The Russian Connection 2

[fraurosena]

This is an interesting and informative op-ed in the Observer by John Schindler.

The Trump-Putin War on American Intelligence Is in Overdrive

Quote

In my last column, I criticized the anti-Trump “resistance” for its excessive zeal in exposing Russian espionage, observing that counterintelligence work driven by politics and emotion rather than facts and discipline is bound to go wrong. At worst, we run the risk of a new wave of McCarthyism, with meandering witch-hunts for Kremlin agents (most of them imaginary) instead of serious counterspy efforts.

What’s interesting is that the “resistance” is a movement of the Left and its adherents, with few exceptions, are recent fans of counterespionage. Their interest in Russian spying is driven by Donald Trump and is as intense as it is new. Their enthusiasm for unmasking traitors customarily outpaces their understanding of real-world intelligence operations.

It’s difficult to miss that these are the same people who mocked Mitt Romney only five years ago when the Republican nominee for president presciently opined that Russia constituted our main geopolitical foe—a suggestion that was mocked as old-think by President Barack Obama and his followers.

Moreover, the Left was hardly brimming with anti-Kremlin zeal back in the 1970s and 1980s, when it was mainly the Right, aided by a few stodgy old Democratic Cold Warriors, that signaled the alarm about Soviet espionage and propaganda as a threat to our country and the West. Indeed, for many on the Left, the notion that Moscow was aggressively spying on us was a notion deserving of derision.

How times change. Now the Left is on the enthusiastic hunt for Russian agents, while the Right has transformed itself seemingly overnight from a Romneyian skepticism about the Kremlin to indifference to the threat at best, and at worst a strange and unsettling affection for Vladimir Putin. President Donald Trump is the Republicans’ biggest Kremlin fan, and his reticence to hear anything bad about Russia extends to any classified White House discussions about Kremlin interference in our 2016 election. As a bombshell new report in the Washington Post explains, the president’s Intelligence Community briefers customarily avoid anything to do with Russia in their daily briefing to the commander-in-chief altogether, lest they upset him by saying something bad about Putin.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Team Trump has now taken to direct public attacks on our Intelligence Community in a desperate effort to stave off the results of the investigation of the president’s ties to Moscow that’s being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. President Trump’s lawyers misinformed him that the Russia investigation would wrap up by the end of 2017, without grave damage to the White House. That was patently false, as demonstrated by recent indictments and plea deals by major members of Team Trump, not to mention the prospect of more indictments soon—perhaps of people even closer to the president.

With his presidency and more on the line, Donald Trump is in the fight of his life, and it’s no coincidence that his media mouthpieces are hurling everything they can at the people who are investigating him—above all Mueller and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Attacks on Mueller are now routine, with torrents of unsubstantiated allegations of his alleged bias against President Trump. According to the Fox News version of reality, Mueller, a Republican, has surrounded himself with partisan Democrats who are out to sink Team Trump, evidence be damned.

A scandal has emerged over private text messages sent last year between Peter Strzok, a top FBI counterintelligence official, and his mistress. These texts showed Strzok to be notably anti-Trump, privately—as, let it be said, were virtually all IC personnel in 2016 who were acquainted with the modus operandi of Russian intelligence, since they understood that Trump’s Kremlin ties were problematic at best—and as a result Mueller removed him from the special counsel investigation.

This event has been turned into a cause célèbre by Trump fans, notwithstanding the administration’s alleged hatred for leaks, with the implication that the FBI is tainted. Indeed, the president’s media allies are portraying our nation’s top law enforcement agency as a rogue outfit and worse. Fox News has led this charge, naturally, and last week Fox stalwart Gregg Jarrett, in an appearance on the vehemently pro-Trump Sean Hannity show, which parrots Kremlin lies, went full tinfoil, in a monologue worthy of Alex Jones:

Mueller has been using the FBI as a political weapon. The FBI has become America’s secret police. Secret surveillance, wiretapping, intimidation, harassment and threats. It’s like the old KGB that comes for you in the dark of night, banging through your door.

Not to be outdone, this week on Fox News, Tom Fitton, the head of Judicial Watch, a right-wing lobbying group, called for the Bureau’s dissolution:

I think the FBI’s been compromised. Forget about shutting down Mr. Mueller. Do we need to shut down the FBI because it was turned into a KGB-type operation by the Obama administration?

Let’s be clear here. Jarrett and Fitton—with no pushback from Fox hosts—publicly compared the FBI to the Soviet secret police, which murdered millions of innocents, ran the GULAG, and served as the enforcer of Red terror for 74 years. The KGB was one of the nastiest, most blood-drenched organizations in human history. It was judge, jury, and executioner for the Bolsheviks. The rational mind has difficulty seeing how the FBI, a law-based police force held to account by Congressional oversight, is “like the KGB” unless facts simply don’t matter anymore.

Apparently, they don’t matter to Team Trump, since their fact-free war on the FBI and more broadly the IC shows no signs of abating. Of course, there’s nothing new about attacking American counterintelligence, seeking to delegitimize it by any means possible. Throughout the last Cold War, Soviet mouthpieces and allies portrayed U.S. efforts to detect and deter Communist espionage as illegitimate, sneaky, and somehow just not right.

Hence, we have countless media depictions, beginning in the 1960s, of Western (especially American) counterintelligence as inherently suspicious, paranoid and malevolent, when not merely risible. Such characterizations served to delegitimize U.S. efforts to stymie Soviet espionage and propaganda, and none can deny they were effective. The chronic American weakness in counterintelligence has many causes, but popular distaste for their work thanks to such scurrilous media depictions is surely a factor.

The Kremlin went further, employing Active Measures on a regular basis to smear American counterintelligence, fabricating evidence such as faked “official” documents to present our counterspies in a dismal light. For decades, the FBI, America’s lead counterintelligence agency, was a special target of KGB disinformation, never more than when it was headed by J. Edgar Hoover, the eccentric yet gifted man who led the Bureau for a half-century until 1972.

As revealed by KGB archives after the Cold War, Soviet spies targeted Hoover for public harassment, and it worked. To this day, some Americans whisper sordid allegations about Hoover’s personal life: for instance, that he was secretly a flamboyant homosexual, even attending parties wearing a dress with a feather boa like an “old flapper.” Few know that these stories were ginned up by KGB disinformation specialists in Moscow and have no basis in fact. Combined with Kremlin lies that alleged the FBI was secretly behind everything from right-wing domestic terrorism to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy—the latter was another spectacularly successful Chekist Active Measure—this dirty campaign did enduring damage to the public reputation of the Bureau and its leadership.

These lies were parroted by too many Americans, mainly on the Left, until they became cosmically true due to constant repetition. They live on today despite their thorough debunking. Something similar is happening now on the Right. To protect Donald Trump from the Russia investigation, which the president has repeatedly insisted is a “hoax” and “fake news,” his defenders are spinning their own hoaxes and fake news in a sordid fashion, taking aim at core institutions of our Republic.

Since the inauguration, the Trump White House has howled gigantic curses at the alleged “deep state,” another figment of the fervent imagination of the InfoWars and Fox News set, and they’ve now taken direct aim at the FBI. The Bureau will survive this unpleasant episode, but its reputation is being damaged by allies of their boss, our president, who are acting in concert with the FBI’s old enemies in Moscow. Why the Russians seek to dismantle American counterintelligence, their main enemy in the SpyWar, is no mystery. Why our president does, however, is a deeply troubling question that gets at the heart of the rot in Washington right now.

5

 

I sincerely hope that the downfall of this administration will also directly lead to the downfall of the propaganda machine that is Faux News. 

Also, I have to shamefully admit that up till now I too believed the propaganda about Hoover...  

[onekidanddone]

22 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Also, I have to shamefully admit that up till now I too believed the propaganda about Hoover...  

Herbert or J. Edgar?

[SassyPants]

On 12/9/2017 at 5:23 AM, Botkinetti said:

That all these people who lived in their bubbles of wealth and power never learned the basic rule of “ cover your ass “ is mind blowing to me. 

They've never had to- these people are entitled and used to slithering away from problems and major indiscretions, even illegal behaviors, because of who they are. It is disgusting.

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

Herbert or J. Edgar?

J. Edgar.

48 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

They've never had to- these people are entitled and used to slithering away from problems and major indiscretions, even illegal behaviors, because of who they are. It is disgusting.

Or they just throw a lot of money at the problem. It'll either bury it or make it go away.

[Howl]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

This is an interesting and informative op-ed in the Observer by John Schindler.

The Trump-Putin War on American Intelligence Is in Overdrive

I sincerely hope that the downfall of this administration will also directly lead to the downfall of the propaganda machine that is Faux News. 

Also, I have to shamefully admit that up till now I too believed the propaganda about Hoover...  

Fascinating point of view. 

[GrumpyGran]

7 hours ago, fraurosena said:

“We must and will show support for President Trump,” Lahren says in the recording. “We cannot win this fight without support from patriot supporters like you… Can we count on you to support President Trump’s presidency?”

She should not write her own scripts. She clearly has "support" issues and is incapable of stringing together an educated statement.

[Howl]

“We cannot win this fight without support from patriot supporters like you… "

Buzzzzzzz word dog whistle to ultra right wing tea baggers. 

[GrumpyGran]

15 minutes ago, Howl said:

“We cannot win this fight without support from patriot supporters like you… "

Buzzzzzzz word dog whistle to ultra right wing tea baggers. 

And the requisite "Clinton". Actually, why do they bother with complete sentences? Dumpy doesn't and it works for him. At this point, I think the extra words just confuse the mindless humpers.

"Lock her up! Obama! MAGA! Fire Mueller! Witch hunt! MAGA! President Donald J Trump! Send money. Lots of money! MAGA! 2020! Sent money!

[AmazonGrace]

Mueller's days are numbered

 

[GrumpyGran]

41 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Mueller's days are numbered

 

He'll do it from Mar-A-Lago so he doesn't have to face anyone but his adoring fans. My husband says we should then change the locks on the White House while he's gone. So who would be up for a protest outside Mar-A-Lago on New Years Eve? Be a shame if his filthy-rich guests couldn't get into the party.

[Cartmann99]

5 hours ago, Howl said:

“We cannot win this fight without support from patriot supporters like you… "

Buzzzzzzz word dog whistle to ultra right wing tea baggers. 

Tacky Loudmouth forgot to talk about how Republican Jesus would make sure they got into the VIP section of heaven if they donated $1000 or more. 

[fraurosena]

So I woke up to the news today that the presidunce’s lawyers are accusing Mueller of illegally obtaining emails. Apart from giggling at the rich irony of that accusation (“Russians, I hope you are listening and find those 30,000 missing emails.”) I had to laugh at what Preet Bahrara had to say:

 

[fraurosena]

Renato Mariotti (former federal prosecutor and candidate for Illinois AG)  has this very informative thread on the matter:

 

[fraurosena]

I don’t know who this twitterer is, or if his revelations in the following thread are credible or not. But as it contains a copy of the letter the presidunce’s lawyers sent to Congress, I’m posting it here for those of you who are interested in reading it yourself.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

After reading the letter in the above post, read this rebuttal by GSA key officials:

Key Officials Push Back Against Trump Campaign’s Claim That A Federal Office Illegally Turned Over Emails To Special Counsel

Quote

A lawyer for the Trump transition team on Saturday accused a federal agency of illegally and unconstitutionally turning over thousands of emails to the Special Counsel's Office.

Specifically, the General Services Administration (GSA) turned over emails written during the transition — the period between Election Day 2016 and Inauguration Day 2017 — and the Trump campaign is claiming in a letter that the decision to do so violated the law.

Officials with both the Special Counsel's Office and GSA, however, pushed back against the Trump campaign lawyer's claims in the hours after the letter was issued.

Fox News first reported the existence of the letter, following an Axios report about the emails having been obtained by Special Counsel's Office.

The GSA — which is responsible under law for providing the presidential transition with office space, supplies like phones and laptops, and "ptt.gov" emails — was instructed after the transition had ended and President Trump had taken office to preserve records from the transition in connection with ongoing investigations.

In the seven-page letter, which was sent to congressional committee leaders on Saturday, a lawyer for the Trump campaign, Kory Langhofer, wrote, "We understand that the Special Counsel’s Office has subsequently made extensive use of the materials it obtained from the GSA, including materials that are susceptible to privilege claims."

According to the letter, the Mueller investigation requested, in a pair of August letters, "the emails, laptops, cell phones, and other materials" for nine transition team members working on "national security and policy matters" and four other "senior" transition team members.

Langhofer argues in the letter that decision by GSA officials went against what he calls "the GSA's previous acknowledgement concerning" the Trump campaign's "rightful ownership and control of" transition team materials.

Langhofer claims the production of transition materials to the Special Counsel's Office by GSA violated "GSA's duties to" the Trump campaign, a Presidential Transition Act requirement that "computers or communications services" to the transition team be "secure," and the Fourth Amendment. (At the same time, however, Langhofer makes clear he believes the current law should be changed "to protect future presidential transitions from having their private records misappropriated by government agencies.")

The letter also makes a specific claim about communication between the government and the campaign — that Richard Beckler, then the general counsel of the GSA, "acknowledged unequivocally to [the Trump campaign's] legal counsel" in a June 15 discussion that the Trump campaign "owned and controlled" emails, and that "any requests for the production of PTT [Presidential Transition Team] records would therefore be routed to legal counsel for [the Trump campaign]."

Langhofer puts much of the blame for the move on a career government employee, GSA Deputy Counsel Lenny Loewentritt, who he says was present for those assurances. (Beckler "was hospitalized and incapacitated" in August, according to the letter, and has since died.)

"Career GSA staff, working with Mr. Loewentritt and at the direction of the FBI, immediately produced all the materials requested by the Special Counsel’s Office – without notifying TFA [Trump for America] or filtering or redacting privileged material," Langhofer writes.

In a phone interview with BuzzFeed News on Saturday night, Loewentritt — whose LinkedIn represents that he has worked at the agency since 1972 — disputed the claims made in the letter sent by the Trump campaign.

"Beckler never made that commitment," he said of the claim that any requests for transition records would be routed to the Trump campaign's counsel. Specifically, Loewentritt said, "in using our devices," transition team members were informed that materials "would not be held back in any law enforcement" actions.

Loewentritt read to BuzzFeed News a series of agreements that anyone had to agree to when using GSA materials during the transition, including that there could be monitoring and auditing of devices and that, "Therefore, no expectation of privacy can be assumed."

Loewentritt told BuzzFeed News that the GSA initially "suggested a warrant or subpoena" for the materials, but that the Special Counsel's Office determined the letter route was sufficient.

As to whether the Trump campaign should have been informed of the request, Loewentritt said, "That's between the Special Counsel and the transition team."

Asked about Langhofer's letter and Loewentritt's statements — and after publication of this story — a spokesperson for the Special Counsel's Office, Peter Carr, told BuzzFeed News, “When we have obtained emails in the course of our ongoing criminal investigation, we have secured either the account owner’s consent or appropriate criminal process.”

3

Note that "the emails, laptops, cell phones, and other materials" for nine transition team members working on "national security and policy matters" and four other "senior" transition team members were provided to the Special Counsel's Office. That's 13 people. THIRTEEN. In all probability they include...

1. Michael Flynn (wanna bet this is how they got him to flip?)
2. Jared Kushner
3. Don Jr.

We can speculate and/or hope these senior transition team members are one of the four mentioned above:

• Eric 
• Ivanka
• Jeff Sessions
• Steve Bannon
• Rudy Giuliani
• K.T. McFarland
• Stephen Mnuchin
• Devin Nunes
• Trey Gowdy (now there's someone with a conflict of interest, as he's one of the people who the letter was sent to)
• Rebekkah Mercer (oh please, oh please, oh please let her be one of them)

I'm pretty sure one or more of these guys could be part of the nine as they were members of the national security team:

• Mike Rogers
• Jim Carafano
• Cindy Hayden
• Ron Burgess
• Kevin O'Connor

And the same can be said of these members of the National Security Council:

• Marshall Billingslea
• Mark Scraba
• Thomas Higgins
• Sven Kramer
• Tera Dahl
• Kiron Skinner

A complete list of transition team members can be found here.

@AmazonGrace, I see you've also posted a link to the Buzzfeed article as I'm typing this post. I'm leaving my quote here, as I'd like to start up that speculation bus... 

[AmazonGrace]

But, but, I'm so confused, I thought Trump and pals were mad at Hillary because she didn't disclose all of her emails. Now they're mad at Mueller because they didn't want to disclose all of their emails?

[Howl]

BUT OUR EMAILZ!!!!!!!!!!!

[GreyhoundFan]

Aw, Agent Orange got a call from his master: "Putin phoned Trump to thank him for CIA intel that foiled a planned terrorist attack in Russia, the Kremlin says"

Spoiler

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday phoned President Trump to thank him for a tip from the CIA that thwarted a terrorist attack being planned in St. Petersburg, the Kremlin said.

The unusual call — countries share intelligence all the time, but presidents rarely publicly thank one another about it — was confirmed by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Putin told Trump that the information provided by the CIA allowed Russian law enforcement agencies to track down and detain a group of suspects who were planning to bomb the centrally located Kazan Cathedral and other crowded parts of Russia’s second-largest city. 

Putin asked Trump to pass along his gratitude to the CIA and the American intelligence agents who received the information, the Kremlin said. It said Putin also told Trump that “if Russian special services obtain any information on terrorist threats against the United States and its citizens, they will definitely and immediately pass it to American counterparts through partner channels.”

The CIA declined to comment. 

It was the two presidents’ second conversation since Thursday, when they spoke after Putin’s annual four-hour televised news conference, during which the Russian leader mentioned the booming U.S. stock market as an example of Trump’s successes. The White House said Trump thanked Putin for remarks he made “acknowledging America’s strong economic performance.”

Putin said he doubted Trump would be able to improve relations between their two countries because the U.S. president was being held back by his political opposition and allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election were being invented to raise doubts about Trump’s legitimacy. 

Russian investigators said last week that the Federal Security Service, or FSB, had detained seven members of what officials identified as Islamic State cells. The suspects had been planning a suicide bombing this weekend in Kazan Cathedral, a St. Petersburg landmark located on Nevsky Prospect, its main thoroughfare. The cathedral was built between 1801 and 1811, and, controversially at the time, was designed along the lines of a Roman Catholic basilica. 

The suspects had been using the messaging app Telegram to communicate with Islamic State leaders abroad, according to law enforcement agencies.

A video that ran on the state news agency RIA Novosti showed a man identified as Yevgeny Yefimov confessing that he planned to carry out an attack in the city. Later, Yefimov told a St. Petersburg court that he was planning to target the Kazan Cathedral. Three more people were arrested Sunday in connection with the alleged plot, RIA Novosti reported.

Telegram was fined last month for refusing to provide Russian security forces access to the online conversations of two suspects linked to a suicide bombing in April that killed 16 people and injured about 100.

RIA Novosti published a list of 17 terrorist acts it said that Russian law enforcement had thwarted in 2017.

 

[Howl]

That is so fraught.  It's not like, say, a conversation between Canada's Justin Trudeau and France's Macron -- a warm verbal handshake across the ocean. 

This has something to do with something -- a softening up move to lift sanctions? A gentle nudge to remind SCROTUS about the Kompromat file?  A reminder that Putin has intercepts of CIA intelligence or has compromised a CIA agent?  A blatant move to normalize Russian interference in our democracy?  Or just a nice comradely call:   "Oh, hi!  It's just us.  Friendly Russians!  You like vodka? We like vodka!  Let's all drink vodka!"

Or maybe to remind SCROTUS when the bill will come due.

Let's not forget for even one second Putin's background as a KGB intelligence officer. 

[GrumpyGran]

2 hours ago, Howl said:

This has something to do with something -- a softening up move to lift sanctions?

I think it is a ploy by Putin to convince Dumpy's mindless zombies that Russia will help fight those evil Muslim terrorists. So when Mueller releases information about Dumpy colluding they will all say "So what? Russians are good. Why are we picking on them?" An attempt to win the weak-minded. This will put Repugs in Congress in a tough place. They will have to find a way to placate Dumpy's vocal lunatics. Bye-bye sanctions? Does anyone listen to Dumpy's conversations with Putin? Do we know for sure that he and Dumpy didn't plan this to influence public opinion?

[Howl]

Maybe part of the immunization process, to make Comrade Vlad seem warm and fuzzy.  Yes, we colluded, but such a nice guy! 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[apple1]

38 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

 

I KNEW eventually Stein's name would come up on this -- ever since I saw that photo with Stein at that shindig (whatever it was) in Russia. IIRC Jared and Ivanka were also at the table (??)