Putin’s boi toy rushed to arrive early in Hanoi met his master privately. Leaving the Chumph to breathlessly explain how good Putin was for him.
Noe – there are a few terabytes of hard information connecting the Russians to hacking the election. Putin’s bitch will have none of it.
Russia is still supporting the Chumph…And seeking to create a Civil War within the US.
This is why CEOs quitting Putin’s Bitch’s “Cyber Security Commission.
Although the recent events in Charlottesville happened 5,000 miles from Moscow, Russia didn’t sit this one out. As has become almost routine after every polarizing U.S. political event in the past 12 months, online Russian propagandists quickly got involved. This time around, they took to Twitter with an army of bots to promote and share extremist right-wing tweets and disinformation.
The Alliance for Securing Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund that tracks efforts to undermine democratic governments, monitors a collection of 600 Twitter accounts that are known to be linked to Russian influence, including openly pro-Russian users, accounts that take part in Russian disinformation campaigns, and automated bot accounts that parrot Russian messaging. They found these accounts busy at work in the days after Charlottesville. “PhoenixRally,” “Antifa,” and “MAGA” were among the most common hashtags used by these accounts this week. One of the central themes shared by the Russian-linked accounts after Charlottesville was an accusation, propagated by both the Russian news agency Sputnik and American far-right media personality Alex Jones, that the left-leaning philanthropist George Soros had supported the counterprotesters.
One example of a likely bot was an account under the name Angee Dixson, opened on Aug. 8, the Tuesday before the Charlottesville rally started, as reported by ProPublica. Described in her Twitter bio as a conservative Christian, Angee sent about 90 tweets out a day, in which she vigorously defended President Trump’s response to the rally and shared pictures that allegedly showed violence on the part of counterprotesters in Charlottesville. The account has now been shut down.
“BUSTED! Craigslist Ad Exposes Firm Hiring #AltLeft “Protesters” for $25/Hr,” read one of Dixson’s tweets. That was one of five tweets she sent in one minute, according to the archive link of her account. All those tweets contained links that had been shortened using a URL shortener, which usually requires going to a separate website to enter the URL and generate a new link, and that takes time. The tremendous speed with which Dixson was able to send her tweets indicates that Angee Dixson was most likely an automated bot, not a real human. Even the account’s profile picture was stolen: ProPublica linked it to a photo of a model that at one point was rumored to have dated Leonardo DiCaprio. Though it’s hard to directly link any one bot to its source, “Angee’s” tweets were reported to use similar language from Russian government–backed outlets Sputnik and RT.
The same Russian social media machine that blanketed Twitter with pro-Trump posts during the 2016 presidential election were reportedly at work after Charlottesville, too. Bots were weaponized during the presidential debates to give a false impression of a groundswell of grass-roots support for Trump. Bots sharing pro-Trump–related content outnumbered pro-Clinton bots by 7 to 1 during the third debate between the Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, according to research from Oxford University’s Project on Computational Propaganda. In the timespan between the first and second debates, more than one-third of the pro-Trump tweets were found to came from automated bot accounts.
Bots also showed up in the days before this year’s French election, when the campaign of the winning candidate Emmanuel Macron reported it was the victim of a massive email hack. The documents spread like wildfire across Twitter, but it was soon reported that an overwhelming number of the tweets spreading news of the hack were from bots. About 40 percent of the tweets containing #MacronGate were found to be actually coming from only 5 percent of accounts using the hashtag. That tremendous amount of activity from such few accounts is usually a clear sign that humans aren’t the ones doing the tweeting. One account reportedly tweeted 1,668 times in 24 hours, or more than one tweet per minute with no sleep. Unless that account was manned by three people who don’t take bathroom breaks, that was probably a bot. Though, again, it’s incredibly difficult to tell how much of this bot traffic can be linked directly to Russia, but there is evidence that it was Russia was behind the Macron campaign hack. In April, the cybersecurity firm Trend Micro found that the same Russian government–linked hacking group behind the infiltration of the Democratic National Committee also targeted the Macron campaign with email phishing attempts and malware.
Bots are becoming a staple of social media as Western countries find themselves embroiled in polarized political debates. Trump’s Twitter followers, after all, are about 59 percent bots or fake accounts, according to TwitterAudit, a website that measures the authenticity of Twitter followers. All of which goes to show that retweets, likes, trending hashtags, and followers shouldn’t be taken as a strong indication of public opinion—and moreover, that virality is hardly a demonstration of genuineness.
Obama, following the custom of ex-Presidents not going after their successors, no matter how illegitimate – has gone very easy on Putin’s Bitch despite the continued attacks on his record and lies.
Biden has decided, enough is enough.
The former vice president calls on Americans to do what President Trump has not.
In January of 2009, I stood waiting in Wilmington, Delaware, for a train carrying the first African American elected president of the United States. I was there to join him as vice president on the way to a historic Inauguration. It was a moment of extraordinary hope for our nation—but I couldn’t help thinking about a darker time years before at that very site.
My mind’s eye drifted back to 1968. I could see the flames burning Wilmington, the violence erupting on the news of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, the federal troops taking over my city.
I was living history—and reliving it—at the same time. And the images racing through my mind were a vivid demonstration that when it comes to race in America, hope doesn’t travel alone. It’s shadowed by a long trail of violence and hate.
In Charlottesville, that long trail emerged once again into plain view not only for America, but for the whole world to see. The crazed, angry faces illuminated by torches. The chants echoing the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the 1930s. The neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and white supremacists emerging from dark rooms and remote fields and the anonymity of the web into the bright light of day on the streets of a historically significant American city.
If it wasn’t clear before, it’s clear now: We are living through a battle for the soul of this nation. The giant forward steps we have taken in recent years on civil liberties and civil rights and human rights are being met by a ferocious pushback from the oldest and darkest forces in America. Are we really surprised they rose up? Are we really surprised they lashed back? Did we really think they would be extinguished with a whimper rather than a fight?
Did we think the charlatans and the con-men and the false prophets who have long dotted our history wouldn’t revisit us, once again prop up the immigrant as the source of all our troubles, and look to prey on the hopelessness and despair that has grown up in the hollowed-out cities and towns of Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania and the long-forgotten rural stretches of West Virginia and Kentucky?
We have fought this battle before—but today we have a special challenge.
Today we have an American president who has publicly proclaimed a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and Klansmen and those who would oppose their venom and hate.
We have an American president who has emboldened white supremacists with messages of comfort and support.
This is a moment for this nation to declare what the president can’t with any clarity, consistency, or conviction: There is no place for these hate groups in America. Hatred of blacks, Jews, immigrants—all who are seen as “the other”—won’t be accepted or tolerated or given safe harbor anywhere in this nation.
That’s the America I know. That’s who I believe we are. And in the hours and days after Charlottesville, America’s moral conscience began to stir. The nation’s military leadership immediately took a firm stand. Some of America’s most prominent CEOs spoke out. Political, community, and faith leaders raised their voices. Charitable organizations have begun to take a stand. And we should never forget the courage of that small group of University of Virginia students who stared down the mob and its torches on that Friday night.
The greatness of America is that—not always at first, and sometimes at enormous pain and cost—we have always met Lincoln’s challenge to embrace the “better angels of our nature.” Our history is proof of what King said—the long arc of history does “bend towards justice.”
A week after Charlottesville, in Boston, we saw the truth of America: Those with the courage to oppose hate far outnumber those who promote it.
Then a week after Boston, we saw the truth of this president: He won’t stop. His contempt for the U.S. Constitution and willingness to divide this nation knows no bounds. Now he’s pardoned a law-enforcement official who terrorized the Latino community, violated its constitutional rights, defied a federal court order to stop, and ran a prison system so rife with torture and abuse he himself called it a “concentration camp.”
You, me, and the citizens of this country carry a special burden in 2017. We have to do what our president has not. We have to uphold America’s values. We have to do what he will not. We have to defend our Constitution. We have to remember our kids are watching. We have to show the world America is still a beacon of light.
Joined together, we are more than 300 million strong. Joined together, we will win this battle for our soul. Because if there’s one thing I know about the American people, it’s this: When it has mattered most, they have never let this nation down.
One of the questions about North Korea’s missile program is how exactly did the improve from basically short range missiles capable of reaching Japan, to true ICBMs capable of reaching the East Coast of the US in a little more than a year?
Turns out the answer to that question isn’t aid from China. It is Missile Technology given to the North Koreans by the Chumph’s butt-buddy, Putin.
Putin has transferred SS-18/19 capability to the North Koreans. More than likely, the Russians have also given the North Koreans the miniaturized W-31 Warhead capability, first stolen from the US during the Reagan Administration. Below is a graphic of potential North Korean Nuclear targets captured by the Washington Post..
If the Chumph wasn’t so busy sucking Putn’s man parts, he would have the courage to cut off the NK Missile pipeline.
To understand how “rapid” this missile “development” has gone , the following with the leftmost red line being the NK launch on July 4th of this year, and the rightmost red line being the July 28th launch. –
The speed at which North Korea has ramped up its missile and nuclear defense programs within the last two years is reportedly due to purchases Kim Jong Un’s regime has made on a weapons black market linked to the Ukraine and Russia as the United States and the globe frets over a potential military conflict.
A new report released Monday by the International Institute for Strategic Studiesexplained the North has made “astounding strides” in missile development and explained it could not have done so without a high-performance liquid-propellant engine, or LPE, provided by a “foreign source.”
“Claims that the LPE is a North Korean product would be more believable if the country’s experts had in the recent past developed and tested a series of smaller, less powerful engines, but there are no reports of such activities,” the report, penned by missile expert Michael Elleman, read.
Citing available evidence, which can be sparse due to the secretive ways of the North and its isolation from the rest of the world, the report states that North Korea’s ability to jump from short- and medium-range missiles and a flawed type of intermediate-range missile to a more advanced and successful intermediate Hwasong-12 and an intercontinental ballistic missile, called Hwasong-14, could only have occurred with an LPE related to the Soviet RD-250 engines.
Stating that it was “less likely” that Russian engineers could have directly worked on the North’s missiles, the conclusion is drawn that the Soviet Rd-250 missiles and the requisite experience with that class of missile stemmed from factories either from the top Russian rocket engine manufacturer Energomash or the Ukraine’s KB Yuzhnoye.
“One has to conclude that the modified engines were made in those factories,” the report read.
The latter company has a factory based in Dnipro, Ukraine, located inside a part of the country attempting to break away and join Russia amidst a military conflict, and U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Soviet rockets at use by the North were likely made there as the state-owned factory has struggled, The New York Times reported.
Also, back in 2011, North Koreans were caught attempting to steal missile secrets from the factory and that the North may have tried to infiltrate the factory another time.
The rocket engines also are believed to be the very ones the North used to test two missiles last month, which has led to more threats from Kim and calls for diplomacy by China—the North’s sole ally—and even threats from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Uh Oh! Independent Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a Grand Jury in his investigation of Putin’s Bitch.
This suggesting he is seeking ‘large-scale series of prosecutions’.
It would seem that Mueller has indeed gotten to the bottom of what has made the Chumph so nervous the last months. It also suggests a number of Chumph cohorts and fellow connivers are going down with the Chumph Scow.
Expansion beyond Flynn grand jury is a sign the investigation in election meddling is ramping up
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, a sign that his inquiry is growing in intensity and entering a new phase, according to people familiar with the matter.
The grand jury, which began its work in recent weeks, is a sign that Mr. Mueller’s inquiry is ramping up and that it will likely continue for months. Mr. Mueller is investigating Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election and whether President Donald Trump’s campaign or associates colluded with the Kremlin as part of that effort…
Grand juries are powerful investigative tools that allow prosecutors to subpoena documents, put witnesses under oath and seek indictments, if there is evidence of a crime. Legal experts said that the decision by Mr. Mueller to impanel a grand jury suggests he believes he will need to subpoena records and take testimony from witnesses…
“This is yet a further sign that there is a long-term, large-scale series of prosecutions being contemplated and being pursued by the special counsel,” said Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas. “If there was already a grand jury in Alexandria looking at Flynn, there would be no need to reinvent the wheel for the same guy. This suggests that the investigation is bigger and wider than Flynn, perhaps substantially so.”…
Truth is, I hope the Chumph fires Sessions. Session is the most regressive, racist POS appointed since Raygun.With all that is going on with DOJ, Sessions spiteful record, and the investigation into Cumph Treason – it is going to be real hard for the Chumph to appoint another yes man.
As to the Chumph boast about being “More Presidential than anyone since Lincoln”…
That is true comedy gold.
The timing on his one looks like an inside job from the Chumph Administration. Sessions caught red handed lying again about Russian contacts during the election in NSA Intercepts.
They got the whole conversation on tape (like I been telling certain folks). And there is likely a LOT MORE of this nailing the Chumph’s synchophats and the CHumph to the wall.
Looks like they are throwing their boy Sessions under the bus.
WasPo is knocking it out of the park!
Sessions has now been caught in multiple lies about his meetings and discussions with Russian agents. That is not only Perjury – it is Treason. His ass needs to be removed from office immediately.
Russia’s ambassador to Washington told his superiors in Moscow that he discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow, with Jeff Sessions during the 2016 presidential race, contrary to public assertions by the embattled attorney general, according to current and former U.S. officials.
Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a top foreign policy adviser to Republican candidate Donald Trump — were intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, which monitor the communications of senior Russian officials both in the United States and in Russia. Sessions initially failed to disclose his contacts with Kislyak and then said that the meetings were not about the Trump campaign.
One U.S. official said that Sessions — who testified that he has no recollection of an April encounter — has provided “misleading” statements that are “contradicted by other evidence.” A former official said that the intelligence indicates that Sessions and Kislyak had “substantive” discussions on matters including Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for U.S.-Russia relations in a Trump administration.
Sessions has said repeatedly that he never discussed campaign-related issues with Russian officials and that it was only in his capacity as a U.S. senator that he met with Kislyak.
“I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign,” Sessions said in March when he announced that he would recuse himself from matters relating to the FBI probe of Russian interference in the election and any connections to the Trump campaign….more here…
Evidence that Russian State Hackers interfered in the US Elections of 2016 is irrefutable. The only real question left is whether the collusion between Chumph Campaign leadership and Putin’s FSB/KGB rises to the level of being a crime. At some point, probably later this year, Independent Counsel Robert Meuller will hopefully provide answers to that with detailed evidence on whatever conclusion his office makes as a result of that information. With the evidence that has been made public so far – there is little doubt that conclusion will be Treason, which is why Putin’s Bitch is so actively researching if he can pardon himself and his kids from criminal prosecution and jail.
The US is under constant attack by the Russians, most recently in Vermont where Russian FSB/KGB penetrated the power grid, and two weeks ago while Chumph and Putin palled around affectionately at the G20, Russian hackers went after US Nuclear Plants.
The US Government response to this? Not much, other than to bunker-up against the security flaws identified by the Russian attacks. Patch and defend. Chumph won’t allow any sort of retaliation and or crackdown against his Russian allies. Leaving America vulnerable and at the mercy of Russian spies and agents.
So what is left?
Shutting down Russian Cyber-spy operations by responsible American corporations. And yes, that option is limited by laws which Putin’s FSB/KGB doesn’t have to follow. So it is a bit like a one-armed boxer entering the ring.
Microsoft has taken the lead, and since December has been busily chopping away at the apparatus of one of the most egregious Russian Government spy operations – Fancy Bear.
Here is hoping other companies join the fight, because at this point our National Security infrastructure largely has their hands tied by politics in the New Cold War.
One would hope some patriotic corporation or entity would assist in developing an organization or effort by our non-governmental Black Hats to take these Putin fuckers down.
Microsoft is going after Fancy Bear, the Russian hacking group that targeted the DNC, by wresting control of domain names controlled by the foreign spies.
A new offensive by Microsoft has been making inroads against the Russian government hackers behind last year’s election meddling, identifying over 120 new targets of the Kremlin’s cyber spying, and control-alt-deleting segments of Putin’s hacking apparatus.
How are they doing it? It turns out Microsoft has something even more formidable than Moscow’s malware: Lawyers.
Last year attorneys for the software maker quietly sued the hacker group known as Fancy Bear in a federal court outside Washington DC, accusing it of computer intrusion, cybersquatting, and infringing on Microsoft’s trademarks. The action, though, is not about dragging the hackers into court. The lawsuit is a tool for Microsoft to target what it calls “the most vulnerable point” in Fancy Bear’s espionage operations: the command-and-control servers the hackers use to covertly direct malware on victim computers. These servers can be thought of as the spymasters in Russia’s cyber espionage, waiting patiently for contact from their malware agents in the field, then issuing encrypted instructions and accepting stolen documents.
Since August, Microsoft has used the lawsuit to wrest control of 70 different command-and-control points from Fancy Bear. The company’s approach is indirect, but effective. Rather than getting physical custody of the servers, which Fancy Bear rents from data centers around the world, Microsoft has been taking over the Internet domain names that route to them. These are addresses like “livemicrosoft[.]net” or “rsshotmail[.]com” that Fancy Bear registers under aliases for about $10 each. Once under Microsoft’s control, the domains get redirected from Russia’s servers to the company’s, cutting off the hackers from their victims, and giving Microsoft a omniscient view of that servers’ network of automated spies.
“In other words,” Microsoft outside counsel Sten Jenson explained in a court filing last year, “any time an infected computer attempts to contact a command-and-control server through one of the domains, it will instead be connected to a Microsoft-controlled, secure server.”
Historically, Fancy Bear has mostly targeted Windows with its malware, and has leaned heavily on Microsoft products when choosing domain names—thus giving Microsoft standing in the lawsuit. On Friday, after months of litigation and thousands of pages of filings, a judge in Alexandria, Virginia is scheduled to hear Microsoft’s motion for a final default judgment and permanent injunction against Fancy Bear.
Also known as APT28, Sofacy, Pawn Strorm and Strontium—Microsoft’s preferred moniker—Fancy Bear has been conducting cyber espionage since at least 2007, breaching NATO, Obama’s White House, a French television station, the World Anti-Doping Agency and countless NGOs, and militaries and civilian agencies in Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus. Fancy Bear’s most notorious intrusions targeted the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign last year, as part of Moscow’s efforts to help Donald Trump win the White House, according to U.S. intelligence findings.
Yet another Republican …Yet another Putin’s Bitch.
The reason Republicans won’t move to impeach the Chumph is a lot of them are involved in Treason as well. More than just the Chumph are sold out to the Russians.
After being given a secret document by officials in Moscow, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher sought to alter sanctions legislation and tried to set up a virtual show trial on Capitol Hill.
Members of the team of Russians who secured a June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner also attempted to stage a show trial of anti-Putin campaigner Bill Browder on Capitol Hill.
The trial, which would have come in the form of a congressional hearing, was scheduled for mid-June 2016 by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), a long-standing Russia ally who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe. During the hearing, Rohrabacher had planned to confront Browder with a feature-length pro-Kremlin propaganda movie that viciously attacks him—as well as at least two witnesses linked to the Russian authorities, including lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
Ultimately, the hearing was canceled when senior Republicans intervened and agreed to allow a hearing on Russia at the full committee level with a Moscow-sympathetic witness, according to multiple congressional aides.
An email reviewed by The Daily Beast shows that before that June 14 hearing, Rohrabacher’s staff received pro-Kremlin briefings against Browder, once Russia’s biggest foreign investor, and his tax attorney Sergei Magnitsky from a lawyer who was working with Veselnitskaya.
Although House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) had prohibited Rohrabacher from showing the Russian propaganda film in Congress, Rohrabacher’s Capitol Hill office still actively promoted a screening of the movie that was held at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., on June 13, 2016. Veselnitskaya was one of those handling the movie’s worldwide promotion.
Invitations to attend the movie screening were sent from the subcommittee office by Catharine O’Neill, a Republican intern on Rohrabacher’s committee. Her email promised that the movie would convince viewers that Magnitsky, who was murdered in a Russian prison cell, was no hero.
The invite, reviewed by The Daily Beast, claimed that the film “explodes the common view that Mr. Magnitsky was a whistleblower” and lavishes praise on the “rebel director” Andrei Nekrasov.
“That invitation was not from our office. O’Neill was an unpaid intern on the committee staff. Paul denies asking her to send the invitations,” said Ken Grubbs, Rohrabacher’s press secretary, referring to the congressman’s staff director, Paul Behrends.
O’Neill went on to secure a job on the Trump transition team and then in the State Department’s Office of the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights. She did not return a call for comment.
Rohrabacher’s office was given the film by the Prosecutor General’s office in Moscow, which is run by Yuri Chaika, a close associate of President Vladimir Putin who is accused of widespread corruption, and Viktor Grin, the deputy general prosecutor who has been sanctioned by the United States as part of the Magnitsky Act.
That same Prosecutor General’s office also was listed as being behind the “very high level and sensitive information” that was offered to Donald Trump Jr. in an email prior to his now infamous meeting with Russian officials at Trump Tower on June 9—just days before the congressional hearing. Veselnitskaya attended that meeting with Trump Jr. She also happens to have worked as a prosecutor in the Moscow region and is a close personal friend of Chaika.
The Daily Beast reviewed a copy of a document that was passed to Rohrabacher in Moscow in April 2016. The document, marked “confidential,” was given to Rohrabacher and Behrends. It lays out an alternate reality in which the U.S.—and the rest of the world—has been duped by a fake $230 million scandal that resulted in sanctions being imposed on 44 Russians linked to murder, corruption, or cover-ups.
The document, which was handed over by an official from the Prosecutor General’s office to Rohrabacher along with means of viewing the Russian propaganda movie, suggested that U.S. “political situation may change the current climate” and claimed that it was the ideal moment to foment a challenge to the Western narrative on Putin’s kleptocracy. A subcommittee hearing that would re-examine the sanctions placed on Russia, the paper claimed, would be appreciated in Moscow.
“Changing attitudes to the Magnitsky story in the Congress… could have a very favorable response from the Russian side,” the document said.
What the U.S. would get in exchange for holding a subcommittee hearing was not laid out in detail. But the document promised to help iron out “key controversial issues and disagreements with the United States.”
Grubbs said Rohrabacher had accepted the document but said the conversation with officials from the Prosecutor General’s office during the congressman’s April 2016 Moscow visit was “brief and formal.”
When Rohrabacher returned to the United States, he delayed the passage of the Global Magnitsky Act by holding it up in committee and tabled an amendment to remove Magnitsky’s name from its title, citing several of the claims found in the Russian document.
Next, Rohrabacher and Behrends, with the help of Rinat Akhmetshin, a Soviet army veteran and lobbyist who was also present at the June 9 Trump Tower meeting, put together a subcommittee event with witnesses including Veselnitskaya and Nekrasov, the director of the movie.
When Royce, the chair of the foreign relations committee, got wind of the hearing, he nixed Rohrabacher’s plan and offered instead to hold a full committee hearing on Russia relations. House aides conceded that he did so, in part, to avoid Rohrabacher staging an event that could have embarrassed the Republican Party—and Congress.
Rohrabacher was apparently still allowed to propose a witness for the full committee hearing who shared some of his pro-Russia views. Jack Matlock, the former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union who appeared, confirmed to The Daily Beast that he had been first approached by Rohrabacher.
A spokesman for Royce said that while Matlock and Rohrabacher did know each other from their days in the Ronald Reagan administration, his appearance at the hearing was ultimately cleared by the full committee’s Republican staff.
During Royce’s hearing, Rohrabacher approvingly compared Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin. The congressman also submitted, for the congressional record, testimony that claimed Russia had not been behind the radioactive poisoning of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London.
Rohrabacher, Behrends, Akhmetshin, Veselnitskaya, and Matlock had dinner together later that night at the Capitol Hill Club, a private members’ establishment for Republicans. The evening was organized by Lanny Wiles, a veteran GOP operative.
The following day, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was caught on tape telling Republican colleagues: “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” When some of the lawmakers laughed, he replied: “Swear to God.”…More…
Actually there are literally dozens – all associated with the Chumph regime.
The meeting set up with Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort is classic Russian espionage tradecraft, with Putin’s hands being kept “clean.”
Donald Trump Jr. is a traitor.
Trump Jr. knowingly and admittedly met with a person he believed was working on behalf of the Russian government. He was meeting with a Russian spy with the hope of obtaining information that would be beneficial to his father. This changes the entire game in regards to President Trump and the investigation into his potential collusion with Russia. For months now, the Trump administration has claimed that, though they had these undeclared meetings with Russian officials, they were with Russians of a diplomatic stature and they have not admitted that these meetings were for the purpose of influencing the election. Trump Jr. fully believed that the Russian attorney he met with, had documents and information that would be devastating to the Clinton campaign.
There is no crime in a candidate having the verbal endorsement of another country. Since its inception, the U.S. has endorsed political candidates in elections all over the world. However, the son of a candidate, with whom that candidate admits having an exceptionally close relationship with, actively attempting to obtain information from a foreign country to hopefully influence the outcome of the election, is treason and espionage.
Though I am no fan of Vladimir Putin, he is to his very core, a spy, and an exceptional one. But as a former spy myself, I know that Putin himself is simply too good to be caught. After serving decades in the KGB and its successor, the FSB, he has created a neo-KGB state. The meeting that Trump Jr. had is classic Russian espionage tradecraft, with Putin’s hands being kept “clean.” Natalia Veselnitskaya, the attractive Russian attorney, stated that she does not work for the Russian government, a statement that is entirely false. She is denying this because Putin has an uncanny ability to make people “disappear” who refuse to do his bidding (remember Alexander Litvinenko?). During my training at the CIA, it was no secret that the Russians’ modus operandi was to use attractive women in working with American men. Additionally, in a meeting of this level, Putin is not naïve enough to simply place a person with no credentials in front of Trump Jr.
In Veselnitskaya, Putin simply has the perfect spy.
1. She is not part of the Russian government, rather a powerful Russian attorney; making it easy for Putin to deny direct government involvement.
2. Her known profession makes it easy for her to deny what the meeting was about as she has recently stated that she met with Trump Jr. to discuss the Magnitsky Act. If the meeting was truly about the Act, why was it not initially reported? True, Veselnitskaya has been a critic of this Act, she has been well-documented giving interviews with talking points provided by the Kremlin itself. Thus establishing a link between her and the Kremlin.
3. She has appeared on virtually every major news network today denying that she had damning information to provide to Trump at this meeting. Based on my experience, Putin would have asked her to do this.
4. A famous pop star who was well known by the Trump family acted as an intermediary to set up this meeting. If Veselnitskaya is truly lobbyist, why use this person to set up the meeting?
Putin sent Veselnitskaya to test the waters with the Trump family. They bit. We will never have the proverbial smoking gun, i.e. Putin himself passing information to the Trump administration or members of the Trump family. But we have convicted Americans of crimes with much less evidence. To me, this issue is not political; I would be calling for the resignation of the president regardless of their political affiliation if they had done this. President Trump was undoubtedly aware of the meeting Trump Jr. was having. He has made no secret of the close relationship he has with his family and though he was not present at the meeting, President Trump regularly sends his children to meetings in his place.
Today, many rather liberal media pundits have been shockingly playing down whether or not this was treason and/or espionage, rather stating it is a violation of the Campaign Finance Reform Act. They are making this statement because I do not believe that they truly understand how espionage and the development of human assets work.
Today we have learned that without a doubt, the Trump administration has colluded with Russia.
Like father, like son…
Before arranging a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer he believed would offer him compromising information about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Jr. was informed in an email that the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy, according to three people with knowledge of the email.
The email to the younger Mr. Trump was sent by Rob Goldstone, a publicist and former British tabloid reporter who helped broker the June 2016 meeting. In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Trump acknowledged that he was interested in receiving damaging information about Mrs. Clinton, but gave no indication that he thought the lawyer might have been a Kremlin proxy.
Mr. Goldstone’s message, as described to The New York Times by the three people, indicates that the Russian government was the source of the potentially damaging information. It does not elaborate on the wider effort by Moscow to help the Trump campaign.
There is no evidence to suggest that the promised damaging information was related to Russian government computer hacking that led to the release of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails. The meeting took place less than a week before it was widely reported that Russian hackers had infiltrated the committee’s servers.
But the email is likely to be of keen interest to the Justice Department and congressional investigators, who are examining whether any of President Trump’s associates colluded with the Russian government to disrupt last year’s election. American intelligence agencies have determined that the Russian government tried to sway the election in favor of Mr. Trump.
The Times first reported on the existence of the meeting on Saturday, and a fuller picture has emerged in subsequent days.
Alan Futerfas, the lawyer for the younger Mr. Trump, said his client had done nothing wrong but pledged to work with investigators if contacted.
“In my view, this is much ado about nothing. During this busy period, Robert Goldstone contacted Don Jr. in an email and suggested that people had information concerning alleged wrongdoing by Democratic Party front-runner, Hillary Clinton, in her dealings with Russia,” he told The Times in an email on Monday. “Don Jr.’s takeaway from this communication was that someone had information potentially helpful to the campaign and it was coming from someone he knew. Don Jr. had no knowledge as to what specific information, if any, would be discussed.”
It is unclear whether Mr. Goldstone had direct knowledge of the origin of the damaging material. One person who was briefed on the emails said it appeared that he was passing along information that had been passed through several others.
Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, and Paul J. Manafort, the campaign chairman at the time, also attended the June 2016 meeting in New York. Representatives for Mr. Kushner referred requests for comments back to an earlier statement, which said he had voluntarily disclosed the meeting to the federal government. He has deferred questions on the content of the meeting to Donald Trump Jr….
Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean. It follows a pattern if you dig what I mean.
Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean. It follows a pattern if you dig what I mean.
Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean. It follows a pattern if you dig what I mean.
From the H2O Gate Blues by Gil Scott Heron
It sounds like Treason, you know what I mean.
The recent revelation that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian attorney with close ties to the Kremlin is just another in a long line of coincidental meetings that President Donald Trump’s friends, family, and associates had with Russians.
A number of people close to Trump have claimed they never had contact with Russian operatives — only for their denial to be proven wrong later. Below is a list of some of the most prominent people:
1. Donald Trump Jr.
The most recent in the list of Trump allies is Trump’s own son. In a March interview with the New York Times, he denied having any campaign-related meetings with Russian nationals.
“Did I meet with people that were Russian? I’m sure, I’m sure I did,” he said. “But none that were set up. None that I can think of at the moment. And certainly, none that I was representing the campaign in any way, shape or form.”
The New York Times reported Sunday that Trump Jr., Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former campaign chair Paul Manafort met with Natalia Veselnitskaya, who had claimed that she had information on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Trump Jr. has admitted he attended the meeting to see what the “dirt” was, but that the conversation resulted in nothing meaningful.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) noted that the meeting is important because it was the first indication that someone in the campaign demonstrated they were willing to collude with Russians.
2. Jeff Sessions
While under oath in his Jan. 10 confirmation hearing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was asked by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) about any connections to Russians.
Sessions replied that he “did not have communications with the Russians” during the campaign. He also made the same statement in writing on the official questionnaire. He was told that any communications he had “as a senator” did not need to go on the form since that was as his capacity as an elected official.
Sessions met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at least twice during 2016. One meet up was even photographed during the Republican National Convention, where Sessions was taking meetings for Trump. The second took place in September.
3. Mike Pence
No one has denied the Russian collusion or connections more publicly than Vice President Mike Pence, who was allegedly setup to lie on national television just before Trump was inaugurated. Specifically, Pence claimed that retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn never discussed sanctions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during their introductory phone calls.
While Pence might try to maintain plausible deniability, the evidence is stacking up that over and over Pence was warned about Flynn’s contacts with Russia. In May, it was revealed that Flynn was warned by the transition team about his contacts with the Russian Ambassador on the day then-President Barack Obama issued sanctions against Russia for hacking. Pence was the head of the transition team after Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) was replaced.
Before the inauguration, Pence was sent a letter by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) warning the transition that Flynn had concerning lobbying contracts.
It was also revealed that acting Attorney General Sally Yates warned the White House Counsel Don McGahn that Flynn’s communications with Russians put him in a compromised position. She had two in-person meetings and one phone call specifically because she was concerned about Pence’s comments on “Face the Nation.”
When Yates testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee in May, she said that she told White House officials on Jan. 26 that Pence deserved to know that Flynn had not been truthful about his communications with Russian officials. Flynn was not asked to resign until Feb. 13.
“Either they were criminally negligent — or they weren’t and they knew,” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said about Pence and the Trump team in March.
4. Michael Flynn
Flynn told anyone who asked him about his communications between the Russian Ambassador Kislyak that he didn’t recall the issue of sanctions coming up, but “isn’t completely certain.”
It was further found that Flynn lied to investigators about payments from work that Flynn had done with Russians so that he could get his security clearance.
5. Jared Kushner
To gain his top-secret security clearance, Trump’s son-in-law was required to disclose any encounters with foreign government officials for the past seven years. Kushner did not list at least three such meetings.
Kushner’s attorney said that the omission of dozens of contacts with Russians was nothing more than an error. It’s also a lie.
Kushner’s first meeting that we know of came during that June 9, 2016 meeting with Veselnitskaya, in which he, Trump Jr. and Manafort were told the Kremlin-linked lawyer had damaging information on Clinton.
Another meeting was in December with Ambassador Kislyak and the third was with the leader of the Russian state-owned bank Vnesheconombank, which was arranged at Kislyak’s command.
Kushner’s attorney claims that the form was submitted prematurely and that they informed the FBI they would be sending supplemental information. In the absence of that information, Kushner was issued an interim clearance.
After the evidence was revealed that Kushner lied about the meetings, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, called for Kushner to lose his top-secret clearance until questions can be answered.
6. Paul Manafort
In a July 2016 interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week,” Paul Manafort claimed that there were no ties between him or Trump’s campaign and Putin.
“That’s absurd…there’s no basis to it,” Manafort said.
In another July interview, this time with CNN’s Erin Burnett, Manafort swore that any allegations about links between Putin and Trump, including his own personal role, was “crazy.”
Also around that time, Manafort was asked in a “CBS This Morning” interview if Trump had any financial relationships with Russian oligarchs.
“That’s what he said. That’s what I said, uh, that’s obviously what my position is,” Manafort stammered.
In March, the Associated Press broke a story that Manafort “secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin a decade ago and proposed an ambitious political strategy to undermine anti-Russian opposition across former Soviet republics.”
The AP quoted “interviews with several people familiar with payments to Manafort and business records obtained by the AP,” who revealed that Manafort’s secret work for Putin. It “appears to contradict assertions by the Trump administration and Manafort himself that he never worked for Russian interests,” the AP said.
7. Carter Page
In a Feb. 2017 interview with Judy Woodruff on the PBS NewsHour, foreign policy advisor Carter Page said that he had “no meetings” with Russian officials last year.
Page later told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, “I do not deny” meeting with the ambassador last summer in Ohio at the RNC convention.
“I will say I never met him anywhere outside of Cleveland. Let’s just say that much,” he added.
It was then revealed that Page went to Russia with a secret recording of Trump asking Putin to hack 2016 election to be hacked.
While close friend and ally of Roger Stone had communications with those involved in the Russian hack, he didn’t lie about it, in fact, he bragged about it. It is unclear if there are others close to Trump, but the list might expand as the investigations continue.
Yet another meeting by the Chumph Campaign team with Russian spies to get stolen info on Hillary Clinton…
Putin’s Bitch was all smiley today. He got to meet his master Putin.
Meanwhile those Russians who “weren’t hacking” were busy trying to take down our Nuclear Plants…
U.S. intelligence officials say Russia, emboldened since the 2016 presidential election, is going after new targets
Russian hackers are the chief suspects in recent efforts to meddle with the computer networks that run various nuclear power plants and other energy facilities.
If Russia is indeed responsible, it suggests that they could attempt to forcibly shut down parts of America’s power grid like they are believed to have done to Ukraine in the past, according to a report by Bloomberg.
This would also be consistent with a recent CNN report, which cites American intelligence officials describing an increase in Russian intelligence gathering activities since the 2016 presidential election. As one senior intelligence official told the site, “Russians have maintained an aggressive collection posture in the U.S., and their success in election meddling has not deterred them.”
The hackers, regardless of nationality, are believed to be responsible for breaching the Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation in Kentucky among a number of other facilities since May, according to the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The New York Times confirmed the joint report with security specialists who have had to cope with the hacking attempts.
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