Russian Connection 4: Do Not Congratulate

[Cartmann99]

20 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Fun with Pavel's mug shot:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

So, no Miss Clairol in prison? *snickers loudly*

@AmazonGrace, thank you for all of the tweets about this morning's indictments! Looks like I have a fair amount of reading to do to get caught up on this.

[AmazonGrace]

Roger Stone's defense is that he didn't collude with Trump campaign officials, only Trump and the Russians.

However it's clearly him since it quotes verbatim messages that Roger Stone himself published

https://stonecoldtruth.com/roger-stone-the-smoking-gun-aims-fires-misses/

[AmazonGrace]

So the candidate who used hacked emails to win a seat was Brian Mast

 

https://eu.tcpalm.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/26/report-brian-mast-consultant-used-hacked-data/349155001/

[AmazonGrace]

We have paper ballots and pencils. Very hard to hack.

[GreyhoundFan]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

We have paper ballots and pencils. Very hard to hack.

We use paper ballots and pens, but the registration system is computerized. Counts are also computerized unless within a certain margin, then they are hand-counted.

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

This is exactly what Seth Abramson has been reporting about in his threads for more than a year now. Good to see that it's finally being picked up. Well, at least by Dems, that is. Sadly, I'm not sure what, if anything, will be done with this request. On the plus side, it will grab the MSM's attention now that Schiff has called attention to it.

[AmazonGrace]

No collusion! No collusion

! 

[Howl]

Fun and funny tweet by Gen (Ret) Michael Hayden: 

Many great responses.  Trump literally CANNOT act on this information because it might imply that he's not the greatest, smartest, most universally adored guy ever;  he's that damaged as a human being. 

The timing of these new Russian indictments may also be a little love letter to Vlad ahead of the tête-à-tête with Donald, just a quick note to let Vlad know that we know what you've been doing, we have the names, we know all about the operation, we're very deep into your shit.  It also likely brought turmoil into the GRU, trying to sort out if there is a mole, a spy, a traitor in their midst.  

 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 The article states the journalist in the indictment is Lee Stranahan and the lobbyist Andrew Nevins

[fraurosena]

"After they were clearly in contact with top Trumpers".

They may keep denying and deflecting all they want, but I'm sure Mueller has irrefutable proof, and is busy preparing his next indictment. 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

[fraurosena]

Attempting to impeach Rosenstein is more insidious and perfidious than you may think. It's my bet that this is precisely the reason why Benczkowski was suddenly appointed this week. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

Who doesn’t love Ted Lieu?

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

 

 

[fraurosena]

Why wasn’t anyone paying attention back then?

 

[fraurosena]

You need to read this thread, and the comments too. Wow.

Like one of the posts says, correlation does not necessarily equal causation, but there is too much contemporary evidence for it to simply be coincidental and not a coordinated effort based on information gleaned from the Russian hacks.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"I’ve been in meetings with Putin. Here’s what Trump can expect."

Spoiler

HELSINKI — I was the U.S. ambassador to Russia for two years and worked on Russia policy for the Obama administration for three years before that. I never had my own one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But I did participate in a half-dozen sessions with Putin alongside President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, national security adviser Tom Donilon and Secretary of State John F. Kerry. I have followed and written about Putin’s career since first meeting him in the mayor’s office in St. Petersburg in the spring of 1991. President Trump may think Monday’s summit will be easier than meeting with U.S. allies last week. But if he decides to do any serious preparation before he sits down with Putin, here’s what he should know.

First, Putin prefers small groups. When I was in the government, we had to fight constantly with Putin’s protocol team about the number of people allowed to attend his meetings. We always wanted more; Putin’s team preferred less. In his first meeting with Obama in 2009, we could not persuade Putin’s protocol people to allow our ambassador to Russia at the time, John Beyrle, to attend. When Hillary Clinton first met with Putin in Moscow as secretary of state in 2009, I was Obama’s senior adviser for Russia at the National Security Council. I was walking into the room with her when one of Putin’s assistants grabbed my arm and escorted me to a holding room with other U.S. officials. When Donilon met with Putin in 2012, Putin’s staff made several senior members of our delegation sit in cars outside the compound walls of his country estate. As ambassador, I was the only other American allowed at that meeting.

Second, Putin is extremely confident — some might say arrogant — in his views about international affairs. He was not always this way. Putin was an accidental president, chosen by Russian President Boris Yeltsin as his successor in 1999; the Russian voters simply ratified Yeltsin’s choice. Back then, Putin was unsure of himself in foreign policy. He listened to others, both in his government and to other heads of state. But now, he has been on the job for two decades, save for a brief interregnum when he switched posts with his prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev. Today, he listens to no one; not his national security advisers, not Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and most certainly not to Trump. Putin knows it all.

In fairness to Putin, he is well-versed in international issues by now, especially after overseeing Russian military interventions in Ukraine and Syria, cyber interventions and propaganda operations in the United States and ties to autocrats in North Korea and Iran now for nearly two decades. His theories are flawed; his prescriptions are dangerous. But he knows the details of these issues way better than Trump, or indeed almost any other head of state in the world. That’s why the extended one-on-one meeting with Trump planned for the summit gives Putin a huge advantage.

Third, Putin — according to Putin — has never done anything wrong. In his view, tensions in U.S.-Russian relations are all Obama’s fault, just like they were all the Bush administration’s fault before Obama took office. In his first meeting with Obama in Moscow in July 2009, Putin explained as much about the Bush administration (interestingly, he did not assign fault to Bush personally, but rather blamed those around him), going on for an entire hour without interruption to chronicle all of the United States’ mistakes up to then. So, Putin will be waiting for concessions, rhetorical and substantive, from Trump to get our bilateral relationship on track. Putin, though, will never offer a real concession. He rarely even engages in negotiation. The idea floated by Trump recently that Putin might do him a favor and get out of Ukraine or Syria is laughable. Putin does no one any favors. Geopolitics for him is a zero-sum game.

Fourth, Putin is a persuasive storyteller. In my view, his interpretations of historical events are incomplete, skewed and wrong. But if you don’t know the facts, his arguments can sound persuasive. In his meeting with Obama in June 2012 in Los Cabos, Mexico, Putin articulated a forceful argument for why strongmen had to guide evolutionary modernization in the Middle East. He portrayed both Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak as such leaders and berated us for giving up on Mubarak too soon. He made clear that he would not do the same to Assad, not because he had a strong personal relationship with the Syrian dictator, but because there was no alternative. As I listened, I thought of dozens of flaws in his analysis. But if I didn’t know the history of the region or the academic literature on transitions from authoritarian rule, Putin would have sounded convincing. I worry about the lecture Putin might give to Trump about Arab culture or Crimean history. I’m not confident that Trump knows the details of these issues well enough to push back.

To tell his stories, Putin uses blunt, simple, colorful language. The change in rhetorical style between the refined Medvedev and cruder Putin was striking when they switched roles. Trump will like Putin’s style.

Fifth, Putin can be both abrasive and charming. I’ve seen both negotiating strategies in person. With Trump, Putin will be in charming mode: He will seek to bond over their common disdain for the media, the “deep state” and international institutions. Putin will have Trump nodding along in agreement within minutes. He is good at demonstrating affinity (what he really believes is another matter). Remember his training: He’s a former intelligence officer. With Trump, it will be even easier to find common ground, since they do share some views about the nature of the world. Trump has expressed his hostility to multilateral organizations such as the European Union, NATO and the World Trade Organization. Putin loathes all those groups. Likewise, both Trump and Putin have embraced nativist nationalists in Europe in the United Kingdom, France, Hungary and Italy.

Sixth, Putin is capable of the bold, unexpected move, sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. Putin has way more autonomy running the Russian government than Trump has in the United States. In convincing us that we needed a presidential summit in September 2013, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, emphasized this point, stressing that Putin liked the bold gesture if things were going well. Trump should be ready with smart answers to possible grand bargains such as Iranian withdrawal from Syria in return for our withdrawal. That’s a bad deal, even if Putin could deliver on it, since our retreat could allow ISIS to regroup and reemerge as a threat to our allies in the region and even us. But the proposal might sound attractive in a one-on-one talk with Putin, trying to get along. And we know how Trump likes deals.

Seventh, Putin leaves a big impression. Every meeting with him is memorable. As we drove back to Moscow after our breakfast with Putin in 2009, I could tell Obama was still trying to digest the measure of the man. I fear Trump will be easily captivated by Putin’s swagger.

Finally, Putin will probably be late. He made Obama wait for 45 minutes before their meeting in Los Cabos. Kerry wandered Red Square and then chilled at the Ritz-Carlton for several hours before Putin was finally ready to host us at the Kremlin in 2013. Of course, Putin wants to make a good impression with Trump. If he is on time, that might signal his real desire to embrace Trump — and then we should all get a little more worried.

I was supposed to go to one other planned summit between Obama and Putin in September 2013 in Moscow. Our embassy had worked on the details of this two-day meeting for months. But when Putin wouldn’t agree to generate a substantive agenda, particularly on Syria and arms control, we started to doubt the value of the meeting. Putin’s decision to grant former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden asylum that summer sealed the deal. We could not have Obama standing next to Putin pretending like everything was business as usual after such a provocative act. Obama canceled the summit. I delivered the news to the Kremlin, and they were genuinely upset with our acceptance and then refusal of their invitation to come to Moscow.

But sometimes not talking — not showing up — is the right diplomatic move. Maybe there’s a lesson in this story for Trump?

Arrogant, thinks he's never done anything wrong, and doesn't listen to advisers. Hmmm, who does that remind you of?

[GreyhoundFan]

"Putin again denies Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election; Trump calls probe a ‘disaster for our country’"

Spoiler

HELSINKI — President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed Monday that the two leaders discussed Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, although the Russian leader denied that his government tried to sabotage the election and Trump offered little pushback to the autocrat’s claims.

Trump called the U.S. investigation of the interference “a disaster for our country.”

Concluding their first formal one-one-one summit here Monday, Trump said his message regarding the Russian interference “was a message best delivered in person” during the meeting, during which the two leaders “spent a great deal of time” discussing the Kremlin’s interference. Putin insisted publicly that the “Russian state has never interfered and is not going to interfere in internal American affairs,” and Trump declined to dispute his assertions, instead saying Putin “has an interesting idea” about the issue of interference.

“There was no collusion,” Trump said at a joint news conference with Putin. “I didn’t know the president. There was nobody to collude with. There was no collusion with the campaign.”

Trump said that he holds “both countries responsible” for the frayed relations between the two nations and attacked special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, calling it a “disaster for our country.”

Putin later confirmed that he did want Trump to win in 2016, “because he talked about normalizing relations” between Russia and the United States.

Appearing at the joint news conference with Putin after the talks in the Finnish capital ended, Trump said he and Putin discussed their disagreements “at length.” He added: “Our relationship has never been worse than it is now. However, that changed, as of about four hours ago.”

The summit began hours after Trump blamed his own country, rather than Russia, for the hostilities between their two nations.

Speaking first at the news conference, Putin said the talks took place “in a frank and businesslike atmosphere,” adding: “I think we can call it a success.” He said that although bilateral relations have been “going through a complicated stage,” there was “no solid reason” for that. “The Cold War is a thing of the past,” he said.

He added that Trump “mentioned the so-called interference of Russia in the American election” in 2016. Putin again denied any involvement by the Russian state and said any evidence of interference can be analyzed through a joint working group on cybersecurity.

Putin said later in response to a question that U.S. investigators possibly could come to Russia to participate in the questioning of suspects after a dozen Russian intelligence officers were indicted in the United States on charges of election interference.

Elaborating, Putin said representatives of the Mueller probe could be present at interrogations of suspects in Russia — as long as Russians would be able to do the same at the questioning of U.S. intelligence agents that Moscow suspects of carrying out crimes on Russian soil. Any questions about Russian interference in the U.S. elections, he said, should be resolved by the courts and according to existing intergovernmental agreements.

“Let the Mueller commission send us a request, and we will do the work necessary to respond,” Putin said. “We can expand this cooperation — but we will then also expect from the U.S. side access to people who we believe are members of the intelligence agencies.”

In response to questions, Trump said that both countries were to blame for the deterioration of relations. “I do feel that we have both made some mistakes,” he said. He added that “there was no collusion” between his campaign and Russia, and he lamented that the special counsel’s investigation into the matter has had an impact on U.S.-Russian relations.

“I think the probe has been a disaster for our country,” he said. “It’s ridiculous what’s going on with the probe.”

Trump critics reacted harshly. Former CIA director John O. Brennan wrote in a tweet: “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???”

Shortly before the news conference began, security personnel forcibly removed a journalist who was holding a sign reading, “Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty.” Before he was removed, he had been heckling TV reporters doing their stand-ups.

Seated alongside Putin to deliver opening remarks before reporters at the start of the summit, Trump congratulated Russia on successfully hosting the World Cup soccer tournament, which concluded Sunday, then noted that the United States and Russia have “not been getting along too well for the last number of years.” He said he hoped that would change and that “I think we will end up having an extraordinary relationship.”

“Getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing,” Trump said, as Putin slouched in his chair. Trump added that the “world wants to see us getting along.”

Trump said before the closed-door meeting that he and Putin had a “lot of good things to talk about, and things to talk about,” including trade, military issues, nuclear proliferation and China, in particular their “mutual friend,” Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Trump did not mention Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign as one of the topics to be discussed before the meeting began.

Putin, who spoke before Trump made his opening remarks, said to the U.S. president: “Of course, the time has come that we speak extensively about our bilateral relations and various problem points around the world. There are enough of them that we ought to pay attention to them.”

The meeting began later than originally planned, after the perennially tardy Putin arrived in Helsinki well behind schedule, keeping Trump waiting. The one-on-one meeting lasted about two hours, longer than anticipated. It was initially scheduled to take 90 minutes.

The two leaders then went into an expanded meeting that included top aides. At the start of it, Trump, responding to a shouted question from a reporter, said: “I think it’s a good start. Very, very good start for everybody.”

Although most U.S. officials argue that Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, use of a nerve agent on British soil and aggression in Ukraine and Syria have worsened relations, Trump instead faulted “U.S. foolishness and stupidity” in tweets Monday morning, as well as the expansive Justice Department investigation into Russia’s election intrusion.

“Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!” Trump tweeted Monday morning as he prepared for his meeting with Putin.

Trump is facing immense pressure to aggressively confront Putin over Russia’s election interference, especially after the Justice Department indicted 12 Russian intelligence officials Friday and charged them with hacking and stealing Democratic emails, as part of a broad subterfuge operation that U.S. intelligence agencies believe was ordered by Putin to help elect Trump.

But Trump’s comments Monday were in sync with the argument Putin and his government have long made, which is that the policies of the Obama administration — as well as the investigation into election interference, which Putin repeatedly has denied — inflamed tensions between the two nuclear superpowers. The Russian Foreign Ministry’s official Twitter account retweeted Trump’s “U.S. foolishness and stupidity” tweet and said, “We agree.”

Trump — who has been reticent to criticize Putin and has said he admires the Russian autocrat’s leadership style and strongman image — began their meeting shortly after 2 p.m. (7 a.m. Eastern time) at the Presidential Palace, a neoclassical residence facing Helsinki’s heavily touristed Baltic Sea waterfront. They were originally scheduled to meet at 1 p.m. here (6 a.m. ET).

But Putin arrived later than expected in Helsinki on Monday and did not disembark from his plane until after 1 p.m., delaying the scheduled start time of the summit. Putin is known for his frequent tardiness; he once made President Barack Obama wait 45 minutes for one of their meetings.

The two leaders first met alone, with interpreters present but without their advisers. They were then joined by their delegations for a working lunch, which was to be followed by a joint press availability. Trump then will fly home to Washington.

Trump is joined in Helsinki by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, national security adviser John Bolton, chief of staff John F. Kelly and other advisers, including National Security Council Russia expert Fiona Hill.

Earlier in his Europe trip, Trump told reporters he would raise the election interference issue with Putin, although he indicated that he would not be too stern, saying he assumes Putin will deny responsibility, and then they would move on to other topics.

In another Monday morning tweet, Trump sought to pin blame for the matter on Obama.

“President Obama thought that Crooked Hillary was going to win the election, so when he was informed by the FBI about Russian Meddling, he said it couldn’t happen, was no big deal, & did NOTHING about it. When I won it became a big deal and the Rigged Witch Hunt headed by Strzok!” Trump wrote, referencing first 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and then FBI agent Peter Strzok, who testified before Congress in a combative hearing last week.

Trump arrived with first lady Melania Trump in Helsinki late Sunday, after spending the weekend golfing at his property in Scotland. Aboard Air Force One, the president aired some of his grievances on Twitter ahead his upcoming summit with Putin.

“Unfortunately, no matter how well I do at the Summit, if I was given the great city of Moscow as retribution for all of the sins and evils committed by Russia over the years, I would return to criticism that it wasn’t good enough — that I should have gotten Saint Petersburg in addition!” Trump wrote.

And after a week of denigrating the U.S. news media on foreign soil, Trump continued in his tweetstorm: “Much of our news media is indeed the enemy of the people and all the Dems know how to do is resist and obstruct! This is why there is such hatred and dissension in our country — but at some point, it will heal!”

Trump began his day Monday in this Nordic capital by meeting Finnish President Sauli Niinisto for breakfast, along with their wives. When a reporter asked about his message for Putin, Trump replied, “We’ll do just fine.”

Trump also touted the unity of NATO, saying the treaty alliance of 29 nations that is a Western bulwark against an expansionist Russia, has “never been stronger than it is today.”

Last week in Brussels, Trump upended the NATO summit with demands that European allies increase their defense spending commitments. On Monday in Helsinki, Trump claimed credit for forcing the hands of his counterparts. “It was a little bit tough at the beginning,” he said, “but it turned out to be love.”

Putin was set to land in Helsinki around noon local time with fresh momentum after presiding over the World Cup final in Moscow, a tournament that many observers — including Trump — hailed as a success.

Beyond spreading a positive image of Russia, the World Cup also gave Putin a chance to exercise his diplomatic chops ahead of the Helsinki summit amid a revolving door of visiting world leaders. On Sunday alone, Putin met with French President Emmanuel Macron; Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban; Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic; and Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.

Last week, Putin separately received Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stoking speculation that Putin would discuss Iran’s presence in Syria with Trump.

Russian officials have kept expectations low, emphasizing that the very fact of the meeting is an important step forward after years of tensions between Moscow and Washington. Ahead the summit, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov praised Trump’s pragmatism in an interview with pro-Kremlin broadcaster RT.

“Our president is very pragmatic, very open and consistent,” Peskov said, referring to Putin, according to the Interfax news agency. “He always says that the interests of Russia and the people of Russia are the main thing to him. And therefore he respects the fact that Donald Trump has the same attitude to his country.”

For Putin, the setting of the summit provides something of a home-turf advantage. Although Finland is a member of the European Union and is a neutral nation, it borders Russia and is familiar to Putin, as Helsinki is just up the Bay of Finland from his hometown of St. Petersburg.

This vibrant Nordic capital, which in the summertime glistens with sunlight late into the evening, holds significant resonance for U.S.-Russia affairs as a neutral site for leaders of the two countries to meet.

In 1990, then-President George H.W. Bush met in Helsinki with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to show a unified front against then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein amid escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf. And in 1997, then-President Bill Clinton and then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin held a two-day summit here to discuss arms control and the addition of former Soviet countries to NATO.

Trump has said he has low expectations for Monday’s summit with Putin and heads into it without the kind of pre-scripted outcomes typical at such international meetings. Rather, he sees the meeting as a chance to build a better rapport with Putin and foster warmer relations between the United States and Russia.

“Right now, there’s no trust in the relationship, and because of that, problem-solving is practically impossible,” U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “So this is an attempt to see if we can defuse and take some of the drama, and quite frankly some of the danger, out of the relationship right now.”

Trump and his advisers have sought to temper expectations for the summit, which is expected to include discussions over the ongoing conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, a Reagan-era arms-control agreement and the prospect of extending a 2011 nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.

The president declined to outline his objectives in an interview with CBS News in advance of the summit, and his advisers have said the mere act of holding the direct meeting with Putin is a “deliverable.”

Back in Washington, lawmakers from both parties have implored Trump to aggressively confront Putin.

“President Trump should have only one message for Putin [on Monday]: Quit messing with America,” Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said on Twitter early Monday, arguing that Trump should not be “dignifying” the Russian president by granting a meeting.

Clinton tweeted, “Question for President Trump as he meets Putin: Do you know which team you play for?”

Putin’s allies say that last Friday’s indictments represented the latest effort by the Washington establishment to derail Trump’s effort to improve relations with Russia.

“It seems to us the opponents of the improvement of U.S.-Russia relations should not be allowed to endlessly exploit this harmful topic, which is being kept afloat artificially,” Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said ahead of the summit, according to Interfax.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Everyone I follow on Twitter knew it would be a disaster last week but somehow they're still stunned because it was worse