Background materials on the charge of obstruction of justice..
"California’s Ms. Harris said during a question-and-answer session that Mr. Mueller had reiterated aspects of the report. “There are outlined instances of obstruction of justice, and no matter what this current attorney general and the president of the United States try to say, the American people are smart enough to know what is and what is not truth,” she said.”
Mueller, stated under oath, when questioned that no one had obstructed his investigation. He is a witness making a statement under oath. It is not his function to make the determination…. that was already made by the Atty. Gen. and the Deputy Attorney General as they are the ones authorized to do.
*****
INTELLIGENCE Friday, April 19, 2019 http://ltgjcmilopsg3.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-mueller-report-is-prosecutors-brief.html
The Mueller report is a prosecutor’s brief presenting the maximum and most forceful position that can possibly be established.
This is the last article presented below. it is rather lengthily and should be scanned as an introduction and then reviewed more thoroughly as the last item to be read.
****
INTELLIGENCE Saturday, May 4, 2019 http://ltgjcmilopsg3.blogspot.com/2019/05/there-is-provable-case-of-obstruction.html
THERE IS A PROVABLE CASE OF “OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE”…. THE PERPETRATORS ARE ANDREW WEISMANN AND ROBERT MUELLER
The prosecutors offered Corse a plea deal in lieu of indicting him IF he provided a link to connect Roger Stone and Donald Trump to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. The choice they gave Corsi was to plead guilty to one count with the prosecutors’ agreement they would seek no prison term, OR to reject their deal and spend possibly $2 million that he did not have to defend himself in a federal criminal case before a hostile Washington jury that he was sure to lose that would result in a 25-year prison term. Since Corsi was 72 years old at the time, a prison term of that length would have meant he was likely to die in federal prison.THERE IS A PROVABLE CASE OF “OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE”…. THE PERPETRATORS ARE ANDREW WEISMANN AND ROBERT MUELLER
THERE IS A PROVABLE CASE OF “OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE”…. THE PERPETRATORS ARE ANDREW WEISMANN AND ROBERT MUELLER
The prosecutors offered Corse a plea deal in lieu of indicting him IF he provided a link to connect Roger Stone and Donald Trump to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. The choice they gave Corsi was to plead guilty to one count with the prosecutors’ agreement they would seek no prison term, OR to reject their deal and spend possibly $2 million that he did not have to defend himself in a federal criminal case before a hostile Washington jury that he was sure to lose that would result in a 25-year prison term. Since Corsi was 72 years old at the time, a prison term of that length would have meant he was likely to die in federal prison.THERE IS A PROVABLE CASE OF “OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE”…. THE PERPETRATORS ARE ANDREW WEISMANN AND ROBERT MUELLER
*****
COLLUSION OR RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION?….HOW MOSCOW MANIPULATED U.S. MEDIA, LAWMAKERS AND INTELLIGENCE SERVICES INTO PROPAGATING A WILD THEORY.
David Satter Wall Street Journal April 30, 2019
https://www.wsj.com/articles/collusion-or-russian-disinformation-11556663662?mod=itp_wsj&mod=&mod=djemITP_h
Without intending to, the Mueller report has solved the mystery of the Trump-Russia affair. It shows that Donald Trump and his campaign did not collude with Russia but Russian intelligence used disinformation to create the impression that he did.
It is hard for Americans to grasp that in the eerie world of Russian intelligence, it would be normal to discredit a U.S. leader by depicting him as a friend and to support his opponent by depicting her as an enemy. But this is the reality.
I first became acquainted with Russian disinformation while working from 1976-82 as a Moscow-based newspaper correspondent. In 1979, the Soviet authorities threatened to expel me. They accused me of traffic violations and rudeness to guides from the official travel agency, Intourist. I had wide contacts in Moscow, and these innocuous charges made me think the KGB knew little about me. In fact, they had detailed knowledge of my activities, as I learned from the way they followed me and the arrests of my contacts. But information from wiretaps and shadowing is not acknowledged openly. It is used for disinformation, conveyed by intermediaries.
One of my friends in Moscow was a gay Swedish correspondent who had a Soviet lover. Homosexuality was a crime in the Soviet Union, and my friend regularly criticized the authorities. At first officials simply objected to his articles. Then, at a USA and Canada Institute reception, a Soviet academic told the Swede he had met a “fascinating” friend of his and gave the name of his lover. The correspondent left Moscow the next day.
The Mueller report shows that the techniques of Russian disinformation have not changed. The Trump-Russia affair began May 6, 2016, when George Papadopoulos, a Trump adviser, reportedly told Alexander Downer, the Australian high commissioner in London, that Moscow had compromising information on Hillary Clinton. Ten days earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told by Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor who boasted of high-level Russia contacts, that the “dirt” consisted of “thousands of emails.” Mr. Mifsud had returned from an April 18 meeting in Moscow of the Valdai Discussion Club, which the Mueller report said was “close to Russia’s foreign policy establishment.”
In fact, the Valdai Club, established in 2004, is Russia’s most important center of disinformation. The club gives Western journalists and academics the opportunity to question President Vladimir Putin and other officials in a supposedly informal setting. Participants, anxious not to offend their hosts, engage in self-censorship. Circulating in the crowd are persons who claim to share confidential information and explain what the Russian leadership is thinking—as at the USA and Canada Institute in Soviet times. The Valdai Club would be a key node in any Russian effort to cause chaos in the U.S. election.
Mr. Mifsud introduced Mr. Papadopoulos to Ivan Timofeev, a member of the Russian International Affairs Council, who told Mr. Papadopoulos in an April 25, 2016 email that he had shared plans for a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russian government with Igor Ivanov, the council’s president and a former Russian foreign minister.
In October 2016, Mr. Papadopoulos was fired from the campaign. But Russian intelligence had achieved its objective. The FBI had been informed of Mr. Papadopoulos’s remarks to Mr. Downer, and a counterintelligence investigation aimed at the Trump campaign was under way.
Another attempt to compromise the Trump campaign was the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort and a Russian group opposing the 2012 Magnitsky Act. The meeting was arranged by London music promoter Rob Goldstone, who wrote to the young Mr. Trump that the Russian “crown prosecutor” (a nonexistent title) wanted to share incriminating information about Mrs. Clinton.
It’s remotely possible the Russian delegation—headed by Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer with high-level Moscow connections—believed that they could gain the Trump campaign’s support. It’s likelier that the meeting was part of the effort to inflame U.S. politics by creating the impression that candidate Trump was a Russian pawn.
Donald Trump Jr. was foolish to agree to the meeting. He did, however, have the sense to decline to discuss the Magnitsky Act. Mr. Kushner described the meeting as “a waste of time.” Yet it was a media sensation, and some of President Trump’s detractors accepted it as proof of collusion.
Then there was the dossier that purportedly contained information on Mr. Trump himself. It was prepared by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent, supposedly based on information from high-level Russian intelligence sources. It said Mr. Trump had been a Russian asset for at least five years and had been monitored in Moscow engaging in “perverted sexual acts.” When the dossier was released, Mr. Steele disappeared, claiming to fear for his life.
In fact, the dossier was transparently phony. It claimed Mr. Putin had a “desire to return to Nineteenth Century ‘Great Power’ politics anchored upon countries’ interests rather than the ideals-based international order established after World War Two”—echoing hackneyed attempts by Russian spokesmen to divert attention from the regime’s connections to terrorism and organized crime. Its statement that Mr. Putin “hated and feared” Mrs. Clinton reflects the standard Kremlin practice of reducing policy differences to personality. Russia had attributed tensions between the U.S. and Russia to Mr. Putin and Barack Obama’s mutual dislike. The idea that Russian intelligence agents would share genuine intelligence as opposed to disinformation was in the realm of fantasy.
The Trump-Russia affair did lasting damage to the U.S. For the first time, it became acceptable, even common, to accuse political opponents of treason. The media, Congress and the intelligence services have all undermined themselves by repeating wild and unsubstantiated charges provided for them by Russian intelligence.
During the campaign, there was legitimate concern about the competence of Mr. Trump and those around him on the subject of Russia. Since taking office, however, he has approved the provision of defensive arms to Ukraine and coordinated diplomatic retaliation after the attempted murder in Britain of a former Russian intelligence agent, Sergei Skripal.
In any case, the disinformation attack directed at Mr. Trump had nothing to do with his policies. The ultimate target was American society. Moscow’s tactics were striking in their deviousness and the result was the greatest triumph of disinformation in the history of Soviet and Russian active measures.
Mr. Satter is author of “Age of Delirium: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union.
David Satter Wall Street Journal April 30, 2019
https://www.wsj.com/articles/collusion-or-russian-disinformation-11556663662?mod=itp_wsj&mod=&mod=djemITP_h
Without intending to, the Mueller report has solved the mystery of the Trump-Russia affair. It shows that Donald Trump and his campaign did not collude with Russia but Russian intelligence used disinformation to create the impression that he did.
It is hard for Americans to grasp that in the eerie world of Russian intelligence, it would be normal to discredit a U.S. leader by depicting him as a friend and to support his opponent by depicting her as an enemy. But this is the reality.
I first became acquainted with Russian disinformation while working from 1976-82 as a Moscow-based newspaper correspondent. In 1979, the Soviet authorities threatened to expel me. They accused me of traffic violations and rudeness to guides from the official travel agency, Intourist. I had wide contacts in Moscow, and these innocuous charges made me think the KGB knew little about me. In fact, they had detailed knowledge of my activities, as I learned from the way they followed me and the arrests of my contacts. But information from wiretaps and shadowing is not acknowledged openly. It is used for disinformation, conveyed by intermediaries.
One of my friends in Moscow was a gay Swedish correspondent who had a Soviet lover. Homosexuality was a crime in the Soviet Union, and my friend regularly criticized the authorities. At first officials simply objected to his articles. Then, at a USA and Canada Institute reception, a Soviet academic told the Swede he had met a “fascinating” friend of his and gave the name of his lover. The correspondent left Moscow the next day.
The Mueller report shows that the techniques of Russian disinformation have not changed. The Trump-Russia affair began May 6, 2016, when George Papadopoulos, a Trump adviser, reportedly told Alexander Downer, the Australian high commissioner in London, that Moscow had compromising information on Hillary Clinton. Ten days earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told by Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor who boasted of high-level Russia contacts, that the “dirt” consisted of “thousands of emails.” Mr. Mifsud had returned from an April 18 meeting in Moscow of the Valdai Discussion Club, which the Mueller report said was “close to Russia’s foreign policy establishment.”
In fact, the Valdai Club, established in 2004, is Russia’s most important center of disinformation. The club gives Western journalists and academics the opportunity to question President Vladimir Putin and other officials in a supposedly informal setting. Participants, anxious not to offend their hosts, engage in self-censorship. Circulating in the crowd are persons who claim to share confidential information and explain what the Russian leadership is thinking—as at the USA and Canada Institute in Soviet times. The Valdai Club would be a key node in any Russian effort to cause chaos in the U.S. election.
Mr. Mifsud introduced Mr. Papadopoulos to Ivan Timofeev, a member of the Russian International Affairs Council, who told Mr. Papadopoulos in an April 25, 2016 email that he had shared plans for a meeting between the Trump campaign and the Russian government with Igor Ivanov, the council’s president and a former Russian foreign minister.
In October 2016, Mr. Papadopoulos was fired from the campaign. But Russian intelligence had achieved its objective. The FBI had been informed of Mr. Papadopoulos’s remarks to Mr. Downer, and a counterintelligence investigation aimed at the Trump campaign was under way.
Another attempt to compromise the Trump campaign was the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort and a Russian group opposing the 2012 Magnitsky Act. The meeting was arranged by London music promoter Rob Goldstone, who wrote to the young Mr. Trump that the Russian “crown prosecutor” (a nonexistent title) wanted to share incriminating information about Mrs. Clinton.
It’s remotely possible the Russian delegation—headed by Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer with high-level Moscow connections—believed that they could gain the Trump campaign’s support. It’s likelier that the meeting was part of the effort to inflame U.S. politics by creating the impression that candidate Trump was a Russian pawn.
Donald Trump Jr. was foolish to agree to the meeting. He did, however, have the sense to decline to discuss the Magnitsky Act. Mr. Kushner described the meeting as “a waste of time.” Yet it was a media sensation, and some of President Trump’s detractors accepted it as proof of collusion.
Then there was the dossier that purportedly contained information on Mr. Trump himself. It was prepared by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent, supposedly based on information from high-level Russian intelligence sources. It said Mr. Trump had been a Russian asset for at least five years and had been monitored in Moscow engaging in “perverted sexual acts.” When the dossier was released, Mr. Steele disappeared, claiming to fear for his life.
In fact, the dossier was transparently phony. It claimed Mr. Putin had a “desire to return to Nineteenth Century ‘Great Power’ politics anchored upon countries’ interests rather than the ideals-based international order established after World War Two”—echoing hackneyed attempts by Russian spokesmen to divert attention from the regime’s connections to terrorism and organized crime. Its statement that Mr. Putin “hated and feared” Mrs. Clinton reflects the standard Kremlin practice of reducing policy differences to personality. Russia had attributed tensions between the U.S. and Russia to Mr. Putin and Barack Obama’s mutual dislike. The idea that Russian intelligence agents would share genuine intelligence as opposed to disinformation was in the realm of fantasy.
The Trump-Russia affair did lasting damage to the U.S. For the first time, it became acceptable, even common, to accuse political opponents of treason. The media, Congress and the intelligence services have all undermined themselves by repeating wild and unsubstantiated charges provided for them by Russian intelligence.
During the campaign, there was legitimate concern about the competence of Mr. Trump and those around him on the subject of Russia. Since taking office, however, he has approved the provision of defensive arms to Ukraine and coordinated diplomatic retaliation after the attempted murder in Britain of a former Russian intelligence agent, Sergei Skripal.
In any case, the disinformation attack directed at Mr. Trump had nothing to do with his policies. The ultimate target was American society. Moscow’s tactics were striking in their deviousness and the result was the greatest triumph of disinformation in the history of Soviet and Russian active measures.
Mr. Satter is author of “Age of Delirium: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union.
*****
THE RUSSIANS AND THE DOSSIER
Kimberley A. Strassel Wall Street Journal April 25, 2019
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-russians-and-the-dossier-11556232721?mod=itp_wsj&mod=&mod=djemITP_h
Mueller should have investigated whether Moscow used Steele in its interference.
One of the biggest failures of the Mueller probe concerns not what was in the final report, but what was not. Close readers will search in vain for any analysis of the central document in this affair: the infamous “dossier.” It’s a stunning omission, given the possibility that the Russians used that collection of reports to feed disinformation to U.S. intelligence agencies, sparking years of political maelstrom.
The dossier—compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele on behalf of Fusion GPS, an opposition-research firm working for the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee—fed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the media the principal allegations of the “collusion” narrative. It claimed Paul Manafort was at the center of a “well-developed” Trump-Russia “conspiracy”; that Carter Page served as his intermediary, conducting secret meetings with a Kremlin official and the head of a state energy company; that Michael Cohen held a clandestine meeting in Prague with Vladimir Putin cronies; and that the Russians had compromising material on Donald Trump, making him vulnerable to blackmail. The dossier was clearly important to the FBI probe. Its wild claims made up a significant section of the FBI’s application for a secret surveillance warrant on Mr. Page.
The Mueller report exposes the dossier claims as pure fiction. Yet in describing the actions of the Trump campaign figures the FBI accused, the report assiduously avoids any mention of the dossier or its allegations. Mr. Mueller refers to Mr. Steele and his work largely in passing, as part of the report’s description of how former FBI Director James Comey informed Mr. Trump of the dossier’s existence. The dossier is blandly described several times as “unverified allegations compiled” by Mr. Steele.
Once Mr. Mueller established that the dossier was a pack of lies, he should have investigated how it gained such currency at the highest levels of the FBI. Yet his report makes clear he had no interest in plumbing the antics of the bureau, which he led from 2001-13. Instead, he went out of his way to avoid the dossier and give cover to the FBI.
The special counsel had another, more pressing reason to look at the dossier: It fell within his core mission. Since its publication by BuzzFeed in January 2017, we’ve learned enough about Mr. Steele and Fusion GPS to wonder if the Russians used the dossier for their own malign purposes.
In the first telling, Mr. Steele was described by friendly media as simply a “former Western intelligence official” with a history at Britain’s overseas intelligence service. It turns out he worked in Russia. Mr. Steele spent his first years of service under diplomatic cover in Moscow, later in Paris. And in 1999 he was among 117 British spies whose covers were publicly blown by a disgruntled ex-MI6 officer.
The former spy, known to the public and therefore to Russia, also became known for sending reports to the U.S. government. Last year former Obama State Department official Jonathan Winer explained that in 2009 he became friendly with the self-employed Mr. Steele, and starting as early as 2013 ensured that “more than 100 of Steele’s reports” on Russia topics were shared with the State Department. Given that the dossier is largely based on Russian sources, some supposedly connected to the Kremlin, did the Kremlin know about this arrangement and see an opportunity to spoon-feed the U.S. government disinformation?
We’ve also learned more about Mr. Steele’s and Fusion’s connections to Russians. Mr. Steele sent a series of emails to Justice Department employee Bruce Ohr in 2016 inquiring about the status of a visa for Oleg Deripaska, an oligarch with Kremlin ties. Fusion GPS was working alongside Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who arranged the infamous meeting with Donald Trump Jr. in June 2016. Fusion was hired as part of a team to help Ms. Veselnitskaya undermine Bill Browder, the man behind the Magnitsky Act, a law that imposes sanctions on Russians for corruption and human-rights violations.
How did Mr. Mueller spend two years investigating every aspect of Russian interference—cyberhacking, social-media trolling, meetings with Trump officials—and not consider the possibility that the dossier was part of the Russian interference effort?
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Attorney General William Barr may answer some of the questions Mr. Mueller refused to touch. Thanks to the special counsel we know Republicans weren’t playing footsie with Russians. But thanks to BuzzFeed, we know that Democrats were. America deserves to know how far that interaction extended.
****
INTELLIGENCE Sunday, April 21, 2019 http://ltgjcmilopsg3.blogspot.com/2019/04/mueller-has-knowingly-engaged-in.html
MUELLER HAS KNOWINGLY ENGAGED IN A CONSPIRACY TO REVEAL CLASSIFIED AND/OR GRAND JURY AND/OR OTHER PRIVILEGE MATERIAL TO THE PUBLIC.
James Comey publicly stated that he arranged to have leaked to the New York Times James Comey's memos concerning Comey’s meeting with Pres. Trump in the hopes (intention) of getting a special prosecutor appointed.
At that time James Comey knew or should have known that the dossier was false information. A special prosecutor was appointed. According to the standards established by members of Robert Mueller’s staff , this would be elements to establish a conspiracy to file a false complaint and thus harass the object Donald Trump ][of the complaint.
Robert Mueller wrote a report containing classified information which he knew would have to be redacted before it went to Congress. Now the report is going to Congress. Certain Democratic leaders will view both the redacted report and the unredacted report. It is highly probable that some of the redacted materials will be leaked to the media.
Robert Mueller when he wrote his report knew that he could anticipate this outcome… That materials unfriendly and unflattering to Donald Trump will be leaked. THIS MEANS THAT MUELLER HAS KNOWINGLY ENGAGED IN A CONSPIRACY TO REVEAL CLASSIFIED AND/OR GRAND JURY AND/OR OTHER PRIVILEGE MATERIAL TO THE PUBLIC.
I hereby charge Robert Mueller with attempting to initiate a conspiracy to reveal classified, and/or other privileged information .
Certainly, Robert Mueller's and his staff's private conversations should be subject to the same public scrutiny as the President's frustrations which should not in any way been a part of this report.
MUELLER HAS KNOWINGLY ENGAGED IN A CONSPIRACY TO REVEAL CLASSIFIED AND/OR GRAND JURY AND/OR OTHER PRIVILEGE MATERIAL TO THE PUBLIC.
James Comey publicly stated that he arranged to have leaked to the New York Times James Comey's memos concerning Comey’s meeting with Pres. Trump in the hopes (intention) of getting a special prosecutor appointed.
At that time James Comey knew or should have known that the dossier was false information. A special prosecutor was appointed. According to the standards established by members of Robert Mueller’s staff , this would be elements to establish a conspiracy to file a false complaint and thus harass the object Donald Trump ][of the complaint.
Robert Mueller wrote a report containing classified information which he knew would have to be redacted before it went to Congress. Now the report is going to Congress. Certain Democratic leaders will view both the redacted report and the unredacted report. It is highly probable that some of the redacted materials will be leaked to the media.
Robert Mueller when he wrote his report knew that he could anticipate this outcome… That materials unfriendly and unflattering to Donald Trump will be leaked. THIS MEANS THAT MUELLER HAS KNOWINGLY ENGAGED IN A CONSPIRACY TO REVEAL CLASSIFIED AND/OR GRAND JURY AND/OR OTHER PRIVILEGE MATERIAL TO THE PUBLIC.
I hereby charge Robert Mueller with attempting to initiate a conspiracy to reveal classified, and/or other privileged information .
Certainly, Robert Mueller's and his staff's private conversations should be subject to the same public scrutiny as the President's frustrations which should not in any way been a part of this report.
****
INTELLIGENCE Friday, April 19, 2019 http://ltgjcmilopsg3.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-mueller-report-is-prosecutors-brief.html
The Mueller report is a prosecutor’s brief presenting the maximum and most forceful position that can possibly be established.
The Mueller report is a prosecutor’s brief presenting the maximum and most forceful position that can possibly be established. The specifics of the contents were heavily influenced by Andrew Weissmann. Normally, such materials would be subject to review by a defense team and then to a very active cross-examination of witnesses. It is difficult not to observe the similarity of this report and the “Russian dossier”. The FusionGPS/ Christopher Steele materials were first briefed to the White House, then the existence of these materials was leaked to the media . Then, the accusations in the dossier were presented to the public. Similar to the handling of the “Russian dossier”, the Mueller report appears intended to serve as an accusation reservoir from which selective leaks can be then made to the public.
Mueller’s report discusses what Mueller found in regards to a Russian government effort to interfere with the 2016 elections and his investigations into whether the Trump campaign colluded or conspired with the Russian government in their efforts.
The Mueller report states in a summary of its findings on collusion:
“Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
US intelligence provided contrary opinions from which the Mueller investigators arbitrarily selected those viewpoints that paralleled their pre-existing biases. It is recommended that the appropriate Senate committees subpoena Andrew Weissmann to testify and that they question him as to his selection of certain contending intelligence submissions and his rejection of other equally prominent intelligence submissions.
Mr. Weissmann led the task force investigating Enron more than a decade ago. Nearly all of his "convictions" were reversed for cause and he was publicly admonished for his prosecutorial misconduct.
Weissmann specializes in flipping witnesses and he oversaw or took part in almost every early aspect of the special counsel’s investigation including Mr. Manafort’s prosecution. Thus, the negative connotations ,especially involving incidents which are presented in the report as possible obstructions of justice by Pres. Trump are heavily weighted by Mr. Weissmann’s influence. For example, while both FBI agents interviewing Gen. Michael Flynn, concluded and reported that Gen. Flynn was telling the truth, their hands-on, on the scene evaluation was overruled by senior members of the Mueller investigation.
Below, we present just one of the documented conclusions that Putin preferred Hillary Clinton as president of the United States. Putin and his operatives, like nearly everyone else, assumed that Clinton would win the election. Therefore the Russians shifted from a "create chaos and dissension" regime to a "mess up the frontrunner [Hillary Clinton] regime.”
*****
1. Assertions were first floated by political operators (by Democrats in Congress, by the Democratic National Committee and by the Clinton campaign) that Russia (Putin) was behind the hacking of Hillary Clinton’s emails, the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta’s correspondence.These assertions are doubtful for several reasons(some of which will be presented here).
Congressional Democrats Call on FBI to Investigate Their Political Adversaries’ Kremlin Ties Glenn Greenwald 8-31-16
https://theintercept.com/2016/08/31/congressional-dems-call-on-fbi-to-investigate-their-political-adversaries-kremlin-ties/
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has accused Russia of conducting the cyberattack operation; Clinton spokesman Glen Caplin:” the U.S. State Department’s conclusion that the hack into Podesta’s email servers could only have been ordered by senior Russian government officials."
Pressure grew on the administration to publicly name Moscow.
“The Obama administration has been under fierce pressure from lawmakers — led by Senate and House Intelligence Committee ranking members Dianne Feinstein (d-calif.) and Adam Schiff (d-calif.), respectively — to publicly attribute the attacks.”
Soon after, the Obama administration accused Russia of attempting to interfere in the 2016 elections, including hacking the computers of the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security issued the following joint statement:
“The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations,” agencies. “ . . These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.”
[Obama administration publicly blames Russia for DNC hack http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/299874-obama-administration-publicly-blames-russia-for-dnc-hack]
2. These assertions are doubtful for several reasons(some of which will be presented here).
A. Russian officials have publicly denied involvement in the hackings.If any actual Russian government fingerprints are found then Putin would be subject to very public embarrassment. The attribution by “government sources” that there were indications of Russian involvement based on specific “fingerprints” was made by a private consulting company working for the government. These fingerprints apply to a major portion of the hacking’s that have occurred during 2016. Further, review of Julian Assange’s closed circuit conference with a group of hackers shows him clearly explaining (to the complete satisfaction of the participants)his technique and activities in this regard.
Putin: ‘Does Anyone Seriously Imagine Russia Can Somehow Influence the American People's Choice?'By Patrick Goodenough | October 28, 2016
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/putin-does-anyone-seriously-imagine-russia-can-somehow-influence-us?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpGbE56aGhPVEptTVRFMSIsInQiOiJrWkhlRXBDRkJLVUVldnFyZXB4Yk1jeUNJMnBFcjNiQzVyeHBXa0lZSm5GcytyejZzMDZ4a0htZTd0MStSQStDQ2NjZjJzT2Mwa0FhMnNpb3Q1RldES1ZPcFc4azhaQ1RMZmVWdHpsZXJjVT0ifQ%3D%3D
B. It appears that Putin favors Hillary Clinton in the coming election.
http://ltgjcmilopsg3.blogspot.com/2016/10/appears-that-favors-hillary-clinton-in.html
(1) Putin is a cold-blooded. realist with an agenda to expand Russian influence to encompass all of the areas of the previous Soviet Union and to become a major player in the Middle East. It is Putin’s agenda that guides his actions.[ And, from Putin’s point of view Hillary Clinton is much more likely to help him complete his agenda than is Donald Trump.]
(2) Most important to Putin is the very favorable political and economic outcomes to Russia that would occur from Hillary Clinton’s expected actions relating to fracking.Thus, a major reason that he prefers Hillary Clinton is her position and likely future actions concerning Fracking.
Hillary Clinton would probably attempt to eliminate fracking (or if she could not eliminate it entirely she would drastically reduce fracking within the United States). She would accomplish this through limiting the areas for petroleum exploration; instituting rigorous regulations; requiring extensive environmental studies; moratoriums; etc.
This elimination or reduction of US petroleum production by restrictions on fracking would increase the world price for petroleum.
This increase would give Putin a vast increase in the value of Russia’s petroleum reserves [ thus rescuing the currently faltering Russian economy ]; it would greatly increase the value of Putin’s petroleum exports. This would give Putin additional hard currency to help finance his expansionist adventures. It would restore Russia’s previous political and economic lock on East Europe’s energy supplies.
(3). A second major reason that Putin probably favors Hillary Clinton in the coming election is Putin’s belief, [based on many years of observation of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry] that a Hillary Clinton administration would continue the parameters and trend lines established by Barack Obama .[ The Obama administration has pulled back in every confrontation with Putin’s Russia. Putin has seen this US pattern and has resolved to remain the first mover, not expecting much American pushback except in words.] Examples:
a..Bill Clinton offered North Korea emergency relief supplies and other concessions to obtain their agreement that they would cease their nuclear activities and dismantle their nuclear program. North Korea agreed and Bill Clinton publicly announced complete success of his negotiations with North Korea assuring the American public that North Korea will abandon the quest for nuclear weapons and completely demolish the nuclear development infrastructure. Here is Bill Clinton announcing the “resolution of the North Korean nuclear threat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TcbU5jAavw&ab_channel=DavidGruen ]
b. During the presidential debate of 2012 Romney identified Russia as a potential major adversary of the United States. Obama forcefully rebuked Romney during the debate[ (Obama to Romney:”……you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsFR8DbSRQE&ab_channel=RT
c. During a meeting with then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev , Obama did not know that his microphone was alive. He leaned over to whisper a confidential message that he wanted carried to Vladimir Putin …it was: “tell Vladimir “that after my election I will have much more flexibility” [this signaled that Obama was going to reverse the US missile defense agreements with Poland and other Eastern European countries. [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsFR8DbSRQE&ab_channel=RT]
d. Hillary Clinton’s presentation of a “reset button” [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sudCmrAsF4&ab_channel=DouglasJohnston ]
e. Acceptance of Putin’s aggressive intervention in Ukraine;
f. State Department approval of sale of uranium reserves to a crony of Putin. [Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal by JO BECKER and MIKE McINTIRE New York Times APRIL 23, 2015 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0]
g. Hillary Clinton initiated the negotiations with the Iranian hardliners which concluded in a deal which which permits Russia to sell advanced weaponry to Iran and receive hard currency (furnished by the United States);
h. Strategy of bringing Russia into the Middle East as a major player (as discussed in Obama’s Syria Policy Striptease Tony Badran The Tablet September 21, 2016 ) .
i. Obama’s White House has cut the military “out of the loop”in key international and military decisions [testimony of Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and the Joint Chiefs of Staff…https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-09-22/obama-kept-military]
C.Mr. Clapper in all of public statements is very cautious. He will not respond to reporters leading questions but rather keeps referring them back to the written Joint statement.Mr. Clapper said: “IT’S PROBABLY NOT REAL, REAL CLEAR WHETHER THERE’S INFLUENCE IN TERMS OF AN OUTCOME [OF THE NOVEMBER U.S. ELECTIONS] OR WHAT I WORRY ABOUT MORE—FRANKLY —IS JUST THE SOWING THE SEEDS OF DOUBT, WHERE DOUBT IS CAST ON THE WHOLE [ELECTION] PROCESS.”
D. To put these specific hacking’s into perspective, in the year 2o16 ,there have been many hundreds of hackings, intrusions, compromises, hijackings, etc. The following site presents a very vivid graphic illustration of the scope and magnitude of the hacking phenomena: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/worlds-biggest-data-breaches-hacks/
Here is a sample of other links:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/279740
https://www.identityforce.com/blog/
https://www.checkmarx.com/
www.darkreading.com/cloud/
www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-
E. The specific penetrations [Clinton’s server; the Democratic National Committee; John Podesta; etc.] were accomplished against sites that exercised very poor site protective security discipline. The specific materials that were hacked were not given any special encryption and/or limited access controls. The level of skill that is required for the successful hacking of these sites is widely distributed throughout the world.
For example, theWikiLeaks dump reveals exactly how Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, was actually hacked [ a careless response to a false request that the site’s password be changed …which was actually routed to a hacker’s computer in the Netherlands.] CHRIS SOMMERFELDT NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Updated: Friday, October 28, 2016
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/wikileaks-dump-shows-clinton-chairman-john-podesta-hacked-article-1.2849660?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter%202016-10-29&utm_term=DailyNewsletter
F. Previous experience demands skepticism and thorough investigation before acceptance of any allegations of Russian responsibility.
Intelligence analysts have complained that their output is being distorted by the political echelon [50 Spies Say ISIS Intelligence Was Cooked
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/09/exclusive-50-spies-say-isis-intelligence-was-cooked.html];
Ben Rhodes’ Iran Deal ( “wag the dog”) echo chamber operation) which was explicitly intended to mislead the US public in order to sell this administration’s desired Iran agreement [ The aspiring novelist who became Obama’s foreign-policy guru by David Samuels New York Times May 5, 2016];
and the false certainty of the US intelligence community that Saddam Hussein actually possessed nuclear weapons
all require that we demand a much higher level of proof than the political echelons just asserting “we believe that” [ Eg. “U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suggested Russia was behind a recent computer hacking operation”]and then surmising[“We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,”]that if what they believe is correct that they then surmise that it would require approval at the highest levels in Russia (Putin).
Below, is an excerpt from the New York Times which reproduces in Ben Rhodes’ own words Rhodes’s campaign to sell the Iran
"We created an echo chamber,’ he admitted, when I asked him to explain the onslaught of freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal. ‘They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.”
From:THE ASPIRING NOVELIST WHO BECAME OBAMA’S FOREIGN-POLICY GURU By DAVID SAMUELS MAY 5, 2016
The way in which most Americans have heard the story of the Iran deal presented — that the Obama administration began seriously engaging with Iranian officials in 2013 in order to take advantage of a new political reality in Iran, which came about because of elections that brought moderates to power in that country — was largely manufactured for the purpose for selling the deal. Even where the particulars of that story are true, the implications that readers and viewers are encouraged to take away from those particulars are often misleading or false. Obama’s closest advisers always understood him to be eager to do a deal with Iran as far back as 2012, and even since the beginning of his presidency. “It’s the center of the arc,” Rhodes explained to me two days after the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was implemented. He then checked off the ways in which the administration’s foreign-policy aims and priorities converged on Iran. “We don’t have to kind of be in cycles of conflict if we can find other ways to resolve these issues,” he said. “We can do things that challenge the conventional thinking that, you know, ‘AIPAC doesn’t like this,’ or ‘the Israeli government doesn’t like this,’ or ‘the gulf countries don’t like it.’ It’s the possibility of improved relations with adversaries. It’s nonproliferation. So all these threads that the president’s been spinning — and I mean that not in the press sense — for almost a decade, they kind of all converged around Iran.”
In the narrative that Rhodes shaped, the “story” of the Iran deal began in 2013, when a “moderate” faction inside the Iranian regime led by Hassan Rouhani beat regime “hard-liners” in an election and then began to pursue a policy of “openness,” which included a newfound willingness to negotiate the dismantling of its illicit nuclear-weapons program. The president set out the timeline himself in his speech announcing the nuclear deal on July 14, 2015: “Today, after two years of negotiations, the United States, together with our international partners, has achieved something that decades of animosity has not.” While the president’s statement was technically accurate — there had in fact been two years of formal negotiations leading up to the signing of the J.C.P.O.A. — it was also actively misleading, because the most meaningful part of the negotiations with Iran had begun in mid-2012, many months before Rouhani and the “moderate” camp were chosen in an election among candidates handpicked by Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The idea that there was a new reality in Iran was politically useful to the Obama administration. By obtaining broad public currency for the thought that there was a significant split in the regime, and that the administration was reaching out to moderate-minded Iranians who wanted peaceful relations with their neighbors and with America, Obama was able to evade what might have otherwise been a divisive but clarifying debate over the actual policy choices that his administration was making. By eliminating the fuss about Iran’s nuclear program, the administration hoped to eliminate a source of structural tension between the two countries, which would create the space for America to disentangle itself from its established system of alliances with countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and Turkey. With one bold move, the administration would effectively begin the process of a large-scale disengagement from the Middle East.
The nerve center for the selling of the Iran deal to Congress, which took place in a concentrated three-month period between July and September of last year, was located inside the White House, and is referred to by its former denizens as “the war room.”
Chad Kreikemeier, a Nebraskan who had worked in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, helped run the team, which included three to six people from each of several agencies, he says, which were the State Department, Treasury, the American delegation to the United Nations (i.e., Samantha Power), “at times D.O.D.” (the Department of Defense) and also the Department of Energy and the National Security Council. Rhodes “was kind of like the quarterback,” running the daily video conferences and coming up with lines of attack and parry. “He was extremely good about immediately getting to a phrase or a way of getting the message out that just made more sense,” Kreikemeier remembers. Framing the deal as a choice between peace and war was Rhodes’s go-to move — and proved to be a winning argument.
The person whom Kreikemeier credits with running the digital side of the campaign was Tanya Somanader, 31, the director of digital response for the White House Office of Digital Strategy, who became known in the war room and on Twitter as @TheIranDeal. Early on, Rhodes asked her to create a rapid-response account that fact-checked everything related to the Iran deal. “So, we developed a plan that was like: The Iran deal is literally going to be the tip of everything that we stand up online,” Somanader says. “And we’re going to map it onto what we know about the different audiences we’re dealing with: the public, pundits, experts, the right wing, Congress.” By applying 21st-century data and networking tools to the white-glove world of foreign affairs, the White House was able to track what United States senators and the people who worked for them, and influenced them, were seeing online — and make sure that no potential negative comment passed without a tweet.
“People construct their own sense of source and credibility now,” she said. “They elect who they’re going to believe.” For those in need of more traditional-seeming forms of validation, handpicked Beltway insiders like Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic and Laura Rozen of Al-Monitor helped retail the administration’s narrative. “Laura Rozen was my RSS feed,” Somanader offered. “She would just find everything and retweet it.”
In July 2012, Jake Sullivan, a close aide to Hillary Clinton, traveled to Muscat, Oman, for the first meeting with the Iranians, taking a message from the White House. “It was, ‘We’re prepared to open a direct channel to resolve the nuclear agreement if you are prepared to do the same thing and authorize it at the highest levels and engage in a serious discussion on these issues,’ ”
The White House point person during the later stage of the negotiations was Rob Malley, who is currently running negotiations that could keep the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in power. During the course of the Iran talks, Malley told me, he always kept in close contact with Rhodes. “I would often just call him and say, ‘Give me a reality check,’ ” Malley explained. “He could say, ‘Here is where I think the president is, and here is where I think he will be.’ ” He continued, “Ben would try to anticipate: Does it make sense policywise? But then he would also ask himself: How do we sell it to Congress? How do we sell it to the public? What is it going to do to our narrative?”
Malley is a particularly keen observer of the changing art of political communication; his father, Simon Malley, who was born in Cairo, edited the politics magazine Afrique Asie and proudly provided a platform for Fidel Castro and Yasir Arafat.
As Malley and representatives of the State Department, including Wendy Sherman and Secretary of State John Kerry, engaged in formal negotiations with the Iranians, to ratify details of a framework that had already been agreed upon, Rhodes’s war room did its work on Capitol Hill and with reporters. In the spring of last year, legions of arms-control experts began popping up at think tanks and on social media, and then became key sources for hundreds of often-clueless reporters. “We created an echo chamber,” he admitted, when I asked him to explain the onslaught of freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal. “They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.”
Rhodes: “We had test drives to know who was going to be able to carry our message effectively, and how to use outside groups like Ploughshares, the Iran Project and whomever else. So we knew the tactics that worked.” He is proud of the way he sold the Iran deal. “We drove them crazy,” he said of the deal’s opponents. ‘We created an echo chamber,’ he admitted, when I asked him to explain the onslaught of freshly minted experts cheerleading for the deal. ‘They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.’
G. Hillary Clinton has willingly engaged in previous public disinformation campaigns.
[Clinton Campaign, White House Coordinated Pro-Iran Deal Talking Point…Leaked emails show effort to mislead public about Iran deal by: Adam Kredo October 10, 2016 ]
Senior Clinton campaign officials were in direct contact with the White House to coordinate pro-Iran talking points in an effort to boost last summer’s comprehensive nuclear agreement, according to leaked emails that show the Obama administration and top figures in Clinton’s campaign played a role in promulgating information about the deal that later turned out to be factually inaccurate.
The emails, released late on Friday in a massive document dump by the hacker website WikiLeaks, show coordination between Hillary Clinton’s team and the White House, which spearheaded a massive effort to create what senior officials described as a pro-Iran “echo chamber” to mislead Congress and Americans about the nature of the agreement.
An April 2, 2015, communication sent from top White House press liaison Eric Shultz to Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri includes several pages of pro-Iran talking points that were later discovered to contain misleading information.
“Love it!!” Palmieri responded to Schultz’s email. She subsequently forwarded the information to leading Clinton aides, including Cheryl Mills, Brian Fallon, and Nick Merrill, among others.
The disclosure of these emails threatens to entangle the Clinton campaign in a growing scandal surrounding secret White House efforts to mislead Congress and the public about the nuclear deal. Congress has been investigating these efforts for months and has uncovered evidence the Obama administration inked several secret side deals with Iran, including the rollback of key sanctions on Tehran and a $1.7 billion cash payment.
The White House’s pro-Iran press machine, which was helmed by Rhodes, received support from liberal billionaire George Soros and a network of non-profit organizations that funneled money to those who helped champion the deal in the public sphere. Holes and moles in U.S. intelligence
H. One of the biggest lies is that the WikiLeaks disclosures prove that Putin favors Trump for U.S. president By Cliff Kincaid
I'm not naïve about Russia. I co-authored Back from the Dead: The Return of the Evil Empire, about a resurgent Russia. There are Russian links to global Islamic terrorism. They also target the U.S. for propaganda and disinformation operations
But The Washington Post has been cheerleading for Hillary Clinton for president, on the spurious grounds that she is knowledgeable about the Russian threat and Trump is not. Have we so soon forgotten the failed Russian reset and the Russian uranium deal?
There's no evidence that the Russians favor Trump over Clinton. Clinton was duped by the Russians into orchestrating a "reset" that benefitted Russia and its ally, Iran. She played into their hands before, and they probably figured that she could be manipulated into playing into their hands again. This is especially true now that Russia and Iran have made military advances in the Middle East. Hillary Clinton continues to rely for advice on Russia from people like Brookings Institution head Strobe Talbott, a supporter of world government who had questionable dealings with the Russian intelligence service exposed in a book, Comrade J, by a Russian spymaster. In addition, Clinton's State Department approved the Russian uranium deal, while millions flowed to the Clinton Foundation
Trump has made questionable statements about Russia, and his former campaign chairman had suspicious links to a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician. But Trump is now surrounded by realists on Russia like his vice presidential candidate, Mike Pence, and former CIA director, James Woolsey. Trump has denounced NSA defector Edward Snowden, who is living in Russia, as a traitor who deserves the death penalty. That's tougher than anything Mrs. Clinton has said about Snowden.
The evidence indicates that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks serve Russian interests. But what difference does it make if the Russians obtained the emails and turned them over to Assange for release to an American audience? Our media routinely steal and obtain documents through confidential "sources" and conduct undercover operations to secretly record their interview subjects. The term "illegal" sounds ominous, but the media have long defended getting stolen documents. Their "origin," in fact, is not the Russians but the Clinton officials who failed to protect their own communications. And, as for the "general lack of corroboration," the Clinton campaign has blamed the Russians for their release, without taking issue with the content. They suggest some portions of the documents may have been altered, but offer no hard evidence. It looks as if they are trying to divert attention from the fact that the emails are real and legitimate.
More importantly, Hillary Clinton and her associates invited this hacking by failing to protect their own emails.
Chenoweth goes on to claim that since U.S. intelligence agencies blame the Russians for the acquisition of the information, media dissemination of the emails means that this places "all of our private means of communication at risk of exposure from illegal invasion" by a foreign power and/or its intelligence agencies. So the same U.S. intelligence agencies insisting that the Russians are behind the hacking have been unable to defend the American people. That's the obvious conclusion. Again, whose fault is that? Hillary Clinton and her associates were the security risks who made all of this possible. If the American people in general are at risk, perhaps the CIA and NSA ought to do a better job of protecting us.
The Russians are better at what they do than the American CIA and NSA. Rather than blame the Russians for embarrassing Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, why not call for an investigation of the incompetence or corruption within the U.S. intelligence community? This should be the logical outcome of witnessing an alleged "interference" in a U.S. election. Instead, Trump is blamed for citing the corruption documented in the emails, and some in the media are blamed for treating the disclosures as news. This is not only silly, but dangerous, for those who seriously want to come to grips with the holes and moles in our intelligence community.
If Putin is behind the WikiLeaks disclosures, he has provided a wake-up call regarding our vulnerability to foreign threats. But the Post is so determined to elect Hillary Clinton that it ignores her role in the debacle that now envelopes her.
Trump didn't set up her server and he didn't operate John Podesta's computer. Hillary Clinton was a security risk, and her illegal computer operations put the entire nation and its secrets at risk. We still don't know the full extent of the damage.
With a track record like that, it could be argued that Putin would prefer Hillary as president.
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