Mueller Investigation!

[Howl]

On 12/12/2018 at 10:41 AM, AmazonGrace said:

Flynn complains that he was trapped because FBI didn't tell him that it's illegal to lie to them.

Can you be a national security advisor without being aware of that fact? 

There's been a lot of speculation about Flynn going off the reservation after he left he military.  He was a lieutenant general, he was part of the intelligence community.  First, he was incredibly, idiotically careless about his telephone communications.  He was making calls that he should have known were being monitored by IC interests. 

And he would have known, because of all his training throughout his ENTIRE ADULT LIFE in both the military and intelligence community, that you simply cannot lie or dissemble and especially to the FBI. He had to have known that talking to the Russians was wrong, wrong, wrong and EXACTLY WHY the Russians were talking to him.  Truly, it's absolutely inexplicable. 

I personally think that what Flynn did was a betrayal of the country, but not treason in its narrow constitutional meaning. But it chafes my chaps that he's getting off with zero prison time.  

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole yesterday with the David Petraeus affair, based on a link in an article talking about how generals can be let off lightly after horrible mistakes and indiscretions, while those at a lesser rank receive much more draconian punishment. 

David Petraeus had to resign from the CIA after his affair with Paula Broadwell (his biographer) became public.  He shared notebooks of highly classified information with her, but ultimately got off with a slap on the wrist, when he pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information.  He did not lose his military pension of (IIRC), around $200,000 a year. 

Petraeus is currently on the boards of numerous companies, is highly sought after for big $$$ speaking engagements where he is fawned over by audiences,  and is a visiting professor at several universities.  Paula Broadwell, a West Point grad, veteran and grad student working on her PhD at Harvard at the time of the affair, abandoned her doctoral program at Harvard, apparently has not completed her doctoral program at a British university, but at least her Petraeus biography (!) was a best seller.  

Anyway, I hope the Gullah issue will sink Flynn's damn boat and he gets jail time. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Mueller’s treatment of cooperating witnesses suggests end of Russia investigation may be near"

Spoiler

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is setting a curious pattern as he squeezes cooperation and guilty pleas out of suspects in his investigation, one that suggests he may be nearing the end of his work.

When President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced in federal court in New York on Wednesday, he became the latest Mueller target to be accused of a crime, flip and provide evidence against others, and then be sentenced before having to testify in court.

In the cases of Cohen, former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Mueller has proceeded to the sentencing of each without first making him testify at trial against others.

That’s at odds with the common practice of prosecutors — which is to hold the stick of a tougher prison sentence over defendants until they have completed all of their cooperation, particularly any public testimony.

While the recent legal action has led to speculation that prosecutors are narrowing in on the president in anticipation of more criminal charges, Mueller’s sentencing timeline suggests a different outcome to some legal experts — that the accounts of those cooperating witnesses will appear in a written report, not in court.

Cooperators “usually go last,” said Robert Ray, a former independent counsel on the Whitewater investigation.

The sentencing of those Mueller defendants “suggests to me that whatever those individuals have done for the special counsel investigation, there is no further use for them,” Ray said. “If there were any contemplation of using them at trial, you would sentence them later. And the only conclusion I can draw from all that is that we are nearing the end.”

Ray said he expects Mueller to deliver a report on his findings in the first three months of 2019. Mueller may also be willing to proceed quickly to sentencing cooperators in part because he expects to present more information in a report than at any trials.

A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment.

Only one of the known criminal cooperators in Mueller’s cases has been handled in the more traditional manner: Rick Gates. Gates pleaded guilty to financial crimes, testified at trial against his former boss Manafort, and is awaiting sentencing.

That approach can leave a valuable witness waiting for many years to receive their sentence. One of the longest and most famous examples is Jamal al-Fadl, a former aide to Osama bin Laden who turned government witness and testified against al-Qaeda. He pleaded guilty in 1997, and although court records indicate a sentencing was scheduled in 2014, there’s no record it actually occurred.

Different factors can weigh on sentencing decisions, and Cohen’s case was arguably the most complex that Mueller has handled, because it involves two separate cases prosecuted by two offices — Mueller’s and the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan.

Yet even there, potential witnesses were given their sentence before they had to speak at a trial against anyone else. Cohen got three years in prison for financial crimes, including hush-money payments during the 2016 campaign to keep quiet women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump. That sentencing incorporated the guilty plea Cohen struck with Mueller for lying to Congress about attempts during the 2016 presidential campaign to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

After his sentencing, the New York prosecutors also announced they had reached a deferred prosecution agreement with AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer tabloid, for buying the silence of one of those women. Once again, prosecutors had taken away the threat of a possible prison sentence.

“That is in contrast with how it’s normally done,” said Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Chicago. “In most large investigations, the way you do it is you make deals with whomever you’re going to make a deal with, they plead guilty, but then their sentencing is delayed until the investigation and trial are over, and they get their big fish, and the cooperator testifies or doesn’t. That is the very prevalent model.”

Prosecutors do it that way for a simple reason, Cotter said. Without the fear of a possible long sentence, a criminal “may lose his enthusiasm and flip back, and say he doesn’t remember things he already testified to.”

In the Mueller probe, that’s not just a hypothetical scenario. There are plenty of indications that, if called to testify, some of Mueller’s cooperators could retract what they have already admitted about themselves and said about others.

After pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, Papadopoulos, who recently completed his two-week jail sentence, has repeatedly suggested he was railroaded or framed. Flynn is awaiting sentencing next week, and his supporters have argued that he, too, was tricked into pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States in late 2016.

After being convicted at one trial, Manafort struck a cooperation deal to avoid trial on a second set of charges. Mueller now says Manafort broke the terms of the deal by repeatedly lying to prosecutors about key details in his case.

Even the definition of cooperation has at times become strangely flexible in the Mueller probe.

At Cohen’s sentencing Tuesday, prosecutor Jeannie Rhee said Cohen had provided “credible and reliable information about core Russia-related issues under investigation.”

Yet the New York prosecutors who investigated Cohen’s finances were far harsher, saying Cohen had refused to provide full cooperation and was holding back.

Further complicating the issue, Cohen’s lawyer Guy Petrillo said his client was still willing to cooperate even after he goes to prison — and suggested Cohen has been more honest than others caught in Mueller’s crosshairs.

“His action stands in profound contrast to the decision of some others not to cooperate and allegedly to double deal while pretending to cooperate,” Petrillo said, in an apparent reference to Manafort.

Ultimately, U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III sentenced Cohen to three years in prison, finding Cohen’s decision to volunteer some information to prosecutors but not all of what he knew “does not wipe the slate clean.”

Sometimes a prosecutor will move ahead with sentencing cooperators because “the big fish got away,” said Cotter, although he doesn’t believe that is the reasoning in Mueller’s case.

Cotter said Mueller’s decisions show he is confident that Manafort, Flynn, or Papadopoulos would stick to their story if they are ever called to testify at a criminal trial.

He also suggested Mueller may have another, more subtle reason for his approach — to send a message to other potential witnesses.

In that formulation, Mueller is providing an object lesson for the value of cooperation: Flynn, who cooperated early, is likely to get no prison time. Cohen, who cooperated somewhat, got several years in prison. Manafort, who failed to cooperate, is likely headed to prison for at least 10 years.

“Now, it’s very credible to go to the next guy and say, ‘You can be a Flynn, you can be a Cohen, or you can be a Manafort. Which is it going to be?’,” said Cotter. “For a prosecutor, that’s a very powerful piece of advertising.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Howl]

To clarify, Politicususa is speculating that the first thing that Mueller did was to get Trump's tax records, because that's a typical and effective investigative strategy.  

 

[fraurosena]

The special counsel’s reply to Flynn’s defence memo has some interesting tidbits of information:

 

[AmazonGrace]

I know this will shock you all but Jerome Corsi is a crook 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Mysterious court action on Friday 

 

[fraurosena]

I would't be surprised if that witness was Roger Stone, fighting tooth and nail trying to stop Mueller from interviewing him.

[AmazonGrace]

More weird court action: 

 

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

You couldn't make this up. I love Jack Ohman's reaction:

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Robert Mueller is the most unknowable man in Washington"

Spoiler

Mueller. Mueller. Mueller. Mueller. Mueller. Mueller. Everywhere, at any hour, it’s Mueller time.

Special counsel Robert Swan Mueller III is the second-most famous man in Washington. Time Magazine just ranked him No. 3 on their Person of the Year list, after crusading journalists and President Trump. It is impossible to spend a day in this town without hearing or reading Mueller’s name. He will go down in history, for better or worse, as one of the pivotal figures of the Trump era.

All this for a man who seldom speaks and is rarely seen. He is omnipresent and absent, inescapable but elusive, the invisible yang to Trump’s gold-plated yin.

“Mueller’s silence has invited noisy speculation from partisans,” writes Time. “To critics on the right, he is an overzealous prosecutor drunk on power and roaming beyond his mandate in a bid to drum Trump out of office. To liberals, he is a crusading hero who won’t quit until he brings the President to justice. The public narrative of Mueller’s investigation this year has often described its central character more as myth than man.”

Such is the peculiar nature of Washington that a powerful man who shuns the spotlight should become an object of fascination, and the specific character of Mueller — an old-school WASP indifferent to entreaties for speeches, interviews and photo-ops. More people have seen Robert De Niro playing Mueller on “Saturday Night Live” than have seen the special counsel himself.

“I always joke that Bob Mueller has turned down more interview requests in his career than most people in Washington ever get in the first place,” says Garrett Graff, author of “The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller’s FBI and the War on Global Terror” and Mueller’s de facto biographer. “Contrary to every single thing that the president tweets today, Mueller is and always has been probably the most apolitical nonpartisan person in the city. He does everything that he can to avoid the public spotlight and anything even slightly resembling politicking.”

Mueller is content to be known and respected within a very small circle of close friends and colleagues. That’s rare in a town filled with former high school class presidents with enough egos to “float battleships,” as former senator Alan Simpson put it. Politicians love cameras — and Twitter feeds, Instagram and more — but Mueller’s only public statement as special counsel came on May 17, 2017, the day he was appointed: “I accept this responsibility and will discharge it to the best of my ability.”

More than anything, silence has come to define Mueller. He's become a meme, a cartoon superhero or supervillain, more powerful with every word he does not say.

“Like all the FBI directors I have known, including myself, Bob is not about to try his case or run his evidence by the court of public opinion,” says William Webster, the only man to head both the FBI and the CIA. “That’s not how our FBI works. It’s not how Bob Mueller works. It might make for good tv ratings, but it leaves too much open for misunderstanding and, in my opinion, creates a circus atmosphere around critically important cases.”

Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel investigating President Bill Clinton, had a different approach: He spoke to reporters during his five years in that job in hopes it would help Americans better understand the reasons for the investigation.

“Relationships between prosecutors and the press are inherently difficult and sensitive,” he says. “A federal prosecutor wields important powers and thus should always be held accountable by the American people. That accountability carries with it, in my view, a role for providing public information . . . without transgressing important limitations — especially the protection of grand jury secrecy.”

Mueller, says Starr, may have been chastened by former FBI director James B. Comey’s “inappropriate public relations approach” and wants the charging documents to speak for themselves. “All things considered, I think he has followed a wise strategy, albeit at the expense of a more complete public understanding of his important work.”

Leon Panetta, former White House chief of staff and head of the CIA, says there’s another reason for Mueller’s silence: He doesn’t want to give President Trump any ammunition that could compromise the case. “He really feels that the integrity of the investigation has to be protected and not allow the president to undermine it.”

Mueller is not instinctively somebody who plays the political game, says Panetta, who has known the prosecutor for years. “He didn’t even particularly like to testify before Congress, but he knew that he had to do it. He really thought that those who were out there in the press were only undercutting their position rather than strengthening it.”

In fact, Mueller — by temperament and professional experience — has always preferred to be judged by his deeds, not his words. He grew up in Princeton, a childhood of privilege and private boarding schools, where self-aggrandizement and promotion were considered poor form. His stints as a Marine platoon leader during the Vietnam War and as a federal prosecutor emphasized teamwork rather than any individual effort. During his 12-year tenure as head of the FBI, he rarely appeared at public events and turned down virtually all the A-list invitations that came with that title.

During his trip to the Capitol to brief Congress in June 2017 — one month after becoming special counsel — Mueller and his team navigated back hallways and stairwells to avoid the media. There have been only three widely circulated sightings in the wild since then: One photo of Mueller standing on a street corner in March, one in July with Mueller and Donald Trump Jr. both waiting to catch a flight at Gate 35X at Reagan National Airport and one of Mueller and his wife in September at the Genius Bar in Georgetown’s Apple store, where they were getting help with a laptop.

The dearth of images led to this plea by Slate staff writer Heather Schwedel earlier this year: “Why are we clamoring for new Mueller pics like paparazzi stalking Jennifer Aniston? Because every time his investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election makes news — which is a lot these days — sites like Slate must use the same photos of Mueller we’ve been using since this past summer . . . . Our nation’s poor photo editors are stuck with a cache of boring, already-used shots of one of the most newsworthy figures of our political moment.”

By now, it goes without saying that Mueller and his prosecutors run the tightest ship in Washington. No interviews, no leaks, no whispers, no jokes, no nuthin'. In August, members of his team were spotted by the press waiting for a Shake Shack delivery at an Alexandria hotel during Paul Manafort's trial. Shake Shack, huh? joked a reporter. Peter Carr, Mueller's spokesman, would not even confirm the order.

Mueller rarely ventures outside his temporary office in a nondescript federal building. Even in his most public role before this, as head of the FBI, Mueller only appeared in public when it was important to the bureau. Most photos of him are from testimony to the Senate several years ago. His last speaking appearance (announced before he was named special counsel) was in May 2017 at the graduation of his granddaughter from a small boarding school in Massachusetts.

“One of the things that I think is important in understanding him is understanding the perspective that he brings to this job,” says Graff. “If you got him in a moment of candor, he would say that this is no more than the third-hardest job that he has ever had after the Marines in Vietnam and after being FBI director in the wake of 9/11. In that sense, the photo of him at the Apple Store is indicative of a lot: He’s just continuing to lead his life. His life has always been under the radar and non-showy, and that’s exactly how he has comported himself as special counsel.”

Mueller’s private life is even more circumspect. It is possible, after following the bread crumbs of his biography, to determine his comings and goings. He lives in a gated community in Georgetown with his wife of 52 years, Ann. They have two daughters, Melissa and Cynthia, seen only when they attended his 2001 confirmation hearing as head of the FBI. The couple regularly attends services at an Episcopal church in downtown Washington. They both play golf, although Ann’s the better golfer of the two.

And they have a weekly dinner date, usually at their favorite Italian restaurant a few miles from their home. The Muellers have been regulars for years, typically sitting unnoticed behind the bar in the back of the room. How, in this age of smartphones and cameras, does Mueller pull that off? Slip in a side door? The owner, as did everyone contacted for this article, declined to comment.

In fact, virtually everyone within Mueller’s orbit refused to talk about him. “I’ll pass along your request, but she never returns calls about Mueller,” explained the assistant of a lawyer who worked for him many years ago.

“The people that he has surrounded himself with throughout his career are temperamentally very like him,” explains Graff. “And he has a good set of longtime friends in D.C. that he primarily socializes with. He’s someone who draws a pretty firm line between work and home in terms of socializing. Part of the answer is just that the people around him don’t share the things that they do with him. And he has developed a series of places that he likes to go where I think that privacy is respected — and they’re also not the trendiest restaurants on 14th Street where he would be recognized.”

Even the press has been unwilling to cross Mueller’s invisible line. Salt Lake Tribune reporter Thomas Burr tweeted that he saw Mueller in June: “Gotta love DC. Walk into restaurant, run into the special counsel.” But Burr declined to say which restaurant, despite a flurry of responses to the tweet.

Some of this is respect for Mueller. Some of this is the fear of unintentionally providing a piece of information that could compromise the Russia investigation. And some of this is just fear for Mueller himself. Given the heated rhetoric surrounding President Trump — and a gunman who shot up Comet Ping Pong over the Pizzagate conspiracy theory — friends and colleagues are reluctant to say anything that could harm him in any way.

“Bob Mueller is doing exactly the right thing by simply focusing on this investigation and trying to determine the truth,” says Panetta. “I don’t know what the final result is going to be, but I have a sense that whatever that final report shows that people are going to thank Bob Mueller for the way he handled this.”

We asked Mueller’s spokesman if he had a response to . . . well, anything.

“We appreciate your reaching out,” replied Carr. “But we’ll decline comment at this time.”

He really is the antithesis to Dumpy in every way.

[AmazonGrace]

Flynn's buddies: 

 

[fraurosena]

Of course it's all tied in with the presiduncial administration!

 

[fraurosena]

Oh, and while we're on the topic of the presidunce and Gulen...

 

[AmazonGrace]

Oh Dersh what do the Russians have on you

[onekidanddone]

7 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Oh Dersh what do the Russians have on you

I'm done. I'm just so done beyond done. I've decided to quit the human race.  Call me when sanity reigns once more.

Of course you know I don't really mean that. I can't turn away from this train wreck called Trumpinistan

[fraurosena]

Gosh, why would they want to hid that little fact? It's not like it's against the law or something... oh, wait.

 

[fraurosena]

Huh. I wonder what this is about?

 

[fraurosena]

Who were those two people anyway? His wife and son?

 

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

Who were those two people anyway? His wife and son?

 

Can I go and lead a raunchy version of Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Hey Hey Good Bye

[Threff]

I’ve read that Rick Santorum’s people are trying to scrub the internet of this picture. So.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Russian disinformation teams targeted Robert S. Mueller III, says report prepared for Senate"

Spoiler

Months after President Trump took office, Russia’s disinformation teams trained their sights on a new target: special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Having worked to help get Trump into the White House, they now worked to neutralize the biggest threat to his staying there.

The Russian operatives unloaded on Mueller through fake accounts on Facebook, Twitter and beyond, falsely claiming that the former FBI director was corrupt and that the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election were crackpot conspiracies. One post on Instagram — which emerged as an especially potent weapon in the Russian social media arsenal — claimed that Mueller had worked in the past with “radical Islamic groups.”

Such tactics exemplified how Russian teams ranged nimbly across social media platforms in a shrewd online influence operation aimed squarely at American voters. The effort started earlier than commonly understood and lasted longer while relying on the strengths of different sites to manipulate distinct slices of the electorate, according to a pair of comprehensive new reports prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee and released Monday.

One of the reports, authored by Oxford University’s Computational Propaganda Project and network analysis firm Graphika, became public when The Washington Post obtained it and published its highlights Sunday. The other report was by social media research firm New Knowledge, Columbia University and Canfield Research.

Together the reports describe the Russian campaign with sweep and detail not before available. The researchers analyzed more than 10 million posts and messages on every major social media platform to understand how the Russians used American technology to build a sprawling online disinformation machine, with each piece playing a designated role while supporting the others with links and other connections.

The reports also underscore the difficulty of defeating Russian disinformation as operatives moved easily from platform to platform, making the process of detecting and deleting misleading posts impossible for any company on its own to manage.

Twitter hit political and journalistic elites. Facebook and its advertising targeting tools divided the electorate into demographic and ideological segments ripe for manipulation, with particular focus on energizing conservatives and suppressing African Americans, who traditionally are more likely to vote for Democrats.

YouTube provided a free online library of more than 1,100 disinformation videos. PayPal helped raise money and move politically themed merchandise designed by the Russian teams, such as “I SUPPORT AMERICAN LAW ENFORCEMENT” T-shirts. Tumblr, Medium, Vine, Reddit and various websites also played roles.

“We hope that these reports provide clarity for the American people and policymakers alike, and make clear the sweeping scope of the operation and the long game being played,” said Renee DiResta, research director at New Knowledge.

Social media researchers said the weaponization of these sites and services highlights the broadening challenge they face in combating the increasingly sophisticated tactics of Russia and other foreign malefactors online.

“Some of the platforms that don’t have as much traffic, but still have highly engaged communities, are the most vulnerable to a challenge like misinformation,” said Graham Brookie, head of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab. “They don’t have the resources to dedicate to making their platforms more resilient.”

One unexpected star of the new reports Monday was Facebook’s photo-sharing subsidiary Instagram. Over the years of the disinformation campaign, Instagram generated responses on a scale beyond any of the others — with 187 million comments, likes and other user reactions, more than Twitter and Facebook combined.

But it had been the least scrutinized of the major platforms before this week as lawmakers, researchers and journalists focused more heavily on Facebook, Twitter and Google. Instagram’s use by the Russians more than doubled in the first six months after Trump’s election, the researchers found. It also offered access to a younger demographic and provided easy likes in a simple, engaging format.

“Instagram’s appeal is that’s where the kids are, and that seems to be where the Russians went,” said Philip N. Howard, head of the Oxford research group.

The report anchored by New Knowledge found that the Russians posted on Instagram 116,000 times, nearly double the number of times they did on Facebook, as documented in the report. The most popular posts praised African American culture and achievement, but the Russians also targeted this community for voter suppression messages on multiple platforms, urging boycotts of the election or spreading false information on how to vote. 

On Monday, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called for a week-long boycott of Facebook starting Tuesday, saying the company’s business practices — and the spread of “disingenuous portrayals of the African American community” on its site — should prompt further congressional investigation. 

Facebook said in a statement that it has “made progress in helping prevent interference on our platforms during elections, strengthened our policies against voter suppression ahead of the 2018 midterms, and funded independent research on the impact of social media on democracy.”

Reddit and Medium did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Tumblr pointed to a November blog post, which said the company took down Russian-related disinformation ahead of the 2018 election. PayPal said it “works to combat and prevent the illicit use of our services.” Twitter said it has made “significant strides since 2016 to counter ma­nipu­la­tion of our service.”

The emergence of Mueller as a significant target also highlights the adaptability of the Russian campaign. He was appointed in May 2017 as special counsel to investigate allegations of Russian influence on the Trump campaign. In that role, he has indicted the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, the Kremlin-linked troll farm behind the disinformation campaign, and others affiliated with the disinformation campaign on criminal charges.

A Clemson University research team, not affiliated with either of the reports released Monday, found that the Russians tweeted about Mueller more than 5,000 times, including retweets first posted by others. Some called for his firing, while others mocked him as incompetent and still others campaigned for the end of his “entire fake investigation.”

The report by New Knowledge highlighted the focus on Mueller and fired FBI director James B. Comey, who was falsely portrayed as “a dirty cop.”

The Russian operatives often spread jokes to undermine the investigations into their disinformation campaign, the researchers found. One showed Democrat Hillary Clinton saying, “Everyone I don’t like is A Russian Hacker.” Another showed a woman in a car talking to a police officer, with the caption, “IT’S NOT MY FAULT OFFICER, THE RUSSIANS HACKED MY SPEEDOMETER.”

At one point, shortly after the 2016 election, the Russian operatives also began to make fun of Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg for saying that social media didn’t have an impact on Trump’s victory — a claim for which he later apologized.

On Capitol Hill, top Democrats said Monday that the revelations in the pair of Senate reports underscored the need to study social media and consider fresh regulation in order to stop Russia and other foreign actors from manipulating American democracy in future elections.

“I think all the platforms remain keenly vulnerable, and I don’t have the confidence yet companies have invested the resources and people power necessary to deal with the scope of the problem,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the incoming Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

In particular, Schiff described the Instagram revelations as “surprising,” contradicting the data and testimony Facebook previously provided to the committee. “If Facebook was unaware of it, it’s one problem,” he said. “If they were aware of it and didn’t share that information, that’s a completely different problem.”

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chairman of the committee that asked the researchers to analyze the tech companies’ data, said the findings show “how aggressively Russia sought to divide Americans by race, religion and ideology.”

Every other GOP lawmaker on the Senate Intelligence Committee declined to comment or didn’t respond. 

Facebook executives barely discussed the role of Instagram when they testified before Congress late last year about Russian meddling. At the time, the company said that the Russian campaign reached 126 million people on Facebook and 20 million on Instagram. 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Bijan Kian helped recruit Pompeo while on Turkish payroll

Dersh just told a Jewish reporter that he's an antisemite for asking questions.