The Russian Connection

[nvmbr02]

i found this interesting. I don't have a ton of time to look into this further right now, but I don't think I have seen anything else linking McConnell to Putin. I had just assumed he was loyal to Trump because of his wife's appointment but perhaps there is more to it.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

8 minutes ago, nvmbr02 said:

i found this interesting. I don't have a ton of time to look into this further right now, but I don't think I have seen anything else linking McConnell to Putin. I had just assumed he was loyal to Trump because of his wife's appointment but perhaps there is more to it.

 

I remember reading something here on FJ several months ago that most of the top Repugs have taken significant money from Russian sources. I'm heading to bed early tonight and have a busy week, so I probably won't have time to look into it. I believe @RoseWilder has been a great source of research on the Russian connection, hopefully she'll pipe in.

[RoseWilder]

26 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I remember reading something here on FJ several months ago that most of the top Repugs have taken significant money from Russian sources. I'm heading to bed early tonight and have a busy week, so I probably won't have time to look into it. I believe @RoseWilder has been a great source of research on the Russian connection, hopefully she'll pipe in.

Yes, I posted about McConnell having ties to Russian money a few months ago. The man who runs the twitter page @nvmbr02 just posted from has done research and also found links between Russian money and the campaigns of: Scott Walker, Marc Rubio, and Paul Ryan. I haven't kept up with his twitter lately, so he might have found more links that I'm just not aware of yet. 

Louise Mensch and Claude Taylor (who have had a really good track record lately with getting the scoop before everyone else) are saying that there's a RICO case against the entire GOP for Russian money laundering. Mensch has also said that the FBI has Paul Ryan on tape accepting Russian/Putin money. A lot of people are skeptical of Mensch and Taylor, but their scoops have been proven right 4 times in just this week alone. So I'm hopeful 

[GreyhoundFan]

Hmmm: "Flynn takes the Fifth, declines to comply with Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena"

Spoiler

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser under President Trump, will not comply with a Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena for documents related to the panel’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, invoking the Fifth Amendment and his right against self-incrimination.

“The context in which the Committee has called for General Flynn’s testimonial production of documents makes it clear that he has more than a reasonable apprehension that any testimony he provides could be used against him,” Flynn’s attorneys wrote in a letter they sent to the committee’s chairman, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), and Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), its top Democrat, on Monday.

In the letter, they also cited the Justice Department’s recent appointment of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, arguing it raises new dangers for Flynn and gives “rise to a constitutional right not to testify.”

The committee issued a subpoena for documents from Flynn earlier this month, after he failed to voluntarily produce records of contacts he had with Russian officials. It is the only subpoena that the committee has issued in the course of its investigation into Russia’s purported involvement in the 2016 elections, a probe that includes delving into contacts between the Trump campaign and transition teams and Kremlin officials.

Flynn was forced to resign his position in the administration earlier this year after it emerged that he had not been fully forthcoming with Vice President Pence about conversations he had with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. Flynn also has come under official scrutiny for failing to disclose income he made from speaking engagements in Moscow, most notably at a December 2015 gala sponsored by Russian state-owned media company RT, as well as failing to register as a foreign agent, despite doing more than a half a million dollars’ worth of lobbying work for Turkish interests.

Flynn has offered “to give a full account,” his attorneys wrote in Monday’s letter, but only if he receives “assurances against unfair prosecution” — in other words, immunity. The committee has not offered Flynn immunity in exchange for his testimony to the committee.

The committee wanted Flynn to produce any records of conversations he had with Russian officials between June 16, 2015, and Jan. 20, 2017, and to compile a list of any contacts he had with Russian officials, whether those conversations were documented or not.

While the Fifth Amendment is commonly applied to giving testimony, Flynn’s attorneys argued that by creating or handing over the documents the committee had requested, Flynn would essentially be giving testimony about the existence of those conversations and thus potentially incriminating himself.

“Producing documents that fall within the subpoena’s broad scope would be a testimonial act, insofar as it would confirm or deny the existence of such documents,” they wrote.

Flynn’s attorneys also strongly hinted that they think the congressional committees would biased against Flynn if he complied with the request.

“Multiple Members of Congress have demanded that he be investigated and even prosecuted,” Flynn attorneys Robert K. Kelner, Stephen P. Anthony and Brian D. Smith wrote in their letter. “He is the target on nearly a daily basis of outrageous allegations, often attributed to anonymous sources in Congress or elsewhere in the United States Government, which, however fanciful on their face and unsubstantiated by evidence, feed the escalating public frenzy against him.”

A spokeswoman for Warner declined to comment right away, while a spokeswoman for Burr did not immediately respond to a request for reaction.

 

And, hand-in-hand with that article: "Can Michael Flynn refuse to turn over documents to Congress? Yes — but he risks jail."

Spoiler

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s reticence to testify before Congress about his behavior before and after the inauguration of Donald Trump was always obvious. His attorney indicated that Flynn would testify in exchange for immunity back in March — a ploy that seemed designed to muck up any external criminal investigation of Flynn. Such an investigation has since been reported, with subpoenas issued by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Northern Virginia for records related to Flynn’s business.

On Monday, the Associated Press reported that Flynn would not comply with a similar subpoena issued by the Senate, prompting an obvious question: Is he allowed to ignore that request?

The answer is yes, in the sense that you can also refuse to comply with an order from a police officer. That is, he can refuse — but there will likely be consequences.

Todd Bussert, a federal criminal defense attorney in Connecticut, spoke with The Post by phone Monday to explain what might happen in response to Flynn’s refusal to turn over the requested documents.

The Fifth Amendment “doesn’t have the same level of protection” when it comes to documents, Bussert said.

“Congressional action is analogous to what you see in a criminal context,” Bussert said. “What you often see is the U.S. attorney’s office or law enforcement agencies working with the U.S. attorney’s office coming in and gathering documents from a company or an individual. They may have valid Fifth Amendment claims — they couldn’t be compelled to speak to agents or what have you — but they can’t refuse to comply with the subpoena for documents. You have to produce those — even though those may be incriminating.”

Put another way, the Fifth Amendment protects you from making incriminatory comments about yourself — but it doesn’t protect you from things you’ve said in the past. Documents are similarly a form of past behavior to which the Fifth Amendment doesn’t apply.

The risk to Flynn is that the Senate committee demanding the documents could vote to hold him in contempt. If they were to do so, the full Senate would be asked to weigh in on the matter and, if the Senate agreed to hold Flynn in contempt, the matter would be referred to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington for criminal charges. In other words, Flynn could end up being convicted of a crime for withholding the documents and face prison time — regardless of what the documents say.

Granted, that demands the political will of a Republican-controlled Senate. But, as Bussert notes, there’s good reason for them to draw a hard line.

“Congressional interest in terms of pursuing contempt probably is influenced by the amount of public attention the matter is getting,” he said. “If there’s a lot of attention given to a particular matter, they don’t necessarily want to send the message that they’re willing to let somebody flout the subpoena.”

A well-timed report from the Congressional Research Service, released this month, outlines how and where congressional investigatory authority is bounded. The short version is that Congress’s authority is sweeping, with two centuries of application leading to a number of systems that can ensure Flynn-like situations are resolved to Congress’s benefit.

Since the Senate gained the power to seek civil enforcement for the failure to respond to a subpoena in 1979, they have exercised that power six times — never against an executive branch official. (Most recently, the CRS reports, the Senate held the chief executive of Backpage.com in contempt for not providing requested documents.)

On the scale of the questions about Flynn — did he improperly lobby on behalf of Turkey? Did he have inappropriate conversations with the Russians during the 2016 campaign? — a Senate contempt charge is fairly low. Assuming that Flynn’s team does refuse to comply with this subpoena, then, they may be making a strategic decision: That the risks of going to jail for contempt are lower than the risks of going to jail if the Senate sees those documents.

Flynn is another one who needs to be issued an orange jumpsuit.

[nvmbr02]

More on Michael Flynn. No story posted yet, but yeah, I can't see how he avoids going to jail unless he ends up cutting a deal. Even then I see jail time in his future. My husband and I both have or have had security clearances for work for the government. The forms are very clear. There is no way he didn't know what to do or not know he was lying. And the man was a general and had high level security clearances before. Idiot. 

 

[fraurosena]

Here's MoJo's take on Flynn pleading the Fifth.

Donald Trump's former national security advisor won't comply with a congressional subpoena

Quote

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn will invoke the Constitution's Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination on Monday and refuse to comply with a congressional subpoena, according to the Associated Press.  [...]

It's not a surprising move—Flynn was not expected to turn over the documents without immunity, "because he would be waiving some of his constitutional protections by doing so," according to the AP. [...]

It's unclear how Republicans will respond to Flynn's decision. The intelligence committee could ask Congress to vote on whether to hold Flynn in contempt—an option that would force Flynn to face possible fines or jail time if he continued to withhold the documents. "I'm not going to go into what we might or might not do," Burr said last week when asked what the committee would do next if Flynn refused to cooperate with the investigation. "We've got a full basket of things that we're willing to test."

Meanwhile, Democrats on the House's oversight committee are increasing pressure on Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) to subpoena the White House for documents on how the White House vetted Flynn, which the committee asked for two months ago. "The White House is obstructing our investigation on the Oversight Committee, covering up for General Flynn, and refusing to produce a single document that Chairman Chaffetz and I asked for in a bipartisan letter two months ago," Rep. Elijah Cummings (R-Md.), ranking member of the committee, said in a statement over the weekend. "I have prepared a subpoena that the Chairman could sign today." Cummings says if Chaffetz doesn't want to issue the subpoena himself, he should allow committee members to take a vote on it.

Chaffetz isn't always so shy about using the power to subpoena—he asked for the FBI's full investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails and just last week demanded that the FBI hand over the Comey memos, which detail President Donald Trump's attempts to curb the federal investigation into Flynn, according to an explosive report last week from the New York Times.

Meanwhile, it turns out that...

Manafort, Stone Turn Over Russia Documents to Senate Intel Committee

Quote

[...] Earlier this month, the committee sent document requests to Manafort and Stone, as well as Carter Page and Mike Flynn, officials said previously. The requests sought information pertaining to dealings with Russia. Page has not yet complied [...] 

The committee's letter to Page asked him to list any Russian official or business executive he met with between June 16, 2015 and Jan. 20, 2017. It also asked him to provide information about Russia-related real estate transactions during that period. And it seeks all his email or other communications during that period with Russians, or with the Trump campaign about Russia or Russians.

Similar letters were sent to Manafort and Stone, and those men sent information to Senate investigators by last Friday's deadline, the congressional source said. [...] The congressional source said it was too early to tell whether the documents from Manafort and Stone suggested they had fully complied with the request. [...]

Flynn's assertion of the Fifth Amendment will make it difficult for the Senate to enforce its subpoena, Senate aides told NBC News. The Senate could go to court, or go ask the Justice Department to go to court to enforce it, but either actin would require the Republicans who control the chamber to agree.

Meanwhile, Flynn can make an argument that his right against self-incrimination extends even to the production of documents that could hurt him, Senate aides said.

So, Flynn's pleading the Fifth, and Carter Page hasn't supplied the asked for information (yet). Then we have the WH not complying with requests for information on the vetting process of Flynn. Now link that with the fact that one of the people in the WH is a person of interest in the FBI investigation, and the news that the the presidunce aksed Comey to 'make this go away' and the WH has made multiple exertions on the FBI to stop their investigation. I can see that a case for obstruction of justice could be built on these things. 

The real question though, is why so many efforts are being made to stop or hinder the investigation. Just what is it they are so afraid of?
I believe it's because there is some damningly incriminating evidence to be found against Jared - and Ivanka. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Wow: "CIA director warned Russian security service chief about interference in election"

Spoiler

Former CIA Director John Brennan said Tuesday that he personally warned the head of Russia’s intelligence service last year that Moscow’s interference in the U.S. election would backfire and cause severe damage to the country’s relationship with the United States.

Describing a previously undisclosed high-level conversation between Washington and Moscow, Brennan said he used a phone conversation with the head of Russia’s domestic security service, the FSB, that “American voters would be outraged by any Russian attempt to interfere in the election.”

In congressional testimony, Brennan said that such meddling “would destroy any near-term prospect of improvement” in relations between the United States and Russia. Brennan said that the FSB chief, Alexander Bortnikov, twice denied that Russia was waging such a campaign, but said he would carry Brennan’s message to Russian President Vladi­mir Putin.

“I believe I was the first U.S. official to brace Russia on this matter,” Brennan said. His remarks came at the start of his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee as part of that panel’s ongoing investigation of a Russian influence campaign in the 2016 U.S. election, as well as whether there was collusion or coordination between Moscow and members of the Trump campaign.

Brennan led the CIA during a critical period last year when U.S. intelligence agencies reached the conclusion that Russia was not only attempting to disrupt the U.S. election but was actively seeking to defeat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and help elect Donald Trump.

Brennan was among the top officials who briefed then-President Elect Trump on that conclusion — which represented the consensus view of the CIA, the FBI and the office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Brennan became so alarmed by the Russian intervention last fall that he held a series of classified meetings with top Congressional officials to impress upon them the unprecedented nature of Moscow’s interference.

The former CIA chief is the latest in a series of senior Obama administration officials to appear publicly before Congress in hearings that have often produced damaging headlines for Trump.

Earlier this month, former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified that she expected White House officials to “take action” after warning that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had misled administration officials about his contacts with Russia.

At that same hearing, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that Moscow’s leaders “must be congratulating themselves for having exceeded their wildest expectations with a minimal expenditure of resource,” a reference not only to the outcome of the 2016 race, but the chaos that has characterized the early months of the Trump administration.

Brennan has feuded publicly with Trump over the president’s treatment of intelligence agencies. In January, he lashed out at Trump for comparing U.S. spy agencies to Nazi secret police.

Brennan was particularly offended by Trump’s remarks during a speech at CIA headquarters on the day he was inaugurated. Trump used the CIA’s Wall of Honor — a collection of engraved stars marking lives of CIA operatives killed in the line of duty — to launch a rambling speech in which he bragged about his election victory.

Brennan called the appearance “despicable” and said that Trump should be “ashamed.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Brennan’s explosive testimony just made it harder for the GOP to protect Trump"

Spoiler

In his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee hearing Tuesday morning, former CIA director John Brennan bluntly told lawmakers that during the 2016 election, he reviewed intelligence that showed “contacts and interactions” between Russian actors and people associated with the Trump campaign. By the summer of 2016, Brennan said, he was “convinced” that Russia was engaged in an “aggressive” and “multifaceted” effort to interfere in our election — and as a result, he believed “there was a sufficient basis of information and intelligence that required further investigation” by the FBI.

With this testimony, Brennan just made it a whole lot harder — politically, at least — for the GOP to continue in its efforts to protect Trump, even as scrutiny of his campaign intensifies on the part of the FBI, and now, special counsel Robert Mueller. Yet if Tuesday’s hearing is any guide, congressional Republicans are still intent on shielding Trump by undermining the investigation in the mind of the public.

And so, again and again, Republican members of the committee, particularly South Carolina’s Trey Gowdy, tried to get Brennan to say that no evidence of Trump campaign collusion with Russian meddling in the election exists. But Brennan repeatedly refused to render a judgment on whether there was collusion. Instead, he only repeated his refrain that, because the CIA is not a law enforcement agency, he turned over its intelligence gathering about contacts between the Trump camp and Russians to the FBI, so that the FBI could conduct its investigation into whether there was collusion.

Indeed, in one of the most important moments, Brennan’s testimony ended up making it very clear that there was a sufficient intelligence basis for the FBI to conduct an investigation into whether those “contacts and interactions” amounted to collusion.

The result of this was that, by trying to get Brennan to say there was no collusion, Republicans made it overwhelmingly obvious that they are trying to undermine the investigation, or at least erode public confidence in it — as is Trump.

It’s crucial here to fully grasp the backdrop of Tuesday’s hearing. Just Monday, The Post broke yet another bombshell story: Trump had personally tried to get both the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and the director of the National Security Agency, Michael S. Rogers, to publicly deny that there was any collusion between the Trump camp and the Russians. The Trump requests came after then-FBI Director James B. Comey testified before the House Intelligence Committee on March 20 and publicly confirmed, for the first time, that the bureau was investigating “the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”

Both men refused Trump’s entreaties. Then, on May 9, Trump fired Comey, one day before meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The New York Times subsequently reported that Trump had told the Russian officials that he had fired “nut job” Comey to relieve “great pressure” from the Russia investigation.

It’s remarkable, then, that in the face of this deeply damning series of stories about the president’s conduct, House Republicans would take up his defense by using the opportunity to cross-examine Brennan — in hopes of undercutting the idea that an investigation is even needed. On Tuesday, less than a day after the story about Trump’s efforts to sway Coats and Rogers provoked instant comparisons to Watergate, House Intelligence Committee Republicans showed little interest in furthering public understanding — or even their own — of this unprecedented scandal.

Brennan, however, offered testimony that should only serve to deepen the curiosity about what really happened for anyone watching the hearing or its highlights. He repeatedly expressed his deep concerns about the intelligence showing numerous “contacts” between the Trump camp and Russian actors who were engaged in efforts to subvert our democracy.

Indeed, if the GOP cross-examination was intended to help Trump, it failed. At one point Gowdy demanded to know whether the evidence of collusion was “circumstantial or direct.” Brennan, who reminded lawmakers that the CIA engages in intelligence gathering and assessments, not criminal investigations and prosecutions, repeated that he knew only of “contacts and interactions.” And those, he said, made him concerned “because of known Russian efforts to suborn” targeted individuals. Those “efforts to suborn,” he elaborated, begin with Russians targeting and then cultivating people of influence or who are “rising stars,” to “try to get them to do things on their behalf.”

It was his knowledge of how those Russian efforts work that made his radar go up, said Brennan, even though frequently the American involved might be an unwitting target. There are “contacts that may have been totally, totally innocent and benign as well as those that may have succumbed somehow to those Russian efforts,” Brennan said. Often, he added in an ominous moment, “individuals who go along a treasonous path do not even realize they’re along that path until it gets to be a bit too late.”

Yet Republicans didn’t seem interested in learning anything from Brennan’s knowledge of how Russian active measures work. Instead they focused on trying to discredit any investigation. At one point, Gowdy directly demanded Brennan provide evidence of collusion; at another he asked Brennan if there was any evidence of collusion between Russian state actors and Trump himself. But all these lines of questioning failed to elicit any exoneration from Brennan. Any such information, Brennan told Gowdy, is “appropriately classified.” What’s more, Brennan said, “this committee has access to the documents we would have provided to the bureau.”

Each time Gowdy or another Republican pressed, Brennan had another opportunity to refer to “contacts” between Russian actors and the Trump campaign, thus amplifying the fact that such interactions had, in fact, taken place. The congressional Republicans’ efforts — like Trump’s — backfired, showing that it’s becoming ever harder for them to keep trying to make this investigation go away.

 

Good grief. Gowdy is a piece of work. Why do the people of SC keep foisting him on the rest of us?

[nvmbr02]

Top Russian Officials Discussed How to Influence Trump Aides Last Summer

Spoiler

WASHINGTON — American spies collected information last summer revealing that senior Russian intelligence and political officials were discussing how to exert influence over Donald J. Trump through his advisers, according to three current and former American officials familiar with the intelligence.

The conversations focused on Paul Manafort, the Trump campaign chairman at the time, and Michael T. Flynn, a retired general who was advising Mr. Trump, the officials said. Both men had indirect ties to Russian officials, who appeared confident that each could be used to help shape Mr. Trump’s opinions on Russia.

Some Russians boasted about how well they knew Mr. Flynn. Others discussed leveraging their ties to Viktor F. Yanukovych, the deposed president of Ukraine living in exile in Russia, who at one time had worked closely with Mr. Manafort.

The intelligence was among the clues — which also included information about direct communications between Mr. Trump’s advisers and Russian officials — that American officials received last year as they began investigating Russian attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of Mr. Trump’s associates were assisting Moscow in the effort. Details of the conversations, some of which have not been previously reported, add to an increasing understanding of the alarm inside the American government last year about the Russian disruption campaign.

The information collected last summer was considered credible enough for intelligence agencies to pass to the F.B.I., which during that period opened a counterintelligence investigation that is ongoing. It is unclear, however, whether Russian officials actually tried to directly influence Mr. Manafort and Mr. Flynn. Both have denied any collusion with the Russian government on the campaign to disrupt the election.

John O. Brennan, the former director of the C.I.A., testified Tuesday about a tense period last year when he came to believe that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was trying to steer the outcome of the election. He said he saw intelligence suggesting that Russia wanted to use Trump campaign officials, wittingly or not, to help in that effort. He spoke vaguely about contacts between Trump associates and Russian officials, without giving names, saying they “raised questions in my mind about whether Russia was able to gain the cooperation of those individuals.”

Whether the Russians worked directly with any Trump advisers is one of the central questions that federal investigators, now led by Robert S. Mueller III, the newly appointed special counsel, are seeking to answer. President Trump, for his part, has dismissed talk of Russian interference in the election as “fake news,” insisting there was no contact between his campaign and Russian officials.

The White House, F.B.I. and C.I.A. declined to comment, as did spokesmen for Mr. Manafort. Mr. Flynn’s attorney did not respond to an email seeking comment.

The current and former officials agreed to discuss the intelligence only on the condition of anonymity because much of it remains highly classified, and they could be prosecuted for disclosing it.

Last week, CNN reported about intercepted phone calls during which Russian officials were bragging about ties to Mr. Flynn and discussing ways to wield influence over him.

In his congressional testimony, Mr. Brennan discussed the broad outlines of the intelligence, and his disclosures backed up the accounts of the information provided by the current and former officials.

“I was convinced in the summer that the Russians were trying to interfere in the election. And they were very aggressive,” Mr. Brennan said. Still, he said, even at the end of the Obama administration he had “unresolved questions in my mind as to whether or not the Russians had been successful in getting U.S. persons, involved in the campaign or not, to work on their behalf again either in a witting or unwitting fashion.”

Mr. Brennan’s testimony offered the fullest public account to date of how American intelligence agencies first came to fear that Mr. Trump’s campaign might be aiding Russia’s attack on the election.

By early summer, American intelligence officials already were fairly certain that it was Russian hackers who had stolen tens of thousands of emails from the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. That in itself was not viewed as particularly extraordinary by the Americans — foreign spies had hacked previous campaigns, and the United States does the same in elections around the world, officials said. The view on the inside was that collecting information, even through hacking, is what spies do.

But the concerns began to grow when intelligence began trickling in about Russian officials weighing whether they should release stolen emails and other information to shape American opinion — to, in essence, weaponize the materials stolen by hackers.

An unclassified report by American intelligence agencies released in January stated that Mr. Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election.”

Before taking the helm of the Trump campaign last May, Mr. Manafort worked for more than a decade for Russian-leaning political organizations and people in Ukraine, including Mr. Yanukovych, the former president. Mr. Yanukovych was a close ally of Mr. Putin.

Mr. Manafort’s links to Ukraine led to his departure from the Trump campaign in August, after his name surfaced in secret ledgers showing millions in undisclosed cash payments from Mr. Yanukovych’s political party.

The Russian government views Ukraine as a buffer against the eastward expansion of NATO, and has supported separatists in their yearslong fight against the struggling democratic government in Kiev.

Mr. Flynn’s ties to Russian officials stretch back to his time at the Defense Intelligence Agency, which he led from 2012 to 2014. There, he began pressing for the United States to cultivate Russia as an ally in the fight against Islamist militants, and even spent a day in Moscow at the headquarters of the G.R.U., the Russian military intelligence service, in 2013.

He continued to insist that Russia could be an ally even after Moscow’s seizure of Crimea the following year, and Obama administration officials have said that contributed to their decision to push him out of the D.I.A.

But in private life, Mr. Flynn cultivated even closer ties to Russia. In 2015, he earned more than $65,000 from companies linked to Russia, including a cargo airline implicated in a bribery scheme involving Russian officials at the United Nations, and an American branch of a cybersecurity firm believed to have ties to Russia’s intelligence services.

The biggest payment, though, came from RT, the Kremlin-financed news network. It paid Mr. Flynn $45,000 to give a speech in Moscow, where he also attended the network’s lavish anniversary dinner. There, he was photographed sitting next to Mr. Putin.

A senior lawmaker said on Monday that Mr. Flynn misled Pentagon investigators about how he was paid for the Moscow trip. He also failed to disclose the source of that income on a security form he was required to complete before joining the White House, according to congressional investigators.

American officials have also said there were multiple telephone calls between Mr. Flynn and Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States, on Dec. 29, beginning shortly after Mr. Kislyak was summoned to the State Department and informed that, in retaliation for Russian election meddling, the United States was expelling 35 people suspected of being Russian intelligence operatives and imposing other sanctions.

American intelligence agencies routinely tap the phones of Russian diplomats, and transcripts of the calls showed that Mr. Flynn urged the Russians not to respond, saying relations would improve once Mr. Trump was in office, officials have said.

But after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of the calls, Mr. Flynn was fired as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser after a tumultuous 25 days in office.

 

This fits with my feeling on what happened. My husband and I have had several conversations about this in the past few weeks and we both have come to a similar conclusion,. And since we watch The Americans, we are clearly experts.  The problem is, if it is the case that Russia tried to influence Trump through his aides, there may not be anything that points directly to Trump as far as collusion goes. However, I hope they can still get him for Obstruction of Justice, if there is no evidence of collusion. I am also still hopeful the various investigations will shed some light on other shady business practices by Trump and others in the GOP. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"How a dubious Russian document influenced the FBI’s handling of the Clinton probe"

Spoiler

A secret document that officials say played a key role in then-FBI Director James B. Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation has long been viewed within the FBI as unreliable and possibly a fake, according to people familiar with its contents.

In the midst of the 2016 presidential primary season, the FBI received what was described as a Russian intelligence document claiming a tacit understanding between the Clinton campaign and the Justice Department over the inquiry into whether she intentionally revealed classified information through her use of a private email server.

The Russian document cited a supposed email describing how then-Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch had privately assured someone in the Clinton campaign that the email investigation would not push too deeply into the matter. If true, the revelation of such an understanding would have undermined the integrity of the FBI’s investigation.

Current and former officials have said that Comey relied on the document in making his July decision to announce on his own, without Justice Department involvement, that the investigation was over. That public announcement — in which he criticized Clinton and made extensive comments about the evidence — set in motion a chain of other FBI moves that Democrats now say helped Trump win the presidential election.

But according to the FBI’s own assessment, the document was bad intelligence — and according to people familiar with its contents, possibly even a fake sent to confuse the bureau. The Americans mentioned in the Russian document insist they do not know each other, do not speak to each other and never had any conversations remotely like the ones described in the document. Investigators have long doubted its veracity, and by August the FBI had concluded it was unreliable.

The document, obtained by the FBI, was a piece of purported analysis by Russian intelligence, the people said. It referred to an email supposedly written by the then-chair of the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), and sent to Leonard Benardo, an official with the Open Society Foundations, an organization founded by billionaire George Soros and dedicated to promoting democracy.

The Russian document did not contain a copy of the email, but it described some of the contents of the purported message.

In the supposed email, Wasserman Schultz claimed Lynch had been in private communication with a senior Clinton campaign staffer named Amanda Renteria during the campaign. The document indicated Lynch had told Renteria that she would not let the FBI investigation into Clinton go too far, according to people familiar with it.

Current and former officials have argued that the secret document gave Comey good reason to take the extraordinary step over the summer of announcing the findings of the Clinton investigation himself without Justice Department involvement.

Comey had little choice, these people have said, because he feared that if Lynch announced no charges against Clinton, and then the secret document leaked, the legitimacy of the entire case would be questioned.

From the moment the bureau received the document from a source in early March 2016, its veracity was the subject of an internal debate at the FBI. Several people familiar with the matter said the bureau’s doubts about the document hardened in August when officials became more certain that there was nothing to substantiate the claims in the Russian document. FBI officials knew the bureau never had the underlying email with the explosive allegation, if it ever existed.

Yet senior officials at the bureau continued to rely on the document before and after the election as part of their justification for how they handled the case.

Wasserman Schultz and Benardo said in separate interviews with The Washington Post that they do not know each other and have never communicated. Renteria, in an interview, and people familiar with Lynch’s account said the two also do not know each other and have never communicated. Lynch declined to comment for this article.

Moreover, Wasserman Schultz, Benardo and Renteria said they have never been interviewed by the FBI about the matter.

Comey’s defenders still insist that there is reason to believe the document is legitimate and that it rightly played a major role in the director’s thinking.

“It was a very powerful factor in the decision to go forward in July with the statement that there shouldn’t be a prosecution,” said a person familiar with the matter. “The point is that the bureau picked up hacked material that hadn’t been dumped by the bad guys [the Russians] involving Lynch. And that would have pulled the rug out of any authoritative announcement.”

Other people familiar with the document disagree sharply, saying such claims are disingenuous because the FBI has known for a long time that the Russian intelligence document is unreliable and based on multiple layers of hearsay.

“It didn’t mean anything to the investigation until after [senior FBI officials] had to defend themselves,” said one person familiar with the matter. “Then they decided it was important. But it’s junk, and they already knew that.”

An FBI spokesman declined to comment. Comey did not respond to requests for comment.

The people familiar with the Russian document spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss its contents. No one familiar with it asked The Post to withhold details about its origins to safeguard the source.

Several of them said they were concerned that revealing details now about the document could be perceived as an effort to justify Trump’s decision to fire Comey, but they argued that the document and Comey’s firing are distinct issues. Most of the people familiar with the document disagree strongly with the decision to fire the director, but they also criticized current and former officials who have privately cited the document as an important factor in the decisions made by Comey and other senior FBI officials. Comey told lawmakers he would discuss it with them only in a classified session.

After the bureau first received the document, it attempted to use the source to obtain the referenced email but could not do so, these people said. The source that provided the document, they said, had previously supplied other information that the FBI was also unable to corroborate.

While it was conducting the Clinton email investigation, the FBI did not interview anyone mentioned in the Russian document about its claims. At the time, FBI agents were probing numerous hacking cases involving Democrats and other groups, but they never found an email like the one described in the document, these people said.

Then on July 5, Comey decided to announce on his own — without telling Lynch ahead of time — that he was closing the Clinton email case without recommending charges against anyone. Aides to Comey said he decided to act alone after Lynch met privately with Bill Clinton for nearly a half-hour on an airport tarmac in Phoenix about a week earlier — and have since said privately the Russian document was also a factor in that decision.

The appearance of possible conflict arising from the Phoenix meeting led FBI leadership to want to show it had reached the decision independently, without political interference from the Justice Department.

About a month after Comey’s announcement, FBI officials asked to meet privately with the attorney general. At the meeting, they told Lynch about a foreign source suggesting she had told Renteria that Clinton did not have to worry about the email probe, because she would keep the FBI in check, according to people familiar with the matter.

“Just so you know, I don’t know this person and have never communicated with her,’’ Lynch told the FBI officials, according to a person familiar with the discussion. The FBI officials assured her the conversation was not a formal interview and said the document “didn’t have investigative value,’’ the person said.

Nevertheless, the officials said, they wanted to give the attorney general what is sometimes referred to as a “defensive briefing’’ — advising someone of a potential intelligence issue that could come up at some future point.

The agents never mentioned Wasserman Schultz to Lynch but told her there was some uncertainty surrounding the information because of “possible translation issues,” according to a person familiar with the discussion.

Lynch told them they were welcome to speak to her staff and to conduct a formal interview of her, the person said. The FBI declined both offers.

Renteria, a California Democrat, first heard of the Russian document and its description of her role when a Post reporter called her.

“Wow, that’s kind of weird and out of left field,’’ she said. “I don’t know Loretta Lynch, the attorney general. I haven’t spoken to her.’’

Renteria said she did know a California woman by the same name who specializes in utility issues. The Loretta Lynch in California is a lawyer who once did campaign work for the Clintons decades ago involving the Whitewater investigation. Bloggers and others have previously confused the two women, including during Lynch’s nomination to be attorney general.

Wasserman Schultz and Benardo, the alleged emailers, were also perplexed by the Russian document’s claims.

Wasserman Schultz said: “Not only do I not know him — I’ve never heard of him. I don’t know who this is. There’s no truth to this whatsoever. I have never sent an email remotely like what you’re describing.’’

She added that she had met Lynch, the former attorney general, once briefly at a dinner function.

Benardo said of Wasserman Schultz: “I’ve never met her. I’ve only read about her.”

“I’ve never in my lifetime received any correspondence of any variety — correspondence, fax, telephone, from Debbie Wasserman Schultz,’’ he said. “If such documentation exists, it’s of course made up.’’

As for Renteria, Wasserman Schultz said she knew who she was from past political work but had “virtually no interaction” with her during the 2016 campaign. “I was definitely in the same room as her on more than one occasion, but we did not interact, and no email exchange during the campaign, or ever,’’ she said.

When asked, the individuals named in the document struggled to fathom why their identities would have been woven together in a document describing communications they said never happened. But others recognized the dim outlines of a conspiracy theory that would be less surprising in Russia, where Soros — the founder of the organization Benardo works for — and Clinton are both regarded as political enemies of the Kremlin.

“The idea that Russians would tell a story in which the Clinton campaign, Soros and even an Obama administration official are connected — that Russians might tell such a story, that is not at all surprising,” said Matt Rojansky, a Russia expert and director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center. “Because that is part of the Kremlin worldview.”

The secret intelligence document has attracted so much attention recently that Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) asked Comey about it during the director’s final public appearance in Congress as FBI director before he was fired.

Comey said that he had spoken with the heads of the congressional intelligence committees about the document privately but that it was too sensitive to discuss it in public.

“The subject is classified, and in an appropriate forum I’d be happy to brief you on it,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “But I can’t do it in an open hearing.”

No such briefing occurred before he was fired.

Wow

[candygirl200413]

hklgsadhlhkgldsalhkda.

summary of my current emotions after reading that. Hopes Comey knows in history how much he fucked up this nation (among others, but damn really?!)

[GreyhoundFan]

"Sessions didn’t disclose meetings with Russian officials on security clearance form"

Spoiler

Attorney General Jeff Sessions did not reveal meetings with Russian officials when he applied for his security clearance to serve as the nation’s highest-ranking law enforcement official.

Sessions came under fire earlier this year for not disclosing to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing that, as the senator from Alabama, he met twice with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential election when he was also serving as an adviser to the president. In March, Sessions recused himself from investigations related to the 2016 presidential campaign after The Washington Post reported the two meetings.

That same information was omitted from Sessions’s security clearance form, which is known as an SF-86, as first reported Wednesday night by CNN.

“As a United States senator, the attorney general met hundreds — if not thousands — of foreign dignitaries and their staff,” said Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior. “In filling out the SF-86 form, the Attorney General’s staff consulted with those familiar with the process, as well as the FBI investigator handling the background check, and was instructed not to list meetings with foreign dignitaries and their staff connected with his Senate activities.”

An FBI spokesman declined to comment.

The security clearance form requires anyone applying for a security clearance to list “any contact” that he or his family had with a foreign government or its representatives over the past seven years.

A Justice official said that in July, a Sessions staffer was helping Sessions fill out the security clearance form because he was being vetted for a possible position in the Trump administration if Trump won the presidency. The staffer asked an FBI employee handling the vetting if he needed to list seven years of contacts that Sessions had with foreign dignitaries and their staff, and he was told no, the Justice official said.

In late November, after the election, the Sessions staffer helped Sessions fill out a new security clearance form, but did not ask the FBI the same question again — and did not list all the contacts.

Another Sessions staffer who went to work at the Justice Department was also told by an FBI investigator that he did not have to list the many meetings with foreign dignitaries and their staffs if it was related to Senate business, the Justice official said.

After Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, Sessions sent out a list of all the ambassadors he met with in 2016. He also amended his Senate testimony and said he spoke briefly with Kislyak during the Republican National Convention in July 2016. He said he also spoke with Kislyak in September during a meeting in his Senate office, which included two senior Sessions staffers.

At the March 2 press conference where he announced his recusal, Sessions said he talked to Kislyak about a trip he made to Russia in 1991, terrorism and Ukraine. The attorney general said that it “got to be a little bit of a testy conversation.” The ambassador invited him to lunch, Sessions said, but he did not accept.

When Sessions recused himself, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein was tasked with overseeing the FBI probe. But last week, after calls from lawmakers for a special counsel, Rosenstein appointed former FBI director Robert S. Mueller III to take over the investigation as special counsel.

Gee, if anyone else did this, they'd lose their clearance. And, how typical, blame it on a staff member.

[warriorblade8857]

From The Wall Street Journal: "How Alleged Russian Hacker Teamed Up With Florida GOP Operative; Political consultant Aaron Nevins received documents from hacker ‘Guccifer 2.0’ and posted some on his blog; Guccifer called the blog to the attention of Trump adviser Roger Stone."

Details can be found at The Hill:

Spoiler

A Republican operative in Florida received a trove of Democratic documents from the Russia-linked hacker believed to be a key player in the Kremlin's efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

The Wall Street Journal identified the operative as Aaron Nevins, who last summer told hacker Guccifer 2.0 to "feel free to send any Florida based information" after learning that the hacker had tapped into Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee computers.

Nevins set up a Dropbox to allow Guccifer 2.0 to share 2.5 gigabytes of stolen DCCC documents, according to the Journal. The GOP operative then published some of the material on the blog HelloFLA.com, using a pseudonym.

Guccifer 2.0 sent a link to the blog post soon afterwards to Republican operative Roger Stone, a longtime confidante and associate of then-candidate Donald Trump.

Nevins told the Journal in an interview that after receiving the stolen documents from the hacker he "realized it was a lot more than even Guccifer knew that he had."

The DCCC documents that were leaked to Nevins analyzed voters in key Florida districts, breaking down how many people were considered dependable Democratic voters, undecided Democrats, Republican voters and the like.

It was known that HelloFLA.com had published hacked Democratic documents, but it was previously unclear how much material was sent and who the operative behind the blog was.

That Guccifer 2.0 sent stolen Democratic documents to a GOP operative in a key swing state shows that the hacker's activities stretched beyond the massive leak of Democratic National Committee material that made national headlines last year.

The FBI and congressional committees are currently investigating Russia's efforts to interfere in and disrupt the 2016 presidential election through a massive influence and hacking campaign. The U.S. intelligence community concluded in a report made public in January that Moscow had meddled in the election.

They are also probing any possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Trump has repeatedly denied any coordination with Russian officials, and the Kremlin has done so as well while also rejecting any connection to Guccifer 2.0.

Nevins himself cast doubt on the Russians' role in the hacks, but told the Journal that he did not care either way, because his interests appeared to fall in line with those of the hackers.

“If your interests align, never shut any doors in politics,” he said.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"‘Anyone . . . with a pulse’: How a Russia-friendly adviser found his way into the Trump campaign"

Spoiler

As Donald Trump surged in the Republican primary polls in the early months of 2016, his outsider campaign faced growing pressure to show that the former reality-TV star and noted provocateur was forming a coherent and credible world view.

So when Carter Page, an international businessman with an office near Trump Tower, turned up at campaign headquarters, former officials recall, Trump aides were quick to make him feel welcome.

A top Trump adviser, Sam Clovis, employed what campaign aides now acknowledge was their go-to vetting process — a quick Google search — to check out the newcomer. He seemed to have the right qualifications, according to former campaign officials — head of an energy investment firm, business degree from New York University, doctorate from the University of London.

Page was in. He joined a new Trump campaign national security advisory group, and, in late March 2016, the candidate pointed to Page, among others, as evidence of a foreign policy team with gravitas.

But what the Google search had not shown was that Page had been on the FBI’s radar since at least 2013, when Russian officials allegedly attempted to use him to get information about the energy business.

By the summer of 2016, Page, who had been recently named as a Trump adviser, was under surveillance by FBI agents who suspected he may have been acting as an agent of the Kremlin.

As part of its broader investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, the FBI continues to examine how Page joined the campaign and what conversations he may have had with Russian officials about the effort to interfere with the election — with or without the knowledge of Trump and his team — according to people familiar with the matter.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has also zeroed in on Page, asking him for records of all his contacts with Russians during the campaign, all financial interactions he had with Russia and all communications he had with Trump campaign staff.

The circumstances that led to Page’s easy access to the Trump campaign represents one of the main questions facing investigators: Were Trump’s connections to multiple Russia-friendly advisers mere coincidence, or evidence of a coordinated attempt to collude with a foreign government? Or were they the result of incompetent vetting that left a neophyte candidate vulnerable to influence from people with nefarious agendas?

Regardless of the answer, the campaign’s previously unreported procedures for vetting Page and other advisers are greatly complicating matters for Trump’s presidency. Along with Page, a number of other Trump associates are under growing scrutiny by congressional investigators and the FBI as they examine potential ties between the campaign and Moscow, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn, onetime campaign chairman Paul Manafort and informal Trump adviser Roger Stone.

This week, former CIA director John Brennan told the House Intelligence Committee that in 2016 he had seen intelligence revealing “contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals.” He did not name the individuals, but said that when he stepped down as CIA director on Jan. 20, he had “unresolved questions” about whether the Russians had been successful in getting campaign associates to work on their behalf “in a witting or unwitting fashion.”

Multiple people familiar with campaign operations, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said that Page and others were brought into the fold at a time of desperation for the Trump team. As Trump was starting to win primaries, he was under increasing pressure to show that he had a legitimate, presidential-caliber national security team. The problem he faced was that most mainstream national security experts wanted nothing to do with him.

“Everyone did their best, but there was not as much vetting as there could have been,” former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said.

Another longtime campaign official put it this way: “Anyone who came to us with a pulse, a résumé and seemed legit would be welcomed.”

“We were not exactly making due diligence the highest priority,” another campaign veteran added.

A White House spokeswoman referred questions to Trump’s campaign. Michael Glassner, who currently serves as manager of Trump’s campaign committee, declined to comment.

Page and Trump aides have said that Page never met Trump, and Page left the campaign in August 2016. Page has denied working on behalf of the Russians and said questions about his Moscow ties are part of a political witch hunt designed by Democrats to discredit Trump.

Page declined to answer questions about how he joined the Trump team and who invited him aboard, calling the matter “irrelevant” in an email exchange with The Washington Post and saying that answering such questions “only drags another innocent person into the same kind of harassment you’re submitting me to today.”

In a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein last week, Page wrote that he had been “an informal, unpaid member of one of [Trump’s] campaign committees.”

In his defense, Page in recent weeks has sent a series of meandering letters to investigators. He has quoted Maroon 5 lyrics, cited the writings of George Orwell and said he is being persecuted because of his Catholic faith.

In a letter sent Wednesday to the House Intelligence Committee, Page referred to himself as an “unpaid, informal member of the Make America Great Again movement,” a reference to Trump’s campaign slogan, and said he had been “illegitimately swept up into this investigation” based on “false evidence and propaganda.”

Page’s entry to the campaign came as Trump was starting to win Republican primaries and take commanding leads in GOP polls — but was also facing criticism for his lack of foreign policy advisers.

In early March 2016, more than 70 conservative national security experts signed an open letter opposing Trump’s candidacy, calling him “fundamentally dishonest.” Trump announced that then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the only senator supporting him, would chair a foreign policy panel for the campaign — but no other members of the panel were named publicly.

When the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” pressed Trump on air in mid-March to name people with whom he spoke about foreign affairs, the candidate’s response only seemed to underscore his lack of serious advice.

“I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain,” he said.

As the campaign maneuvered behind the scenes to expand its ranks, Page had at least one built-in advantage when he joined the Trump campaign: geographic proximity.

He ran a company, Global Energy Capital LLC, with offices located a block from Trump Tower and connected by an atrium to the famed property.

Several former officials recall that when Page first showed up at Trump Tower, Lewandowski introduced him to other campaign aides. Lewandowski said he could not remember the encounter, which was first reported by the Daily Caller, but also did not rule it out.

Some campaign veterans speculated that Page may have volunteered his services, essentially walking into campaign headquarters and introducing himself without a referral — a frequent occurrence at Trump Tower in those early days.

While refusing to provide any details, Page rejected this version of events.

“Wrong again,” he told The Post via text message. “At least one other primary person(s) involved.”

Clovis, who assembled and vetted the list of national security advisers that included Page, declined to comment. Now a top official at the Agriculture Department, Clovis had worked on Russia-related issues at the Pentagon in the 1980s and, as a candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa in 2014, had questioned the effectiveness of sanctions imposed after Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.

Page told CNN’s Jake Tapper in April that Clovis was not his entree to the campaign. “He was not the first person that brought me in,” Page said. “I can assure you of that.”

Representatives for Flynn, Sessions and Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser, declined to comment. A White House official said senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, also a key campaign staffer at the time, had no role in the formation of the foreign policy group.

A thorough vetting of Page might have revealed several red flags. Page had spent three years working in Moscow, for instance, and he held stock in the Russian company Gazprom, meaning that he could have a personal financial stake in the future of U.S.-imposed sanctions against Russia.

Page wrote in a September letter to then-FBI Director James B. Comey that he had sold his “de minimis equity investment” in the Russian company at a loss a month earlier.

Page had previously drawn the attention of the FBI after he had conversations in 2013 with a man posing as an executive with the New York branch of the Russian development bank Vnesheconombank. The man was later convicted of being a Russian spy, and FBI recordings included discussions among Russian operatives about their attempts to recruit Page. Page has said that he cooperated with the FBI and that the only crime related to the incident is that U.S. government officials appear to have recently revealed his role to the media.

By late March 2016, when Trump appeared before The Post’s editorial board, he was prepared to brag about his new foreign policy team.

“I can give you some of the names,” Trump said after Post Publisher Fred Ryan asked about his advisers.

Second on the list of five read aloud by Trump: “Carter Page, PhD.”

Another unusual name on Trump’s list of foreign policy experts was a little-known figure named George Papadopoulos, whose inclusion may also have demonstrated the vulnerabilities that came with limited vetting.

“He’s an energy consultant,” Trump said. “Excellent guy.”

The news media soon reported that Papadopoulos seemed to have exaggerated elements of his résumé. And, touting his position as a Trump adviser, Papadopoulos began offering positive comments about Putin to foreign audiences.

Papadopoulos did not respond to requests for comment. His name had surfaced four months earlier on a similar list of foreign policy advisers circulated by the presidential campaign of Ben Carson.

Barry Bennett, who served as Carson’s campaign manager and later as an adviser to Trump, recalled that he was surprised when Trump named Papadopoulos to his team.

“He was someone who worked for me at the Carson campaign for, like, 15 minutes. And somehow he was on the list,” Bennett said of his reaction to the Trump roster. “I was, like, how in the hell did that happen?”

Trump soon added a few additional names to the group and held a formal briefing with it in a conference room at his not-yet-opened hotel in Washington. A photo of that session distributed by Trump on social media — “meeting with my national security team,” Trump wrote — showed the candidate at the head of the table and Sessions at the opposite end.

Papadopoulos could be seen at the table. Page was not there, and Trump officials have said that Trump never met Page during his five-month stint as an adviser.

People involved with the campaign recall that Page attended other meetings that the group held in Washington, including one attended by Sessions. He also submitted policy memos for the campaign’s review, a former campaign adviser said.

In June, Page stunned a group of foreign policy luminaries during a private meeting at Blair House with the visiting prime minister of India by going off-topic to declare that Putin was a stronger and more reliable leader than President Obama, according to people who were in the room. Page also promised that U.S.-Russian relations would improve if Trump were elected. Page has denied this account, blaming it on his political enemies.

The next month, Page delivered a speech at a Russian university in which he was highly critical of U.S. policy. Page has said he met with no Russian government officials during the trip, except for briefly greeting a deputy prime minister who attended the event.

Over the summer, the FBI convinced a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of Russia, law enforcement and other U.S. officials told The Post last month.

Page’s name also appeared in a now-famous dossier, which quietly circulated among reporters and alleged links between Trump associates and the Kremlin. The document asserted that Page met with top Russian officials to plot how to elect Trump.

The document, which was compiled by a former British spy employed by Trump’s political adversaries, became public after the election and was dismissed by Trump and his allies as “fake news.” Page vigorously rejects the allegation about him and said the FBI should spend its time investigating how the document came together instead of his activities.

Page used his Wednesday letter to the House Intelligence Committee to defend his contacts with the Russians. Presenting the letter as a “follow-up” to Brennan’s testimony, Page wrote that throughout “my interactions with the Russians in 2016, I consistently made it crystal clear that all of my benign statements and harmless actions in Moscow as well as elsewhere overseas were solely made as a scholar and a business person speaking only on behalf of myself. In other words, in no way connected to then-candidate Trump.”

Earlier this month, Page insisted in writing to the Senate Intelligence Committee that for all the attention he has received, he did not once meet Trump.

“In retrospect and with the 1984-inspired governance standards employed in 2016,” Page wrote, “I consider it fortunate that I never briefed Mr. Trump.”

Dirtier and dirtier...

[candygirl200413]

Daily reminder that Comey will live for the rest of his life on how he was a key player on fucking up America's democracy as we know it.

Sources: Comey acted on Russian intelligence he knew was fake

Quote

Then-FBI Director James Comey knew that a critical piece of information relating to the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email was fake -- created by Russian intelligence -- but he feared that if it became public it would undermine the probe and the Justice Department itself, according to multiple officials with knowledge of the process.

As a result, Comey acted unilaterally last summer to publicly declare the investigation over -- without consulting then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch -- while at the same time stating that Clinton had been "extremely careless" in her handling of classified information. His press conference caused a firestorm of controversy and drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans.

Comey's actions based on what he knew was Russian disinformation offer a stark example of the way Russian interference impacted the decisions of the highest-level US officials during the 2016 campaign.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that this Russian intelligence was unreliable. US officials now tell CNN that Comey and FBI officials actually knew early on that this intelligence was indeed false.

n fact, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe went to Capitol Hill Thursday to push back on the notion that the FBI was duped, according to a source familiar with a meeting McCabe had with members of the Senate intelligence committee.

The Russian intelligence at issue purported to show that then-Attorney General Lynch had been compromised in the Clinton investigation. The intelligence described emails between then-Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and a Clinton campaign operative suggesting that Lynch would make the FBI investigation of Clinton go away.

In classified sessions with members of Congress several months ago, Comey described those emails in the Russian claim and expressed his concern that this Russian information could "drop" and that would undermine the Clinton investigation and the Justice Department in general, according to one government official.

Still, Comey did not let on to lawmakers that there were doubts about the veracity of the intelligence, according to sources familiar with the briefings. It is unclear why Comey was not more forthcoming in a classified setting.

Sources close to Comey tell CNN he felt that it didn't matter if the information was accurate, because his big fear was that if the Russians released the information publicly, there would be no way for law enforcement and intelligence officials to discredit it without burning intelligence sources and methods.

In at least one classified session, Comey cited that intelligence as the primary reason he took the unusual step of publicly announcing the end of the Clinton email probe.

In that briefing, Comey did not even mention the other reason he gave in public testimony for acting independently of the Justice Department -- that Lynch was compromised because Bill Clinton boarded her plane and spoke to her during the investigation, these sources told CNN.

Multiple US officials tell CNN that to this day Russia is trying to spread false information in the US -- through elected officials and American intelligence and law enforcement operatives -- in order to cloud and confuse ongoing investigations.

 

[fraurosena]

Subtlety, thy name is Mueller...

Mueller stresses honesty, integrity at graduation address

Quote

Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the Russia investigation, extolled the importance of integrity in a commencement address Monday afternoon, telling graduates "nothing else matters" if you aren't honest.

The former FBI director was speaking at Tabor Academy, a small boarding school in Marion, Massachusetts, on the shores located near Cape Cod. His speech on Monday was his first public appearance since being named special counsel.

Mueller's granddaughter is one of the 133 graduates, school spokeswoman Molly Horan told CNN.

Mueller did not mention the Russia investigation, but the schoolmaster joked before his address that Mueller has "a few things going on" right now and thanked him for making time for the speech.

He urged students to value integrity.

"When given the opportunity to address students, I always mention integrity because it is so essential to who and what you ultimately will become," Mueller said. "Whatever we do, we must act with honesty and with integrity, and regardless of you chosen career, you are only as good as your word."

Mueller also said "nothing else matters" if you aren't honest.

"You can be smart, aggressive, articulate and indeed persuasive, but if you are not honest, your reputation will suffer, and once lost a good reputation can never, ever be regained," Mueller said. "As the saying goes, if you have integrity, nothing else matters, and if you do not have integrity, nothing else matters." [...]

 

[fraurosena]

What everyone's been thinking all along, has potentially been verified:

Sources: Russians discussed potentially 'derogatory' information about Trump and associates during campaign

Spoiler

Russian government officials discussed having potentially "derogatory" information about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and some of his top aides in conversations intercepted by US intelligence during the 2016 election, according to two former intelligence officials and a congressional source.

One source described the information as financial in nature and said the discussion centered on whether the Russians had leverage over Trump's inner circle. The source said the intercepted communications suggested to US intelligence that Russians believed "they had the ability to influence the administration through the derogatory information."

But the sources, privy to the descriptions of the communications written by US intelligence, cautioned the Russian claims to one another "could have been exaggerated or even made up" as part of a disinformation campaign that the Russians did during the election.

The details of the communication shed new light on information US intelligence received about Russian claims of influence. The contents of the conversations made clear to US officials that Russia was considering ways to influence the election -- even if their claims turned out to be false.

None of the sources would say which specific Trump aides were discussed. One of the officials said the intelligence report masked the American names but it was clear the conversations revolved around the Trump campaign team. Another source would not give more specifics, citing the classified nature of the information.

"The Russians could be overstating their belief to influence," said one of the sources.

As CNN first reported, the US intercepted discussions of Russian officials bragging about cultivating relationships with Trump campaign aides during the campaign, including Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, to influence Trump. Following CNN's report, The New York Times said Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort was also discussed.

A White House spokesman told CNN: "This is yet another round of false and unverified claims made by anonymous sources to smear the President. The reality is, a review of the President's income from the last ten years showed he had virtually no financial ties at all. There appears to be no limit to which the President's political opponents will go to perpetuate this false narrative, including illegally leaking classified material. All this does is play into the hands of our adversaries and put our country at risk."

The FBI declined to comment for this story. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Flynn did not return calls seeking comment.

Manafort has denied he received any illicit finances and also denied any wrongdoing in connection with his work for Trump and foreign officials before joining the Trump campaign. He has offered to testify before congressional committees investigating Russia's election interference.

The FBI investigation into Russian meddling in the US election, recently handed over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, includes seeking answers as to whether there was any coordination with associates of Trump and includes examining financial dealings of key Trump associates. The FBI would not comment on whether any of the claims discussed in the intercepts have been verified.

But US counterintelligence investigators were already looking into the Russian claims during the summer of 2016, before the public became aware of similar claims in a dossier created for political opponents of Trump by a former British spy. The former spy, Christopher Steele, shared some of those findings with the FBI during the summer of 2016.

CNN has not been able to verify the allegations about the derogatory information in the dossier, but current and former US officials say some of the Russia-to-Russia conversations in the dossier have been corroborated.

By the time Trump took office, questions about some of his aides' financial dealings with Russian entities were already under investigation.

Soon after the Republican convention, Manafort had already stepped aside because of questions about off-the-book payments he received before joining the Trump campaign consulting for Russia-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his political allies, officials told CNN last summer.

In addition, a December 2015 visit to Moscow by Flynn caught the attention of US intelligence officials, multiple sources tell CNN. On that trip, Flynn appeared alongside Putin at a gala in honor of Russian state media outlet RT.

That visit was followed with an increase in conversations between Flynn and Russia's ambassador in the US, according to the officials familiar with the matter.

Flynn now faces multiple investigations for failing to disclose on his security clearance forms payments he received for the Moscow trip from Russian entities, in addition to questions about lobbying he did for Turkey.

The President himself has denied having any financial ties to Russia. But his company has had some business dealings in the country over the years.

Comments from the President's sons -- who currently run the Trump Organization's sprawling business -- have raised questions about ties to Russia.

In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. said at a forum on real estate markets that Trump's businesses "see a lot of money pouring in from Russia." Earlier this year, journalist James Dodson claimed that in 2014, Eric Trump told him that that the golf business did not need American investment because "we have all the funding we need out of Russia." Eric Trump has vigorously denied he made the remark.

Trump's personal attorneys recently released a letter asserting that in the past decade of tax returns, "with few exceptions," there is no income from Russians sources, including debt owed or interest paid to Russian lenders by Trump or his business entities. In a break from decades of tradition, the President has refused to release his tax returns.

But the letter acknowledges there has been some business with Russia in the past. The first was income Trump received from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant held in Moscow. Trump also sold a Florida property to a Russian billionaire for millions in profit. Lastly, the "ordinary course sales of goods and services to Russians or Russian entities, such as sales/rentals/fees for condominiums, hotel rooms, rounds of golf, books or Trump-licensed products."

 

[nvmbr02]

2 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

What everyone's been thinking all along, has potentially been verified:

Sources: Russians discussed potentially 'derogatory' information about Trump and associates during campaign

  Reveal hidden contents

Russian government officials discussed having potentially "derogatory" information about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and some of his top aides in conversations intercepted by US intelligence during the 2016 election, according to two former intelligence officials and a congressional source.

One source described the information as financial in nature and said the discussion centered on whether the Russians had leverage over Trump's inner circle. The source said the intercepted communications suggested to US intelligence that Russians believed "they had the ability to influence the administration through the derogatory information."

But the sources, privy to the descriptions of the communications written by US intelligence, cautioned the Russian claims to one another "could have been exaggerated or even made up" as part of a disinformation campaign that the Russians did during the election.

The details of the communication shed new light on information US intelligence received about Russian claims of influence. The contents of the conversations made clear to US officials that Russia was considering ways to influence the election -- even if their claims turned out to be false.

None of the sources would say which specific Trump aides were discussed. One of the officials said the intelligence report masked the American names but it was clear the conversations revolved around the Trump campaign team. Another source would not give more specifics, citing the classified nature of the information.

"The Russians could be overstating their belief to influence," said one of the sources.

As CNN first reported, the US intercepted discussions of Russian officials bragging about cultivating relationships with Trump campaign aides during the campaign, including Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, to influence Trump. Following CNN's report, The New York Times said Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort was also discussed.

A White House spokesman told CNN: "This is yet another round of false and unverified claims made by anonymous sources to smear the President. The reality is, a review of the President's income from the last ten years showed he had virtually no financial ties at all. There appears to be no limit to which the President's political opponents will go to perpetuate this false narrative, including illegally leaking classified material. All this does is play into the hands of our adversaries and put our country at risk."

The FBI declined to comment for this story. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and Flynn did not return calls seeking comment.

Manafort has denied he received any illicit finances and also denied any wrongdoing in connection with his work for Trump and foreign officials before joining the Trump campaign. He has offered to testify before congressional committees investigating Russia's election interference.

The FBI investigation into Russian meddling in the US election, recently handed over to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, includes seeking answers as to whether there was any coordination with associates of Trump and includes examining financial dealings of key Trump associates. The FBI would not comment on whether any of the claims discussed in the intercepts have been verified.

But US counterintelligence investigators were already looking into the Russian claims during the summer of 2016, before the public became aware of similar claims in a dossier created for political opponents of Trump by a former British spy. The former spy, Christopher Steele, shared some of those findings with the FBI during the summer of 2016.

CNN has not been able to verify the allegations about the derogatory information in the dossier, but current and former US officials say some of the Russia-to-Russia conversations in the dossier have been corroborated.

By the time Trump took office, questions about some of his aides' financial dealings with Russian entities were already under investigation.

Soon after the Republican convention, Manafort had already stepped aside because of questions about off-the-book payments he received before joining the Trump campaign consulting for Russia-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his political allies, officials told CNN last summer.

In addition, a December 2015 visit to Moscow by Flynn caught the attention of US intelligence officials, multiple sources tell CNN. On that trip, Flynn appeared alongside Putin at a gala in honor of Russian state media outlet RT.

That visit was followed with an increase in conversations between Flynn and Russia's ambassador in the US, according to the officials familiar with the matter.

Flynn now faces multiple investigations for failing to disclose on his security clearance forms payments he received for the Moscow trip from Russian entities, in addition to questions about lobbying he did for Turkey.

The President himself has denied having any financial ties to Russia. But his company has had some business dealings in the country over the years.

Comments from the President's sons -- who currently run the Trump Organization's sprawling business -- have raised questions about ties to Russia.

In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. said at a forum on real estate markets that Trump's businesses "see a lot of money pouring in from Russia." Earlier this year, journalist James Dodson claimed that in 2014, Eric Trump told him that that the golf business did not need American investment because "we have all the funding we need out of Russia." Eric Trump has vigorously denied he made the remark.

Trump's personal attorneys recently released a letter asserting that in the past decade of tax returns, "with few exceptions," there is no income from Russians sources, including debt owed or interest paid to Russian lenders by Trump or his business entities. In a break from decades of tradition, the President has refused to release his tax returns.

But the letter acknowledges there has been some business with Russia in the past. The first was income Trump received from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant held in Moscow. Trump also sold a Florida property to a Russian billionaire for millions in profit. Lastly, the "ordinary course sales of goods and services to Russians or Russian entities, such as sales/rentals/fees for condominiums, hotel rooms, rounds of golf, books or Trump-licensed products."

 

I was coming to post this too! Great minds think alike. 

 

The part that worries me is the part of the article that mentions the Russians may have been exaggerating to each other. I hope not, I hope there is something big that is black and white. My worry is that Trump supporters have their heads shoved so far up their asses that they wont believe anything that isn't a slam dunk...and maybe not even then. I worry about our future. What happens after Trump and how the country recovers. 

 

 

 

[fraurosena]

53 minutes ago, nvmbr02 said:

I was coming to post this too! Great minds think alike. 

 

The part that worries me is the part of the article that mentions the Russians may have been exaggerating to each other. I hope not, I hope there is something big that is black and white. My worry is that Trump supporters have their heads shoved so far up their asses that they wont believe anything that isn't a slam dunk...and maybe not even then. I worry about our future. What happens after Trump and how the country recovers. 

 

 

 

Keep in mind, the things we the public know, have been brought to us by the media. The media knows a lot, and has a ton of information, but they are merely reporters doing research. They are not like the professional investigators the FBI and other investigative agencies have at their disposal, and they (the media) don't have all the resources the FBI have either. So what is known to the public is only a fraction of the evidence. And that evidence is going to be so damning that no one will be able, or even willing to deny it, when it is finally released.

Only the most fervent Branch Trumpvidians (who love their conspiracy theories anyway) will be in denial. But that will only be so much chatter.

And after this presiduncy? Well, then the American people will have the unique opportunity to change everything that is so wrong about the current governmental system that made this presiduncy possible in the first place, and ensure that true democracy is emplaced.

[Howl]

What occurs to me is that the US election was a big win for the Russians, who are in the process of learning how to disrupt elections -- any election in any country. I suspect they have been trying to perfect this all along over they years, but a combination of events -- a malleable candidate with connections to Russian money, perfecting the weaponizing of hacked information, other financial involvement with Russian money, the malleable Michael Flynn, Manafort, Carter Page, the chaos and naivete of the Trump team, the alt-right, the fractured American electorate  -- all these factors and others came together in a perfect storm of election influence and post-election posturing.  What I think the Russians did NOT count on was the extent to which this is all being exposed, because in Russia, you simply murder the journalists or leakers who are getting too close to the truth.  And who knows how much kompromat exists on American politicians. 

The Russians were certainly attempting to do the same in France's recent election and lost big time, but you know they'll never give up.  However, Putin just visited France, and got his ass handed to him by Macron.  In the nicest possible way Macron conveyed to the Russians that he wouldn't put up with their shit.  Based solely on Macron's fabulous moment out-handshaking Trump, Macron is not a guy to be messed with.  Based on both style and substance, he and Justin Trudeau can take over a new world order anytime.  

[fraurosena]

@Howl, what an insightful post. That needs to be said with more than an upvote!

[sawasdee]

I read the comments on WaPo articles - yes, sometimes a foolish endeavour.

But I have noticed a slackening of pro Tangerine Toddler posts - and those there are, are usually fairly generic, and can be attributed to trolls and bots.

But there was a classic today, which claimed that Mueller's investigation was a cover story to continue the investigation into Hillary, and would end in her indictment.....

Can't make up my mind if it's a troll, or a terminally stupid tRump Dravidian.

[Audrey2]

@fraurosena, Will Fox News finally report the issues with the Russian Connection? Unless and until Fox News says this is a problem, the Branch Trumpvidians will insist this is fake news, created by the liberal media. It is not in the interest of Fox News to even mention the Russian Connection because it would reflect badly on the candidate they annoited. Trump followers only get their news from Fox and alt right sources, so, even if they do hear something said on another news source, they'll consider it heresy.

[fraurosena]

8 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

@fraurosena, Will Fox News finally report the issues with the Russian Connection? Unless and until Fox News says this is a problem, the Branch Trumpvidians will insist this is fake news, created by the liberal media. It is not in the interest of Fox News to even mention the Russian Connection because it would reflect badly on the candidate they annoited. Trump followers only get their news from Fox and alt right sources, so, even if they do hear something said on another news source, they'll consider it heresy.

This is somewhat true. As of late, CNN, NBC and MSNBC have been trumping Faux News in ratings more and more often. So things might just be changing on that front. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"President Trump's personal attorney is now in the crosshairs of the Senate's Russia probe"

Spoiler

The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked President Donald Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to provide information about his contacts with Russian officials as part of its probe into Russia's election interference and whether any Trump associates colluded with Moscow.

Cohen told ABC on Tuesday that he "declined the invitation to participate as the request was poorly phrased, overly broad and not capable of being answered." He told CNN later that the senators "have yet to produce one single piece of credible evidence that would corroborate the Russia narrative."

Cohen did not respond to request for additional comment from Business Insider.

Cohen's refusal to cooperate with the committee comes one week after former national security adviser Michael Flynn said through his lawyer that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right and decline a subpoena issued by the Senate for documents related to his interactions with Russian officials from June 2015 to January 2017.

Carter Page, an early foreign policy adviser to Trump's campaign team, has also declined to provide the committee with similar documents.

The Senate Intelligence Committee voted last week to give the committee's chairman and ranking member, Sens. Richard Burr and Mark Warner, blanket authority to issue subpoenas where they deem necessary. It is unclear whether the committee plans to subpoena Cohen, and Page told Business Insider last week that he has not yet been subpoenaed.

Spokespeople for Burr and Warner did not immediately respond to request for comment. NBC later confirmed that both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are seeking information from Cohen about his Russia ties.

Cohen was at the center of a bombshell New York Times report published earlier this year that said he hand-delivered a "peace plan for Russia and Ukraine" to Flynn before the latter was asked to resign as national security adviser in February.

The plan — originally drafted by Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Artemenko — outlined lifting sanctions on Russia in return for Moscow withdrawing its support for pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine, according to the report. It would also allow Russia to maintain control over Crimea, the peninsula it annexed in 2014.

Cohen has denied having hand-delivered the plan to Flynn, but Artemenko told Business Insider earlier this year that he "got confirmation" that Cohen brought the document to the White House.

Cohen was also named as a middleman for Trump and Russia in the dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. The dossier, which contained many unverified claims but which investigators have used as a "roadmap" in their probe, alleged that the Trump campaign and Moscow conspired to undermine Hillary Clinton during the election.

In January, Cohen told ABC that the allegations in the dossier were "laughably false." The dossier says Cohen met with Russian officials in Prague last August, but Cohen said he was in California visiting colleges with his son.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has also asked Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and one of his longtime confidants, Roger Stone, for information about their contacts with Russians during the election. Both Stone and Manafort have agreed to be interviewed by the committee.

It seems like almost everyone around Agent Orange is neck-deep in Russian dirt.