|
|
Home | Switchboard | Unix Administration | Red Hat | TCP/IP Networks | Neoliberalism | Toxic Managers |
| (slightly skeptical) Educational society promoting "Back to basics" movement against IT overcomplexity and bastardization of classic Unix | |||||||
| Home | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 |
For the list of top articles see Recommended Links section
|
|
Switchboard | ||||
| Latest | |||||
| Past week | |||||
| Past month | |||||
 |
 |
 |
Dec 29, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Paul Damascene , Dec 28 2019 22:58 utc | 36
FBI unredeemably corrupted...?I think some my still hold out the hope or expectation that the DOJ will get to the bottom of national-security state malfeasance, beginning with FBI.
Kim Strassel of the WSJ quite pointedly asks why there was so little interest at the FIS court in the Nunez memo, which the IG report now bears out. Covering for malfeasance might just be the FISC's job one.
Now, a similarly gimlet-eyed view of the FBI, as arguably beyond saving ...
|
|
|
Dec 29, 2019 | conservativesdaily.com
"THE HAMMER" CIA Contractor-Turned Whistleblower Dennis Montgomery Makes Damming Confession On How Obama Ruthlessly Spied Trump A Zillion Times
By CD's Team December 26, 2019
President Obama's Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper and his Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John Brennan oversaw a secret supercomputer system known as "THE HAMMER," according to former NSA/CIA contractor-turned whistleblower Dennis Montgomery.
Clapper and Brennan were using the supercomputer system to conduct illegal and unconstitutional government data harvesting and wiretapping. THE HAMMER was installed on federal property in Fort Washington, Maryland at a complex which some speculate is a secret CIA and NSA operation operating at a US Naval facility.
President Trump's allegation that the Obama Administration was wiretapping him is not only supported by Montgomery's whistleblower revelations about Brennan's and Clapper's computer system THE HAMMER, but also by statements made this week by William Binney, a former NSA Technical Director of the World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group, by former CIA and State Department official Larry Johnson, and by Montgomery's attorney Larry Klayman.
Computer expert Dennis Montgomery developed software programs that could breach secure computer systems and collect massive amounts of data.
That system, THE HAMMER, according to the audio tapes, accessed the phone calls, emails and bank accounts of millions of ordinary Americans.
The tapes also reveal that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court (FISA), Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, 156 other judges, members of Congress, and Donald J. Trump were targeted by the HAMMER.
One of the audio tapes made public by Federal Judge G. Murray Snow revealed that Brennan and Clapper particularly targeted and wiretapped Donald Trump a " zillion times."
Must read: Ben carson breaks silence on impeachment,drop nuke on immature democrats
Montgomery also contends that the government can plant files such as child *********** or state secrets on a target's computer, setting up the owner of that device for blackmail or framed prosecution.
Former CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson Alleged In 2013 She Was Under Electronic Surveillance For At Least Two Years And That Three Classified Documents Were Planted On Her "Compromised" Computer.
The audio tapes were released by Federal Judge G. Murray Snow in Maricopa County, Arizona in the Justice Department's civil contempt case against Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio.
Attorney Klayman, founder of Freedom Watch, represented Montgomery before federal Judge Royce C. Lamberth. Klayman, who characterizes his client Montgomery as a "whistleblower," told Fox News that Montgomery "turned over 600 million plus pages of information to the FBI." Judge Lamberth was formerly the presiding judge over the FISA court.
After Montgomery produced his documentation, the FBI gave him two immunity agreements: one in the area of "production" and the other regarding "testimony."
The FBI then took possession of Montgomery's documentation.
Attorney Klayman asserts that this information precipitated James Clapper's resignation.
Clapper had gone before Congress to testify under oath that the NSA, and other intelligence agencies including the CIA," were not collecting massive amounts of telephonic and Internet metadata on hundreds of millions of innocent American citizens" according to Klayman.
Whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations proved otherwise.
Clapper was subsequently found to be untruthful and resigned on November 17, 2016, effective January 20, 2017, the day Donald Trump was sworn in.
Clapper has not been prosecuted for perjury and we wonder why.
7 minutes ago Thanks Q! I bring up Montgomery all of the time here. The Eff Bee Eye and Dee oh Jay have all of the documents and are sitting on them. This is how the IC controls everything in the Swamp.
|
|
|
Dec 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
BOMBSHELL: CIA Whistleblower Leaked Proof Trump Under "Systematic Illegal" Surveillance Over Two Years Ago: FBI Sat On It by ZeroPointNow Wed, 03/22/2017 - 22:37 0 SHARES
The same day House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes gave a press conference disclosing that President Trump had been under " incidental surveillance ," Attorney and FreedomWatch Chairman, Larry Klayman, sent a letter to the House Committee on Intelligence imploring them to pursue the claims and evidence presented under oath at a Washington DC FBI Field Office by his client - CIA / NSA Whistleblower Dennis Montgomery - who Klayman claims "holds the keys to disproving the false claims... ...that there is no evidence that the president and his men were wiretapped"
When Montgomery attempted to deliver this information through the appropriate channels two years ago , the former CIA and NSA contractor wasn't given the time of day:
[W]hen Montgomery came forward as a whistleblower to congressional intelligence committees and various other congressmen and senators, including Senator Charles Grassley , Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who, like Comey, once had a reputation for integrity, he was "blown off;" no one wanted to even hear what he had to say.
As a result, Montgomery went to attorney and FreedomWatch founder Larry Klayman - who then approached the FBI:
Under grants of immunity, which I obtained through Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Curtis, Montgomery produced the hard drives and later was interviewed under oath in a secure room at the FBI Field Office in the District of Columbia . There he laid out how persons like then-businessman Donald Trump were illegally spied upon by Clapper, Brennan, and the spy agencies of the Obama administration.
Montgomery left the NSA and CIA with 47 hard drives and over 600 million pages of information , much of which is classified, and sought to come forward legally as a whistleblower to appropriate government entities, including congressional intelligence committees, to expose that the spy agencies were engaged for years in systematic illegal surveillance on prominent Americans, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, other justices, 156 judges, prominent businessmen such as Donald Trump , and even yours truly. Working side by side with Obama's former Director of National Intelligence (DIA), James Clapper, and Obama's former Director of the CIA, John Brennan, Montgomery witnessed "up close and personal" this "Orwellian Big Brother" intrusion on privacy , likely for potential coercion, blackmail or other nefarious purposes.
He even claimed that these spy agencies had manipulated voting in Florida during the 2008 presidential election , which illegal tampering resulted in helping Obama to win the White House.
Given the fact that the FBI had Montgomery's testimony and evidence for over two years, Klayman traveled to Washington DC last Thursday to meet with Committee Chairman Devin Nunes in the hopes that he would ask FBI Director Comey why the FBI hadn't pursued Montgomery's evidence. When Klayman arrived to speak with Nunes, he was "blown off" and instead shared his information with committee attorney Allen R. Souza - who Klayman requested in turn brief Nunes on the situation.
During my meeting with House Intelligence Committee counsel Allen R. Sousa I politely warned him that if Chairman Nunes, who himself had that same day undercut President Trump by also claiming that there is no evidence of surveillance by the Obama administration, I would go public with what would appear to be the House Intelligence Committee's complicity in keeping the truth from the American people and allowing the FBI to continue its apparent cover-up of the Montgomery "investigation."
And, that is where it stands today. The big question: will House Intelligence Committee Chairman Nunes do his job and hold FBI Director Comey's feet to the fire about the Montgomery investigation?
Klayman has detailed all of this in a NewsMax article , followed up with an official letter to Chairman Nunes today, requesting that he question Comey on Montgomery's evidence. Perhaps this explains Nunes' impromptu press conference today admitting that Trump's team was under " Incidental Surveillance " before making his way to the White House to discuss with the President.
So - we know that evidence exists from a CIA / NSA contractor turned whistleblower, detailing a massive spy operation on 156 judges, the Supreme Court, and high profile Americans including Donald Trump. See the letter below:
Freedom Watch bombshell letter to Rep. Devin Nunes1/4 https://t.co/CZ4haCVauK pic.twitter.com/NnKogSytSC
-- ZeroPointNow(@ZeroPointNow) March 23, 2017Freedom Watch bombshell letter to Rep. Devin Nunes2/4 https://t.co/CZ4haCVauK pic.twitter.com/6Ls9a9kXAQ
-- ZeroPointNow(@ZeroPointNow) March 23, 2017Freedom Watch bombshell letter to Rep. Devin Nunes3/4 https://t.co/CZ4haCVauK pic.twitter.com/90KUdW9eH1
-- ZeroPointNow(@ZeroPointNow) March 23, 2017Freedom Watch bombshell letter to Rep. Devin Nunes 4/4 https://t.co/CZ4haCVauK pic.twitter.com/l29p9JzBsU
-- ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) March 23, 2017
|
|
|
Dec 25, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Joe diGenova has been talking about the seditious plot to overturn the 2016 election for at least a year, maybe longer. Unlike a lot of the people commenting on this in the mass media, he is not using it to sell books or boost his cable career. He also knows how the FBI and DOJ works from a practical matter. Being knowledgeable makes him a rare guy in the commentariat. Most of the people brought on as experts for the cable chat shows know very little about their alleged areas of expertise.
Regardless, he has been one of the most hawkish people on the Barr investigation, claiming that it is a real investigation with real criminal targets. In this recent radio interview he goes into the details of both the Barr investigation and the ongoing impeachment fiasco. He is a Trump partisan, so his opinions on impeachment are predictable, but his thoughts on the conspiracy are interesting. He probably has access to information from the Trump White House.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/BpTvjkTsaCQ
The interesting thing about all of this is just how widespread the conspiracy was during the 2015-2016 period. In that interview he talks about former NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers, who is allegedly cooperating with Barr and Durham. What makes the Rogers issue interesting is that he was the original whistle-blower. He is not treated as such, because the media hates Trump and anyone associated with him, but Rogers was the guy who blew the whistle on the spying to the Trump people.
What's also interesting about Rogers is he seems to have been a good guy, who decided to put an end to the shenanigans with regards to access to top-secret data by FBI contractors. He closed off their access at some point in 2016, which put him in bad odor with the Obama administration. He was eventually pushed out, which suggests the conspiracy has roots into the Obama inner-circle. That may explain why the easy cases to be made against the FBI conspirators are on hold.
That's the other thing about the Rogers case. As CTH explains in that post , his addition to the story reveals that the use of the NSA database by political contractors working for the Democrats goes back to at least 2012. It is an axiom of white-collar crime that the practice always goes back much further than the evidence initially reveals. Anyone who has done forensic accounting knows this. You find the first evidence of a crime, but it turns out that the pattern goes back much further.
That may be what lies beneath all of this. The great puzzle thus far has been the lack of prosecutions, despite ample evidence. The FBI agents are all guilty of crimes that have been detailed in public documents and the IG reports. There is now proof that Comey perjured himself many times. Just from a public relations perspective alone, rounding up these guys and charging them with corruption seems like a no-brainer. Almost a year into his tenure and Barr has charged no one with a crime.
One obvious explanation is that Barr is running a long con on Trump and the rest of the country, on behalf of the inner party. Robert Mueller was supposed to use his investigation to hoover up all the data so it could not be made public, in addition to harassing the Trump White House. His incompetence meant Barr took over the job and is now hoovering up all the information on the various parties. That way, everyone has an excuse for not doing anything about plot.
One bit of evidence in support of this is the handling of the James Wolfe issue. He was the Senate staffer caught leaking classified information to one of the prostitutes hired by the Washington Post. Big media hires good looking young women to sleep with flunkies like Wolf in order to get access to information. Wolf was caught and charged, but instead of getting a couple years in jail, he got two months . He will come out and land into a six-figure job as a reward for being a good soldier.
An alternative explanation is that what started as a straight forward political corruption case bumped into a long pattern of behavior. In the course of investigating that pattern, the trail went much further back than the 2016 election. If there is evidence of abuse going back to 2012, maybe it goes back further. It was the Bush people, after all, who pushed for the creation of secret courts and secret warrants. Maybe Dick Cheney was listening to your phone calls after all.
It is not just the linear aspect of this. The sheer number of people involved in just the FBI scandal is phenomenal. There are at least 20 FBI people named and dozens of bit players in the media and DOJ. So far, the "contractors" with access to the NSA database have not been revealed, but that could be hundreds of people, given that it seems to have been a free-for-all. The corruption may not only go back a long time, but cover a wide swath of official Washington.
That may be the answer to the great cover up. That's what we are seeing. This is a great cover up of the biggest scandal in American history. To date, no one has been charged with a crime, despite hundreds of crimes being documented. Many of the principals are now enjoying high six figure lives, based on the fact they were part of the seditious plot to overturn the 2016 election. Instead of the scandal of the century, it is the celebration of the century for the inner party.
One of the signs of ruling class collapse is when they can no longer enforce the rules that maintain them as a ruling class. When the Romans started making exceptions to republican governance, it was a matter of time before someone simply decided the rules no longer applied to them. Perhaps the robot historians will consider Obama our Marius or Sulla. Maybe that person is in the near future. Either way, the rule of law is over and what comes next is the rule of men.
|
|
|
Dec 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Adam Schiff Has 'No Sympathy' For FBI Victim Carter Page; Page Responds by Tyler Durden Sun, 12/22/2019 - 13:00 0 SHARES
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) says it's hard to feel sympathetic for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, despite the fact that he was spied on by the FBI after the agency fabricated evidence to obtain a surveillance warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court.
After the FISA court denied their request, FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith fabricated evidence to exclude the fact that Page was a CIA source, with "positive assessment," despite the fact that the CIA informed Clinesmith of Page's prior work for the agency.
Schiff, however, has no love for Page despite DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz finding 16 significant 'errors' in the FBI's FISA applications used to surveil Page.
"I have to say, you know, Carter Page came before our Committee and for hours of his testimony, denied things that we knew were true, later had to admit them during his testimony ," Schiff told PBS News ' Margaret Hoover. " It's hard to be sympathetic to someone who isn't honest with you when he comes and testifies under oath . It's also hard to be sympathetic when you have someone who has admitted to being an adviser to the Kremlin ."
Hoover countered, noting "But then was also informing the CIA," to which Schiff replies "Yes, yes."
"Which we didn't know about," replied Hoover.
" Who was both targeted by the KGB but also talking to the United States and its agencies and that should have been included , made clear, and it wasn't, according to the inspector general," Schiff responded.
. @RepAdamSchiff is unsympathetic to Carter Page, telling @FiringLineShow that Page "denied things that we knew were true" in testimony, admitted to being an advisor to the Kremlin & "was apparently both targeted by the KGB, but also talking to the United States and its agencies." pic.twitter.com/GkjdGQZWLV
-- Firing Line with Margaret Hoover (@FiringLineShow) December 20, 2019After Schiff's comments were published, Page responded on Twitter: "There have been various allegations of dishonesty regarding FBI lawyer Clinesmith. On information, belief and firsthand experience since 2017, I have actually found @RepAdamSchiff to be even more untrustworthy and dangerous with his misuse of @DNC lies. "
There have been various allegations of dishonesty regarding FBI lawyer Clinesmith. On information, belief and firsthand experience since 2017, I have actually found @RepAdamSchiff to be even more untrustworthy and dangerous with his misuse of @DNC lies: https://t.co/kMkRYFceGs
-- Carter Page, Ph.D. (@carterwpage) December 21, 2019Greenwald weighs in:
If you don't feel sympathy for someone who was wrongly smeared for years as being a traitor, and who was spied on by his own government due to FBI lying & subterfuge, then you're not only unqualified to wield power but probably also a sociopath.
In other words: Adam Schiff. https://t.co/HGoroBIWv8
-- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 22, 2019
|
|
|
Dec 22, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Stormcrow , December 21, 2019 at 11:54 am
The Long, Dark History of Russia's Murder, Inc. New York Review of Books
Up next: The bright, sunny history of the CIA
Carolinian , December 21, 2019 at 1:27 pm
Speaking of that.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/20/gladio-the-story-of-a-conspiracy/
Acacia , December 22, 2019 at 12:15 am
No surprise. NYRB has had a b*ner for Muh Russia since the early days of the hysteria.
|
|
|
Dec 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report insists that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were created by Russia's military intelligence organization, the GRU, as part of a Russian plot to meddle in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Election. But this is a lie. Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were created by Brennan's CIA and this action by the CIA should be a target of U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation. Let me explain why.
Let us start with the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment aka ICA. Only three agencies of the 17 in the U.S. intelligence community contributed to and coordinated on the ICA--the FBI, the CIA and NSA. In the preamble to the ICA, you can read the following explanation about methodology:
When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as "we assess" or "we judge," they are conveying an analytic assessment or judgment
To be clear, the phrase,"We assess", is intel community jargon for "opinion". If there was actual evidence or source material for a judgment the writer of the assessment would state, "According to a reliable source" or "knowledgeable source" or "documentary evidence."
Pay close attention to what the analysts writing the ICA stated about the GRU and Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks:
We assess with high confidence that the GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.
- Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be an independent Romanian hacker, made multiple contradictory statements and false claims about his likely Russian identity throughout the election. Press reporting suggests more than one person claiming to be Guccifer 2.0 interacted with journalists.
- Content that we assess was taken from e-mail accounts targeted by the GRU in March 2016 appeared on DCLeaks.com starting in June.
We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks. Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity. Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries.
Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of then CIA Director John Brennan.
Here's Mueller's take (I apologize for the lengthy quote but it is important that you read how the Mueller team presents this):
DCLeaks
"The GRU began planning the releases at least as early as April 19, 2016, when Unit 26165 registered the domain dcleaks.com through a service that anonymized the registrant.137 Unit 26165 paid for the registration using a pool of bitcoin that it had mined.138 The dcleaks.com landing page pointed to different tranches of stolen documents, arranged by victim or subject matter. Other dcleaks.com pages contained indexes of the stolen emails that were being released (bearing the sender, recipient, and date of the email). To control access and the timing of releases, pages were sometimes password-protected for a period of time and later made unrestricted to the public.
Starting in June 2016, the GRU posted stolen documents onto the website dcleaks.com, including documents stolen from a number of individuals associated with the Clinton Campaign. These documents appeared to have originated from personal email accounts (in particular, Google and Microsoft accounts), rather than the DNC and DCCC computer networks. DCLeaks victims included an advisor to the Clinton Campaign, a former DNC employee and Clinton Campaign employee, and four other campaign volunteers.139 The GRU released through dcleaks.com thousands of documents, including personal identifying and financial information, internal correspondence related to the"Clinton Campaign and prior political jobs, and fundraising files and information.140
GRU officers operated a Facebook page under the DCLeaks moniker, which they primarily used to promote releases of materials.141 The Facebook page was administered through a small number of preexisting GRU-controlled Facebook accounts.142
GRU officers also used the DCLeaks Facebook account, the Twitter account @dcleaks__, and the email account [email protected] to communicate privately with reporters and other U.S. persons. GRU officers using the DCLeaks persona gave certain reporters early access to archives of leaked files by sending them links and passwords to pages on the dcleaks.com website that had not yet become public. For example, on July 14, 2016, GRU officers operating under the DCLeaks persona sent a link and password for a non-public DCLeaks webpage to a U.S. reporter via the Facebook account.143 Similarly, on September 14, 2016, GRU officers sent reporters Twitter direct messages from @dcleaks_, with a password to another non-public part of the dcleaks.com website.144
The dcleaks.com website remained operational and public until March 2017."Guccifer 2.0
On June 14, 2016, the DNC and its cyber-response team announced the breach of the DNC network and suspected theft of DNC documents. In the statements, the cyber-response team alleged that Russian state-sponsored actors (which they referred to as "Fancy Bear") were responsible for the breach.145 Apparently in response to that announcement, on June 15, 2016, GRU officers using the persona Guccifer 2.0 created a WordPress blog. In the hours leading up to the launch of that WordPress blog, GRU officers logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455 and searched for a number of specific words and phrases in English, including "some hundred sheets," "illuminati," and "worldwide known." Approximately two hours after the last of those searches, Guccifer 2.0 published its first post, attributing the DNC server hack to a lone Romanian hacker and using several of the unique English words and phrases that the GRU officers had searched for that day.146
That same day, June 15, 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 WordPress blog to begin releasing to the public documents stolen from the DNC and DCCC computer networks.
The Guccifer 2.0 persona ultimately released thousands of documents stolen from the DNC and DCCC in a series of blog posts between June 15, 2016 and October 18, 2016.147 Released documents included opposition research performed by the DNC (including a memorandum analyzing potential criticisms of candidate Trump), internal policy documents (such as recommendations on how to address politically sensitive issues), analyses of specific congressional races, and fundraising documents. Releases were organized around thematic issues, such as specific states (e.g., Florida and Pennsylvania) that were perceived as competitive in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Beginning in late June 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release documents directly to reporters and other interested individuals. Specifically, on June 27, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 sent an email to the news outlet The Smoking Gun offering to provide "exclusive access to some leaked emails linked [to] Hillary Clinton's staff."148 The GRU later sent the reporter a password and link to a locked portion of the dcleaks.com website that contained an archive of emails stolen by Unit 26165 from a Clinton Campaign volunteer in March 2016.149 "That the Guccifer 2.0 persona provided reporters access to a restricted portion of the DCLeaks website tends to indicate that both personas were operated by the same or a closely-related group of people.150
The GRU continued its release efforts through Guccifer 2.0 into August 2016. For example, on August 15, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona sent a candidate for the U.S. Congress documents related to the candidate's opponent.151 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona transferred approximately 2.5 gigabytes of Florida-related data stolen from the DCCC to a U.S. blogger covering Florida politics.152 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona sent a U.S. reporter documents stolen from the DCCC pertaining to the Black Lives Matter movement.153"
Wow. Sounds pretty convincing. The documents referencing communications by DCLeaks or Guccifer 2.0 with Wikileaks are real. What is not true is that these entities were GRU assets.
In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust.
We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the Vault 7 documents :
Vault 7 is a series of documents that WikiLeaks began to publish on 7 March 2017, that detail activities and capabilities of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files, dated from 2013–2016, include details on the agency's software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs,[1] web browsers (including Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera Software ASA),[2][3][4] and the operating systems of most smartphones (including Apple's iOS and Google's Android), as well as other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux[5][6
One of the tools in Vault 7 carries the innocuous name, MARBLE. Hackernews explains the purpose and function of MARBLE:
Dubbed "Marble," the part 3 of CIA files contains 676 source code files of a secret anti-forensic Marble Framework, which is basically an obfuscator or a packer used to hide the true source of CIA malware.
The CIA's Marble Framework tool includes a variety of different algorithm with foreign language text intentionally inserted into the malware source code to fool security analysts and falsely attribute attacks to the wrong nation.Marble is used to hamper[ing] forensic investigators and anti-virus companies from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks to the CIA," says the whistleblowing site.
"...for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion," WikiLeaks explains.
So guess what gullible techies "discovered" in mid-June 2016? The meta data in the Guccifer 2.0 communications had "Russian fingerprints."
We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0 -- the nom de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove it -- left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era.
Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович" is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.)
Just use your common sense. If the Russians were really trying to carry out a covert cyberattack, do you really think they are so sloppy and incompetent to insert the name of the creator of the Soviet secret police in the metadata? No. The Russians are not clowns. This was a clumsy attempt to frame the Russians.
Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA.
The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich. Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign, would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia.
It is essential to recall the timeline of the alleged Russian intrusion into the DNC network. The only source for the claim that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. Here is the timeline for the DNC "hack."
Here are the facts on the public record. They are at odds with the claims of the Intelligence Community:
- It was 29 April 2016 , when the DNC claims it became aware its servers had been penetrated. No claim yet about who was responsible. And no claim that there had been a prior warning by the FBI of a penetration of the DNC by Russian military intelligence.
- According to CrowdStrike founder , Dimitri Alperovitch, his company first supposedly detected the Russians mucking around inside the DNC server on 6 May 2016. A CrowdStrike intelligence analyst reportedly told Alperovitch that:
- Falcon had identified not one but two Russian intruders: Cozy Bear, a group CrowdStrike's experts believed was affiliated with the FSB, Russia's answer to the CIA; and Fancy Bear, which they had linked to the GRU, Russian military intelligence.
- The Wikileaks data shows that the last message copied from the DNC network is dated Wed, 25 May 2016 08:48:35.
- 10 June 2016 --CrowdStrike waited until 10 June 2016 to take concrete steps to clean up the DNC network. Alperovitch told Esquire's Vicky Ward that: 'Ultimately, the teams decided it was necessary to replace the software on every computer at the DNC. Until the network was clean, secrecy was vital. On the afternoon of Friday, June 10, all DNC employees were instructed to leave their laptops in the office."
- On June 14, 2016 , Ellen Nakamura, a Washington Post reporter who had been briefed by computer security company hired by the DNC -- Crowdstrike--, wrote:
- Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach.
- The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC's system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said DNC officials and the security experts.
- The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.
- 15 June, 2016 , an internet "personality" self-described as Guccifer 2.0 surfaces and claims to be responsible for the hacks but denies being Russian. The people/entity behind Guccifer 2.0:
- Used a Russian VPN service provider to conceal their identity.
- Created an email account with AOL.fr (a service that exposes the sender's IP address) and contacted the press (exposing his VPN IP address in the process).
- Contacted various media outlets through this set up and claimed credit for hacking the DNC, sharing copies of files purportedly from the hack (one of which had Russian error messages embedded in them) with reporters from Gawker, The Smoking Gun and other outlets.
- Carried out searches for terms that were mostly in English, several of which would appear in Guccifer 2.0's first blog post. They chose to do this via a server based in Moscow. (this is from the indictment,
"On or about June 15, 2016, the Conspirators logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455")- Created a blog and made an initial blog post claiming to have hacked the DNC, providing links to various documents as proof.
- Carelessly dropped a "Russian Smiley" into his first blog post.
- Managed to add the name "Феликс Эдмундович" (which translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, also known as "Iron Felix") to the metadata of several documents. (Several sources went beyond what the evidence shows and made claims about Guccifer 2.0 using a Russian keyboard, however, these claims are just assumptions made in response to the presence of cyrillic characters.)
The only thing that the Guccifer 2.0 character did not do to declare its Russian heritage was to take out full page ads in the New York Times and Washington Post. But the "forensic" fingerprints that Guccifer 2.0 was leaving behind is not the only inexplicable event.
Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch, but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June. That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction.
It is only AFTER Julian Assange announces on 12 June 2016 that WikiLeaks has emails relating to Hillary Clinton that DCLeaks or Guccifer 2.0 try to contact Assange.
The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU.
Posted at 02:13 PM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink
Factotum , 20 December 2019 at 02:45 PM
LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU."Paul Damascene , 20 December 2019 at 02:54 PMLarry, thanks -- vital clarifications and reminders. In your earlier presentation of this material did you not also distinguish between the way actually interagency assessments are titled, and ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments?walrus , 20 December 2019 at 03:51 PMThank you Larry. You have discovered one more vital key to the conspiracy. We now need the evidence of Julian Assange. He is kept incommunicado and He is being tortured by the British in jail and will be murdered by the American judicial system if he lasts long enough to be extradited.Ghost Ship , 20 December 2019 at 04:04 PMYou can be sure he will be "Epsteined" before he appears in open court because he knows the source of what Wikileaks published. Once he is gone, mother Clinton is in the clear.
I can understand the GRU or SVR hacking the DNC and other e-mail servers because as intelligence services that is their job, but can anyone think of any examples of Russia (or the Soviet Union) using such information to take overt action?With the Russians not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet), would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump.
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
evilempire , Dec 18 2019 22:32 utc | 28
If anyone was watching The Horowitz hearing in the senate today it would be hard to conclude that RussiaGate and Ukrainegate will not have serious consequences going forward.The whole sordid, nasty conspiracy seems on the verge of being exposed, maybe as high as Obama himself, although he is just a puppet himself, and indictments are sure to follow. I don't see how anyone could think that this will not be catastrophic for the democratic party.
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Nathan Pickrell , 2 days agoThis guy is neck deep in the attempted coup to overthrow a duly elected president
ensign j , 2 days agoWhy continue this interview? He is still lying, he is so full of himself its nuts!
Leigh Ann Everett , 1 day agoNo no. These are not mistakes but rather deliberate criminal activity
Red Oz , 1 day agoComey knew that everything was wrong and illegal. Once again, he is lying.
Why is Roger Stone in prison and Comey is a free man?
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
James Comey's claim that the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation was run "seven layers" below him is a total lie according to Attorney General William Barr, who said that the FBI's probe was actually handled by a " very small group of very high level officials ."
To review, Comey told "Fox News Sunday" that as the director of the FBI, he was "seven layers" above the investigation, and that he left things to the career professionals when '17 serious errors' occurred which were later uncovered by the Inspector General.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/1yfXxeJn3Tc?start=488
Au contraire Comey
"The idea that this was seven layers below him is simply not true ," Barr told Fox 's Martha MacCallum in a Wednesday interview, adding "I think that one of the problems with what happened was precisely that they pulled the investigation up to the executive floors, and it was run and birddogged by a very small group of very high level officials ."
Watch:
AG Barr on Comey 'seven layers' above the investigation:
One of the problems that happened is the investigation was pulled up to the executive floors & was run by a very small group of very high level officials.
-- Red Nation Rising (@RedNationRising) December 19, 2019
pic.twitter.com/0jA1eoM0kMAccording to the Inspector General's report, the FBI withheld exculpatory information on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page when submitting an application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on him.
And according to the Daily Caller , the report also noted that Comey was directly involved in plans to open operation Crossfire Hurricane after reviewing the initial FISA application on Page.
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2019 | www.youtube.com
President of Judicial Watch Tom Fitton discusses the 'lies' former FBI director James Comey reportedly said during his interview on Sunday and explains the Democrats' attempt to remove President Trump from office.
stanley 7 , 1 day agoThe minute Comey granted Hillary immunity from prosecution for destroying her emails, he was done in my book.
EDWARD BROWN , 1 day agoWell said T. Fitton. Comey is a dishonest Fool, lock him up.
Comey is a snake and he keeps going on t.v. trying to get the public to believe his lying
|
|
|
Dec 19, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Teamtc321 , 12 minutes ago link
BREAKING BIG: John Durham Is Investigating Former CIA Director John Brennan's Role in 2016 Election Interference and His LIES TO CONGRESS! (Video)
The New York Times reported tonight that federal prosecutor John Durham is investigating former CIA Director John Brennan's role in the 2016 election. Durham has called for Brennan's emails, call logs and other documents.
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Massive win, Colonel, that as far as I know nobody predicted. Not the polls, not the political blogs. But I didn't follow it that closely so that's just a general impression.
My man, Nigel Farage, got squeezed mercilessly. I was looking around the BBC site to find out how mercilessly when I came across a picture of the bete noir of my father's time, Harold Wilson. Wilson was convinced that MI something was out to get him - bugged his office, spread smear stories about him around the press, even a possible coup.
The odd rumour of all this had spread to my corner of the English provinces and I'd always wondered if there was anything in it. So I clicked on the BBC article -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-49939123
- and came across this -
" .. A 1987 inquiry concluded the allegations of a security service plot against Wilson were untrue. However, an inquiry by cabinet secretary Lord Hunt in 1996 concluded that "a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5" had "spread damaging malicious stories".
Well, if a cabinet secretary says that it must be true. MI5, not MI6 - I think MI5's the heavy mob - but I just wondered if our spooks had passed these tricks on to the lads who put the Steele dossier about.
On another security matter I note with concern above - "Those are Jacobite tribesmen at the top. Some of my ancestors were such as they." I thought so. '15 and '45 caused us a lot of trouble and just in case the tradition remained in your family I'm opening a file. We're very happy with our present Queen, thank you, and we don't want you replacing her with some Stuart relic you might happen to have dug up.
Though I suppose it would only be poetic justice. We've just had a go at toppling your President so why shouldn't you return the compliment and topple Her Majesty.
|
|
|
Dec 15, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Via Greg Hunter's USAWatchdog.com,
Former CIA officer and counter-intelligence expert Kevin Shipp says that former Obama Administration Attorney General (AG) Eric Holder gave a big Deep State panic signal when he wrote in an Op-Ed last week in the Washington Post trashing current AG William Barr and his top prosecutor John Durham. Shipp explains,
"This is very significant. We all remember that Holder was Obama's right hand man. Eric Holder was Barack Obama's enforcer. The fact that Holder comes out this quickly after the Inspector General (IG) Horowitz Report comes out... and makes this veiled threat against Durham's reputation. The fact that Eric Holder came out and made this statement is a clear indication to me they are running scared.
We have to understand it was Eric Holder that Barack Obama used to target the heads of corporations that spoke out publicly about Barack Obama. We know Holder was held in 'Contempt of Congress.' He spied on AP reporters, ran guns to drug cartels and blacked out the information. He spied on over a hundred journalists, and on and on we go...
They (Deep State) are convinced there are going to be indictments. Secondly, there is AG Barr's outrage over (IG) Horowitz's report and what it did not do. He made statements that there was spying and actions by government officials that need to be criminally looked into. Barr's outrage over this shows me that there are going to be indictments, and that he is taking this seriously. Again, when Holder comes out and puts out this bombshell in the Washington Post, which is another indication that indictments are coming. John Brennan, former Obama Administration CIA Director, is going to be at the top of the list. "
Shipp says during the entire Trump Presidency, the mainstream media (MSM) has operated as a propaganda arm of the Deep State and the Democrats . Shipp contends,
"They put these stories out intentionally because they are creating their own story, and that is what the propaganda mainstream media does. It creates its own story...
They want to frame their latest story that there really wasn't any spying on Trump. That's what FISA warrants and applications are all about. They are all about spying ."
Shipp thinks this will be a big nail in the coffin of the MSM. Shipp says, "The mainstream media will never come back from this..."
"...because finally, through shows like this and others, the real information is coming out as to what the mainstream media has done . At the top of that list is the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC...
What they did is they created the Russia collusion story as if it was reality, as if it was real. That is part of the procedure in doing this. Then, they invented the evidence, and that was the Steele Dossier. They portrayed this as evidence to create this false narrative. Then they sent this story out to each outlet, and all repeat the same story over and over and over again knowing the more they repeat it, the more people were going to believe it. Then, the FBI leaked information to the mainstream media. The FBI took that information leaked to the media and used their stories as evidence. Brennan leaked the dossier to the mainstream media as part of this whole machine."
Shipp says the hoax of Russia collusion and the impeachment sham of President Trump is distracting us from other very big problems such as the extreme debt the country and the world is facing . Shipp says,
"Trump inherited a financial monster that was not his doing. When he was sworn into office, it already existed. It is very serious, and I think now or very soon the U.S. government will not be able to afford the interest on the national debt, much less paying off the debt itself."
It is reported that central banks are buying record amounts of gold, and even Goldman Sachs is telling its clients to buy the yellow metal. Shipp says,
" This is a solid indicator that we are headed for the financial rapids with Goldman Sachs especially. Goldman Sachs is a global bank, and it's one of the main banks in the United States. The fact that Sachs and others are building up gold reserves is a clear indication that they expect a financial downturn, to put it mildly, that is coming. "
Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with former CIA Officer and whistleblower Kevin Shipp.
To Donate to USAWatchdog.com Click Here
_triplesix_ , 1 minute ago link
jm , 2 minutes ago linkWake me when someone goes to jail.
I kinda think that everyone is holding off to see if Trump gets re-elected.
If he does then there will be indictments, jail time, and a real cleaning of the house.
The guys in the middle of this investigation depose the "liberal" old guard and offer sacrifices to their own "conservative" god of filth. Same Mammon, just a different order of worship.
If he doesn't get re-elected then the guys that are investigating this can just slink back into the current slime and survive in some basic way.
I have seen this dynamic when companies merge as equals. Everybody is afraid to act because the stakes are so high. It's a chess game played by ruthless cowards.
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2019 | www.msn.com
First, when agents initially sought permission for the wiretap, F.B.I. officials scoured information from confidential informants and selectively presented portions that supported their suspicions that Mr. Page might be a conduit between Russia and the Trump campaign's onetime chairman, Paul Manafort.
But officials did not disclose information that undercut that allegation -- such as the fact that Mr. Page had told an informant in August 2016 that he "never met" or "said one word" to Mr. Manafort, who had never returned Mr. Page's emails. Even if the investigators did not necessarily believe Mr. Page, the court should have been told what he had said.
Second, as the initial court order was nearing its expiration and law-enforcement officials prepared to ask the surveillance court to renew it, the F.B.I. had uncovered information that cast doubt on some of its original assertions. But law enforcement officials never reported that new information to the court.
Specifically, the application included allegations about Mr. Page contained in a dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent whose research was funded by Democrats. In January 2017, the F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Steele's own primary source, and he contradicted what Mr. Steele had written in the dossier.
The source for Mr. Steele may, of course, have been lying. But either way, officials should have flagged the disconnect for the court. Instead, the F.B.I. reported that its agents had met with the source to "further corroborate" the dossier and found him to be "truthful and cooperative," leaving a misleading impression in renewal applications.
Finally, the report stressed Mr. Page's long history of meeting with Russian intelligence officials. But he had also said that he had a relationship with the C.I.A., and it turns out that he had for years told the agency about those meetings -- including one that was cited in the wiretap application as a reason to be suspicious of him.
That relationship could have mitigated some suspicions about his history. But the F.B.I. never got to the bottom of it, and the court filings said nothing about Mr. Page's dealings with the C.I.A.
The inspector general's report contains many more examples of errors and omissions. Mr. Horowitz largely blamed lower-level F.B.I. agents charged with preparing the evidence, but he also faulted high-level supervisors for permitting a culture in which the inaccuracies took place.
|
|
|
Dec 14, 2019 | www.youtube.com
In an exclusive interview, Attorney General William Barr spoke to NBC News' Pete Williams about the findings on the Justice Department Inspector General's report on the Russia investigation and his criticisms of the FBI.
Gary Ellis , 2 days agoIt appears that none of AG Barr's answers were what Pete Williams wanted to hear.
greg j , 2 days agoI sincerely hope that the Durham investigation brings people to justice for what they have done to our country.
Jeremy Elice , 3 days agoThe man just admitted "this may be the biggest conspiracy in U.S Political History." Ouch!
JOHN DRUMHELLER , 2 days agoShame we didn't get to see Pete William's face during Barr's answer accusing "an irresponsible press of fanning the flames."
Hart , 1 day agoHere's the adult in the room. Look out children.
Russell McAfee , 1 day ago (edited)This is like if Watergate was on steroids and then some. Everyone involved should be prosecuted including the person who bought the dossier
Richard McLeod , 1 day agoThe FBI never got the actual DNC server. Crowdstrike has it. The FBI got a 'forensic copy'
King Eris , 1 day agoThe FBI has now been proven to be corrupt at its' highest levels.
Noble Victory , 1 day agoI could listen to AG Barr talk for hours. He's so calm and professional.
Nolan Gleason , 3 days agoBarr is so intelligent and just. He's smoothe like the way he plays the Bagpipes. Pretty amazing! 🇺🇸👍
ctafrance , 1 day agoDeath to the swamp
Roman King , 1 day ago (edited)The press is hopelessly corrupt. If we didn't know it already, this interview proves it.
Clarion Call , 2 days agoI'm So glade we have a competent attorney General pushing back on the massive disinformation narrative that comes from Giant News outlets of which are used to being unchallenged, unchecked by today's "journalistic standards"
wkcw1 , 2 days agoI so respect and admire this man's brain and logical thinking. His vocabulary is great as well.
barbandrob1 , 1 day agoNBC realizing they need to take a bath on this whole thing. Probably a bit too late now.
Faris Hamarneh , 3 days agoBarr just basically clarified and justified Fox news reporting over the last 2 years.. Thanks NBC
Craig Bigelow , 2 days agoI love Barr's nonchalant style. But this is real big and heads are going to roll
Luis Santiago , 1 day agoObama spied on Trump. Obama should have known about the FISA warrant!
macfan128 , 1 day agoso this guy really asked Bahr"why not open an investigation even with little evidence?" because is a violation of civil liberties to invade the privacy of law abiding citizens. You need compelling evidence for something so huge
David , 3 days ago17:44 "Why should the Attorney General care that the FBI was spying on a presidential candidate?" LOLOLOLOL Our media is a jooooooooke.
Bill the Cat , 2 days agoNBC did a straight up interview??? This is shocking. Who told them that they could start doing journalism again?
Clapper and Brennan will be shaking in their boots after watching Barr's interview.
MegaTrucker65 , 1 day agoHorowitz should be instructed to edit or update his Report to discuss The Question of Bias and Evidence of Bias. He has clearly misguided Americans with his choice of words and has omitted important facts underpinning bias.
Gamer John3:18 , 1 day agoI haven't looked into Ukraine YET.
Yo Mama , 2 days agoAG Barr is an outstanding role model, a man of integrity and wisdom, calm in a raging political storm. I have full confidence he will make those who fabricated evidence and hid exculpatory evidence finally face justice. AG Barr for President 2024!
Barr is a straight shooter and I love it. It sounds like we will get to the real truth eventually through Durhams investigation I just hope it doesnt take another year to get to the prosecutions.
Wolverines Fight , 1 day agoSo, I watched the interview... The video is called, "Full Interview: Barr Criticizes Inspector General Report On The Russia Investigation." Not once did I hear him criticize the I.G.'s report. In fact, A.G. Barr clarified that the I.G.'s report was limited in scope because of the limitations put on the I.G. He said that the report was appropriate.
Benny .Burmeister Jørgensen , 3 days agoIt's scary to see how powerful the corruption of the Democratic Party has grown. It represents a serious threat to all our personal freedom. The Democratic Party has to be stopped.
Mike Dorsey , 1 day agoOk after watching this interview its quite clear that Barr and Durham is going after these criminals and people are going to jail. Maybe there is hope for US yet becuase this dane consider US atm a banana republic. Spying on political candidates? Forging documents? You FBI behaving like Stalins secret police. Lets see what happen.
protochris , 1 day agoGod Bless Bill Barr. I'm glad there's still some adults in government that will speak their mind intelligently, rationally and unabashedly.
Dan Kuo , 1 day agoThis guy is brilliant; he's clearly exposing the FBI and the barking dogs on the alphabet networks.
Jbyrd Texas , 2 days agoAmazing for the AG to go in deep into enemy territory at the heart of the opposition media to lay out a case for the criminal activities that undermined our country prior to and after the 2016 election. The deep state is trembling at the prospect of being held accountable after all the facts are laid out to the american people that these activities cannot be brushed aside or swept under the carpet if we are to continue as a country.
Stephan Coutts , 1 day agoThe corrupt media is trying to act like they have not been involved in this treasonous scam since the beginning working directly with the treasonous cabal. The media has been lying and pushing fake news for 3 years calling Trump a Russia agent and called him treasonous. I knew the whole time that they were lying there was evidence from day one that this was all lies and if I can see that from the public then they can definitely see that from the inside they are purposefully lying.
Worlds Best Metal Detectorist , 2 days agoI dare anyone on here to research Barr's History back to his involvement in the assignation of JFK, the cover up, defending Nixon, Epstein, and many other illegal and immoral activities. After reviewing the evidence, I walked away believing that Barr is trying to cover up his tracks so he does do jail time. No need to reply. Either take my dare or not. God Bless America and ALL her people, Stephan
Right Thinking , 3 days agoThe public are sick of waiting . I find myself skipping through a half hour news show in 5 minutes flat looking for arrests ,whereas before I was rivited to every minute of the half hour show but it goes on and on and at the there is Nothiing .The Democrats are the masters , it's obvious . If they break the law they get off scott free . If you are republican wave bye bye , you will be in jail for years . America is not the free and fair country it is all cracked up to be . It is corrupted by the democrats who have peoiple in high places that thwart real justice.
dethtrk Jones , 3 days agoMifsud approached George! Who was Mifsud working for (western asset) and why did he approach George? He’s the one who offered George dirt on Hill. Then invited him to meet the fake “niece”, of Putin, in England! What about this information? Someone set George up to make this happen outside the US, because of EO 12333. It had to happen outside the US so they could go to the fisa court!
Brad Brown , 2 days agoI dont trust Christopher Wrey. He keeps slow-walking all the FBI documents and declassifications. He also fights judicial watch and judges that rule in their favor and continue not giving over what is ordered! This last judge was ready to hold him in contempt for refusing to cooperate with court ordered documents.
Why did the FBI continue to investigate Trump after January when the case collapsed? To try and find a way to impeach Trump. Remember the Washington Post headlined article right after the inauguration "The effort to impeach President Donald John Trump is already underway." The FBI "insurance" policy was essential!
|
|
|
Dec 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
The shadowy Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA court) and the processes behind obtaining a warrant from it has fallen under harsh scrutiny by lawmakers following the release of the DOJ Inspector General's report which found that the FBI was able to easily mislead the judges to surveil Trump adviser Carter Page.
FISA Judge Rudolph Contreras, who recused himself from the Mike Flynn case after his friendship with former FBI agent Peter Strzok was revealed in text messages."The goal is to make sure this doesn't happen again, so you tighten up the system right," said Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC), adding: "Quite frankly, I'm looking at the FISA court itself. ... I'm looking for the court to tell the public, 'Hey, we're upset about this too,' and, you know, take some corrective steps."
Graham said his committee will look into legislation to introduce more "checks and balances" to the FISA process, according to The Hill .
When asked if he thought there would be bipartisan support for FISA reform, Sen. Dick Durban (D-IL) said "I hope so," adding "This was a real wake-up call that three different teams can screw this up at the FBI."
The renewed interest comes after five hours of partisan barb trading during a Judiciary hearing Wednesday with Horowitz that resulted in one clear bipartisan interest: overhauling the FISA court.
"One of the only points I've heard with bipartisan agreement today is a renewed interest in reforming the FISA process," said Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.). - The Hill
Created under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, the FISA court is made up of 11 judges who are chosen by the chief justice of the Supreme Court to serve seven-year terms. They are responsible for approving warrant applications for intelligence gathering purposes and national security operations, which - as The Hill notes, "more often than not, they sign off."
And in the case of Carter Page, the FISA judges initially denied a warrant to surveil the former Trump aide until the agency padded the application with the wildly unverified Steele Report , lying about Steele's credibility, and then fabricating evidence to specifically say Page was not an "operational contact" for the CIA , when in fact he was - and had a "positive assessment."
Last year the government filed 1,117 FISA warrant applications, including 1,081 for electronic monitoring. The court signed off on 1,079 according to a DOJ report.
That said, reform may come slowly.
But the timeline for any legislative reforms is unclear. Congress already faces a mid-March deadline to extend expiring surveillance authorities under the USA Freedom Act.
Durbin suggested the discussions could merge, while Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime privacy advocate, appeared skeptical that Republicans would ultimately get on board with broader changes to surveillance powers.
"Why after YEARS of blocking bipartisan FISA reforms are senior Republicans suddenly interested in it? There is no question that we need to improve transparency, accountability and oversight of the FISA process," Wyden tweeted. - The Hill
Still, the IG report appears to have 'enlightened' some GOP lawmakers who previously resisted the notion of reining in FISA courts . Several GOP senators gave credit to their libertarian-minded colleagues on the hill, who have pushed for surveillance reform after accurately predicting the potential for abuse.
Those who have long-advocated for reform include GOP Sens. Thom Tillis (N.C.) and Ben Sasse (Neb.), according to Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).
"I wish Mike Lee weren't sitting here two people from me right now, because as a national security hawk I've argued with Mike Lee in the 4 1/2 or five years that I've been in the Senate that stuff just like this couldn't possibly happen at the FBI and at the Department of Justice," said Sasse during the Horowitz testimony, who added that the IG's findings marked a "massive crisis of public trust" since we should know about FISA applications that aren ' t as high-profile as Page's.
Horowitz reported a total of 17 "significant inaccuracies and omissions" in the applications to monitor Page , taking particular issue with applications to renew the FISA warrant and chastising the FBI for a lack of satisfactory explanations for those mistakes.
Horowitz stressed that he would not have submitted the follow-up applications as they were drafted by the FBI . Kevin Clinesmith, an FBI lawyer, altered an email related to the warrant renewal application, according to Horowitz's report.
" [The] applications made it appear as though the evidence supporting probable cause was stronger than was actually the case ," Horowitz said. " We also found basic, fundamental and serious errors during the completion of the FBl's factual accuracy reviews. "
Horowitz also found that there were errors that "represent serious performance failures by the supervisory and non-supervisory agents with responsibility over the FISA applications." - The Hill
Let's not forget that FISA court judge Rudolph Contreras recused himself from overseeing the case of former national security adviser Michael Flynn due to his personal friendship with former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok.
And the only reason Contreras did so was because his friendship with Strzok was revealed in their anti-Trump text messages found by the Inspector General.
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2019 | theintercept.com
Just as was true when the Mueller investigation closed without a single American being charged with criminally conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, Wednesday's issuance of the long-waited report from the Department of Justice's Inspector General reveals that years of major claims and narratives from the U.S. media were utter frauds .Before evaluating the media component of this scandal, the FBI's gross abuse of its power – its serial deceit – is so grave and manifest that it requires little effort to demonstrate it. In sum, the IG Report documents multiple instances in which the FBI – in order to convince a FISA court to allow it spy on former Trump campaign operative Carter Page during the 2016 election – manipulated documents, concealed crucial exonerating evidence, and touted what it knew were unreliable if not outright false claims.
If you don't consider FBI lying, concealment of evidence, and manipulation of documents in order to spy on a U.S. citizen in the middle of a presidential campaign to be a major scandal, what is? But none of this is aberrational: the FBI still has its headquarters in a building named after J. Edgar Hoover – who constantly blackmailed elected officials with dossiers and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into killing himself – because that's what these security state agencies are. They are out-of-control, virtually unlimited police state factions that lie, abuse their spying and law enforcement powers, and subvert democracy and civic and political freedoms as a matter of course.
In this case, no rational person should allow standard partisan bickering to distort or hide this severe FBI corruption. The IG Report leaves no doubt about it. It's brimming with proof of FBI subterfuge and deceit, all in service of persuading a FISA court of something that was not true: that U.S. citizen and former Trump campaign official Carter Page was an agent of the Russian government and therefore needed to have his communications surveilled.
|
|
|
Dec 12, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Jon Carter , Dec 11 2019 18:59 utc | 17
Now that we know Carter Page was working for the CIA as an informant in 2016, is it reasonable to speculate that Page was planted in the Trump campaign by the CIA?
|
|
|
Dec 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
On January 6 2017 this author concluded :
When Hillary Clinton was defeated in the U.S. presidential election the relevant powers launched a campaign to delegitimize the President elect Donald Trump.
The ultimate aim of the cabal is to kick him out of office and have a reliable replacement, like the Vice-President elect Pence, take over. Should that not be possible it is hoped that the delegitimization will make it impossible for Trump to change major policy trajectories especially in foreign policy. A main issue here is the reorientation of the U.S. military complex and its NATO proxies from the war of terror towards a direct confrontation with main powers like Russia and China.
...
A major role in directing the plot has fallen to Obama's consigliere John Brennan, the current director of the CIA.
One part of the still ongoing deligitimization campaign was the FBI investigation of alleged Russian connections of four members of the Trump election campaign.
The Inspector General of the U.S. Justice Department Michael Horowitz has investigated the FBI operation against the election campaign of Donald Trump. Yesterday he published his report, Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane Investigation (pdf). It is 480 pages long and quite thorough but unfortunately very limited in its scope.
Horowitz finds that the FBI was within the law when it opened the investigation but that the FBI's applications to the FISA court, which decides if the FBI can spy on someone's communications, were based on lies and utterly flawed.
Your host unfortunately lacked the time so far to read more than the executive summary. But others have pointed out some essential findings.
Matt Taibbi remarks :
The Guardian headline reads: " DOJ Internal watchdog report clears FBI of illegal surveillance of Trump adviser ."
If the report released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz constitutes a "clearing" of the FBI, never clear me of anything. ...
Much of the press is concentrating on Horowitz's conclusion that there was no evidence of "political bias or improper motivation" in the FBI's probe of Donald Trump's Russia contacts, an investigation Horowitz says the bureau had "authorized purpose" to conduct....
However, Horowitz describes at great length an FBI whose "serious" procedural problems and omissions of "significant information" in pursuit of surveillance authority all fell in the direction of expanding the unprecedented investigation of a presidential candidate (later, a president).
...
There are too many to list in one column, but the Horowitz report show years of breathless headlines were wrong. Some key points:
The so-called "Steele dossier" was, actually, crucial to the FBI's decision to seek secret surveillance of Page. ...
...
The "Steele dossier" was "Internet rumor," and corroboration for the pee tape story was "zero." ...
John Solomon finds :
Appendix 1 identifies the total violations by the FBI of the so-called Woods Procedures, the process by which the bureau verifies information and assures the FISA court its evidence is true.The Appendix identifies a total of 51 Woods procedure violations from the FISA application the FBI submitted to the court authorizing surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page starting in October 2016.
A whopping nine of those violations fell into the category called: "Supporting document shows that the factual assertion is inaccurate."
For those who don't speak IG parlance, it means the FBI made nine false assertions to the FISA court. In short, what the bureau said was contradicted by the evidence in its official file.
The FBI agents and lawyers intentionally lied to the court. Their violations were not mistakes. All 51 of them were in favor of further spying on members of the Trump campaign and on everyone they communicated with.
The FBI has used the Steele dossier to gain further FISA application even after it had talked with Steele's 'primary source' (who probably was the later 'buzzed' Sergei Skripal ) and after it had learned that the allegations in the dossier were no more than unconfirmed rumors.
That the dossier was mere dreck was quite obvious to any sober person who read it when it was first published . Here is what we wrote about it at that time:
The anonymous former British operator hears from an anonymous compatriot that two anonymous sources, asserted to have access to inner Russian circles, claimed to have heard somewhere that something happened in the Kremlin.They assert that Trump was supported and directed by Putin himself five years ago while even a year ago no one would have bet a penny on Trump gaining any political significant position or even the presidency.
There is a lot more of such nonsense in these new Hitler diaries. It is bonkers from a to z.
Those who thought otherwise should question their judgment.
It is now claimed that the FBI is exculpated because the Horowitz report did not find "political bias or improper motivation". But that omits the fact that at least four high ranking people in the FBI and Justice Department who were involved in the case were found to be politically biased and were removed from their positions.
It also omits that the scope of Horowitz's investigation was limited to the Justice Department. He was not able to investigate the CIA and its former director John Brennan who was alleging Russia-Trump connections months before the FBI investigation started:
Contrary to a general impression that the FBI launched the Trump-Russia conspiracy probe, Brennan pushed it to the bureau – breaking with CIA tradition by intruding into domestic politics: the 2016 presidential election. He also supplied suggestive but ultimately false information to counterintelligence investigators and other U.S. officials.The current CIA director Gina Haspel was CIA station chief in London during that time and while several of the entrapment attempts of Trump campaign staff by the FBI investigation happened. Horowitz spoke with neither of them.
Peter Van Buren concludes :
The current Horowitz Report, read alongside his previous report on how the FBI played inside the 2016 election vis-a-vis Clinton, should leave no doubt that the Bureau tried to influence the election of a president and then delegitimize him when he won. It wasn't the Russians; it was us.That is correct, but the whole conspiracy was even deeper. It was not the FBI which initiated the case.
My hunch is still that the FBI investigation was a case of parallel construction which is often used to build a legitimate case after a suspicion was found by illegitimate means. In this case it was John Brennan who in early 2016 contacted the head of the British GCHQ electronic interception service and asked him to spy on the Trump campaign. GHCQ then claimed that something was found that was deemed suspicious :
That summer, GCHQ's then head, Robert Hannigan, flew to the US to personally brief CIA chief John Brennan. The matter was deemed so important that it was handled at "director level", face-to-face between the two agency chiefs.The FBI was tipped off on the issue and on July 31 2016 started an investigation to construct a parallel legal case. It send out British and U.S. agents to entrap Trump campaign members. It used the obviously fake Steele dossier to gain FISA court judgments that allowed it to spy on the campaign. Downing Street was informed throughout the whole affair. A day after Trump's inauguration the UK's then Prime Minister Theresa May fired GHCQ chief Robert Hannigan.
One still open question is to what extend then President Barack Obama was involved in the affair.
There is another ongoing investigation by U.S. Prosecutor John Durham. That investigation is not limited to the Justice Department but will involve all agencies and domestic as well as foreign sources. Durham has the legal rights to declassify whatever is needed and he can indict persons should he find that they committed a crime. His report will hopefully go much deeper than the already horrendous stuff Horowitz delivered.
(This is a Moon of Alabama fundraiser week. Please consider to support our work .)
Posted by b on December 11, 2019 at 16:16 UTC | Permalink
Antoinetta III , Dec 11 2019 16:27 utc | 1
Do we have any idea when the Durham report will be coming out?casey , Dec 11 2019 16:30 utc | 2Antoinetta III
Anyone taking bets on Durham/Barr making indictments in this mess? My guess is a whole lot of horse trading is going on behind the scenes now, as in, "I'll trade you a censure for all potential indictments going down the memory hole."Kabobyak , Dec 11 2019 16:54 utc | 3Typical dog and pony show which will change nothing relating to interventionist foreign policy and the new cold war with Russia. Too many saw benefits from the corruption in Ukraine to dig deep there; the Bidens were just the most blatant, Lindsey Graham and others from both parties were involved so don't expect much from the Senate hearings. The bipartisan major goals are a fait accompli; universal acceptance that Russia worked to undermine our elections (and to destroy our "Democracy") and are thus an enemy we must fight, and it's universally accepted by all that we MUST provide Ukraine with Javelin missiles and other lethal aid to fight "Russian Aggression" (with little mention that even Obama balked at that reckless option). All of these proceedings are great distractions, but the weapons of war will not be diminished.c1ue , Dec 11 2019 17:08 utc | 4@Kabobyak #3jayc , Dec 11 2019 17:10 utc | 5Very possibly, but the Afghanistan papers have made an impact on some people: American Conservative editor is outraged, including militating against his children serving in the military and taxpayers funding it
Another candidate for Steele's "primary source" is Stefan Halper. Svetlana Lhokova suggested that this past Sunday.Jackrabbit , Dec 11 2019 17:12 utc | 6Unfortuneately, few will question the findings of these investigations or consider the possibility that the investigations themselves are misdirection/cover-up.james , Dec 11 2019 17:24 utc | 7Repeating my comment from yesterday on the Open Thread :
IMO the Lavrov-Pompeo presser is notable mostly for Lavrov's discussion of Russiagate (about 6 minutes in).Lavrov tells us that the Russian's repeatedly sought to clarify their noninterference by publishing correspondence - which the Trump Administration didn't respond to. And he actual mentions McCarthyism!
Wait, wot?
Yeah, during the worst of the Russiagate accusations, Trump wouldn't do things that would've helped to prove that Russiagate was a farce!!
So, during the election, Trump called on Putin to publish Hillary's emails (the very act of making such a request is likely illegal because at the time it was known that her emails contained highly classified info) but he wouldn't accept Russia's publication of exculpatory info about Russiagate?!?!
This would cause cognitive dissonance galore in an Americans that hear it - so one can be sure that it will not be reported.
Occam's razor: CIA-MI6, with approval of US Deep State (Clintons, Bush, McCain, Brennan, Mueller, etc.), meddled to elect Trump and pointed fingers at Russia to initiate a new McCarthyism.
Meanwhile in bizarroland (aka USA), Barr says Russiagate is a fantasy based on FBI "bad faith" - yet Pompeo still presses on with the "Russia meddled" bullshit.
!!
thanks b... i like your example in the comment - ''those who thought otherwise should question their judgment''.. good example!Kabobyak , Dec 11 2019 17:27 utc | 8i am a bit concerned like @ 2 casey, that most of this is going to go down the memory hole and there will be that made in america stamp on it - ''no accountability''... i wish i was wrong, but getting worked up at the idea anyone is going to be held accountable for any actions of the usa, or the insiders playing the usa, is clearly a fools game at this point.. all i mostly see is the needed collapse and waiting for that to happen..
@c1ue #4james , Dec 11 2019 17:27 utc | 9Thanks for that, there are definitely cracks in the armor and we should promote that narrative as you do in your link. Tulsi Gabbard has also expanded the awareness, hopefully she will make the upcoming debates despite strong efforts to silence her. I'll try more to focus on the positive!
@ 6 jr.. there is a press release on all what was said here for anyone interested..evilempire , Dec 11 2019 17:44 utc | 10lavrov quote and etc. etc.. "We suggested to our colleagues that in order to dispel all suspicions that are baseless, let us publish this closed-channel correspondence starting from October 2016 till November 2017 so it would all become very clear to many people. However, regrettably, this administration refused to do so. But I'd like to repeat once again we are prepared to do that, and to publish the correspondence that took place through that channel would clear many matters up, I believe. Nevertheless, we hope that the turbulence that appeared out of thin air will die down, just like in 1950s McCarthyism came to naught, and there'll be an opportunity to go back to a more constructive cooperation."
I continue to believe that the FBI and Horowitz perjured themselves in the FISA report. To correct a mistake in a previous post I made, I believe they lied when the claimed the Steele Dossier was not a predicate for opening crossfire hurricane. How can the Steele dossier not be instrumental in the opening of the investigation when bruce ohr's wife nellie ohr was working at fusion gps when bruce ohr met with steele to discuss the dirty dossier.Jackrabbit , Dec 11 2019 18:19 utc | 12In other words, the FBI was concocting Operation Crossfire Hurricane prior to the time they had any knowledge of the phony Papadopoulus predicate that the russians were proferring the clinton emails to the trump campaign.
The FISA report claim that Operation Crossfire Hurricane was predicated solely on the Papadopolous allegations is therefore a lie. There was, in fact, no real predicate for Operation Crossfire Hurricane. The predications cited were all fictions and inventions fabricated in a conspiracy between MI6(the FFC or
friendly foreign country cited in the Horowitz report), the DOJ and the FBI. Operation Crossfire Hurricane was a massive Psyop from its inception.
james @9Piotr Berman , Dec 11 2019 18:28 utc | 13What major publications have picked up this info from the State Dept PR? Which of them are questioning why Trump didn't agree to let the Russians publish the exonerating information? And how many of those are linking this strange fact to other strange facts and thus raising troubling questions about the 2016 election?
<> <> <> <> <> <>
It's not just that Trump refused to publish exculpatory material. Anyone that's been reading my comments (and/or my blog) knows that Trump also:
- hired Manafort - whose work for pro-Russian candidates in Ukraine had drawn the ire of CIA - despite Manafort's having no recent experience with US elections;- helped Pelosi to be elected Speaker of the House by inviting her to attend a White House meeting about his border wall (along with Chuck Schumer) prior to the House vote to elect a Speaker.
- initiated Ukrainegate by talking with Ukraine's President about investigating an announced candidate - he didn't have to do this(!) he could've let subordinates work behind the scenes .
And then there's a set of suspicious activity that is difficult to explain, such as: ...
- Kissinger's having called for MAGA in August 2014 (Trump announced his campaign 10 months later and he was the ONLY MAGA candidate and the ONLY populist in the Republican primary) ;- London as a nexus for the US 2016 campaign (Cambridge Analytica; GPS Fusion; Halper, etc.) ;
- Hillary's making mistakes in the 2016 campaign that no seasoned politician would make;
- the settling of scores via entrapments of Flynn, Manafort, and Wikileaks/Assange (painted as a hostile intelligence agency and Russian agent).
All of these and more support the conclusion that CIA-MI6 elected MAGA Trump and initiated Russiagate.
!!
The anonymous former British operator hears from an anonymous asserted compatriot what two anonymous sources, asserted to have access to inner Russian circles, claim to have heard somewhere that something happened in the Kremlin. <-- Perhaps it is too much to add that the entire conversation happen in a pub, like an eyewitness account of a trout caught by an angler that was larger than a tiger shark [the trout was so large, not the angler].Really?? , Dec 11 2019 18:31 utc | 14
James #11karlof1 , Dec 11 2019 18:38 utc | 15I am a great fan of Dmitri Orlov and have just read a large portion of his linked post.
What I do not see Orlov doing is taking into account--in his takedown of "scientific" models---evidence of global warming/change such as *actual* observations of *actual, current* phenomena that are being measured today, such as the condition of the world's coral reefs; the rate of melting of permafrost and release of methane gas; the melting of Greenland (and other) glaciers and release of fresh water into the oceans; acidification of oceans; and quite a lot of evidence for sea level rise, such as saltwater intrusion into freshwater swamps, aquifers, etc.
More can be gleaned by the manner in which BigLie Media spin the investigation's results. At The Hill , Jonathon Turley makes that clear in the first paragraph:Michael Droy , Dec 11 2019 18:42 utc | 16"The analysis of the report by Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz greatly depends, as is often the case, on which cable news channel you watch. Indeed, many people might be excused for concluding that Horowitz spent 476 pages to primarily conclude one thing, which is that the Justice Department acted within its guidelines in starting its investigation into the 2016 campaign of President Trump."
The further he goes the worse it gets for the Ds. And he's 100% correct about the biases present in reporting about the Report. Remarks made by Lavrov at the presser were likely done prior to anyone from Russia's delegation having digested any of the Report. What I found important was the following revelation by Lavrov:
"Let me remind you that at the time of the first statements on this topic, which was on the eve of the 2016 US presidential election, we used the communications channel that linked back then Moscow and the Obama administration in Washington to ask our US partners on numerous occasions whether these allegations that emerged in October 2016 and persisted until Donald Trump's inauguration could be addressed. The reply never came. There was no response whatsoever to all our proposals when we said: look, if you suspect us, let's sit down and talk, just put your facts on the table. All this continued after President Trump's inauguration and the appointment of a new administration. We proposed releasing the correspondence through this closed communications channel for the period from October 2016 until January 2017 in order to dispel all this groundless suspicion. This would have clarified the situation for many. Unfortunately, this time it was the current administration that refused to do so. Let me reiterate that we are ready to disclose to the public the exchanges we had through this channel . I think that this would set many things straight. Nevertheless we expect the turbulence that appeared out of thin air to calm down little by little, just as McCarthyism waned in the 1950s, so that we can place our cooperation on a more constructive footing." [My Emphasis]
Lavrov on Mueller Report: "It contains no confirmation of any collusion." End of story. But we do have all this compiled evidence within our communications we're ready to publish is the USA
agrees.
The Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) organization has yet to publish anything about the report. However, Matt Taibbi often writes for that outlet, so his reporting at Rolling Stone ought to be seen as a proxy FAIR report.
Great stuff as ever. How useful is it that Skripal is Unavailable but not Dead? For example does it affect redaction of material linked to him?Jon Carter , Dec 11 2019 18:59 utc | 17Now that we know Carter Page was working for the CIA as an informant in 2016, is it reasonable to speculate that Page was planted in the Trump campaign by the CIA?GeorgeV , Dec 11 2019 19:11 utc | 18The Inspector General of the Department of Justice, Micheal Horowitz's report on the move to delegitimize the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is clear proof of the massive rot that lies at the heart of the US' political system. If this matter is whitewashed over by the MSM, then one more step will have been taken to a violent and bloody revolution in the US of A.JR , Dec 11 2019 19:41 utc | 20By now Steele's credibility is zero. Time to revisit Steele's involvement with the debunked "Russia bought the soccer World Champion games", the Litvinenko polonium poisening and the Skripal novichok poisening. The timing of the Skripal matter deserves some scrutiny in relation to Skripal possibly being Steele's source for the infamous Trump dossier. There might be a motive hidden there.Jackrabbit , Dec 11 2019 19:44 utc | 21Jon Carter @17:uncle tungsten , Dec 11 2019 20:04 utc | 22... is it reasonable to speculate that Page was planted in the Trump campaign by the CIA?And then there's Simon Bracey Lane in the Sanders campaign as described here: British Spies Infiltrated Bernie Sanders' Campaign?
Plus we have the strange goings-on of Halper and Mifsud as well as Gina Haspel in London also.
!!
karlof1 #15S , Dec 11 2019 20:25 utc | 24Thank you for posting Lavrov's words. Between those words and the IG report the kabuki farce is revealed. Why was Trump ignoring the Russian offer you might ask. Because it suited him to have this nonsense dominate the news cycle, you might conclude. Trump and Comey and Brennan deserve each other.
Lavrov's words condemn the three of them.
Twitter account @Techno_Fog lists MSM shills who assured the public the FISA warrant on Page was not based on Steele dossier (h/t Zero Hedge).james , Dec 11 2019 20:26 utc | 25just like 9-11... this is an inside job... does anyone really think the truth is going to come to light in any of it?? i'm still with @ 2 caseys view...karlof1 , Dec 11 2019 20:48 utc | 27uncle tungsten @22--ben , Dec 11 2019 21:03 utc | 28Thanks for your reply! Yes, agreed, and I'd add Obama and Clinton. Lavrov also held another presser at the conclusion of his visit that provides additional info not covered in the first. The following is one I thought important:
"Question: The day before, US Congress agreed on a draft military budget, which includes possible sanctions against Nord Stream-2 and Turkish Stream. Have you covered this topic? The Congress sounds very determined. How seriously will the new restrictions affect the completion of our projects?
"Sergey Lavrov: In my opinion, Congress sounds rather obsessed with destroying our relations. It continues pursuing the policy started by the Obama administration. As I mentioned, we are used to this kind of attack. We know how to respond to them. I assure you that neither Nord Stream-2 nor Turkish Stream will be halted."
I must emphatically agree with Lavrov's opinion and was very pleased he answered forthrightly. What seems quite clear is the current anti-Russian idiocy was started by Obama's team and was designed for Clinton to escalate, with bipartisan Congressional backing. That she lost didn't stop the anti-Russian wheel from being turned. So, logic tells us to discover the reason for Obama to alter policy. Over the years I've written here why I think that was done--to continue the #1 policy goal of attaining Full Spectrum Dominance over the planet and its people regardless of its impossibility given the Sino-Russo Alliance made reality by that policy goal. That a supermajority in Congress remain deluded is clearly a huge problem, and those continuing to vote for the War Budget need to be removed.
b posted, in part;"When Hillary Clinton was defeated in the U.S. presidential election the relevant powers launched a campaign to delegitimize the President elect Donald Trump."karlof1 , Dec 11 2019 21:07 utc | 29It doesn't take HRC and her resident scum-bag sycophants to deligitimize DJT, his sorry life-style, and his past record do that quite nicely, IMO.
This tweet sums up things nicely in ways BigLie Media won't:ben , Dec 11 2019 21:18 utc | 30
- "Let me get this straight:
- "A Congress with a 9% approval rate
- "Is trying to remove a president with a 52% approval rate that 63 million Americans voted for
- "As a part of an impeachment process that 51% of voters don't want
- "All while claiming to be fighting 'for the people'"
With only 9% approval, it ought to be easy to toss out most Congresscritters, excepting that part of the Senate not up for reelection.
Jrabbit @ 12 said; "All of these and more support the conclusion that CIA-MI6 elected MAGA Trump and initiated Russiagate."YEP!!!!!
Paul Damascene , Dec 11 2019 21:24 utc | 32
Karlof1 @ 29--james , Dec 11 2019 21:25 utc | 33Are you aware of any means by which a member of congress or of a congressional committee can be impeached or otherwise censured for the misconduct of official duties? That would at least be Schiff...
Posted by: Paul Damascene | Dec 11 2019 21:24 utc | 32
@ 31 john.. i didn't know i had to read the orlov article to say what i did to you!! your post @11 never make any internet link to orlov... what am i missing? does this mean i can only speak with you after i have read another orlov article? lol...james , Dec 11 2019 21:27 utc | 34i see it now.. my comment still stands though... people seem especially pugnacious today..William Gruff , Dec 11 2019 21:27 utc | 35"It doesn't take HRC and her resident scum-bag sycophants to deligitimize DJT, his sorry life-style, and his past record do that quite nicely, IMO." --ben @28karlof1 , Dec 11 2019 21:30 utc | 36Ah, but that would be legitimate deligitimization, like attacking his actual policies. Those are rocks that would break the Democrats' own windows as well as Trump's.
29 Cont'd--ben , Dec 11 2019 21:40 utc | 37And Congress continues to alienate allies :
"So far on Dec 11:
1. Senate Foreign Relations Comm passed Turkey sanctions bill
2. Pentagon Chief warned Turkey moving away NATO
3. U.S. lawmakers introduce legislation to curb Turkey's nuclear weapon obtainment"
Finally, the pretense of being nice to Turkey has come to an end. It will now intensify its looking East, and pursue its national interests. IMO, the Eastern Med's energy issues will now become a major headache.
karlof @ 29: The head Dems know their pushing the " Russia did it"meme is weak, but the PTBkarlof1 , Dec 11 2019 21:41 utc | 38insist on it, to keep the MIC funds flowing.
The "no-brainer" charges should be; "Obstruction" and "Emoluments" violations. Charges the public can grasp.
What happens if you, or any average person, ignores a summons to appear? They are arrested.
Funneling govt. funds for personal gain is a violation of law, if you are POTUS.
These are violations average Americans can grasp, not the current circus of he said, she said, going on in D.C. lately.
Guess my point is, this hearings are built to fail, because most of our so-called leaders like things the way they are. The rape of the workings classes will continue.
Paul Damascene @32--Jackrabbit , Dec 11 2019 22:01 utc | 40Yes. The impeachment process is the same as for Trump. Censuring is much easier but doubt it will occur as too many are deserving. We're seeing the reason Congressional elections are held every two years--vote 'em out if they're no good!
karlof1 @27:karlof1 , Dec 11 2019 22:08 utc | 41... the current anti-Russian idiocy was started by Obama's team and was designed for Clinton to escalate ...
I don't agree that the baton would be passed to Clinton. The Deep State uses the two-party system as a device. It's not tied to partisan concerns. If the Deep State and the establishment really wanted Clinton elected, they would've made that happen. Few expected Trump to win and few would've been outraged if he had lost. Yet he won. Against all odds. Furthermore, Clinton wasn't the MAGA candidate as called for by Kissinger - Trump was. And he was from the beginning of his candidacy.
Russiagate was based on suspicions of a populist that was compromised by Russia. Hillary has too much baggage to play populist or nationalist - including Bill's involvement with Epstein.
Also, you're forgetting the set ups of Manafort, Flynn, and Wikileaks/Assange - which were important parts of Russiagate and also a convenient way of settling scores. These set-ups required the Russiagate-tainted candidate (Trump) to win.
And Trump's beating Hillary makes him the classic come-from-behind hero - giving Trump a certain legitimacy that an establishment candidate wouldn't have. That's important when contemplating taking the country to war in the near future.
It's strange to me that people can think that Hillary was the 'chosen candidate', and be OK with that but find a possible selection of a different candidate (Trump, as it turns out) to be outrageous and inconceivable.
=
... with bipartisan Congressional backing . That she lost didn't stop the anti-Russian wheel from being turned.
Since the Deep State and the Establishment desired an effort to restore the Empire, they would turn to whomever could most effectively accomplish that task.
Once again: It didn't have to be Hillary that was selected. In fact, for many reasons (that I've previously expressed) Hillary would have been a poor choice.
=
So, logic tells us to discover the reason for Obama to alter policy. Over the years I've written here why I think that was done--to continue the #1 policy goal of attaining Full Spectrum Dominance over the planet and its people ...
FSD is US Mil policy, not a political goal. It states that US Mil will strive to have superiority in weapons and capability in every sphere of combat.
Politically, FSD is just one of several means to an end. IMO that end is the maintenance and expansion of the Anglo-Zionist Empire (aka New World Order).
Also, your dominance theory doesn't answer the question of WHY NOW? (more on that below)
... regardless of its impossibility given the Sino-Russo Alliance ...
Firstly, US Deep State believes that it is possible. And I personally don't buy the notion that Russia and China are fated to prevail. If that were obvious, then the moa bar would have no patrons.
Secondly (and again), WHY NOW? The Sino-Russo Alliance was long in the making. Why did USA suddenly take note?
It's Kissinger's WSJ Op-Ed of August 2014 that provides the answer. In this Op-Ed, Kissinger calls for a restored US Empire that is essentially Trump's MAGA. Kissinger is writing immediately after the Donbas rebels have won. The Russians refused to heed Kissinger's advice (to back down) and it has become apparent that Russia's joining the West is no longer an inevitability as the US elite had assumed.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
I've written many times of Kissinger's Op-Ed and of indications that the Deep State selected MAGA Trump to be President while also initiating a new McCarthyism. Why is it STILL so difficult to believe a theory that makes so much sense?
!!
ben @37--Cortes , Dec 11 2019 22:34 utc | 43Yes, the status quo is very generous to the Current Oligarchy and its tools, but not so for the vast public majority which is clamoring for change. IMO, much can be learned from the UK election tomorrow, of which there's been very little discussion here despite its importance. I suggest following the very important developments from the past few days at Criag Murray's Twitter and at his website , the linked article being a scoop of sorts.
Also harder to follow but important as well are ballot initiatives within the states. This site has current listing . I just looked over those for California where there are a few good ones, but the threshold for signatures is getting higher, close to one million are now needed in CA.
Lavrov's comments about the offers to open up normally closed communications really only highlight two obvious issues:AshenLight , Dec 11 2019 22:38 utc | 44
- The previous US Administration had no interest in shutting off the oxygen to the "Trump = Moscow's Man" campaign; and
- The current US Administration cannot afford to be perceived as receiving help in this matter from the country he is alleged to be beholden to for his election.
@ Posted by: karlof1 | Dec 11 2019 21:07 utc | 29karlof1 , Dec 11 2019 22:39 utc | 45With only 9% approval, it ought to be easy to toss out most Congresscritters, excepting that part of the Senate not up for reelection.You'd think so, but somehow the numbers pretty much reverse when these same people consider their own rep, and the incumbency reelection rate is shockingly high (haven't looked recently but IIRC it has hovered around 90% for decades). Apparently it is amazingly easy to convince the masses that their guy is the one good apple in the bunch.
Jon Schwartz reminds me why I don't stop and peruse magazine stands anymore. Seeing the words and this picture would've sparked lots of unpleasant language:steven t johnson , Dec 11 2019 22:42 utc | 46"The best part of Michelle Obama explaining she shares the same values as George W. Bush is she was being interviewed on network TV by Bush's daughter. There's nothing more American than our ruling class making us watch them discuss how great they all are."
And the escalation wasn't rigged for Clinton to initiate--yeah, sure, whatever the rabbit says.
Until there is some comparison of how the FISA court usually works, none of this chatter means a thing. Violations of Woods procedures and assertions not supported by documents are SOP. The FISA court is always a joke.Jackrabbit , Dec 11 2019 23:08 utc | 48Delgeitimizing Trump, reversing the election, all simple-minded drviel, as only nitwits see Trump as anything but the loser.
Jen, that's a really interesting post. Thanks.Kabobyak , Dec 12 2019 0:45 utc | 51Skripal knows something that US-UK either 1) don't want the Russians to know OR 2) don't want ANYONE to know.
What could that be? 1) That Steele dossier is bullshit? We know that. 2) That Steele dossier was meant to be bullshit ? Well, that raises a whole host of questions, doesn't it?
!!
Good chance Steele had little to do with writing the Dossier. "Simpson-Ohr Dossier", anyone? Steele was needed as a credible looking intelligence officer with Russia ties and a past working relationship with US Intel, as cover to sell to FBI, FISA Court, and the public (meeting with Isikoff, Yahoo News story).daffyDuct , Dec 12 2019 2:26 utc | 56Glenn Simpson and wife Mary Jacoby had written articles for the WSJ in 2007 and 2008 with a script and language similar to the Dossier. Devin Nunes seems to believe this scenario, and it is discussed in detail in books by Dan Bongino and Lee Smith, among others.
c1ue @4ben , Dec 12 2019 3:24 utc | 59The Afghanistan report outlines a *massive fraud*. $14 billion/month, 90% of the world's opium, no "progress", oh, and lying to Congress for two decades.
OT, but this seems to be going around..Eh?ben , Dec 12 2019 4:47 utc | 62physchoh @ 60; The difference, at least in my mind, is that, the "Russia did it" meme, is the weakest of all cases against DJT. Corbyn, on the other hand, may actually be hurt by the bogus charges. IMO, what this shows is coordination between the elites to bring down a progressive in the UK, who fancies public control over major finances instead of private concerns.Piotr Berman , Dec 12 2019 5:03 utc | 63Fox News, now: Biden blames staff, says nobody 'warned' him son's Ukraine job could raise conflict. In a TV comedy Seinfeld, one of the main characters, George, is a compulsive liar with a knack of getting in trouble. Sometimes he has a job. Final scene of one of those jobs:evilempire , Dec 12 2019 5:34 utc | 64
- Boss: "You have been seen after hours making sex with the cleaning lady on the top of your desk."
- George (after a measured look at his boss): "If I was only told that this kind of things is being frown upon..." [and she had cleaned the desk both before AND after!]
I have theory about why Horowitz did not bias in the FBI. The definition of bias is to harbor a deeply negative feeling that clouds one's judgement about a person or subject. However, the conspirators' judgement was not clouded in this case. Their negative feelings focused their intent to destroy the object ofPerimetr , Dec 12 2019 6:03 utc | 65their feeling. The precise term for this is malice.
So Horowitz was technically correct when he did not find bias. What he might have been reluctant to spell out is that he did find malice.
Re Really?? | Dec 11 2019 18:31 utc | 14 and AshenLight | Dec 11 2019 19:36 utc | 19I agree with you. Orlov is a brilliant, insightful analyst, who is also very funny. But he is off the mark with his dismissal of global warming and also with his endorsement of nuclear power. The immense amounts of waste from uranium mining all the way to hundreds of thousands of tons of high-level waste in spent fuel pools pose a huge threat to current and future generations . . . like the next 3000 generations of humans (and all other forms of life) that will have to deal with this. Mankind has never built anything that has lasted a fraction of the 100,000 years required for the isolation of high-level wastes from the biosphere. Take a look at Into Eternity which is a great documentary on the disposal of nuclear waste in Finland.
Orlov's analysis is superficial, unfortunately, in these areas.
|
|
|
Dec 11, 2019 | www.theatlantic.com
The report confirmed that the Russia investigation originated, as has been previously reported, with the Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos bragging to an Australian diplomat about Russia possessing "dirt" on Hillary Clinton, which the IG determined "was sufficient to predicate the investigation." The widespread conservative belief that the investigation began because of the dubious claims in the Steele dossier was false. "Steele's reports played no role" in the opening of the Russia investigation, the report found, because FBI officials were not "aware of Steele's election reporting until weeks later."
...The IG also "did not find any records" that Joseph Mifsud, the professor who told Papadopoulos the Russians had obtained "dirt" on Clinton, was an FBI informant sent to entrap him.
...Page "did not play a role in the decision to open" the Russia investigation, and that Strzok was "was not the sole, or even the highest-level, decision maker as to any of those matters."
...the IG did determine that the Page FISA application was "inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation," which misled the court as to the credibility of the FBI's evidence when seeking authority to surveil Page.
..."This was an overthrow of government, this was an attempted overthrow -- and a lot of people were in on it," Trump declared , while Barr insisted , in a more lawyerly fashion, "The Inspector General's report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken."
Adam Serwer is a staff writer at The Atlantic , where he covers politics.
|
|
|
Dec 10, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
FBI Didn't Tell Surveillance Court That Carter Page Was "Operational Contact" For CIA With "Positive Assessment" by Tyler Durden Tue, 12/10/2019 - 07:55 0 SHARES
Authored by Chuck Ross via National Interest,
The FBI failed to inform surveillance court judges that Carter Page was an "operational contact" for the CIA for years , and that an employee at the spy agency gave the former Trump aide a "positive assessment," according to a Justice Department report released Monday.
The finding is included in a list of seven of the FBI's "significant inaccuracies and omissions" in applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Page, a longtime energy consultant who joined the Trump campaign in March 2016.
(emphasis ours)
The report said the FBI "omitted" information it obtained from another U.S. government agency about its prior relationship with Page.
The agency approved Page as an "operational contact" from 2008 to 2013, according to the report.
"Page had provided information to the other agency concerning his prior contacts with certain Russian intelligence officers, one of which overlapped with facts asserted in the FISA application," the report stated.
Page told the Daily Caller News Foundation he believes the agency in question is the CIA. Page has previously said he provided information to the CIA and FBI before becoming ensnared in the bureau's investigation of the Trump campaign.
The report stated an employee with the CIA assessed Page "candidly" described contact he had with a Russian intelligence officer in 2014. But the FBI cited Page's contact with the officer to assert in its FISA applications that there was probable cause to believe that Page was working as a Russian agent.
The IG faulted the FBI for failing to disclose to FISA judges that Page was an operational contact for the CIA for five years, and that "Page had disclosed to the other agency contacts that he had with Intelligence Officer 1 and certain other individuals."
The report also stated that the FBI omitted that "the other agency's employee had given a positive assessment of Page's candor."
The IG said the FBI's failure to disclose Page's relationship with the CIA "was particularly concerning" because an FBI attorney had specifically asked an FBI case agent whether Page had a current or prior relationship with the other federal agency.
***
[editor's note: Not only that, an FBI employee - undoubtedly 'resistance' lawyer Kevin Clinesmith , altered an email to specifically state that Page was "not a source" for the CIA . ]
The FBI agent falsely asserted Page's relationship was "outside scope" of the investigation because it dated back to when Page lived in Moscow from 2004 to 2007.
"This representation, however, was contrary to information that the other agency had provided to the FBI in August 2016, which stated that Page was approved as an 'operational contact' of the other agency from 2008 to 2013 (after Page had left Moscow)," the IG report stated.
The report also said Page's CIA contacts considered him to have been candid about his interactions with a suspected Russian intelligence officer who was later indicted for acting as an unregistered agent of Russia.
Occams_Razor_Trader_Part_Deux , 8 minutes ago link
SnatchnGrab , 13 minutes ago linkI sometimes think Page was a plant- he's vigorously defended Trump and slammed the CIA and the hoax of the spying- but that could all be a ruse.
In my mind the jury is still out.
Papadopolous on the other hand- was clearly used, honey pot and all.
Old Hippie Patriot , 29 minutes ago linkIs the phrase ""significant inaccuracies and omissions" code for LYING?
Asking for a friend.
Teamtc321 , 42 minutes ago linkThe entire "Russian collusion" investigation is another example of the Feds manufacturing false evidence. Mitsud, supposedly a Russian agent, was actually an asset of US intelligence. Ever since the foisting of the 17th Amendment, which destroyed the veto of the several states of Washington excesses and corruptions, Washington D.C. has been the only REAL enemy that the people have ever had.
Charlie_Martel , 48 minutes ago linkRudy is going to take a huge Trump Dump, right on the heads of the Libtards this week....... Open wide Retards..........
=============
Breaking: Ukrainian Official Reveals Six Criminal Cases Opened in Ukraine Involving the Bidens
Trump told the waiting reporters that his personal attorney former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani "found plenty" of "good information" during his recent trip to Ukraine and Europe.
Trump then added that he believes Giuliani wants to present a report to the Attorney General William Barr and to Congress. Trump added Giuliani has not told him what he found.
Giuliani reportedly traveled to Budapest and Ukraine this past week to meet with several Ukrainian officials about corruption.
OAN reporter Chanel Rion has been traveling with Rudy Giuliani and reporting on his investigations in Hungary and Kiev, Ukraine.
In her report released on Sunday night Chanel Rion mentioned that Ukrainian officials showed her six criminal cases involving the Bidens, Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
simpson seers , 1 hour ago linkThe CIA-FBI put a lot of "assets" into and around Trump's 2016 campaign to rig the election for Hillary.
two hoots , 1 hour ago linkFBI employee - undoubtedly 'resistance' lawyer Kevin Clinesmith , altered an email to specifically state that Page was "not a source" for the CIA . ]
if it's murican and it's mouth is open it's lying.......it's been a tradition since 1776.....
enough of this , 1 hour ago linkA more powerful force is at work here, the agencies are their tools, operators. We need to get our heads out of the weeds if we are to identify the source. Whatever it is, it is likely internal, thought a higher cause and convincing as CIA, FBI have bought in?
Drop-Hammer , 1 hour ago linkDOJ IG Horowitz delivered up another costly whitewash, just like he did with his investigation of the FBI's handling of Clinton's emails.
Equinox7 , 1 hour ago linkI read the linked article. Quite fascinating that Hillary and her minions were treated with kid gloves (and nothing at all about Obama, Lynch, Holder, Jarrett, et al) and extended every courtesy and soft-pedal, yet Roger Stone and Paul Manafort were greeted with platoons of FBI ninjas and armored vehicles in early morning raids akin to those in Stalinist Russia.
tedstr , 1 hour ago linkThe FBI didn't tell the FISA court a lot of things. The FBI failed to tell the FISA court the interview with Papadopoulos revealed there to be absolutely NO Russian collusion. The FBI deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence that would have freed General Flynn and ended the investigations.
Instead, the FBI covered up the truth with omissions and lies. That what I call bias.
Call it willful blindness by omission, but I prefer to call it a criminal act and sedition against a President.
This guy is an Annapolis grad and CIA contact and they destroyed him. Hes gonna get very rich with lawsuits now. The thing that amazes me no one is talking about.........motivation. All of these major and minor infractions add up to one thing.....an orchestrated attempt to frame and over throw the President.\ of the United States
|
|
|
Dec 10, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
If Russia spending $100,000 on Facebook ads constitutes election interference, and Donald Trump asking Ukraine to investigate the Bidens is too - then Hillary Clinton takes the cake when it comes to influence campaigns designed to harm a political opponent.
Contained within Monday's FISA report by the DOJ Inspector General is the revelation that Fusion GPS, the firm paid by the Clinton campaign to produce the Steele dossier, " was paying Steele to discuss his reporting with the media. " ( P. 369 and elsewhere)
(h/t @wakeywakey16 )And when did Steele talk with the media - which got him fired as an FBI source ? Perhaps most notably was Yahoo News journalist Michael Isikoff , who says he was invited by Fusion GPS to meet a "secret source" at a Washington restaurant . That secret source was none other than Christopher Steele , who fed Isikoff information from his now-discredited dossier - and which appeared in a September 23, 2016 article roughly six weeks before the election - which likely had orders of magnitude greater visibility and impact coming from a widely-read, MSM source vs. $100,000 in Russian Facebook ads.
The article suggests that former Trump campaign aide Carter Page "has opened up private communications with senior Russian officials - including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president."
This claim was found by special counsel Robert Mueller report to be false . Moreover, the FBI knew about it in December, 2016, when DOJ #4 Bruce Ohr told the agency as much.
Steele told us that in September [of 2016] her and Simpson gave an "off-the-record" briefing to a small number of journalists about his reporting, " reads page 165 of the FISA report, which says that Steele "acknowledged that Yahoo News was identified in one of the court filings in the foreign litigation as being present. "
Put another way, Hillary Clinton paid Christopher Steele to feed information to the MSM in order to harm Donald Trump right before the 2016 election . Granted, there were intermediaries; the Clinton campaign paid law firm Perkins Coie, which paid Fusion GPS, which paid Steele. And if asked, we're guessing Clinton would claim she had no idea this happened - which simply isn't plausible given the stakes. Whatever the case - the act of Simpson paying Steele to peddle fiction to the media for the purpose of harming Trump, by itself , constitutes blatant election meddling by every standard set by the left over the past three years.
We're sure Hillary can explain that if and when she jumps into the 2020 race.
|
|
|
Dec 10, 2019 | www.unz.com
peterAUS , says: December 10, 2019 at 8:07 pm GMT
O.K.Anon [138] Disclaimer , says: December 10, 2019 at 9:30 pm GMTI was, actually, thinking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pershing_II#Protests Or, just follow this trend of "who has a bigger dick" as it is.
Sooner or later you'll have this, IMHO: Reaction time 7 minutes . You know, decision-making time to say "launch" or not. The decision-maker in the White House, Downing Street and Elysees Palace either a geriatric or one of this new multiracial breed. Just think about those people
Add to that the level of overall expertise by the crews manning those systems, its maintenance etc. Add increased automation of some parts of the launch process with hardware/software as it's produced now (you know, quality control etc.).
It will take a miracle not to have that launch sooner or later. Not big, say .80 KT. What happens after that is anybody's guess. Mine, taking the second point from the fourth paragraph .a big bang.
The only way to prevent it, IMHO, is having a Western public shifting just 5 % of their "breads and circuses" paradigm to that issue. Just 5.
Not holding my breath I am afraid.My 2 cents, anyway.
@peterAUS The rational actor false supposition has it that the biologics can't be used because they don't recognize friend from foe.peterAUS , says: December 10, 2019 at 10:23 pm GMTRational actors? Where? Anthrax via the US mail.
One rational actor point of view is that you have to be able to respond to anything. Anything. In a measured or escalating response. Of course biologics are being actively pursued to the hilt. Just like you point out about Marburg.
But, the view from above is that general panic in the population cannot be allowed, and so all biologics have to be down played. "of course we would never do anything like that, it would be insane to endanger all of humanity". Just like nukes. So professors pontificate misdirection, and pundits punt.
So don't expect real disclosure, or honest analysis. "We only want the fear that results in more appropriations. Not the fear that sinks programs." Don't generate new Church commissions. Hence the fine line. some fear yes, other fears, no.
@AnonRational actors? Where?
Well Washington D.C.
Hahahahaha sorry, couldn't resist.So don't expect real disclosure, or honest analysis.
I don't.
But I also probably forgot more about nuclear war than most of readers here will ever know. And chemical, when you think about it; had a kit with atropine on me all the time in all exercises. We didn't practice much that "biologics" stuff, though. We knew why, then. Same reason for today. Call it a "stoic option" to own inevitable demise.
Now, there is a big difference between the age of those protests I mentioned and today. The Internet. The access to information people, then, simply didn't have.
Which proves the main point of mine: access to information means shit in the real world of power play. Sheeple didn't care then; they care even less now (better distractions).
Well, they will care, I am sure. For about ..say in the USA ..several hours, on average.
We here where I am typing from will care for "how to survive the aftermath" .. for two months.Tops.
|
|
|
Jul 28, 2018 | www.tigerdroppings.com
Carter Page is a very shady individual. He was in Navy intelligence, did work at the Council on Foreign Relations, conveniently did lots of business in Russia and likes wearing goofy ass hats.
Several days ago, I wrote a piece asking if Carter Page was an asset of the Central Intelligence Agency. Page as many of you know has been a central figure in this conspiracy to frame Donald Trump as a Russian intelligence asset. Page was a former adviser to the Trump campaign who had an extensive business history in Russia. The FBI used the fake #pissgate dossier financed by Hillary Clinton and manufactured by Christopher Steele as the primary piece of evidence to request a warrant from the secret FISA court. This was effectively used to spy on Page and by proxy the Trump campaign.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Q-cMrftQFz0?feature=oembed
Page interview begins at 14:35.
What's interesting is that just a few days after writing my piece, Page appeared on Sean Hannity's show for an interview. Hannity specifically pressed him on if he had ever worked for American intelligence. Page's answers were cryptic. He admitted to having some type of communications with American intelligence and would not flat out deny being an asset. As in previous interviews, he came off as an untrustworthy individual who appears to be hiding many secrets.
One of the more interesting things he talked about was how in 2016, he was invited to speak in Russia by Shlomo Weber . He delivered his speech while he was still advising the Trump campaign. This was already public information but it seems to be a lesser known fact that not many people have zeroed in on.
... This event allowed Christopher Steele to manufacture some of the garbage that ended up in the #pissgate dossier.
Weber is an academic who works at the New Economic School in Moscow, Russia. He previously spent a great deal of time in Israel and earned his PhD at Hebrew University. He also somehow has both American and Canadian citizenship. These facts alone raise a number of alarm bells. It would not be a surprise if he was connected to the Israeli Mossad.
And check out how Page's speech was described when it took place.
ABC News :
Page's visit itself was perhaps more notable than the content of his speech. It was unclear why Page, a relatively little-known analyst, had been invited suddenly to speak at the same event offered to the serving U.S. president. Interest in Page's trip was high among Russian media, which was in large attendance at the event.
Shlomo Weber, the director of the New Economic School, said he could not remember if he had invited Page before or after he was appointed adviser to Trump. Weber said he hoped Page would "broaden his students' horizons."
"Being Trump's adviser certainly doesn't disqualify him," from speaking, Weber said.
There was also speculation that Page might meet with officials from the Russian government during his visit. Asked at the event directly whether he would meet with officials from Putin's presidential administration and the foreign ministry, Page laughed and refused to answer.
... The speech allowed Steele to claim that Page had met with various Russian government officials while he was in Moscow. And this was a big part of what the FBI used to request the warrant to spy on Page and by proxy the Trump campaign as a whole.
I would say that all of this makes the theories about Page being a CIA asset planted inside the Trump campaign even more credible. It certainly helps explain why he hasn't been arrested and why he keeps talking to the media.
... Hannity pressed Page on being a CIA asset is reason enough for us to continue covering it.
|
|
|
Dec 10, 2019 | www.tigerdroppings.com
Carter Page: "I worked for the CIA" Posted on 12/9/19 at 8:40 pm
9
1
I believe this is the first time he has admitted he worked for the CIA. He said it's all going to come out.
So, if you go look at his emails, he knew there was a FISA against him. He was emailing Comey and the FBI.
I really think someone told him he was being spied on. He is one of the ones that gave a heads up to Trump.
?Austere Scholar Monsieur ?
@MonsieurAmerica
THE APEX ASSET:Targeted asset
@carterwpage
force-fed the FBI via FISA intercepted emails EXCULPATORY evidence in his case and INCULPATORY evidence in the James Wolfe trial.Page doesn't just have HISTORY with "other Agency", he's OPERATIONAL.
|
|
|
Apr 21, 2017 | www.palmerreport.com
CNN is confirming today what a wide barrage of evidence has long pointed to: that Russia tried to use Donald Trump's campaign adviser Carter Page to infiltrate the campaign from within ( link ). But while that's not really news in and of itself, the real story here may be what Page just told CNN in response – because he may have just given away everything .
It's already been established that a Russian spy ring tried to turn Carter Page into an asset back in 2013. Page went as far as giving the Russians some unspecified documents ( NY Times ). When the spy ring was busted, authorities in the U.S. notably took no known legal action against Page. It's led some to speculate that perhaps they turned Page into an informant right then and there. The response Page gave to CNN for its story today sounds a lot like he's confirming as much:
"My assumption throughout the last 26 years I've been going [to Russia] has always been that any Russian person might share information with the Russian government as I have similarly done with the CIA, the FBI and other government agencies in the past."
In other words, Carter Page just admitted that he's supplied information about his Russian interactions to the FBI and CIA. That means that at one point, at least, he was a de facto informant. When did that begin? Was it in 2013, after the U.S. busted the Russian spy ring that had sucked him in? Was that why he wasn't prosecuted? How long did he remain an FBI informant? Was he one during the Trump campaign? Is he still one? Is that why he acts in interviews as if he has no fear of getting in trouble, even as he willingly incriminates himself with his answers?
This casts new light one another already-documented piece of information about Carter Page: the FBI obtained a FISA warrant on him back in the summer of 2016 ( Washington Post ), not long after he went to work for the Donald Trump campaign. Usually a FISA warrant is aimed at spying on that person. But if Page was already a willing FBI informant, it's possible the warrant was obtained so the FBI could surveil the conversations Page was having with the rest of the Trump campaign.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report
|
|
|
Dec 10, 2019 | www.youtube.com
der Jakob 🇺🇸 , 5 hours agoJohn Brennan lied to Congress, why is he not behind bars?
Robin John , 5 hours agoFalsifying documents is a crime
Electric Eclectic , 5 hours agoI will believe the swamp is draining when the arrests begin.
Christopher , 5 hours agoThere are so many crooked actors and actresses hired by the MSM it is just pathetic. They are not reporters, they are there only to put on a show for the masses.
Patton Was Right , 5 hours ago"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses". - the esteemed Malcolm X.
2legit B , 5 hours ago"WE DEFEATED THE WRONG ENEMY!" Now we are paying the price
LB Helms , 4 hours agoSeth Rich downloaded the emails on a potable drive. Was he Russian?
Mr.762 , 4 hours agoDNC/ FBI/ CIA/ CNN/ NBC have merged into the 5 headed serpent.
Silly Goose , 5 hours agoThe FBI and CIA need to be dismantled!
reminaya , 4 hours agoRoger Stone got some minor facts wrong and is facing jail time, Brennan and Comey outright lied to Congress, when are they going to jail?
Theta Kongpancake , 4 hours ago"June 2017, CIA told FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith that Carter Page was working for them (the CIA)." Clinesmith then changed that notification so he could submit the last (FISA) renewal.
Christopher Wojciechowski , 2 hours ago5:55 - "Lets hope Carter Page spends the rest of his life sueing everyone..." lol Thats the meanest thing ive ever heard you say! O:)
The FBI was never innocent. They're guilty as hell and heads need to roll over.
Joe Montano , 4 hours agoAllowing ONE person to decide if crimes where done by the most powerful people in america for decades. Horowitz was bought one way or another.
lrm21 , 46 minutes ago1:52 - This is what a paid shill looks like. If the money is good, they'll read whatever is on the prompter. Years from now when they're demonized by the corrupt media they'll scratch their head and ask... What happened to integrity in our country???
P MA , 2 hours agoHigh crimes and misdemeanors. Where is John Brennan?
ita-glo jgv , 41 minutes agoIf you asked me 20 years ago wether I would be watching Fox News to get the most rational point of view in politics, I would have said you were crazy. Another great job Tucker! In my opinion, you’re one of the best news men of our current time; questioning needless wars, and calling out politicians, gvmnt officials and your counterparts at other news desks with rational arguments. Well done sir!
cat nerp , 4 hours agoPersonally seen these types of things/cases in lower levels, police chiefs and officials, judges, prosecutors, mayor, FBI, and so on. Not surprisingly it happens elsewhere. ...But very disappointed of it all.
TaggsR85 , 1 hour agoPolitics is like religion. Facts mean very little before the over powering light of belief
VAMPYRE ANGELUS , 4 hours agoHow does Horowitz believe this wasn’t politically motivated? What was the motivation to lie to surveillance to be put on carter page?
Bruce Lee , 4 hours agofbi is the mafia with badges..
Duncan McCockiner , 33 minutes agoThe FBI has too much power. It’s not about a few bad apples, it’s what can happen with a few bad apples.
Patrick Ryan , 1 hour agoIf I were an American citizen, I'd be very concerned about the utter incompetence of the FBI that the IG report exposed. The dems don't seem to be bothered by this at all. Go figure.
Richard Ralph Roehl , 5 hours agoThe Establishment has played this game many times before .. remember PM Harold Wilson was put up as a Russian Agent .. sure they won that game but NOT this time .. they fear President Trump because the have nothing over him .
tamimerkaz , 2 hours agoNOTHING will happen. There will be no indictments of any major deep-$tate players.
Cherrie Dee , 5 hours agoThe Democ-rats and the media (I repeat myself) are shamelessly LYING through their teeth to the American People. There was NO Russian collision—it's a HOAX made by LOSERS who can't accept their loss in 2016 so they were up to smear the winner, President Trump, by all means, possible including Illegal surveillance, fraud and manipulation—ABUSE of government power for political prosecution.
Scott Thompson , 4 hours agoSteele dossier......fake evidence bought and payed for by the democrats and presented to the FISA court by James Comey...........FELONY FELONY FELONY!......this one can’t be talked away!
Aisha Mohammed , 52 minutes agoTucker, thank you for being a constant drumbeat for the criminal activity undertaken by the FBI and CIA to ultimately unseat a duly elected President. No rest until they are held accountable.
BC Stud , 4 hours agoHow could the FBI be innocent? We saw the emails. We saw them cover up for Bill Gates, Clinton, Epstein, Brunel, and all the others. We saw how they protected these abusers of children. We saw how they worked to overthrow a sitting president. We saw how they protected the Awan’s and Huma.
2 Cent , 5 hours agoTHE FIX WAS IN - People are saying that Nellie Orr the Russian Expert is best friends with the IG's Horowitz wife - So nice - Bruce your husband is a lap dog and works for the FBI . People should be outraged as the cover up continues . Just like OJ - they have 10 times the evidence that would convict anyone else - have them charged , arrested , tried and jailed . Different rules for corrupt politicians and their friends in law enforcement .
Jessica Greene , 4 hours agoMichael Cohen In prison, Papadopulos went to prison, Flynn is going to prison, Roger Stone is going to prison, Manafort is in prison and Devin Nunes and Rudy Giuliani are under investigation.....Lock them up, lock them up!!!!
Susan Byers , 2 hours agoCIA tells FBI who in turn uses their corrupt media to spread the lies as truth. The less intelligent among us believe them as gospel and thus we get "Russian Collusion, or Quid Pro Quo, or Iraq has weapons of mass destruction " and on and on.....
Jennifer Griffin , 2 hours agoCarter Page is scarcely a victim, he was a CIA informant. He was a plant. He was an excuse to do surveillance EVERYONE.
kenh2o , 4 hours agoUkraine and Barisma may be corrupt, but after reading the summary of this report, this country better not be calling any country corrupt. The USA is following Rome. Soon it will die.
Rick Atkins , 5 hours agoFBI is totally corrupted by it's unchecked power, these deep states have the guts to repeatedly use FALSE Information again & again to spy on the opposition political party presidential candidate campaign. The Fake News medias continue to cover for them, it is sickening!
Daryl Leckt , 34 minutes ago (edited)The FBI based on the IG report are either criminally liable for deceiving FISA courts, or the most inept, bumbling criminal investigation agency ever. Looks like both to me. Any FBI agent or employee who knew the FBI was breaking the law, and remained silent needs to be fired immediately and prosecuted along with the principals, for aiding and abetting criminal activity. This sounds like RICO violations.
BrianC6234 , 2 hours agoif Carter Page didn't run the 2016 "Trump Election Campaign Committee of Moscow" from the ROSNEFT bureau offices inside the Kremlin, where did Carter Page run the "Trump Election Campaign Committee of Moscow" ?
Pal VB , 1 hour ago (edited)Horowitz needs to stop being a wuss and tell the whole truth. His report is a big lie. The whole thing was a political attack. It started with John McCain and he handed it off to Obama and Crooked Hillary. There was no reason at all to investigate Trump. Is the IG part of the deep state? Democrats are acting like this report is good news for them.
Me King , 4 hours agoSteele was not the author of the fake dossier, DNC FusionGPS Glen Simpson was, and Steele used as cover. Coming in the Durham findings. 17 FBI "mistakes" in a row all against Trump? No bias? B S.
Maclain Hunter , 2 hours agoHow Trump has "conned" the American tax payer: This is just a few of his fraud actions!He set up a foundation to benefit the military, then him and his family pocketed our money.He started a Fake University, then stole the money from the American people.He cheated on his wives, then paid them to keep quiet so it wouldn't damage his chances in the election.He stiffed 100's of worker's he hired and then made up an excuse y they didn't get paid
The World Through My Mind , 1 hour agoIf Donald Trump was a Russian spy it would’ve been the deepest cover of any secret agent ever....he came here after his lgb training as a young man and became a celebrity for 30 years before finally putting his dastardly plan to go from pageant owner to president into action! If that were anywhere close to true the Russians did so much work I think they earned the 4-8 years in the White House! I know that at this point I’d rather have Vladimir Putin as President than any of the top democrats!
lenchienlon , 3 hours agoFolks..All this soap opera is just a smoke screen to hide what is really important and is happening right now at this very minute. The Federal Reserve Banking cartel is pumping 100s of billions of dollars into insolvent banks again like they did in 2008. This time it is more and we taxpayers will again foot the bill. The banks are getting this money called REPO loans. Watch your cash everyone as the Federal Reserve has only 1 product and that is printing money( debt) that they will use to steal your assets and future.
There are many opinions about the Horowitz report. As with a prior report Horowitz lays out damning evidence and then draws exactly the wrong conclusion. Why does he have to draw ANY CONCLUSIONS? His job is to present the facts and the evidence and to let "We the People' draw conclusions. Reminds me of Comey declaring that Hillary's actions were irresponsible but not criminal. Why? She didn't act with intent. She was just incompetent! Tucker is absolutely right! What does it matter what their motive was? Like Clinton, they behaved in a criminal fashion.
|
|
|
Nov 27, 2019 | consortiumnews.com
The Washington Post and others just adhered to the Justice Department's own policy of protecting their own while wrecking the lives of those who have the guts to stand up to them.
By John Kiriakou
Special to Consortium NewsT he Washington Post and other media outlets last week reported that a former FBI attorney allegedly altered a document related to the FBI's 2016 surveillance of Carter Page, a Trump campaign adviser. FBI Inspector General Michael Horowitz apparently concluded that the conduct "did not affect the overall validity of the surveillance application," which was made with the secret FISA court.
Carter Page, target of the surveillance. (MSNBC, Wikimedia Commons)
The Post article, as well as articles in The New York Times , at CNN , and in other outlets, downplayed the behavior as having had "no effect" on the FBI's surveillance of Page, ignoring the fact that tampering with a federal document is a felony. That's consistent with the Justice Department's own policy of protecting their own while wrecking the lives of those who have the guts to stand up to them.
Publishing Excuses
Look at The Washington Post's original account of the inspector general's findings. The FBI attorney was just a "low-level employee" who has already "been forced out of the Bureau." The altered document "did not affect the overall validity of the surveillance application." The employee "erroneously indicated he had documentation to back up a claim he had made in discussions with the Justice Department about the factual basis for the application. He then altered an email to back up that erroneous claim."
Let's straighten a few things outs.
First, the employee was not "low-level." Attorneys enter the FBI at the GS-11 level. That's a starting salary of $69,581. On Day One of his career, the attorney would actually be a mid-level employee. Furthermore, "low-level employees" are not assigned to sensitive operations involving counterintelligence against a major-party presidential campaign. Hand-picked senior employees get that honor.
Second, even if the altered document didn't affect the FISA warrant application, the statement is irrelevant. The attorney committed a felony, plain and simple.
Third, the media says that the attorney "erroneously indicated" that he could back up the document. But that, too, was a felony. It's called "making a false statement" and it's punishable by up to five years in prison.
To make matters worse, there is no indication from the Justice Department that this attorney will be prosecuted. "He's already resigned," The Washington Post tells us, as if that's supposed to make everything OK. Why is the mainstream media shielding FBI malfeasance? For FBI crimes? Because the victim is the Trump campaign, and we're not supposed to like the Trump campaign. It's all about Russia, Russia, Russia, remember? If the evidence doesn't show that, you just change the evidence.
... ... ...
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act -- a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.
Brian James , December 1, 2019 at 21:08
March 2015 Trevor Aaronson: How this FBI strategy is actually creating US-based terrorists
There's an organization responsible for more terrorism plots in the United States than al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab and ISIS combined: The FBI. How? Why? In an eye-opening talk, investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson reveals a disturbing FBI practice that breeds terrorist plots by exploiting Muslim-Americans with mental health problems.
ted(dot)com/talks/trevor_aaronson_how_this_fbi_strategy_is_actually_creating_us_based_terrorists
JWalters , December 1, 2019 at 20:15
Our justice system and corporate news system are corrupt, i.e. criminal, as Mr. Kiriakou courageously reports. Further, this corruption is clearly coordinated. So who is directing it? The crimes of Israel are routinely ignored by the entire corporate media, acting as a functional monopoly. That is a clear clue. And as CN articles routinely document, the corporate news also acts in unison to promote more war in the Middle East. Watergate taught us to follow the money. Today the bank that financed the establishment of Israel is profiting from the Golan Heights oil fields stolen by Israel. Also, led by Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban, Israeli money dominates both political parties in America, dwarfing whatever minuscule efforts Russia may have made. The situation is, as Mr. Kiriakou notes, serious indeed.
Tim Jones , November 30, 2019 at 22:09
I've been thinking how much power William Barr could wield? Will he have an alligator mouth and a humming bird ass? Or is he going to deliver justice and clean house? Little hand slaps- and admonishments, or the fair application of the law. A good man or woman would risk all to right the ship of state and others will just retire with a book deal and a consulting job. Which is it Bill?
Tyler , November 30, 2019 at 03:57
Once again, a complete lack of accountability has allowed those entrusted with power over We the People run amok, destroying lives and with them the very foundations of what it means to participate in a democracy where the rule of law spikes to everyone. They have committed violence not only to their victims but also to their very credibility. Those who refuse to accede to their will are no longer violating the will of We the People but instead committing an act of courage. This is what the rot of empire looks like up close.
Nathan Mulcahy , November 29, 2019 at 13:58
Thank you John Kiriakou, for your ourage and sacrifice.
There is one misnomer in the article. Mainstream papers are neither"press" of organs of journalism. They are stenographers, or "presstitutes", if you so prefer.
Mark McCarty , November 29, 2019 at 11:01
This article focuses on one agent who altered a document involved in the FISA application targeting Carter Page. But the entire application was corrupt. The signatories attested under oath that the evidence presented – most prominently, sections of the Steele dossier mentioning Carter Page – had been verified. Yet they had not verified it, and the allegations were lies. The applicants indicated their belief that Page was acting as a Russian agent – yet Page had cooperated with the FBI in recent years to enable conviction of true Russian spies – a fact which the application left out. Also left out was the fact that the dossier was funded by the DNC and Clinton campaign as oppo research. The evident intent of the warrant was to spy not just on Page, but on other members of the Trump campaign who had contact with him – the "2 hop" rule. So, on the basis of "evidence" that anyone with half an ounce of sense could see was highly dubious and, in any case, wholly unverified – and concocted by political opponents – the FBI gained the right to spy on the Trump campaign.
If the people responsible for this are not indicted, then ANY political campaign in future can be spied on by the Deep State once some defamatory lies have been concocted by the campaign's opponents. This must not stand. Horowitz may look the other way on this, but I doubt Durham will.
lou e , December 1, 2019 at 19:11
The principle of 'follow the money' in government institutions like this usually leads to the conclusion that you are being screwed with your own tax dollars
John Mann , November 29, 2019 at 11:00
Interesting that Albury tells us that "Of the variables at their disposal, I was deemed to be a 'Greater Security Threat'" and that this was "misguided and inappropriate" – in other words, completely false.
What is interesting is that when Max Blumenthal was arrested he was described as "armed and dangerous" even though this was clearly untrue.
They have a way of getting at people who say things they don't like – presumably based on a particular hatred of them.
Robyn , November 29, 2019 at 02:09
I can add nothing to this article but I am pleased to be able to record my boundless admiration for John Kiriakou, Terry Albury, and all the others CN readers are sadly familiar with – heroes all. They stand head and shoulders above the cowards and hypocrites who turn a blind eye or play a role in persecuting their honest colleagues.
Sam F , November 28, 2019 at 20:51
Thank you, Mr. Kiriakou, and Mr. Albury for your efforts; indeed the fight for "honesty in government" is daunting. I do not expect to be happy while fighting corruption, but feel strongly that it is necessary. The greatest difficulty is the realization that almost everyone betrays the public-interest activist, in envy or hope of personal gain. Your stories encourage those able to take action.
Hank , November 29, 2019 at 11:07
Money and power attract the type of people who should NOT be entrusted with it.
Sam F , November 29, 2019 at 16:56
Exactly, Hank; and those lowest characters float to the top in an unregulated market economy. And of course the rich and economic power generally have seized control of our government, because the founders could not have foreseen the need to protect the institutions of democracy (all three federal branches and mass media) from economic power.
The federal government needs major repairs, but the tools of democracy are no longer available to the People.
robert e williamson jr , November 28, 2019 at 19:35
What is witnessed here is what happens when the rule of law does not prevail. The classic "double standard" appears. Things have been this way since at least since WWII.
In the past the slow pace of communications, that transfer of critical information of the highest levels, dictated by the speeds and flexibility of the communication technology available at the time enabled members of the intelligence community to more easily control their data.
Things have changed with that technology and I believe we are witnessing what happens when those who play fast and loose with the rules make mistakes now. Yep, they get found out and it doesn't take long. The up side is we tend now not to forget the lies told just days ago when "the forces of light" counters the "party line" and exposes the lies.
I also believe the chaos we are witnessing is the result of a lack of unity among the media. A media that has lost the trappings of being a worthy agent providing the TRUTH to American at large but has instead succumbed to the pressure to make big money.
We get truth more efficiently from independent media who worry more about content that the bottom line, while the MSM has sunk to the low standards of the "oldest profession".
Thanks to all who care enough to pursue the truth and make it available for the rest of us.
Sally , November 28, 2019 at 16:39
Walk a mile in Assange's shoes back and forth in a cell fit for no sentient being it makes me want to throw up
GMCasey , November 28, 2019 at 12:24
Having both literary and American history studies in college, I am now finding that the more I learn -- the less I know. It's almost as if the many governmental agencies are over flowing with mini Humpty Dumpties, on increasingly higher walls -- -- -- and I am dreading the fall of all those walls and the Humpty types. I am left with the bizarre words of the 1920s writer Gertrude Stein and what she said about the city of Oakland. It almost seems as if America has become that city of Oakland, where Stein once wrote that," there is no there -- there."
Maybe the many power seekers and takers are merely a throwback to the once upon a time king -- –Gerorge. Although, we seem to be in a curious wormhole -- at least Consortium News has made a readable path. Thank you.
Tomonthebeach , November 28, 2019 at 11:27
Life is unfair. We choose the people with whom we associate and the actions in which we engage on their behalf. There is no question that this situation involved inappropriate, even punitive, actions by government officials. However, the assumption that Page is an innocent in all this is likewise dubious. He had his agenda and his objectives, while self-promoting, remain cloudy.
The old adage about what happens when you lie down with dogs seem to apply in this case.
incontinent reader , November 29, 2019 at 08:26
Tomonthebeach- I don't understand your comment. Are you suggesting that it is likely that Page is guilty? Could you provide reasons and proof? And when you say this is what happens when you lie down with dogs, do you mean that by joining the Trump campaign he called upon himself all the illegal actions of the FBI, and should have expected to be set up?
And if you've read it, Mr. Kiriakou's article highlights systemic illegality and injustice at the FBI, including attacking all those who question it and fight for their rights. Maybe it is more appropriate to refer to the Bureau as the dogs in your adage.
Roger Owens , November 29, 2019 at 09:24
Page's guilt or innocence is totally irrelevant. Falsifying evidence is a felony. Falsifying evidence for a FISA warrant against a presidential candidate is a major crime which, left unpunished, encourages further outrages against out legal system, bu the very watchdogs set to protect it.
Jeff Harrison , November 29, 2019 at 11:20
It's not clear to me what you're thinking. Carter Page has never been charged with, much less convicted of illegal behavior. He was illegally surveilled by the FBI based on false testimony – the very epitome of the 9th commandment – Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Yet you think he should get fleas. Last time I checked, in this country you're supposed to be able to do anything you want as long as you don't break the law.
Dan Kuhn , November 29, 2019 at 12:51
So it is just fine with you that a lawyer working with the FBI altered documents to the FISA Court in order to frame Carter Page. It is fine with you that he walks free. The fact that the MSM in the USA agrees with you shows just how sad the state of the union actually is . And Americans are so gung ho on fighting corruption in other countries, especially those they are currently demonizing. Talk about sick countries.
michael , November 29, 2019 at 16:42
Am I to infer that the FBI are "fleas"? Possibly the type carrying the Black Plague?
A basic tenet of American Law used to be the presumption of innocence for the accused. These cases John Kiriakou presents, and his own as well, provide evidence that the Intelligence Agencies are now Judge, Jury and Executioner of those who cross them. A Police State amok.Tony , November 28, 2019 at 08:57
Is the FBI still doing the sort of things that it did when Hoover was in charge?
Hank , November 29, 2019 at 11:08
Can a bird fly?
Georgia , November 30, 2019 at 11:32
Worse. Now they have no problem trying to "fix" Presidential elections to install the Candidate they are in bed with– in 2016 that was Hillary Clinton who committed numerous Felonies that FBI Head James Comey et al both covered up and let the evidence be destroyed by here and her lackeys & they also now have attempted to frame a duly elected President that they did not support and who beat "their" candidate with a phony "Russia Collusion" hoax/fraud–
So it is easy to argue that Hoover was actually a piker compared to the miscreants and serious felons "running" the FBI (and their buddies at the CIA .) today the fact that if you are "inside" with these criminals you don't get prosecuted is amazing to watch– the DOJ and FBI are little more than criminal organizations now to anyone paying attention– perjury, frame jobs, political hatchet work etc. -- people need to wake up that the KGB was actually less of a problem for the people in the USSR because they were all aware of what was up– most in the USA due to the complicit Mainslime Media have no clue that the country has devolved into a banana Republic run by criminals -- the FBI "Lab" was actually just fabricating evidence for many years framing people at the request of Field Agents–this is now a PROVEN FACT there is no dispute the "Lab" did this for well over a decade, even in Death Penalty cases they were doing this .– almost no one knows about it of course, the country is a sad joke–
The fact Hillary Clinton can even be given consideration as a possible "Candidate" again is amazing given what she has pulled and what she has done to the country thru her frauds and machinations, Ma Barker was born at the wrong time she could be in the running for Federal Office these days even with her final life "resume" .
AnneR , November 28, 2019 at 08:17
Thank you Mr Kiriakou for this further confirmation of the lies and obfuscations, the intrinsically duplicitous and hypocritical nature of all aspects of our government (and I do believe that it is all facets), their ever-ramifying, largely secret agencies (that apparently answer to no one, certainly no one in the lower 90% of the population whose taxes actually fund all of it) and the ruling elites who control it all to their sole benefit, of course.
One is – again – confronted with the ongoing, starkly hypocritical difference in "treatment" and publicity between the so-called White House "whistleblower" on Trump's phone call with Zelensky and real whistleblowers such as Mr Allbury as presented in the MSM. The former (really just a "leaker" of second-hand chit-chat) is lauded by the Dems who were more than willing to denounce, charge and incarcerate genuine whistleblowers, like Mr Allbury, Chelsea Manning and others. who made apparent the really existing war crimes, law-breaking, racism, lies and other malfeasant actions of these agencies of the ruling elites and *their* government stooges.
The rank hypocrisy of government, of their masters, of the secret agencies *and* the judiciary at all levels is nauseating beyond belief. And its drenched Russo-phobic, Cold War, Warmongering, "we're the planet's rulers" worldview underlies all of it.
Piotr Berman , November 28, 2019 at 00:16
[Inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz decided that] The altered document "did not affect the overall validity of the surveillance application."
This is actually quite possible if FICA reads only the requests and ignores the justification. Inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz presumably has enough experience to make that judgement.
|
|
|
Dec 06, 2019 | www.investmentwatchblog.com
October 3, 2019 by IWB Facebook 0 Twitter Email RSS feed - Syndicate IWB Subscribe To Our Newsletter
by datascientist36
CrowdStrike had 2 people that used to work for Mueller and one was part of the Atlantic Council. Atlantic Council has ties to Burisma Group (Hunter Biden), Big Clinton donors and Ukraine.
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=3387
No intel agency ever saw the evidence. They only saw a redacted report provided by CrowdStrike.
Proof:
Official Court Document – Short versionOfficial Court Document – Full Version
Proof that multiple members of the CrowdStrike team worked for Mueller and Atlantic Council –
Dimitry Alperovich – Co-Founder and CTO. Crowdstrike "investigated" the hacking of the DNC's servers. The FBI was refused access to independently examine the DNC servers. Former NSA experts later claim it wasn't a hack, but a leak by someone with access to the DNC's system. Alperovich is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. Former McAfee Executive.
George Kurtz – Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Former McAfee Executive.
Steven Chabinsky – Former General Counsel and Chief Risk Officer (9/12-4/16). Appointed by Obama to the Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity on April 18, 2016 – two months before Crowdstrike report. Former Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Cyber Division and FBI's top cyber lawyer during Mueller's tenure as FBI Director. Now a Partner at White & Case – a D.C. law firm.
Shawn Henry – CSO and President of Crowdstrike Services since April 2012. Previously the FBI's Executive Assistant Director of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch – appointed by FBI Director Mueller.
Robert Johnston – Principal Consultant & Incident Response Expert. Lead investigator on the DNC server investigation. Previously, Marine Corps captain in U.S. Cyber Command. Team Lead of 81 National Cyber Protection Team. Left Crowdstrike in August 2016 and co-founded cybersecurity firm Adlumin. The FBI has never spoken with Johnston.
Burisma Group and Atlantic Council connection proof –
Burisma Group WebsiteThe Atlantic Council of the United States and Burisma Group, an independent gas producer in Ukraine, have announced a cooperative agreement. Atlantic Council will develop programs with Burisma's support to strengthen transatlantic relations, including a focus on energy security and related issues.
This is the company that Hunter Biden had connections too and this is the company that was being investigated by the Ukraine Prosecutor that Biden got removed due to bribing the Ukraine with $1B.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden
Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings, a major Ukrainian natural gas producer, from 2014 to 2019.
Proof of Biden bribing them –
Video where he admits to it and brags about it
Memo from the prosecutor that was removed
Atlantic Council –
Mr. Victor Pinchuk, Founder, East One Ltd.
Clinton Foundation's Deep Financial Ties to Ukrainian Oligarch Revealed
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=3387
Between 2009 and 2013, including when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, according to that foundation, which is based in Kiev, Ukraine.
Schiff Staffer recently made an august visit to Ukraine. Sponsored by the Atlantic Council
The Schiff staffer, Thomas Eager, is also currently one of 19 fellows at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Congressional Fellowship, a bipartisan program that says it "educates congressional staff on current events in the Eurasia region."
Eager's trip to Ukraine last month was part of the fellowship program and included nine other House employees. The bi-partisan visit, from August 24 to August 31, was billed as a "Ukraine Study Trip," and culminated in a meeting with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
The dates of the pre-planned trip are instructive. Eager's visit to Ukraine sponsored by the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council began 12 days after the so-called whistleblower officially filed his August 12 complaint about President Donald Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
FYI: This is why the media and the dems have been doing everything they can to spin the narratives to distract from all this. Most of this info people don't know about so it needed to be shared.
What Is CrowdStrike And How Are They Connected To Ukraine?
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. This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third-party for information. These actions caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier,"
The CrowdStrike report implicated Russia for the DNC hack, leading to the two-plus years of Russiagate–but there's more. To this day neither the DOJ nor the FBI has a complete copy of the CrowdStrike report According to the Department of Justice, in its response to the Roger Stone defense asking for a copy of the CrowdStrike report, lawyers for the DNC and DCCC provided redacted draft copies of the CrowdStrike report "to the government." They never saw the full report.
Perhaps the FBI trusted CrowdStrike's report because the company's executive Shawn Henry, who led the forensics team that ultimately blamed Russia for the DNC hack served as assistant director at the FBI under Mueller.
CrowdStrike has ties to the Obama team, is friends with Hillary Clinton, former Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko, and connected to Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk, another friend of the DNC and someone who donated $10 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Tying it all together, the CrowdStrike document (if the full report ever existed) may have been one more element of the DNC/Deep State effort to end the Trump Presidency before it started If everything was above board -- why didn't the FBI demand to examine the DNC server or the entire CrowdStrike report?
Why is the Media Ignoring Obama's Role in the Biden-Ukraine Controversy?
The simplest answer may be that there isn't really much "conservative" media left to care.
But we do and Obama's fingerprints are all over this too.
Everything Biden does lately seems to be done without much thought of potential consequences, but that's the subject of another article.
Examine this quote from Joe Biden :
"They were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, we're not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, 'You have no authority. You're not the president -- the president said' I said, 'Call him.' I said, 'I'm telling you, you're not getting the billion dollars.' I said, you're not getting the billion. I looked at them and said, 'I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money.' Well, son of a b -- -. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time."
|
|
|
Dec 05, 2019 | aim4truth.org
....Also discussed at length is connection between the Ukrainian Atlantic Council to the DNC, Clintons, NATO, Evelyn Farkas, George Soros, and the globalist gangsters . The anti-Russian propaganda of NATO's Cold War machine (Atlantic Council) used Dmitri Alperovitch's Crowdstrike to disrupt the U. S. Presidential election and Ukrainian/Russian relations. Additional resources to support the audio discussion are:
The official Director of National Intelligence Agency report on Russian hacking (meddling) in the U. S. presidential election is hyperlinked below – thirteen pages of a big "nothing burger" that does not have a single piece of evidence. This is an embarrassing waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars. .
Note that the entire "evidence" on Russian hacking of the DNC server is one paragraph containing zero evidence.Another fake intelligence report claims to describe how Dmitri Alperovitch's Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear work in cyberspace. This report is another sad, expensive report that is nothing more than a disinformation piece produced and published by two U.S. intelligence agencies – the FBI and Department of Homeland Security – to propagandize Americans. What the report actually describes is well-known and freely available Ukrainian malware that is old and has nothing to do with Russia.
GRIZZLY STEPPE – Russian Malicious Cyber Activity
The report does not prove that Russia hacked the 2016 U.S. election, but it does reveal that the PHP malware sample that the government provided from the CrowdStrike report is:
- An old version of malware. The sample was version 3.1.0 and the current version is 3.1.7 with 4.1.1 beta also available.
- Freely available to anyone who wants it.
- The authors claim they are Ukrainian, not Russian.
- The malware is an administrative tool used by hackers to upload files, view files on a hacked website, download database contents and so on. It is used as one step in a series of steps that would occur during an attack.
Wordfence (cyber analysis company) analyzed the IP addresses available in the declassified report and demonstrated that they are in 61 countries, belong to over 380 organizations and many of those organizations are well known website hosting providers from where many attacks originate. There is nothing in the IP data that points to Russia specifically.
Furthermore, the report claims to contain technical details regarding the tools and infrastructure used by the Russian civilian and military intelligence services to compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the U.S. election, as well as a range of U.S. Government, political, and private sector entities.
If you read this report, remember that it is propaganda, and the authors assume that you know nothing about anything and count on you "believing" multiple U.S. intelligence agencies who really work for the Deep State and not the American people.
|
|
|
Dec 05, 2019 | clintonfoundationtimeline.com
March 23, 2017 – Crowdstrike co-founder and donor to the Clinton Foundation, Dmitri Alperovitch, is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank with openly anti-Russian sentiments"The cyber security firm outsourced by the Democratic National Committee , CrowdStrike, reportedly misread data, falsely attributing a hacking in Ukraine to the Russians in December 2016 . Voice of America , a US Government funded media outlet, reported, "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.
( ) The investigation methods used to come to the conclusion that the Russian Government led the hacks of the DNC , Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta, and the DCCC were further called into question by a recent BuzzFeed report by Jason Leopold, who has developed a notable reputation from leading several non-partisan Freedom of Information Act lawsuits for investigative journalism purposes. On March 15 that the Department of Homeland Security released just two heavily redacted pages of unclassified information in response to an FOIA request for definitive evidence of Russian election interference allegations. Leopold wrote, "what the agency turned over to us and Ryan Shapiro, a PhD candidate at MIT and a research affiliate at Harvard University, is truly bizarre: a two-page intelligence assessment of the incident, dated Aug. 22, 2016, that contains information DHS culled from the internet. It's all unclassified -- yet DHS covered nearly everything in wide swaths of black ink. Why? Not because it would threaten national security, but because it would reveal the methods DHS uses to gather intelligence, methods that may amount to little more than using Google."
Hillary Clinton accepts the Atlantic Council's 2013 Distinguished International Leadership Award. (Credit: YouTube)
In lieu of substantive evidence provided to the public that the alleged hacks which led to Wikileaks releases of DNC and Clinton Campaign Manager John Podesta's emails were orchestrated by the Russian Government, CrowdStrike's bias has been cited as undependable in its own assessment, in addition to its skeptical methods and conclusions. The firm's CTO and co-founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank with openly anti-Russian sentiments that is funded by Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk, who also happened to donate at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation .
In 2013 , the Atlantic Council awarded Hillary Clinton it's Distinguished International Leadership Award. In 2014 , the Atlantic Council hosted one of several events with former Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk , who took over after pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in early 2014 , who now lives in exile in Russia." (Read more: CounterPunch, 3/23/2017)
Share this:
- Arseniy Yatsenyuk
- Atlantic Council
- DCCC
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
- Dmitri Alperovitch
- DNC server
- FOIA lawsuit
- John Podesta
- March 2017
- Russian bias
- Ukraine
- Victor Pinchuk
- Viktor Yanukovych
December 30, 2016 – The credibility of cyber firm Crowdstrike, claiming Russia hacked the DNC, comes under serious questionJeffrey Carr (Credit: Vimeo)
"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.
Jeffrey Carr was one of the most prominent cynics, and as he noted in his December post, FBI/DHS Joint Analysis Report: A Fatally Flawed Effort :
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.
Unlike Crowdstrike, ESET doesn't assign APT28/Fancy Bear/Sednit to a Russian Intelligence Service or anyone else for a very simple reason. Once malware is deployed, it is no longer under the control of the hacker who deployed it or the developer who created it. It can be reverse-engineered, copied, modified, shared and redeployed again and again by anyone. In other words -- malware deployed is malware enjoyed!
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.
If it's classified, an independent commission should review it because this entire assignment of blame against the Russian government is looking more and more like a domestic political operation run by the White House that relied heavily on questionable intelligence generated by a for-profit cybersecurity firm with a vested interest in selling "attribution-as-a-service".
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?
As The Hill reported in January :
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. "
(Read more: Michael Krieger/Liberty Blitzkrieg, 3/22/2017)
Share this:
- APT28
- Crowdstrike
- December 2016
- Dmitri Alperovitch
- DNC hack
- Fancy Bear
- Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)
- Jeffrey Carr
- malware
- misread data
- Russian Intelligence
- Sednit
- Ukraine
- Wikileaks
- X-Agent
December 29, 2016 – Tech experts disagree with Crowdstrike's assessment and are critical of the FBI/DHS Joint Analysis Report (JAR)( ) " Breitbart News has interviewed tech experts who do not agree with the CrowdStrike assessment or Obama administration's claims that the DNC/DCCC hacks clearly committed by Russian state actors, with much criticism aimed at the FBI/DHS Joint Analysis Report (JAR) "Grizzly Steppe" that was released at the end of December . As ZDNet reported after the JAR report was released by the Obama administration on the same day that they announced sanctions against Russia:
Mark Maunder, CEO, Wordfence (Credit: public domain)
The JAR included "specific indicators of compromise, including IP addresses and a PHP malware sample." But what does this really prove? Wordfence, a WordPress security company specializing in analyzing PHP malware, examined these indicators and didn't find any hard evidence of Russian involvement. Instead, Wordfence found the attack software was P.AS. 3.1.0, an out-of-date, web-shell hacking tool. The newest version, 4.1.1b, is more sophisticated. Its website claims it was written in the Ukraine.
Mark Maunder, Wordfence's CEO, concluded that since the attacks were made "several versions behind the most current version of P.A.S sic which is 4.1.1b. One might reasonably expect Russian intelligence operatives to develop their own tools or at least use current malicious tools from outside sources."
Rob Graham, CEO of Errata Security (Credit: public domain)
True, as Errata Security CEO Rob Graham pointed out in a blog post, P.A.S is popular among Russia/Ukraine hackers. But it's "used by hundreds if not thousands of hackers, mostly associated with Russia, but also throughout the rest of the world." In short, just because the attackers used P.A.S., that's not enough evidence to blame it on the Russian government.
Independent cybersecurity experts, such as Jeffrey Carr , have cited numerous errors that the media and CrowdStrike have made in discussing the hacking in what Carr refers to as a " runaway train " of misinformation.
For example, CrowdStrike has named a threat group that they have given the name "Fancy Bear" for the hacks and then said this threat group is Russian intelligence. In December 2016 , Carr wrote in a post on Medium :
A common misconception of "threat group" is that [it] refers to a group of people. It doesn't. Here's how ESET describes SEDNIT, one of the names for the threat group known as APT28, Fancy Bear, etc. This definition is found on p.12 of part two "En Route with Sednit: Observing the Comings and Goings":
As security researchers, what we call "the Sednit group" is merely a set of software and the related network infrastructure, which we can hardly correlate with any specific organization.
Unlike CrowdStrike, ESET doesn't assign APT28/Fancy Bear/Sednit to a Russian Intelligence Service or anyone else for a very simple reason. Once malware is deployed, it is no longer under the control of the hacker who deployed it or the developer who created it. It can be reverse-engineered, copied, modified, shared and redeployed again and again by anyone.
Despite these and other criticisms from technical experts with no political ax to grind, the House Intelligence Committee has called no independent cybersecurity professionals to challenge the Democrats' claims of "Russian hacking" that have been repeated ad naseum by the media.
Instead of presenting counter-arguments to allow the general public to make up their own minds, the House committee has invited Shawn Henry and Dmitri Alperovitch from CrowdStrike. (Read more: Breitbart, 3/09/2017)
Share this:
- APT28
- Crowdstrike
- Crowdstrike Report
- December 2016
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
- Dmitri Alperovitch
- Errata Security
- ESET
- Fancy Bear
- Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)
- Grizzly Steppe
- Jeffrey Carr
- Joint Analysis Report (JAR)
- malware
- Mark Maunder
- Rob Graham
- Russia hacking
- Sednit
- Shawn Henry
- Ukraine
- Wordfence
January 2015 – May 25, 2016: There are 14,409 emails in the Wikileaks DNC email archive that are taken after Crowdstrike installs their security software"Yesterday, Scott Ritter published a savage and thorough critique of the role of Dmitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike, who are uniquely responsible for the attribution of the DNC hack to Russia. Ritter calls it "one of the greatest cons in modern American history". Ritter's article gives a fascinating account of an earlier questionable incident in which Alperovitch first rose to prominence – his attribution of the "Shady Rat" malware to the Chinese government at a time when there was a political appetite for such an attribution. Ritter portrays the DNC incident as Shady Rat 2. Read the article.
My post today is a riff on a single point in the Ritter article, using analysis that I had in inventory but not written up. I've analysed the dates of the emails in the Wikileaks DNC email archive: the pattern (to my knowledge) has never been analysed. The results are a surprise – standard descriptions of the incident are misleading.
Nov 7, 2017 : story picked up by Luke Rosniak at Daily Caller here
On April 29 , DNC IT staff noticed anomalous activity and brought it to the attention of senior DNC officials: Chairwoman of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, DNC's Chief Executive, Amy Dacey, the DNC's Technology Director, Andrew Brown, and Michael Sussman, a lawyer for Perkins Coie, a Washington, DC law firm that represented the DNC. After dithering for a few days, on May 4, the DNC (Sussman) contacted Crowdstrike (Shawn Henry), who installed their software on May 5 .
Dmitri Alperovich sits before a Crowdstrike/DNC timeline published by Esquire, with one addition by an observant viewer. (Credit: Christopher Leaman/Esquire)
According to a hagiography of Crowdstrike's detection by Thomas Rid last year, Crowdstrike detected "Russia" in the network in the early morning of May 6 :
At six o'clock on the morning of May 6 , Dmitri Alperovitch woke up in a Los Angeles hotel to an alarming email. Alperovitch is the thirty-six-year-old cofounder of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, and late the previous night, his company had been asked by the Democratic National Committee to investigate a possible breach of its network. A CrowdStrike security expert had sent the DNC a proprietary software package, called Falcon, that monitors the networks of its clients in real time. Falcon "lit up," the email said, within ten seconds of being installed at the DNC: Russia was in the network.
In many accounts of the incident (e.g. Wikipedia here ), it's been reported that "both groups of intruders were successfully expelled from the systems within hours after detection". This was not the case, as Ritter pointed out: data continued to be exfiltrated AFTER the installation of Crowdstrike software, including the emails that ultimately brought down Wasserman-Schultz:
Moreover, the performance of CrowdStrike's other premier product, Overwatch, in the DNC breach leaves much to be desired. Was CrowdStrike aware that the hackers continued to exfiltrate data (some of which ultimately proved to be the undoing of the DNC Chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and the entire DNC staff) throughout the month of May 2016, while Overwatch was engaged?
This is an important and essentially undiscussed question.
Distribution of Dates
The DNC Leak emails are generally said to commence in January 2015 (e.g. CNN here ) and continue until the Crowdstrike expulsion. In other email leak archives (e.g Podesta emails; Climategate), the number of emails per month tends to be relatively uniform (at least to one order of magnitude). However, this is not the case for the DNC Leak as shown in the below graphic of the number of emails per day:
Figure 1. Number of emails per day in Wikileaks DNC archive from Jan 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016. Calculated from monthly data through March 31, 2016 , then weekly until April 15 , then daily. No emails after May 25, 2016 .
There are only a couple of emails per month (~1/day) through 2015 and up to April 18, 2016 . Nearly all of these early emails were non-confidential emails involving DNCPress or innocuous emails to/from Jordan Kaplan of the DNC. There is a sudden change on April 19, 2016 when 425 emails in the archive. This is also the first day on which emails from hillaryclinton.com occur in the archive – a point that is undiscussed, but relevant given the ongoing controversy about security of the Clinton server (the current version of which was never examined by the FBI) The following week, the number of daily emails in the archive exceeded 1000, reaching a maximum daily rate of nearly 1500 in the third week of May . There is a pronounced weekly cycle to the archive (quieter on the week-ends).
Rid's Esquire hagiography described a belated cleansing of the DNC computer system on June 10-12 , following which Crowdstrike celebrated:
Ultimately, the teams decided it was necessary to replace the software on every computer at the DNC. Until the network was clean, secrecy was vital. On the afternoon of Friday, June 10 , all DNC employees were instructed to leave their laptops in the office. Alperovitch told me that a few people worried that Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, was clearinghouse. "Those poor people thought they were getting fired," he says. For the next two days, three CrowdStrike employees worked inside DNC headquarters, replacing the software and setting up new login credentials using what Alperovitch considers to be the most secure means of choosing a password: flipping through the dictionary at random. (After this article was posted online, Alperovitch noted that the passwords included random characters in addition to the words.) The Overwatch team kept an eye on Falcon to ensure there were no new intrusions. On Sunday night, once the operation was complete, Alperovitch took his team to celebrate at the Brazilian steakhouse Fogo de Chão.
Curiously, the last email in the archive was noon, May 25 – about 14 days before Crowdstrike changed all the passwords on the week-end of June 10-12 . Two days later ( June 14 ), the DNC arranged for a self-serving article in the Washington Post in which they announced the hack and blamed it on the Russians. Crowdstrike published a technical report purporting to support the analysis and the story went viral.
There were no fewer than 14409 emails in the Wikileaks archive dating after Crowdstrike's installation of its security software. In fact, more emails were hacked after Crowdstrike's discovery on May 6 than before . Whatever actions were taken by Crowdstrike on May 6 , they did nothing to stem the exfiltration of emails from the DNC. (Read more: Climate Audit/Steve McIntire, 9/02/2017)
Share this:
|
|
|
Jul 09, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Which brings me to the newest piece to drop, CrowdStrikeOut: Mueller's Own Report Undercuts Its Core Russia Meddling Claims .
Most of the material in this article will be familiar to regular readers of SST because I wrote about it first. Here are the key conclusions:
- The report uses qualified and vague language to describe key events, indicating that Mueller and his investigators do not actually know for certain whether Russian intelligence officers stole Democratic Party emails, or how those emails were transferred to WikiLeaks.
- The report's timeline of events appears to defy logic. According to its narrative, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced the publication of Democratic Party emails not only before he received the documents but before he even communicated with the source that provided them.
- There is strong reason to doubt Mueller's suggestion that an alleged Russian cutout called Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen emails to Assange.
- Mueller's decision not to interview Assange – a central figure who claims Russia was not behind the hack – suggests an unwillingness to explore avenues of evidence on fundamental questions.
- U.S. intelligence officials cannot make definitive conclusions about the hacking of the Democratic National Committee computer servers because they did not analyze those servers themselves. Instead, they relied on the forensics of CrowdStrike, a private contractor for the DNC that was not a neutral party, much as "Russian dossier" compiler Christopher Steele, also a DNC contractor, was not a neutral party. This puts two Democrat-hired contractors squarely behind underlying allegations in the affair – a key circumstance that Mueller ignores.
- Further, the government allowed CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party's legal counsel to submit redacted records, meaning CrowdStrike and not the government decided what could be revealed or not regarding evidence of hacking.
- Mueller's report conspicuously does not allege that the Russian government carried out the social media campaign. Instead it blames, as Mueller said in his closing remarks, "a private Russian entity" known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA).
- Mueller also falls far short of proving that the Russian social campaign was sophisticated, or even more than minimally related to the 2016 election. As with the collusion and Russian hacking allegations, Democratic officials had a central and overlooked hand in generating the alarm about Russian social media activity.
- John Brennan, then director of the CIA, played a seminal and overlooked role in all facets of what became Mueller's investigation: the suspicions that triggered the initial collusion probe; the allegations of Russian interference; and the intelligence assessment that purported to validate the interference allegations that Brennan himself helped generate. Yet Brennan has since revealed himself to be, like CrowdStrike and Steele, hardly a neutral party -- in fact a partisan with a deep animus toward Trump.
I encourage you to read the piece. It is well written and provides an excellent overview of critical events in the flawed investigation.
|
|
|
Dec 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Originally from: The Intelligence Whistleblower protection Act did not apply to the phone call ... Reposted - Sic Semper Tyrannis
Factotum , 20 November 2019 at 01:02 PM
The favor was for Ukraine to investigate Crowdstrike and the 2016 DNC computer breach.vig -> Factotum... , 21 November 2019 at 11:00 AMReliance on Crowdstrike to investigate the DNC computer, and not an independent FBI investigation, was tied very closely to the years long anti-Trump Russiagate hoax and waste of US taxpayer time and money.
Why is this issue ignored by both the media and the Democrats. The ladies doth protest far too much.
what exactly, to the extend I recall, could the Ukraine contribute the the DNC's server/"fake malware" troubles? Beyond, that I seem to vaguely recall, the supposed malware was distributed via an Ukrainan address.David Habakkuk -> vig... , 21 November 2019 at 12:53 PMOn the other hand, there seems to be the (consensus here?) argument there was no malware breach at all, simply an insider copying files on a USB stick.
It seems to either or. No?
What basics am I missing?
vig,Factotum -> vig... , 21 November 2019 at 01:45 PMThere is no reason why it should be 'either/or'.
If people discovered there had been a leak, it would perfectly natural that in order to give 'resilience' to their cover-up strategies, they could have organised a planting of evidence on the servers, in conjunction with elements in Ukraine.
So far at least I cannot rule out the possibility that that this could have involved an actual 'false flag' hack. A possible calculation would have been that this could have made it easier for Alperovitch and 'CrowdStrike', if more people had asked serious questions about the evidence they claimed supported the 'narrative' of GRU responsibility.
The issues involved become all the more important, in the light of the progress of Ty Clevenger's attempts to exploit the clear contradiction between the claims by the FBI, in response to FOIA requests, to have no evidence relating to Seth Rich, and the remarks by Ms. Deborah Sines quoted by Michael Isikoff.
What she suggested was that the FBI had found evidence, after his death, of a hack of Rich's laptop, designed as part of a 'false flag' operation.
On this, see his 8 October, 'Motion for Discovery and Motion to Accept Supplemental Evidence' in Clevenger's own case against the DOJ, document 44 on the relevant 'Courtlistener' pages, and his 'Unopposed Motion for Stay', document 48. Both are short, and available without a 'PACER' subscription, and should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in ascertaining the truth about 'Russiagate.' (See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6775665/clevenger-v-us-department-of-justice/ .)
It is eminently possible that Ms. Hines has simply made an 'unforced error.'
However, I do not – yet – feel able totally to discount the possibility that what is actually at issue is a 'ruse', produced as a contingency plan to ensure that if it becomes impossible to maintain the cover-up over Rich's involvement in its original form, his laptop shows 'evidence' compatible with the 'Russiagate' narrative.
And here, is is also material that he may have had more than one laptop, that 'hard drives' can be changed, and that the level of computer skills that can be found throughout the former Soviet Union is very high. Another matter of some importance is that Ed Butowsky's 'Debunking Rod Wheeler's Claims' site is back up online. (See http://debunkingrodwheelersclaims.net )
Looking at it from the perspective of an old television current affairs hack, I do think that, while it is very helpful to have some key material available in a single place, it would useful if more attention was paid to presentation.
In particular, it would be a most helpful 'teaching aid', if a full and accurate transcript was made of the conversation with Seymour Hersh which Ed Butowsky covertly recorded. What seems clear is that both these figures ended up in very difficult positions, and that the latter clearly engaged in 'sleight of hand' in relation to his dealings with the former. That said, the fact that Butowsky's claims about his grounds for believing that Hersh's FBI informant was Andrew McCabe are clearly disingenuous does not justify the conclusion that he is wrong.
It is absolutely clear to me – despite what 'TTG', following that 'Grub Street' hack Folkenflik, claimed – that when Hersh talked to Butowsky, he believed he had been given accurate information. Indeed, I have difficulty seeing how anyone whose eyes were not hopelessly blinded by prejudice, a\nd possibly fear of where a quest for the truth might lead, could not see that, in this conversation, both men were telling the truth, as they saw it.
However, all of us, including the finest and most honourable of journalists can, from time to time, fall for disinformation. (If anyone says they can always spot when they are being played, all I can say is, if you're right, you're clearly Superman, but it is more likely that you are a fool or knave, if not both.)
The question of whether the 'timeline' produced by Hersh's FBI informant was accurate, or a deliberate attempt to disguise the fact that all kinds of people were well aware of Rich's involvement before his murder, and well aware of the fact of a leak before he was identified as its source, is absolutely central to how one interprets 'Russiagate.'
Several loose end issues about Crowdstrike:1. Why did Crowdstrike conclude it was a "Russian breach", when other evidence does show it was an internal download. What was Crowdstrike's method and motivation to reach the "Russian" conclusion instead. Why has that methodology been sealed?
2. Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.
3. What were the relationships between Crowdstrike, DNC, FBI and the Mueller team that conspired to reach this Russian conclusion.
4. Why did the Roger Stone judge, who just sent Stone away for life, refuse Stone's evidentiary demand to ascertain how exactly Crowdstrike reached its Russsian hacking conclusion, that the court then linked to Stone allegedly lying about this Russian link .
5. Indeed, let's set out with full transparency the Ukraine -- Crowsdtrike player links and loyalties to see if there are any smoking guns yet undisclosed. Trump was asking for more information about Crowdstrike like a good lawyer - never ask a question when you don't already know the right answer. Crowdstrike is owned by a Ukrainian by birth .
likbez said in reply to Factotum... , 04 December 2019 at 01:29 AM
Hi Factotum,Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.Alperovich is really a very suspicious figure. Rumors are that he was involved in compromising PGP while in MacAfee( June 2nd, 2018 Alperovich's DNC Cover Stories Soon To Match With His Hacking Teams - YouTube ):
Investigative Journalist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the CEO Bill Larsen bought a small, Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to Silicon Valley.
MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate to reduce NSA spying on the public.
The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order to crack encrypted communications to write a back door for law enforcement.Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike.
In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives.
His role in what we may define as "converting DNC leak into DNC hack" (I would agree with you that this probably was a false flag operation), which was supposedly designed to implicated Russians, and possibly involved Ukrainian security services, is very suspicious indeed.
Mueller treatment of Crowdstrike with "kid gloves" may suggest that Alperovich actions were part of a larger scheme. After all Crowdstike was a FBI contactor at the time.
While all this DNC hack saga is completely unclear due to lack of facts and the access to the evidence, there are some stories on Internet that indirectly somewhat strengthen your hypothesis:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/92i8dd/cyberanalyst_george_eliason_claims_that_the_fancy/
- https://www.conservapedia.com/Fancy_Bear
- http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Corporatism/National_security_state/Intelligence_services/False_flag_operations/False_flag_malware/fbi_and_cia_contractor_crowdstike.shtml
- http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Neocons/Hillary/guccifer20_false_flag_operation.shtml
Enjoy and Happy Cyber Week shopping :-)
|
|
|
Sep 28, 2019 | www.breitbart.com
There are common threads that run through an organization repeatedly relied upon in the so-called whistleblower's complaint about President Donald Trump and CrowdStrike, the outside firm utilized to conclude that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee's servers since the DNC would not allow the U.S. government to inspect the servers.
One of several themes is financing tied to Google, whose Google Capital led a $100 million funding drive that financed Crowdstrike. Google Capital, which now goes by the name of CapitalG, is an arm of Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, has been a staunch and active supporter of Hillary Clinton and is a longtime donor to the Democratic Party.
CrowdStrike was mentioned by Trump in his call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign, reportedly helped draft CrowdStrike to aid with the DNC's allegedly hacked server.
On behalf of the DNC and Clinton's campaign, Perkins Coie also paid the controversial Fusion GPS firm to produce the infamous, largely-discredited anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
CrowdStrike is a California-based cybersecurity technology company co-founded by Dmitri Alperovitch.
Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward Russia. The Council in turn is financed by Google Inc.
In a perhaps unexpected development, another Atlantic Council funder is Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Those allegations were the subject of Trump's inquiry with Zelemsky related to Biden. The Biden allegations concern significant questions about Biden's role in Ukraine policy under the Obama administration. This took place during a period when Hunter Biden received $50,000 a month from Burisma.
Besides Google and Burisma funding, the Council is also financed by billionaire activist George Soros's Open Society Foundations as well as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc. and the U.S. State Department.
Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 presidential race.
The charges in the July 22 report referenced in the whistleblower's document and released by the Google and Soros-funded organization, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), seem to be the public precursors for a lot of the so-called whistleblower's own claims, as Breitbart News documented .
One key section of the so-called whistleblower's document claims that "multiple U.S. officials told me that Mr. Giuliani had reportedly privately reached out to a variety of other Zelensky advisers, including Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan and Acting Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov."
This was allegedly to follow up on Trump's call with Zelensky in order to discuss the "cases" mentioned in that call, according to the so-called whistleblower's narrative. The complainer was clearly referencing Trump's request for Ukraine to investigate the Biden corruption allegations.
Even though the statement was written in first person – "multiple U.S. officials told me" – it contains a footnote referencing a report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
That footnote reads:
In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on 22 July, two associates of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019 and met with Mr. Bakanov and another close Zelensky adviser, Mr. Serhiy Shefir.
The so-called whistleblower's account goes on to rely upon that same OCCRP report on three more occasions. It does so to:
Write that Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko "also stated that he wished to communicate directly with Attorney General Barr on these matters." Document that Trump adviser Rudi Giuliani "had spoken in late 2018 to former Prosecutor General Shokin, in a Skype call arranged by two associates of Mr. Giuliani." Bolster the charge that, "I also learned from a U.S. official that 'associates' of Mr. Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team." The so-called whistleblower then relates in another footnote, "I do not know whether these associates of Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in the 22 July report by OCCRP, referenced above."The OCCRP report repeatedly referenced is actually a "joint investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and BuzzFeed News, based on interviews and court and business records in the United States and Ukraine."
BuzzFeed infamously also first published the full anti-Trump dossier alleging unsubstantiated collusion between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia. The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee and was produced by the Fusion GPS opposition dirt outfit.
The OCCRP and BuzzFeed "joint investigation" resulted in both OCCRP and BuzzFeed publishing similar lengthy pieces on July 22 claiming that Giuliani was attempting to use connections to have Ukraine investigate Trump's political rivals.
The so-called whistleblower's document, however, only mentions the largely unknown OCCRP and does not reference BuzzFeed, which has faced scrutiny over its reporting on the Russia collusion claims.
Another listed OCCRP funder is the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
Together with Soros's Open Society, Omidyar also funds the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which hosts the International Fact-Checking Network that partnered with Facebook to help determine whether news stories are "disputed."
Like OCCRP, the Poynter Institute's so-called news fact-checking project is openly funded by not only Soros' Open Society Foundations but also Google and the National Endowment for Democracy.
CrowdStrike and DNC servers
CrowdStrike, meanwhile, was brought up by Trump in his phone call with Zelensky. According to the transcript, Trump told Zelensky, "I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike I guess you have one of your wealthy people The server, they say Ukraine has it."
In his extensive report , Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller notes that his investigative team did not "obtain or examine" the servers of the DNC in determining whether those servers were hacked by Russia.
The DNC famously refused to allow the FBI to access its servers to verify the allegation that Russia carried out a hack during the 2016 presidential campaign. Instead, the DNC reached an arrangement with the FBI in which CrowdStrike conducted forensics on the server and shared details with the FBI.
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey confirmed that the FBI registered "multiple requests at different levels," to review the DNC's hacked servers. Ultimately, the DNC and FBI came to an agreement in which a "highly respected private company" -- a reference to CrowdStrike -- would carry out forensics on the servers and share any information that it discovered with the FBI, Comey testified.
A senior law enforcement official stressed the importance of the FBI gaining direct access to the servers, a request that was denied by the DNC.
"The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been mitigated," the official was quoted by the news media as saying.
"This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third party for information. These actions caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier," the official continued.
... ... ...
Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, " Aaron Klein Investigative Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.
|
|
|
Jan 01, 2017 | themillenniumreport.com
"If someone steals your keys to encrypt the data, it doesn't matter how secure the algorithms are."
Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of CrowdStrike.
By the Anonymous Patriots
SOTN ExclusiveRussians did not hack the DNC system, a Russian named Dmitri Alperovitch is the hacker and he works for President Obama. In the last five years the Obama administration has turned exclusively to one Russian to solve every major cyber-attack in America, whether the attack was on the U.S. government or a corporation. Only one "super-hero cyber-warrior" seems to "have the codes" to figure out "if" a system was hacked and by "whom."
Dmitri's company, CrowdStrike has been called in by Obama to solve mysterious attacks on many high level government agencies and American corporations, including: German Bundestag, Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the White House, the State Department, SONY, and many others.
CrowdStrike's philosophy is: "You don't have a malware problem; you have an adversary problem."
CrowdStrike has played a critical role in the development of America's cyber-defense policy. Dmitri Alperovitch and George Kurtz, a former head of the FBI cyberwarfare unit founded CrowdStrike. Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director at the FBI is now CrowdStrike's president of services. The company is crawling with former U.S. intelligence agents.
Before Alperovitch founded CrowdStrike in 2011, he was working in Atlanta as the chief threat officer at the antivirus software firm McAfee, owned by Intel (a DARPA company). During that time, he "discovered" the Chinese had compromised at least seventy-one companies and organizations, including thirteen defense contractors, three electronics firms, and the International Olympic Committee. He was the only person to notice the biggest cyberattack in history! Nothing suspicious about that.
Alperovitch and the DNC
After CrowdStrike was hired as an independent "vendor" by the DNC to investigate a possible cyberattack on their system, Alperovitch sent the DNC a proprietary software package called Falcon that monitors the networks of its clients in real time. According to Alperovitch, Falcon "lit up," within ten seconds of being installed at the DNC. Alperovitch had his "proof" in TEN SECONDS that Russia was in the network. This "alleged" evidence of Russian hacking has yet to be shared with anyone.
As Donald Trump has pointed out, the FBI, the agency that should have been immediately involved in hacking that effects "National Security," has yet to even examine the DNC system to begin an investigation. Instead, the FBI and 16 other U.S. "intelligence" agencies simply "agree" with Obama's most trusted "cyberwarfare" expert Dmitri Alperovitch's "TEN SECOND" assessment that produced no evidence to support the claim.
Also remember that it is only Alperovitch and CrowdStrike that claim to have evidence that it was Russian hackers . In fact, only two hackers were found to have been in the system and were both identified by Alperovitch as Russian FSB (CIA) and the Russian GRU (DoD). It is only Alperovitch who claims that he knows that it is Putin behind these two hackers.
Alperovitch failed to mention in his conclusive "TEN SECOND" assessment that Guccifer 2.0 had already hacked the DNC and made available to the public the documents he hacked – before Alperovitch did his ten second assessment. Alperovitch reported that no other hackers were found, ignoring the fact that Guccifer 2.0 had already hacked and released DNC documents to the public. Alperovitch's assessment also goes directly against Julian Assange's repeated statements that the DNC leaks did not come from the Russians.
The ridiculously fake cyber-attack assessment done by Alperovitch and CrowdStrike naïvely flies in the face of the fact that a DNC insider admitted that he had released the DNC documents. Julian Assange implied in an interview that the murdered Democratic National Committee staffer, Seth Rich, was the source of a trove of damaging emails the website posted just days before the party's convention. Seth was on his way to testify about the DNC leaks to the FBI when he was shot dead in the street.
It is also absurd to hear Alperovitch state that the Russian FSB (equivalent to the CIA) had been monitoring the DNC site for over a year and had done nothing. No attack, no theft, and no harm was done to the system by this "false-flag cyber-attack" on the DNC – or at least, Alperovitch "reported" there was an attack. The second hacker, the supposed Russian military (GRU – like the U.S. DoD) hacker, had just entered the system two weeks before and also had done "nothing" but observe.
It is only Alperovitch's word that reports that the Russian FSB was "looking for files on Donald Trump."
It is only this false claim that spuriously ties Trump to the "alleged" attack. It is also only Alperovitch who believes that this hack that was supposedly "looking for Trump files" was an attempt to "influence" the election. No files were found about Trump by the second hacker, as we know from Wikileaks and Guccifer 2.0's leaks. To confabulate that "Russian's hacked the DNC to influence the elections" is the claim of one well-known Russian spy. Then, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously confirm that Alperovitch is correct – even though there is no evidence and no investigation was ever conducted .
How does Dmitri Alperovitch have such power? Why did Obama again and again use Alperovitch's company, CrowdStrike, when they have miserably failed to stop further cyber-attacks on the systems they were hired to protect? Why should anyone believe CrowdStrikes false-flag report?
After documents from the DNC continued to leak, and Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks made CrowdStrike's report look foolish, Alperovitch decided the situation was far worse than he had reported. He single-handedly concluded that the Russians were conducting an "influence operation" to help win the election for Trump . This false assertion had absolutely no evidence to back it up.
On July 22, three days before the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, WikiLeaks dumped a massive cache of emails that had been "stolen" (not hacked) from the DNC. Reporters soon found emails suggesting that the DNC leadership had favored Hillary Clinton in her primary race against Bernie Sanders, which led Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair, along with three other officials, to resign.
Just days later, it was discovered that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) had been hacked. CrowdStrike was called in again and once again, Alperovitch immediately "believed" that Russia was responsible. A lawyer for the DCCC gave Alperovitch permission to confirm the leak and to name Russia as the suspected author. Two weeks later, files from the DCCC began to appear on Guccifer 2.0's website. This time Guccifer released information about Democratic congressional candidates who were running close races in Florida, Ohio, Illinois, and Pennsylvania. On August 12, Guccifer went further, publishing a spreadsheet that included the personal email addresses and phone numbers of nearly two hundred Democratic members of Congress.
Once again, Guccifer 2.0 proved Alperovitch and CrowdStrike's claims to be grossly incorrect about the hack originating from Russia, with Putin masterminding it all. Nancy Pelosi offered members of Congress Alperovitch's suggestion of installing Falcon , the system that failed to stop cyberattacks at the DNC, on all congressional laptops.
Key Point: Once Falcon was installed on the computers of members of the U.S. Congress, CrowdStrike had even further full access into U.S. government accounts.
Alperovitch's "Unbelievable" History
Dmitri was born in 1980 in Moscow where his father, Michael, was a nuclear physicist, (so Dmitri claims). Dmitri's father was supposedly involved at the highest levels of Russian nuclear science. He also claims that his father taught him to write code as a child.
In 1990, his father was sent to Maryland as part of a nuclear-safety training program for scientists. In 1994, Michael Alperovitch was granted a visa to Canada, and a year later the family moved to Chattanooga, where Michael took a job with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
While Dmitri Alperovitch was still in high school, he and his father started an encryption-technology business. Dmitri studied computer science at Georgia Tech and went on to work at an antispam software firm. It was at this time that he realized that cyber-defense was more about psychology than it was about technology. A very odd thing to conclude.
Dmitri Alperovitch posed as a "Russian gangster" on spam discussion forums which brought his illegal activity to the attention of the FBI – as a criminal. In 2005, Dmitri flew to Pittsburgh to meet an FBI agent named Keith Mularski, who had been asked to lead an undercover operation against a vast Russian credit-card-theft syndicate. Alperovitch worked closely with Mularski's sting operation which took two years, but it ultimately brought about fifty-six arrests. Dmitri Alperovitch then became a pawn of the FBI and CIA.
In 2010, while he was at McAfee, the head of cybersecurity at Google told Dmitri that Gmail accounts belonging to human-rights activists in China had been breached. Google suspected the Chinese government. Alperovitch found that the breach was unprecedented in scale; it affected more than a dozen of McAfee's clients and involved the Chinese government. Three days after his supposed discovery, Alperovitch was on a plane to Washington where he had been asked to vet a paragraph in a speech by the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
2014, Sony called in CrowdStrike to investigate a breach of its network. Alperovitch needed just "two hours" to identify North Korea as the adversary. Executives at Sony asked Alperovitch to go public with the information immediately, but it took the FBI another three weeks before it confirmed the attribution.
Alperovitch then developed a list of "usual suspects" who were well-known hackers who had identifiable malware that they commonly used. Many people use the same malware and Alperovitch's obsession with believing he has the only accurate list of hackers in the world is plain idiocy exacerbated by the U.S. government's belief in his nonsense. Alperovitch even speaks like a "nut-case" in his personal Twitters, which generally have absolutely no references to the technology he is supposedly the best at in the entire world.
Dmitri – Front Man for His Father's Russian Espionage Mission
After taking a close look at the disinformation around Dmitri and his father, it is clear to see that Michael Alperovitch became a CIA operative during his first visit to America. Upon his return to Russia, he stole the best Russian encryption codes that were used to protect the top-secret work of nuclear physics in which his father is alleged to have been a major player. Upon surrendering the codes to the CIA when he returned to Canada, the CIA made it possible for a Russian nuclear scientist to become an American citizen overnight and gain a top-secret security clearance to work at the Oakridge plant, one of the most secure and protected nuclear facilities in America . Only the CIA can transform a Russian into an American with a top-secret clearance overnight.
We can see on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page that he went from one fantastically top-secret job to the next without a break from the time he entered America. He seemed to be on a career path to work in every major U.S. agency in America. In every job he was hired as the top expert in the field and the leader of the company. All of these jobs after the first one were in cryptology, not nuclear physics. As a matter of fact, Michael became the top expert in America overnight and has stayed the top expert to this day.
Most of the work of cyber-security is creating secure interactions on a non-secure system like the Internet. The cryptologist who assigns the encryption codes controls the system from that point on .
Key Point: Cryptologists are well known for leaving a "back-door" in the base-code so that they can always have over-riding control.
Michael Alperovitch essentially has the "codes" for all Department of Defense sites, the Treasury, the State Department, cell-phones, satellites, and public media . There is hardly any powerful agency or company that he has not written the "codes" for. One might ask, why do American companies and the U.S. government use his particular codes? What are so special about Michael's codes?
Stolen Russian Codes
In December, Obama ordered the U.S. military to conduct cyberattacks against Russia in retaliation for the alleged DNC hacks. All of the attempts to attack Russia's military and intelligence agencies failed miserably. Russia laughed at Obama's attempts to hack their systems. Even the Russian companies targeted by the attacks were not harmed by Obama's cyber-attacks. Hardly any news of these massive and embarrassing failed cyber-attacks were reported by the Main Stream Media. The internet has been scrubbed clean of the reports that said Russia's cyber-defenses were impenetrable due to the sophistication of their encryption codes.
Michael Alperovitch was in possession of those impenetrable codes when he was a top scientist in Russia. It was these very codes that he shared with the CIA on his first trip to America . These codes got him spirited into America and "turned into" the best cryptologist in the world. Michael is simply using the effective codes of Russia to design his codes for the many systems he has created in America for the CIA .
KEY POINT: It is crucial to understand at this junction that the CIA is not solely working for America . The CIA works for itself and there are three branches to the CIA – two of which are hostile to American national interests and support globalism.
Michael and Dmitri Alperovitch work for the CIA (and international intelligence corporations) who support globalism . They, and the globalists for whom they work, are not friends of America or Russia. It is highly likely that the criminal activities of Dmitri, which were supported and sponsored by the FBI, created the very hackers who he often claims are responsible for cyberattacks. None of these supposed "attackers" have ever been found or arrested; they simply exist in the files of CrowdStrike and are used as the "usual culprits" when the FBI or CIA calls in Dmitri to give the one and only opinion that counts. Only Dmitri's "suspicions" are offered as evidence and yet 17 U.S. intelligence agencies stand behind the CrowdStrike report and Dmitri's suspicions.
Michael Alperovitch – Russian Spy with the Crypto-Keys
Essentially, Michael Alperovitch flies under the false-flag of being a cryptologist who works with PKI. A public key infrastructure (PKI) is a system for the creation, storage, and distribution of digital certificates which are used to verify that a particular public key belongs to a certain entity. The PKI creates digital certificates which map public keys to entities, securely stores these certificates in a central repository and revokes them if needed. Public key cryptography is a cryptographic technique that enables entities to securely communicate on an insecure public network (the Internet), and reliably verify the identity of an entity via digital signatures . Digital signatures use Certificate Authorities to digitally sign and publish the public key bound to a given user. This is done using the CIA's own private key, so that trust in the user key relies on one's trust in the validity of the CIA's key. Michael Alperovitch is considered to be the number one expert in America on PKI and essentially controls the market .
Michael's past is clouded in confusion and lies. Dmitri states that his father was a nuclear physicist and that he came to America the first time in a nuclear based shared program between America and Russia. But if we look at his current personal Linked In page, Michael claims he has a Master Degree in Applied Mathematics from Gorky State University. From 1932 to 1956, its name was State University of Gorky. Now it is known as Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod – National Research University (UNN), also known as Lobachevsky University. Does Michael not even know the name of the University he graduated from? And when does a person with a Master's Degree become a leading nuclear physicist who comes to "visit" America. In Michael's Linked In page there is a long list of his skills and there is no mention of nuclear physics.
Also on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page we find some of his illustrious history that paints a picture of either the most brilliant mind in computer security, encryption, and cyberwarfare, or a CIA/FBI backed Russian spy. Imagine that out of all the people in the world to put in charge of the encryption keys for the Department of Defense, the U.S. Treasury, U.S. military satellites, the flow of network news, cell phone encryption, the Pathfire (media control) Program, the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Global Information Grid, and TriCipher Armored Credential System among many others, the government hires a Russian spy . Go figure.
Michael Alperovitch's Linked In Page
Education:
Gorky State University, Russia, MS in Applied Mathematics
Work History:
VT IDirect -2014 – Designing security architecture for satellite communications including cryptographic protocols, authentication.
Principal SME (Contractor)
DISA -Defense Information Systems Agency (Manager of the Global Information Grid) – 2012-2014 – Worked on PKI and identity management projects for DISA utilizing Elliptic Curve Cryptography. Performed application security and penetration testing.
Technical Lead (Contractor)
U.S. Department of the Treasury – 2011 – Designed enterprise validation service architecture for PKI certificate credentials with Single Sign On authentication.
Comtech Mobile Datacom – 2007-2010 – Subject matter expert on latest information security practices, including authentication, encryption and key management.
TriCipher – 2006-2007 – Designed and developed security architecture for TriCipher Armored Credential Authentication System.
BellSouth – 2003-2006 – Designed and built server-side Jabber-based messaging platform with Single Sign On authentication.
Principal Software Research Engineer
Pathfire – 2001-2002 – Designed and developed Digital Rights Management Server for Video on Demand and content distribution applications. Pathfire provides digital media distribution and management solutions to the television, media, and entertainment industries. The company offers Digital Media Gateway, a digital IP store-and-forward platform, delivering news stories, syndicated programming, advertising spots, and video news releases to broadcasters. It provides solutions for content providers and broadcasters, as well as station solutions.
Obama – No Friend of America
Obama is no friend of America in the war against cyber-attacks. The very agencies and departments being defended by Michael Alperovitch's "singular and most brilliant" ability to write encryption codes have all been successfully attacked and compromised since Michael set up the codes. But we shouldn't worry, because if there is a cyberattack in the Obama administration, Michael's son Dmitri is called in to "prove" that it isn't the fault of his father's codes. It was the "damn Russians", or even "Putin himself" who attacked American networks.
Not one of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies is capable of figuring out a successful cyberattack against America without Michael and Dmitri's help. Those same 17 U.S. intelligence agencies were not able to effectively launch a successful cyberattack against Russia. It seems like the Russian's have strong codes and America has weak codes. We can thank Michael and Dmitri Alperovitch for that.
It is clear that there was no DNC hack beyond Guccifer 2.0. Dmitri Alperovitch is a "frontman" for his father's encryption espionage mission.
Is it any wonder that Trump says that he has "his own people" to deliver his intelligence to him that is outside of the infiltrated U.S. government intelligence agencies and the Obama administration ? Isn't any wonder that citizens have to go anywhere BUT the MSM to find real news or that the new administration has to go to independent news to get good intel?
It is hard to say anything more damnable than to again quote Dmitri on these very issues:
"If someone steals your keys to encrypt the data, it doesn't matter how secure the algorithms are." Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of CrowdStrikeOriginally posted at: http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=62536
|
|
|
Nov 27, 2019 | www.youtube.com
AwanContra - George Webb, Investigative Journalist
|
|
|
Dec 04, 2018 | www.reddit.com
Cyberanalyst George Eliason has written some intriguing blogs recently claiming that the "Fancy Bear" which hacked the DNC server in mid-2016 was in fact a branch of Ukrainian intelligence linked to the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike. I invite you to have a go at one of his recent essays:
https://off-guardian.org/2018/06/25/who-is-fancy-bear-and-who-are-they-working-for/
Since I am not very computer savvy and don't know much about the world of hackers - added to the fact that Eliason's writing is too cute and convoluted - I have difficulty navigating Eliason's thought. Nonetheless, here is what I can make of Eliasons' claims, as supported by independent literature:
Russian hacker Konstantin Kozlovsky, in Moscow court filings, has claimed that he did the DNC hack – and can prove it, because he left some specific code on the DNC server.
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/366696-russian-hacker-claims-he-can-prove-he-hacked-dnc
Kozlovsky states that he did so by order of Dimitry Dokuchaev (formerly of the FSB, and currently in prison in Russia on treason charges) who works with the Russian traitor hacker group Shaltai Boltai.
https://www.newsweek.com/russian-hacker-stealing-clintons-emailshacking-dnc-putinsfsb-745555 (Note that Newsweek's title is an overt lie.)
According to Eliason, Shaltai Boltai works in collaboration with the Ukrainian hacker group RUH8, a group of neo-Nazis (Privat Sektor) who are affiliated with Ukrainian intelligence. And RUH8 is allied with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike.
https://off-guardian.org/2018/06/25/who-is-fancy-bear-and-who-are-they-working-for/
Cyberexpert Jeffrey Carr has stated that RUH8 has the X-Agent malware which our intelligence community has erroneously claimed is possessed only by Russian intelligence, and used by "Fancy Bear".
Eliason has concluded that RUH8 is Fancy Bear.
This might help explain why Adam Carter has determined that some of the malware found on the DNC server was compiled AFTER Crowdstrike was working on the DNC server – Crowdstrike was in collusion with Fancy Bear (RUH8).
In other words, Crowdstrike likely arranged for a hack by Ukrainian intelligence that they could then attribute to Russia.
As far as I can tell, none of this is pertinent to how Wikileaks obtained their DNC emails, which most likely were leaked.
How curious that our Deep State and the recent Mueller indictment have had nothing to say about Kozlovsky's confession - whom I tend to take seriously because he offers a simple way to confirm his claim. Also interesting that the FBI has shown no interest in looking at the DNC server to check whether Kozlovsky's code is there.
I will ask Adam Carter for his opinion on this. 19 comments 84% Upvoted This thread is archived New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast Sort by View discussions in 1 other community level 1
zer0mas 1 point · 1 year ago
veganmark 2 points · 1 year agoIts worth noting that Dimitri Alperovich's (Crowdstrike) hatred of Putin is second only to Hillary's hatred for taking responsibility for her actions. level 1
alskdmv-nosleep4u -1 points · 1 year agoThanks - I'll continue to follow Eliason's work. The thesis that Ukrainian intelligence is hacking a number of targets so that Russia gets blamed for it has intuitive appeal. level 1
alskdmv-nosleep4u 2 points · 1 year agoI see things like this:
DNC wasn't even hacked.
and have to cringe. Any hacks weren't related to Wikileaks, who got their info from leakers, but that is not the same thing as no hack. Leaks and hacks aren't mutually exclusive. They actually occur together pretty commonly.
DNC's security was utter shit. Systems with shit security and obviously valuable info usually get hacked by multiple groups. In the case of the DNC, Hillary's email servers, etc., it's basically impossible they weren't hacked by dozens of intruders. A plastic bag of 100s will not sit untouched on a NYC street corner for 4 weeks. Not. fucking. happening.
Interestingly, Russia was probably not one of the hacking groups. The willful destruction of evidence by the DNC themselves probably points to Russia not being one of the those groups. The DNC wouldn't destroy evidence that supported their position. Also, government spy agencies keep info like that closely held. They might leak out tidbits, but they don't do wholesale dumps, like, ever.
That's what the DNC is lying about. Not that hacks happened (they undoubtedly did), but about who did them (probably not Russian gov), and if hacks mattered (they didn't since everything was getting leaked anyway).
The DNC/Mueller/etc are lying, but like most practiced liars they're mixing the lies with half-truths and unrelated facts to muddy the waters:
Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools
Yes, but that spoofed 'evidence' is not the direct opposite of the truth, like I see people assuming. Bad assumption, and the establishment plays on that to make critic look bad. The spoofed evidence is just mud.
An interesting question is, since it's basically guaranteed the DNC got hacked, but probably not by the Russians, is, what groups did hack the DNC, and why did the DNC scramble madly to hide their identities?
And while you think about that question, consider the close parallel with the Awan case, where Dems were ostensibly the victims, but they again scrambled to cover up for the people who supposedly harmed them. level 2
Honztastic 2 points · 1 year agoWhat's hilarious about the 2 down-votes is I can't tell if their from pro-Russiagate trolls, or from people who who can't get past binary thinking. level 1
veganmark 2 points · 1 year agoDNC wasn't even hacked. Emails were leaked. They didn't even examine the server. Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools that we know about from wikileaks. It's important to know how each new lie is a lie. But man I am just so done with all this Russia shit. level 2
Inuma I take the headspace of idiots 9 points · 1 year agoCrowdstrike claims that malware was found on DNC server. I agree that this has nothing to do with the Wikileaks releases. What I am wondering is whether Crowdstrike may have arranged for the DNC to be hacked so that Russia could be blamed. Continue this thread
level 1 veganmark 8 points · 1 year agoSo you mean to tell me that WWIII is being prepared by Mueller and it was manufactured consent?
I'd be shocked, but this only proves that the "Deep State" only cares about their power, consequences be damned. level 1
HillaryBrokeTheLaw Long live dead poets 10 points · 1 year agoGeorge Eliason promises additional essays: *The next articles, starting with one about Fancy Bear's hot/cold ongoing relationship with Bellingcat which destroys the JIT investigation, will showcase the following: Fancy Bear worked with Bellingcat and the Ukrainian government providing Information War material as evidence for MH17:
- Fancy Bear is an inside unit of the Atlantic Council and their Digital Forensics Lab
- Fancy Bear worked with Crowdstrike and Dimitri Alperovich Fancy Bear is Ukrainian Intelligence
- How Fancy Bear tried to sway the US election for Team Hillary
- Fancy Bear worked against US Intel gathering by providing consistently fraudulent data
- Fancy Bear contributed to James Clapper's January 2017 ODNI Report on Fancy Bear and Russian Influence. [You really can't make this shit up.]
- Fancy Bear had access to US government secure servers while working as foreign spies.* level 1
Nice.
I'm glad you're still following this. Crowdstrike is shady af. level 1
|
|
|
Dec 04, 2019 | www.conservapedia.com
Fancy Bear (also know as Strontium Group, or APT28) is a Ukrainian cyber espionage group. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike incorrectly has said with a medium level of confidence that it is associated with the Russian military intelligence agency GRU . CrowdStrike founder, Dmitri Alperovitch , has colluded with Fancy Bear. American journalist George Eliason has written extensively on the subject.
There are a couple of caveats that need to be made when identifying the Fancy Bear hackers. The first is the identifier used by Mueller as Russian FSB and GRU may have been true- 10 years ago. This group was on the run trying to stay a step ahead of Russian law enforcement until October 2016. So we have part of the Fancy bear hacking group identified as Ruskie traitors and possibly former Russian state security. The majority of the group are Ukrainians making up Ukraine's Cyber Warfare groups.
Eliason lives and works in Donbass. He has been interviewed by and provided analysis for RT, the BBC , and Press-TV. His articles have been published in the Security Assistance Monitor, Washingtons Blog, OpedNews, the Saker, RT, Global Research, and RINF, and the Greanville Post among others. He has been cited and republished by various academic blogs including Defending History, Michael Hudson, SWEDHR, Counterpunch, the Justice Integrity Project, among others.
Contents [ hide ]Fancy Bear is Ukrainian Intelligence Shaltai Boltai
- 1 Fancy Bear is Ukrainian Intelligence
- 2 Alleged DNC hack
- 3 Alperovitch and Fancy Bear
- 4 Obama, Brazile, Comey, and CrowdStrike
- 5 Further reading
- 6 References
- 7 External links
The "Fancy Bear hackers" may have been given the passwords to get into the servers at the DNC because they were part of the Team Clinton opposition research team. It was part of their job.
According to Politico ,
"In an interview this month, at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing ethnic communities -- including Ukrainian-Americans -- she said that, when Trump's unlikely presidential campaign. Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. While her consulting work began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well." [1]The only investigative journalists, government officials, and private intelligence operatives that work together in 2014-2015-2016 Ukraine are Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta, Ukraine Cyber Alliance, and the Ministry of Information.
All of these hacking and information operation groups work for Andrea Chalupa with EuroMaidanPR and Irena Chalupa at the Atlantic Council. Both Chalupa sisters work directly with the Ukrainian government's intelligence and propaganda arms.
Since 2014 in Ukraine, these are the only OSINT, hacking, Intel, espionage , terrorist , counter-terrorism, cyber, propaganda , and info war channels officially recognized and directed by Ukraine's Information Ministry. Along with their American colleagues, they populate the hit-for-hire website Myrotvorets with people who stand against Ukraine's criminal activities.
The hackers, OSINT, Cyber, spies, terrorists, etc. call themselves volunteers to keep safe from State level retaliation, even though a child can follow the money. As volunteers motivated by politics and patriotism they are protected to a degree from retribution.
They don't claim State sponsorship or governance and the level of attack falls below the threshold of military action. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had a lot of latitude for making the attribution Russian, even though the attacks came from Ukrainian Intelligence. Based on how the rules of the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber are written, because the few members of the coalition from Shaltai Boltai are Russian in nationality, Fancy Bear can be attributed as a Russian entity for the purposes of retribution. The caveat is if the attribution is proven wrong, the US will be liable for damages caused to the State which in this case is Russia.
How large is the Fancy Bear unit? According to their propaganda section InformNapalm, they have the ability to research and work in over 30 different languages.
This can be considered an Information Operation against the people of the United States and of course Russia. After 2013, Shaltay Boltay was no longer physically available to work for Russia. The Russian hackers were in Ukraine working for the Ukrainian government's Information Ministry which is in charge of the cyber war. They were in Ukraine until October 2016 when they were tricked to return to Moscow and promptly arrested for treason.
From all this information we know the Russian component of Team Fancy Bear is Shaltai Boltai. We know the Ukrainian Intel component is called CyberHunta and Ukraine Cyber Alliance which includes the hacker group RUH8. We know both groups work/ worked for Ukrainian Intelligence. We know they are grouped with InformNapalm which is Ukraine's OSINT unit. We know their manager is a Ukrainian named Kristina Dobrovolska. And lastly, all of the above work directly with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich.
In short, the Russian-Ukrainian partnership that became Fancy Bear started in late 2013 to very early 2014 and ended in October 2016 in what appears to be a squabble over the alleged data from the Surkov leak.
But during 2014, 2015, and 2016 Shaltai Boltai, the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, and CyberHunta went to work for the DNC as opposition researchers .
The First Time Shaltai Boltai was Handed the Keys to US Gov ServersThe setup to this happened long before the partnership with Ukrainian Intel hackers and Russia's Shaltai Boltai was forged. The hack that gained access to US top-secret servers happened just after the partnership was cemented after Euro-Maidan.
In August 2009 Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff at the State Department Huma Abedin sent the passwords to her Government laptop to her Yahoo mail account. On August 16, 2010, Abedin received an email titled "Re: Your yahoo account. We can see where this is going, can't we?
"After Abedin sent an unspecified number of sensitive emails to her Yahoo account, half a billion Yahoo accounts were hacked by Russian cybersecurity expert and Russian intelligence agent, Igor Sushchin, in 2014. The hack, one of the largest in history, allowed Sushchin's associates to access email accounts into 2015 and 2016."
Igor Sushchin was part of the Shaltai Boltai hacking group that is charged with the Yahoo hack.
The time frame has to be noted. The hack happened in 2014. Access to the email accounts continued through 2016. The Ukrainian Intel partnership was already blossoming and Shaltai Boltai was working from Kiev, Ukraine.
So when we look at the INFRASTRUCTURE HACKS, WHITE HOUSE HACKS, CONGRESS, start with looking at the time frame. Ukraine had the keys already in hand in 2014.
Chalupa collusion with Ukrainian Intelligence
- See also: Ukrainian collusion and Ukrainian collusion timeline
Alexandra Chalupa hired this particular hacking terrorist group, which Dimitry Alperovich and Crowdstrike dubbed "Fancy Bear", in 2015 at the latest. While the Ukrainian hackers worked for the DNC, Fancy Bear had to send in progress reports, turn in research, and communicate on the state of the projects they were working on. Let's face it, once you're in, setting up your Fancy Bear toolkit doesn't get any easier. This is why I said the DNC hack isn't the big crime. It's a big con and all the parties were in on it.
Hillary Clinton exposed secrets to hacking threats by using private email instead of secured servers. Given the information provided she was probably being monitored by our intrepid Ruskie-Ukie union made in hell hackers. Anthony Weiner exposed himself and his wife Huma Abedin using Weiner's computer for top-secret State Department emails. And of course Huma Abedin exposed herself along with her top-secret passwords at Yahoo and it looks like the hackers the DNC hired to do opposition research hacked her.
Here's a question. Did Huma Abedin have Hillary Clinton's passwords for her private email server? It would seem logical given her position with Clinton at the State Department and afterward. This means that Hillary Clinton and the US government top secret servers were most likely compromised by Fancy Bear before the DNC and Team Clinton hired them by using legitimate passwords.
DobrovolskaHillary Clinton retained State Dept. top secret clearance passwords for 6 of her former staff from 2013 through prepping for the 2016 election. [2] [3] Alexandra Chalupa was running a research department that is rich in (foreign) Ukrainian Intelligence operatives, hackers, terrorists, and a couple Ruskie traitors.
Kristina Dobrovolska was acting as a handler and translator for the US State Department in 2016. She is the Fancy Bear *opposition researcher handler manager. Kristina goes to Washington to meet with Chalupa.
Alexandra types in her password to show Dobrovolska something she found and her eager to please Ukrainian apprentice finds the keystrokes are seared into her memory. She tells the Fancy Bear crew about it and they immediately get to work looking for Trump material on the US secret servers with legitimate access. I mean, what else could they do with this? Turn over sensitive information to the ever corrupt Ukrainian government?
According to the Politico article, Alexandra Chalupa was meeting with the Ukrainian embassy in June of 2016 to discuss getting more help sticking it to candidate Trump. At the same time she was meeting, the embassy had a reception that highlighted female Ukrainian leaders.
Four Verkhovna Rada [parlaiment] deputies there for the event included: Viktoriia Y. Ptashnyk, Anna A. Romanova, Alyona I. Shkrum, and Taras T. Pastukh. [4]
According to CNN , [5] DNC sources said Chalupa told DNC operatives the Ukrainian government would be willing to deliver damaging information against Trump's campaign. Later, Chalupa would lead the charge to try to unseat president-elect Trump starting on Nov 10, 2016.
Accompanying them Kristina Dobrovolska who was a U.S. Embassy-assigned government liaison and translator who escorted the delegates from Kyiv during their visits to Albany and Washington.
Kristina Dobrovolska is the handler manager working with Ukraine's DNC Fancy Bear Hackers. [6] She took the Rada [parliament] members to dinner to meet Joel Harding who designed Ukraine's infamous Information Policy which opened up their kill-for-hire-website Myrotvorets. Then she took them to meet the Ukrainian Diaspora leader doing the hiring. Nestor Paslawsky is the surviving nephew to the infamous torturer The WWII OUNb leader, Mykola Lebed.
Fancy Bear's Second Chance at Top Secret Passwords From Team ClintonOne very successful method of hacking is called social engineering . You gain access to the office space and any related properties and physically locate the passwords or clues to get you into the hardware you want to hack. This includes something as simple as looking over the shoulder of the person typing in passwords.
The Fancy Bear hackers were hired by Alexandra Chalupa to work for DNC opposition research. On different occasions, Fancy Bear handler Kristina Dobrovolska traveled to the US to meet the Diaspora leaders, her boss Alexandra Chalupa, Irena Chalupa, Andrea Chalupa, US Dept of State personnel, and most likely Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich. Alperovich was working with the hackers in 2015-16. In 2016, the only groups known to have Fancy Bear's signature tools called X-tunnel and X-Agent were Alperovich, Crowdstrike, and Fancy Bear (Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta, Ukraine Cyber Alliance, and RUH8/RUX8. Yes, that does explain a few things.
Alleged DNC hackThere were multiple DNC hacks. There is also clear proof supporting the download to a USB stick and subsequent information exchange (leak) to Wikileaks . All are separate events.
- The group I previously identified as Fancy Bear was given access to request password privileges at the DNC. And it looks like the DNC provided them with it.
- the Podesta email hack looks like a revenge hack.
- The reason Republican opposition research files were stolen can be put into context now because we know who the hackers are and what motivates them.
At the same time this story developed, it overshadowed the Hillary Clinton email scandal. It is a matter of public record that Team Clinton provided the DNC hackers with passwords to State Department servers on at least 2 occasions, one wittingly and one not. Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian Intelligence Operators.
If the leak came through Seth Rich , it may have been because he saw foreign Intel operatives given this access from the presumed winners of the 2016 US presidential election . The leaker may have been trying to do something about it. I'm curious what information Wikileaks might have.
Alperovitch and Fancy BearGeorge Eliason, Washingtonsblog: Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear. investigated. [7]
- In the wake of the JAR-16-20296 dated December 29, 2016 about hacking and influencing the 2016 election, the need for real evidence is clear. The joint report adds nothing substantial to the October 7th report. It relies on proofs provided by the cyber security firm Crowdstrike that is clearly not on par with intelligence findings or evidence. At the top of the report is an "as is" statement showing this.
- The difference bet enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors that need to be investigated for real crimes. For instance, the malware used was an out-dated version just waiting to be found. The one other interesting point is that the Russian malware called Grizzly Steppe is from Ukraine. How did Crowdstrike miss this when it is their business to know?
- The bar for identification set by Crowdstrike has never been able to get beyond words like probably, maybe, could be, or should be, in their attribution. The bar Dimitri Alperovitch set for identifying the hackers involved is that low. Other than asking America to trust them, how many solid facts has Alperovitch provided to back his claim of Russian involvement?
- information from outside intelligence agencies has the value of rumor or unsubstantiated information at best according to policy. Usable intelligence needs to be free from partisan politics and verifiable. Intel agencies noted back in the early 90's that every private actor in the information game was radically political.
- Alperovitch first gained notice when he was the VP in charge of threat research with McAfee. Asked to comment on Alperovitch's discovery of Russian hacks on Larry King, John McAfee had this to say. "Based on all of his experience, McAfee does not believe that Russians were behind the hacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), John Podesta's emails, and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. As he told RT, "if it looks like the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you it was not the Russians."
- How does Crowdstrike's story part with reality? First is the admission that it is probably, maybe, could be Russia hacking the DNC. "Intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin 'directing' the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to Wiki Leaks." The public evidence never goes beyond the word possibility. While never going beyond that or using facts, Crowdstrike insists that it's Russia behind both Clinton's and the Ukrainian losses.
- NBC carried the story because one of the partners in Crowdstrike is also a consultant for NBC. According to NBC the story reads like this."The company, Crowdstrike, was hired by the DNC to investigate the hack and issued a report publicly attributing it to Russian intelligence. One of Crowdstrike's senior executives is Shawn Henry , a former senior FBI official who consults for NBC News.
- In June, Crowdstrike went public with its findings that two separate Russian intelligence agencies had hacked the DNC. One, which Crowdstrike and other researchers call Cozy Bear, is believed to be linked to Russia's CIA, known as the FSB. The other, known as Fancy Bear, is believed to be tied to the military intelligence agency, called the GRU." The information is so certain the level of proof never rises above "believed to be." According to the December 12th Intercept article "Most importantly, the Post adds that "intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin 'directing' the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks."
- The SBU, Olexander Turchinov, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense all agree that Crowdstrike is dead wrong in this assessment. Although subtitles aren't on it, the former Commandant of Ukrainian Army Headquarters thanks God Russia never invaded or Ukraine would have been in deep trouble. How could Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike be this wrong on easily checked detail and still get this much media attention?
- Crowdstrike CEO Dmitri Alperovitch story about Russian hacks that cost Hillary Clinton the election was broadsided by the SBU (Ukrainian Intelligence and Security) in Ukraine. If Dimitri Alperovitch is working for Ukrainian Intelligence and is providing intelligence to 17 US Intelligence Agencies is it a conflict of interest?
- Is giving misleading or false information to 17 US Intelligence Agencies a crime? If it's done by a cyber security industry leader like Crowdstrike should that be investigated? If unwinding the story from the "targeting of Ukrainian volunteers" side isn't enough, we should look at this from the American perspective. How did the Russia influencing the election and DNC hack story evolve? Who's involved? Does this pose conflicts of interest for Dmitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? And let's face it, a hacking story isn't complete until real hackers with the skills, motivation, and reason are exposed.
- According to journalist and DNC activist Andrea Chalupa on her Facebook page "After Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. "That's when we knew it was the Russians," said a Democratic Party source who has been directly involved in the internal probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, "we told her to stop her research."" July 25, 2016
- If she was that close to the investigation Crowdstrike did how credible is she? Her sister Alexandra was named one of 16 people that shaped the election by Yahoo news. The DNC hacking investigation done by Crowdstrike concluded hacking was done by Russian actors based on the work done by Alexandra Chalupa ? That is the conclusion of her sister Andrea Chalupa and obviously enough for Crowdstrike to make the Russian government connection.
- How close is Dimitri Alperovitch to DNC officials? Close enough professionally he should have stepped down from an investigation that had the chance of throwing a presidential election in a new direction. According to Esquire.com, Alperovitch has vetted speeches for Hillary Clinton about cyber security issues in the past. Because of his work on the Sony hack, President Barrack Obama personally called and said the measures taken were directly because of his work.
- Alperovitch's relationships with the Chalupas, radical groups, think tanks, Ukrainian propagandists, and Ukrainian state supported hackers [show a conflict of interest]. When it all adds up and you see it together, we have found a Russian that tried hard to influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016.
- The Chalupas are not Democrat or Republican. They are OUNb. The OUNb worked hard to start a war between the USA and Russia for the last 50 years. According to the Ukrainian Weekly in a rare open statement of their existence in 2011, "Other statements were issued in the Ukrainian language by the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (B) and the International Conference in Support of Ukraine. The OUN (Bandera wing) called for" What is OUNb Bandera? They follow the same political policy and platform that was developed in the 1930's by Stepan Bandera . When these people go to a Holocaust memorial they are celebrating both the dead and the OUNb SS that killed. [8] There is no getting around this fact. The OUNb have no concept of democratic values and want an authoritarian fascism .
- Alexandra Chalupa- According to the Ukrainian Weekly , [9]
"The effort, known as Digital Miadan, gained momentum following the initial Twitter storms. Leading the effort were: Lara Chelak, Andrea Chalupa, Alexandra Chalupa, Constatin Kostenko and others." The Digital Maidan was also how they raised money for the coup. This was how the Ukrainian emigres bought the bullets that were used on Euromaidan. Ukraine's chubby nazi, Dima Yarosh stated openly he was taking money from the Ukrainian emigres during Euromaidan and Pravy Sektor still fundraises openly in North America. The "Sniper Massacre" on the Maidan in Ukraine by Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, University of Ottowa shows clearly detailed evidence how the massacre happened. It has Pravy Sektor confessions that show who created the "heavenly hundred. Their admitted involvement as leaders of Digital Maidan by both Chalupas is a clear violation of the Neutrality Act and has up to a 25 year prison sentence attached to it because it ended in a coup.
- Andrea Chalupa-2014, in a Huff Post article Sept. 1 2016, Andrea Chalupa described Sviatoslav Yurash as one of Ukraine's important "dreamers." He is a young activist that founded Euromaidan Press. Beyond the gushing glow what she doesn't say is who he actually is. Sviatoslav Yurash was Dmitri Yarosh's spokesman just after Maidan. He is a hardcore Ukrainian nationalist and was rewarded with the Deputy Director position for the UWC (Ukrainian World Congress) in Kiev.
- In January, 2014 when he showed up at the Maidan protests he was 17 years old. He became the foreign language media representative for Vitali Klitschko, Arseni Yatsenyuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok. All press enquiries went through Yurash. To meet Dimitri Yurash you had to go through Sviatoslav Yurash as a Macleans reporter found out.
- At 18 years old, Sviatoslav Yurash became the spokesman for Ministry of Defense of Ukraine under Andrei Paruby. He was Dimitri Yarosh's spokesman and can be seen either behind Yarosh on videos at press conferences or speaking ahead of him to reporters. From January 2014 onward, to speak to Dimitri Yarosh, you set up an appointment with Yurash.
- Andrea Chalupa has worked with Yurash's Euromaidan Press which is associated with Informnapalm.org and supplies the state level hackers for Ukraine.
- Irene Chalupa- Another involved Chalupa we need to cover to do the story justice is Irene Chalupa. From her bio– Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has worked for more than twenty years. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council, where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor for Ukraine's propaganda channel org She is also a Ukrainian emigre leader.
- According to Robert Parry's article [10] At the forefront of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and especially in foreign policy are the Atlantic Council . Their main goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.
- The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia. Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was "Are you willing to go to war with Russia?" Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support throughout the campaign.
- What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite conflict of interest for Crowdstrike's investigation. Trump's campaign was gaining ground and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or Homeland Security?
- When you put someone that has so much to gain in charge of an investigation that could change an election, that is a conflict of interest. If the think tank is linked heavily to groups that want war with Russia like the Atlantic Council and the CEEC, it opens up criminal conspiracy.
- If the person in charge of the investigation is a fellow at the think tank that wants a major conflict with Russia it is a definite conflict of interest. Both the Atlantic Council and clients stood to gain Cabinet and Policy positions based on how the result of his work affects the election. It clouds the results of the investigation. In Dmitri Alperovitch's case, he found the perpetrator before he was positive there was a crime.
- Alperovitch's relationship with Andrea Chalupa's efforts and Ukrainian intelligence groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers.
- When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch's twitter relationships, you have to ask why the CEO of a $150 million dollar company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and its hackers individually. There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine's Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government. Crowdstrike is also following their hack of a Russian government official after the DNC hack. It closely resembles the same method used with the DNC because it was an email hack.
- Crowdstrike's product line includes Falcon Host, Falcon Intelligence, Falcon Overwatch and Falcon DNS. Is it possible the hackers in Falcons Flame are another service Crowdstrike offers?
- In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA. [11] They consider the CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity, Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency."
Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This image shows Crowdstrike in their network. Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker network. In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The network communication goes through a secondary source.
Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it's the official twitter account for Ukraine's Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence. The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could be on the list.
- Should someone tell Dimitri Alperovitch that Gerashchenko, who is now in charge of Peacekeeper recently threatened president-elect Donald Trump that he would put him on his "Peacemaker" site as a target? The same has been done with Silvio Berscaloni in the past.
- Trying not to be obvious, the Head of Ukraine's Information Ministry (UA Intelligence) tweeted something interesting that ties Alperovitch and Crowdstrike to the Ukrainian Intelligence hackers and the Information Ministry even tighter. This single tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information Minister's following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch's story was received and not retweeted or shared. If this was just Alperovitch's victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it to themselves and not draw unwanted attention.
Obama, Brazile, Comey, and CrowdStrike
- These same hackers are associated with Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa through the portals and organizations they work with through their OUNb. The hackers are funded and directed by or through the same OUNb channels that Alperovitch is working for and with to promote the story of Russian hacking.
- When you look at the image for the hacking group in the euromaidanpress article, one of the hackers identifies themselves as one of Dimitri Yarosh's Pravy Sektor members by the Pravy Sektor sweatshirt they have on. Noted above, Pravy Sektor admitted to killing the people at the Maidan protest and sparked the coup.
- Going further with the linked Euromaidanpress article the hackers say "Let's understand that Ukrainian hackers and Russian hackers once constituted a single very powerful group. Ukrainian hackers have a rather high level of work. So the help of the USA I don't know, why would we need it? We have all the talent and special means for this. And I don't think that the USA or any NATO country would make such sharp movements in international politics."
- What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state sponsored, Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are also laughing at US intel efforts.
- The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated.
- According to the Esquire interview "Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of the personal in his battle cry. "A lot of people who are born here don't appreciate the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they've never had it any other way," he told me. "I have."
- While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism is not. Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine's interests and delivering a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he's a patriot. He isn't serving US interests. He's definitely a Ukrainian patriot. Maybe he should move to Ukraine.
- The evidence presented deserves investigation because it looks like the case for conflict of interest is the least Dimitri Alperovitch should look forward to. If these hackers are the real Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, they really did make sharp movements in international politics. By pawning it off on Russia, they made a worldwide embarrassment of an outgoing President of the United States and made the President Elect the suspect of rumor.
According to Obama the hacks continued until September 2016. According to ABC, Donna Brazile says the hacks didn't stop until after the elections in 2016. According to Crowdstrike the hacks continued into November.
Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile said Russian hackers persisted in trying to break into the organization's computers "daily, hourly" until after the election -- contradicting President Obama's assertion that the hacking stopped in September after he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin to "cut it out."-ABC
This time frame gives a lot of latitude to both hacks and leaks happening on that server and still agrees with the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs). According to Bill Binney , the former Technical Director for the NSA, the only way that data could move off the server that fast was through a download to a USB stick. The transfer rate of the file does not agree with a Guciffer 2.0 hack and the information surrounding Guciffer 2.0 is looking ridiculous and impossible at best.
The DNC fiasco isn't that important of a crime. The reason I say this is the FBI would have taken control over material evidence right away. No law enforcement agency or Intel agency ever did. This means none of them considered it a crime Comey should have any part of investigating. That by itself presents the one question mark which destroys any hope Mueller has proving law enforcement maintained a chain of custody for any evidence he introduces.
It also says the US government under Barrack Obama and the victimized DNC saw this as a purely political event. They didn't want this prosecuted or they didn't think it was prosecutable.
Once proven it shows a degree of criminality that makes treason almost too light a charge in federal court. Rest assured this isn't a partisan accusation. Team Clinton and the DNC gets the spotlight but there are Republicans involved.
Further reading
- George Eliason: Ukraine's Voters Didn't Just Reject Nationalism, They Rejected Maidan, Bandera and the Revolution , April 23, 2019.
- Adam Carter: Guccifer 2.0: Game Over , October 6, 2019.
- Adam carter: Guccifer 2.0 Game Over – Year End Review , Disobediaent Media , December 25, 2018.
- A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year's DNC Hack , The Nation , August 9, 2017.
- Adam Carter: Fancy Frauds, Bogus Bears & Malware Mimicry?! , Disobediaent Media, July 26, 2017.
- Veterans For Intelligence Sanity (VIPS) Memo to the President: Intel Vets Challenge 'Russia Hack' Evidence , Consortiumnews.com, July 24, 2017.
- Krebs on Security: Blowing the Whistle on Bad Attribution , August 18, 2017.
|
|
|
Nov 27, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Investigative Jouralist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the CEO Bill Larsen bought a small, Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to Silicon Valley.
MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate to reduce NSA spying on the public.
The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order to crack encrypted communications to write a back door for law enforcement.
Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike.
In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives.
|
|
|
Apr 19, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Ghost Ship | Apr 19, 2018 3:07:17 AM | 15
OT but very relevant to the Skripal/Douma incidents.
The Guardian has an article today headlined " The taboo on chemical weapons has lasted a century – it must be preserved " which is a bare-faced lie as the Guardian should know because the British used chemical weapons against the Russian in August, 1919, less than a century ago, and the Japanese, among America's closest allies used them against the Chinese in World War 2.
The strongest case for Churchill as a chemical warfare enthusiast involves Russia, and was made by Giles Milton in The Guardian on 1 September 2013, which prompted this article. Milton wrote that in 1919, scientists at the governmental laboratories at Porton in Wiltshire developed a far more devastating weapon: the top secret "M Device," an exploding shell containing a highly toxic gas called diphenylaminechloroarsine [DM].The rest of the article defends Churchill against claims that he wanted to use "poison gas" in India and Iraq against tribesmen by suggesting that he meant tear gas but equally he could have been referring to mustard gas which "only" killed about 2.5% of the 165,000 WW1 soldiers it was used against but that was with a level of medical care I doubt Indian or Iraqi tribesmen could even begin to dream off.The man in charge of developing it, Major General Charles Foulkes, called it "the most effective chemical weapon ever devised." Trials at Porton suggested that it was indeed a terrible new weapon. Uncontrollable vomiting, coughing up blood and instant, crippling fatigue were the most common reactions. The overall head of chemical warfare production, Sir Keith Price, was convinced its use would lead to the rapid collapse of the Bolshevik regime. "If you got home only once with the gas you would find no more Bolshies this side of Vologda."
A staggering 50,000 M Devices were shipped to Russia: British aerial attacks using them began on 27 August 1919 .Bolshevik soldiers were seen fleeing in panic as the green chemical gas drifted towards them. Those caught in the cloud vomited blood, then collapsed unconscious. The attacks continued throughout September on many Bolshevik-held villages. But the weapons proved less effective than Churchill had hoped, partly because of the damp autumn weather. By September, the attacks were halted then stopped.
Peter AU 1 , Apr 19, 2018 4:20:05 AM | 23
"The 'chemical incident' has likely been faked. It suspiciously happened just a few days after U.S. President Trump had announced the he wanted the U.S. military to leave Syria. A year earlier a similar incident was claimed to have happened after a similar announcement by Trump. The U.S. had responded to the 2017 incident by bombing an empty Syrian airfield."Watching reports coming out of Syria in real time, I thought it was a genuine strike. Same as I thought the JK build up was the real thing and also the 59 missiles a year ago. Once the dust, smoke, and the fog of war had cleared, it became apparent that this, was yet again a choreographed move, same as the missiles on Shayrat airfield.
I may well be wrong, as I do not go along with group think here, but this strike seems a preemptive move by Trump to prevent a push for for US military action in Syria that will take us to WWIII.
|
|
|
Nov 29, 2019 | www.frontpagemag.com
The conspiracy theory that exposes the Democrats' desperation and panic.
Fri Nov 29, 2019 Oleg Atbashian 133 In the last few days, media talking heads have been saying the word "CrowdStrike" a lot, defining it as a wild conspiracy theory originating in Moscow. They were joined by Chris Wallace at Fox News, who informed us that president Trump and his ill-informed fans believe in a crazy idea that the DNC wasn't hacked by the Russians but by some Ukrainian group named CrowdStrike that stole the DNC server and brought it to Ukraine , and that it was Ukraine that meddled in our 2016 election and not Russia.A crazy idea indeed. Except that neither Trump nor his fans had ever heard of it until the Democrat-media complex condescendingly informed them that these are their beliefs.
Let's look at the facts:
- Fact 1. In 2016 the DNC hired the Ukrainian-owned firm CrowdStrike to analyze their server and investigate a data breach.
- Fact 2. CrowdStrike experts determined that the culprit was Russia.
- Fact 3. The FBI never received access to the DNC server, so the Russian connection was never officially confirmed and continues to be an allegation coming from the DNC and its Ukrainian-owned contractor.
- Fact 4. Absent the official verdict, other theories continue to circulate, including the possibility that the theft was an inside job by a DNC employee, who simply copied the files to a USB drive and sent it to WikiLeaks.
None of these facts was ever disputed by anyone. The media largely ignored them except for the part about the Russian hackers, which boosted their own, now debunked, wild conspiracy theory that Trump was a Russian agent.
Now that Trump had asked the newly elected Ukrainian president Zelensky to look into CrowdStrike during that fateful July phone call, the media all at once started telling us that "CrowdStrike" is a code word for a conspiracy theory so insane that only Trump could believe in it, which is just more proof of how insane he is.
But if Trump had really said what Mr. Wallace and the media claim, Ukrainians would be the first to call him on it and the impeachment would've been over by now. Instead, Ukrainians back Trump every step of the way.
So where did this pretzel-shaped fake news come from, and why is it being peddled now ?
Note this is a classic case study of propaganda and media manipulation:
- Take an idea or a story that you wish to go away and make up an obviously bogus story with the same names and details as the real one.
- Start planting it simultaneously on media channels until the fake story supplants the real one, while claiming this is what your opponents really believe.
- Have various fact-checking outlets debunk your fake story as an absurd conspiracy theory. Ridicule those who allegedly believe in it. Better yet, have late night comedians do it for you.
- Once your opponent is brought down, mercilessly plant your boot on his face and never let up.
This mass manipulation technology had been tested and perfected by the Soviet propaganda machine, both domestically and overseas, where it was successfully deployed by the KGB. The Kremlin still uses it, although it can no longer afford it on the same grandiose scale. In this sense, the Democratic think tanks are the true successors of the KGB in deviousness, scope, and worldwide reach of fake narratives. How they inherited these methods from the KGB is a story for another day.
For a long time this technology was allowing the Democrats to delegitimize opposition by convincing large numbers of Americans that Republicans are
- Haters
- Racists
- Fascists
- Deniers of science
- Destroyers of the environment
- Heartless sellouts to corporate interests
- And so on - the list is endless.
The Soviet communists had aptly named it "disinformation," which a cut above the English word "misinformation." It includes a variety of methods for a variety of needs, from bringing down an opponent to revising history to creating a new historical reality altogether. In this sense, most Hollywood movies on historical subjects today disinform us about history, supplanting it with a bogus "progressive" narrative. The Soviet term for such art was "socialist realism."
Long story short, the Democrat-media complex has successfully convinced one half of the world that Trump is a Russian agent. Now they're acting as if they'd spent the last three years in a coma, unaware of any bombshell stories about collusion. And bombshell stories without any continuation are a telltale sign of fake narratives. The only consequence of these bombshells is mass amnesia among the foot soldiers.
The Trump-Russian outrage is dead, long live the Trump-Ukraine outrage. And when that outrage is dead, the next outrage that will be just outrageous.
The current impeachment narrative alleges that Trump used military aid as leverage in asking Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden (which implies the Democrats know Biden is dirty, otherwise why bother?). What's not in this picture is CrowdStrike. Even though Trump mentioned it in the phone call, it has nothing to do with the Bidens nor the Javelin missiles. CrowdStrike has nothing to do with impeachment. We're told it's just a silly conspiracy theory in Trump's head, that it's a nonissue.
But then why fabricate fake news about it and plant blatant lies simultaneously in all media outlets from Mother Jones to Fox News? Why risk being exposed over such a nonissue? Perhaps because it's more important than the story suggests.
Only a computer illiterate would think that CrowdStrike needed to take the physical DNC server to Ukraine in order to analyze it. Any computer can be cloned and its digital image can be sent within minutes anywhere on the planet in the form of ones and zeroes. It can also exist in multiple digital copies, carrying not just confidential archives, but also history logs and other content that can reveal to an expert whether the hacking occurred, and if so, by whom.
The copies of the DNC server on CrowdStrike computers are likely to hold the key to understanding what really happened during the 2016 election, the origin of the anti-Trump witch hunt, and the toxic cloud of lies that had been hanging over the world and poisoning minds during the last three years.
And now the new Ukrainian government might subpoena these copies from CrowdStrike and finally pass them to FBI experts, which should've been done three years ago. The danger of this happening is a much greater incentive for the Democrats to preemptively destroy Trump than all the dirt Joe Biden had been rolling in as Obama's vice president.
This gives the supposedly innocuous reference to CrowdStrike during Trump's call a lot more gravity and the previously incoherent part of the transcript begins to make sense.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation.
If you read the transcript on the day it was released, you probably didn't understand what Trump was even talking about, let alone what had caused such a disproportionate outrage, complete with whistle blowing and calls for impeachment. What in that mild conversation could possibly terrify the Democrats so much? They were terrified because, unlike most Americans, the Democrats knew exactly what Trump was talking about. And now you know, too.
The fraudulent "CrowdStrike conspiracy" deflection is not a show of the Democrats' strength. Instead, It betrays their desperation and panic, which tells us that Trump is squarely over the target.
It also helps us to see who at Fox News can be trusted to tell us the truth. And it ain't Chris Wallace.
NAHALKIDES • a day ago ,
coolit10 NAHALKIDES • a day ago ,Fine dissection of the CrowdStrike story. Of course if the DNC was serious about finding out who breached their security they would have allowed the FBI to investigate. They didn't - which means they're covering something up.
🕊jr🕊 " Deep State Target " coolit10 • 13 hours ago ,And who doesn't have at least one backup system running constantly, I have two and am just a home user and the DNC would not have been dumb enough not to have one on the premises and one off site for safety and preservation and the FBI could have gotten to either one if they wanted to. DWS was involved in something very similar and the FBI backed off again. I thought the DNC and the FBI were on the same page and would have liked to find out how the "transfer" happened?
Herman Young 🕊jr🕊 " Deep State Target " • 12 hours ago ,Let's be honest, that FBI made no attempt to investigate it in the first place as they were as culpable in this crime as the DNC.
SteveTn6b NAHALKIDES • 16 hours ago ,Yet DOJ Mueller conclusively signed off on the unsubtaniated fact the Russians had hacked the DNC computers in his final Weissman Report. Just one more part of the curious Mueller report that was far more a CYA hit piece against future claims of Obama crimes, than an investigation of past Trump ones.
Herman Young SteveTn6b • 12 hours ago ,They know who breached their security. He'd dead!
Karen Herman Young • 9 hours ago ,Seth Rich - paper trail to Wikilinks needs to come out in any Senate impeachment trail since Democrats claim the Ukraine phone call was Trump's alleged downfall. CROWDSTRIKE was the only favor Trumps asked for.
Clasvi SteveTn6b • 13 hours ago ,We all know it was Seth Rich
Karen Clasvi • 9 hours ago ,you are spot on. it is amazing how they shut down the Seth Rich murder. The media was all to happy to shut it down.
undrprsr Clasvi • 6 hours ago ,Fox helped with that cover up
El Cid NAHALKIDES • 15 hours ago ,Yep, and Donna Brazile wrote in her book she feared for her life after Seth Rich was murdered, why's that if it was just a random attack?
Joe Clear NAHALKIDES • 12 hours ago ,There are two important facts to glean from this article:
1) Crowdstrike, the DNC contractor, is Ukrainian
2) that the famous server may have been backed up in Ukraine and not tampered with.From the MSM we were given the 'interpretation' that Trump is an idiot who believes that the DNC shipped the server with no changes to the Ukraine. No folks. He 'gets' technology and security. He actual ran a business! (imagine).
I'd love to hear that in Hillary's own voice. :) You know, cleaned with a cloth?
stanley castleberry NAHALKIDES • 12 hours ago ,They sure are, that being the killing of Seth Rich who copied the data to flash drive and gave it to Wikileaks.
Herman Young NAHALKIDES • 12 hours ago • edited ,They found out right away. Hence Rich was assassinated.
No Bread or Circuses • a day ago ,That pretty much sums it up. MSM in total cahoots on this too since they put the entire topic of the CROWDSTRIKE part of the phone call into the cone of silence.
Anacleto Mitraglia • 21 hours ago • edited ,The Left and media (One and the same within the "Deep State") have been playing "Three Card Monte" with America for a while; it stops now!
The "Impeachment" media show being run by the Lefty tool cretins in the House has NOTHING to do with wrong doing by President Trump. It has EVERYTHING to do with the fear that President Trump will expose the depth of the swamp and bring the criminals on the Left down to Justice!
We are s close to getting to the bottom of the conspiracies that threaten our nation. Time to make the America haters pay for the harm they have done to our nation!
We need open and in depth prosecution of the criminal activities of the Left. There needs to be LONG prison sentences and, yes, even executions for those that seek to undermine our nation.
People need to know that there our GRAVE penalties for betraying our nation!
God Bless President Trump!
God Bless America!Herman Young Anacleto Mitraglia • 12 hours ago ,In fact, when I first heard this story - that is: very recently - I was puzzled: why should a major party in the Country that invented IT and is still at its leading edge, ask an obscure firm of a crumbling, remote foreign State to do their IT security research? I'm not saying that Ukraine is a s++thole Country, but... you get me.
Either they have very much to hide, or they fear some closeted rightwing geek that works in any of the many leftist US technofirms. Or, CrowdStrike were involved from the beginning of the story, from the Steele dossier perhaps?
El Cid Anacleto Mitraglia • 15 hours ago • edited ,The whole Crowdstrike fiasco has been around for years - plus became a solid CYA part of the Mueller report too - just in case the Democrats needed to bury it later.
Cynthia Campbell • 19 hours ago ,don't you get it? The DNC is completely infiltrated by Ukrainian graft. Even Joe Biden was on the take. Why won't they run their IT? (there is no Research in IT here, just office software)
doc_who_cuts • 20 hours ago ,If you want to sell and deliver State Secrets and Intel to our enemies, then you (Obama, the Clintons, the DNC) simply make it easier for THEM to access. They have done this for years, and this is why they had to fill the DOJ, the FBI and the State Department with traitors and haters of America and American principles. Barack Hussein Obama, the Clintons, their evil administrations and even two-faced RINOS like McCain, Romney, and Jeff Sessions were actively involved. This is treason pure and simple, and all of the above could be legitimately and justifiably hung or shot without recourse, and rightly so!
Herman Young doc_who_cuts • 12 hours ago ,not seizing the DNC and hillary servers is the clearest case of OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE I know of in the last few years.
FRANCES LOUISE • a day ago ,Isn't it ironic, the Dems accuse Trump of "obstruction of justice".
elephant4life FRANCES LOUISE • 19 hours ago ,I have known about "Crowdstrike" since Dec. 2017. Pres. Trump is just subtlety introducing background on what will be the biggest story of treachery, subversion, treason and corruption ever. QAnon that the fakenews tries to vilify as a LARP has been dropping crumbs about "Crowdstrike", Perkins Coir, Fusion GPS, FVEY and so much more! Crowdstrike mentioned 7x in the last 2 years. I can't urge people enough to actually investigate the Q posts for themselves! You will be stunned at what you have been missing. Q which says "future proves past" and "news will unlock" what I see in the media now is old news to those of us following Q. Q told us that "Senate was the prize" "Senate meant more" that the investigations started in the House would now move to the Senate and all this that the Dems and Rinos have been trying to hide is going to be exposed. Fakenews corporate media has litterally written hundreds of hit pieces against Q - me knows "they doth protest to much" - Recent Q post told "Chairman Graham its time. Senate was the target"
Keep up with the Q posts and Pres. Trump's tweets in once place: https://qmap.pub/ - And if you are still having a hard time believing this is legit Pres. Trump himself has confirmed Q posts by "Zero Delta" drops - if you think this is fake - try and tweet within 1 minute of when Pres. Trump does BUT your tweet has to anticipate his! YOU have to tweet first and HE has to follow you within 1 minute. MATHEMATICAL IMPOSSIBILITY UNLESS you are in the same immediate space or communicating at the time of the tweets! To all you doubters that think Q is just a by chance scam - NO WAY. There have been MANY, MANY of these ZERO DELTA PROOFS over the last 2 years. The most recent was Nov. 20th.
Link will show you how much attention has been given to "debunking" Q - gotta wonder why
https://cdn.qmap.pub/images...Herman Young elephant4life • 12 hours ago ,Perkins-Coie is the real-world Milton, Chadwick & Waters. I'm willing to bet their industrial-sized shredders are working overtime.
Herman Young FRANCES LOUISE • 12 hours ago ,Unless Bleach-Bit got there first.
Grant Hodges • a day ago ,Crowdstrike in the dog who did not bark. The Democrat cone of silence they put on even the mention of the word has been the most damning clue this is where the real action is.
coolit10 Grant Hodges • a day ago ,The assertion that a digital image of the computer can be transmitted quickly all around the world is not necessarily correct in my experience as a cyber security analyst. I'm not an upper echelon type, but I am aware that it can take up to weeks to transmit such images depending on the hard disk, where it is, and the connections/network to your device creating the image. The FBI should have physically taken the device since there was a suspicion of wrong doing by Hillary Clinton. Had it been Donald Trump's computer I do not doubt the FBI would either have imaged it on the spot or taken the device.
Grant Hodges coolit10 • a day ago ,Last night I completely removed Catalina-Safari on my older Mac Book Air and re-installed Mohave-Safari from my backup to the day before I installed Catalina including the data and system just like it was before. It took around 5 hours and was cabled and not on Wi-Fi and it was perfect and reset the clock, my old e-mails and the newer ones as well. I can't believe being hooked into real broadband or fiber couldn't do the same in a relatively short period of time, but still significantly longer than a thumb drive or external hard drive.
El Cid Grant Hodges • 14 hours ago • edited ,One variable is how big your hard drive is. If it is a big drive at a remote location, say somewhere in California to the Midwest, it can take weeks for a forensic backup. I only say that because . . . well, I'm not allowed to say. But you get it.
The assertion is a figure of speech. Today's IT infrastructure companies sell the service of maintaining clones in real-time in two or more locations for safety purposes. VMware and other off-the-shelf products makes this kind of setup easy to deploy. Did Crowdstrike offer that service and did the DNC buy it, that is the question? And, if so, did Crowdstrike keep the image on their backups in Ukraine?
(Note: it is not obvious that such a setup would preserve the forensic data the FBI would be looking for, but its a start).
|
|
|
Nov 30, 2019 | aim4truth.org
In January 2017, after much hullabaloo from the Democrats about Russian hacking of the 2016 election, the Anonymous Patriots set out to get the record straight about who was hacking who. Using basic internet research, along with our ability to separate fake media narrative from actual truth, we posted a citizen intelligence report entitled: Russian Hackers Found
In this article, we disclosed that Dmitri Alperovitch is the Russian DNC hacker . Yet to date, the corporate media remains silent on our report and intelligence agencies have not updated the lame report that they originally provided as evidence of Russian hacking (see PDF link below). While the Deep State operatives in the media and intelligence agencies continue to suppress vital intelligence that the American people need to make America great again , the American Intelligence Media has moved on to disclose more about Alperovitch and the Crowdstrike operations.
As we have discussed in several audios, Barack Obama's favorite cyberwarlord was Dmitri Alperovitch, whose loyalty to the United States is certainly questionable. Is it odd to you that Alperovitch, known as the best criminal Russian hacker in the world, was at one time arrested by the FBI? If James Comey is the "D.C. Fixer" for the political elite, then Dimitri Alperovitch is the "Cyber-Fixer" for the Deep State. Whether it's Russian, Korean, or Chinese "hacking" in American, it is always Dmitri who is the only expert the Deep State calls on to quickly examine the evidence and then hide or destroy it.
Also discussed at length is connection between the Ukrainian Atlantic Council to the DNC, Clintons, NATO, Evelyn Farkas, George Soros, and the globalist gangsters . The anti-Russian propaganda of NATO's Cold War machine (Atlantic Council) used Dmitri Alperovitch's Crowdstrike to disrupt the U. S. Presidential election and Ukrainian/Russian relations. Additional resources to support the audio discussion are:
Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear.
Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell Apart 2 The DNI Report Faked Sources.
Ukraine Tried to Tip the Election in Clinton's Favor.
What is CrowdStrike? Firm Hired by DNC has Ties to Hillary Clinton, a Ukrainian Billionaire and Google.
The official Director of National Intelligence Agency report on Russian hacking (meddling) in the U. S. presidential election is hyperlinked below – thirteen pages of a big "nothing burger" that does not have a single piece of evidence. This is an embarrassing waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars. .
Note that the entire "evidence" on Russian hacking of the DNC server is one paragraph containing zero evidence.Background to "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions
in Recent US Elections": The Analytic Process and Cyber
Incident AttributionAnother fake intelligence report claims to describe how Dmitri Alperovitch's Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear work in cyberspace. This report is another sad, expensive report that is nothing more than a disinformation piece produced and published by two U.S. intelligence agencies – the FBI and Department of Homeland Security – to propagandize Americans. What the report actually describes is well-known and freely available Ukrainian malware that is old and has nothing to do with Russia.
GRIZZLY STEPPE – Russian Malicious Cyber ActivityThe report does not prove that Russia hacked the 2016 U.S. election, but it does reveal that the PHP malware sample that the government provided from the CrowdStrike report is:
- An old version of malware. The sample was version 3.1.0 and the current version is 3.1.7 with 4.1.1 beta also available.
- Freely available to anyone who wants it.
- The authors claim they are Ukrainian, not Russian.
- The malware is an administrative tool used by hackers to upload files, view files on a hacked website, download database contents and so on. It is used as one step in a series of steps that would occur during an attack.
Wordfence (cyber analysis company) analyzed the IP addresses available in the declassified report and demonstrated that they are in 61 countries, belong to over 380 organizations and many of those organizations are well known website hosting providers from where many attacks originate. There is nothing in the IP data that points to Russia specifically.
Furthermore, the report claims to contain technical details regarding the tools and infrastructure used by the Russian civilian and military intelligence services to compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the U.S. election, as well as a range of U.S. Government, political, and private sector entities.
If you read this report, remember that it is propaganda, and the authors assume that you know nothing about anything and count on you "believing" multiple U.S. intelligence agencies who really work for the Deep State and not the American people.
|
|
|
Dec 28, 2017 | www.youtube.com
Our Hidden History , 4 days ago (edited)
Elizabeth Ferrari , 4 days agoThat 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.
Esen B. , 3 days agoThis interview is a wonderful illustration of everything that is horribly wrong with corporate media. I hope it goes viral.
Lemmy Motorhead , 3 days agoHe is far right, he is calling "cockroaches" Central Asian/ex-USSR workers coming to Moscow and in general his tone is quite ultra-nationalistic.
Esen B. , 3 days agoVery well put! Everything that is labeled as "conspiracy theory" when aimed towards the West, is "respectable journalism" when aimed at Russia.
Esen B. , 3 days ago (edited)That is the video about fire arm legalization "cockroaches ", even if you are not Russian speaking it's pretty graphic to understand the idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8ILxqIEEMg
trdi , 3 days ago (edited)And FYI - Central Asian workers do the low-wage jobs in Moscow, pretty like Mexicans or Puerto Ricans in US. Yet, that "future president" is trying to gain some popularity by labeling and demonizing them. Sounds familiar a bit?
Sendan , 3 days ago"definitelly ddissagree with that assertation about Alexei he's had nationalist views but he's definitely not far right and calling him a tool of US intelligence is pretty bs this is the exact same assertation that the Russian state media says about him."
I disagree that there is any evidence of Navalny being tool of US intelligence, but you are wrong for not recognizing that Navalny is ultranationalist. His public statements are indefensible. He is a Russian ultra nationalist, far right and a racist. Statements about cockroaches, worse than rats, bullets being too good etc - there is no way to misunderstand that.
MrChibiluffy , 3 days agoNavalny is a corrupt ex-politician just like his mentor that was caught red-handed taking a bribe from a German businessman "all on camera" at a restaurant. Most of corrupt politicians and businessmen that get caught by the Russian government always cry that they are politically repressed and the government is evil.
Navalnys brother was the owner of a small transport company that Navalny helped secure contracts with government enterprises '' anywhere in the world that would be a conflict of interest" but that's not why he is in jail! His brother is in jail for swindling the postal service company for transportation costs.
Yarrski , 3 days agoI know he said that i agree he has those views but that was in 2010.
Mohamed Elmaazi , 2 days ago@trdi I am a Russian. And I remember the early Navalny who made me sick to my stomach with absolutely disgusting, RACIST, anti-immigration commentaries. The guy is basically a NEO-NAZI who has toned down his nationalist diatribes in the past 10 or so years. Has he really reformed? I doubt it.
Nikita Gusarov , 2 days agoThis is a solid comment mate. Well thought out, with solid reasoning. How refreshing.
MrChibiluffy , 2 days agoMrChibiluffy, Navalny became relatively popular in Russia precisely at that time, especially during the White Ribbon protests in 2011/2012. I remember it very well myself.
I am Russian and I lived in Moscow at that time and he was the darling of the Russian opposition. He publicly defined his views and established himself back then and hasn't altered his position to this day.
What's more important is that around 2015 or so he made an alliance with the far-right and specifically Diomushkin who is a neo-nazi activist. I understand that people change their views, it's just that he hasn't.
annalivia1308 , 1 day agoNikita Gusarov it still feels like the best chance for some form of populist opposition atm. Even though they just rejected him he has a movement. Would you rather vote for Sobchak?
Ind Aus , 1 day agoYes. The US are looking to repeat Ukraine's regime change.
artemis12061966 , 1 day agoLets not forget that one reason many voted for Trump was his rhetoric about improving the peace-threatening antagonism towards Russia, especially in order to help resolve the situation in Syria. It's not like it was secret he was trying to hide. He only moderated his views somewhat when the Democrat-engineered anti-Russian smear campaign took off and there was a concerted effort to tie him to Russia.
Is it crime surround yourself with people that will help you fullfill your pledges?
RipTheJackR , 9 hours agoOr the death of Gary Webb, prosecution of whistleblowers.....like Private Manning...
Gabriel Olsen , 3 hours agoOur Hidden History... beautiful. Very well put mate :)
Luca Clemente , 4 days ago (edited)Yep, when he talked about murdering journalists, I paused the video and told my girlfriend about the murder of Michael Hastings. Oh an PS the USA puts journalists in Guantanamo. We play real baseball.
TheJagjr4450 , 3 days agoAaron Mate is a brilliant interviewer. He keeps a calm demeanor, but does not let his guest get away with any untruths or non sequiturs. This one of the many reasons I love The Real News. I encourage anyone who appreciates solid journalism to donate to The Real News.
dzedo53 , 4 days agoGREAT follow up questions Aaron... Harding did not expect to get a real reporter... he obfuscates and diverts to other issues because he can not EVER provide any evidence... Going to Moscow will not tell you anything about whether or not the DNC server was hacked.
Noah , 14 hours agoPutin is a bad guy. Therefore he colluded with Trump back in 1987 to help Trump win the election in 2016. Why is that so hard to see?? LOL.
jodi houts , 4 days agoLuke Harding is a complete and total idiot. He kept qualifying his arguments with "I've been to Moscow... I don't know if you know this, but I've been to Moscow..." and even at one point, "Some of my friends have been murdered." LOL, sure, whatever you say, Luke! Like you're so big time and such an all star journalist who isn't just trying to capitalize on the wild goose chase that is psychologically trapping leftists into delusions and wishful thinking.
KAREN Nichols , 4 days agoThank you Aaron Matč for calling out the bullshit. The dem party is dead until they take care of their own espionage and corruption.
david ackerman , 4 days agoThank you for "holding his feet to the fire"...I wish more media was more skeptical as well. Good work!
shadex08 , 4 days agoNSA monitors every communication over the internet. if the Russians hacked the DNC, there would be proof, and it would not take years to uncover. Look at the numbers: Clinton spent 2 billion, Russian "agents" spent 200k to "influence" the election. Great job Aaron for holding this opportunist's feet to the fire. Oh he's a story teller all right. You know a synonym of storyteller? LIAR!!!!
95percent air , 4 days agoGreat job Aaron, your work here makes me feel even better about my contribution to the real news.
Mal c.H , 4 days agoWow Aaron Matte NICE JOB. I'm only half through, I hope you don't make him cry. Do u make him cry? Did I hear this guy say he's ultimately a storyteller? Lol.
jodi houts , 4 days agoIt may seem like Trump has an alarming amount of associations with Russia, because he does.. that's how rich oligarchs work. But it's all just SPECULATION still. Why publish a book on this without a smoking gun to prove anything? Collusion isn't even a legal term, it's vague enough for people to make it mean whatever they want it to mean. People investigating and reporting on this are operating under confirmation bias. Aaron, you're always appropriately critical and you're always asking the right questions. You seem to be one of the few sane people left in media. Trump is a disgrace but there still is no smoking gun.
Fixel Heimer , 4 days agoAs he gets deeper in the weeds of speculation he starts attacking Aaron's credibility.
Hugh Mungus , 4 days agoOmg a bunch of unproven conspiracy crap.. Hes making so many factual wrong statements I don't know where to start here.. How would anyone in the years before his candidacy have thought Trump would gain any political relevance. I mean even the pro Hillary media thought until the end, their massive trump coverage would only help to get him NOT elected, but the opposite was the case. This guy is a complete joke as are his theses. Actually reminding me of the guardian's so called report about Russian Hacking in the Brexit referendum. Look here if you want to have a laugh http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/12/how-097-changed-the-fate-of-britain-not.html
Katie B , 4 days agoHis logic seems to be: Putin does things we don't like -> Trump getting elected is something we don't like -> Putin got Trump elected.
Antman4656 , 4 days agoCollusion Rejectionist! Ha Ha. Funniest interview ever. Well done Aaron. The Real News taking a stand for truth. So what's in the book if there's no evidence? Guardian journalism? Stop questioning the official narrative, oh and have you heard of Estonia. :)) ps that smiley face was not an admission of my working for the Kremlin.
maskedavenger777 , 4 days ago (edited)Best interview ever. Aaron held him to his theories and asked what evidence or proof he had and he didn't come up with one spec of evidence only hearsay and disputed theories. What a sad indictment this is on America. 1 year on a sensationalized story and still nothing concrete. What a joke and proof of gullibility to anyone who believes this corporate media Narritive. I guess at least they don't have to cover policies like the tax theft or net neutrality. This is why we need The Real news.
I'd rather have American business making business deals with Russia for things like hotels, rather than business deals with the Pentagon to aim more weapons at the Russians. When haven't we been doing business with Russians? We might as well investigate Cargill, Pepsi, McDonald's, John Deere, Ford, and most of our wheat farmers.
|
|
|
Nov 28, 2019 | www.washingtonexaminer.com
Businessman Bill Browder alleged Fusion GPS acted as an agent for Russian interests in 2016, when the country was trying to combat the Magnitsky Act and its sanctions on Russian officials.
|
|
|
Nov 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Factotum , 27 November 2019 at 11:57 AM
WSJ columnist today raises an old obscure issue today about the Clinton emails and Comey's calculated exoneration of Clinton's culpability.This story reopens the claim Comey had a report there was an email exchange between Loretta Lynch and Clinton claiming Lynch promised her the DOJ would go easy on Clinton. Comey claimed when confronted with this memo, Lynch merely smiled like the Cheshire cat and nothing more was done.
This memo was later discredited as an alleged planted Russian hoax. Yet the memo story is again put in lead position on the opinion pages of the WSJ this very morning. Why was that? Not clear, but does the author think this alleged Lynch-Clinton campaign exchange will be part of the upcoming Horowitz report?
(WSJ: 11/27/19 - Holman Jenkins, Jr. - "Who will turn over the 2016 rocks")
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Factotum , 17 November 2019 at 05:40 PM
Just as important, where is the proof the Russians hacked the DNC computers (hat tip always to LJ) - since Roger Stone was banned from getting this information by the judge who just sent him away for life.CROWDSTRIKE's role in the Democrat impeachment smokescreen needs to keep moving forward because, it is not going away. Democrats refusal to even mention it, let alone their obsession trying to relentless label nameless CROWDSTRIKE as a loony, right wing conspiracy theory simply does not pass the smell test.
Particularly since Schiff does his very best to deep six even mention of Trump's requested Ukraine CROWDSTRIKE investigation. https://illicitinfo.com/?p=13576
Deep state CROWDSTRIKE collusion is starting to walk like a duck, quack like a duck and look like a duck.
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Will IG Horowitz Drop the Hammer on the FBI For FISA Abuse? by Larry C Johnson
There is great impatience, even frustration, over the slow roll out of the results of Inspector General Horowitz's investigation of the FBI's use of FISA. From what we already know from the public record, there was clear abuse and even criminal conduct by former FBI Director Jim Comey and his Deputy, Andy McCabe. They claimed in a filing with the FISA court that the Steele Dossier was verified. Yet, Jim Comey subsequently testified under oath before Congress that the so-called Dossier was "unverified." Okay Jimmy, which is it?
We have some clues that Horowitz is not doing a whitewash. Reports last week, based in part on the whining of people reportedly linked to Comey and McCabe and others at the FBI and DOJ, stated that persons substantively discussed in the report were given the chance to review their portion of the report but they had to do so after signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement and were not permitted to submit written responses.
Then we have Attorney General Barr's speech last Friday to the Federalist Society. You can read the full transcript at The Conservative Treehouse . It is magnificent. Barr understands that there has been an attempted coup against the Presidency of Donald Trump. Here are some key excerpts:
As I have said, the Framers fully expected intense pulling and hauling between the Congress and the President. Unfortunately, just in the past few years, we have seen these conflicts take on an entirely new character.
Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called "The Resistance," and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver available to sabotage the functioning of his Administration. Now, "resistance" is the language used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous – indeed incendiary – notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means is that, instead of viewing themselves as the "loyal opposition," as opposing parties have done in the past, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means necessary, a duly elected government.
A prime example of this is the Senate's unprecedented abuse of the advice-and-consent process. The Senate is free to exercise that power to reject unqualified nominees, but that power was never intended to allow the Senate to systematically oppose and draw out the approval process for every appointee so as to prevent the President from building a functional government.
Yet that is precisely what the Senate minority has done from his very first days in office. As of September of this year, the Senate had been forced to invoke cloture on 236 Trump nominees -- each of those representing its own massive consumption of legislative time meant only to delay an inevitable confirmation. How many times was cloture invoked on nominees during President Obama's first term? 17 times. The Second President Bush's first term? Four times. It is reasonable to wonder whether a future President will actually be able to form a functioning administration if his or her party does not hold the Senate. . . .
The costs of this constant harassment are real. For example, we all understand that confidential communications and a private, internal deliberative process are essential for all of our branches of government to properly function. Congress and the Judiciary know this well, as both have taken great pains to shield their own internal communications from public inspection. There is no FOIA for Congress or the Courts. Yet Congress has happily created a regime that allows the public to seek whatever documents it wants from the Executive Branch at the same time that individual congressional committees spend their days trying to publicize the Executive's internal decisional process. That process cannot function properly if it is public, nor is it productive to have our government devoting enormous resources to squabbling about what becomes public and when, rather than doing the work of the people. . . .
One of the ironies of today is that those who oppose this President constantly accuse this Administration of "shredding" constitutional norms and waging a war on the rule of law. When I ask my friends on the other side, what exactly are you referring to? I get vacuous stares, followed by sputtering about the Travel Ban or some such thing. While the President has certainly thrown out the traditional Beltway playbook, he was upfront about that beforehand, and the people voted for him. What I am talking about today are fundamental constitutional precepts. The fact is that this Administration's policy initiatives and proposed rules, including the Travel Ban, have transgressed neither constitutional, nor traditional, norms, and have been amply supported by the law and patiently litigated through the Court system to vindication.
Indeed, measures undertaken by this Administration seem a bit tame when compared to some of the unprecedented steps taken by the Obama Administration's aggressive exercises of Executive power – such as, under its DACA program, refusing to enforce broad swathes of immigration law.
The fact of the matter is that, in waging a scorched earth, no-holds-barred war of "Resistance" against this Administration, it is the Left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law. This highlights a basic disadvantage that conservatives have always had in contesting the political issues of the day. It was adverted to by the old, curmudgeonly Federalist, Fisher Ames, in an essay during the early years of the Republic.
Bill Barr's speech is a reminder that we still have men and women of integrity and wisdom battling in the public sphere to uphold the essence of our Republic. Barr's speech laid down a very clear marker of how he sees this battle for the soul of America. He is a man grounded in the law and committed to upholding it. He understands that justice must be blind and applied without bias if the fabric of this country is to remain intact.
We will know in the coming weeks if Barr delivers. I think he will. I have bet a bottle of fine bourbon with a wise hero of our Republic that high level people will be indicted. I hope for the sake of our country I am right. And if I am right, I am still going to buy that hero a bottle of fine bourbon.
Posted at 09:03 AM | Permalink
Reblog (0) Comments
Diana C , 19 November 2019 at 09:28 AM
Barr gives me hope that my grandchildren may grow up in a country that is still founded on the Constitution.Barbara Ann , 19 November 2019 at 09:56 AMHeroes of the Republic should drink together, come what may. I pray you are right LJ.Bill H , 19 November 2019 at 09:56 AMIt was a fine speech, but it was made to a private audience and not reported to any significant degree by the media. I saw nothing in it to give me any hope that actual action will be taken against those who are participating in the coup against the properly elected president of this nation.Cortes said in reply to Bill H ... , 19 November 2019 at 06:03 PMThe size of the forum seems less important to me than the quality of audience members.h , 19 November 2019 at 10:08 AMWere the founders of the US Republic many? Were they insignificant people? Were they ignorant of their own faults and the likely faults of their interlocutors?
The reaction to Barr's comments will be telling in real time. Not TV or internet instant demand reaction time. Cattle are not the only creatures which have to ruminate, I think. The implications of Barr's remarks have to be digested by folks accustomed to being surrounded by lackeys.
AG Barr's speech is definitely worth one's time to watch/listen or read. It's an excellent history lesson not to mention a kick in the radical Left's derriere.JerseyJeffersonian , 19 November 2019 at 11:04 AMIt seems many in the alt news arena are placing bets on the IG's Report as well but I haven't seen a fine bottle of bourbon as the prize...very classy. If I were to place a bet my money would be on the IG fully exposing the entirety of this coup cooked up by Brennan (approved by Obama), simmered by Comey and team then carried out by the Resistance cadre.
It's unimaginable to believe Horowitz, let alone Barr, would whitewash or go half way when detailing such an extremely significant political event in our countries history. It's also impossible to right any of this mess without full disclosure which then must lead to holding accountable those who deliberately intended to harm this country and The President.
Here's to hoping Barr/Horowitz and team adhere to the DOJ/FBI's motto - Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity...
It was an impressive address. Hard to work up hope when so many parts of government that should ne helping are corrupted, though.notlurking , 19 November 2019 at 12:38 PMHey Larry what fine bourbon do you recommend...Larry Johnson -> notlurking... , 19 November 2019 at 12:48 PMPappy Van Winkle.Jack said in reply to Larry Johnson ... , 19 November 2019 at 01:35 PM
An excellent choice, if you can get it.Tidewater said in reply to Larry Johnson ... , 19 November 2019 at 02:25 PMPappy Van Winkle 23 year old 2016 750 ml $3,899.99Barbara Ann said in reply to Tidewater... , 19 November 2019 at 03:43 PMWow! You guys are definitely playing hardball.
For what this bet represents - hopefully a first step towards saving the Republic, the stake seems wholly appropriate.Tidewater said in reply to Barbara Ann... , 20 November 2019 at 04:56 PMYes, you are quite right. And very nicely put. I have had a grubby kind of adult life keeping one eye out for cheap, acceptable booze. So I emitted a kind of inadvertent Rorshach. Besides, I think the fiery, precious Kaintuck will be shared among a group of very smart, worldly wise, and hard old spooky guv'mint guys, sometime after Thanksgiving. Like a meeting of the Norwegian Resistance. To be a fly on the wall as to the toasts...turcopolier -> Tidewater... , 19 November 2019 at 08:57 PMtidewaterTerry said in reply to turcopolier ... , 20 November 2019 at 06:41 AM
Why do you think the bet is with LJ?Altho multiple bets are possible, I agree with tidewater -Jack said in reply to Terry... , 20 November 2019 at 12:20 PM"I have a side bet with a friend. I no longer believe that the duopoly of parties in the US will indict anyone over the matter of this article.
I hope I lose the bet." pl (Nov 17 2019)
"I have bet a bottle of fine bourbon with a wise hero of our Republic that high level people will be indicted. " - LJ (Nov 19 2019)
I will be 78 on the 31st. I attribute my longevity to; the right genes. a robust outdoor life in youth, and a steady regime of cigars, bourbon and red meat. pl (May 25 2018)
However a commenter named Jack did once mention getting Pappy's for his birthday.
:-)
Terry,Tidewater said in reply to Terry... , 20 November 2019 at 04:59 PMI'm not a party to this bet.
However, your memory is correct, I did receive a bottle of Pappy's for my birthday some moons ago before it went cult. SWMBO paid $95 for it then. As you can see from Tidewater's comment the price has escalated significantly if you can even snag one from a retailer that can get an allocation from the wholesaler. It sure is a fine bourbon. Craft spirits have definitely pushed the envelope on quality and there are now many fine spirits available.
You 'multiple' covers you, but not me, and thanks for the comment. But it was a trap. Interesting, too.Tidewater said in reply to turcopolier ... , 20 November 2019 at 04:32 PMSir,English Outsider -> Tidewater... , 20 November 2019 at 08:06 PMAh so!, as Mr. Moto would say. I see. "How do you know that?" A question oft asked in one of the past vocations, as I recall. Well, I didn't know, actually. Careless. (Was this a little lesson in close reading?) And there was one glitch in the profile that did puzzle me and should have been a caution. Though I was bedazzled by a lot of surprising insights into the amber which I knew as Rebel Yell or Virginia Gentleman (from A. Smith Bowman who I just found out had the first name of Abram) from the time that I never had hangovers, till the time that I did, when I had to give bourbon up, switch to Scotch, and then had to give that up too, move on to the grape, where I should have been to begin with. (Though it always took me three glasses of jug wine and a little gagging before I got right with it. And then one day the wine in the groceries, like the peanuts, and the cheese, got a lot better.)
It was the Kaintuck angle that I should have noticed. That was not in the profile as developed. Still the glitch could be overlooked as a kind of grunt-ish foible, maybe. Or would have to do with the more er rambunctious LJ than his SST pix indicates, or perhaps the old stomping grounds. Appropriately symbolic, too. Camp on the Watauga, Hannah's Cowpens, King's Mountain, the Presbyterian invention of the pew (to slide out of in a hurry), the origin of the Rangers, the steady Overhill militia at Guilford Court House with homemade rifles lined up on the lowest rail of the split rail fence. And bourbon went there with them, I think that is certain enough.
Still, what the profile suggested to me was that it should have been a bet about something, say, from the Haut Medoc, perhaps a bottle of Chateau Petrus from Pomerol (Bordeux) maybe about 2012, and not the 1945 (a new Mercedes), just something more reasonable I see knocked down at $2499.99 at one loci. Or a Domaine Leroy Chambertin Grand Cru Cote de Nuits (Burgundy) for $1400.00. That could be considered gruntish, too. Napoleon is said to have drunk Chambertin every day. If he wasn't allowed to get it shipped in to him on St. Helena it wasn't the intense humidity of the rainy island climate on the arsenic in the wallpaper that did for him. And that would be really perfidious. Though thinking about it, I can see his jailors finding the steady predictable arrival of the Chambertin by mail packet like from Chewy.com a good thing for one and all...
Maybe I am right about this one, though: Someone here has a bet with Mr. William Binney.
Could it be a bottle of wine?
Tidewater said in reply to English Outsider ... , 21 November 2019 at 12:35 AM
Napoleon either did a lot of entertaining on St Helena or he hit the bottle seriously hard. He had hogsheads of Constantia wine delivered from nearby Groot Constantia to the amount of thirty bottles a month. Other sources say two or three bottles a day. "A floral desert wine that, 200 years ago, was one of the most sought after of its day. Crates were shipped to the royal courts of Europe". (Alex Perry, "The Rift".)They still make it -
https://www.kleinconstantia.com/our-wines/vin-de-constance
The sales pitch quotes Jane Austen as warranting its "healing powers on a disappointed heart" but I reckon those healing powers would have to be quite something to make up for that final cry of "La Garde Recule!"
I liked your alcoholic Odyssey above. May it long continue.
For a bit there I thought Groot Constantia was an island near St. Helena that I had never heard of! I looked up Cape Town--Constantia on Wiki and got the picture. So the Dutch were making a good wine in Constantia by the mid-seventeenth century. Nineteen hundred miles seems to me not nearby, though I admit it is a routine passage for a sailing ship. Lot of sugar in a dessert wine. Thank you for your comments.English Outsider -> Tidewater... , 21 November 2019 at 12:36 PMDid you ever hear the story that the Napoleon at St. Helena out there in the Atlantic off the Namibia coast was a double? The real Napoleon made his escape to the other St. Helena Island, in Beaufort County, South Carolina, according to Gullah legend.
JMH said in reply to Tidewater... , 20 November 2019 at 07:04 AM
I doubt that on the grounds that if he'd made it to the States the US would now stretch from Siberia to Tierra del Fuego. A great captain, Napoleon, and had rotten luck at Waterloo. A damn close run thing indeed.Trouble is he was also a complete bastard and very light on the touchy-feely stuff. You get that sort on the Continent every now and again so we have to go over regularly and sort them out. Gets to be a bore but Noblesse Oblige and all that.
Put that last in in case Vig, who may just possibly be LeaNder though the style's slightly different, wants some English Exceptionalism to knock.
On the drinks front I have to confess to being a complete fraud, from the viewpoint of the average SSTer with his or her well stocked cellar. At present I'm occupied with palming off some decidedly weird home brewed cider on unsuspecting guests. Not always successfully. My home brewed beer's OK though. Compares well with German beer, which is for me the Gold Standard. A decent Single Malt every now and again and that's about it.
So I can admire your Odyssey, and the recollections that go with it, but not emulate it.
Buffalo Trace is the poor man's Pappy's.Jack , 19 November 2019 at 12:41 PMhttps://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/
https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/brands/buffalo-trace
https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/brands/van-winkleLarrySbin , 19 November 2019 at 12:57 PMThe proof will be in the pudding. It seems the IG report will be released after Thanksgiving. Considering the previous report that Horowitz issued where the executive summary said something similar to Comey's exoneration of Hillary, it will be interesting to see the tone of this report.
Barr made a fine speech but talk is cheap. What has he done to clean up his own department? Roger Stone was arrested by a SWAT team in a dramatic made for TV show and has now been convicted of lying. Why hasn't the same standard been applied to all the muckety mucks in DC?
All useless noise without real action.English Outsider , 19 November 2019 at 02:47 PM
Doubt Barr will do anything of substance.I don't think I've ever seen such an impressive overview of the constitutional background before. It applies to both sides of the Atlantic but more chance of it resulting in something concrete on yours. The video contains some interesting asides that are not in the printed transcript, in particular a reference to Trump's style of leadership and a dig at the convoluted legislation that sometimes emerges from Congress.Factotum , 19 November 2019 at 06:30 PM
I was more interested in the constitutional implications of the lecture, but your article above poses the urgent question arising from it. AG Barr has nailed his colours to the mast and cleared the decks for action. Is that all, or will action follow?Obama perfected Cloward-Pivens strategies to get what he wanted starting back in 2008.edding , 19 November 2019 at 07:57 PMObama storm-troopers would over-whelm local elections offices flooding them the voter registration requests they knew included fake registrations, just in order to prevent proper vetting of each registrant which allowed a lot of fraudulent voters to get a free pass.
Cloward-Pivens is intended to overwhelm a system "legally" to render it ineffectual. They are doing the same now with "expanded" voting rights like vote-harvesting and same day registration.
Just one more part of the Democrats use of Saul Alinksy Rules for Radicals. Glad Barr pointed all of this intentionally obstructionist out in such direct and data backed terms. We indeed are a fragile republic - losing a shared ethical common denominator every day - diversity is not our strength - in fact, it exposes our endemic weaknesses the more we move from the Founders values into third world values.
Am guessing that win or lose a bottle of Jefferson's bourbon is destined for Col. Lang, correct?turcopolier -> edding... , 19 November 2019 at 08:56 PMeddingEnglish Outsider -> turcopolier ... , 20 November 2019 at 09:12 AMWhy do you think that?
J , 19 November 2019 at 08:39 PM
Probably. Colonel, that guess results from putting two and two together about a bet you also made a little while ago, the one you are hoping to lose. I wouldn't say that constitutes proof but there's definitely a smoking gun there.'If' the 'Establishment' [aka Deep state] decided to prosecute its own, it would have been setting a dangerous precedence for themselves, and I fear that is the reason for the slow, s-l-o-w roll out, instead of prompt arrest, jail, prosecute, and upon conviction they become Bubb'a shower soap.akaPatience , 19 November 2019 at 09:42 PMI hate to say it, but I fear that the Colonel is right, nothing will be done with all this. It's all circus meant to distract us and get our hopes up.
I hope you win your bet Larry. Without enforcement, what good are laws?And I swear, if the malefactors get away with what they've done, at the very least I'll join others to march on Washington in protest. Wars aside, this is THE worst political scandal of my lifetime - a nightmare come true of the US government at its most corrupt and tyrannical.
|
|
|
Nov 11, 2019 | www.youtube.com
Someone Unknown , 27 minutes ago
Davida G , 24 minutes agoThink Adam Schiff will have the courage to hang himself?
Madam Mortified , 25 minutes agoThank you George , may the right ears be listening to your very informed words. Blessings from Europe 🙏🙏🙏
Eli Redshirt , 8 minutes agoI am so glad you came up on my feed...it's been a few years. Thanks for the findings.
Sharon Seal , 17 minutes ago (edited) div tabindex="0" role="Thank you sir!
JustAnotherPaddy , 1 minute ago div tabindex="0" role="articlarticle"> Ellen Ratner (sister of Bruce) was allegedly involved in some of this. Here is what I have, mostly from the Butowsky lawsuit that was filed. Most interesting in this data is the fact that Ellen Ratner met with Assange for 6 hours after a return flight from Berlin. May 11 Wikileaks lawyer Michael Ratner died of cancer He had a sister Ellen Ratner, a news analyst for Fox News and the White House correspondent for Talk Media News. Aug 26 2016 Ellen Ratner interview on Tom Hartmann. During their discussion Ellen shares news she has heard regarding Julian Assange and his threats of releasing hacked data that will send Hillary Clinton to prison (data that was either obtained by Russian hacker groups or DNC staffer Seth Rich - who HRC had murdered for his betrayal). "Julian Assange is saying he's going to do a new leak from WikiLeaks. Now, I have to tell you something, my brother Michael was Julian Assange's attorney before he died (that's before Michael died, Julian Assange is still alive)... and a lot of people think that what Julian Assange is actually doing is, he has made a bet that he's going to do better under Trump than Hillary Clinton, so he's going after Hillary Clinton." Nov 5 2016 Butowsky Lawsuit: "Mr. Butowsky stumbled into the RCH crosshairs after Ellen Ratner, a news analyst for Fox News and the White House correspondent for Talk Media News, contacted him in the Fall of 2016 about a meeting she had with Mr. Assange. Ms. Ratner's brother, the late Michael Ratner, was an attorney who had represented Mr. Assange. According to Ms. Ratner, she made a stop in London during a return flight from Berlin, and she met with Mr. Assange for approximately six hours in the Ecuadorean embassy. Ms. Ratner said Mr. Assange told her that Seth Rich and his brother, Aaron, were responsible for releasing the DNC emails to Wikileaks. Ms. Ratner said Mr. Assange wanted the information relayed to Seth's parents, as it might explain the motive for Seth's murder." Dec 17 2016 Butowsky Lawsuit: "On December 17, 2016, at the instigation of Ms. Ratner, Mr. Butowsky finally contacted Joel and Mary Rich, the parents of Seth, and he relayed the information about Ms. Ratner's meeting with Mr. Assange. During that conversation, Mr. Rich told Mr. Butowsky that he already knew that his sons were involved in the DNC email leak, but he and his wife just wanted to know who murdered Seth. Mr. Rich said he was reluctant to go public with Seth's and Aaron's role in leaking the emails because "we don't want anyone to think our sons were responsible for getting Trump elected." Mr. Rich said he did not have enough money to hire a private investigator, so Mr. Butowsky offered to pay for one. Mr. Rich accepted the offer and thanked Mr. Butowsky in an email. Dec 29 2016 Butowsky Lawsuit: On December 29, 2016 at 1:51 p.m., Mr. Butowsky sent an email to Ms. Ratner from his iPad: "If the person you met with truly said what he did, is their [sic] a reason you we aren't reporting it ?" At 3:48 p.m. that afternoon, Ms. Ratner responded as follows: "because--- it was a family meeting---- I would have to get his permission-- will ask his new lawyer, my sister-in-law."
Jean Burk , 16 minutes ago (edited)e"> Go to Quantico and learn how to glow. And this term 'OCONUS lures'...that just burns me. These terms they use to attempt to sterilize and normalize something that is absolutely Pimping and trafficking by design. How can this legitimately be FBI and DoJ policy? You're bringing women into the country to sex up and spy on schmucks for blackmail, profit and control. Words mean things. It's like government 'Authorities' at all levels of gov calling us 'civilians'? Think about that. A local cop, who is a citizen, calling you a civilian. Like you are collateral meat in a war zone. You and the officer - are citizens of this country. That word was inserted to separate you from your rights here. It changes the thought and perspective of you...and the officer. And they are not the nebulous 'Authorities'! They are public servants lent certain limited powers and all the responsibility that comes with it. Rant off, but it just bothers me...this double speak. Words mean things and using woman for 'operations' isn't ok at all. The people that fall for them? Just amazing dumb. As an adult, you should have formed so idea of the people you can reasonably attract. If some 11 rated super model rolls up to you in a bar and you've been mostly dating 5-7 range people, know that there's a reason your punching above your weight class. Your a target. If it's too good to be true, it absolutely is. Lures are drawing a check from our government for sex. What do we call that downtown? This should be prosecuted...and stopped.
Seth Rich was the source of the thumb drive(s). So I guess we have to disagree. Otherwise why was he killed? WHY would Podesta say to make an example of whoever got into the emails? Maybe Seth complained, went to (Donna? Debbie W-S?) about the cheating of Bernie Sanders. I don't believe a thing Mueller says. Kamphuis would know. Why was he killed?
|
|
|
Nov 09, 2019 | consortiumnews.com
Earlier in Stone's legal process his lawyers filed a motion to try to prove that Russia did not hack the DNC and Podesta emails. The motion revealed that CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC and Clinton campaign, never completed its report, and only gave a redacted draft to the FBI blaming Russia. The FBI was never allowed to examine the DNC server itself.
In the end, though, it doesn't matter if it were a hack or a leak by an insider. That's because the emails WikiLeaks released were accurate. When documents check out it is irrelevant who the source is. That's why WikiLeaks set up an anonymous drop box, copied by big media like The Wall Street Journal and others . Had the emails been counterfeit and disinformation was inserted into a U.S. election by a foreign power that would be sabotage. But that is not what happened.
The attempt to stir up the thoroughly discredited charge of collusion appears to be part of the defense strategy of those whose reputations were thoroughly discredited by maniacally pushing that false charge for more than two years. This includes legions of journalists. But principal among them are intelligence agency officials who laundered this "collusion" disinformation campaign through the mainstream media.
Faced now with a criminal investigation into how the Russiagate conspiracy theory originated intelligence officers and their accomplices in the media and in the Democratic Party are mounting a defense by launching an offensive in the form of impeachment proceedings against Trump that is based on an allegation of conducting routine, corrupt U.S. foreign policy.
Stone may be just a footnote to this historic partisan battle that may scar the nation for a generation. But he has the personality to be the poster boy for the Democrats' lost cause.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for T he Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe , Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe .
|
|
|
Nov 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
English Outsider , 03 November 2019 at 04:05 PM
Mr Johnson - an amateur's question but it's a question that was relevant as soon as Mr Steele's work became public knowledge. Was MI6 aware of Steele's work investigating Trump's Russian connections from the start of the time Steele was doing that work?blue peacock , 03 November 2019 at 05:58 PMThe Washington Post article contains these assertions -
"In 2009, after more than two decades in public service, Steele turned to the private sector and founded a London-based consulting firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, drawing on the reputation and network he developed doing intelligence work."
"Steele brought far more: He was able to tap a network of human sources cultivated over decades of Russia work. He moved quickly, reaching out to Russian contacts and others he referred to as "collectors" who had other sources -- some of whom had no idea their comments would be passed along to Steele."
Earlier on SST the question was raised of whether Steele had used contacts made earlier during his official work. The view was that he could not do that as a retired Intelligence Officer - else any such retired Officer could launch into private business using MI6 networks freely for their own profit and possibly putting those networks at risk.
The Washington Post article is carefully written. Possibly to lend credibility to Steele's work it claims MI6 networks were used in assembling that work. That claim may not be true but if it is not true it throws into doubt the veracity of other claims in the article. If it is true it casts into doubt the veracity of the account of the meeting with Sir Richard Dearlove.
In any case, whether it's true that Steele used official networks or not, Steele's former employers must have kept a close eye on what Steele was doing collecting his information. They would not want a former Intelligence Officer working in much the same field without knowing what he was doing. There must therefore have been liaison with UK Intelligence from the start of Steele's investigation. There was in any case a good deal of contact between Steele and his former colleagues -
"In an interview, Dearlove said Steele became the "go-to person on Russia in the commercial sector" following his retirement from the Secret Intelligence Service."
Steele was therefore not a private enquiry agent retiring into business on retirement and seeing nothing of his former colleagues. He remained in close contact with them. Very close, one would imagine, if he was still using official networks as the article claims. Close in any case because he was a "go-to person."
So this section is bogus - "In the early fall, he and Burrows turned to Dearlove, their former MI6 boss, for advice. Sitting in winged chairs at the Garrick Club, one of London's most venerable private establishments, under oil paintings of famed British playwrights, the two men shared their worries about what was happening in the United States. They asked for his guidance about how to handle their obligations to their client and the public, Dearlove recalled."
Nonsense. Steele had been liaising with, or at least being supervised by, his former employers as soon as he started this assignment. Any problems or moral issues and those former employers would have been aware of it. To suggest that the meeting with Dearlove was the first time MI6 had heard of the affair is clearly misleading.
So this question - "Was MI6 aware of Steele's work investigating Trump's Russian connections from the start of the time Steele was doing that work?" must be answered with a "yes".
That work was extremely sensitive. It was nothing less than investigating an American Presidential candidate. Therefore some official in MI6 authorised that work from the start. Which leads to the question, at what level would that authorisation have been given?
"Which leads to the question, at what level would that authorisation have been given?"Factotum , 03 November 2019 at 06:32 PMEO
If the scheme in the US was run by Brennan, Clapper & Comey, possibly with the knowledge and even at the instruction of Obama, then it would lead to a presumption that it was authorized at the highest level. Of course to also keep it under wraps, Brennan would have been in communication with his counterpart in the UK and maybe even enlisted him in his Trump Task Force.
Did Mueller find "nothing" on Trump and Russia because Mueller and friends did not want anyone else snooping into what had already been going on with the IC and Trump?
|
|
|
Nov 03, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Peter AU 1 , Nov 2 2019 1:00 utc | 82
Petri Krohn's comment @37 "ERIC CIARAMELLA IS NOT A WHISTLEBLOWER - HE IS A SUSPECT"Little mentioned is the server in Ukraine which was brought up in the phone call. Barr's investigation has become a criminal investigation and interested in a server in Ukraine.
The impeachment farce is trying to put the focus on Biden, but the server may be what they are trying to protect.
This impeachment show looks to be a rearguard or defensive action to try and stop the Barr criminal investigation into russiagate.
|
|
|
Nov 03, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Growing Indicators of Brennan's CIA Trump Task Force by Larry C Johnson
The average American has no idea how alarming is the news that former CIA Director John Brennan reportedly created and staffed a CIA Task Force in early 2016 that was named, Trump Task Force, and given the mission of spying on and carrying out covert actions against the campaign of candidate Donald Trump.
This was not a simple gathering of a small number of disgruntled Democrats working at the CIA who got together like a book club to grouse and complain about the brash real estate guy from New York. It was a specially designed covert action to try to destroy Donald Trump.
A "Task Force" is a special bureaucratic creation that provides a vehicle for bring case officers and analysts together, along with admin support, for a limited term project. But it also can be expanded to include personnel from other agencies, such as the FBI, DIA and NSA. Task Forces have been used since the inception of the CIA in 1947. Here's a recently declassified memo outlining the considerations in the creation of a task force in 1958. The author, L.K. White, talks about the need for a coordinating Headquarters element and an Operational unit "in the field", i.e. deployed around the world.
A Task Force operates independent of the CIA " Mission Centers " (that's the jargon for the current CIA organization chart).
So what did John Brennan do? I am told by an knowledgeable source that Brennan created a Trump Task Force in early 2016. It was an invitation only Task Force. Specific case officers (i.e., men and women who recruit and handle spies overseas), analysts and admin personnel were recruited. Not everyone invited accepted the offer. But many did.
This was not a CIA only operation. Personnel from the FBI also were assigned to the Task Force. We have some clues that Christopher Steele's FBi handler, Michael Gaeta, may have been detailed to the Trump Task Force ( see here ).
So what kind of things would this Task Force do? The case officers would work with foreign intelligence services such as MI-6, the Italians, the Ukrainians and the Australians on identifying intelligence collection priorities. Task Force members could task NSA to do targeted collection. They also would have the ability to engage in covert action, such as targeting George Papadopoulos. Joseph Mifsud may be able to shed light on the CIA officers who met with him, briefed on operational objectives regarding Papadopoulos and helped arrange monitored meetings. I think it is highly likely that the honey pot that met with George Papadopoulos, a woman named Azra Turk, was part of the CIA Trump Task Force.
The Task Force also could carry out other covert actions, such as information operations. A nice sounding euphemism for propaganda, and computer network operations. There has been some informed speculation that Guccifer 2.0 was a creation of this Task Force.
In light of what we have learned about the alleged CIA whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, there should be a serious investigation to determine if he was a part of this Task Force or, at minimum, reporting to them.
When I described this to one friend, a retired CIA Chief of Station, his first response was, "My God, that's illegal." We then reminisced about another illegal operation carried out under the auspices of the CIA Central American Task Force back in the 1980s. That became known to Americans as the Iran Contra scandal.
I sure hope that John Durham and his team are looking at this angle. If true it marks a new and damning indictment of the corruption of the CIA. Rather than spying on genuine foreign threats, this Task Force played a critical role in creating and feeding the meme that Donald Trump was a tool of the Russians and a puppet of Putin.
|
|
|
Nov 01, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca
By Edward Curtin Global Research, November 01, 2019 Region: USA Theme: Intelligence
It gets funny, this shallow analysis of the deep state that is currently big news. There's something ghoulish about it, perfectly timed for Halloween and masked jokers. What was once ridiculed by the CIA and its attendant lackeys in the media as the paranoia of "conspiracy theorists" is now openly admitted in reverent tones of patriotic fervor. But with a twisted twist.
The corporate mass-media has recently discovered a "deep state" that they claim to be not some evil group of assassins who work for the super-rich owners of the country and murder their own president (JFK) and other unpatriotic dissidents (Malcom X, MLK, RK, among others) and undermine democracy home and abroad, but are now said to be just fine upstanding American citizens who work within the government bureaucracies and are patriotic believers in democracy intent on doing the right thing.
This redefinition has been in the works for a few years, and it shouldn't be a surprise that this tricky treat was being prepared for our consumption a few years ago by The Council on Foreign Relations . In its September/October 2017 edition of its journal Foreign Affairs, Jon D. Michaels, in "Trump and the Deep State: The Government Strikes Back," writes:
Furious at what they consider treachery by internal saboteurs, the president and his surrogates have responded by borrowing a bit of political science jargon, claiming to be victims of the " deep state ," a conspiracy of powerful, unelected bureaucrats secretly pursuing their own agenda. The concept of a deep state is valuable in its original context, the study of developing countries such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey, where shadowy elites in the military and government ministries have been known to countermand or simply defy democratic directives. Yet it has little relevance to the United States, where governmental power structures are almost entirely transparent, egalitarian, and rule-bound.
The White House is correct to perceive widespread resistance inside the government to many of its endeavors. But the same way the administration's media problems come not from "fake news" but simply from news, so its bureaucratic problems come not from an insidious, undemocratic "deep state" but simply from the state -- the large, complex hive of people and procedures that constitute the U.S. federal government.
Notice how in these comical passages about U.S. government transparency and egalitarianism, Michaels slyly and falsely attributes to Trump the very definition – "unelected bureaucrats" – that in the next paragraph he claims to be the real deep state, which is just the state power structures. Pseudo-innocence conquers all here as there is no mention of the Democratic party, Russiagate, etc., and all the machinations led by the intelligence services and Democratic forces to oust Trump from the day he was elected. State power structures just move so quickly, as anyone knows who has studied the speed with which bureaucracies operate. Ask Max Weber.
The Deep State Goes Shallow. "Reality-TV Coup d'etat in Prime Time"Drip by drip over the past few years, this "state bureaucracy" meme has been introduced by the mainstream media propagandists as they have gradually revealed that the government deep-staters are just doing their patriotic duty in trying openly to oust an elected president.
Many writers have commented on the recent New York Times article, Trump's War on the 'Deep State' Turns Against Him" asserting that the Times has finally admitted to the existence of the deep state, which is true as far as it goes, which is not too far. But in this game of deceptive revelations – going shallower to go deeper – what is missing is a focus on the linguistic mind control involved in the changed definition.
In a recent article by Robert W. Merry, whose intentions I am not questioning – "New York Times Confirms: It's Trump Versus the Deep State" – originally published at The American Conservative and widely reprinted , the lead-in to the article proper reads: "Even the Gray Lady admits the president is up against a powerful bureaucracy that wants him sunk." So the "powerful bureaucracy" redefinition, this immovable force of government bureaucrats, is slipped into public consciousness as what the deep state supposedly is. Gone are CIA conspirators and evil doers. In their place we find career civil servants doing their patriotic duty.
Then there is The New York Times' columnist James Stewart who, appearing on the Today Show recently, where he was promoting his new book, told Savannah Guthrie that:
Well, you meet these characters in my book, and the fact is, in a sense, he's [Trump] right. There is a deep state there is a bureaucracy in our country who has pledged to respect the Constitution, respect the rule of law. They do not work for the President. They work for the American people. And, as Comey told me in my book, 'thank goodness for that,' because they are protecting the Constitution and the people when individuals – we don't have a monarch, we don't have a dictator – they restrain them from crossing the boundaries of law. What Trump calls the deep state in the United States is protecting the American people and protecting the Constitution. It's a positive thing in this sense.
So again we are told that the deep-state bureaucracy is defending the Constitution and protecting the American people, as James Comey told Stewart, "in my book, 'thank goodness for that,'" as he put it so eloquently. These guys talk in books, of course, not person to person, but that is the level not just of English grammar and general stupidity, but of the brazen bullshit these guys are capable of.
This new and shallow deep state definition has buried the old meaning of the deep state as evil conspirators carrying out coup d'états, assassinations, and massive media propaganda campaigns at home and abroad, and who, by implication and direct declaration, never existed in the good old U.S.A. but only in countries such as Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan where shadowy elites killed and deposed leaders and opponents in an endless series of coup d'états. No mention in Foreign Affairs , of course, of the American support for the ruthless leaders of these countries who have always been our dear allies when they obey our every order and serve as our servile proxies in murder and mayhem.
Even Edward Snowden , the courageous whistleblower in exile in Russia, in a recent interview with Joe Rogan , repeats this nonsense when he says the deep state is just "career government officials" who want to keep their jobs and who outlast presidents. From his own experience, he should know better. Much better. Interestingly, he suggests that he does when he tells Rogan that "every president since Kennedy" has been successfully "feared up" by the intelligence agencies so they will do their bidding. He doesn't need to add that JFK, for fearlessly refusing the bait, was shot in the head in broad daylight to send a message to those who would follow.
Linguistic mind control is insidious like the slow drip of a water faucet. After a while you don't hear it and just go about your business, even as your mind, like a rotting rubber washer, keeps disintegrating under propaganda's endless reiterations.
To think that the deep state is government employees just doing their patriotic duty is plain idiocy and plainer propaganda.
It is a trick, not the treat it is made to seem.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. Visit the author's website here .
|
|
|
Oct 28, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
I was fortunate to participate in a forum in August sponsored by the Ron Paul Institute. Here is my presentation on the attempted coup by US Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/GgRJ6UuPWM0
Posted at 12:00 PM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink
Turcopolier , 28 October 2019 at 01:00 PM
AllI was invited to this meeting and regret now that I did not attend.
|
|
|
Oct 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Several mainstream media have made claims that Joe Biden's intervention in the Ukraine and the Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election are "conspiracy theories" and "debunked". The public record proves them wrong. By ignoring or even contradicting the facts the media create an opening for Trump to rightfully accuse them of providing "fake news".
On October 04 a New Yorker piece, headlined The Invention of the Conspiracy Theory on Biden and Ukraine , asserted:
[In late 2018], Giuliani began speaking to current and former Ukrainian officials about the Biden conspiracy theory, and meeting with them repeatedly in New York and Europe. Among those officials was Viktor Shokin, a former top Ukrainian prosecutor who was sacked in March, 2016, after European and U.S. officials, including Joe Biden, complained that he was lax in curbing corruption. Shokin claimed that he had lost his powerful post not because of his poor performance but rather because Biden wanted to stop his investigation of Burisma, in order to protect his son. The facts didn't back this up. The Burisma investigation had been dormant under Shokin.Several other media outlets also made the highlighted claim to debunk the "conspiracy theory". But is it correct?
We have looked into the claim that Shorkin's investigation against Burisma owner Zlochevsky was dormant, as the New Yorker says, and found it to be false :
The above accounts are incorrect. Shokin did go after Zlochevsky. He opened two cases against him in 2015. After he did that Biden and his crew started to lobby for his firing. Shokin was aggressively pursuing the case. He did so just before Biden's campaign against him went into a frenzy.
...
On February 2 Shokin confiscated four large houses Zlochevsky owned plus a Rolls-Royce Phantom and a "Knott 924-5014 trainer". (Anyone know what that is?) Ten days later Biden goes into overdrive to get him fired. Within one week he personally calls Poroshenko three times with only one major aim: to get Shokin fired.
...
Zlochevsky had hired Joe Biden's son Hunter for at least $50,000 per month. In 2015 Shokin started to investigate him in two cases. During the fall of 2015 Joe Biden's team begins to lobby against him. On February 2 Shokin seizes Zlochevsky's houses. Shortly afterwards the Biden camp goes berserk with Biden himself making nearly daily phonecalls. Shokin goes on vacation while Poroshenko (falsely) claims that he resigned. When Shokin comes back into office Biden again takes to the phone. A week later Shokin is out.Biden got the new prosecutor general he wanted. The new guy made a bit of show and then closed the case against Zlochevsky.
It is quite astonishing that the false claims, that Shokin did not go after Burisma owner Zlochevsky, is repeated again and again despite the fact that the public record , in form of a report by Interfax-Ukraine , contradicts it.
bigger
On Thursday Buzzfeed News wrote about a different Ukrainian prosecutor who in early 2019 was approached to set up meetings with President Donald Trump's private lawyer Rudy Giuliani:[Gyunduz] Mamedov's role was key. He was an intermediary in Giuliani's efforts to press Ukraine to open investigations into former vice president Joe Biden and the debunked conspiracy theory about the country's interference in the 2016 presidential election , a collaboration between BuzzFeed News, NBC News, and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) can reveal.The OCCRP is funded by the UK Foreign Office, the US State Dept, USAID, Omidyar Network, Soros' Open Society, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and others. Most of these entities were involved in the 2014 coup against the elected government of the Ukraine.
Is the "conspiracy theory" about Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election really "debunked"? It is, of course, not. The facts show that the interference happened. It was requested by the Democratic National Committee and was willingly provided by Ukrainian officials.
As Politico reported shortly after Trump had won the election, it was the Democratic Party organization, the DNC, which had asked the Ukrainians for dirt that could be used against the campaign on Donald Trump:
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia , according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort's resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump's campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine's foe to the east, Russia.
The Ukrainian-American who was the go between the DNC and the government of Ukraine had earlier worked for the Clinton administration:
Manafort's work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC's arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.In March 2016 Chalupa went to the Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC and requested help from the Ukrainian ambassador to go after Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort. In August 2016 the Ukrainians delivered a secret "black ledger" that allegedly showed that Manafort had illegally received money for his previous work for the campaign of the former Ukrainian president Yanukovych.
Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych's pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine's newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials."Paul Manafort is among those names on the list of so-called 'black accounts of the Party of Regions,' which the detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine are investigating," the statement said. "We emphasize that the presence of P. Manafort's name in the list does not mean that he actually got the money, because the signatures that appear in the column of recipients could belong to other people."
The provenance of the ledger is highly dubious. It was allegedly found in a burned out office of Yanukovych's old party:
The papers, known in Ukraine as the "black ledger," are a chicken-scratch of Cyrillic covering about 400 pages taken from books once kept in a third-floor room in the former Party of Regions headquarters on Lipskaya Street in Kiev.
...
The accounting records surfaced this year, when Serhiy A. Leshchenko, a member of Parliament who said he had received a partial copy from a source he did not identify, published line items covering six months of outlays in 2012 totaling $66 million. In an interview, Mr. Leshchenko said another source had provided the entire multiyear ledger to Viktor M. Trepak, a former deputy director of the domestic intelligence agency of Ukraine, the S.B.U., who passed it to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.Anti-corruption groups in Ukraine said the black ledger detailing payments was probably seized when protesters ransacked the Party of Regions headquarters in February 2014.
The pages from the ledger, which had come from anonymous sources probably supported by John Brennan's CIA , were never proven to be genuine. But the claims were strong enough to get Manafort fired as campaign manager for Donald Trump. He was later sentenced for unrelated cases of tax evasion.
Serhin A. Leshchenko, the member of the Ukrainian parliament who published the dubious ledger, was rabidly anti-Trump. Shortly after providing the "secret ledger" he talked with the Financial Times and promised to continue to meddle in the U.S. election. The FT headline emphasized the fact:
Ukraine's leaders campaign against 'pro-Putin' Trump ( screenshots ):
The prospect of Mr Trump, who has praised Ukraine's arch-enemy Vladimir Putin, becoming leader of the country's biggest ally has spurred not just Mr Leshchenko but Kiev's wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a U.S. election.
...
Mr. Leshchenko and other political actors in Kiev say they will continue with their efforts to prevent a candidate - who recently suggested Russia might keep Crimea, which it annexed two years ago - from reaching the summit of American political power."A Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy," Mr Leshchenko, an investigative journalist turned MP, told the Financial Times. "For me it was important to show not only the corruption aspect, but that he is [a] pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world."
...
If the Republican candidate loses in November, some observers suggest Kiev's action may have played at least a small role.A Democratic Party operative asked the Ukrainian ambassador to find dirt on Trump's campaign manger Paul Manafort. A few month later a secret "black ledger" emerges from nowhere into the hands of dubious Ukrainian actors including a 'former' domestic intelligence director.
The ledger may or may not show that Manafort received money from Yanukovych's party. It was never verified. But it left Trump no choice but to fire Manafort. Ukrainian figures who were involved in the stunt openly admitted that they had meddled in the U.S. election, promised to do more of it and probably did.
The Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election is well documented. How the Buzzfeed News author can claim that it is a "debunked conspiracy theory" is beyond me.
In 1998 the U.S. and the Ukraine signed a Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters (pdf). I came into force in February 2001. Article I defines the wide scope of assistance:
1. The Contracting States shall provide mutual assistance, in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty, in connection with the investigation, prosecution, and prevention of offenses, and in proceedings related to criminal matters.2. Assistance shall include: (a) taking the testimony or statements of persons; (b) providing documents, records, and other items; (c) locating or identifying persons or items; (d) serving documents; (e) transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; (f) executing searches and seizures; (g) assisting in proceedings related to immobilization and forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and (h) any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the Requested State.
3. Assistance shall be provided without regard to whether the conduct that is the subject of the investigation, prosecution, or proceeding in the Requesting State would constitute an offense under the laws of the Requested State.
When Trump asked the current Ukrainian President Zelensky to help with an investigation into the above matters he acted well within the law and within the framework of the treaty. It was certainly not illegitimate to do that.
But when mainstream media deny that Biden's interference in Ukraine's prosecutor office is suspect, or claim that the Ukraine did not interfere in the U.S. elections, they make it look as if Trump did something crazy or illegal. He does plenty of that but not in this case. To use it a basis of an 'impeachment inquiry' is political bullshit.
Making these false claims will come back to haunt those media outlets. Sooner or later the public will recognize that those claims are false. It will lessen the already low trust in the media even more.
Posted by b on October 26, 2019 at 17:51 UTC | Permalink
Piotr Berman , Oct 26 2019 18:16 utc | 1
corkie , Oct 26 2019 18:27 utc | 3"Sooner or later the public will recognize that those claims are false. It will lessen the already low trust in the media even more."More precisely, there exit Trump-friendly media with millions of followers, so insisting on innocence of Biden will have a political cost. Not to mention leftist media reminiscing how Senator Biden championed the cause of MBNA (credit cart giant) when it was also a generous employer of his dear son. Of course, given the size of Delaware, it could be just a coincidence.
Thanks b for providing the nitty gritty details of this sorry saga. That term "conspiracy theory" has been so widely abused that, to me at least, it now means something that the author wishes were not true but almost certainly is.Maracatu , Oct 26 2019 18:30 utc | 4What is certain is that if Biden is selected as the Dem candidate and ends up as President, the GOP (if it retains influence in Congress) will open an investigation into his actions on behalf of his son. Russia-gate is the gift that keeps on giving!ben , Oct 26 2019 18:34 utc | 5Thanks b, for the reality check. Joe Biden needs to STFU, and go away. He and his ilk are part of the problem, not the solution. The rulers of America insist on pushing this sycophant for the empire down our throats. And, he can take HRC and her crowd with him. It's high time for some new blood, IF, TPTB, will even allow that to happen, which I very much doubt....ben , Oct 26 2019 18:39 utc | 6P. S. DJT, IMO, is ALSO in the same category with Biden, HRC and other scum-bags that need to "go away", if not imprisoned..Ort , Oct 26 2019 18:56 utc | 8Thanks for another informative and insightful commentary, B. It's like a drink of cool, clean water after staggering through a volcanic landscape full of fumaroles belching sulfurous plumes of superheated gas.Paul Damascene , Oct 26 2019 19:26 utc | 10Sometimes my hobby horses merrily hop along under me without any effort on my part. I just hang onto the reins and howl. So: it's bad enough that the US mass-media consent-manufacturers, aka the CIA/Deep State's "Mighty Wurlitzer", gin up endless propaganda to discredit the facts you mention; their mission is to fool enough of the public that there's no "there" there, and prop up Biden's presidential campaign in the bargain.
But what increasingly bugs me is so-called "alternative" news outlets and independent journalists buying into the spin that Trump and his associates are using the pretext of investigating corruption as a means to illegally and illicitly "dig up dirt on political rivals". Put the other way around, they concede that Biden and other Team Obama honchos are indeed "dirty", and that their Ukraine adventure was reprehensibly illicit or illegal and self-serving-- but they return to faulting Trump for impermissibly exploiting these circumstances in order to gain political advantage.
It doesn't surprise me that talented but co-opted journalists like Matt Taibbi are careful to affirm that Trump et al 's conduct is manifestly an abuse of power. But, sadly, even journalists like Aaron Maté, Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton, and Michael Tracey have echoed this rote condemnation.
My guess is that this arises from two acronyms: incipient TDS, which compels even "alternative" US journalists to regard Trump as the "heel" in the staged "professional"-wrestling scam of US electoral politics. Also, CYA; I suspect that these relatively young, professionally vulnerable journalists are terrified of coming off as "defending" or "excusing" Trump, lest they trigger wrathful excoriation from their peers and the hordes of social-media users whose custom they cultivate.
This is why I appreciate your clarity and forthrightness on this fraught topic.
Ort @ 8 --karlof1 , Oct 26 2019 19:32 utc | 11Rereading your post, and agreeing with some it, I find I disagree less with its conclusions than on first reading.
If you were referring to Trump's convo with Zelensky specifically, reasonable people might disagree over whether that was an abuse of power or sleazy and dumb (in being unnecessary)--which of course shouldn't mean the Bidens get a pass here, which none of these young journalists are suggesting.
But where I would disagree is if you were suggesting that Taibbi, Mate and Blumenthal are making obligatory objections to Trump more generally, in order to curry favour with their peers. I think each of them would readily reel off lists of things (more substantive than Ukrainegate -- and probably not including Russia collusion) that they think Trump should be castigated, impeached and perhaps prosecuted for.
Well, there you have it--proof that BigLie Media indeed specializes in publishing Big Lies that ought to reduce such outlets to the status of Tabloids. Of course, the media is free to lie all it wants within the limits of slander and libel, but most people don't like being lied to particularly over matters of importance.Peter AU 1 , Oct 26 2019 19:39 utc | 12Larry Johnson has a piece at SST on a CIA task force set up to compromise Trump and prevent him becoming president. That Trump avoided all the traps set for him (even the Mueller investigation could pin nothing on Trump) and won the election says a bit for Trump. He definitely is more than the twitter reality TV persona that he puts up as a public face.jasmin , Oct 26 2019 19:43 utc | 13With the Barr investigation, it looks like the non Trump section of the swamp will be drained in the near future.
Possibly an irrelevant point, but Shokin's replacement Lutsenko was the prosecutor who resurrected the "deceased", self declared journalist, Arkady Babchenko. The story was full of plot twists, involving a Boris German/Herman, who was Russian. B kept Us regaled with events. I'd post a link, but have witnessed too many thread expansions too risk it.dh , Oct 26 2019 19:45 utc | 14I think a lot of people give the MSM too much credit. Of course editorials etc. can influence people's thinking but the media, and journalists in general, are loathed by the people who voted for Trump. It's a big reason he was elected.ben , Oct 26 2019 19:45 utc | 15Ort @ 8 said;"It doesn't surprise me that talented but co-opted journalists like Matt Taibbi are careful to affirm that Trump et al's conduct is manifestly an abuse of power."Jen , Oct 26 2019 19:56 utc | 16Co-Opted, or truthful, depending on what you believe. You, have every right to your opinion, but, when push comes to shove, think I'll give my opinion being swayed or not, by giving more credibility to the five names you've decided to "shade".
DJT has a record of behavior, and so do the five you've mentioned. My choice is clear, I'll believe the five..
Alexandra Chalupa's connection to the thinktank The Atlantic Council should be borne in mind in the developing discussion in the comments forum. Her sister Irena is or has been a non-resident Senior Fellow there. Irena Chalupa has also been a senior editor at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.psychohistorian , Oct 26 2019 19:57 utc | 17Also the founder and CEO of the Crowdstrike company in charge of cybersecurity for the DNC during the 2016 presidential election campaign was Dmitri Alperovich who is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council. It was Crowdstrike who came up with the idea that Trump had to be under the Kremlin's thumb and from there the hysterical witch-hunt and associated actions known as Russiagate began.
I'm surprised that at this point in time, Bellingcat has not been included in digging up "dirt" on Trump, Manafort or anyone Manafort supposedly had connections with who is also mentioned in the "black ledger" but maybe that's because with the garbage that Bellingcat has so delivered, Eliot Higgins and company can't be trusted any more. Their masters should have known though, that when you give your subordinates base material to work with, they can only come up with base results: garbage in, garbage out.
Thanks for your ongoing documentation of the political criminality in the US b. The recent events are playing out like a two-bit soap opera rerun in a nursing home for America's brainwashed. Maybe Trump could start a new TV game show called Apprentice Corruption and instead of saying "Your Fired!" it could be "Your Guilty!"lysias , Oct 26 2019 20:09 utc | 18As an American it is difficult to watch the country that I was taught such good things about in school be exposed as a criminal enterprise running cover for the elite cult that owns global private finance and manipulates Western not-so-civilized culture.
I hope all this BS we are going through wakes up enough of the semi-literate public to overthrow the criminal sect and restore the Founding Fathers motto and concept of E Pluribus Unum.
Lee Stranahan of Radio Sputnik has been reporting on Alexandra Chalupa's role for a number of years now. I hope he gets proper credit as this story comes out.karlof1 , Oct 26 2019 20:35 utc | 19Given the fact that she got a first hand look at the Outlaw US Empire's injustice system and its tie-in with BigLie Media, the comments by the now back in Russia Maria Butina carry some legitimate weight that're worth reading: "'I believe that the Americans are wonderful people, but they have lost their legal system,' Butina said. 'What is more, they are routinely losing their country. They will lose it unless they do something'.... "'I am very proud of my country, of my origin,' Butina stressed. 'And I come to realize it more and more.'"psychohistorian , Oct 26 2019 21:00 utc | 22Should I bold the following, maybe make the lettering red, and put it in all caps:
"They are routinely losing their country."
I know this is an international bar, but the general focus has long been on the Outlaw US Empire. IMO, Maria Butina is 100% correct. The topic of this thread is just further proof of that fact. As I tirelessly point out, the federal government has routinely violated its own fundamental law daily since October 1945. The media goes along with it robotically. And aside from myself, I know of no other US citizen that's raised the issue--not Chomsky, not Zinn, not anyone with more credentials and public accessibility than I. I sorta feel like Winston Smith: Am I the only one who sees and understands what's actually happening?! Well, I've shared what I know, so I'm no longer alone. But that's not very satisfying, nor is it satisfactory.
It seems some corners are coming unglued if the ZH link below is any indication: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-entrapped-flynn-manipulated-evidence-clapper-allegedly-issued-kill-shot-orderkarlof1 , Oct 26 2019 21:00 utc | 23The take away quote from a Matt Taibbi twit "LOL. Barack Obama is going to love this interview his former DIA James Clapper just gave to CNN about the Durham probe: "It's frankly disconcerting to be investigated for having done... what we were told to do by the president of the United States."
"Prescient observation by Aaron Mate : "When CNN & MSNBC now cover the criminal inquiry into conduct of intel officials in Russia probe, they are literally covering their employees -- John Brennan (MSNBC); James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, James Baker (CNN). I avoid the term, but it's appropriate here: Deep State TV."Brian_J , Oct 26 2019 21:07 utc | 24Sure, he sees it, many of us barflies see it, but it's the public within the Outlaw US Empire that must see and understand this dynamic. If they don't or won't, then Butina's words are even more correct--They are losing their country.
Here are some more Biden & Biden lobbying revelations going back to 2008 from the Washington Examiner from before Biden became VP: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/biden-outreach-to-dhs-and-doj-overlapped-with-work-by-son-hunters-lobbying-firmpsychohistorian , Oct 26 2019 21:08 utc | 25Below is another ZH link (still can't do HTML....sigh) about more Biden perfidy re his son Hunter: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/busted-joe-biden-intervened-help-hunters-lobbying-efforts-multiple-occasionsuncle tungsten , Oct 26 2019 21:10 utc | 26The take away quote: "Joe Biden intervened at least two times on matters his son Hunter's firms was being paid to lobby on, according to government records reviewed by the Washington Examiner."
steven t johnson #20MadMax2 , Oct 26 2019 21:27 utc | 28Excuses from the Trump lovers should be dismissed out of hand.
They usually are dismissed around this bar stj. As are the excuses from the Dem lovers.
How do you excuse this ?
maracatu 4paul , Oct 26 2019 21:35 utc | 29The merry-go-round scenario you post would indicate a broken state. Biden's been in office for 43 years, Trump 3 yrs... the potential for dirt is large, mix it with even larger GOP vengeance should that scenario arise and this will drag on through the decades.
'A republic, if you can keep it.' ~Franklin
What Trump did was corrupt. Normal corruption. What Biden did was corrupt. A lot more corrupt. And rather brazen.Peter AU 1 , Oct 26 2019 21:46 utc | 30"They are routinely losing their country."MadMax2 , Oct 26 2019 21:49 utc | 31Part and parcel of democracy. Western style democracy at least. Perhaps others can set theirs up better, though allways, the achilles heel of democracy is information, or media. Who oversees ensuring voters recieve accurate information.
The oz state of NSW had something that broke through this for a bit. ICAC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Commission_Against_Corruption_(New_South_Wales)
It took complaints from the public and investigated them. They did not have power to bring charges, but for a time findings were made public. Once it got onto a money trail it would keep following and that would lead to other money trails. It was a state agency and had to stop at state borders but most money trails led to federal politics. It was defanged when they came too close to federal politics.
Something like this in a countries constitution could work though it could be corrupted the same as anything else.
@karlof 23jadan , Oct 26 2019 22:13 utc | 32Indeed, the guilty are hiding in plain sight. It appears sinister, and is, but I think its a positive development of late, as it would suggest that big media are scrambling to preserve the status quo by legitimising these deep state actors.
It wasn't so long ago these deep state types would rather steer clear of the media. Now they are out there earning bread driving the narrative. Are these deep state media faces a tactical last resort...?
Obama orchestrated the regime change operation in Ukraine. As we know from Wayne Madsen's little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama has been a CIA asset since he was a suckling babe. To promote containment of the Russian menace, the US got in bed with Ukrainian fascists and successfully exploited political tensions in that country resulting in the removal of the duly elected Yanukovitch. A right wing billionaire then took the reigns and Putin orchestrated a referendum in Crimea in retaliation that resulted in its return to Russia. The Crimeans were and continue to be happy, happier than the rest of Ukrainians under Kiev neo-fascist free market exploitation.Don Bacon , Oct 26 2019 22:16 utc | 33It is natural that neo-fascist Ukrainians would express their disapproval of Trump, who was making nice with Putin. No matter what his motives were, he was bucking US anti-Russian policy. I liked Trump at that time for this willingness to end a Cold War policy sponsored by the US military industrial complex. You can cal it "deep state" if you like. It's not deep and it's not a shadow government. It's the war party. It's the elite profiting from weapons manufacture. Trump has no principles except expedience and his pro-Russian stance is likely owing to the money laundering he's been doing for Russian criminals since he is such a lousy business man. Putin and other Russian kleptocrats saved Trump boy's bacon. So it's very confusing when bed actors do good things.
Biden is no doubt quite corrupt. But that's got little to do with Trumps quid pro quo with Ukraine. You say that Ukrainian interference in US elections is well documented. You don't offer any documents, b. Anti-Putin Ukrainians were naturally anti-Trump. So what? Where's the beef? Show me how that little piss ant country that can't even pay its fuel bills and gave the world Chernobyl, interfered in US elections.
Your defense of Trump is getting tiresome. He's a criminal with no respect for the US Constitution and he deserves to be impeached. This is not to say that Joe Biden or his drug addict son are not also shit stains. I am just dismayed that you, an ostensibly intelligent independent commentator would go to bat for an ignoramus like Trump.
The general charge against Trump is that he was "digging up dirt" on opponents. Well laddy-dah. So what. Welcome to Politics 101.vk , Oct 26 2019 22:19 utc | 34President Harry Truman probably received as much flak as any politician ever did, especially after he canned war-hero General MacArthur. But Truman wasn't a candy-ass current politician complaining about dirt-digging. No, he gave back more than he got, in spades.
What was "give-em-hell" Harry Truman's attitude? Some Truman quotes:
--"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell."
--"It's the fellows who go to West Point and are trained to think they're gods in uniform that I plan to take apart"
--"I didn't fire him [General MacArthur] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them would be in jail."
-- "I'll stand by [you] but if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen ."That's what Trump is doing and will probably continue to do with fake news. (And he coined the phrase.)
I'll repeat what I posted here some days ago: this is not a battle between truth vs lies, but between which is the truth that will guide the USA for the forseeable future.vk , Oct 26 2019 22:25 utc | 35Empires don't act on facts: they are all-powerful, so they sculpt reality as they see fit. What determines this is class struggle: the inner contradictions of a society that results in a given consensus, thus forming a hegemony.
It's not that the liberals deny Biden did what he did, but that they disagree with Trump's interpretation over what he did. This is what the doctrine of the vital center is all about: some facts are more facts than others, prevailing the one which maintains the cohesion of the empire.
There's a battle for America's soul; the American elite is in flux: Russia or China?
It seems Jeff Bezos is angry he didn't get that USD 10 billion cloud contract from the Pentagon: Company with ties to Trump's brother Robert awarded $33 million government contractkarlof1 , Oct 26 2019 22:26 utc | 36MadMax2 @31--uncle tungsten , Oct 26 2019 22:27 utc | 37In 1984 , the narrative was now 100% in your face and everything had to be manipulated to match it, which apparently hadn't been needed previously. But we aren't told if that was done as a "last resort." I would think not given continuing polls showing ongoing distrust of media, thus the difficulty of manufacturing consent. Look at the great popularity enjoyed by Sanders amongst 18-30 year-olds who get most of their information online or via social media and the measures being taken to try and manipulate those realms. Then there're efforts to counter the misinformation and manipulation by numerous activists, many of which get cited here.
Another thought: They're out front now because the Establishment's deemed the fight to control the narrative's being lost, and they've been drafted to rectify the situation. If correct, they ought to keep failing.
karlof1 #19alaff , Oct 26 2019 22:47 utc | 38The international nature of this bar and its many flies is that mostly (from what I read) they have an immense respect for the rule of law. It is this singular concept that we trust will transcend religion and the quasi religiosity of political allegiances.
The rule of law is a deity-like singularity that embraces all beings equally, or should. Assaulting that legitimate expectation of the law applying equally is what confronts us daily in so many ways and when it is observed being assaulted by the highest office bearers in political and corporate life that we barflies get mighty annoyed. The gross vista of assumed immunity demonstrated by Nixon is equaled by the antics of the Clinton foundation and its Directors. Each and every one of them.
But it is far worse than that as the assault on the rule of law is daily carried out by the mafias that infest our societies, the corrupt and violent police that cant/wont protect our citizens, the international warmongering criminal classes that propagandise us to accept warring as a legitimate exercise of power even though we recognise it as a crime against humanity.
So when we see the deplorable state of media and jurisprudence and fairness we can only think as Maria Butina does "that we are routinely losing our countries" and I would add our civil societies. The latter is vastly more concerning than the former IMO.
Again, not surprised at all. Pro-democratic/anti-Trump media write articles (obviously made-to-order) to whitewash already badly discredited Biden, and present all the arguments in favor of his dark connections with Ukraine as a kind of "conspiracy theory". This is a common practice. Not having sufficient competence to reasonably refute the arguments of opponents, MSM (as well as all sorts of "experts") immediately mark the position of opponents with "conspiracy theory" (there are also other options to choose from: "Putin's agent", "Putin's useful idiot", "Kremlin's agent", "pro-Russian propaganda", etc.). It is assumed that this makes unnecessary/optional (and even "toxic") all further conversations with the opponent (that is, there is no need to answer him, to prove something with facts, etc.), because his position is a "conspiracy theory".james , Oct 26 2019 22:59 utc | 39Western MSM are actively using this simplest propaganda technique of information warfare. For example, this was the case when reporting on events in Syria - those journalists, the media, experts who did not agree with the lie of MSM about Assad's use of the chemical weapons were declared "conspiracy theorists" (and also "Assad apologists"). This method was also used to cover "the Skripal case" - those who questioned the British authorities' version of the "Novichok poisoning" were declared "conspiracy theorists".
When I see words like "conspiracy theory" in the headlines and see what media use them, then, you know, it's all clear. No chance for such articles/media to be taken seriously.
@32 jadan quote "Show me how that little piss ant country that can't even pay its fuel bills...." are you familiar with the name porkoshenko, or any other one of the numbers of kleptomaniacs in positions of power in the ukraine? how do you think they got their, if ''that little piss ant country' can't even pay it's bills? i am sure you are capable of adding 2 + 2...Peter Charles , Oct 26 2019 23:02 utc | 40b isn't defending trump here.. he's highlighting how corrupt the msm is! it looks like you missed that.. check the headline..
This is the way the controlled media works. They provide half a story, half truths, straw-man facts, selective quotes and 'expert' comment, opinion and unwarranted assumption presented as fact that all together cover the spectrum from black to white, spread across the many titles.Jackrabbit , Oct 26 2019 23:51 utc | 41They also disseminate a fine dusting of lies and actual truth here and there. The result is the public have a dozen 'truths' to pick from, none of which are real, while the outright lies and actual truths get dismissed as not credible and the half-truths and straw-man truths appear to carry some validity. If you look for it you can find it applying in almost every bit of 'news', if it is in any way controversial, whether it is partisan politics, Climate Change or Brexit to give examples.
jadan @32:Jackrabbit , Oct 26 2019 23:51 utc | 42As we know from Wayne Madsen's little book, "The Manufacturing of a President", Obama has been a CIA asset since he was a suckling babe.If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge.uncle tungsten @37: rule of lawMichael Droyd , Oct 27 2019 0:12 utc | 43If the people get the government they deserve then they also get the laws/order they deserve. Voting alone is unlikely to fix that. We need Movements.
Ukraine was just one hell of a honey pot that too many couldn't resist visiting. Kind of like Russia (Uranium One and HRC) or China (Biden for a start). Giulani is going to be very busy - he still hasn't produced anything that wasn't already published, but I bet he has much more.ben , Oct 27 2019 0:47 utc | 48And then there is this: https://www.unz.com/ishamir/the-plundering-of-ukraine/
DB @ 33 said; Trump coined the phrase "fake news".ben , Oct 27 2019 0:54 utc | 49Horse puckey DB, check this out: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/head-in-the-cloud/201611/brief-history-fake-news
And this; https://www.1843magazine.com/technology/rewind/the-true-history-of-fake-newsevilempire , Oct 27 2019 0:56 utc | 50Burisma investigated by SFO for money laundering: https://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2019/04/07/the-hunt-for-burisma-pt-1/Jackrabbit , Oct 27 2019 1:12 utc | 51Glenn Brown @46:Jackrabbit , Oct 27 2019 2:14 utc | 55... smart enough to understand and agree that they needed someone like Trump?Yes, I do think they are smart enough and agreed to act in their collective best interest. Kissinger first wrote of MAGA in a WSJ Op-Ed in August 2014. Trump entered the race in June 2015, IIRC.Do you think that Trump - who failed at multiple businesses - just woke up one day and became a political and geopolitical genius? As a candidate he said he'd "take the oil" and now, more than 3 years later, he has! LOL.
And JUST AFTER the Mueller investigation formally ends, Trump ONCE AGAIN solicits a foreign power to interfere in a US election. The biggest beneficiary? Deep State BIDEN! Who now gets all the media attention.
FYI Wm Gruff makes your same point often: that Deep State mistakes demonstrate that they couldn't possible pull of a Trump win (if that's what they wanted). I disagree.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
I very much doubt that anyone will go to jail - or serve any meaningful jail time if they do - over the Deep State shenanigans. Nor will people 'wake up' and see how they've been played anytime soon. Even the smarter, more savvy denizens of the moa bar have much difficulty connecting dots. Dots that they don't want to see.
Jackrabbit !!
The Deep State at work:jadan , Oct 27 2019 2:44 utc | 56
- - Support for 'moderate rebel' headchoppers and the rise of ISIS;
- - Support for White Helmet propaganda;
- - Kidnapping the Skripals;
- - Integrity Initiative;
- - Epstein "suicide" (murder/escape);
- - Govt to MIC/Finance revolving door (looting);
But they would NEVER interfere in a Presidential election.
LOL
Jackrabbit !!
@41 JackrabbitJackrabbit , Oct 27 2019 2:45 utc | 57If Obama was CIA, and GW Bush was CIA (via daddy Bush), and Clinton was CIA (via Arkansas drug-running and the Presidency), and Bush Sr was CIA ... then what can we conclude about Trump? 1) he's also CIA, or 2) he's a willing stooge
Trump at first threw down the gauntlet to the spies and proclaimed his autocratic prerogative when God held off the rain for his inauguration (!) but now he would gladly get on his knees between Gina Haspel's legs if the CIA would only help him stay in power.
What distinguishes Obama from other presidents is the degree to which he was manufactured. He made it to the WH without much of a political base. Control of the political context, media and process, launched Obama to the top. It was fulfillment of the liberal American dream. It was a great coup. Talk about the "deep state"! It's staring us all in the face.
Oh, but Deep State DID interfere. FACT: Deep Stater Hillary colluded with DNC against Sanders. ( But she would NEVER participate in collusion that caused her to lose an election./sarc LOL)uncle tungsten , Oct 27 2019 3:26 utc | 58And now pro-Trump people say Clapper, Brennan, and Comey interfered in the 2016 election OR committed treason by trying to unseat the President!
So we can talk about Deep State interference . . . as long as it follows the partisan narrative that's been established for us.
Jackrabbit !!
jadan #54ben , Oct 27 2019 3:30 utc | 59I have news for you. USA Presidents use strong coercive persuasive arguments or means of speech ALL THE TIME. And always have. Sometimes they can be subtle and allude to an action that might make them happy and sometimes they can be blunt. Its a presidential thing. It is what statespeople do when they 'negotiate' for their desired outcome.
It is not illegal or corrupt. It is power nakedly exercised. Just because Biden is a candidate for the same presidential role does not confer immunity for Biden's graft in favor of his son a few years back. You make a mockery of your position.
One USA President visited Australia once and when confronted with a roadblock of demonstrators seeking peace in Vietnam demanded of the Australian Premier to "drive over the bastards". That didn't happen but the President continued to drive all over the Vietnamese innocents.
Trump may be a grifter and a scumbag but there are warmongers well ahead of him in the cue for justice. Take Hillary Clinton for example. She is a ruthless killer and the greatest breach of USA national Security ever with her Secretary of State emails held on an unsecured server in her closet.
The same powers some call "deep state," are the same powers that have given us ALL modern day presidents, probably from FDR on. IMO, they are nothing more, nothing less than the "captains of commerce", who, through the vast accumulation of wealth by monopoly, buy our "representatives" to legislate rules and regulations to benefit themselves.restlelss94110 , Oct 27 2019 3:34 utc | 60Our so-called "leaders" work for them, with very few exceptions, and transcends all political parties, and now also the Supreme Court.
$ has been ruled speech, unlimited $ is allowed to be given to politicians for elections. How could anything but massive corruption take place under this kind of system?
they make it look as if Trump did something crazy or illegal. He does plenty of that but not in this case. You suffer from TDS. What on Earth are you talking about here? Plenty of that? Say what? Why do you undercut your entire point in your article with this little piece of utter nonsense?james , Oct 27 2019 3:44 utc | 61Name one thing that Trump that has done that is illegal. Name one thing that is crazy. Stop apologizing to the crazies by denigrating Trump. Your entire article was all about how none of the bs is true. And then you put your own brand of bs in there at the end. Cut it out.
@ 54 jadan... thanks for your comments... i am feeling more philosophical tonight, as i don't have a gig and have some time to express myself a bit more here.. first off, i don't like any of these characters - trump, biden, and etc. etc.. i have no horse in the game here, and it sounds like you don't either.. your comment- "The issue is Trump's extortion of Ukraine, not Biden's extortion of Ukraine." i can go along with that until i reflect back onto what increasingly looks like an agenda to get trump even prior to when he was elected, at which point i want to say why are we only examining trump in all of this? who gets to decide what the issue is, or as Caitlin Johnstone lets to say - who gets to decide what the narrative is here? i don't have an answer for this, but those who appear to be taking a side in all of this - including you with the quote i make - seem to think that it has to be the issue of trumps extortion of Ukraine, verses what appears to me the CIA - Dem party extortion of the ordinary USA persons mind...let me back up... Has mccarthyism version 2 come to life since the advent of what happened in the Ukraine from 2014 onward?? is the issue of a new cold war with Russia been on the burner for at least 5 or more years here and began before trump was even considered a potential candidate for the republican party? did Russia take back Crimea, which wasn't supposed to happen? is this good for military industrial complex sales? and etc. etc..
so, i don't think it is fair to only consider the latest boneheaded thing trump did when i consider the bigger picture unfolding here.. now, maybe you think i am a trump apologist... i am just saying what the backdrop looks like to me here.. i am sure biden is small potatoes in the bigger picture here, but if taking a closer examination of what took place in ukraine leading into 2014, with the victoria nulands and geoffrey pyatts and etc. etc. of usa diplomatic corps, usa dept of state and etc. could lead to a better understanding of how the usa has went down the road it has for the past 60 years of foreign policy on the world stage, it would be a good start... so, to me - it ain't about trump.. it is about usa foreign policy and how it has sucked the big one on the world stage for at least since the time of vietnam when i was a teenager..
i suppose it depends on the time frame one wants to take.. my time frame will be considered an evasion of the moment to some, but it is how i see it.. sure, trump is scum, but the bigger issue to me is the usa's foreign policy agenda.. anything that can pull back the covers on that would be an extremely good thing... now, perhaps this is the straw that broke trumps back and the deep state will not tolerate being scrutinized.. that i could understand, but i am not going to be putting it all on trump as the reason the covers have to remain on all the shit the usa has been responsible for on the world stage to date and especially the past 10 years.. i am not able to blame trump for all of that.. and as you can see, i would prefer to get down to the nitty gritty of who is zooming who here... the msm for all intensive purposes is complicit in duping the american public.. that to me is the gist of b's comment here, not that he is cheer-leading for trump.. i just don't see it that way...i'm definitely not!
|
|
|
Oct 25, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Paul Bedard via WashingtonExaminer.com,
President Trump has ratcheted up his claim that the Obama White House spied on his 2016 campaign, charging in a new book that it was a "treasonous" act by the former Democratic president.
"The interesting thing out of all of this is that we caught them spying on the election. They were spying on my campaign. So you know? What is that all about?" said Trump."What they did was treasonous, OK? It was treasonous," he told author Doug Wead for his upcoming book, " Inside Trump's White House: The Real Story of His Presidency."
"I have never ever said this, but truth is, they got caught spying. They were spying," said Trump who then added, "Obama."
In 2017, Trump tweeted that he felt the Obama White House "had my wires tapped" in Trump Tower. He later said he didn't mean it literally but that he felt his campaign was being spied on.
Attorney General William Barr earlier this year said he was looking into whether "improper surveillance" may have occurred in 2016.
" I think spying did occur, " he said.
He has tasked a prosecutor to look into Obama officials and other officials who sparked the Russia collusion investigation into Trump after a report showed no collusion. New reports on that investigation described it as "criminal" in nature.
"It turned out I was right. By the way," Trump told Wead in excerpts provided to Secrets.
"In fact, what I said was peanuts compared to what they did. They were spying on my campaign. They got caught and they said, 'Oh we were not spying. It was actually an investigation.' Can you imagine an administration investigating its political opponents?" said the president.
In the book, Trump said that the Russia investigation undercut his presidency.
" Anybody else would be unable to function under the kind of pressure and distraction I had. They couldn't get anything done. No other president should ever have to go through this. But understand, there was no collusion. They would have had to make something up," he said.
Demeter55 , 11 minutes ago link
dibiase , 9 minutes ago linkTechnically, it was sedition, unless Trump can show that Obama was acting for a foreign power. There definitely were foreign powers involved, the question is who was in charge?
TheSharpenedPen , 24 minutes ago linkIs the CIA a foreign power? Sure seems like an occupying force to me.
punchasocialist , 23 minutes ago linkThe attempt to circumvent democracy and ensure Hillary's victory in the elections with falsified Russian collusion allegations along with a constant communist media bombardment to discredit Trump, absolutely constitutes treason. What you need to understand is that socialist progressives serve a different god - lucifer - and a different nation - Israel; that they do not have your best interests at heart is a given.
Everything they do is to undermine traditional morality and the moral fabric that holds civilization together. Ordo Ab Cao.
This is treason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQgDgMGuDI0
and nothing to see here either: https://www.exposetheenemy.com/israel-russia
|
|
|
Oct 19, 2019 | www.unz.com
anastasia , says: October 8, 2019 at 3:57 pm GMT
Yeah, but look what happened to JFK. And we are pretty well know who did it.anastasia , says: October 8, 2019 at 4:04 pm GMTLooks like they are going to try to put Trump out of commission too, one way or the other.
Biden did not figure "prominently" in the transcript of the conversation. He figured "prominently" only in the minds of the people trying to impeach Trump. . Trump seemed far more determined in that conversation to find out what happened in the Ukraine that caused the 2016/17/18 Russia hoax.anon [113] Disclaimer , says: October 8, 2019 at 5:16 pm GMT@anastasia Right, and Biden figured prominantly in what happened in the Ukraine that caused the 2016/17/18 Russia hoax.Michael888 , says: October 14, 2019 at 5:04 pm GMT@Ozymandias A dictator arising in the banana republic that is the US would most likely be from an Intelligence Agency, such as Brennan. The MSM clearly worships such authority, which is why we have had an evidence-free coup in motion since 2016. Elections no longer are even pretended to matter.Michael888 , says: October 14, 2019 at 5:28 pm GMT@TellTheTruth-2 The bigger issue which no one in the MSM wants to touch is Crowdstrike. Supposedly Crowdstrike "made its reputation' by showing that the Russians hacked the Ukraine artillery, then later found the same type of evidence that the Russians hacked the DNC. Although it turned out that there was no Russian hack of the Ukrainian artillery, and likely no Russian hack of the DNC. There is a reason the 17 Intelligence Agencies have never showed any evidence; Crowdstrike and New Knowledge seem to be "the Russians".
|
|
|
Oct 15, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
Fred C. Dobbs , October 12, 2019 at 03:49 AM
James Comey Would Like to Helpilsm -> Fred C. Dobbs... , October 12, 2019 at 07:01 AM
https://nyti.ms/3298iut
NYT - Matt Flegenheimer - October 12James Comey slumps strategically in restaurants -- all 6-foot-8 of him, drooping faux-furtively with his back to the room -- and daydreams about deleting the civic-minded Twitter feed where a bipartisan coalition pronounces him a national disgrace.
He sleeps soundly -- nine hours a night, he ballparks -- and organizes the self-described "unemployed celebrity" chapter of his life around a series of workaday goals. "One of my goals has been to get to 10 consecutive pull-ups," Mr. Comey said in an interview, legs crossed on the back porch of his stately Virginia home. "I'm at nine now. So, I've been doing a lot of pull-ups."
He writes and thinks and reads and worries from a tidy downstairs office surrounded by the trinkets of his past: the White House place card from the night President Trump asked for his "loyalty" as F.B.I. director; a book by Nate Silver, the political data whiz who believes Mr. Comey's explosively ambiguous letter in October 2016 about the Hillary Clinton email investigation probably handed Mr. Trump the election; a page from a quote-of-the-day calendar, saved for its resonance: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
"It reminds me so much of the F.B.I.," Mr. Comey said.
But then, a lot of things have lately. Another Trump-branded election interference scandal is upon us. Institutions are wobbling. And Mr. Comey, as ever, cannot fight a nagging conviction about it all: James Comey can help. He must help.
"I feel stuck," he said. "Like I can't do something else. And I couldn't look myself in the mirror if I went and did something easy."
What he is doing, exactly, is not entirely clear even to him. Rather than proceed with the standard arc of an erstwhile intelligence leader -- think tanks, corporate boards, studied political silence -- Mr. Comey has pledged to spend the next 13 months working to drive Mr. Trump from power.
The former F.B.I. director, a lover of order, sees little of it in a norm-smashing president spiraling toward impeachment, riffing on "sick and deranged" Democrats at a recent rally and playacting the dialogue of F.B.I. officials like an insult comic. In this concern, Mr. Comey has ample company. In this company, he carries a kind of customized psychic baggage.
Who can know how it feels to wonder, to have everyone you meet wonder, if the president is standing behind that seal because of you?
"Thanks for giving us Donald Trump," an older woman heckled recently, adding an expletive as Mr. Comey strolled through a Yale Law School building, where he had come for a talk that focused largely on his fateful 2016 decisions and attendant personal anguish.
"Thank you for the feedback," he told her.
Divorced from its singular context, Mr. Comey's condition is somewhat typical of the wandering urgency with which many presidential critics are approaching the 2020 election. Last year's season of midterm activism has given way to a long electoral winter of Democratic primary skirmishes and an emphasis on just a few early-voting states, leaving Trump opponents to wrestle with how to contribute amid a gush of executive outrages they feel powerless to counteract.
Lawmakers can impeach. Whistle-blowers whistle-blow. What of the private citizen, determined to live publicly?
"It's hard for people who've had a lot of power to come to terms with the fact that there's actually very little you can do when you're not a candidate," said Jennifer Palmieri, a former top aide to Mrs. Clinton. "Or the F.B.I. director."
While short on formal authority, Mr. Comey has suffered no deficiency of platforms. He says he has signed a contract to write opinion pieces for The Washington Post. He is the subject of an upcoming mini-series, starring Jeff Daniels as Mr. Comey, based on his best-selling memoir. He travels the country giving speeches on ethical leadership, mixing pro bono appearances on college campuses with paid bookings that command a six-figure fee. ("It's a lot!" Mr. Comey enthused, while declining to name his precise rate. "Seriously, it's crazy.")
Over nearly two hours last month at his Northern Virginia home, whose coordinates he prefers not to publicize given the president's affection for lathering up supporters with tales of "Leakin' Lyin' James Comey," the former F.B.I. director could register as a spindly contradiction. He is at once a just-the-facts lawman and a prodigious feeler of feelings, introspective about the size of his ego and incapable of suppressing it entirely.
He says he is "not that important in the great sweep of American history" but believes his firsthand view into the president's psyche can offer uncommon value to the anti-Trump movement. He can hold forth in one breath on the humbling task of bird-feeder maintenance and in another invoke the teachings of the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. He says "dude" a lot.
At times, Mr. Comey can sound as if he is suggesting that the Twitter account from which he slings grave warnings and measured hope ("This country is so much better than this president") is yoked to the health of the nation.
"I have a fantasy about on January 21, 2021, deleting my Twitter and moving on to something else," he said. "But until then, I can't."
Closure has eluded some of his audiences, too. They lard Mr. Comey's public events with skeptical questions about his choices in 2016. The Justice Department's inspector general has lashed Mr. Comey for "insubordinate" conduct during that period, accusing him of breaking with longstanding policy by publicly discussing an investigation into Mrs. Clinton's use of a private email server, including in a letter to Congress less than two weeks before the election.
Mr. Comey has conceded that he may have allowed himself to be influenced subconsciously by the political consensus that Mrs. Clinton would win. But he has betrayed no major regrets, defending his chosen course as the best among bad options. "I wish like hell we hadn't been involved," he said. He predicted that history would judge him kindly for prizing disclosure over concealment (not, as some Clinton allies see it, opting for spectacle over discretion).
Asked if he cared about how he would be remembered for the ages, Mr. Comey, 58, said, "I was going to say I don't care. I'm sure I care a little," adding, "It frustrates me in general that millions of people have a false impression of me. I wish they knew I was funnier." ...
The incredible feature of Comey is he was not arraigned after the IG report.Maybe he goes down with the Mueller fish Durham fries!
How does Comey not go all in with the next phase of the coup?
|
|
|
Sep 28, 2019 | www.unz.com
Buck Ransom , says: September 27, 2019 at 12:51 am GMT
In his phone call with Zelensky, President Trump mentioned two subjects in particular which are Kryptonite to the Democrats: Crowdstrike and "the server," meaning the DNC server which was never forensically examined by the FBI. Pulling on these two threads may be even more interesting than the stuff about the big-bucks shakedowns of foreign governments by Joe Biden & Son, Inc. Just for starters: what the fcuk is the DNC server doing in Ukraine?
|
|
|
Sep 28, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
JohnH -> JohnH... , September 26, 2019 at 01:02 PM
Christopher Steele's connection to Ukraine:JohnH -> JohnH... , September 26, 2019 at 07:09 PM"During the Ukraine cries in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what was going on between them." --Victoria Nuland.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/04/former_assistant_secretary_of_state_victoria_nuland_christopher_steele_also_shared_information_with_state_department.htmlBy commercial clients, you should read oligarchs who were still in business because they had sworn fealty to the US owned regime.
More information on Hunter Biden. He served on the President's Advisory Council of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up after Congress banned the CIA from pursuing regime change. A lot of the coordination and assistance for the Ukraine coup probably passed through that 'non-profit.' Joe Biden was Obama's point person, and Hunter Biden was probably Joe's eyes, ears, and gopher at NDI.Immediately after the coup, Hunter was appointed to the board of the strategically critical Burisma energy company, Ukraine's largest producer of natural gas. From what I have seen, the US likes to have its assets sit on the Board of strategically critically energy companies.
And is Ukraine ever strategically important!!! Apart from the fact the Russian pipelines pass through the country, "Ukraine has an estimated 42 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of technically recoverable shale gas reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), ranking its deposits as the fourth largest in Europe."
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ukraine_and_frackingAgain, Hunter Biden's appointment would not have been by chance. He would have been put there to once again to be Joe Biden's eyes, ears, and gopher.
As a side benefit, Hunter Biden would have been in an excellent position, both from his work at NDI and at Burisma, to meet the movers and shakers in post-coup Ukraine and coordinate disinformation campaigns as needed. The Ukrainians would have been eager to help as the solvency of the country depended on US loans.
So are we about to witness the first color revolution on US soil? Could be
|
|
|
Sep 27, 2019 | southfront.org
Another point was CrowdStrike, hired by Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the last election to analyze an infiltration of DNC email networks. He asked if the CrowdStrike servers are in Ukraine.
"Trump: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike I guess you have one of your wealthy people The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation."
"Zelenskiy: Well yes, to tell you the truth, we are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country. We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government You are a great teacher for us and in that."
"Zelenskiy: Actually last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park and I stayed at the Trump Tower. I will talk to them and I hope to see them again in the future. I also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically Washington DC. On the other hand, I also want to assure you that we will be very serious about the case and will work on the investigation."
Zelensky was applying the tried and true formula of flattering Trump until he agrees to fulfill a request. The summary of the conversation is quite limited, and US Congress asked for the whistleblower complaint to also be unclassified.
|
|
|
Sep 27, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
JohnH -> JohnH... , September 26, 2019 at 01:02 PM
Christopher Steele's connection to Ukraine:JohnH -> JohnH... , September 26, 2019 at 07:09 PM"During the Ukraine cries in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what was going on between them." --Victoria Nuland.
By commercial clients, you should read oligarchs who were still in business because they had sworn fealty to the US owned regime.
More information on Hunter Biden. He served on the President's Advisory Council of the National Democratic Institute (NDI), a subsidiary of the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up after Congress banned the CIA from pursuing regime change. A lot of the coordination and assistance for the Ukraine coup probably passed through that 'non-profit.' Joe Biden was Obama's point person, and Hunter Biden was probably Joe's eyes, ears, and gopher at NDI.Immediately after the coup, Hunter was appointed to the board of the strategically critical Burisma energy company, Ukraine's largest producer of natural gas. From what I have seen, the US likes to have its assets sit on the Board of strategically critically energy companies.
And is Ukraine ever strategically important!!! Apart from the fact the Russian pipelines pass through the country, "Ukraine has an estimated 42 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of technically recoverable shale gas reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), ranking its deposits as the fourth largest in Europe."
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ukraine_and_frackingAgain, Hunter Biden's appointment would not have been by chance. He would have been put there to once again to be Joe Biden's eyes, ears, and gopher.
As a side benefit, Hunter Biden would have been in an excellent position, both from his work at NDI and at Burisma, to meet the movers and shakers in post-coup Ukraine and coordinate disinformation campaigns as needed. The Ukrainians would have been eager to help as the solvency of the country depended on US loans.
So are we about to witness the first color revolution on US soil? Could be
|
|
|
Sep 24, 2019 | consortiumnews.com
Before the Trump Tower visit, Comey sat down with top FBI brass – Chief of Staff James Rybicki, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, General Counsel James Baker, and others involved with the Russiagate investigation – to strategize about the upcoming meeting.
Page 17 of the OIG report tells of what they were up to:
"Baker and McCabe said that they agreed that the briefing needed to be one-on-one, so that Comey could present the 'salacious' information in the most discreet and least embarrassing way. At the same time, we were told, they did not want the President-elect to perceive the one-on-one briefing as an effort to hold information over him like a 'Hoover-esque type of plot.' Witnesses interviewed by the OIG also said that they discussed Trump's potential responses to being told about the 'salacious' information, including that Trump might make statements about, or provide information of value to, the pending Russian interference investigation."
As the final sentence shows, Comey's job was to confront Trump about the alleged 2013 Moscow incident and see whether he would give the FBI reason to advance its Russiagate investigation to a whole new level, that of the presidency itself.
This was the same approach the FBI would employ a couple of weeks later after listening in on a telephone conversation between Mike Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and not liking what it heard about plans to bolster U.S.-Russian relations. The solution was to send a couple of agents to quiz the newly-appointed national security adviser and see how he would respond. After telling Flynn not to bother bringing along a lawyer because it was just a friendly chat and "they wanted Flynn to be relaxed, and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport" – as a follow-up memo noted – the agents caught the ever-voluble Flynn fudging various details. Three weeks later, he found himself out of office and in disgrace. Ten months after that, he was in federal court pleading guilty to making false and misleading statements.
Another Set-Up
Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department's inspector general. (Wikimedia Commons)
Now we know from the OIG report that this was apparently the goal with regard to Trump.
Russiagate began nine months earlier with a smallarmy of intelligence agents buzzing around a naïve young Trump adviser named George Papadopoulos. [See " Spooks Spooking Themselves ," May 31, 2018.] An Anglo-Maltese academic named Joseph Mifsud, an individual with strong Anglo-American intelligence connections, wined and dined him and told him that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails."
An Australian diplomat, former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer , who was similarly connected, invited him out for drinks and then passed along the fruits of the conversation to Canberra, which related them to Washington. A Belorussian-American businessman who worked for Steele offered Papadopoulos $30,000 a month under the table. A U.S. intelligence asset named Charles Tawil presented him with $10,000 in cash. A long-time CIA informant named Stefan Halper flew Papadopoulos to London and barraged him with questions:
"It's great that Russia is helping you and the campaign, right, George? George, you and your campaign are involved in hacking and working with Russia, right? It seems like you are a middleman for Trump and Russia, right? I know you know about the emails."
"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Papadopoulos replied according to his recent book , "Deep State Target." But what if he had instead chuckled or said something stupid in order to puff himself up? Based on previous FBI entrapment cases , the answer seems clear: after threatening him with prosecution, the bureau would have outfitted him with a wire so that he could bring down other campaign officials. It wouldn't have stopped until it snared the ultimate prize –Trump himself.
Trump told reporters in May he wanted Australia's role to be investigated by the Justice Department. Comey's Trump Tower meeting was important because it led directly to the publication of the notorious dossier that would generate endless headlines and cripple the incoming Trump administration even though it was full of baloney.
Most of what we know about that meeting in the early days of the Trump administration comes from a memo that Comeydashed off minutes later and then lightly revised the next morning.
According to his memo, Comey met one-on-one with Trump to tell him about the Steele dossier because
"the content [was] known at IC [intelligence community] senior level and I didn't want him caught cold by some of the detail . I said I wasn't saying this was true, only that I wanted him to know both that it had been reported and that the reports were in many hands. I said media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material and that we were keeping it very close-hold."
But Comey's memo was disingenuous, starting with his line about not wanting to give the media "the excuse to write that the FBI has the material." Leaks are an integral part of Washington, as an insider and a leaker like Comey knows.
As Comey must have also known, his very decision to brief Trump on the dossier wound up triggering press attention to it.
Four days later, Buzzfeed posted the dossier on its website. The source remains anonymous but it's easy to imagine that either Director of National Intelligence James Clapper or CIA Director John Brennan spilled the beans. They both accompanied Comey to the meeting and were appalled by Trump's call for a rapprochement with Russia.
Comey's memo also rings false where it says he "wasn't saying this was true, only that I wanted him to know both that it had been reported and that the reports were in many hands."
Glenn Simpson, the ex- Wall Street Journal reporter whose private Washington intelligence firm, Fusion GPS, commissioned the dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC, told the House intelligence committee that Steele began sharing his findings with the FBI "in July or late June" of 2016. (See p. 60 of testimony transcript ).
That means that the bureau had the Moscow Ritz-Carlton report in hand six months prior to the Trump Tower meeting. Surely, this is enough time to reach some conclusion as to its veracity.
'Might Make Statements'
Had Trump fallen into Comey's trap, millions of Americans would no doubt have cheered – and given Trump's dismal record in office, who can blame them? But the implications are chilling, and not just for rightwing dissidents. Instead of electing presidents, Americans would merely submit them to the FBI for review.
With the Electoral College and the Supreme Court already overturning the popular vote in two of the last five presidential elections, voters would have a fourth branch to contend with – the intelligence community.
As Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer told MSNBC'S Rachel Maddow at the height of the Russiagate madness: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community – they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you." Had Comey succeeded in bringing down Trump, they may have had a seventh.
Daniel Lazare is the author of "The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy" (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American politics. He has written for a wide variety of publications from The Nation to Le Monde Diplomatique and blogs about the Constitution and related matters at D aniellazare.com .
Richard A. , September 24, 2019 at 15:13
I think Russiagate is more than just smearing Trump, it's also about smearing Russia. The war lobby here in the US and the UK are trying to manipulate public opinion in to hating Russia.
R Zarate , September 24, 2019 at 05:02
And now there are calls to impeach Trump for asking for an investigation into Biden! It speaks volumes about the MSM that there was no uproar when H.B. took the job at Bursima, I remember the White House putting out a release at the time saying they could see no conflict of interest, I guess the lack of conflict was it was par for the course to enrich family members.
By the bye. So Trump gets impeached, then what? Didn't do Clinton any harm.
CitizenOne , September 23, 2019 at 23:26
It is an interesting history filled with plots within plots to destroy Trump for the audacity to win the presidential election. True he won the election with a lot of help from Cambridge Analytica and his election team which included Roger Stone, George Papadopoulos (the nube) Paul Manafort (the former partner in the Black, Stone, Manafort and Kelly lobby firm) , Rick Gates and Michael Flynn.
All these people were indicted under the Mueller probe but yet Trump escaped without a scratch on his record. To pull this off Trump abandoned all of them in turn claiming he hardly knew them and had no involvement. How Trump escaped from the Mueller investigation has nothing to do with his innocence and everything to do with the lack of evidence tying him to the crimes his associates admitted to under intense scrutiny by the Mueller Special Council Investigation into the alleged Russian Hacks which supposedly threw the election toward Trump. Michael Cohen, Trump's long time lawyer was also convicted of paying off two women that alleged Trump arranged for sex with the women and later paid them off handsomely allegedly by orders from Trump.
It is like Trump won his freedom because there was no evidence to convict him despite the many people who were closely associated with himwho fell as victims to the special prosecutors zeal for indictments of Trump's inner guard.
In the end the Mueller report all but exonerated Trump with Mueller claiming Trump had committed impeachable evidence but that Mueller could do nothing about that leaving his conclusions up to the court of popular appeal as to whether or not Trump was guilty of obstruction of justice in the entire Russia Gate story.
Trump accurately called out the testimony of Comey before Congress into what he knew about the Russian attempt to hack the election as fake news. Trump banked on what the intelligence community would share about the election result and he won big time when the Mueller investigation into Russian hacking of the election produced no tangible connection between Trump and the alleged hackers. The Steel dossier was also l shown to be just more fake news paid for by the democrats.
The longer Trump remains in charge the less likely that he will be implicated in a scandal although the new allegations that he attempted to get the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden has the potential to raise a new round of fake news decrying that the president has engaged in yet more impeachable offenses.
robert e williamson jr , September 23, 2019 at 21:23
Beware of the Department of Justice, mad dogs and dogs of war.
Appears to be FBI disruption of the domestic governmental tranquility for the unique purpose of disrupting a duly elected president.
I mean the FBI bill themselves as the domestic counter intelligence apparatus and CIA apparently agrees. Maybe CIA is actually running another of their counter intelligence covert mission that involves the undoing of Ole Donny J. .
No I didn't say it, no mention of the dreaded "executive action" my me.
My assumption is that this may be simply collateral damage from the investigation into the Russia meddling in the 2016 elec . . . . .
. . . and the beat goes on, la da da dee . . . !
That far away look in the eyes of the old democratic leaders is the look of "the fear" (H.S.T.). They watch as the repugs, their partners in crime get skewered , by the same DOJ that will skewer them in a New York second given a chance.
DOJ and the USAG leading the shock troops of the National Socialists take over.
Sandra Thompson , September 23, 2019 at 20:58
One of your best lines: "Instead of electing presidents, Americans would merely submit them to the FBI for review." Liked last couple of paragraphs too. Thank you
Abby , September 23, 2019 at 19:43
So Comey knowingly and blatantly lied to the incoming president and it was that incoming president that got investigated? How the hell does that make sense to the Russia Gaters? And then they elevated Comey after he got fired? This makes as much sense as people thinking that Robert Mueller was going to save the country.
After reading Parry's essay on Joe ByeDone from 2014 after the Obama coup in Ukraine that showed how corrupt the powerful people in our government are I don't even know why people bother to vote anymore. The country is run by people behind the scenes who use congress critters to do their dirty work and give them cover. And with our corrupt military industrial complex setting the world on fire I think it's time for the empire to burn.
Ray McGovern , September 23, 2019 at 18:46
VERY GOOD PIECE, DAN. THANKS. Ray McGovern
Martin , September 23, 2019 at 15:27
I read somewhere early on that someone was peddling the steele-dossier to many different outlets weeks or even months before trump's briefing, but they wouldn't bite (too fantastic) until the feds legitimized it. The people should be informed about these mechanics.
Dan Anderson , September 23, 2019 at 15:09
Here's the warning before being sworn in:
January 3, 2017 – Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you. So, even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he is being really dumb to do this."
Rachel Maddow: "What do you think the intelligence community would do if they were motivated to?"
Schumer: "I don't know, but from what I am told, they are very upset with how he has treated them and talked about them," -- The Rachel Maddow Show Jan 3, 2017
|
|
|
Sep 18, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit was filed against the US Justice Department on Wednesday by legal watchdog group Judicial Watch , seeking records concerning FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta - an agency Legal Attaché in Rome who helped circulate the infamous Steele Dossier.
The JW lawsuit seeks:George Papadopoulos @GeorgePapa19Expect the name Michael Gaeta to become a household name very soon regarding spygate.
- All records of communications, including emails (using [his or her] own name or aliases), text messages, instant chats and encrypted messages, sent to and from former FBI Legal Attaché in Rome, Special Agent Michael Gaeta, mentioning the terms "Trump", "Clinton", "Republican", "Democrat", and/or "conservatives."
- All SF50s and SF52s of SA Michael Gaeta.
- All expense reports and travel vouchers submitted for SA Michael Gaeta.
According to August 2018 testimony by the DOJ's former #4 official Bruce Ohr, dossier author Christopher Steele gave two memos from his salacious, Clinton-funded opposition research to Gaeta.
In the July 30 meeting, Chris Steele also mentioned something about the doping -- you know, one of the doping scandals. And he also mentioned, I believe -- and, again, this is based on my review of my notes -- that he had provided Mr. Gaeta with two reports "
The only thing I recall him mentioning is that he had provided two of his reports to Special Agent Gaeta.
According to the Epoch Times , Gaeta was authorized by former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to meet with Steele at his London office in order to obtain dossier materials.
The purpose of the London visit was clear. Steele was personally handing the first memo in his dossier to Gaeta for ultimate transmission back to the FBI and the State Department.
For this visit, the FBI sought permission from the office of Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland, who had been the recipient of many of Steele's reports, gave permission for the more formal meeting. On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis.
The FBI's scramble to vet the dossier's claims are well known. According to an April, 2017 NYT report , the FBI agreed to pay Steele $50,000 for "solid corroboration" of his claims . Steele was apparently unable to produce satisfactory evidence - and was not paid for his efforts :
Mr. Steele met his F.B.I. contact in Rome in early October, bringing a stack of new intelligence reports. One, dated Sept. 14, said that Mr. Putin was facing "fallout" over his apparent involvement in the D.N.C. hack and was receiving "conflicting advice" on what to do.
The agent said that if Mr. Steele could get solid corroboration of his reports, the F.B.I. would pay him $50,000 for his efforts, according to two people familiar with the offer. Ultimately, he was not paid . - NYT
Still, the FBI used the dossier to obtain the FISA warrant on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page - while the document itself was heavily shopped around to various media outlets . The late Sen. John McCain provided a copy to Former FBI Director James Comey, who already had a version, and briefed President Trump on the salacious document. Comey's briefing to Trump was then used by CNN and BuzzFeed to justify reporting on and publishing the dossier following the election.
" The FBI is covering up its role in the Russiagate hoax ," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "Judicial Watch has had to fight the FBI 'tooth and nail' for every scrap of information about the illicit targeting of President Trump."
Herp and Derp , 1 minute ago link
LEEPERMAX , 2 minutes ago linkGreat news that Ted is finally (after 30+ years of discussion) introducing a term limits amendment.
Along with term limits for legislature, we need to kill the deep state as well. The government needs to be reduced significantly. I say we go back to spoils. If a federal role is needed, then it must be hired/re-hired by the whitehouse. Every FBI agent, etc. Trump has proven that most current direct appointments are waste of money and unnecessary.
Limits restricting ex-politicians and military from lobbying, but also partners and nepotism need to be codified and restricted for politician families.
tunetopper , 5 minutes ago linkWhether it's MARK MEADOWS, DOUG COLLINS, JIM JORDAN, LINDSEY GRAHAM or any of the others, I've come to the conclusion that the ONLY PERSON seriously taking on those who were involved in THE ATTEMPTED COUP TO TAKE DOWN TRUMP is TOM FITTON of JUDICIAL WATCH.
The U.S. is a Captured Operation
Swamidon , 8 minutes ago linkMisfud was in Rome too. The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital St John - present sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II. Was he a bailiff or a knight, question...?
I am Groot , 15 minutes ago linkTalk talk talk, its cheap, and boring with the same criminals appearing over and over, but no action ever taken and the Traitors don't look very nervous. Why doesn't Trump issue an Executive Order to direct employees of the DOJ and the FBI etc., to fully cooperate with investigators?
CheapBastard , 13 minutes ago linkTime to fire Director Deep State Wray and dismantle the FBI, President Trump ! They are 100% corrupt !
NoDebt , 6 minutes ago linkHe's a huge disappointment.
White Nat , 21 minutes ago linkAgreed. This guy Wray has been slow-walking and standing in the way of anything happening at every turn. I am convinced he is absolutely there to protect the FBI and nothing else. He is definitely acting like a "company man".
And, I'm not gonna give Trump any more free passes for what seems to be a lot of BAD picks in his appointments. In this respect I think it's where Trump has been the most disappointing.
gilhgvc , 23 minutes ago linkHope Judicial Watch files a FOIA request for weiner's laptop.
New_Meat , 24 minutes ago linkcorrection: BARR,TRUMP and the REPUBLICANS are ALLOWING the FBI to cover up
f'noldbastard , 43 minutes ago linkNuland?
Victoria Nuland???? Oh, waits, that Nuland. The qwm who orchestrated the Ukraine mess. Now I've got it, whew, thought I was losing my memory there for a bit.
but who is Evelyn Farkas? Gotta' think on that one.
Gringo Viejo , 44 minutes ago linkThey may respond sometime in 2025
JoeTurner , 45 minutes ago linkThe FBI was founded by a cross dressing, closet homosexual with a gambling "jones" who was blackmailed by the Mafia.
And it was expected to improve with age?
chunga , 33 minutes ago linkIs Steele still alive? He seems like a major liability
Secret Weapon , 46 minutes ago linkChristopher Wray is another beauty right up there with Stiff Sessions.
chunga , 43 minutes ago linkThe FBI has become America's Gestapo.
Demologos , 26 minutes ago linkTheir top experts have been studying the malfunctioning Epstein cameras for about three weeks now.
chunga , 10 minutes ago linkThe FBI has their TOP men studying it, TOP men!
When NYPD busted Weiner Comey sent his black hats to seize the laptop.
While under an international spotlight Barr recused himself from the Epstein matter and Wray did nothing.
|
|
|
Jan 01, 2019 | dailymaverick.co.za
The Guardian, Britain's leading liberal newspaper with a global reputation for independent and critical journalism, has been successfully targeted by security agencies to neutralise its adversarial reporting of the 'security state', according to newly released documents and evidence from former and current Guardian journalists.
The UK security services targeted The Guardian after the newspaper started publishing the contents of secret US government documents leaked by National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in June 2013.
Snowden's bombshell revelations continued for months and were the largest-ever leak of classified material covering the NSA and its UK equivalent, the Government Communications Headquarters. They revealed programmes of mass surveillance operated by both agencies.
According to minutes of meetings of the UK's Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee, the revelations caused alarm in the British security services and Ministry of Defence.
" This event was very concerning because at the outset The Guardian avoided engaging with the [committee] before publishing the first tranche of information," state minutes of a 7 November 2013 meeting at the MOD.
The DSMA Committee, more commonly known as the D-Notice Committee, is run by the MOD, where it meets every six months. A small number of journalists are also invited to sit on the committee. Its stated purpose is to "prevent inadvertent public disclosure of information that would compromise UK military and intelligence operations". It can issue "notices" to the media to encourage them not to publish certain information.
The committee is currently chaired by the MOD's director-general of security policy Dominic Wilson, who was previously director of security and intelligence in the British Cabinet Office. Its secretary is Brigadier Geoffrey Dodds OBE, who describes himself as an "accomplished, senior ex-military commander with extensive experience of operational level leadership".
The D-Notice system describes itself as voluntary , placing no obligations on the media to comply with any notice issued. This means there should have been no need for the Guardian to consult the MOD before publishing the Snowden documents.
Yet committee minutes note the secretary saying: "The Guardian was obliged to seek advice under the terms of the DA notice code." The minutes add: "This failure to seek advice was a key source of concern and considerable efforts had been made to address it."
' Considerable efforts'
These "considerable efforts" included a D-Notice sent out by the committee on 7 June 2013 – the day after The Guardian published the first documents – to all major UK media editors, saying they should refrain from publishing information that would "jeopardise both national security and possibly UK personnel". It was marked "private and confidential: not for publication, broadcast or use on social media".
Clearly the committee did not want its issuing of the notice to be publicised, and it was nearly successful. Only the right-wing blog Guido Fawkes made it public.
At the time, according to the committee minutes , the "intelligence agencies in particular had continued to ask for more advisories [i.e. D-Notices] to be sent out". Such D-Notices were clearly seen by the intelligence services not so much as a tool to advise the media but rather a way to threaten it not to publish further Snowden revelations.
One night, amidst the first Snowden stories being published, the D-Notice Committee's then-secretary Air Vice-Marshal Andrew Vallance personally called Alan Rusbridger, then editor of The Guardian. Vallance "made clear his concern that The Guardian had failed to consult him in advance before telling the world", according to a Guardian journalist who interviewed Rusbridger.
Later in the year, Prime Minister David Cameron again used the D-Notice system as a threat to the media.
" I don't want to have to use injunctions or D-Notices or the other tougher measures," he said in a statement to MPs. "I think it's much better to appeal to newspapers' sense of social responsibility. But if they don't demonstrate some social responsibility it would be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act."
The threats worked. The Press Gazette reported at the time that "The FT [Financial Times] and The Times did not mention it [the initial Snowden revelations] and the Telegraph published only a short". It continued by noting that only The Independent "followed up the substantive allegations". It added, "The BBC has also chosen to largely ignore the story."
The Guardian, however, remained uncowed.
According to the committee minutes , the fact The Guardian would not stop publishing "undoubtedly raised questions in some minds about the system's future usefulness". If the D-Notice system could not prevent The Guardian publishing GCHQ's most sensitive secrets, what was it good for?
It was time to rein in The Guardian and make sure this never happened again.
GCHQ and laptops
The security services ratcheted up their "considerable efforts" to deal with the exposures. On 20 July 2013, GCHQ officials entered The Guardian's offices at King's Cross in London, six weeks after the first Snowden-related article had been published. At the request of the government and security services, Guardian deputy editor Paul Johnson, along with two others, spent three hours destroying the laptops containing the Snowden documents.
The Guardian staffers, according to one of the newspaper's reporters, brought "angle-grinders, dremels – drills with revolving bits – and masks". The reporter added, "The spy agency provided one piece of hi-tech equipment, a 'degausser', which destroys magnetic fields and erases data."
Johnson claims that the destruction of the computers was "purely a symbolic act", adding that "the government and GCHQ knew, because we had told them, that the material had been taken to the US to be shared with the New York Times. The reporting would go on. The episode hadn't changed anything."
Yet the episode did change something. As the D-Notice Committee minutes for November 2013 outlined: "Towards the end of July [as the computers were being destroyed], The Guardian had begun to seek and accept D-Notice advice not to publish certain highly sensitive details and since then the dialogue [with the committee] had been reasonable and improving."
The British security services had carried out more than a "symbolic act". It was both a show of strength and a clear threat. The Guardian was then the only major newspaper that could be relied upon by whistleblowers in the US and British security bodies to receive and cover their exposures, a situation which posed a challenge to security agencies.
The increasingly aggressive overtures made to The Guardian worked. The committee chair noted that after GCHQ had overseen the smashing up of the newspaper's laptops "engagement with The Guardian had continued to strengthen".
Moreover, he added , there were now "regular dialogues between the secretary and deputy secretaries and Guardian journalists". Rusbridger later testified to the Home Affairs Committee that Air Vice-Marshal Vallance of the D-Notice committee and himself "collaborated" in the aftermath of the Snowden affair and that Vallance had even "been at The Guardian offices to talk to all our reporters".
But the most important part of this charm and threat offensive was getting The Guardian to agree to take a seat on the D-Notice Committee itself. The committee minutes are explicit on this, noting that "the process had culminated by [sic] the appointment of Paul Johnson (deputy editor Guardian News and Media) as a DPBAC [i.e. D-Notice Committee] member".
At some point in 2013 or early 2014, Johnson – the same deputy editor who had smashed up his newspaper's computers under the watchful gaze of British intelligence agents – was approached to take up a seat on the committee. Johnson attended his first meeting in May 2014 and was to remain on it until October 2018 .
The Guardian's deputy editor went directly from the corporation's basement with an angle-grinder to sitting on the D-Notice Committee alongside the security service officials who had tried to stop his paper publishing.
A new editor
Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger withstood intense pressure not to publish some of the Snowden revelations but agreed to Johnson taking a seat on the D-Notice Committee as a tactical sop to the security services. Throughout his tenure, The Guardian continued to publish some stories critical of the security services.
But in March 2015, the situation changed when the Guardian appointed a new editor, Katharine Viner, who had less experience than Rusbridger of dealing with the security services. Viner had started out on fashion and entertainment magazine Cosmopolitan and had no history in national security reporting. According to insiders, she showed much less leadership during the Snowden affair than Janine Gibson in the US (Gibson was another candidate to be Rusbridger's successor).
Viner was then editor-in-chief of Guardian Australia, which was launched just two weeks before the first Snowden revelations were published. Australia and New Zealand comprise two-fifths of the so-called "Five Eyes" surveillance alliance exposed by Snowden.
This was an opportunity for the security services. It appears that their seduction began the following year.
In November 2016, The Guardian published an unprecedented "exclusive" with Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, Britain's domestic security service. The article noted that this was the "first newspaper interview given by an incumbent MI5 chief in the service's 107-year history". It was co-written by deputy editor Paul Johnson, who had never written about the security services before and who was still sitting on the D-Notice Committee. This was not mentioned in the article.
The MI5 chief was given copious space to make claims about the national security threat posed by an "increasingly aggressive" Russia. Johnson and his co-author noted, "Parker said he was talking to The Guardian rather than any other newspaper despite the publication of the Snowden files."
Parker told the two reporters, "We recognise that in a changing world we have to change too. We have a responsibility to talk about our work and explain it."
Four months after the MI5 interview, in March 2017, the Guardian published another unprecedented "exclusive", this time with Alex Younger, the sitting chief of MI6, Britain's external intelligence agency. This exclusive was awarded by the Secret Intelligence Service to The Guardian's investigations editor, Nick Hopkins, who had been appointed 14 months previously.
The interview was the first Younger had given to a national newspaper and was again softball. Titled "MI6 returns to 'tapping up' in an effort to recruit black and Asian officers", it focused almost entirely on the intelligence service's stated desire to recruit from ethnic minority communities.
" Simply, we have to attract the best of modern Britain," Younger told Hopkins. "Every community from every part of Britain should feel they have what it takes, no matter what their background or status."
Just two weeks before the interview with MI6's chief was published, The Guardian itself reported on the high court stating that it would "hear an application for a judicial review of the Crown Prosecution Service's decision not to charge MI6's former counterterrorism director, Sir Mark Allen, over the abduction of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his pregnant wife who were transferred to Libya in a joint CIA-MI6 operation in 2004".
None of this featured in The Guardian article, which did, however, cover discussions of whether the James Bond actor Daniel Craig would qualify for the intelligence service. "He would not get into MI6," Younger told Hopkins.
More recently, in August 2019, The Guardian was awarded yet another exclusive, this time with Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Neil Basu, Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer. This was Basu's " first major interview since taking up his post" the previous year and resulted in a three-part series of articles, one of which was entitled "Met police examine Vladimir Putin's role in Salisbury attack".
The security services were probably feeding The Guardian these "exclusives" as part of the process of bringing it onside and neutralising the only independent newspaper with the resources to receive and cover a leak such as Snowden's. They were possibly acting to prevent any revelations of this kind happening again.
What, if any, private conversations have taken place between Viner and the security services during her tenure as editor are not known. But in 2018, when Paul Johnson eventually left the D-Notice Committee, its chair, the MOD's Dominic Wilson, praised Johnson who, he said, had been "instrumental in re-establishing links with The Guardian".
Decline in critical reporting
Amidst these spoon-fed intelligence exclusives, Viner also oversaw the breakup of The Guardian's celebrated investigative team, whose muck-racking journalists were told to apply for other jobs outside of investigations.
One well-placed source told the Press Gazette at the time that journalists on the investigations team "have not felt backed by senior editors over the last year", and that "some also feel the company has become more risk-averse in the same period".
In the period since Snowden, The Guardian has lost many of its top investigative reporters who had covered national security issues, notably Shiv Malik, Nick Davies, David Leigh, Richard Norton-Taylor, Ewen MacAskill and Ian Cobain. The few journalists who were replaced were succeeded by less experienced reporters with apparently less commitment to exposing the security state. The current defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh, started at The Guardian as head of media and technology and has no history of covering national security.
" It seems they've got rid of everyone who seemed to cover the security services and military in an adversarial way," one current Guardian journalist told us.
Indeed, during the last two years of Rusbridger's editorship, The Guardian published about 110 articles per year tagged as MI6 on its website. Since Viner took over, the average per year has halved and is decreasing year by year.
" Effective scrutiny of the security and intelligence agencies -- epitomised by the Snowden scoops but also many other stories -- appears to have been abandoned," a former Guardian journalist told us. The former reporter added that, in recent years, it "sometimes seems The Guardian is worried about upsetting the spooks."
A second former Guardian journalist added: "The Guardian no longer seems to have such a challenging relationship with the intelligence services, and is perhaps seeking to mend fences since Snowden. This is concerning, because spooks are always manipulative and not always to be trusted."
While some articles critical of the security services still do appear in the paper, its "scoops" increasingly focus on issues more acceptable to them. Since the Snowden affair, The Guardian does not appear to have published any articles based on an intelligence or security services source that was not officially sanctioned to speak.
The Guardian has, by contrast, published a steady stream of exclusives on the major official enemy of the security services, Russia, exposing Putin, his friends and the work of its intelligence services and military.
In the Panama Papers leak in April 2016, which revealed how companies and individuals around the world were using an offshore law firm to avoid paying tax, The Guardian's front-page launch scoop was authored by Luke Harding, who has received many security service tips focused on the "Russia threat", and was titled "Revealed: the $2bn offshore trail that leads to Vladimir Putin".
Three sentences into the piece, however, Harding notes that "the president's name does not appear in any of the records" although he insists that "the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage".
There was a much bigger story in the Panama Papers which The Guardian chose to downplay by leaving it to the following day. This concerned the father of the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, who "ran an offshore fund that avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain by hiring a small army of Bahamas residents – including a part-time bishop – to sign its paperwork".
We understand there was some argument between journalists about not leading with the Cameron story as the launch splash. Putin's friends were eventually deemed more important than the Prime Minister of the country where the paper published.
Getting Julian Assange
The Guardian also appears to have been engaged in a campaign against the WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who had been a collaborator during the early WikiLeaks revelations in 2010.
One 2017 story came from investigative reporter Carole Cadwalladr, who writes for The Guardian's sister paper The Observer, titled "When Nigel Farage met Julian Assange". This concerned the visit of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage to the Ecuadorian embassy in March 2017, organised by the radio station LBC, for whom Farage worked as a presenter. Farage's producer at LBC accompanied Farage at the meeting, but this was not mentioned by Cadwalladr.
Rather, she posited that this meeting was "potentially a channel of communication" between WikiLeaks, Farage and Donald Trump, who were all said to be closely linked to Russia, adding that these actors were in a "political alignment" and that " WikiLeaks is, in many ways, the swirling vortex at the centre of everything".
Yet Cadwalladr's one official on-the-record source for this speculation was a "highly placed contact with links to US intelligence", who told her, "When the heat is turned up and all electronic communication, you have to assume, is being intensely monitored, then those are the times when intelligence communication falls back on human couriers. Where you have individuals passing information in ways and places that cannot be monitored."
It seems likely this was innuendo being fed to The Observer by an intelligence-linked individual to promote disinformation to undermine Assange.
In 2018, however, The Guardian's attempted vilification of Assange was significantly stepped up. A new string of articles began on 18 May 2018 with one alleging Assange's "long-standing relationship with RT", the Russian state broadcaster. The series, which has been closely documented elsewhere, lasted for several months, consistently alleging with little or the most minimal circumstantial evidence that Assange had ties to Russia or the Kremlin.
One story, co-authored again by Luke Harding, claimed that "Russian diplomats held secret talks in London with people close to Julian Assange to assess whether they could help him flee the UK, The Guardian has learned". The former consul in the Ecuadorian embassy in London at this time, Fidel Narvaez, vigorously denies the existence of any such "escape plot" involving Russia and is involved in a complaint process with The Guardian for insinuating he coordinated such a plot.
This apparent mini-campaign ran until November 2018, culminating in a front-page splash , based on anonymous sources, claiming that Assange had three secret meetings at the Ecuadorian embassy with Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort.
This "scoop" failed all tests of journalistic credibility since it would have been impossible for anyone to have entered the highly secured Ecuadorian embassy three times with no proof. WikiLeaks and others have strongly argued that the story was manufactured and it is telling that The Guardian has since failed to refer to it in its subsequent articles on the Assange case. The Guardian, however, has still not retracted or apologised for the story which remains on its website.
The "exclusive" appeared just two weeks after Paul Johnson had been congratulated for "re-establishing links" between The Guardian and the security services.
The string of Guardian articles, along with the vilification and smear stories about Assange elsewhere in the British media, helped create the conditions for a deal between Ecuador, the UK and the US to expel Assange from the embassy in April. Assange now sits in Belmarsh maximum-security prison where he faces extradition to the US, and life in prison there, on charges under the Espionage Act.
Acting for the establishment
Another major focus of The Guardian's energies under Viner's editorship has been to attack the leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.
The context is that Corbyn appears to have recently been a target of the security services. In 2015, soon after he was elected Labour leader, the Sunday Times reported a serving general warning that "there would be a direct challenge from the army and mass resignations if Corbyn became prime minister". The source told the newspaper: "The Army just wouldn't stand for it. The general staff would not allow a prime minister to jeopardise the security of this country and I think people would use whatever means possible, fair or foul, to prevent that."
On 20 May 2017, a little over two weeks before the 2017 General Election, the Daily Telegraph was fed the story that "MI5 opened a file on Jeremy Corbyn amid concerns over his links to the IRA". It formed part of a Telegraph investigation claiming to reveal "Mr Corbyn's full links to the IRA" and was sourced to an individual "close to" the MI5 investigation, who said "a file had been opened on him by the early nineties".
The Metropolitan Police Special Branch was also said to be monitoring Corbyn in the same period.
Then, on the very eve of the General Election, the Telegraph gave space to an article from Sir Richard Dearlove, the former director of MI6, under a headline: "Jeremy Corbyn is a danger to this nation. At MI6, which I once led, he wouldn't clear the security vetting."
Further, in September 2018, two anonymous senior government sources told The Times that Corbyn had been "summoned" for a "'facts of life' talk on terror" by MI5 chief Andrew Parker.
Just two weeks after news of this private meeting was leaked by the government, the Daily Mail reported another leak, this time revealing that "Jeremy Corbyn's most influential House of Commons adviser has been barred from entering Ukraine on the grounds that he is a national security threat because of his alleged links to Vladimir Putin's 'global propaganda network'."
The article concerned Andrew Murray, who had been working in Corbyn's office for a year but had still not received a security pass to enter the UK parliament. The Mail reported, based on what it called "a senior parliamentary source", that Murray's application had encountered "vetting problems".
Murray later heavily suggested that the security services had leaked the story to the Mail. "Call me sceptical if you must, but I do not see journalistic enterprise behind the Mail's sudden capacity to tease obscure information out of the [Ukrainian security service]," he wrote in the New Statesman. He added, "Someone else is doing the hard work – possibly someone being paid by the taxpayer. I doubt if their job description is preventing the election of a Corbyn government, but who knows?"
Murray told us he was approached by the New Statesman after the story about him being banned from Ukraine was leaked. "However," he added, "I wouldn't dream of suggesting anything like that to The Guardian, since I do not know any journalists still working there who I could trust."
The Guardian itself has run a remarkable number of news and comment articles criticising Corbyn since he was elected in 2015 and the paper's clearly hostile stance has been widely noted .
Given its appeal to traditional Labour supporters, the paper has probably done more to undermine Corbyn than any other. In particular, its massive coverage of alleged widespread anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has helped to disparage Corbyn more than other smears carried in the media.
The Guardian and The Observer have published hundreds of articles on "Labour anti-Semitism" and, since the beginning of this year, carried over 50 such articles with headlines clearly negative to Corbyn. Typical headlines have included " The Observer view: Labour leadership is complicit in anti-Semitism ", " Jeremy Corbyn is either blind to anti-Semitism – or he just doesn't care ", and " Labour's anti-Semitism problem is institutional. It needs investigation ".
The Guardian's coverage of anti-Semitism in Labour has been suspiciously extensive, compared to the known extent of the problem in the party, and its focus on Corbyn personally suggests that the issue is being used politically. While anti-Semitism does exist in the Labour Party, evidence suggests it is at relatively low levels. Since September 2015, when Corbyn became Labour leader, 0.06% of the Labour membership has been investigated for anti-Semitic comments or posts. In 2016, an independent inquiry commissioned by Labour concluded that the party "is not overrun by anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism. Further, it is the party that initiated every single United Kingdom race equality law."
Analysis of two YouGov surveys, conducted in 2015 and 2017, shows that anti-Semitic views held by Labour voters declined substantially in the first two years of Corbyn's tenure and that such views were significantly more common among Conservative voters.
Despite this, since January 2016, The Guardian has published 1,215 stories mentioning Labour and anti-Semitism, an average of around one per day, according to a search on Factiva, the database of newspaper articles. In the same period, The Guardian published just 194 articles mentioning the Conservative Party's much more serious problem with Islamophobia. A YouGov poll in 2019, for example, found that nearly half of the Tory Party membership would prefer not to have a Muslim prime minister.
At the same time, some stories which paint Corbyn's critics in a negative light have been suppressed by The Guardian. According to someone with knowledge of the matter, The Guardian declined to publish the results of a months-long critical investigation by one of its reporters into a prominent anti-Corbyn Labour MP, citing only vague legal issues.
In July 2016, one of this article's authors emailed a Guardian editor asking if he could pitch an investigation about the first attempt by the right-wing of the Labour Party to remove Corbyn, informing The Guardian of very good inside sources on those behind the attempt and their real plans. The approach was rejected as being of no interest before a pitch was even sent.
A reliable publication?
On 20 May 2019, The Times newspaper reported on a Freedom of Information request made by the Rendition Project, a group of academic experts working on torture and rendition issues, which showed that the MOD had been "developing a secret policy on torture that allows ministers to sign off intelligence-sharing that could lead to the abuse of detainees".
This might traditionally have been a Guardian story, not something for the Rupert Murdoch-owned Times. According to one civil society source, however, many groups working in this field no longer trust The Guardian.
A former Guardian journalist similarly told us: "It is significant that exclusive stories recently about British collusion in torture and policy towards the interrogation of terror suspects and other detainees have been passed to other papers including The Times rather than The Guardian."
The Times published its scoop under a strong headline , "Torture: Britain breaks law in Ministry of Defence secret policy". However, before the article was published, the MOD fed The Guardian the same documents The Times were about to splash with, believing it could soften the impact of the revelations by telling its side of the story.
The Guardian posted its own article just before The Times, with a headline that would have pleased the government: "MoD says revised torture guidance does not lower standards".
Its lead paragraph was a simple summary of the MOD's position: "The Ministry of Defence has insisted that newly emerged departmental guidance on the sharing of intelligence derived from torture with allies, remains in line with practices agreed in the aftermath of a series of scandals following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq." However, an inspection of the documents showed this was clearly disinformation.
The Guardian had gone in six short years from being the natural outlet to place stories exposing wrongdoing by the security state to a platform trusted by the security state to amplify its information operations. A once relatively independent media platform has been largely neutralised by UK security services fearful of being exposed further. Which begs the question: where does the next Snowden go? DM
The Guardian did not respond to a request for comment.
Daily Maverick will formally launch Declassified – a new UK-focused investigation and analysis organisation run by the authors of this article – in November 2019.
Matt Kennard is an investigative journalist and co-founder of Declassified . He was previously director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London, and before that a reporter for the Financial Times in the US and UK. He is the author of two books, Irregular Army and The Racket .
Mark Curtis is a leading UK foreign policy analyst, journalist and the author of six books including Web of Deceit: Britain's Real Role in the World and Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam .
|
|
|
Sep 10, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
librul , Sep 10 2019 19:54 utc | 19
Is someone brewing up some fresh Novichok nerve agent as we speak?Don't touch those doorknobs, Oleg!
for future reference: this post was for amusement purposes only
|
|
|
Sep 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
A flood of news in the last 24 hours regarding Russiagate. I am referring specifically to reports that the CIA ex-filtrated Oleg Smolenkov, a mid-level Russian Foreign Ministry bureaucrat who reportedly hooked himself on the coat-tails of Yuri Ushakov, who was Ambassador to the US from 1999 through 2008. He was recruited by the CIA (i.e., asked to collect information and pass it to the U.S. Government via his or her case officer) at sometime during this period. Smolenkov is being portrayed as a supposedly "sensitive" source. But if you read either the Washington Post or New York Times accounts of this event there is not a lot of meat on this hamburger.
Regardless of the quality of his reporting, Smolenkov is the kind of recruited source that looks good on paper and helps a CIA case officer get promoted but adds little to actual U.S. intelligence on Russia. If you understood the CIA culture you would immediately recognize that a case officer (CIA terminology for the operations officer tasked with identifying and recruiting human sources) gets rewarded by recruiting persons who ostensibly will have access to information the CIA has identified as a priority target. In this case, we're talking about possible access to Vladimir Putin.
If you take time to read both articles you will quickly see that the real purpose of this "information operation" is to paint Donald Trump as a security threat that must be stopped. This is conveniently timed to assist Jerry Nadler's mission impossible to secure Trump's impeachment. But I think there is another dynamic at play--these competing explanations for what prompted the exfiltration of this CIA asset say more about the incompetence of Barack Obama and his intel chiefs. John Brennan and Jim Clapper in particular.
A former intelligence officer and friend summarized the various press accounts as the follows and offered his own insights in a note I received this morning:
[Smolenkov] follows Ushakov back to Moscow, where he is a mid-level paper pusher doing administrative support for Ushakov. The CIA gets copies of Putin's itineraries that Smolenkov photographs. He is a big hit, but ultimately produces nothing of vital importance because all truly sensitive information is hand carried by principles, and never seen by administrative staff. Moreover Ushakov advises on international relations, and would not be privy to anything dealing with intelligence. Ushakov, as a long-serving Ambassador to the US, would be asked by Putin to opine on US politics. Smolenkov has access to Ushakov's post-meeting verbal comments, which he turns over to the CIA.
The initial reports of the Steele Dossier appeared in June 2016. This coincided with John Brennan ordering Moscow Station to turn up the heat on Smolenkov to gain access to what Putin is thinking. But Smolenkov has no real direct access. Instead, he starts fabricating and/or exaggerating his access to convince his CIA handler that he is on the job and worth every penny he is being paid by US taxpayers.
The information Smolenkov creates is passed to his CIA handler via the secure communications channel set up when he was signed up as a spy. But these reports are not handled in the normal way that sensitive human intelligence is treated at CIA Headquarters. Instead, the material is accepted at face value and not vetted to confirm its accuracy. My intel friend, citing a knowledgeable source, indicates that Smolenkov was not polygraphed.
This raised red flags in the CIA Counterintelligence staff, especially when Brennan starts briefing the President using the information provided by Smolenkov. Brennan responds by locking most of the CIA's Russian experts out of the loop. Later, Brennan does the same thing with the National Intelligence Council, locking out the National Intelligence Officers who would normally oversee the production of a National Intelligence Assessment. In short, Brennan cooked the books using Smolenkov's intelligence, which had it been subjected to normal checks and balances would never have passed muster. It's Brennan's leaks to the press that eventually prompt the CIA to pull the plug on Smolenkov.
There is public evidence that Brennan not only cooked the books but that the leaks of this supposedly "sensitive" intelligence occurred when he was Director and lying Jim Clapper was Director of National Intelligence. If Oleg Smolenkov was really such a terrific source of intel, then where are the reports? It is one thing to keep such reports close hold when the source is still in place. But he has been out of danger for more than two years. Those reports should have been shared with the Senate and House Intelligence committees. If there was actual solid intelligence in those reports that corroborated the Steele Dossier, then that information would have been leaked and widely circulated. This is Sherlock Holmes dog that did not bark.Then we have the odd fact that this guy's name is all over the press and he is buying real estate in true name. What the hell!! If the CIA genuinely believed that Mr. Smolenkov was in danger he would not be walking around doing real estate deals in true name. In fact, the sources for both the Washington Post and NY Times pieces push the propaganda that Smolenkov is a sure fire target for a Russian retaliatory hit. Really? Then why publish his name and confirm his location.
That leaves me with the alternative explanation--Smolenkov is a propaganda prop and is being trotted out by Brennan to try to provide public pressure to prevent the disclosure of intelligence that will show that the CIA and the NSA were coordinating and operating with British intelligence to entrap and smear Donald Trump and members of his campaign.
I want you to take a close look at the two pieces on this exfiltration (i.e., Washington Post and NY Times) and note the significant differences
REASON FOR THE EXFILTRATION :
Let's start with the Washington Post:
The exfiltration took place sometime after an Oval Office meeting in May 2017, when President Trump revealed highly classified counterterrorism information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, said the current and former officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation.
What was the information that Trump revealed? He was discussing intel that Israel passed regarding ISIS in Syria. (See the Washington Post story here .) Why would he talk to the Russians about that? Because every day, at least once a day, U.S. and Russian military authorities are sharing intelligence with one another in a phone call that originates from the U.S. Combined Air Operations Center (aka CAOC) at the Al Udeid Air Force Base in Qatar. Trump's conversation not only was appropriate but fully within his right to do so as Commander-in-Chief.
What the hell does this have to do with a sensitive source in Moscow? NOTHING!! Red Herring.
The NY Times account is more detailed and damning of Obama instead of Trump:
But when intelligence officials revealed the severity of Russia's election interference with unusual detail later that year, the news media picked up on details about the C.I.A.'s Kremlin sources.
C.I.A. officials worried about safety made the arduous decision in late 2016 to offer to extract the source from Russia. The situation grew more tense when the informant at first refused, citing family concerns -- prompting consternation at C.I.A. headquarters and sowing doubts among some American counterintelligence officials about the informant's trustworthiness. But the C.I.A. pressed again months later after more media inquiries. This time, the informant agreed. . . .
The decision to extract the informant was driven "in part" because of concerns that Mr. Trump and his administration had mishandled delicate intelligence, CNN reported. But former intelligence officials said there was no public evidence that Mr. Trump directly endangered the source, and other current American officials insisted that media scrutiny of the agency's sources alone was the impetus for the extraction. . . .
But the government had indicated that the source existed long before Mr. Trump took office, first in formally accusing Russia of interference in October 2016 and then when intelligence officials declassified parts of their assessment about the interference campaign for public release in January 2017. News agencies, including NBC, began reporting around that time about Mr. Putin's involvement in the election sabotage and on the C.I.A.'s possible sources for the assessment.
Trump played no role whatsoever in releasing information that allegedly compromised this so-called "golden boy" of Russian intelligence. The NY Times account makes it very clear that the release of information while Obama was President, not Trump, is what put the source in danger. Who leaked that information?
WHAT DID THE SOURCE KNOW AND WHAT DID HE TELL US?
But how valuable was this source really? What did he provide that was so enlightening? On this point the New York Times and Washington Post are more in sync.
First the NY Times:
The Moscow informant was instrumental to the C.I.A.'s most explosive conclusion about Russia's interference campaign: that President Vladimir V. Putin ordered and orchestrated it himself . As the American government's best insight into the thinking of and orders from Mr. Putin, the source was also key to the C.I.A.'s assessment that he affirmatively favored Donald J. Trump's election and personally ordered the hacking of the Democratic National Committee .
The Washington Post provides a more fulsome account:
U.S. officials had been concerned that Russian sources could be at risk of exposure as early as the fall of 2016, when the Obama administration first confirmed that Russia had stolen and publicly disclosed emails from the Democratic National Committee and the account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta.
In October 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a joint statement that intelligence agencies were "confident that the Russian Government directed" the hacking campaign. . . .
In January 2017, the Obama administration published a detailed assessment that unambiguously laid the blame on the Kremlin, concluding that "Putin ordered an influence campaign" and that Russia's goal was to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process and harm Clinton's chances of winning.
"That's a pretty remarkable intelligence community product -- much more specific than what you normally see," one U.S. official said. "It's very expected that potential U.S. intelligence assets in Russia would be under a higher level of scrutiny by their own intelligence services."
Sounds official. But there is no actual forensic or documentary evidence (by that I mean actual corroborating intelligence reports) to back up these claims by our oxymoronically christened intelligence community.
Vladimir Putin ordered the hack? Where is the report? It is either in a piece of intercepted electronics communication and/or in a report derived from information provided by Mr. Smolenkov. Where is it? Why has that not been shared in public? Don't have to worry about exposing the source now. He is already in the open. What did he report? Answer--no direct evidence.
Then there is the lie that the Russians hacked the DNC. They did not. Bill Binney, a former Technical Director of the NSA, and I have written on this subject previously ( see here ) and there is no truth to this claim. Let me put it simply--if the DNC had been hacked by the Russians using spearphising (this is claimed in the Robert Mueller report) then the NSA would have collected those messages and would be able to show they were transferred to the Russians. That did not happen.
This kind of chaotic leaking about an old intel op is symptomatic of panic. CIA is already officially denying key parts of the story. My money is on John Brennan and Jim Clapper as the likely impetus for these reports. They are hoping to paint Trump as a national security threat and distract from the upcoming revelations from the DOJ Inspector General report on the FISA warrants and, more threatening, the decisions that Prosecutor John Durham will take in deciding to indict those who attempted to launch a coup against Donald Trump, a legitimately elected President of the United States.
blue peacock , 10 September 2019 at 02:34 PM
I'm always skeptical of NY Times and WaPo and CNN reporting on anything national security related. It seems there is always an axe to grind.Larry Johnson -> blue peacock... , 10 September 2019 at 03:16 PMI don't know why folks believe these media outlets have any credibility.
Important to focus on the fact they are telling different and even contradictory stories. That's confusion on the part of the deep state.Ana said in reply to Larry Johnson ... , 11 September 2019 at 10:00 AM... And what helps us to decode the plot!turcopolier -> blue peacock... , 11 September 2019 at 09:47 AMBPambrit , 10 September 2019 at 03:51 PMAs I told LJ yesterday while he was writing this piece I have a slightly different theory of this matter. It is true that CIA suffered for a long time from a dearth of talent in the business of recruiting and running foreign clandestine HUMINT assets. This was caused by a focus by several CIA Directors on technical collection means rather than espionage. This policy drove many skilled case officers into retirement but the situation has much improved in the last decade and it must be remembered that an agency only needs a few skilled case officers with the right access to human targets to acquire some very fine and useful well placed foreign agents (spies). IMO it is likely that CIA has/had several well placed Russian assets in Moscow of whom Smolenkov was probably the least useful and the most expendable. It may well be that Brennan was using the chicken feed provided by Smolenkov to fuel the conspiracy run by him and Clapper against Trump's campaign and presidency, but Brennan left office and then the CIA under other management was faced with the problem of a Russian government which was told in the US press by implication that either the US had deep penetrations of Russian diplomatic and intelligence communications or that there were deep penetration moles in Moscow. that being the case it seems likely to me that the Russians would have been beating the bushes looking for the moles. In that situation the CIA may have decided to exfiltrate Smolenkov and his wife while leaving enough clues along the way that would have indicated that he might have been THE MOLE. People do not need a lot of encouragement to accept thoughts that they want to believe. A point in favor of this theory is that once CIA had him in the States they quickly lost interest in him, terminated their relationship with him and paid him his back pay and showed him the door. No new identity, no resettlement, he was given none of that. Finding himself alone in a strange land, Smolenkov then bought a house in the suburbs of Washington in HIS OWN NAME. Say what? That would not have happened if CIA had maintained some sort of relationship with him. And then... someone in CIA leaked the story of the exfiltration as movie plot to "a former senior intelligence officer" who gives sit to Sciutto at CNN. Why would they do that? IMO they would have though that having the story appear in the media would reinfocer Smolenkov's importance in Russian minds. Well, pilgrims, Clapper fits the bill as the "former blah, blah". He is an employee of CNN. CNN hates Trump and they quickly broadcast the story far and away. Unfortunately for CNN the story immediately began to disintegrate even in the eyes of the NY Times. The Smolenkov/Brennan affair will undoubtedly be part of the road that leads to doom for Brennan and Clapper but the possible CIA story is equally interesting.
Sir;Fred , 10 September 2019 at 04:22 PM
The fact that Mr. Smolenkov is out and about in his new home in the West shows that he is a small fish. As you say, if he was really in danger, he would be living somewhere in the West now under a new name and maybe a new face. The fact that his 'handlers' allow this lax security to happen is a sign of how unimportant he is. Unless, my inner cynic prompts, he is destined to become one of the "honoured dead," perhaps by a false flag 'liquidation.'
How low will Clapper and Brennan et. al. go?
Thanks for keeping this matter front and centre.So the son of Our Man in Havana went to Moscow. It would make a decent movies if it weren't for the damage Brennan and company have done to us. Obama, of course, knew nothing......Diana C , 10 September 2019 at 04:49 PMI have lost hope that anyone--especially Brennan and Clapper--will be held accountable for their attempt to "launch a coup" (as you put it).fredw , 10 September 2019 at 06:09 PMSince their coup attempt ultimately failed, most people will be wanting just to move on.
As an unimportant citizen liveing in a fly-over state, I feel very angry that my tax dollars were wasted on these many government hearings and enormously expensive investigations rather than on actually on governing and improving the governing of our country.
The least we should be able to expect is that people who live off our tax dollars should be held accountable for all that wasted expense and for the lack of actual governing going on in The House and The Senate. So many problems that need the attention of our elected representative and Senators were ignored while elected representatives and representatives got to capture the spotlight and try to become "media stars" while accomplishing nothing.
I also feel terrible that men have been sent to prison for seemingly nothing and have their lives ruined for nothing but the chance of some to grand stand and claim they are really doing the jobs they were sent to do. So many people with no real sense of honor or of what is right and what is wrong.
Thanks, Larry. You have been consistently one of the good guys. (And I bet you are happy now that Yosemite Sam Bolton is no longer advising the POTUS.)
"The fact that his 'handlers' allow this lax security to happen is a sign of how unimportant he is."Oscar , 10 September 2019 at 06:31 PMIt indicates to me that he and any handlers believe that the Russians are OK with it. That could be for various reasons. But relying on Russian tolerance because he is a "small fish" seems incredibly trusting. Neither fled agents nor their handlers are known for their trusting natures. They have had some reasons stronger than that for their unconcern. Whether those reasons will survive publicity remains to be seen.
Are those CIA agents as stupid, naive & incompetent as you paint them to be?turcopolier -> Oscar ... , 11 September 2019 at 08:56 AM
If that's the case our country is in real danger! You are. Pro Trump
and, you are basically defending him, but Putin do own Donald Trump,whether you like it or not!OscarJohnH , 10 September 2019 at 08:16 PM
What is the evidence for "Putin do own Trump?"Is it Trump's attempts to conduct foreign policy relationships with Russia? That is his job.My question is: why did they push this report now? Any way you cut it, the Times and Post are just providing some trivia and drivel. Without substance, they can accomplish nothing and substance has been what's been missing all along.Factotum , 10 September 2019 at 08:40 PMI doubt that Democrats, having been burned once, are eager to explore Brennan's smoke and mirrors again. It's never been a big concern to voters. And unless Brennan & Co. can do better than this superficial stuff, voters are never going to be concerned.
Maybe the Times and Post just felt sorry for Brennan, who's been off barking at the moon for years now.
Have a cup of Ovomaltine.Rhondda , 10 September 2019 at 08:48 PM...Smolenkov is a propaganda prop and is being trotted out by Brennan to try to provide public pressure to prevent the disclosure of intelligence that will show that the CIA and the NSA were coordinating and operating with British intelligence to entrap and smear Donald Trump and members of his campaign...plantman , 10 September 2019 at 09:13 PMWell said. Thank you for following this closely and shining the light! You are an amazing American patriot, Mr. Larry C. Johnson. A glass in your honor!
I think AG Barr might have cut these guys (Brennan and Clapper) some slack and let them off the hook, but NOW, what can he do but prosecute??[email protected] -> plantman... , 11 September 2019 at 08:51 AMBrennan has shown that he is going to persevere with his fallacious attacks on Trump come hell or high water.
He needs to be stopped and brought to justice...
Haha! Dream on. Barr IS CIA...remember his role back in the Slick WIlly days in Mena Arkansas?Roy G , 10 September 2019 at 11:27 PMIMO this scenario is the most plausible, Thanks for the sanity check. That said, given the desperation by these Sorcerer's Apprentices, I would be on the lookout for Mr. Smolenkov lest he be 'Skirpal-ed' in the coming weeks.anon , 10 September 2019 at 11:36 PMThis whole story convinces now more than ever before that there is a high level spy/mole in the us administration and intelligence community.The only question is it spying for russia or china or both.Just a beautiful thing to watch.Those knickers,must surely be in a knot by now.Jim Ticehurst , 10 September 2019 at 11:52 PM
Even rocketman had a giggle.How many CIA Assets have been exposed..Tortured and Murdered During The Barrack Obama Reign...In May..2014 HE Paid a Surprise Visit to Afghanastan..His White House Bureau Chief Sent out an email to Reporters with a List of Who would meet With President Obama..It Contained the NAME of the CIA...Chief of Station in Kabul...Now that is REAL MESSY..turcopolier , 11 September 2019 at 08:59 AM[email protected]David Habakkuk , 11 September 2019 at 10:37 AMIs there any basis for any of your assertions or are you just running your mouth?
Larry,Having been away from base, I have not been able to comment on some very fascinating recent posts.
Both your recent pieces, and Robert Willman's most helpful update on the state of play relating to the unraveling of the frame-up against Michael Flynn, have provided a lot to chew over.
Among other things, they have made me think further about the 302s recording the interviews with Bruce Ohr produced by Joseph Pientka – a character about whom I think we need to know more.
On reflection, I think that the picture that emerges of Ohr as an incurious and gullible nitwit, swallowing whole bucket loads of 'horse manure' fed him by Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson, may be a carefully – indeed maybe cunningly – crafted fiction.
The interpretation your former intelligence officer friend puts on the Smolenkov affair, and also some of what Sidney Powell has to say in the ''Motion to Compel' on behalf of Flynn, both 'mesh' with what I have long suspected.
The dossier attributed to Steele, it has seemed to me, showed every sign of being the proverbial 'camel produced by a committee.'
Although I know that fabricating evidence and corrupting judicial proceedings is part of its supposed author's 'stock in trade', I think it is unclear whether he contributed all that much to the dossier.
His prime role, I think, was to contribute a veneer of intelligence respectability to a farrago the actual origins of which could not be acknowledged, so it could be used in support of FISA applications and in briefings to journalists.
Although it had started much earlier, the moving into 'high gear' of the conspiracy behind 'Russiagate, of which the dossier was one manifestation, and the phone 'digital forensics' produced by 'Crowdstrike' and the former GCHQ person Matt Tait another, were I think essentially panicky 'firefighting' operations.
They are likely to have been responses, first, to the realisation that material leaked from the DNC was going to be published by WikiLeaks, and then the discovery, probably significantly later, that the source was Seth Rich, and his subsequent murder.
Although the operation to divert responsibility to the Russians which then became necessary was strikingly successful, it did not have the expected result of saving Hillary Clinton from defeat.
What I then think may have emerged was a two-pronged strategy.
Part of this involved turning the conspiracy to prevent Trump being elected into a conspiracy to destabilise his Presidency and ensure he did not carry through on any of his 'anti-Borgist' agenda.
In different ways, both the framing of Flynn, and the final memorandum in the dossier, dated 13 December 2016, were part of this strategy.
Also required however was another 'insurance policy' – which was what the Bruce Ohr 302s were intended to provide.
The purpose of this was to have 'evidence' in place, should the first prong of the strategy run into problems, to sustain the case that people in the FBI and DOJ, and Bruce and Nellie Ohr in particular, were not co-conspirators with Steele and Simpson, but their gullible dupes.
This brings me to an irony. Some people have tried to replace the 'narrative' in which Steele was an heroic exposer of a Russian plot to destroy American democracy by an alternative in which he was the gullible 'patsy' of just such a plot.
In fact there is one strand, and one strand only, in the dossier which smells strongly to me of FSB-orchestrated disinformation.
Some of the material on Russian cyber operations, including critically the suggestions about the involvement of Aleksej Gubarev and his company XBT which provoked legal action by these against BuzzFeed and Steele, look to me as though they could come from sources in the FSB.
But, if this is so, the likely conduit is not through Steele, but from FSB to FBI cyber people.
How precisely this worked is unclear, but I cannot quite get rid of the suspicion that Major Dmitri Dokuchaev just might be serving out his sentence for treason in a comfortable flat somewhere above the Black Sea. Indeed, I can imagine a lecture to FSB trainees on how to make 'patsies' of people like the Ohrs.
If this is so, however, it mat also be the case that these are attempting to make 'patsies' of Steele and Simpson.
|
|
|
Sep 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Pat Lang has this interesting take :AllDouble games, triple games ... Spies are so confusing ...And then there is the possibility that CIA extracted a minor source to divert attention from someone or someones who remain(s) in place. The open purchase of a house in the outer suburbs of Washington by the extracted would seem to support the possibility that this is all a diversion. The narrative continues that "a former senior intelligence official" told Sciutto, an Obama man, at CNN of all this. Clapper is "a former senior intelligence official" and a CNN "contributor" (employee) is he not? He is dumb enough to have had this story planted on him.
james , Sep 10 2019 18:14 utc | 3
thanks b... i agree about your comment on pls comment - double / triple and etc games can be played with spies... what seems clear to me is that some in the cia-msm want to frame trump.. this one feel apart fairly quickly... the frame up of russia over skripal has never been addressed by the usa.. in fact, most folks - using ew as an example - are still drinking the russia done it koolaid 24/7..james , Sep 10 2019 18:14 utc | 3 casey , Sep 10 2019 18:18 utc | 4So, this fully-spun story, apparently a mix of fact and fiction, arises at this moment to prop up the Russia-leaked-email hoax?Hoarsewhisperer , Sep 10 2019 18:19 utc | 5If that's the case, does that mean this story's "authors" release it now to keep at least part of the Russia hoax alive as the Flynn case plods toward charges being dropped or because the Concord case is turning into a cluster f*k? Maybe someone is worried about the DNC-insider-leaked-email story breaking out? We need to talk about Rich?
Funny about Lang and his crew. So much practical experience and yet they would make an interesting case study of extreme psychological compartmentalization as a means of denial.
Lucky Oleg & Antonina. In Oz a 760 square metre house used be known as having an area of 81 squares (8,172 square feet. In well-maintained condition such a 3-storey house anywhere in Oz would cost between A$2.5 million and A$3.5 million. Being in AmeriKKA Oleg's house probably has a basement too. That's another $150,000 minimum if it's damp-proof and ventilated.karlof1 , Sep 10 2019 18:24 utc | 6Nice networking by 4 BigLie Media outlets to make certain Russia knows where this man and his family reside. Maybe it's for an Outlaw US Empire sequel to MI-6's Novochock BigLie to be sprung as the election heats up. If I were the Smolenskovs, I'd demand an immediate identity change, sell ASAP and move to Idaho.Michael Droy , Sep 10 2019 18:31 utc | 7If Skripal could live safely under his own name I guess this guy could too. It just makes it easier for the US to get him in their own time. I don't really see this guy served any purpose until he was outed. Just a late effort to pretend that Russiagate had any credibility.Montreal , Sep 10 2019 18:32 utc | 8I wish that there was a resident Russian on this site, as there is on Craig Murray's.Sergei , Sep 10 2019 18:33 utc | 9That person could then tell me if I am wrong in supposing that a senior Chekist would never, as a question of policy, have been allowed a passport for foreign travel for him and his family.
If Oleg Smolenkov reported allegedly "valuable" insider information about Russia's interference in US elections, as they say first hand, then why did Mueller's investigation fail?Petri Krohn , Sep 10 2019 18:57 utc | 10WAS SMOLENKOV A SOURCE FOR THE STEELE DOSSIER?Roy G , Sep 10 2019 19:10 utc | 11The New York Times story resurrects the Russia collusion hoax. This time the proof comes from Oleg Smolenkov. The story is identical to what the Steele dossier claimed: Putin personally directed a campaign to interfere in the US presidential elections.
Every part of Steele narrative has already been shown to be a hoax and a fabrication. What proves that the Steele dossier is a work of fiction is that it is written from a fly-on-the-wall point of view. Only a person who was sitting in the same room with Putin when he had secret meetings could have written it. So how many moles did the West have sitting on Putin's desk? It seems like the CIA mole and Steele's secret source are one and the same source. But if Oleg Smolenkov was CIA's most tightly guarded secret, how did the information end up in Steele's dossier?
Larry Johnson just posted about this on SST, and his take seems much more plausible: Desperation on the part of Clapper and his cabal as the chickens are coming home to roost. This story is chock full of holes, and the media hackery is disintegrating under its own weight.Arioch , Sep 10 2019 19:19 utc | 12Qua , Sep 10 2019 19:21 utc | 13> Obama administration .... Russia had stolen .... Democratic National Committee and ..... John Podesta.So we have to allege that Podesta's laptop between naked underage girls photos had list of CIA secret agents in Russian government? What else rid it contain and where did Podesta stole those lists?
Same question about Paki-managed DNC server. Was managing CIA agents in foreign governments outsourced to DNC or what?
"Once in the lifetime of yer townfolk! F..en circus! Imbecile clowns! Degenerate tamers! Deformed strongmen! Dysfunctional acrobats! Don't miss out!"
Perhaps someone should advise Smolenskov to stay away from park benches after eating seafood and to not touch doorknob's etc.Uncle $cam , Sep 10 2019 19:24 utc | 14Speaking of outed Spy's..."Undercover" -- Valerie Plame for Congress "When elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers"Gigi , Sep 10 2019 19:26 utc | 15@2james , Sep 10 2019 19:35 utc | 16
Diversion is one of the three possibilities that I can think of:1) clan wars within US special services, particularly in view of the 2020 elections.
2) diversion (as suggested by col. Pat Lang)
3) preparation of the ground to make this guy a "sacrificial lamb" like Scripal, to avoid any new rapprochement between the US and Russia after the end of the Muller report.
(comment originally posted at http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2019/09/he-was-never-qualified-to-start-with.html#disqus_thread )
@11 roy g.. this is what i said @3 "what seems clear to me is that some in the cia-msm want to frame trump.. this one feel apart fairly quickly..." for others who want to read larry johnsons latest at sst here...karlof1 , Sep 10 2019 19:39 utc | 17@4 casey - last line.. ditto my thoughts..
Interesting Tweet thread by a Sean M Davis has 5 entries and almost 1000 retweets beginning with this:Clueless Joe , Sep 10 2019 19:44 utc | 18"For those curious about what's going on with this bizarre Russia 'spy' story: Burr/Durham know Steele was fed obvious disinformation, they know who originated it, they know who peddled it, and it's just a matter of rounding up the whole network."
In his third entry, he poses the following question: "So the only two unanswered questions about this particular pre-emptive leak campaign from the usual Russia hoax suspects are 1) why now, and 2) what specific event or official revelation are they trying to get ahead of?"
The easy answer is the story itself is enough of a distraction as the 1000 retweets show.
I tend to agree with Larry Johnson (at Pat Lang's) that this guy wasn't that useful back then. He might have become more useful, had he stayed at the Kremlin and rose further up the ladder, granted; or Obama's top guys assumed he wouldn't and it wasn't an issue to risk to burn him.Clueless Joe , Sep 10 2019 19:44 utc | 18I tend to agree with Larry Johnson (at Pat Lang's) that this guy wasn't that useful back then. He might have become more useful, had he stayed at the Kremlin and rose further up the ladder, granted; or Obama's top guys assumed he wouldn't and it wasn't an issue to risk to burn him.librul , Sep 10 2019 19:54 utc | 19Is someone brewing up some fresh Novichok nerve agent as we speak?alaff , Sep 10 2019 19:57 utc | 20Don't touch those doorknobs, Oleg!
for future reference: this post was for amusement purposes only
This whole story is entirely in the spirit of Hollywood comics. I had a good laugh when I saw the news about the "valuable spy successfully extracted from Russia".Here are some reasons why this is fake/disinformation:
1) The news was published by CNN. I think there's no need to explain whether it is worth taking seriously the "sensations" published by news outlets with a reputation like CNN.
2) Sorry, but you must be a complete idiot (in the medical sense) to openly declare in the media that you had a "very valuable spy" in the immediate circle of the president of the Russian Federation (or any other country). Just because in this way you, by your own hands, are giving your opponent the reason to "strengthen control", conduct checks and identify those [other] people who might be able to work for you for a long time and be useful. When this really takes place in real life (the presence of a spy of the highest rank, close to the head of state), then this becomes public only after many years/decades, when the 'Top Secret' stamp is removed from the documents, you know.
3) V.Putin is a former intelligence officer. To put it mildly, it is very naive to assume that the presence of an "American spy" (close to Putin) would not be known to a person with Putin's experience/knowledge/capacity.
4) To be a spy, a member of the inner circle of the President of Russia (or any other country) and not to be exposed, one need to have extraordinary abilities and competencies. This is the highest class. In recent years, it seems only the lazy one did not notice and did not note the monstrous degradation of the American political class. These people do not know how to behave in a civilized society, do not have the traditions and culture of diplomacy and communication. The situation is similar in the American defense industry. With this level of decline in the competence of the American elite (political, military, etc.), to assume that they have such a ultra-high-class spy is at least very strange.
5) The fact that the "valuable spy" in the inner circle of the Russian president is pure CNN fiction is confirmed in practice. What I mean:
- - If Smolenkov is really a "very valuable spy" and had access to "secrets," it's rather strange that he didn't tell the CIA, for example, about the Crimean operation of the Russian Federation in 2014. Russia's actions then began for the United States (and not only for the United States, by the way) a complete surprise. This is some really strange "valuable spy" who did not know anything about the intentions and actions of the Russian leadership in the spring of 2014.
- - If Smolenkov is really a "very valuable spy," and had access to "secrets," the fact that he knew nothing and did not tell the CIA about Russia's plans to launch the Syrian campaign in September 2015 looks unusually strange. Just to remind that the actions of Russia then became a complete surprise for the United States. They did not know anything about this and did not expect such a development of events. Within a month before the official start of the Syrian campaign, Russia transferred equipment and weapons to Syria. This remained a secret for all intelligence services in the world, no one noticed anything. Even Israel, located in close proximity to Syria, made a "discovery" about the presence of the Russian military there only 2 days before the start of Russia's actions in the SAR. A rather strange "valuable spy" who was completely ignorant of Russia's plans/actions in the Syrian direction.
- - If Smolenkov is really a "very valuable spy" and had access to "secrets", it is very strange that he did not know anything and did not inform the CIA about the development by Russia of the latest weapons presented by President Putin in the spring of 2018. The presentation of the latest models of Russian weapons was a real shock for the United States, and I remember that at first the Americans, smiling, called all this "cartoons." Now they no longer laugh. The development of these weapons was carried out for many years. It's somehow strange that a "very valuable spy" never found out about it.
6) Serious Russian experts unequivocally spoke out that all this was fake and that Smolenkov certainly could not be a spy. In particular, Armen Gasparyan, one of the leading Russian political scientists, historian, writer (incidentally, who wrote several books on intelligence), spoke quite fully about this in his recent commentary .
Why the CIA would allow such a spy, once extradited, to live under his real name is beyond me.Because this man has nothing to do with "spies", "secrets" and "special services". He is an ordinary civilian, a former official from Russia. Many Russian ex- lives in abroad, including high-ranking persons. Smolenkov of course had no access to any "secrets", and had no access to entourage of the Russian president.
An attempt to present Smolenkov as a "valuable spy" from exactly the same series a
