured isn't fakey is that long before an apparatchik such as Comey gets anywhere near the top trough, they will have been 'vetted' to ensure that they aren't the type of person to ever place principle ahead of self interest. ..."
"... But The Demorats -> Schumer in tears , Warren in war paint, et al and Snowden! - all have selective memories and are exceptional hypocrites. ..."
"... President Clinton today dismissed William S. Sessions, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who had stubbornly rejected an Administration ultimatum to resign six months after a harsh internal ethics report on his conduct. ..."
"... Who said it will make such a difference who sits in the FBI? A new guy will just show up saying the same stuff Comey have said. Just look at the new leaders at CIA, NSA, same warmongering hysterical stuff as under Obama. ..."
"... Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge says this is one of the biggest headlines out of the hearing today with the FBI director, pointing out that the FBI had found an email was obtained by Russian hackers that indicated that former DOJ hack Loretta Lynch would do everything she could to protect Hillary from prosecution: (VIDEO) ..."
"... Of course Comey wouldn't reveal who sent the email and to whom it was sent. But it sounds like it was sent from someone who worked closely with Lynch, and sent to someone who was very worried about Clinton going down in flames, probably someone very close to Clinton. At the end of the segment, Herridge pointed out that Comey suggested he was boxed in by Lynch and here is what she's talking about:[..] ..."
"... Reminds me of a little passage I read somewhere about a dish served cold. ..."
"... Some wonder why a guy like Trump, who made his bones telling people mano a mano that they were fired on prime time TV, wouldn't have picked up a phone to advise Comey he was done. Comey learned of his dismissal while giving a speech in LA. Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley says that was done so the president's people could access Comey's documents in his office while he was safely out of town. ..."
"... The assault on the wealth of the working classes will continue unabated. Mr. Trump is here to represent the wealthy elites, and is doing a fine job at that. Welcome to the new age of feudalism. ..."
"... Comey also gave immunity to 5 of Hillary's closest aids, including Huma. This insulated Hillary as these people could not be pressured to testify against her. ..."
"... Not to mention, jackrabbit, Hillary was never sworn in during her Saturday interview with the FBI. ..."
"... Trump fires Comey due to his political meddling but ... Trump won't prosecute Clinton about her email server. ..."
"... Clinton's Benghazi was treasonous covering up for Islamic terrorist/email means espionage not electronic mail/Clinton Foundation is treason for hire by the Secretary of State (who ruled America during the Great Interregnum when there was no President, 2009-2117, except when John Kerry was Secretary of State but it was still actually Clinton running things because everyone knows the Secretary of State doesn't make foreign policy) fake scandals were kept alive by Comey to intervene in the US election. (Whether it was his eager doing or he was pressured is irrelevant. ..."
"... Regarding "impromptu meeting b/w Clinton and Lynch on the tarmac", Comey was giving cover "to" Lynch, IMO. "no reasonable prosecutor". He was protecting the deal Lynch had already made with Clintons. ..."
"... Did you by chance listen/watch his testimony last week? If not, I recommend it as must watch especially after his being fired. He added more detail to the email investigation and his thinking at the time. ..."
"... The BBC running a live on Comey's end-of-contract?! Color revo any? Lavrov in Washington, guns for the Kurds, the US going for al-Nusra's head scalp... ..."
"... so treasonable Obama's scumbucket FBI director Comey gets fired. wowie zowie. nevermind the perjury, the obstruction of justice, the accessory to Clinton's sedition... ..."
"... Does Russia interfere in U.S. politics more than Israel does? ..."
"... Yes, caught part of the hearings. Just proved to me that deal was in stone before any tarmac meeting took place. And I bet Comey might not have even known Lynch would expose them so stupidly, how dumb was that. Did a FBI person leaked the meeting to the press?? ..."
"... I've been surprised that Russia doesn't release "white papers" that show what the NED and IRI have done including in places like Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia. ..."
President Trump dismissed the Director of the FBI James Comey on recommendation of the Deputy Attorney General, who had served under
Obama, and the Attorney General. The dismissal and the recommendation memos can be read
here.
Comey is accused of usurping the Attorney General's
authority on several occasions. In July 2016 Comey decided and publicly announced the closing of the Clinton email-investigations
without a recommendation of prosecution. He publicly announced the reopening of the investigation in October only to close it again
a few days later.
At the first closing of the investigation Comey held a press conference and
said:
"our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case."
That, by far, exceeded his competency, Since when can a police officer decide how "reasonable" a prosecutor may or may not be,
and make public announcements about that? Clinton's running of a private email server broke several laws. Anyone but she would have
been prosecuted at least for breaching secrecy and security regulations.
It is not the job of the police to decide about prosecutions. The police is an investigating agent of the public prosecutors office.
It can make recommendations about prosecutions but not decide about them. Recommendations are to be kept confidential until they
are decided upon by the relevant authority - the prosecutor. There are additional issues with Comey. His agents used
sting or rather entrapment to lure many hapless
idiots into committing "ISIS terror acts". A full two third of such acts in the U.S. would not have been though about without FBI
help. Comey himself had signed
off on Bush's warrantless wiretapping program.
The formal dismissal of Comey is, in my view, the right thing to do. It should have been done earlier.
But the political dimension of the dismissal is not about the Clinton email affair at all. It is about the "Russia interfered
with the election" nonsense Clinton invented as excuse for her self-inflicted loss of the vote. The whole anti-Trump/anti-Russia
campaign run by neocons and "Resistance" democrats, is designed to block the foreign policy - detente with Russia - for which Trump
was elected. The anti-Russia inquisition is
dangerous groupthink.
There is no evidence - none at all - that Russia "interfered" with the U.S. election. There is no evidence - none at all - that
Russia colluded with the Trump campaign. The Democratic Senator Dianna Feinstein, who sits on the Judiciary Committee as well as
the Select Committee on Intelligence, recently confirmed that publicly
(vid) immediately
after she
had again been briefed by the CIA:
Blitzer mentioned that Feinstein and other colleagues from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had visited CIA headquarters
on Tuesday to be briefed on the investigation. He then asked Feinstein whether she had evidence, without disclosing
any classified information, that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign.
It would be interesting to know why James Comey was sacked now and not earlier before the "Russia interfered in the elections"
narrative had much chance to damage Trump's presidency. He could have been sacked early on while the media's attention was
focused on Trump's choices to fill the various Cabinet posts.
It's likely the world will witness the POTUS get his wings clipped. Mr. Trump has never been confronted with existential adversity,
his wealth has always protected him from that prospect. He is now captive in a golden cage of political power and has neither
the personal experience, resources nor the capacity to conduct governance. Be prepared to watch Trump's G๖tterdไmmerung. Put a
fork in, Trump is done.
Had Madam Clinton won the election, this would not have been possible. The organisation she headed would have taken immediate
control of all available power bases and would not have created such opportunity for attack.
The next one will be "Operation Gaslight ". The storyline will be that Trump is unstable and needs to be removed by his cabinet.
Trumps many enemies will never stop. There is too much at stake.
All this appointments soap opera is just distraction for the masses. The next appointee will just like Comey, do as he/she is
told.
This sort of stuff barely registers with me any more, since the one fact we can all rest assured isn't fakey is that
long before an apparatchik such as Comey gets anywhere near the top trough, they will have been 'vetted' to ensure that they aren't
the type of person to ever place principle ahead of self interest.
If perchance there was any motive other than inspiring yet more vapid chatter, we can be equally certain that is not going
to rate a mention from any of the hack pols or their media enablers until long after this storm in a teacup has subsided.
Out of curiosity: does anyone know the very first time this was said about Trump? I'm sure we can all agree this much though:
don't hold your breath on it being the last time it's said about Trump..
Recall Trump was written off through the Primaries as he offed 16 candidates. In the election cycle down to the wire HRC had
a 90% chance. Newsweek published edition cover page Madame President. (Dewey anyone?) I dislike that the Trump presidency is a
family affair -- Jared Kushner will be the stick and fork; the second high profile firing that should have been done.
But The Demorats -> Schumer in tears , Warren in war paint, et al and Snowden! - all have selective memories and are exceptional
hypocrites.
Flashback: New York Times - July 19, 1993 -> President William J. Clinton fires FBI Director
WASHINGTON, July 19- President Clinton today dismissed William S. Sessions, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
who had stubbornly rejected an Administration ultimatum to resign six months after a harsh internal ethics report on his conduct.
Mr. Clinton said he would announce his nominee to replace Mr. Sessions on Tuesday. He was expected to pick Judge Louis J.
Freeh of Federal District Court in Manhattan; officials said Judge Freeh had impressed Mr. Clinton favorably on Friday at their
first meeting.
Mr. Clinton, explaining his reasons for removing Mr. Sessions, effective immediately, said, "We cannot have a leadership
vacuum at an agency as important to the United States as the F.B.I. It is time that this difficult chapter in the agency's
history is brought to a close." Defiant to the End
But in a parting news conference at F.B.I. headquarters after Mr. Clinton's announcement, a defiant Mr. Sessions -- his
right arm in a sling as a result of a weekend fall -- railed at what he called the unfairness of his removal, which comes nearly
six years into his 10-year term.
"Because of the scurrilous attacks on me and my wife of 42 years, it has been decided by others that I can no longer be
as forceful as I need to be in leading the F.B.I. and carrying out my responsibilities to the bureau and the nation," he said.
"It is because I believe in the principle of an independent F.B.I. that I have refused to voluntarily resign."
Mr. Clinton said that after reviewing Mr. Sessions's performance, Attorney General Janet Reno had advised him that Mr. Sessions
should go. "After a thorough review by the Attorney General of Mr. Sessions's leadership of the F.B.I., she has reported to
me in no uncertain terms that he can no longer effectively lead the bureau
Despite the President's severe tone, he seemed to regret having to force Mr. Sessions from his post. He said he had hoped
that the issue could be settled at the Justice Department without the necessity of using his authority to dismiss the Director,
who has a 10-year term but may be removed by the President at any time.
But Mr. Sessions's intransigence had festered into an awkward situation for Mr. Clinton.
A Republican stranded in a Democratic Administration, Mr. Sessions was appointed to head the F.B.I. by President Ronald
Reagan in 1987 amid the turmoil of the Iran-contra affair. Mr. Sessions arrived as a respected judge from San Antonio, but
after five and a half years in office, he leaves with his star fallen, his agency adrift and his support at the F.B.I. all
but drained away. Troubled Tenure."[.]
Who said it will make such a difference who sits in the FBI? A new guy will just show up saying the same stuff Comey have
said. Just look at the new leaders at CIA, NSA, same warmongering hysterical stuff as under Obama.
Trump has a bad temper and demonstrates erratic behavior, like Hillary. The handlers keep it covered up until they no longer
keep it covered up. They let it slip that Hillary frequently blew up and used the F word vigorously as she berated her underlings
(which are everyone including Clenis). Trump is, likewise, a genuine asshole. He's not faking that part.
If McCabe is next to go , as he should be , this could represent a significant swamp-draining accomplishment for Trump. Depending
on who replaces them , of course.
The Rosenstein letter provided considerable legitimacy to Trump's move , considering the bipartisan support Rosenstein achieved.
It wouldn't be a bad move for Trump to choose a replacement for Comey that comes with Rosenstein's strong endorsement. A Sessions
endorsement would be about one-half as valuable.
did, 'All this appointments soap opera is just distraction for the masses. ... '
well, amend that to are pushed as a distraction for the masses and i'll certainly agree. there are so many levels at "arms'
length" now that they're really just filling in the alibis for the 'historians' ... schlesinger types who'll connect all the dots
once the deeds are done and show us the tragi-comedy in five acts. the masses are undistracted. people know it's all pure bullshit.
that they're being played and sold down the river. it would be really great if we did something about it. just for the hell of
it.
Obama and Hillary, however, addressed us in whole sentences and presented clearly structured concepts and arguments. Trump spits
out 140-character tweets at us from the early hours of the morning.
I see a keen distinction there.
Posted by: ralphieboy | May 10, 2017 7:23:56 AM | 15
... forgetting, of course, that most politicians (and an only slightly smaller proportion of ordinary folks) start talking,
or writing, or dialing, before they've decided precisely what they intend to say.Trump, and probably Putin, thinks before he communicates.
And if the result isn't worth saying, he shuts up. Same as Putin.
Agree. McCabe should follow Comey out the door. Patience grasshopper, one-at-a- time. If I were Hillary, (thank G-d for small
mercies), after reading Rosenstein's Memo for the Attorney General, I 'd be lawyering up with my wet work gang.
This excerpt is a tell; confirming indeed there was some simmering mutiny within the FBI house. Judge Nap called it.
[..] As you and I have discussed, however, I cannot defend the Director's handling of the conclusion of the investigation of
Secretary Clinton's emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept nearly universal judgement that he was mistaken.
Almost everyone agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.[.]
Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge says this is one of the biggest headlines out of the hearing today with the FBI director,
pointing out that the FBI had found an email was obtained by Russian hackers that indicated that former DOJ hack Loretta Lynch
would do everything she could to protect Hillary from prosecution: (VIDEO)
Of course Comey wouldn't reveal who sent the email and to whom it was sent. But it sounds like it was sent from someone
who worked closely with Lynch, and sent to someone who was very worried about Clinton going down in flames, probably someone
very close to Clinton.
At the end of the segment, Herridge pointed out that Comey suggested he was boxed in by Lynch and here is what she's talking
about:[..]
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
in the district of criminals, (aka D.C.), we find not only a swamp, but a few deep cess-pools.
So Trump includes in his firing letter that he appreciates the fact that Comey told him personally on three separate occasions
that he was not the subject of investigation. What's that doing there?
Some wonder why a guy like Trump, who made his bones telling people mano a mano that they were fired on prime time TV,
wouldn't have picked up a phone to advise Comey he was done. Comey learned of his dismissal while giving a speech in LA. Presidential
historian Douglas Brinkley says that was done so the president's people could access Comey's documents in his office while he
was safely out of town.
The Senate investigation just got started. This business about six months of investigation failing to produce a shred of evidence
and therefore the whole matter should be dropped isn't going to fly. The same people who natter on about how we masses, like mushrooms
kept in the dark and nurtured with bullshit, should disregard all this bafflegab about impropriety also say we should accept their
conclusion that there's nothing to see here and that it's time to move on. That ain't happening.
Senator Al Franken, who's insipid alter-ego George Smiley on Saturday Night Live was the epitome of insecurity, has turned
out to be a formidable poser of very tough questions to anyone unfortunate to be summoned before the senate panel. These senate
guys don't fuck around and will not be stonewalled. We're in for some very interesting television.
Comey will land on his feet in some corporate gig, from whence he came. The only interesting aspect is whether or not his replacement
will restore any smidgen of credibility to the FBI by acting on a basis of law or if the political games will continue. My guess
would be that the plutocracy will see that their candidate is installed as FBI Director and at a minimum this person will remain
at least neutral to the plutocracy's rule, silence being consent. That would be the big big silence on the Clinton criminality
as it is intertwined with plutocratic rule. More of the same only more so as the FBI and co-conspirators keep the plot to assassinate
any public leaders dusted off in case another Martin Luther King, another Occupy movement or some such should arise.
DiD @ 7 said: "All this appointments soap opera is just distraction for the masses. The next appointee will just like Comey, do
as he/she is told."
Well said, an IMO, absolutely spot on.
I think there are people above the Law, history proves that. HRC AND Mr. Trump are part of that group. I fully expect that
nothing will happen to either. As DiD said, " A distraction for the masses( sheep)."
The assault on the wealth of the working classes will continue unabated. Mr. Trump is here to represent the wealthy elites,
and is doing a fine job at that. Welcome to the new age of feudalism.
The musical chairs show in Washington is meaningless. The Democrats hated Comey but now that he's fired they love him because
they can use it to attack Trump. It's all political theatre and should be regarded as such. As others have said, another chump
willing to take orders will replace Comey and will surely carry out the same bad policies at the FBI.
Trump was just in the Oval Office with that imperial criminal punk, Kissinger, ironically, Nixon's NSA and Trump blurted out that
he fired Comey because he wasn't doing a good job.
The pot calling the kettle black is an understatement.
I don't give a damn one way or another who Trumpster fires; what I do give a damn about is abuse of power and manipulation
of the truth and Trump is repeatedly guilty of both.
No such dictatorial power should ever again be vested in that position and in a person who is prone to exceed his competencies.
And that's exactly how I would describe Herr Drumpf, danke!
Here's a great example of integrity. Try it sometime!:
This has nothing to do with Comey incompetence or the man himself. This is only about Trump abusing power as he's been doing
since DAY ONE. He just took it to the next level...that's all!
- Wolf Blitzer was once employed by AIPAC.
- Comey simply stepped on too many (sensitive) toes, both Republican & Democratic. In that regard it was a matter of time that
he was fired. It would have happened as well if Hillary Clinton had been elected to become the new president.
- But I also fear that a new FBI director (as appointed by one Jeff Sessions) will be as rightwing as one Jeff Sessions or even
worse.
Great post, b, and likklemore, your comments are appreciated.
What is troubling to me with all of this is how politicized Obama's Cabinet/team became. It is becoming more and more obvious
his appointments were made to serve him NOT the country and the public is witnessing the fallout from such authoritarian style
of leadership.
Comey is both a victim and beneficiary of this politicization. His testimony last week was more forthcoming than in previous
hearings, but what spoke volumes was his reaction to the impromptu meeting b/w Clinton and Lynch on the tarmac in Arizona. He
suggested his concerns about Lynch being compromised regarding the Clinton email investigation were confirmed during that meeting
while stating it was the last straw so to speak.
This pattern of politicization was obviously meant to continue under Hillary's leadership by cementing a permanent political
class in DC who would serve the president rather than all of us outside of Washington. Some term this as the 'UniParty' - a majority
of R and D's working in tandem to re orient DC machinations into a global governing body.
The neo's - libs and cons - are giddy over resigning the U.S. Constitution and the rest of America's founding papers into the
trash heap of history. Their march toward globalization is hindered by those pesky documents. But what these globalists never
counted on was a Trump win and, more importantly, conservatives gaining power in 28 states, six states shy of holding a Constitutional
Convention.
Now that Hillary lost, Obama and team are pulling together an organizational structure to stave off wins in those six states
while also trying to peel away those few who turned red in 2016.
This is the new political battleground - conservatives fighting for a constitutional convention and neo's fighting to remain
relevant. With Comey being gone, and soon McCabe and et al, the FBI has a shot at shedding the politicization of the department
and returning to its investigative roots.
This is the reason for Robby Mook's 'terrified' comment when learning of Comey's firing. He and his globalist cohorts should
be concerned, but it's Hillary who really needs to be terrified.
Comey also gave immunity to 5 of Hillary's closest aids, including Huma. This insulated Hillary as these people could not
be pressured to testify against her.
Why is it such a big thing? Some people here seems to take talking points from neocon media. He was fired because Trump didnt
have confidence in him, simply as that.
Not sad to see Comey go. I didn't think he was doing a good job, albeit he was put in a position where he had to tread carefully.
I guess he did "ok" with that careful treading. Unsure of Trump's motivations to fire him but not that surprised. As others have
posited here, Clinton would have done the same. Comey was probably at least partially prepared and possibly has a sinecure lined
up as I type this.
IMO, this isn't the worst of Trump's alleged "offenses" by a long shot. It certainly does provide a distraction from all the
other sh*t swirling around Trump, like Kushner selling US citizenships to high priced Chinese gangsters, like Trump's various
cabinet picks arresting citizens for questioning them the "wrong way" or laughing at them, like Trump's decisions to ruin the
environment and give away public lands to his rich pals, like the travesty of TrumpDon'tCare AHCA (which could end up even worse
after the Senate gets done with it - No women on the Senate committee, just great).
Yes a nifty distraction while Trump and his plutocrat cronies rob us all blind. Duly noted the Democrats engage in their own
dog 'n pony sideshow distractions re russia, Russia RUSSIA hysteria. All to avoid having to, you know, DO something about their
own disaster of a corporate-bought-off "party" and avoid having to do one d*mn thing that benefits their traditional constituents,
as opposed to ensuring that their Plutocratic masters are happy.
Every analysis of any current US political events that says anything about Clinton losing the election is deranged or dishonest.
There are no exceptions.
Clinton's Benghazi was treasonous covering up for Islamic terrorist/email means espionage not electronic mail/Clinton Foundation
is treason for hire by the Secretary of State (who ruled America during the Great Interregnum when there was no President, 2009-2117,
except when John Kerry was Secretary of State but it was still actually Clinton running things because everyone knows the Secretary
of State doesn't make foreign policy) fake scandals were kept alive by Comey to intervene in the US election. (Whether it was
his eager doing or he was pressured is irrelevant.) The thing for Comey, and his natural human need to at least pretend to
be a genuine human being, is, the Russia hacks the election is exactly the same kind of fake scandal, something arcane with dark,
dark hints of treason! treason! Comey can't suddenly discover sanity when the BS is flying at Trump, after having vociferously
claimed those were really Clark bars for the years prior.
The OP doesn't quite have the nerve to explain clearly how the supposed loser has the clout to make Comey dish on Trump. Or
the effrontery to clearly avow Benghazi/email server/Clinton cash/pizzagate were all gospel. Nonetheless it is still Trumpery.
Regarding "impromptu meeting b/w Clinton and Lynch on the tarmac", Comey was giving cover "to" Lynch, IMO. "no reasonable
prosecutor". He was protecting the deal Lynch had already made with Clintons.
Just read about Comey history with Clintons. He has been giving them cover a long time.
sl - Yep, I concur. And I think he had to protect whatever deal was agreed to b/w Lynch, Obama and Clinton. I'm not even sure
I'd call it a deal, but rather an order. I'm sure if he didn't adhere there would have been some hefty consequences to pay.
Did you by chance listen/watch his testimony last week? If not, I recommend it as must watch especially after his being
fired. He added more detail to the email investigation and his thinking at the time.
SlapHappy | May 10, 2017 1:12:56 Add to the long list:
Seth Rich, sen. Paul Wellstone, JFK jr, princess Diana, Michael Hastings, mysterious deaths of 9/11 witnesses, Phillip Marshall
with family, Michael Connell, that policeman from the WTC 1993 bombing investigation, Clinton body count, that German press insider,
Gary Webb ...
The BBC running a live on Comey's end-of-contract?! Color revo any? Lavrov in Washington, guns for the Kurds, the US going
for al-Nusra's head scalp...
so treasonable Obama's scumbucket FBI director Comey gets fired. wowie zowie. nevermind the perjury, the obstruction of justice,
the accessory to Clinton's sedition...
there's probably a multi-million dollar book deal in the pipeline. - Trump DOES have some very "interesting" connections to
Russia and some shady Russian persons. But this is the result of his own "wheeling & dealing".
@ h. Yes, caught part of the hearings. Just proved to me that deal was in stone before any tarmac meeting took place. And
I bet Comey might not have even known Lynch would expose them so stupidly, how dumb was that. Did a FBI person leaked the meeting
to the press??
Yep, Rosenstein is a law man. I won't be the slightest bit surprised to learn Grand Jury indictments handed down sometime in
the coming months for Hillary's arrest. Mr. Comey served as an obstacle to the DOJ to prosecute. Now that Sessions/Rosenstein,
both law men, are heading the DOJ nothing will surprise me. Nothing.
Does Russia interfere in the elections and governing institutions of others as much as the US does?
I've been surprised that Russia doesn't release "white papers" that show what the NED and IRI have done including in places
like Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia.
It sounds like Hillary Clinton boxed Comey in in more ways that just that the meeting Lynch had with Bill Clinton. If that new
email is any indication, she very likely coerced him directly, pushing him to play the 'no intent' defense for Clinton and her aides.
Notable quotes:
"... The first is Comey's unprofessional handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, where he first decided not to prosecute her over the mishandling of classified information and then subsequently revealed to the public that the investigation had been reopened shortly before the election, possibly influencing the outcome. This is a serious matter, as Comey broke with precedent by going public with details of bureau investigations that normally are considered confidential. One might argue that it is certainly an odd assertion for the White House to be making, as the reopening of the investigation undoubtedly helped Trump, but it perhaps should be seen as an attempt to create some kind of bipartisan consensus about Comey having overreached by exposing bureau activities that might well have remained secret. ..."
"... As for the Russians, we are still waiting for the evidence demonstrating that Moscow intended to change the course of the U.S. election. Further investigation will likely not produce anything new, though it will undoubtedly result in considerable political spin to explain what we already know. It is unimaginable that Michael Flynn, for all his failings, agreed to work on behalf of Russian interests, while other names that have surfaced as being of interest in the case were hardly in a position to influence what the Trump administration might agree to do. There is no evidence of any Manchurian Candidate here. ..."
"... I am surprised that Dir. Comey didn't resign on his own terms after the election. The only other issue is it would have been less media convulsive and polite to allow him a graceful resignation and some departure time. ..."
The statements by the White House and Sessions cite two issues. The first is Comey's unprofessional handling of the Hillary Clinton
email investigation, where he first decided not to prosecute her over the mishandling of classified information and then subsequently
revealed to the public that the investigation had been reopened shortly before the election, possibly influencing the outcome. This
is a serious matter, as Comey broke with precedent by going public with details of bureau investigations that normally are considered
confidential. One might argue that it is certainly an odd assertion for the White House to be making, as the reopening of the investigation
undoubtedly helped Trump, but it perhaps should be seen as an attempt to create some kind of bipartisan consensus about Comey having
overreached by exposing bureau activities that might well have remained secret.
The second issue raised by both Sessions and the White House is Comey's inability to "effectively lead the Bureau" given what
has occurred since last summer. That is a legitimate concern. When the Clinton investigation was shelved, there was considerable
dissent in the bureau, with many among the rank-and-file believing that the egregious mishandling of classified information should
have some consequences even if Comey was correct that a prosecution would not produce a conviction.
And the handling of "Russiagate" also angered some experienced agents who believed that the reliance on electronic surveillance
and information derived from intelligence agencies was the wrong way to go. Some called for questioning the Trump-campaign suspects
who had surfaced in the initial phases of the investigation, a move that was vetoed by Comey and his team. It would be safe to say
that FBI morale plummeted as a result, with many junior and mid-level officers leaving their jobs to exploit their security clearances
in the lucrative government contractor business.
There has been considerable smoke about both the Clinton emails and the allegations of Russian interference in last year's election,
but I suspect that there is relatively little fire. As Comey asserted, the attempt to convict a former secretary of state on charges
of mishandling information without any ability to demonstrate intent would be a mistake and would ultimately fail. No additional
investigation will change that reality.
As for the Russians, we are still waiting for the evidence demonstrating that Moscow intended to change the course of the
U.S. election. Further investigation will likely not produce anything new, though it will undoubtedly result in considerable political
spin to explain what we already know. It is unimaginable that Michael Flynn, for all his failings, agreed to work on behalf of Russian
interests, while other names that have surfaced as being of interest in the case were hardly in a position to influence what the
Trump administration might agree to do. There is no evidence of any Manchurian Candidate here.
I believe that the simplest explanation for the firing of Comey is the most likely: Donald Trump doesn't like him much and doesn't
trust him at all. While it is convenient to believe that the FBI director operates independently from the politicians who run the
country, the reality is that he or she works for the attorney general, who in turn works for the president. That is the chain of
command, like it or not. Any U.S. president can insist on a national-security team that he is comfortable with, and if Trump is willing
to take the heat from Congress and the media over the issue he certainly is entitled to do what he must to have someone he can work
with at the FBI.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
Brian, May 10, 2017 at 10:39 am
Jul 7, 2016 Justice Vs. "Just Us": Of Course the FBI Let Hillary off the Hook. The only thing that surprises me is that anyone
is surprised by this.
"Mr. Comey's appointment will be for an initial three-year term which, subject to re-election by shareholders, will expire
at the conclusion of the 2016 Annual General Meeting."
" . . . but there was a certain inevitability about it given the bureau's clear inability to navigate the troubled political
waters that developed early last summer and have continued ever since."
I am surprised that Dir. Comey didn't resign on his own terms after the election. The only other issue is it would have
been less media convulsive and polite to allow him a graceful resignation and some departure time.
But that he is gone, I think he was surprised only by the manner certainly not the inevitability.
Blind sided by the manner certainly not the course.
Mark Thomason, May 10, 2017 at 12:06 pm
True. But it is also true that NOBODY likes Comey much or trusts him at all. He has no defenders.
Trump has attackers. That is very different. They'd attack him for anything he does, they attack every day. This outrage is
only the latest, and will be repeated at every hint of opportunity.
Here they agree the guy needed to be fired and said themselves that Hillary was going to do it. But Trump did it, and that
is the problem.
Kurt Gayle, May 10, 2017 at 12:46 pm
Please consider the that the explanation for the Comey firing is simpler:
(1) The Deputy Attorney-General is the FBI Director's boss.
(2) Trump's nominee for the position of Deputy Attorney-General, Rod Rosenstein, although nominated on January 13th, was only
confirmed by the Senate on April 25th. Rosenstein took the oath of office the following day, Wednesday, April 26th, two weeks
ago today.
(3) Immediately upon assuming his duties as the Justice Department official directly responsible for the FBI, Mr. Rosenstein
determined that there were major problems concerning the FBI. Rosenstein reported his finding in a letter to his boss, Attorney-General
Sessions:
(4) "Over the past year the FBI's reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire
Department of Justice. That is deeply troubling to many Department employees and veterans, legislators and citizens."
(5) "The director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General's authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the
case should be closed without prosecution. It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement. At most, the Director
should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors."
(6) "Compounding the error, the Director ignored another longstanding principle: we do not hold press conferences to release
derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation. Derogatory information sometimes is disclosed in
the course of criminal investigations and prosecutions, but we never release it gratuitously "
(7) "The goal of a federal criminal investigation is not to announce our thoughts at a press conference. The goal is to determine
whether there is sufficient evidence to justify a federal criminal prosecution, then allow a federal prosecutor who exercises
authority delegated by the Attorney General to make a prosecutorial decision, and then if prosecution is warranted let the
judge and jury determine the facts."
(8) "Concerning his letter to the Congress on October 28, 2016, the Director cast his decision as a choice between whether
he would 'speak' about the FBI's decision to investigate the newly-discovered email messages or 'conceal' it. 'Conceal' is a loaded
term that misstates the issue. When federal agents and prosecutors quietly open a criminal investigation, we are not concealing
anything; we are simply following the longstanding policy that we refrain from publicizing non-public information. In that context,
silence is not concealment."
(9) "My perspective on these issues is shared by former Attorneys General and Deputy Attorneys General from different eras
and both political parties."
(10) "I agree with the nearly unanimous opinions of former Department officials. The way the Director handled the conclusion
of the email investigation was wrong. As a result, the FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a
Director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them. Having refused to admit his errors, the
Director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions."
With respect to Deputy Attorney-General Rosenstein's heading of the investigation into possible Russian interference in the
November election, the fact that Mr. Rosenstein would head the investigation (Attorney-General Sessions having recused himself)
was known to the Senate - and the Senate committee questioned him on his views on the matter - for a full week before the Senate
confirmed Mr. Rosenstein by a 94-6 vote.
MM, May 10, 2017 at 1:00 pm
I'm pleased to see this vociferous call by high-level Democratic officials for a U.S. Independent Counsel to investigate this
matter. It's a relief that these same officials are taking this stance from a position of principled consistency, as they were
the loudest in calling for independent investigations of the previous administration's questionable activities.
For example: NSA mass domestic surveillance, gun-running and associated false statements to Congress, IRS targeting of conservative
groups, and influence peddling in the State Department under Secretary Clinton, all of which the Justice Department at the time
was either directly involved in or responsible for burying any serious inquiries
Ellimist000, May 10, 2017 at 2:55 pm
MM,
"NSA mass domestic surveillance, gun-running and associated false statements to Congress, IRS targeting of conservative groups,
and influence peddling in the State Department under Secretary Clinton "
You're not wrong, but the reason nothing happened was that stuff of this nature has gone on from both sides since the Cold
War started (different names and techniques, of course). If you really wanted the Dems to suddenly see the light, under the 1st
black president no less, then I hope you are awaiting the GOP's ethics censure on Trump with great anticipation
Otto Zeit, May 10, 2017 at 4:02 pm
What baffles me is, why would the Democrats want the "Russiagate" inquiry to be left in the hands of a man who has already
shown himself to be blown by the winds of political partisanship?
MM, May 10, 2017 at 4:17 pm
Ellimist000,
I'd love to see any President censured by Congress, for anything, especially by his or her own party. But even that won't cause
the Hypocritical Old Party to see the light. The universal philosophy in a 2-party system like this one is to 1) never admit any
wrongdoing of one's own nor hold any objective ethical standard of behavior; and 2) declare the other party pure evil, all the
time.
"... Farkas serves on the Atlantic Council alongside Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of CrowdStrike, the third-party company utilized by the FBI to make its assessment about alleged Russian hacking into the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council. ..."
Speaking at a conference two weeks before the 2016 presidential election,
Evelyn Farkas, a former top Obama administration official, predicted that if
Donald Trump won the presidency he would "be impeached pretty quickly or somebody
else would have to take over government," Breitbart News has found.
Farkas served as deputy assistant secretary of defense under the Obama
administration. She has been in the spotlight since the news media last week
highlighted comments she made on television that seemed to acknowledge efforts by
members of the Obama administration to collect intelligence on Trump and members
of his campaign.
Now it has emerged that at on October 26, 2016, Farkas made
remarks
as a panelist at the annual Warsaw Security Forum predicting Trump's
removal from office "pretty quickly."
Asked at the event to address the priorities of a future Hillary Clinton
administration, Farkas stated:
It's not a done deal, as you said. And so, to the
Americans in the audience please vote. And not only vote but get everybody to
vote. Because I really believe we need a landslide. We need an absolute
repudiation of everything. All of the policies that Donald Trump has put out
there. I am not afraid to be political. I am not hiding who I am rooting for. And
I think it's very important that we continue to press forward until election day
and through election day to make sure that we have the right results.
I do agree however with General Breedlove that even
if we have the wrong results from my perspective America is resilient. We have a
lot of presidential historians who have put forward very coherent the argument
they have given us examples of all of our horrible presidents in the past and the
fact that we have endured. And we do have a strong system of checks and balances.
And actually, if Donald Trump were elected I believe he would be impeached
pretty quickly or somebody else would have to take over government. And I am not
even joking.
Farkas was referring to General Philip Mark Breedlove, another panelist at the
conference who served as Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) of NATO Allied
Command Operations. The panel discussion was about what to expect following the
Nov. 8 presidential election.
Farkas has also been in the news after remarks she made as a contributor on
MSNBC on March 2 resurfaced last week. In the
comments
, she said that she told former Obama administration colleagues to
collect intelligence on Trump and campaign officials.
"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the
Hill, it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much
information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President
Obama leaves the administration," stated Farkas.
She continued:
Because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the
senior [Obama] people who left, so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy
that the Trump folks if they found out how we knew what we knew about their
the Trump staff dealing with Russians that they would try to compromise those
sources and methods, meaning we no longer have access to that intelligence.
The White House has utilized Farkas's statements to bolster the charge that
Trump was being illicitly surveilled during the campaign.
White House Spokesman Sean Spicer last week
stated
:
[I]f you look at Obama's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense that is out
there, Evelyn Farkas, she made it clear that it was their goal to spread this
information around, that they went around and did this.
They have admitted on the record that this was their goal - to leak stuff.
And they literally - she said on the record "Trump's team." There are serious
questions out there about what happened and why and who did it. And I think
that's really where our focus is in making sure that that information gets out.
Farkas, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton's campaign, served as Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia until she resigned
in 2015.
She
told
the Daily Caller last week that she had no access to any intelligence. "I
had no intelligence whatsoever, I wasn't in government anymore and didn't have
access to any," she said.
Speaking to the Washington Post, Farkas
denied
being a source of any leaks.
The Post reported:
Farkas, in an interview with The Post, said she
"didn't give anybody anything except advice," was not a source for any stories and
had nothing to leak. Noting that she left government in October 2015, she said, "I
was just watching like anybody else, like a regular spectator" as initial reports
of Russia contacts began to surface after the election.
Farkas currently serves as a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council,
which takes a hawkish approach toward Russia and has released
numerous reports
and
briefs about Russian aggression.
The Council is
funded
by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc., the U.S. State Department, and
NATO ACT. Another Council
funder
is the Ploughshares Fund, which in turn has received financing from billionaire
George Soros' Open Society Foundations.
Farkas serves on the Atlantic Council alongside Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder
of CrowdStrike, the third-party company utilized by the FBI to make its assessment
about alleged Russian hacking into the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Alperovitch
is a
nonresident senior
fellow of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic
Council.
Last month, FBI Director James Comey
confirmed
that his agency never had direct access to the DNC's servers to
confirm the hacking. "Well, we never got direct access to the machines
themselves," he stated. "The DNC in the spring of 2016 hired a firm that
ultimately shared with us their forensics from their review of the system."
National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers also stated the NSA never
asked for access to the DNC hardware: "The NSA didn't ask for access. That's not
in our job."
"... CIA officers penetrated a network used to share information by Senate Intel committee members, including Sen. Diane Feinstein, the committee's Democrat chair. The bombshell New York Times report went on to disclose: ..."
As the facts about who surveilled whom during the transition get sorted out, it is useful to remember why Trump's team and his
supporters have reason to be suspicious, thanks to a long documented history of Obama using shady surveillance tactics on both political
opponents and international allies. Rhodes himself knows this history but that doesn't seem to matter as he once again attempts to
make people believe he fell out of the sky and onto Twitter on January 21st, 2017.
... ... ...
1. Fox News reporter James Rosen
In 2013 the news broke that Eric Holder's Justice Department
had spied on James Rosen . Obama's DOJ collected Rosen's telephone records as well as tracked his movements to and from the State
Department from where he reported. Rosen was named as a possible co-conspirator in a Justice Department affidavit. Rosen claims that
his parents phone line was also swept up in the collection of his records and DOJ records seem to confirm that. Despite the targeting
of Rosen, there were no brave calls to boycott the White House Correspondents Dinner.
2. Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA
CIA officers
penetrated a network used to share information by Senate Intel committee members, including Sen. Diane Feinstein, the committee's
Democrat chair. The bombshell New York Times report went on to disclose:
The CIA officials penetrated the computer network when they came to suspect that the committee's staff had gained unauthorized
access to an internal CIA review of the detention program that the spy agency never intended to give to Congress. A CIA lawyer then
referred the agency's suspicions to the Justice Department to determine whether the committee staff broke the law when it obtained
that document. The inspector general report said that there was no "factual basis" for this referral, which the Justice Department
has declined to investigate, because the lawyer had been provided inaccurate information. The report said that the three information
technology officers "demonstrated a lack of candor about their activities" during interviews with the inspector general.
The Obama White House defended CIA director John Brennan's actions and response. Imagine that.
3. Associated Press Phone Records
Much like James Rosen and his shady al Qaeda looking parents, Obama's Justice Department
secretly obtained months of phone records belonging to AP journalists while investigating a failed terror attack. And much like
the Rosen spying, this was personally approved by Attorney General Holder.
Mass surveillance and expansion of such under the Patriot Act is one of the most historically prevalent things about the Obama
administration. There's even a Wikipedia page
dedicated to that alone . So why
do the media and former administration officials act shocked and surprised when someone points the finger in their direction and
asks if targeting an incoming President is possible?
There is a long, decorated history of questionable-even unconstitutional-surveillance from the Obama administration none of which
proves Trump's twitter ravings to be true. But it certainly is enough to raise suspicions among Trump's supporters and even some
of this critics that he could be perfectly correct.
There are cliques of employees in all these govt agencies who have political and religious views just like the rest of the
world, except they have access to spy satellites, phone tapping, and every other spy tool just like Snowden tried to expose. Finally
after watching the evil satan worshipping liberals for all these years use these tool to further the NWO thru clintons and hussein,
the patriot Christian conservative side is finally leaking info they have access to to TRUMP and he is able to fight back a little.
THis is good versus evil, no doubt in my mind. Choose this day whom you will serve. Especially you crossroad demon from hell.
Expect some variation of this story below to come from the upcomine revelations. Trump and Nunes want to not only demonstrate
that Obama was scum, but put a major wedge between the DNC and Jews and Israel:
Firstly, there would have to be sufficient information showing Obama initiated the spying. Unless Obama has political knives
out after him, these facts won't come out until 2030.
Secondly, the media, and other powers-that-be would muddy the water. We'll never know *who* and *why* of the story.
Thirdly, if the NSA comes out with genuine evidence, then we may be able to assume there IS a conflict between the FBI, the
CIA vs the NSA. That, in itself, would be very relevant news.
Growing conflicts in any large government are not conducive to a smooth-operating empire.
Or maybe you are right and the NSA are the good guys. Maybe Snowden did what he did because the NSA itself is not happy about
what they are told to do. Snowden did not go rogue but is following orders from within NSA.
It could also be that the NSA dropped vault 7 onto WikiLeaks as well as the various Hillary leaks during the campaign.
And NYPD says Hillary knew that Wiener was sexing underage girl & did not report it to authorities. The NYPD was prevented
from pursuing charges against her.
Still waiting for any evidence to appear that Russians interfered with the elections or colluded with Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... The FBI did wiretap Trump Tower to monitor Russian activity, but it had nothing to do with the 2016 Presidential election, it has been reported. ..."
"... The Dems who were all for collecting on everyone can't (non-hypocritically) complain about Trump having all that now. I mean, we can never know how far the extremist have penetrated into our government unless we trace where all that Saudi money terrorist influence goes. ..."
"... The surveillance state bites the politicians that created it in the ass. I love that. They are not happy, I love that too. ..."
"... It was already a farce when McCain went after Paul. Though it was, before that, a horror film, with the 'ways the intelligence community can get you.' ..."
"... It is a satire, wrapped in a parody, hidden in slapstick, on top of a farce, buried in a bro-mance between a man with a tower and another man riding a horse without a shirt (and the man isn't wearing a shirt either .) ..."
"... Revealing this is treason. ..."
"... People will die. ..."
"... I agree that everybody is surveilled all the time, especially in the Beltway, where probably there are multiple simultaneous operations run against . well, everybody. ..."
There's also
this showing evidence that Trump Tower was specifically monitored during the Obama administration, although the probe was targeting
Russian mafia and not Trump and was done well before he declared his candidacy.
The FBI did wiretap Trump Tower to monitor Russian activity, but it had nothing to do with the 2016 Presidential election,
it has been reported.
Between 2011 and 2013 the Bureau had a warrant to spy on a high-level criminal Russian money-laundering ring, which operated
in unit 63A of the iconic skyscraper - three floors below Mr Trump's penthouse.
Not exactly a confirmation of Trump's rather wild claims, but something. Still waiting for any evidence to appear that
Russians interfered with the elections or colluded with Trump.
Ok, so they were just after the Russian mafia, phew I feel better already. So they got the felons and they are all arrested?
What utter BS! Why is Semion Mogilevitch still at large in Hungary and no extradition process? What about Felix Sater and Steve
Wynn and on and on. Why are they incapable of prosecuting mafia mobsters and instead chasing politicians?
That said, it was what happening potentially to all citizens, not just Donald Trump. I dislike this intensely, but why should
Trump get special dispensation over other citizens? Would like to know the reason for that.
Like Watergate, it's really about the denial or the lying. "When did you know about the, er, collecting?" For how many
days have we ridiculed Trump for his alternative universe imagination?
> He can join the other 310 million of us who can be "incidentally collected".
Didn't your mother tell you that 310 million wrongs don't make a right? Neither party establishment cares about that
quaint concept, civil liberties. If Obama's flip flip on FISA reform in July 2008, giving the Telco's retroactive immunity for
Bush's warrantless surveillance, didn't convince you, then his 17-city paramilitary crackdown on Occupy should have.
Not to mention monitoring a politician opens up a whole new can of worms. I'm convinced Trump must pretty clean relatively
because the IC hasn't gotten rid of him yet and you know they have all of his communications.
I'm with Lambert on neither party caring. I knew all I needed to when Obama voted for FISA and the following years just reinforced
how corrupt the Dems were. There is an import point here though. I don't think Trump would have thought that all of the surveillance
would be applied to him personally. It was just about other people. It was probably a legitimate eye opener. Now Trump is at the
head of the surveillance apparatus. Instead of asking Wikileaks to release all of Clintons emails, he should just do it himself.
The Dems who were all for collecting on everyone can't (non-hypocritically) complain about Trump having all that now. I
mean, we can never know how far the extremist have penetrated into our government unless we trace where all that Saudi
money terrorist influence goes.
Not just incidental, in Congressional hearings, Comey flat out says that Trump and his team were investigated for Russian connections,
and that none were found. The question now is was the investigations properly secured or not. Something completely in the air.
But team Dem is still playing the "wire tap" canad.
It is a satire, wrapped in a parody, hidden in slapstick, on top of a farce, buried in a bro-mance between a man with a
tower and another man riding a horse without a shirt (and the man isn't wearing a shirt either .)
Ordinary Internet users, American and non-American alike, far outnumber legally targeted foreigners in the communications
intercepted by the National Security Agency from U.S. digital networks, according to a four-month investigation by The Washington
Post.
Nine of 10 account holders found in a large cache of intercepted conversations, which former NSA contractor Edward Snowden
provided in full to The Post, were not the intended surveillance targets but were caught in a net the agency had cast for somebody
else.
And what was the reaction of many Congresspersons
(including many Dems, and all of the GOP except maybe Rand Paul and Justin Amash)? Revealing this is treason. People will die.
And Trump's CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, has called for Snowden's execution.
Sorry allan I got all excited at seeing a Nunes article in ZeroHedge and posted a comment your article is better and it
makes for more coherent comment threads to keep them together I should have looked before I leaped (posted).
Nunes: "I recently confirmed that, on numerous occasions, the Intelligence Community incidentally collected information about
U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.
Details about U.S. persons associated with the incoming administration-details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence
value-were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.
I have confirmed that additional names of Trump transition team members were unmasked.
To be clear, none of this surveillance was related to Russia or any investigation of Russian activities or of the Trump team."
==============================================
So the worm turns. The hypocrisy espoused by all sides is ..well, 11th dimensional.
fresno dan, this was a major topic of discussion during the committee hearing with Comey and Rogers on Monday. I listened to
the whole thing all five hours and 18 minutes' worth because I suspected that the corporate media would omit important details
or spin it beyond recognition. And so they did.
The bipartisan divide is being portrayed as Democrats wanting to get to the truth of Russian efforts to snuff out Democracy,
and Republicans wanting to "plug leaks" (see Lambert's RCP except above), with some reports suggesting the Rs are advocating stifling
free speech, prosecuting reporters for publishing classified information, and the like.
Republican committee members were indeed focused on the leaks, and there was talk about how to prevent them, but their concern
at least as they expressed publicly on Monday was specifically related to whether all those current and former officials,
senior officials, etc., quoted anonymously in the NYT and WaPo (the infamous "nine current and former officials, who were in senior
positions at multiple agencies") violated FISA provisions protecting information about U.S. persons collected incidentally in
surveillance of foreign actors.
Sure, they're playing their own game, and it could be a ruse to divert attention from the Trump campaign's alleged Russian
ties or simply to have ammo against the Ds. Even so, after listening to all their arguments, I believe they are on more solid
ground than all the Dem hysteria about Russian aggression and Trump camp treason.
I don't think I'll ever get Trey Gowdy's cringe-worthy performance during the Benghazi hearings out of my head, but he made
some pretty good points on Monday, one of which was that investigating Russian interference and possible ties between Trump advisers
and Russia is all well and good, but there may or may not have been any laws broken; whereas leaking classified information about
U.S. citizens collected incidentally under FISA is clearly a felony with up to 10 years. Comey confirmed that by saying that ALL
information collected under FISA is classified.
And then he repeatedly refused to say whether he thought any classified information had been leaked or existed at all (I counted
more than 100 "no comment" answers from Comey, who astonishingly managed to find 50 different ways to say it).
My beef isn't so much the leak of classified information, but the gross dereliction of duty if not outright abuse of First
Amendment powers by reporters who collaborate with intelligence agencies and then quote them anonymously, giving everyone cover
to say or write whatever they want with zero accountability.
In fact, there were some interesting comments in Monday's hearing about the possibility that some of what has been reported
was fabricated. Then, you might expect Comey to say something like that. For all his talk about not tolerating leaks from his
agency, blahblah, it was clear that he'll provide his own people with cover, if necessary. I think that's what Gowdy and a couple
other Republicans were getting at.
It goes without saying, but I'll add that the Dems were hardly even trying to disguise their real goal, which isn't protecting
the American Peopleฎ from the evil Russkies, but taking down Trump.
Thanks for watching the whole thing the nation owes you a debt of gratitude.
"My beef isn't so much the leak of classified information, but the gross dereliction of duty if not outright abuse of First
Amendment powers by reporters who collaborate with intelligence agencies and then quote them anonymously, giving everyone cover
to say or write whatever they want with zero accountability."
First, I a squillion percent agree with you. This is a big, bit deal because essentially the military/IC/neocons is trying
to wrest control of the civilian government the idea that the CIA is some noble institution that wants the best for all Americans
is preposterous, yet accepted by the media, which proves how much propaganda we are fed. The sheep like following, the mandatory
use of the adjective "murderous thug" before the name of "Putin" just shows that most of the media has been bought off or has
lost all their critical thinking faculties.
But I also don't want to be a hypocrite so I will explain that I don't have too much of a problem with leaks. WHAT I do have
a problem with is the purposeful naivete or ignorance of the media that the CIA and/or facets of the Obama administration is trying
to thwart rapprochement with Russia. Administrations BEFORE they are sworn in talk to foreign governments the sheer HYSTERIA,
the CRIME of talking to a Russian is beyond absurd. We are being indoctrinated to believe all Russia, all bad
There is a ton of information about Podesta and the Clintons dealing with Russia for money. If Flynn and whatshisname are just
grifting that is pedestrian stuff and everybody in Washington does it (I thing they call it "lobbying"). If there is REAL treason
something should have come out by now.
I began covering congressional hearings while I was still in j-school and sat though many like this during my years as a reporter
in D.C. Even though I haven't worked as a full-time journalist for many years, I still prefer original sources and am willing
to take the time to dig for them or, in this case, to sit through a hearing as though I were covering it as a member of the press
especially when I don't even have to wash my hair or get dressed!
I didn't mean to imply that I have a problem with leaks. I certainly encouraged enough of them in my time, and I don't think
there's anything inherently wrong with publishing leaked material, even certain kinds of classified information. It depends.
There's the kind of "classified" information that is restricted expressly to keep the public from knowing something they have
a right to know, and there's information that's classified to protect individual privacy. The first kind should be leaked early
and often. The second kind, close to never (and off the top of my head I can't think of an instance when it would be OK).
Even though journalists aren't (and shouldn't be) held liable for publishing classified information given to them by a third
party, they need to be scrupulous in their decisions to do so. Is it in the public interest? Who or what might be harmed? Would
sitting on the information cause more harm than publicizing it? Does it violate someone's constitutional rights?
These questions can get tricky with someone like Flynn, who's clearly a public figure and thus mostly fair game. However, if
I had been reporting that story, I think I would have sat on it until I had more information, even at the risk of getting scooped
unless, of course, I was in cahoots with the leakers and out to get him and his boss.
At that point, I am no longer an objective journalist committed to fair and accurate reporting, but a participant in a political
cause. Although newspapers throughout history have taken sides, and pure "fact-based" journalism is a myth, there's a big difference
between having an editorial slant and being an active participant in the story. Evidently, BezPo has decided that the latter is
not only acceptable, but advantageous.
Sorry, didn't mean to ramble on when I'm likely preaching to the converted. I feel very strongly about this issue, and it's
disconcerting to me, as a lifelong Democrat, that I agreed more with the Republicans in that hearing. At the same time, the D's
propaganda machine is pumping out so much toxic fog that it's shaking my faith in unfettered freedom of the press.
> I began covering congressional hearings while I was still in j-school and sat though many like this during my years as a
reporter in D.C. Even though I haven't worked as a full-time journalist for many years, I still prefer original sources and am
willing to take the time to dig for them
I agree that everybody is surveilled all the time, especially in the Beltway, where probably there are multiple simultaneous
operations run against . well, everybody.
It doesn't, er, bug me that 70-year-old Beltway neophyte Trump used sloppy language - "wiretap" - to describe this state of
affairs. (I don't expect any kind of language from Trump but sloppy.) All are, therefore one is. It does bug me that
the whole discussion gets dragged off into legal technicalities about what legal regimen is appropriate for which form of Fourth
Amendment-destruction (emptywheel does this a lot). The rules are insanely complicated, and it's fun to figure them out, rather
like taking the cover off the back of a Swiss watch and examining all the moving parts. But the assumption is that people follow
the rules, and especially that high-level people (like, say, Comey, or Clapper, or Morrel, or Obama) follow the complicated rules.
That assumes facts not in evidence.
Incidental collection was always a likely scenario.
We've also seen statements from people like GHCQ that clains they surveilled Trump at Obama's behest were "absurd," but those
are non-denial denials. I can't recall a denial denial. Am I missing something?
And the plot thickens. Whoever said may you live in interesting times......had no idea. Can you feel the desperation from the
filthy corrupt democrats? The demonic spirits that reside in them are going berserk. The light is starting to shine on them and
their evil deeds are more transparent than ever. It's only gonna get better
Fox better rehire Napolitano before it is too late. But it is too late for the Wall Street Journal comparing Trump to 'a drunk'
clinging to 'an empty gin bottle' in scathing editorial.
"... 'Former intelligence analyst Larry Johnson, who has long attacked the U.S. intel community, is standing by his allegation that triggered a feud with America's closest ally' ..."
"How the U.K. spying claim traveled from an ex-CIA blogger to Trump's White House"
'Former intelligence analyst Larry Johnson, who has long attacked the U.S. intel community, is standing by his allegation that
triggered a feud with America's closest ally'
By Matthew Nussbaum...03/18/17...02:38 PM EDT
"...Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and blogger, acknowledges he was one of the sources for Fox News commentator Andrew
Napolitano's claim - later repeated by the White House..."
Britain Livid on Spying Claim, but Trump Isn't Apologizing. White House aides scrambled to deal with an unusual rupture after
suggesting that former President Barack Obama used a British spy agency to wiretap Donald J. Trump during the campaign.
At a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr. Trump made clear that he felt the White House had nothing to
retract.
WASHINGTON - President Trump provoked a rare public dispute with America's closest ally on Friday after his White House
aired an explosive and unsubstantiated claim that Britain's spy agency had secretly eavesdropped on him at the behest of President
Barack Obama during last year's campaign.
Livid British officials adamantly denied the allegation and secured promises from senior White House officials never to
repeat it. But a defiant Mr. Trump refused to back down, making clear that the White House had nothing to retract or apologize
for because his spokesman had simply repeated an assertion made by a Fox News commentator. Fox itself later disavowed the report.
...
this equally applied to those with the virulent fixation on Russia completely out of control.
== end of quote ==
Neoliberal DemoRats might pay dearly for this "poisoning of the well" trick -- McCarthyism witch hunt.
We need to remember that corruption of politician is sine qua non of neoliberalism. "Greed is good" completely replaced 10
Commandments.
But the first rule of living in a glass house that modern Internet provides (in cooperation with intelligence agencies, Google,
Microsoft and Facebook) is not to throw stones.
Russia is not Serra Leon with rockets. I am afraid that Russia might have a lot of info about corruption of major Democratic
politicians as most of them took bribes from Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs (whom they essentially created) and some (old Clinton
"associates" like Summers) closely participated in "great economic rape of Russia" of 1991-2000. All neatly recorded and waiting
their hour for release.
At some point Putin's nerves might break and he can order to release this information. Then what ?
"... Merkel's reaction was similarly amusing: almost as if she had heard for the first time that in 2010, and for years onward, Barack Obama had been wiretapping her and countless other heads of state. ..."
"... For those unsure what the exchange was about, we suggest you read the Telegraph's " Barack Obama 'approved tapping Angela Merkel's phone 3 years ago'... President Barack Obama was told about monitoring of German Chancellor in 2010 and allowed it to continue, says German newspaper ." ..."
"... And incidentally, in yet another change in the official narrative, after both Sky News and the Telegraph reported earlier today that the White House had apologized to Britain over the accusation that its spy agency had helped Obama spy on Trump, the NYT reported that the White House has said there was no apology from either Spicer or McMaster, and that instead the Administration defended Spicer's mention of the wiretapping story. ..."
"... Finally, as Axios adds , after Trump and Merkel left the stage reporters again asked Sean Spicer whether he apologized for repeating an anonymously sourced Fox News claim that British intelligence helped in wiretapping Trump Tower. His response: " I don't think we regret anything. " ..."
Following today's latest developments over Trump's allegations that the UK's GCHQ may or may not have helped Obama to wiretap the
Trump Tower, an allegation which the infuriated British Spy Agency called "utterly ridiculous" and
prompted it to demand an apology from the White House, a German reporter asked Trump for his current opinion on whether Obama
had indeed wiretapped Trump. The president's response: he gestured to Angela Merkel and said " on wiretapping by this past administration,
at least we have something in common."
Merkel's reaction was similarly amusing: almost as if she had heard for the first time that in 2010, and for years onward, Barack
Obama had been wiretapping her and countless other heads of state.
And incidentally, in yet another change in the official narrative, after both Sky News and the Telegraph reported earlier today
that the White House had apologized to Britain over the accusation that its spy agency had helped Obama spy on Trump, the NYT reported
that the White House has said there was no apology from either Spicer or McMaster, and that instead the Administration defended Spicer's
mention of the wiretapping story.
WH now sez there was no apology to Brits from @PressSec /McMaster;
they fielded complaints & defended Spicer's mention of wiretapping story
Finally, as
Axios
adds , after Trump and Merkel left the stage reporters again asked Sean Spicer whether he apologized for repeating an anonymously
sourced Fox News claim that British intelligence helped in wiretapping Trump Tower. His response: " I don't think we regret anything.
"
"... It is "our job," not Trump's, to "control exactly what people think," gasped MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski last month. This week's gasp from the media assumes a slightly different form and can be translated as: It is our job, not Trump's, to push stories about the government investigation of Trumpworld. ..."
"... For months, the media, drawing upon criminal leaks from Obama holdovers, has been saying in effect: Trumpworld is under investigation for ties to Russia! Then Trump says essentially the same thing on Twitter and the media freaks out. ..."
"... The Obama holdovers are denying the import of the very stories that they planted. ..."
"... The Obama administration used half-baked (or, more likely, completely fabricated) information from some "foreign source" as the pretext to launch a clandestine fishing expedition against Trump during the election. ..."
"... We live in a police state folks under the warrantless eavesdropping program. ..."
George Neumayr
Posted on 3/6/2017 4:42:04 PM by RoosterRedux
It is "our job," not Trump's, to "control exactly what people think," gasped MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski last month. This week's
gasp from the media assumes a slightly different form and can be translated as: It is our job, not Trump's, to push stories about
the government investigation of Trumpworld.
For months, the media, drawing upon criminal leaks from Obama holdovers, has been saying in effect: Trumpworld is under
investigation for ties to Russia! Then Trump says essentially the same thing on Twitter and the media freaks out.
Why does the latter merit condemnation but not the former?
Notice what is happening here: The Obama holdovers are denying the import of the very stories that they planted. Where
did the liberal BBC's story (building on a story first reported by Heat Street) on intelligence agencies receiving a FISA court
warrant to investigate Russian-Trumpworld ties come from? It came from a "senior member of the US intelligence community":
On 15 October, the US secret intelligence court issued a warrant to investigate two Russian banks. This news was given to me
by several sources and corroborated by someone I will identify only as a senior member of the US intelligence community. He
would never volunteer anything giving up classified information would be illegal but he would confirm or deny what I had
heard from other sources.
Notice on the Sunday talk shows that Obama's CIA director John Brennan did not appear. Yet he served as the genesis of this investigation,
according to the BBC story:
The Obama administration used half-baked (or, more likely, completely fabricated) information from some "foreign source"
as the pretext to launch a clandestine fishing expedition against Trump during the election.
Can't wait to see the application paperwork for the requested FISA orders!!
To: RoosterRedux Don't want to start a separate thread for this and it is somewhat related.
Listening to Hannity show today and William Binney was on and interviewed. Binney was a US Intelligence Official with the NSA
who resigned in 2001 and turned whistleblower.
I am paraphrasing but - He says phone, email, test, surveillance is routinely done on everyone with no warrant. He said they
can go back for years and pull out the data.
Please listen to Hannity at the top of the 3rd hour for details.
We live in a police state folks under the warrantless eavesdropping program.
Vault 7 revelations now shed some light on the possibilities of a muti-step operations to get the court order. The absurdity of
the situation is evident: acting POTUS complains about wiretapping by his predecessor who supposedly used one of intelligence agencies
(supposedly CIA) for this operation. Being now a Commander in Chief.
Ray McGovern who probably knows what he is talking about suggested that Obama might be scared of CIA Director Brennan (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGayl9uNW4A actually this
is a very interesting interview)
The following scheme looks plausible: Scapegoat Russians by hacking into DNC servers; create media hysteria about Russians; implicate
Trump in connections to Russians; get court order for wiretapping on this ground
Notable quotes:
"... Just hours before he publicly responded last week to the Senate Intelligence Committee report accusing the Central Intelligence Agency of torture and deceit, John O. Brennan, the CIA's director, stopped by the White House to meet with President Obama. Ostensibly, he was there for an intelligence briefing. But the messages delivered later that day by the White House and Mr. Brennan were synchronized, even down to similar wording, and the larger import of the well-timed visit was hardly a classified secret: After six years of partnership, the president was standing by the embattled spy chief even as fellow Democrats called for his resignation. ..."
"... I'm not tarring Obama with Brennan's war crimes and that of the Agency, copiously documented in the Senate Report on Torture, and instead am suggesting an active partnership-in-war-crimes, Obama, if anything, giving CIA its head of steam under his watch ..."
"... Obama plucked Brennan to lead the intelligence charge through the interstices of government and military culminating in a permanent war economy and psychosis of vision. ..."
"... in the 67 years since the CIA was founded, few presidents have had as close a bond with their intelligence chiefs as Mr. Obama has forged with Mr. Brennan. It is a relationship that has shaped the policy and politics of the debate over the nation's war with terrorist organizations, as well as the agency's own struggle to balance security and liberty ..."
Baker-Mazzetti's opener says it all: " Just hours before he publicly responded last week to the Senate Intelligence Committee
report accusing the Central Intelligence Agency of torture and deceit, John O. Brennan, the CIA's director, stopped by the White
House to meet with President Obama. Ostensibly, he was there for an intelligence briefing. But the messages delivered later that
day by the White House and Mr. Brennan were synchronized, even down to similar wording, and the larger import of the well-timed
visit was hardly a classified secret: After six years of partnership, the president was standing by the embattled spy chief even
as fellow Democrats called for his resignation. " Nothing could be plainer. As one who remembers well the guilt-by-association
days of McCarthyism, I'm not tarring Obama with Brennan's war crimes and that of the Agency, copiously documented in the Senate
Report on Torture, and instead am suggesting an active partnership-in-war-crimes, Obama, if anything, giving CIA its head of steam
under his watch , as in its role in drone assassination at facilities in Pakistan, Brennan himself installed as Director
after Valiant Service as national security adviser, all despite questions of favoring waterboarding raised in confirmation hearings.
From a pool of gung-ho national-security experts on which to draw, the others still making up his First Team of advisers (include
generals, admirals, members of think tanks with partly disguised neocon credentials), Obama plucked Brennan to lead the intelligence
charge through the interstices of government and military culminating in a permanent war economy and psychosis of vision.
Obama is not Brennan's puppet, nor the other way. Both are electrified by mutual contact and support. The reporters note friction
between the White House and Langley "after the release of the scorching report," Brennan having "irritated advisers by battling
Democrats on the committee over the report during the past year." They do not point out Obama did the same, stalling release,
suffocating criticism of CIA hard-ball tactics against the committee, of which later; yet they make up for that with, given that
this is NYT, an astonishing statement: "But in the 67 years since the CIA was founded, few presidents have had as close a
bond with their intelligence chiefs as Mr. Obama has forged with Mr. Brennan. It is a relationship that has shaped the policy
and politics of the debate over the nation's war with terrorist organizations, as well as the agency's own struggle to balance
security and liberty ."
What they don't say is that counterterrorism is part of the larger US position of counterrevolution, issuing in confrontations
with Russia and China and regime change wherever American interests are challenged. Nor do they say, the Agency's struggle to
balance security and liberty was lost before it had fairly begun, assassination and regime change hardly indicative of liberty,
a no-contest battle.
"... ..."Multiple reports show that my former colleagues in the intelligence community have decided that they must leak or withhold classified information due to unsettling connections between President Trump and the Russian Government... ..."
"... The deep state is running scared! I never+ attribute to coincidence that which is the FBI trampling the bill of rights. It is coincidence the deep state (fbi, nsa, various CIA and DoD spooks) tapped Russia spies who talk to private citizens who have no opportunity at espionage. Then the innuendo is leaked to the Clinton media! ..."
"... Worse on Trump for calling them out for leaking rather than as a civil liberty trampling Gestapo. Ben Franklin was right, give the democrat run spooks the power to protect you and you lose liberty and protection! ..."
This is running now on FoxNews.com, total fabrication especially the last sentence but Trumpers believe this Fake News. I think
this is where ilsm gets his intell insights from, phoney former intell officers, they sound exactly like him - check it out for
yourself
"I'm a Democrat (and ex-CIA) but the spies plotting against Trump are out of control"
By Bryan Dean Wright...February 18, 2017...Foxnews.com
..."Multiple reports show that my former colleagues in the intelligence community have decided that they must leak or
withhold classified information due to unsettling connections between President Trump and the Russian Government...
Days ago, they delivered their verdict. According to one intelligence official, the president "will die in jail."..."
The deep state is running scared! I never+ attribute to coincidence that which is the FBI trampling the bill of rights. It
is coincidence the deep state (fbi, nsa, various CIA and DoD spooks) tapped Russia spies who talk to private citizens who have
no opportunity at espionage. Then the innuendo is leaked to the Clinton media!
Worse on Trump for calling them out for leaking rather than as a civil liberty trampling Gestapo. Ben Franklin was right,
give the democrat run spooks the power to protect you and you lose liberty and protection!
"... Do you see the name of an actual business, owned by Trump? ..."
"... For Donald Trump, all attempts to gain a foothold in the USSR and then in Russia in 30 years of travel and negotiations failed. Moscow did not have a Trump Tower of its own, although Trump boasted every time that he had met the most important people and was just about to invest hundreds of millions in a project that would undoubtedly be successful. ..."
"... Trumps' largest business success in Russia was the presentation of a Trump Vodka at the Millionaire Fair 2007 in Moscow. This project was also a cleansing; In 2009 the sale of Trump Vodka was discontinued. ..."
In any case, a link to the following story in Hamburg's ridiculously sober-sided Die Zeit came
over the transom:
So schockiert von Trump wie alle anderen ("So shocked by Trump like everyone else"). The reporter
is Alexej Kowaljow
, a Russian journalist based in Moscow. Before anyone goes "ZOMG! The dude is Russian
!", everything Kowaljow writes is based on open sources or common-sense information presumably
available to citizens of any nation. The bottom line for me is that if the world is coming to believe
that Americans are idiots, it's not necessarily because Americans elected Trump as President.
I'm going to lay out two claims and two questions from Kowaljow's piece. In each case, I'll quote
the conventional, Steele and intelligence community-derived wisdom in our famously free press, and
then I'll quote Kowaljow. I think Kowaljow wins each time. Easily. I don't think Google Translate
handles irony well, but I sense that Kowaljow is deploying it freely.
(1) Trump's Supposed Business Dealings in Russia Are Commercial Puffery
Here's
the
section on Russia in Time's article on Trump's business dealings; it's representative. I'm going
to quote it all so you can savor it. Read it carefully.
Donald Trump's Many, Many Business Dealings in 1 Map
Russia
"For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia," Trump
tweeted
in July, one day before he called on the country to "find" a batch of emails deleted from
Hillary Clinton's private server. Nonetheless, Russia's extraordinary meddling in the 2016 U.S.
election-a declassified report released by U.S. intelligence agencies in January disclosed that
intercepted conversations captured senior Russian officials celebrating Trump's win-as well as
Trump's complimentary remarks about Russian President have stirred widespread questions about
the President-elect's pursuit of closer ties with Moscow. Several members of Trump's inner circle
have business links to Russia, including former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who
consulted for pro-Russia politicians in the Ukraine. Former foreign policy adviser Carter
Page worked in Russia and
maintains ties there.
During the presidential transition, former Georgia Congressman and Trump campaign surrogate
Jack Kingston
told a gathering of businessmen in Moscow that the President-elect could lift U.S. sanctions.
According to his own son, Trump has long relied on Russian customers as a source of income. "Russians
make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets," Donald Trump Jr.
told a Manhattan real estate conference in 2008 , according to an account posted on the website
of trade publication eTurboNews. "We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."
Back to map .
Read that again, if you can stand it. Do you see the name of an actual business, owned by Trump?
Do you see the name of any businessperson who closed a deal with Trump? Do you, in fact, see any
reporting at all? At most, you see commercial puffery by Trump the Younger: "Russians [in Russia?]
make up a pretty [qualifier] disproportionate [whatever that means] cross-section [whatever that
means] of a lot of [qualifier] our assets."
Now Kowaljow (via Google Translate, so forgive any solecisms):
For Donald Trump, all attempts to gain a foothold in the USSR and then in Russia in 30 years
of travel and negotiations failed. Moscow did not have a Trump Tower of its own, although Trump
boasted every time that he had met the most important people and was just about to invest hundreds
of millions in a project that would undoubtedly be successful.
Trumps' largest business success in Russia was the presentation of a Trump Vodka at the Millionaire
Fair 2007 in Moscow. This project was also a cleansing; In 2009 the sale of Trump Vodka was discontinued.
Because think about it: Trump puts his name on stuff . Towers in Manhattan, hotels, casinos,
golf courses, steaks. Anything in Russia with Trump's name on it? Besides the failed vodka venture?
No? Case closed, then.
(2) Zhirinovsky Is The Very Last Person Putin Would Use For A Proxy
Five reasons intel community believes Russia interfered in election
The attacks dovetailed with other Russian disinformation campaigns
The report covers more than just the hacking effort. It also contains a detailed list account
of information warfare against the United States from Russia through other means.
Political party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who the report lists as a "pro-Kremlin proxy,"
said before the election that, if Trump won, Russia would 'drink champagne' to celebrate their
new ability to advance in Syria and Ukraine.
Now Kowaljow:
The report of the American intelligence services on the Russian interference in the US elections,
published at the beginning of January, was notoriously neglected by Russians, because the name
of Vladimir Zhirinovsky was mentioned among the "propaganda activities of Russia", which had announced
that in the event of an election victory of Trump champagne to want to drink.
Such a delicate plan to reach the election of a President of the US by means of Zhirinovsky
ensures a skeptical smile for every Russian at best. He is already seventy and has been at
the head of a party with a misleading name for nearly thirty years. The Liberal Democratic Party
is neither liberal nor democratic. If their policies are somehow characterized, then as right-wing
populism. Zhirinovsky is known for shrill statements; He threatened, for example, to destroy the
US by means of "gravitational weapons".
If, therefore, the Kremlin had indeed had the treacherous plan of helping Trump to power, it
would scarcely have been made known about Zhirinovsky.
The American equivalent would be . Give me a moment to think of an American politician who's both
so delusional and such a laughingstock that no American President could possibly
consider using them as a proxy in a devilishly complex informational warfare campaign Sara
Palin? Anthony Weiner? Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Na ga happen.
And now to the two questions.
(3) Why Would Russian Intelligence Agencies Sources Have Talked to Steele?
Kowaljow:
But the report, published on the BuzzFeed Internet portal, is full of inconsistencies and contradictions.
The problem is not even that there are a lot of false facts. Even the assumption that agents of
the Russian secret services are discussing the details with a former secretary of a hostile secret
service in the midst of a highly secret operation by which a future President of the US is to
be discredited appears strange.
Exactly. For the intelligence community and Democrat reliance on Steele's dossier to be plausible,
you have to assume 10-foot tall Russkis (1) with incredibly sophisticated strategic, operational,
and technical capabilities, who have (2) performed the greatest intelligence feat of the 21st
and 20th centuries, suborning the President of the United States, and whose intelligence agencies
are (3) leakly like a sieve. Does that make sense? (Of course, the devilish Russkis could have fed
Steele bad data, knowing he'd then feed it to the American intelligence agencies, who would lap it
up, but that's another narrative.)
(4) How Do You Compromise the Uncompromisable?
Funny how suddenly the word kompromat was everywhere, wasn't it? So sophisticated. Everybody
loves to learn a new word! Regarding the "Golden Showers" - more sophistication! - Kowaljow writes:
But even if such a compromise should exist, what sense should it have, since the most piquant
details have long been publicly discussed in public, and had no effect on the votes of the elected
president? Like all the other scandals trumps, which passed through the election campaign, they
also remained unresolved, including those who were concerned about sex.
This also includes what is known as a compromise, compromising material, that is, video shots
of the unsightly nature, which can destroy both the political career and the life of a person.
The word Kompromat shines today as in the past Perestroika in all headlines; It was not invented
in Russia, of course. But in Russia in the Yeltsin era, when the great clans in the power gave
bitter fights and intensively used the media, works of this kind have ended more than just a brilliant
career. General Prosecutor Jurij Skuratov was dismissed after a video had been shown in the country-wide
television channels: There, a person "who looks like the prosecutor's office" had sex with two
prostitutes.
Donald Trump went on Howard Stern for, like, decades. The stuff that's right out there for whoever
wants to roll those tapes is just as "compromising" as anything in the dodgy dossier, or the "grab
her by the pussy" tape, for that matter. As Kowaljow points out, none of it was mortally wounding
to Trump; after all, if you're a volatility voter who wants to kick over the table in a rigged game,
you don't care about the niceties.
Conclusion
It would be nice, wouldn't it, if our famously free press was actually covering the Trump
transition , instead of acting like their newsrooms are mountain redoubts for an irrendentist
Clinton campaign. It would be nice, for example, to know:
1) The content and impact of Trump's Executive Orders.
2) Ditto, regulations.
3) Personnel decisions below the Cabinet level. Who are the Flexians?
4) Obama policies that will remain in place, because both party establishments support them. Charters,
for example.
5) Republican inroads in Silicon Valley.
6) The future of the IRS, since Republicans have an axe to grind with it.
7) Mismatch between State expectations for infrastructure and Trump's implementation
And that's before we get to ObamaCare, financial regulation, gutting or owning the CIA (which
Trump needs to do, and fast), trade policy, NATO, China, and a myriad of other stories, all rich
with human interest, powerful narratives, and plenty of potential for scandal. Any one of them worthy
of A1 coverage, just like the Inaugural crowd size dogpile that's been going on for days.
Instead, the press seems to be reproducing the last gasps of the Clinton campaign, which were
all about the evils of Trump, the man. That tactic failed the Clinton camp
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