The indictment of 12 Russian ‘agents,’ which included no collusion with Trump’s team, is essentially a political and not legal document because it is almost certain the U.S. government will never have to present any evidence in court, reports Joe Lauria.
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Charges against 12 Russian intelligence agents for allegedly hacking emails from the Democratic Party during the 2016 presidential election were announced by the U.S. Justice Department on Friday at the very moment President Donald Trump was meeting Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle and just days before a summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.
A central claim of Russia-gate has been that the Russian government with help from the Trump campaign stole emails from the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign and then gave those emails to WikiLeaks for publication to damage Clinton’s quest for the White House.
Until Friday however, the investigation into the allegations had produced no formal indictment of Russian government interference in the election. Like previous U.S. government accusations against Russia for alleged election meddling, the indictment makes assertions without providing evidence. Indictments do not need to show evidence and under U.S. law, indictments are not considered evidence. And it is highly unlikely that the government will ever have to produce any evidence in court.
Friday’s indictments do not include any charges against Trump campaign members for allegedly colluding with the Russian government to carry out the hacks. That has been at the core of allegations swirling in U.S. media for two years. If the alleged co-conspirators “known” to the DOJ were on the Trump team, the indictments do not say. There is only a hint that “unknown” persons might be.
In announcing the indictments at a press conference Friday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said: “The conspirators corresponded with several Americans during the course of the conspiracy through the internet. There’s no allegation in this indictment that the Americans knew they were corresponding with Russian intelligence officers.”
The indictment alleges that Russian agents, posing as Guccifer 2.0, communicated on Aug. 15, 2016 with “a person who was in regular contact with senior members” of the Trump campaign, most likely advisor Roger Stone, who has spoken about communicating with Guccifer 2.0. The indictment says Guccifer offered to “help u anyhow,” apparently indicating that Stone did want Guccifer 2.0’s help.
Clinging to ‘Collusion’
The lack of evidence that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia has never stopped Democrats and their media outlets from believing unnamed U.S. intelligence sources for two years about such collusion. “Collusion” is the title of a best-selling book about the supposed Trump-Russia conspiracy to steal the election, but such a charge is not to be found.
The indictment excluding collusion also undermines the so-called Steele dossier, a work of opposition research paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign masquerading as an intelligence document because it was compiled by a former MI6 agent. The memos falsely claimed, it turns out, that Trump’s people started colluding with Russia years before he became a candidate.
But even after Friday’s indictments failed to charge anyone from Trump’s team, the Democratic media continued to insist there was collusion. A New York Times story, headlined, “Trump Invited the Russians to Hack Clinton. Were They Listening?,” said Russia may have absurdly responded to Trump’s call at 10:30 a.m. on July 27, 2016 to hack Clinton’s private email server because it was “on or about” that day that Russia allegedly first made an attempt to hack Clinton’s personal emails, according to the indictment, which makes no connection between the two events.
If Russia is indeed guilty of remotely hacking the emails it would have had no evident need of assistance from anyone on the Trump team, let alone a public call from Trump on national TV to commence the operation.
And as Twitter handle “Representative Press” pointed out: “Trump’s July 27, 2016 call to find the missing 30,000 emails could not be a ‘call to hack Clinton’s server’ because at that point it was no longer online. Long before Trump’s statement, Clinton had already turned over her email server to the U.S. Department of Justice.” Either the indictment was talking about different servers or it is being intentionally misleading when it says “on or about July 27, 2016, the Conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office.”
GRU HQ, Moscow.
Instead of Trump operatives, the indictments name 12 Russians, allegedly agents from the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency. The agents “knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other, and with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury (collectively the ‘Conspirators’), to gain unauthorized access (to ‘hack’) into the computers of U.S. persons and entities involved in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, steal documents from those computers, and stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” the 29-page indictment says.
“Starting in at least March 2016, the Conspirators used a variety of means to hack the email accounts of volunteers and employees of the U.S. presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton (the ‘Clinton Campaign’), including the email account of the Clinton Campaign’s chairman,” the indictment says.
Obvious Timing
The timing of the announcement was clearly intended to embarrass Trump as he was meeting the Queen and to undermine his upcoming meeting with Putin on July 16. The indictments may also have been meant to embarrass Russia two days before the World Cup final to be held in Moscow.
Pressure was immediately brought on Trump to cancel the summit in light of the indictments, which may have been the main goal in the timing of their announcement. “Glad-handing with Vladimir Putin on the heels of these indictments would be an insult to our democracy,” Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement less than an hour after the indictments were announced. “President Trump should cancel his meeting with Vladimir Putin until Russia takes demonstrable and transparent steps to prove that they won’t interfere in future elections,” Schumer said.
With no apparent irony, The New York Times reported, “The timing of the indictment … added a jolt of tension to the already freighted atmosphere surrounding Mr. Trump’s meeting with Mr. Putin. It is all but certain to feed into the conspiratorial views held by the president and some of his allies that Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors are determined to undermine Mr. Trump’s designs for a rapprochement with Russia.”
Russia Denies
Meanwhile, back in Washington … (ABC screenshot)
The Russian government on Friday strongly denied the charges. In a statement, the Foreign Ministry called the indictments “a shameful farce” that was not backed up by any evidence. “Obviously, the goal of this ‘mud-slinging’ is to spoil the atmosphere before the Russian-American summit,” the statement said.
The Ministry added that the 12 named Russians were not agents of the GRU.
“When you dig into this indictment … there are huge problems, starting with how in the world did they identify 12 Russian intelligence officers with the GRU?” said former CIA analyst Larry Johnson in an interview with Consortium News. Johnson pointed out that the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency was not allowed to take part in the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on alleged interference by the GRU. Only hand-picked analysts from the FBI, the NSA and the CIA were involved.
“The experts in the intelligence community on the GRU … is the Defense Intelligence Agency and they were not allowed to clear on that document,” Johnson said.
“When you look at the level of detail about what [the indictment is] claiming, there is no other public source of information on this, and it was not obtained through U.S. law enforcement submitting warrants and getting affidavits to conduct research in Russia, so it’s clearly intelligence information from the NSA, most likely,” Johnson said.
CrowdStrike’s Role
The indictment makes clear any evidence of an alleged hack of the DNC and DCCC computers did not come from the FBI, which was never given access to the computers by the DNC, but instead from the private firm CrowdStrike, which was hired by the DNC. It is referred to as Company 1 in the indictment.
“Despite the Conspirators’ efforts to hide their activity, beginning in or around May 2016, both the DCCC and DNC became aware that they had been hacked and hired a security company (“Company 1”) to identify the extent of the intrusions,” the indictment says.
Dimitri Alperovitch, a CrowdStrike co-founder, is also a senior fellow at the anti-Russian Atlantic Council think tank.
The indictment doesn’t mention it, but within a day, CrowdStrike claimed to find Russian “fingerprints” in the metadata of a DNC opposition research document, which had been revealed by DCLeaks, showing Cyrillic letters and the name of the first Soviet intelligence chief. That supposedly implicated Russia in the hack.
CrowdStrike claimed the alleged Russian intelligence operation was extremely sophisticated and skilled in concealing its external penetration of the server. But CrowdStrike’s conclusion about Russian “fingerprints” resulted from clues that would have been left behind by extremely sloppy or amateur hackers—or inserted intentionally to implicate the Russians.
One of CrowdStrike’s founders has ties to the anti-Russian Atlantic Council raising questions of political bias. And the software it used to determine Russia’s alleged involvement in the DNC hack, was later proved to be faulty in a high-profile case in Ukraine, reported by the Voice of America.
The indictment then is based at least partially on evidence produced by an interested private company, rather than the FBI.
Evidence Likely Never to be Seen
Other apparent sources for information in the indictment are intelligence agencies, which normally create hurdles in a criminal prosecution.
“In this indictment there is detail after detail whose only source could be intelligence, yet you don’t use intelligence in documents like this because if these defendants decide to challenge this in court, it opens the U.S. to having to expose sources and methods,” Johnson said.
If the U.S. invoked the states secret privilege so that classified evidence could not be revealed in court a conviction before a civilian jury would be jeopardized.
Such a trial is extremely unlikely however. That makes the indictment essentially a political and not a legal document because it is almost inconceivable that the U.S. government will have to present any evidence in court to back up its charges. This is simply because of the extreme unlikelihood that arrests of Russians living in Russia will ever be made.
In this way it is similar to the indictment earlier this year of the Internet Research Agency of St. Petersburg, Russia, a private click bait company that was alleged to have interfered in the 2016 election by buying social media ads and staging political rallies for both Clinton and Trump. It seemed that no evidence would ever have to back up the indictment because there would never be arrests in the case.
But Special Counsel Robert Mueller was stunned when lawyers for the internet company showed up in Washington demanding discovery in the case. That caused Mueller to scramble and demand a delay in the first hearing, which was rejected by a federal judge. Mueller is now battling to keep so-called sensitive material out of court.
In both the IRA case and Friday’s indictments, the extremely remote possibility of convictions were not what Mueller was apparently after, but rather the public perception of Russia’s guilt resulting from fevered media coverage of what are after all only accusations, presented as though it is established fact. Once that impression is settled into the public consciousness, Mueller’s mission would appear to be accomplished.
For instance, the Times routinely dispenses with the adjective “alleged” and reports the matter as though it is already established fact. It called Friday’s indictments, which are only unproven charges, “the most detailed accusation by the American government to date of the [not alleged] Russian government’s interference in the 2016 election, and it includes a litany of [not alleged] brazen Russian subterfuge operations meant to foment chaos in the months before Election Day.”
GRU Named as WikiLeak’s Source
The indictment claims that GRU agents, posing as Guccifer 2.0, (who says he is a Romanian hacker) stole the Democratic documents and later emailed a link to them to WikiLeaks, named as “Organization 1.” No charges were brought against WikiLeaks on Friday.
Assange: Denied Russia was his source. (CNBC screenshot)
“After failed attempts to transfer the stolen documents starting in late June 2016, on or about July 14, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, sent Organization 1 an email with an attachment titled ‘wk dnc linkl.txt.gpg,’” the indictment says. “The Conspirators explained to Organization 1 that the encrypted file contained instructions on how to access an online archive of stolen DNC documents. On or about July 18, 2016, Organization 1 confirmed it had ‘the 1Gb or so archive’ and would make a release of the stolen documents’ this week.’”
WikiLeaks founder and editor Julian Assange, who is in exile in the Ecuador embassy in London, has long denied that he got the emails from any government. Instead Assange has suggested that his source was a disgruntled Democratic Party worker, Seth Rich, whose murder on the streets of Washington in July 2016 has never been solved.
On Friday, WikiLeaks did not repeat the denial that a government was its source. Instead it tweeted: “Interesting timing choice by DoJ today (right before Trump-Putin meet), announcing indictments against 12 alleged Russian intelligence officers for allegedly releasing info through DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0.”
Assange has had all communication with the outside world shut off by the Ecuadorian government two months ago.
Since the indictments were announced, WikiLeaks has not addressed the charge that GRU agents, posing as Guccifer 2.0, were its source. WikiLeaks’ policy is to refuse to disclose any information about its sources. WikiLeaks’ denial that the Russian government gave them the emails could be based on its belief that Guccifer 2.0 was who he said he was, and not what the U.S. indictments allege.
Those indictments claim that the Russian military intelligence agents adopted the personas of both Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks to publish the Democratic Party documents online, before the Russian agents, posing as Guccifer 2.0, allegedly supplied WikiLeaks.
The emails, which the indictment does not say are untrue, damaged the Clinton campaign. They revealed, for instance, that the campaign and the Democratic Party worked to deny the nomination to Clinton’s Democratic Party primary challenger Bernie Sanders.
The indictments also say that the Russian agents purchased the use of a computer server in Arizona, using bitcoin to hide their financial transactions. The Arizona server was used to receive the hacked emails from the servers of the Democratic Party and the chairman of Clinton’s campaign, the indictment alleges. If true it would mean the transfer of the emails took place within the United States, rather than overseas, presumably to Russia.
Some members of the Veterans’ Intelligence Professionals for Sanity argue that metadata evidence points to a local download from the Democratic computers, in other words a leak, rather than a hack. They write the NSA would have evidence of a hack and, unlike this indictment, could make the evidence public: “Given NSA’s extensive trace capability, we conclude that DNC and HRC servers alleged to have been hacked were, in fact, not hacked. The evidence that should be there is absent; otherwise, it would surely be brought forward, since this could be done without any danger to sources and methods.”
That argument was either ignored or dismissed by Mueller’s team.
The Geopolitical Context
US enabled Yeltsin’s reelection.
It is not only allies of Trump, as the Times thinks, who believe the timing of the indictments, indeed the entire Russia-gate scandal, is intended to prevent Trump from pursuing detente with nuclear-armed Russia. Trump said of the indictments that, “I think that really hurts our country and it really hurts our relationship with Russia. I think that we would have a chance to have a very good relationship with Russia and a very good chance — a very good relationship with President Putin.”
There certainly appear to be powerful forces in the U.S. that want to stop that.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Wall Street rushed in behind Boris Yeltsin and Russian oligarchs to asset strip virtually the entire country, impoverishing the population. Amid widespread accounts of this grotesque corruption, Washington intervened in Russian politics to help get Yeltsin re-elected in 1996. The political rise of Vladimir Putin after Yeltsin resigned on New Year’s Eve 1999 reversed this course, restoring Russian sovereignty over its economy and politics.
That inflamed American hawks whose desire is to install another Yeltsin-like figure and resume U.S. exploitation of Russia’s vast natural and financial resources. To advance that cause, U.S. presidents have supported the eastward expansion of NATO and have deployed 30,000 troops on Russia’s borders.
In 2014, the Obama administration helped orchestrate a coup that toppled the elected government of Ukraine and installed a fiercely anti-Russian regime. The U.S. also undertook the risky policy of aiding jihadists to overthrow a secular Russian ally in Syria. The consequences have brought the world closer to nuclear annihilation than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
In this context, the Democratic Party-led Russia-gate appears to have been used not only to explain away Clinton’s defeat but to stop Trump — possibly via impeachment or by inflicting severe political damage — because he talks about cooperation with Russia.
Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Sunday Times of London and numerous other newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe .
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Johnson is forgetting about the AIVD supposedly hacking the Russians and looking over their shoulder (quite literally).
On one hand, I though that story looked sloppy, and tried too hard to tie together several timelines to gain credibility. On the other, it made very specific claims of evidence that was gathered against the Russians. So specific that no argument can be made against releasing it to the public.
Most of the sources for that article were American and not Dutch.
Could this be a ploy to deflect responsibility for showing evidence, and/or keeping one’s own secrets a secret? Or will we one day see the pictures the AIVD supposedly took of the Russians in action?
What baffles me is how the GRU and IRA projects got busted because they lacked the discipline and paranoia that I could personally muster to get my shit done, if so inclined. (Being lazy though, I tend to be a law-abiding citizen)
I think the young lady who was possibly funneling money to trump through the NRA as already had considerable evidence released.
I have been a supporter of Robert Parryy even before Consortium. Now I am beginning to wonder. Yes, I want to hear the other side, but is there ONLY the other side. I would like an answer if I can continue to support you. I am so sad.
Ms Saxon, if you turn on your TV, read a newspaper or listen to the radio, the “other side” is in your face, yelling, screaming, blotting out all ink, but theirs. The media was once a spectrum. The New York Times, Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, yes every major city had a left right and center media. They have all moved right, just as your and my Democrats have. I read 2 or 3 newspaper in at least 2 languages every day plus Google and Yahoo agglomerations. The only US news sources that I can find that do not spout either the NYT of Fox lines are Consortium and Intercept.Even the UK Guardian transmits the same stories as does Le Monde, but a bit less so.
Clap and donate to the two clear journals and their journalists. They’re all that’s left.
You think that this side is the only side available to US readers. Do you reside in a cave with no access to the outside world? Surely you are kidding.
Binney & Co memo to POTUS
“Mr. President, we do not know if CIA’s Marble Framework, or tools like it, played some kind of role in the campaign to blame Russia for hacking the DNC. Nor do we know how candid the denizens of CIA’s Digital Innovation Directorate [created by John O. Brennan] have been with you and with Director Pompeo..”
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/07/15/memo-to-the-president-ahead-of-mondays-summit/
If one takes off the glasses of bias, the hysteria before and after the Trump-Putin meeting is primarily the unending brass-brained squealing about Hillary’s loss of the election. She still owns the DNC entirely and would seem to be thinking about a re-loss on 2020. Those of use not sucked in to this vacuum have no one left for whom we can vote. There are only sellouts, proven hacks and bonafide losers left.
Why, in this nation of 300M is there not a movement with both an intelligent domestic AND foreign policy? Are there 150M adults incapable of thought more broad than their TV or social media screens. Isn’t there an upper middle class concerned with the welfare of those socio-economically poorer than they are AND at the same time, able to comprehend where America was, is, and should be in the world? Is there nothing, but Deep State and democratic fascism in the future? Are there only 3 readers of Consortium and Intercept?
There are LGBT billionaires known to be backing the various gender causes very successfully with their money. There are hundreds of millions poured in from women of wealth that successfully have promoted a hard-nose, steel-girdled variation on feminism. Are there no vastly wealthy with the brains needed to develop and put in place a new political form of real democracy before the last few grains of the old one run out?
Trump IS a disgrace, incompetent, corrupt, anti-education/art/culture, racist, and grossly sexist, and possibly mafioso. Though superficially more conventional, Hillary is simply the money-driven bullhorn for the CIA which, in turn, is the voice that converts Deep State desires into action. And the DS BS has failed grotesquely over the last 68 years.
So is there nowhere to go from here beside play the band leader of our Titanic? Come on, ladies and gentlemen, come up with some fresh, realizable ideas before you drown in these shark-infested waters.. A think tank on Clear-Eyed Government devoid of childish wishful thinking? A 3rd Party? Billionaires For Peace & Prosperity For All? What?
@anonymot
The intercept is attached to what I would call THE CRUISE MISSILE LEFT
THe are the flag bearers of pax-americana and all their fascistic machinations hiding behind the veil of liberalism and identitarianism (inclusisiveness).
I posit a theoretical question.
Detente would put alot of people out of bussiness,
Russophobes
Xenophobes
Western Intellectual confirmation bias industry
MIC
Legacy Media
Anglo-zionist
The sad reality is after 9/11 all we in the west know is HUMANITARIAN CRUISE MISSILES THAT MAIM AND DESTROY AND BRING FREEDOM JUSTICE AND THE AMERICAN WAY
Go and ask a Yemenite a Syrian a Libyan or an ARAB semite how those peace luving cruise misslies are doing,
PACE E BENE
“In this context, the Democratic Party-led Russia-gate appears to have been used not only to explain away Clinton’s defeat but to stop Trump — possibly via impeachment or by inflicting severe political damage — because he talks about cooperation with Russia.” Supposing that’s true, then, Why can’t Trump use his position to single out trouble-makers like Mueller and, at the least, fire them?
Because it add fuel to the fire of speculation that Trump is acting to suppress any investigation into his supposed collusion with Russia. Remember what happened when he fired Comey? That’s how the whole Mueller probe got started.
This all reminds me of the consternation and panic of the establishment when Reagan tried to make deal with Gorbachev about nuclear disarmament.
Our MSM has complete control of what we think and what we will do next. So too does it wield complete control over the collusion narrative with Trump and Putin. Mueller has yet to find any evidence of collusion and has stated that clearly but the MSM continues to parrot the democrats and the intelligence agencies claims that Trump is a Putin Puppet. It is almost like they want a war.
Like this article states, although there has been no fire behind the smoke screen generated by the press that any US government employee colluded with Russia the press endlessly tries to link Mueller’s indictments of Russian operatives to the president.
This is the second round of indictments which have failed to link Trump and Putin in a conspiracy of “collusion” and yet our mighty free press continues to connect dots that are not there.
The media is silent about all the real reasons that Trump won which includes support from our domestic media MSM and instead hides their hand by blaming a foreign government (Russia).
What they don’t want anyone to realize is that the MSM decided to clean up and gain megabucks from the Dark Money flooding national elections and then blame it on the Russians. It really is a simple as that.
Why?
1. The SCOTUS Ruling Citizens United vs. the FEC happened. Citizens United v. FEC. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission 558 U.S. 310 (2010) is a landmark U.S. constitutional law and corporate law case dealing with regulation of campaign spending by organizations. Then the Supreme Court ruled in McCutcheon v. FEC, a Supreme Court case in which a narrow 5-4 majority struck down the limit on the total amount that one wealthy donor is permitted to contribute to all federal candidates, parties, and political action committees (PACs) combined.
The new Supreme Court Rulings meant the potential of windfall profits for the media.
2. The MSM realized that these SCOTUS decisions would make them a lot of money.
3. They vowed never to talk about it or identify it as a source of election influence by the rich.
4. They were dedicated to silence because they did not want to expose the windfall they were the beneficiary of since all the cash unleashed by the SCOTUS rulings would flow straight to their profits in ad buys by the newly cash infused campaigns.
5. The CEOs of the giant media corporations saw a potential flaw in their plans to get the maximum amount of cash they could get from the new laws and so they decided to create their own straw candidate to prevent any early leader in the primaries. That candidate was Trump. In other words, the MSM saw the potential that an early republican leader in the primaries might sew up the nomination too soon for them to perpetuate a long primary season rich with cash and candidates.
6. The MSM invested in the candidate Donald Trump and used him like a straw bidder in an auction to drive the prices up and up and up for ad buys to ensure they would extract the maximum amount of cash from the republican candidates. They propped up their straw candidate with around two billion in free advertising which is really and actually free for them since they own the airwaves. This strategy was designed to make the most advertising profits for the media corporations.
7. No negative coverage of Trump was allowed until Trump secured the delegates he needed to win the nomination. After that day, there was no reasonable expectation that any republican campaign would spend another dollar on ads so the negative reporting ensued for a while.
8. Once the MSM cleaned the clocks of the republican super PACs and fleeced them with their paper tiger they created (Trump) something unexpected happened. Donald Trump won the national election for president. Knowing that they were responsible and might get blamed for their con job, the MSM decided they needed a scapegoat to blame for the election results. Anything would be better than have them exposed for the manipulators of an election for profit. They turned to the intelligence agencies and awaited help. Surely the MSM had a few favors to call in for the trumped up militaristic propaganda they freely provided to the MIC. (See Iraq War)
9. The Military Industrial Complex MIC and the big banks also wanted to infuse the defense industry with a new red menace to boost defense spending so it was a win that naturally Russia should be blamed for the election results which fed into the defense narrative that the US faced an old foe which just messed with our democracy and was the guilty party in the election. The MSM were off the hook.
10. To this day, despite numerous challenges to the claim that Russia was responsible for the election not one Main Stream Media News corporation has ever explored the possibility that they were the real reason for the election result having fleeced the campaigns of 14 republican candidates for every last penny by deliberately creating a Straw Candidate and funding him with free advertising.
11. The MSM will never publicly air the reasons for all the hyperventilating and fighting over Supreme Court Justices which is simply their desire and the republicans desire to continue the age of dark money which the media and the republicans see as their gravy train. The Supreme Court battles are fights over dark money and ways to perpetuate the con job on democracy.
12. Trump has fulfilled the desires of the billionaires that fund campaigns by granting them their picks for the Supreme Court, lower courts, state and local elections, governor races, tax breaks, regulatory reliefs and a partner in their general hatred for all things governmental. The Koch Brothers are smiling.
13. Now the MSM portray Trump as omnipotent and able to pick winners of elections having some magical power to influence the outcomes of elections when, in fact, Trump is merely advised by the billionaires over which candidates they are shoveling cash into elections. Trump then claims and the media dutifully reports that the Svengali (Trump) of our democratic electoral process has magically picked another winner.
14. These hand picked and lavishly funded candidates fueled by billionaires are all sworn to allegiance with the billionaires desires to fight to eliminate all federal agencies including election agencies. There is a proposal by ALEC to return to the 1800s when Senators were nominated and appointed based on the votes of Senators and not via public election.
15. There is a concerted effort by republicans to create laws which will perpetuate the funding of elections by billionaires. The recent resignation of Justice Kennedy and the subsequent nomination of a conservative SCOTUS judge who will uphold the anti Constitutional and anti democratic powers now wielded by the wealthy to control elections is case in point.
16. If the republicans are successful aided by the (not liberal) telecommunications industries and if they are successful at preserving the end of Net Neutrality, the merger of Sinclair (republican zealots) with Tribune Media and the propaganda that Russia is responsible for the mess we are in with our election system they will keep their grip on power despite what the citizens of the country want and will drive us ever closer to war which is what the Military Industrial Complex (The biggest beneficiary of our tax dollars) want.
It is a shame that so many people are blind to the money motives of the biggest wallets in the nation as they grow richer while our democracy becomes weaker.
Good point here. From Twitter: Representative Press @RepPress
15h15 hours ago
Replying to @GarethPorter @unjoe
Trump’s July 27, 2016 call to find the missing 30,000 emails could not be a “call to hack Clinton’s server” because at that point it was no longer online. Long before Trump’s statement, Clinton had already turned over her email server to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Yes Joe, quite right. Trumps words have been twisted to the extent that his original message is unrecognizable.
I remember the situation very well, there was a discussion about NSA certainly having all the missing emails in their store, and as Hillary used an unprotected server, foreign entities could also have acquired them. At this point Trump threw this joke during a campaign speech, asking Russia to reveal the emails if they have them. No way was he urging anyone to hack Hillary’s server.
Some commentators have mentioned the earlier Mueller indictment and some Russians actually appearing to defend themselves. I remember reading also that one of the companies, also indicted, had taken a lawyer and were engaging in their defence. Where could I read more details about this? Anyone who has links?
Lisa – there’s a bit of information on the Moon of Alabama site; just follow the highlighted links. It’s towards the bottom of the article:
“In February Mueller indicted the Russian Internet Research Agency, a clickbait farm run for commercial purpose, of influencing the U.S. election. The expectation then like now was that there would never be trial. In a surprise move one of the accused Russian companies, Concord Management, took up the challenge and demanded discovery. Mueller then tried to delay the hand over of evidence (which he probably does not have.) A judge rejected the attempt. The case is pending.”
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/07/no-evidence-in-muellers-indictment-of-12-russians-release-now-may-sabotage-upcoming-summit.html
Lisa – and here’s an article that goes into more detail about the February, 2018 Russian indictments. When Concord Management’s lawyers came forward with requests for discovery of documents, Mueller and his team would have gone insane. They would never have figured this would happen. All of a sudden Mueller and his team started to argue that Concord hadn’t been “properly served”. It’s usually the defendant in a case who argues this! No doubt this first indictment will find its way into the trash bin.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/04/mueller-russia-interference-election-case-delay-570627
That’s why they’ve tried again. For the recent indictment, Mueller and his team would have made sure that the accused are either fictional parties, dead, or parties who would never appear in a U.S. court. Maybe Mueller will be proven wrong again and the parties will show up. The best defense is always a good offence.
Great, thanks a lot for the links, backwards…
Yes, it was Concord Management who took the fight.
Not much of this was published in MSM, I assume.
Concord Management’s defense is literally that “there is no proof that it knew of laws requiring foreign agents to file reports with the Justice Department or the Federal Election Commission.”
NOT that it didn’t meddle. NOT that it wasn’t funded by the Russian government. NOT that it didn’t have an effect.
But that they didn’t knowingly break the law.
Lisa, It was certainly a joke and it was obvious at the time and still is now. Only someone desperate to prove their “collusion” theory would think otherwise. I write about the case of the Internet Research Agency above and provide links there.
Concord owns IRA. Putin made a lot about it in today’s press conference.
One little know fact, is that Yeltsin appointed Putin to be 2nd in command.
That was the start of Putin’s political career.
The USA launched Putin’s political career, when the USA interfered in Russia’s election, to get Yeltsin elected.
And Gorbachev got assurances from US and Germany that NATO would not expand east.
Yes, but unfortunately, it was not done in writing!
I came across this on MOA it sounds… good.
https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/07/muellers-latest-indictment-ignores-evidence-in-the-public-domain/
Great link. Thanks.
A grilling of FBI agent Peter Strzok by Louie Gohmert regarding Clinton’s emails at last Thursday’s Congressional hearing provides a rather interesting angle to the story, at the same time as leaving us with a puzzling question. Just who was the foreign entity, which was not Russia, that received more than 30,000 of Hillary Clinton’s emails? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkJDo17_Ydk
They can’t allow Assange to speak now, because if he should decide to reveal that Seth Rich was the leaker, that would create a whole new set of circumstances. Incredible article, Joe.
Real estate mogul Leona Helmsley is remembered for infamously stating, “Rich people don’t pay taxes. Taxes are for the little people.”
Similarly, “Rich people hide evidence (real – or alleged (non-existent) for criminal or propaganda purposes) under the umbrella of ‘national security’. Evidence is for the little people.”
And the great war between truth and lies moves forward …
Great article, concise yet a thoughtful overview of the timeline leading to the Russia gate investigation, however it is completely obvious at this point that both sides have their minds completely made up and even such top notch work Will only be consumed by a minority audience.
this is just more theatrics from mueller and his waste of time and money ‘collusion’ investigation. what good does it do to indict russians? unless they come here and turn themselves in, which maybe they should in order to push mueller to actually show his ‘evidence’, there is little that can or will be done about this. and for the democrats to push this out just before Trump meets with Putin this week, well it really doesn’t get any more obvious then their intentions are to smear Trump and throw a wrench into the meeting. this theater of crap has gone on long enough. americans are running out of patience with our DOJ and their dog and pony show. nothing has been found of any worth against Trump and his campaign after nearly two years of wasting taxpayer monies and time so lets shut this joke of an investigation down and get back to reality.
and the reality is the democrats have truly lost their minds and any semblance of patriotism to the United States and its people. that is a hard fact!! they couldn’t care less about average joe and his family. they don’t even pretend to care an longer. at least they used to pretend. now its all out socialism/communism and any lies or cheating needed to make that happen is ok by them.
RandyLee: Now I realize why the Democrats are so anti-Russian. They want to oust Putin and bring back the glory days of Communism and the USSR! Thanks… Comrade!
As with the last indictment of ‘Russian hackers’ these GRU officers should retain an American attorney who can then demand Mueller hand over whatever evidence he has (aka: discovery). Last time that happened Mueller was forced to refuse (because he had none). That was embarrassing for Mueller and you’d think he would’ve learned his lesson not to try the gimmick again. You’d think.
you could tell by the way this was brought out in the mainstream media, that it was purely political by one very interesting addendum to the story. in every headline i saw, and this is important that it was in the headline, the alleged “hacking” took place immediately after trump (jokingly) asked if the russians might help find the missing clinton emails.
so it served two purposes, to link trump to the hacking and to therefore to putin(gru officers).
brilliant.
but sad.
The entire Russia-gate invention is a diversion from Israel-gate, the control of US elections and mass media by zionists. That is the story here, not silly disputes over who did what to reveal DNC emails.
1. Lauria is correct when he says, “Some members of the Veterans’ Intelligence Professionals for Sanity argue that metadata evidence points to a local download from the Democratic computers, in other words a leak, rather than a hack.” But he fails to give the full story. William Binney and some members of the VIPS wrote a memo stating that computer data showed that the files were downloaded locally to a flash drive because of transmission speeds. This memo was challenged in a separate memo by Thomas Drake and other members of the VIPS. To try and resolve the problem The Nation hired an independent computer expert, Nathanial Freitas, to analyze the memos and date. He concluded that the data did fit the Binney analysis. But it also fit several other possibilities that used remote access. So the data could not be used to prove that the files were locally downloaded. https://www.thenation.com/article/a-leak-or-a-hack-a-forum-on-the-vips-memo/
2. Perhaps the most important part of the indictments is not in the Lauria article. 500,000 voters had their data stolen and, because most state-local voter systems are running on outdated and dilapidated computers, it may be impossible to tell if other systems had been hacked. Unfortunately, very few people are considering this part of the indictment. It means that if we want a fair election in 2018 paper ballots should be used. In any case all voting systems must be auditable.
3. Finally, the level of detail and attribution in the indictments indicates to me that the NSA and CIA were consulted. And it was worth providing this detail because of the incredible threat our country is under. The fact that we can now track down hacks with such precision should give others pause.
I think you are jumping to a false conclusion about the “level of detail”. The NSA and the CIA have now had enough time to cut the entire indictment out of whole cloth. Are we supposed to trust their so called “evidence” at this point, when the entire RussiaGate theater of the absurd was created to cover their ass and hamstring detente with Russia?
I did not read the indictment, so I do not know if the level of detail rose to heights exhibited by Gen. Colin Powell in his famous “white powder vial” speech. Today we know that the white powder he showed to the entire world could be indeed harmful, as the baby powder of Johnson and Johnson was revealed to have traces of asbestos. But then again, it could be genuinely harmless.
On top of that, Innocence Project revealed that surprising number of successful prosecutions leading to the death penalty were based on hoaxes. For example, the “culprit” was implicated by his blood being found on a seat of the escape car, however when the defense examined the vial of the sentenced person blood that was in police possession, it had DNA of two people — some blood was removed (presumably, splashed in the escape car) and to mask it, blood of another person was added. This is stuff done without any political motivation, just to get good number of solved cases — the race and prior criminal record of the “culprit” probably being the bonus.
Creating compelling narratives is what prosecutors do for living. I hope that more often than not these narratives are true, but a true professional is not bound by such constraints.
Not sure how you justify your point three. A year ago the editor of The Nation wrote: “The most recent VIPS memo, released on July 24, whatever its technical merits, contributes to a much-needed critical discussion. Despite all the media coverage taking the veracity of the ICA assessment for granted, even now we have only the uncorroborated assertion of intelligence officials to go on. Indeed, this was noticed by The New York Times’s Scott Shane, who wrote the day the report appeared: “What is missing from the public report is…hard evidence to back up the agencies’ claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack…. Instead, the message from the agencies essentially amounts to ‘trust us.’”
What has changed? A more specific (“detailed”) accusation is still just an accusation. It doesn’t amount to evidence. The suspicion that “Guccifer 2.0” may have been a DNC-affiliated entity attempting to discredit WL has hardly been disposed of. https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/13/julian-assange-crowdstrike-and-the-russian-hack-that-wasnt/
“But he fails to give the full story…” which you also do.
Sept 1, 2017 Robert Parry wrote a rebuttal to The Nation bringing in Freitas for damage control, “Outside pressure also came from a number of mainstream sources, including Washington Post blogger Eric Wemple, who interviewed Nation columnist Katha Pollitt about the inside anger over Lawrence’s story and its citation by Trump defenders (which VIPS are not!), a development which upset Pollitt: “These are our friends now? The Washington Times, Breitbart, Seth Rich truthers and Donald Trump Jr.? Give me a break. It’s very upsetting to me. It’s embarrassing.” He goes on to say a main point in Frietas’ analysis is that the Jan 6. assessment (aka opo research), used the word “cyber operation” and not “hack”, so the arguement being nobody ever said this had to necessarily be a hack. Parry points out however this arguement is disingenuous and fails to mention “…that senior U.S. intelligence officials, including former FBI Director James Comey, have stated under oath and in interviews with major news outlets that they were referring to a “hack.”
See the full article:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/02/russia-gates-totalitarian-style/
Also see Ray Mcgovern’s response to The Nation & Freitas
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/20/more-holes-in-russia-gate-narrative/
Let me just say, that to me personally and to so many others, WHICH OUR MEDIA IS COMPLETELY OUT OF TOUCH WITH, it really doesn’t matter how the information got to Wikileaks, it is whether that information is TRUE…AND IT IS!! This is the central fact that his been lost in the noise. The DNC in a fight to save face decided after the election they would blame Russia and use the MSM to do it, from Shattered. So we are so worried that Russia may have influenced undermined our precious democracy that we have lost complete sight the glaring truth which is we do not need Russia or any other foreign adversary to undermine our democracy because we are doing a fine job of it ourselves! The DNC undermined the collective will of hundreds of thousands of Sanders voters, NOT RUSSIA. Barrack Obama took direct orders from Wall Street to appoint his cabinet, NOT RUSSIA. Hillary Clinton accepted millions from Saudi Arabian elites known to have contributed to the attacks of 911 and in exchange she approved billions in weapon sales to Saudi Arabia, NOT RUSSIA. And the Clinton campaign colluded with the MSM to tip the scales to her favor over Trump, NOT RUSSIA. All of this was revealed in the emails and yet it is Russia under investigation and not the DNC, not Clinton, Podesta, or Obama. Does this make anyone else absolutetly sick?! This doesn’t even begin to mention all the other KNOWN undermining forces of our democracy a.k.a. precious bodily fluids…voter suppresion, gerrymandering, Citizens United, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the MIC, and the list does on and on. You know what, IF Russia did hack the emails and give them to Wikileaks…THANK YOU RUSSIA!! For doing what our government will never do…tell the people the truth. I don’t care what your motivation is…only that it is the truth which we in the public are best served to know about so WE can deal with OUR government who we elect. It amazes me that so many intelligent progressives cannot realize they are being completely misdirected by a government and a media which have been PROVEN to collaborate on pushing the official narrative. I mean it is right there in black and white…and they still tune in to Rachel Maddow to see how they should think! Insanity is the new sane.
Homer Jay – great comments! You are right.
What a great rant! The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
Red_Dog:
1) You cite Nathanial Freitas’ commentary of the VIPS memo, but seem not to have read the VIPS response to Freitas, which addressed and very effectively disposed of the dissenters’ offer of alternatives and Freitas’ conclusions. You might read it again, if you can spare the time.
2) Who can say if ‘theft of voter data’ was attributable to the Russians? I live in NYC, and was one of over 200,000 registered Democrats were purged from the Democratic primary voter rolls- many of whom were believed to be leaning toward Bernie Sanders. In fact, the Sanders campaign filed a lawsuit in Federal Court challenging the voter purge, while the voting was going on. Moreover, reports of computer voting machine tampering during the primary season were rife in many States- and, specifically, multiple allegations were against the Clinton campaign, though, to my knowledge, nothing was ever done about them. Notably, we still have no paper trail audit backup for many states that use those machines. We also know that voter tampering by both parties in primaries and general elections have happened from time immemorial. I can’t imagine the Russians were responsible for any of those either. Without the offer of proof, as opposed to mere allegations, where does that leave us?
As for the ‘level of detail and attribution in the indictments’ that you cite, it doesn’t seem to matter to you that the Special Prosecutor has not provided a scintilla of evidence of it in the indictment itself, nor that Mueller’s earlier earlier case against Concord Management mirroring this one fell into disarray when representatives of management made a formal discovery request and Mueller had to scramble to find something. And what did he find? Few know, because it’s not published. A nice way to keep the process moving and the public credulous without revealing anything for its scrutiny.
Let’s wait before assuming the NSA and CIA provided anything relevant or probative. Hopefully, Mueller, so touted by the media and Congress as our nation’s ‘white knight/ legal eagle’, will recognize that there are treaties governing the procedures for such matters, and that treaties, like federal statutes are the law of the land. My own sense is that as with the messes he perpetrated and covered up as US Attorney in Boston and FBI Director, the law won’t matter.
Regarding several posts here about Robert Mueller having to drop charges in court:
Russian citizens did not turn up in a DC court. Robert Mueller was not physically present either. Jeannie Rhee along with two others was the prosecutor.
Casting one’s memory back to the Alexander Litvinenko polonium poisoning, all radioactive roads led to Andrej Lugavoi who stayed firmly in Russian and received a medal of honour from President Putin for “services to the motherland”.
Vladimir Putin recently said he will “never extradite any of the 13 Russians indicted by the US States for election meddling https://wtop.com/national/2018/03/putin-russia-will-never-extradite-citizens-accused-by-us/
Two American attorneys Eric Dubelier and Katherine Seikaly of Reed Smith, a DC firm, represented the interests of the company, Concord Management and Consulting, the subject of the indictment. Concord Management and Consulting is also a catering company owned by the oligarch, Yevgeny Prigozhin known as “Putin’s chef”.
Eric Dubelier, attorney for Concord Management and Consulting was trying to get the case dismissed on procedural legal technicalities and demands for discovery to be shared Prigozhin, and with other officers of the orginisation. Prigozhin was individually charged and not with other officers of the company. Mueller’s team were trying to prevent, though once agreed with Dubelier, to keep all discovery within United States jurisdiction, and away from Prigozhin who is in another jurisdiction; Russia. Dubelier was not happy with that and wished to share discovery with Prigozhin. If Concord Management and Consulting wish to be defended then, the “ CEO” of that company should appear in court to defend his interests. Stretching to a foodie metaphor, one cannot have one’s cake and eat it too. Obviously, the probe is trying to establish relationships between the various players in this investigation and those higher up in the food chain in the Russian government and if any direct connection to President Putin.
Reed Smith must know that any such order for sharing discovery outside the bounds of US jurisdiction and the courts would be unenforceable. But an oligarch has deep pockets.
Prior to the indictment by the Mueller probe, Concord Management and Consulting was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2017 along with many other Russian companies for Russia’s military intervention in eastern Ukraine.
Prigozhin was indicted by a US grand jury as part of the Mueller probe along with the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm, which operated from St. Petersburg and is accused of disseminating propaganda and false stories via the Internet, Facebook and so forth, in the United States.
He was charged with funneling money into the IRA for the purposes of interfering with US elections and conspiring to defraud the US government.
Charges have not been dropped and the case progresses in the court presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee. Last month, access was denied to Reed Smith for the defendant for in camera inspection of the grand jury instructions. Further orders were given for both parties to file further by June 25th regarding protective orders.
https://www.courthousenews.com/grand-jury-access-denied-to-indicted-russian-firm/
On June 25th Eric Dubelier, of Reed Smith for Concord Consulting and Management, filed a 63-page motion challenging the constitutionality of Mueller’s appointment rather than the scope of the investigation and to asked the federal judge to dismiss the conspiracy indictment.
https://www.courthousenews.com/indicted-russian-firm-contests-mueller-appointment/
The pre-trial hearing will commence on September 28th when many of the complex technicalities and interesting aspects of this particular case will be addressed.
https://www.courthousenews.com/grand-jury-access-denied-to-indicted-russian-firm/
General media stories about the case:
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/11/russia-company-concord-obtain-lawyers-515432
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/16/politics/mueller-data-russian/index.html
I appreciate your providing links to the court filings, but you seem comfortable with the due process deficiencies in Mueller’s prosecution or the Concord case, yet disturbed that the defendants should be asserting their procedural rights, and that any of the criminal trial discovery should be, in effect, disclosed in a way that it might also be made public.
And please, are you serious about the legality of ‘sanctions’ against those assisting the population in Eastern Ukraine who lost their elected President through an unconstitutional coup, and have been under military siege ever since. I would think that being so designated and sanctioned would be a badge of honor.
As for Mueller, have you taken the time to study his record carefully?
Thank you for a thorough and damning report on the indicttments by the cowardly and thuggish Mueller who, as the author notes, is confident that they nevr be answered in a court of law. Moreover, with all the hullabaloo attached to Robert Mueller’s stunt, the fact remains that the DNC and John Podesta emails revealed a stunning and irrefutable truth: Hillary Clinton and the DNC were rigging the election against her Democratic primary opponent, Bernie Sanders. However, I would add two aspects which place into context the timing of Mueller’s publicity stunt. First, that it came on the heels of embattled FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s appearance before a joint House hearing on Thursday at which Strzok claimed that the Republicans on the House Judiciary and Government Oversight Committees were doing “Putin’s work” by continuing to examine the British and Obama Administration/Democratic Party origins of Russiagate. Strzok’s charge, obviously choreographed with Congressional Democrats, wasendlessly cycled in the news media. The Democrats otherwise sought to obstruct the discredited FBI agent’s testimony by any and all means necessary to the delight of the “resist” social media universe. While the Justice Department’s independent IG found that Strzok’s prioritization of the Trump Russiagate investigation over the Clinton email investigation was not free from bias, an inconvenient fact largely glossed over in Thursday’s staged event, it noted that Strzok and his mistress, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe counsel, Lisa Page, exchanged daily texts vowing to stop Trump’s election, disparaging Trump’s s supporters, and declaring themselves the saviors of the nation from the current President. The third element,of this assault on the prospect of peace was meant to cooincide with Trump’s visit to the UK, i.e.the discovery of a bottle or vial of the so-called Novichok nerve agent allegedly used to poison former British spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. The bottle was discovered at the home of Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess in Amesbury, England. The British went on an international rampage around the March 4, 2018, Skripal poisoning claiming Putin was conducting a murder of a long-retired British spy on British territory in some form of retaliaton, demanding war-like sanctions against Russia. When their claims failed to achieve substantive credibility, even with the British bioweapons lab, Porton Down, Rowley and Sturgess appeared as new victims of the nerve gas poisoning on June 30th and Sturgess subsequently died. The British press is filled with the imputation that the found vial will somehow be traceable back to Russia, a fact which eluded the original Skripal hoax Yet despite all of this, it appears that the desperate attempt of Mueller and his allies in the US and British intel community to block or ruin the Helsinki summit lack the suficient credibiltiy to succeed.
j. D. D. – great comments.
The indictment, which as the article indicates is based on tainted biassed “intelligence” from Crowdstrike, a company associated with anti-Russian deep state related think tank elements, is obviously phony. Since it is intended to destroy the administration’s ability to carry out its foreign policy, it is an act of sedition by a rogue element of the yankee regime. Since the logical result of this initiative would be to increase the likelihood of war, it also taints Mueller and the rogue justice department with the taint of war crimes since they are arguably attempting to foment aggressive war by the yankee regime, something considered a war crime according to the tenets of the four power Nuremberg Trial of 1945-46. This open sedition should be reason enough for Trump to bite the bullet and end this absurd charade. By bringing up the term sedition, he has the means of credibly fighting the media combine’s certain outrage when he purges the rogue element of the permanent regime from his administration. His hold on power is tenuous until he eliminates this disloyal element.
For me , it is not collusion. It is about one person who said black nfl players are “sons of bitches” who maybe should not belong in this country, a man who whose policy is to separate children from their parent(s), a man who enriches himself from people’s hard labor , a man who insults everyone he disagrees with, ….. Russia may or may not have been involved the elections, but DJT has single-handedly done so much damage to this place. I have never ever been more ashamed to be an USA citizen. That is the difference. DJT is incapable of feeling shame. Actually, does he have any feelings at all, besides his own aggrandizement?
While all of this may be true, the lemming-like acceptance of the Russia conspiracy theory and the unreasonable opposition to the few things he is doing right, attempting to avoid war with Russia is dangerous and stupid. It is depressing to see many of those formerly at the spearhead of the anti-war camp blindly accept the pro-war posturings of the permanent yankee regime.
Exiled off Mainstreet:
You wrote “It is depressing to see many of those formerly at the spearhead of the anti-war camp blindly accept the pro-war posturings of the permanent yankee regime.”
Could you please give some specific examples of people who were actually “spearheading the anti-war camp”, and are now toeing the warmongering and CIA-feminism party line?
T-
Suburbia is full of them. All the baby boomers who were protesting the Vietnam war, and now have “coexist” bumper stickers on their cars, and “Hate has no home here” signs on their front lawns, and voted for “We came, We saw, He died” Hillary, and fail to see any hypocrisy whatsoever.
You mean Trump continued the same immigration polices from the Obama administration.
Obama took us to seven wars and ran out of bombs.
Obama sold arms to Saudi Arabia and took part in the genocide that is taking place in Yemen.
Then there’s Flint Michigan.
So why is it just now you feel ashamed…
A typical Trump supporter “don’t look here look over there” diversion.
And you’re in favor of examining both?
Your point is correct. Our troubles did not begin with Trump. He merely highlights them.
Seriously. I’m so sick of hearing the pearl-clutching horror of what Trump has done, which is merely a continuation of Clinton-through-Obama. People have been in a coma for 40 years I guess.
bush 2001-2009 did you wipe out those 8 years?
that’s what the -through- stands for
Clinton-through-Obama obviously includes Bush…
Very interesting perspective, now let’s research who armed isis committing genocide an enslaving women as sex slaves but was very well spoken with deceit, deception and lies as most any politician.
Sticks and stones may break my bones…
Trump has a big and ugly mouth. Anyone trying to argue the opposite is insane.
What matters most is ACTIONS. “We came, we saw, he died.” – HRC I could go on and on as to the ACTUAL death and destruction that HRC was responsible for, but, apparently, you’re only concerned with words…
but words can never harm me.
Who’s actually separating children from their parents? Who’s actually dropping over 200 bombs a day? It’s “We the People” that are the problem. Why do we keep enabling Trump? Why do we keep thanking our “Brave ” men and women in uniform for their “Service”? Why do we keep voting Dem and Rep over and over? “There’s someone in my head and it’s not me.”
I guess I’m showing my age with this comment, but our military & intelligence communities, our politicians and our corporate media’s non-stop, fact-free, free-association, paranoid delusional drivel about “Russian election interference” has all the solidity, yet none of the charm, of a bad acid trip circa 1972. Offered the choice I’d certainly opt for the bad acid flashback – especially given what is actually at stake in terms of the prospects for human survival if this absurd and dangerous nonsense continues. The institutions of the West have shown themselves to be completely, totally and utterly corrupt! To bear witness to such complete corruption is absolutely breathtaking! Expecting anything rational, ethical, fact-based or simply honest to emanate from any of our Western institutions at this point requires an almost child-like level of trust – or – lacking that – a willingness to enter into and embrace the world of these mad delusions and their purveyors!
Yes, this era of total corruption of the US government is unprecedented.
The disputes between one corrupt branch and another condemn them all.
I’m guessing she owns a pink hat & everything.
Whew, I do not even know your references. Who is David Brock and what is a pink hat and everything?
This is worth reading as a summary of grand jury proceedings, the prosecutor’s case presentatation and the proposal for indictment through the summary of evidence either oral or via documents.
I think it is important to remember that grand juries are comprised of ordinary citizens and are independent of the courts.
http://law.jrank.org/pages/1261/Grand-Jury-Screening-procedures.html
We all know that whatever the form of grand jury proceedings in a yankee legal system which retains only a slight resemblance to the rule of law, grand juries, with almost no exceptions, do what they are told by the power structure.
Take a bunch of people. Put them in a room with an articulate, confident, authority figure. He tells them what to do. Of course they do it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
This is not breaking news anymore, but worth repeating:
The odious NY Times inadvertently stepped on its own shtick (and everyone else’s) when it front-paged the FBI’s “Operation Hurricane Crossfire” against the Trump campaign. This whole farcedy was conceived as a rolling scheme to regime change Putin when Hillary ascended the throne, with Trump as merely a mug and patsy. When the moo-cow Hillary lost, the plan had to be repurposed to uckfay with Putin AND regime change Trump. If it looks like a Federal crime, smells like a Federal crime and quacks like a Federal crime, well…You be the judge. There are so many organs of the Federal Gov and the MSM in on this criminal conspiracy, they are going to need a new wing at Gitmo to house all these scoundrels…
Face reality: your favorite conspiracy theory is just fiction, as fictional as Birtherism.
Great right up to the last few paragraphs. Too hard for a logical conservative to swallow that the prime reason we have troops (small assets at that) near the Russia border is because of the greed of Wall Street. Up ’til then not a bad piece.
Nabi, I suggest you read War is a Racket by General Smedley Butler if you think such a thing is unheard of.
https://www.amazon.com/War-Racket-Antiwar-Americas-Decorated-ebook/dp/B00P8OEFFY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1531624171&sr=8-1&keywords=war+is+a+racket+smedley+butler
Everyone should read “War is a Racket”.
Gravity’s Rainbow, 1973
“Don’t forget the real business of war is buying and selling. The murdering and violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death’s a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try ‘n’ grab a piece of that Pie while they’re still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets.”
Yes, greed of Wall Street. And perhaps this is the most important motive. But many former Warsaw Pact countries (or at least the ruling classes and opinion makers in those countries) wanted to become members of NATO because they apparently feared, perhaps not without reason, Russian domination in the future. And there’s also the sheer libido dominandi of some people in Washington, not exclusively neoconservatives. So greed, fear, and love of power.
Aspiring “civilizations” sign on to the growth-at-all-costs doctrine. As such expansionism is a requirement. Never-ending quest for additional resources a must. ALL WARS ARE ABOUT RESOURCES. This isn’t something that Wall Street invented. Wall Street is just a cover we use to distract our minds from the fact that we’ve always subjugated and murdered others for resources. “Wall Street” is our advanced form of self-deception.
Given the dysfunctional state of US governance, does it matter whuch false messiah sits in the White House? Wars never end, ordinary Americans become poor & homeless at a great rate, no matter which faction prevails. :-(
In all likelihood, we’ll never know who killed Seth Rich who probably leaked the emails. The CIA did not have time to create patsies like Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, or Sirhan Sirhan. So RIP Rich.
Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the alleged GRU agents decide to defend themselves in court against the indictments and demand discovery evidence?
Could they win?
The problem with that is that you’d be buying into a stage play that the Deep State players get to direct. Let’s not forget about the abilities detailed in the Vault 7 releases. Unfortunately it is just as Karl Rove has stated: they can create “reality” now, and they’ve had plenty of time to “create” their asses off.
Did you not hear about the St Petersburg click-bait operation that Mueller indicted with great fanfare back in February? Well, the 13 Russians sent lawyers to answer the indictment and plead not guilty, much to the shock of Mueller and the investigation. The problem is when you indict someone, they now have the right to examine the EVIDENCE against them…. a process know as “discovery”. Mueller has been trying to suppress the evidence in that case ever since. Will the GRU agents send a lawyer? I’d be laughing if they did.
Yes, I recall the click-bait operation and the demand for discovery, and Mueller’s being caught by surprise. This time will be a little different:
“Seemingly overlooked by most, Rosenstein said the indictment will now be passed-off (code word for “buried”) to the DOJ National Security Division.” The public will never even get to see any evidence due to “National Security”.
This indictment is nothing but a propaganda ploy timed to undermine the Helsinki summit.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/07/13/rosenstein-delivers-indictments-for-12-russians-then-buries-in-lock-box-of-doj-national-security-division/#more-151777
Agreed.
War of the Worlds
Science Fiction (and not very good science fiction).
The FBI’s presenting this indictment is surreal.
Numbers 3 to 5 of the Indictment follow:
“3. Starting in at least March 2016, the Conspirators used a variety of means to hack the email accounts of volunteers and employees of the U.S. presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton (the “Clinton Campaign”), including the email account of the Clinton Campaign’s chairman.
4. By in or around April 2016, the Conspirators also hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (“DCCC”) and the Democratic National Committee (“DNC”). The Conspirators covertly monitored the computers of dozens of DCCC
and DNC employees, implanted hundreds of files containing malicious computer code (“malware”), and stole emails and other documents from the DCCC and DNC.
5. By in or around April 2016, the Conspirators began to plan the release of materials stolen from the Clinton Campaign, DCCC, and DNC.”
This is pure speculation, because (as I understand it), the supposedly hacked computers were not turned over for examination.
Not only is this speculation unsupported with fact, it’s politically motivated speculation by a conservative Republican special counsel.
The Veteran Intelligence Professionals has already debunked the hacked nature of the transfer of DNC emails and WikiLeaks has confirmed that the source of the material was leaked and not hacked.
WTF is going on?
No one can be that lame in real life much less the FBI.
Or is that exactly what’s wrong? Insanity and Fraud high in the ranks of the current US Administration!
The New York Times is always “without apparent irony”. Otherwise they would be constantly embarrassed to throw around such terms as “Russian aggression” and “Invaded Ukraine”.
If there were any evidence of collusion, it would have been presented already. That is why who penned this article asserted that “Evidence will never be produced”. I couldn’t agree more. It is just another political stunt to smear Trump and justify Hillary’s 2016 electoral lost.
Plus, it got Peter Strzok out of the news cycle. Kind of like when they busted the last batch of Russians to put the FBI in a better light after they dropped the ball with the Florida school shooter. SS, DD.
Yeah, I wonder about that too… WHY did it take so long to add this detail when it would have been SO much-more effective and appropriate to present some of these purported ‘facts’ back when the original Obama-era accusations were being aired? This investigation is presumably primarily electronically based, so it would be relatively quick, compared to the more ‘physical’ crimes, especially when the investigators have quick/ relatively easy access to NSA data. It’s suspicious at least on the face of it…
Has anyone watched the new BBC series “Killing Eve”? I think Mueller got his idea for this fantasy from the same novellas the “Killing Eve” people did. The whole show is about a group called “The 12” who have hired an assassin to kill off prominent figures and thereby cause chaos in the world. Sounds familiar, right?
All I can tell you is, “I like national anthems”
Good point. It is also easy to read/see interviews and actually know what Pres. Putin has said or done in many situations eg after the election of the pro-Western Ukrainian govt in 2010, Russia worked with that government for four years because they are neighbours, but as soon as the “pro-Russian” govt was elected the USA overthrew it, supported the illegal replacement and ever since, with NATO help, has blamed Russia for every action between the two, including the resumption of Crimea into Russia after a referendum.
From 2004, Putin has tried to initiate talks with the USA on cooperation and the regrettable withdrawal of the USA from international agreements,with no response from the USA.
Considering the actions of the USA elsewhere,and the accepted, even encouraged, interference by Israel in all elections in the USA (as Chuck Schumer knows very well!), the whole process is a complete put-up job. Since the emails were true, and Wikileaks is reputed to keep to valid reports, the emphasis on finding a suitable scapegoat for the election of DJT is to steer people away from the genuine actions now destroying the USA.
They won’t have to arrest and extradite the Russians because they will show up in court just like the two indicted Russians did back in May. Mueller had a heart attack and asked the Judge to deny the defendants right in discovery to see the evidence. He thought the Russians wouldn’t show and he’d get his judgement exparte without having to produce the non-existent evidence. The Russians knew the evidence didn’t exist just like in this latest lie on the part of Mueller where there is no evidence. The judge denied the motion and Mueller had no choice to quietly drop the charges. The same thing will happen here. Only this time the Russians aren’t going to be so sanguine.
LOL and you nailed it;-)
fred54 – I knew the judge denied the motion, but I didn’t know that Mueller was forced to drop the charges. That is hilarious. Thanks, Fred.
i don’t believe that’s accurate. Last I heard the judge agreed to deny the defendant discovery to the bulk of the prosecution’s purported evidence based on Mueller’s fatuous assertions of “national security”, though he added that it is temporary and subject to change in the future.
I didn’t know Mueller had to drop the charges- or am I misreading you and you’re saying that in past tense but mean it to be understood as something he’ll have to do.
If Mueller has dropped the charges, can you point me to some reporting to verify that so I can share it with all my cultural liberal friends who’ve bought into this Russiagate nonsense?
Thanks.
Miranda – see my post (above) to Lisa, and also this article.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/04/mueller-russia-interference-election-case-delay-570627
You nailed it Fred54, allow the Russians to show up & defend themselves against this BS, Mueller would AGAIN backtrack quicker than a rat up a drainpipe! Or better still, Putin allows Mueller to go to Russia to show up with his zero evidence & litigate this Russiagate garbage in Russian Courts!
Russian citizens did not turn up in a DC court. Robert Mueller was not physically present either. Jeannie Rhee along with two others, was one of the prosecutors.
Casting one’s memory back to the Alexander Litvinenko polonium poisoning, all radioactive roads led to Andrej Lugavoi who stayed firmly in Russian and received a medal of honour from President Putin for “services to the motherland”.
Vladimir Putin recently said he will “never extradite any of the 13 Russians indicted by the US States for election meddling https://wtop.com/national/2018/03/putin-russia-will-never-extradite-citizens-accused-by-us/
Two American attorneys Eric Dubelier and Katherine Seikaly of Reed Smith, a DC firm represented the interests of the company, Concord Management and Consulting, the subject of the indictment. Concord Management and Consulting is also a catering company owned by the oligarch, Yevgeny Prigozhin known as “Putin’s chef”.
Eric Dubelier , attorney for Concord Management and Consulting was trying to get the case dismissed on procedural legal technicalities and demands for discovery to be shared with Prigozhin, and other officers of the orginisation. Prigozhin was individually charged and not with other officers of the company. Mueller’s team were trying to prevent, though once agreed with Dubelier, to keep all discovery within United States jurisdiction, and away from Prigozhin who is in another jurisdiction; Russia. Dubelier was not happy with that and wished to share discovery with Prigozhin. If Concord Management and Consulting wish to be defended then, the “ CEO” of that company should appear in court to defend his interests. Stretching to a foodie metaphor, one cannot have one’s cake and eat it too. Obviously, the probe is trying to establish any relationships if any, between the various players in this investigation and those higher up in the food chain in the Russian government and any direct connection to President Putin.
According to Jeannie Rhee, the prosecution team has been preparing to hand over many terabytes of data.
Reed Smith must know that any such order for sharing discovery outside the bounds of US jurisdiction and the courts would be unenforceable. But an oligarch has deep pockets to perhaps try to pony up for a dismissal but does not stand much of a chance.
Prior to the indictment by the Mueller probe, Concord Management and Consulting was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2017 along with many other Russian companies for Russia’s military intervention in eastern Ukraine.
Prigozhin was indicted by a US grand jury as part of the Mueller probe along with the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm, which operated from St. Petersburg and is accused of disseminating propaganda and false stories via the Internet, Facebook and so forth, in the United States.
He was charged with funneling money into the IRA for the purposes of interfering with US elections and conspiring to defraud the US government.
Charges have not been dropped and the case progresses in the court presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee. Last month, access was denied to Concord Managment and Consulting in the order filed The United States of America v Concord Managment and Consulting. You can read the order here:
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Concord-Order.pdf
The pre-trial hearing will commence on September 28th when many of the complex technicalities and interesting aspects of this particular case will be addressed.
The details can be read here:
https://www.courthousenews.com/grand-jury-access-denied-to-indicted-russian-firm/
General media stories here:
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/11/russia-company-concord-obtain-lawyers-515432
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/16/politics/mueller-data-russian/index.html
The Mueller indictment in question can be read here:
https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download
Democrat smoke and mirrors. Sad that it’s worked for so long. This entire Russia collusion fantasy has blown up in their faces though. Not only has it failed spectacularly…it’s exposed the depth and scope of their corrution and the insidious way in which they’ve coopted critical components of the Federal government to their exclusive service–at taxpayer expense (DOJ/FBI)! It really is staggering. Especially since its allowed to continue even now!
Not to mention the credibility of the Deep-State MSM apparatus, which has exposed itself at purveyors of propaganda without investigation
The democrats just cannot get over the Hillary loss and they will destroy anybody or anything to exact their revenge. They are truly dangerous.
Russiagate = Birthergate
Our major media just continue their endless churning of lies and propaganda. It really gets boring once you understand what’s happening. If you want to know what a brainwashed person is like, just consider the people you interact with every day – do they ever venture a creative thought outside the general groupthink? You don’t have to be a mind reader to know what they are thinking – they think what they have been programed to think.
A couple of things occur to me. One. Have the Russian government respond to the indictments with discovery as occurred with the other inane indictments that Mueller produced. Two. Have Putin respond to the Democrat’s demands by demanding the same from the US. On the one hand, the US only has alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election. On the other, Russia has proof of US meddling in essentially every Russian election since the collapse of the old SovU. The US won’t like this. It was absolutely hilarious when that blonde bubble head of a State Department spokeswoman complained about VOA, RFE, etc being required to register as foreign agents only to be told by Russia to take RT off the foreign agent list. The Russians could also repay the favor by indicting Americans who interfered in Russian elections. They could start with Slick Willie.
Great idea. Match theater with theater. Only Putin actually has evidence.
I agree. I think that after the summit goes ahead, the Russians should issue their indictments and they should include anybody significant who has worked on Russian issues for the CIA and other yankee intelligence agencies for the past 25 years. The Time magazine cover in the article reminds us that the yankee regime managed to fix the election so the pliable Yeltsin stayed in rather than the independent Zhuganov (if I remember his name correctly). Unfortunately for the long term situation, Yeltsin accepted Putin, who managed to secure the rebuilding of the country, as his replacement. The stupidity of this move by the yankee regime can be seen in that it sort of sets a precedent where, should the regime lose its world hegemon status, the yankee subverters can be accused by the legal systems of the countries they have subverted, or attempted to subvert. This may make the retirements of the spooks a bit less unpleasant and eliminate their ability to continue travelling.
Fcku must be a Clintonista! Thank you, Joe Lauria, for this article pushing back on the Mueller/Democrat/Clinton insanity. Very good to point out what the US did to Russia in 1990, something unknown by Americans glued to the telly for their doses of newspeak. The list of governments toppled by the US/CIA is more than 80, including assassinations. It is critical to push back on these people who have literally gone insane and threaten all of us with their toxic madness.
You see when ethnically diverse, pro-LGBT feminists, align with the CIA to slaughter 3 middle eastern countries and create a new cold war, it isn’t really their fault because their cause is pure.
Bingo
Every new war of my lifetime has been excused like this. Our motivés, war crimes are not war crimes when we do them, we are GOOD, blah, blah, blah…
Way to get in a gratuitous smear of ethnic diversity, LGBT and pro-LGBT people, and feminists.
Calvinist-think
Instead of God, why not directly indict Vladimir Putin if Mueller was serious about it? You pick him up the next time he is at the United Nations or shows up in some other allied extraditable country like Assange. As Mueller is so confident about all this, why leave Putin out of the indictment? Very strange…
And here I thought God was above Putin all this time. Do you mean to tell me that Putin controls God, and is responsible for making such a wreck of the planet? Now I see why the Dems are so angry. I should have known, and can only apologize that I don’t watch TV to get my daily dose of pure truth.
To understand for whom Robert Swan Mueller works for, look at his record. Here: https://caucus99percent.com/content/what-mueller-wont-find
Thanks for the link Bob.
WOW, Thanks
That is great work, Bob In Portland. It is interesting that you used the “To Serve Man” episode from Twilight Zone as an analogy for this phony, “managed” World in which we live. To complete the synchronicity, that movie, “The Truman Show” also serves as a good analogy for our make-believe World. Dr. Steven Greer uses it to describe the very real situation that our World is in. You’ll be fascinated to know that “To Serve Man” might just be an IC psych-op to generate fear and dread of aliens, to facilitate the ultimate, final false-flag hoax. Also, use of “The Truman Show” is very telling, as three things happened within weeks of one another, on President Truman’s Watch: The Roswell Incident (the place where the World’s only atom bomber squadron at that time, was based), the creation of the U.S. Air Force (breaking away from the Army, no longer the Army Air Corps), and the creation of the CIA. These are meaningful coincidences. Check out what Dr. Steven Greer has to say about these matters.
You might find it interesting that the REAL reason for suppression of the truth about UFOs and ETs and such, is the technological issue: the technology would obsolete the Global Managerial Elite who run this World in a centralized, Command & Control fashion, with its hundreds of trillion$ in assets (coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, the financial system itself, control of the education establishment and what constitutes Knowledge, and what is verboten, the MSM, etc..). “They” are bringing this Truman show to an end. (surely even you will find this interesting, mr. moderator?)
Reality is, however, that technology is basically the cookbook, it is NOT the ingredients. RESOURCES ARE STILL, and always will be, THE MAIN DRIVER OF LIFE. Our desires to the contrary only help to continue to discount TPTB’s continual hold over resources: we are forever clinging on to the hope that we will get access to technology to free us from the tyrants’ reigns; this is really just the same as the control mechanism administered via “popular” religions- promises of future justice etc. keep us locked into the “story” (which allows the rulers to continue to reign).
Wow, thanks, Bob. Incredible read.
That was an interesting read it really got me thinking. What surprised me was Mueller’s link to Charles Cabell, it’s makes the whole Kennedy assassination even stranger to me. Where did you source the information that Mueller’s wife is the granddaughter of Charles Cabell and his Uncle is Bissell? Cabell’s Wikipedia entry says he had 3 children 2 sons and a daughter & lists the daughter’s last name as Bennett. Did the daughter marry twice and that would explain Mueller’s wife’s maiden name being different? Would you have a link or a book I might be able to read that mentions all that and is the best book on Kennedy’s assassination. There are so many books it’s hard to know.
In 1745, Samuel Johnson published a commentary entitled Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth:
From Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll:
Two quick comments on the Russiagate hoax:
1. Julian Assange has always refused to compromise his sources, but did the next best thing by offering a $20,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of Seth Rich’s killer(s). There’s only one possible reason he would do this.
2. The truth of the leaked information has never been challenged. For those who insist on believing in witches and Russiagate, the 12 Russian defendants are guilty only of defending U.S. democracy, since the content of Clinton’s emails helped save the U.S. from a Clinton presidency.
Yes, one witch per household will not suffice for larger tribes, where scores remain to be settled after the main witch is deposed.
Here in rural Maine, the last witch was deposed in 1840 when a farmer came home late at night looking dirty and explained that he had tripped over a pig loose in the fields. This could only be caused by a witch, and the only candidate was an old woman said to have muttered biblical phrases that might have been prohibited, and had once rented a room to unknown traveling salesmen, hence was certainly the witch. So she was run out of town and last seen at the border fleeing to Canada.
Fashions change, but fortunately the witch supply has increased due to the availability of more flexible denunciations like communist, peacenik, deviant, thief, and liar, to use against undesired professionals, professors, charity operators, and other rocket scientists despised in these rural areas.
Let’s hope that those 12 Russians are brought to justice for defending American democracy, the worst subversion of our dictatorship of the rich. Where will we be if there is no liberty and justice for gangsters?
Alley Cat, great stuff. All funny but the Lewis Carroll bit is a real hoot.
“I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
All is not lost as long as we can publicly ridicule the official collective insanity without ending up in a concentration camp. Or burned at the stake. Having said that, surveying the local news media here in Portland and their Through the Looking Glass perspective on the world is enough to make your hair stand on end. Does too much pot dull your critical-thinking skills? But the history of humanity teaches us it was always thus.
Sadly, we’re all chained to the very heavy weight of human hubris and the tide is coming in real fast.
Your words have caused me to spontaneously combust. If you go on making sense by not making sense, I shall have to steal what you have written and recite it elsewhere. Thank you. I needed to laugh this morning.
Here you are. Wrote it this afternoon. Thanks for the inspiration!
https://opensociet.org/2018/07/15/russiagate-through-the-lookinglass/
O Society, thanks for the link. I agree with everything you said. Popper’s the greatest.
Great stuff!! Thanks.
Yes. There was only one possible reason Julian offered a reward for finding Seth Rich’s killers. And it’s why his internet connection was cut off and why he is now being tortured and kept from the public.
This all began when Trump decided to appoint a good old boy, Senate insider, Jeff Sessions, as Attorney General, rather than a serious legal mind, who would vigorously try to restore the rule of law. I believe what Trump saw in Sessions was a loyal cheerleader who would not give him any problems, probably because Trump has skeletons in his closet that he didn’t want exposed.
Trump can make whatever changes at the DOJ that he needs to, I am not going to spend my time worrying about another predictable travesty of justice.
In case you hadn’t noticed, most of Trump’s picks have been picked off. Sessions is no threat to the Deep State in which case he’s still there. Anyone else that starts sniffing around backstage ain’t going to last, and if Trump insists on appointing more sniffers he’ll be notified that they -Deep State- know all about him, know where all his family is.
In the final analysis I’d have to say that THE key relationship, how such works out, is between Trump and Bolton. It is possible that Bolton has defected (to Trump’s camp); of course, it’s also possible that Trump has defected (to Bolton’s/Deep State’s camp); and, of course, it’s also possible that Trump was always in the Deep State camp. In a way this is the beauty of Trump- no one (including Trump himself!) can really predict what he’s going to do; with the power available as POTUS, should Trump use this power for good he’s probably best suited to pull of a heist of the century (last two!)- disemboweling the Deep State.
Excellent article, but it could be improved by including a link to the indictment text: https://www.justice.gov/file/1080281/download . It’s a 29-page PDF, but it’s double-spaced with large margins, so only requires a few minutes to read.
Watching the Dem’s try and sabotage Trump’s meeting with Putin brings back memories of Eisenhower being confronted with the shoot down of the Gary Powers U2 plane. Nice going Schumer you play the role of Allen Dulles in the newest U.S. made for tv Detente Killer…. how cool is that?
Nice and accurate throwback Joe, many thanks. They managed to ruin Gary Powers life. I’m sure that little detail wasn’t even considered. He was supposed to simply die!
By the way, thanks Joe Lauria.
Stephen Cohen keeps us up to date with the ‘hardliners’ in Russia.
https://www.thenation.com/article/summitgate-campaign-vs-peace/
Joe, I remember that. Seems things never change. Peace is an anathema
It’s a full time job keeping the U.S. at war…. I guess somebody has got to do it, but why?
Vanity. Profit. Sadism.
Here is Rachel Maddow interviewing Victoria Nuland…. now they bring out the big guns.
https://www.sott.net/article/391038-Rachel-Maddow-taps-meddle-and-collusion-expert-Victoria-Nuland-for-tips-on-Trump-Putin-puppetry
Rachel is disgusting. She brings on the architect of a coup as an expert? Was she always a NeoCon and just upset with W. because he was not on the Blue Team?
Read Scott Bennett’s letter to President Trump…. it will make you think.
https://ahtribune.com/us/israelgate/2358-dov-zakheim.html
“Part of my mission was to investigate, discover, and expose all acts of “waste, fraud, and abuse” by Terrorist Financing Operations Director Dov Zakheim who was my senior supervisor. It was known that Dov Zakheim had secretly arranged for $2.3 trillion dollars to be mis-appropriated through Pentagon channels when he had been the Pentagon Comptroller.” Scott Bennett
WOW
At the crux of the indictment is an outright absurdity – Assange announced that he would be releasing Clinton-related material on June 10th, 2016, whereas the indictment claims that Guccifer 2.0 gave him access to the DNC emails on July 14th. Moreover, considerable evidence points to Guccifer 2,0 as being an affiliate of the DNC.
https://medium.com/@markfmccarty/muellers-new-indictment-do-the-feds-take-us-for-idiots-5406ef955406
https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/8yri14/julian_assange_crowdstrike_and_the_russian_hack/
http://g-2.space/
Very interesting articles; thank you.
Great article Mark. Love your stuff on Medium.
Thank you Joe Lauria. What an excellent article! It is a great summary of where we find ourselves. CN is the best. Toto is pulling back the curtain! Bad dog!
Interesting that Mueller and his team still have not interviewed Assange. A rather glaring omission in their “investigation.”
Why not? Are they afraid he’d say something they don’t want to hear? Like Seth Rich leaked the emails?
Instead the USA has exerted heavy pressure on Ecuador to keep Assange quiet. Wonder why?
As Bob In Portland writes (https://caucus99percent.com/content/what-mueller-wont-find), Mueller’s job is to lead away from looking into the real closets. Always easiest to be truthful about not lying when one is NOT discussing things that would require lying about. Deception through omission. (war/battles rely on deception- pretty obvious why the MSM is loaded with spooks and ex-spooks)
Two points:
1. This indictment is nearly identical to the Jan. 6, 2017 ODNI Report, which came from a handful of unnamed analysts from the CIA and FBI. There is very little new information in well over a year. Right there, this raises red flags. Who were these analysts?
2. Did Mueller/Rosenstein consult with any foreign policy advisors? Does meddling in the president’s national security affairs put the country at ris?
It’s a dangerous game and a slippery slope. For the sake of the country, they better be right.
They work for the rich elite. Nothing in the Constitution informs our government to lie to/deceive “We The People.”
The slippery slope Rubicon was passed a long time ago: not sure whether that point was the creation of the CIA or the creation of the Federal Reserve.
Is it just me, or does Dimitri Alperovitch look like a guy who’s making p*rn movies in a van that drives all round the city?
https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/dmitri.jpg
Alperovitch was born in Moscow , so maybe Mueller is right , a Russian was the culprit after all.
Through all these cases I have the impression that the Westerners are relying on Putin’s calm temper, who will always refuse (I hope) to start a nuclear conflict. Do you think that in the event of a serious threat from Russia to engage in this type of conflict, the West will do what is necessary to avoid it?
Will it do what is necessary to calm the situation?
I am most concerned about who might replace Putin should our rabid overseers
actually succeed in removing him . . . and if you think they’re not rabid, may I
refer you to Peter Strzok’s very bizarre view of his congressional grilling :
“Just another notch in Putin’s belt.”
The Wild West mentality is strong with Strzok.
Lots of Americans want the End of Days.
How coincidental that just the day before the announcement of the indictments , The Daily Beast published an extensive hit-piece on John Mark Dougan , who has admitted setting up the DCLeaks website that was used to release some of the earlier leaks :
“Fugitive Cop Says He’s Behind the DNC Leaks. It’s His Latest Hoax.
A Florida cop turned hacker who fled to Russia to escape the FBI claims Seth Rich leaked him DNC documents. But his story is full of holes.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fugitive-cop-says-hes-behind-the-dnc-leaks-its-his-latest-hoax?ref=scroll
Also , True Pundit suspects some of the language used in the indictments was cribbed from a related lawsuit filed by George Webb :
“Mueller Plagiarizes Right-Wing YouTube Journalist’s Lawsuit Against Podesta in New Russian Indictments; DOJ’s Big Splash Appears Fabricated”
https://truepundit.com/mueller-plagiarizes-right-wing-youtube-journalists-lawsuit-against-podesta-in-new-russian-indictments-dojs-big-splash-appears-fabricated/
George Webb is not a right-winger. He is a Bernie supporter. LOL. Still, the similarity of the wording suggests that the indictment is meant not only as an attempt to bolster the Russiagate fiction but also to defend Hillary and Podesta against charges of corruption, rigging the Dem primary, and incompetence and perhaps allow Hillary to run in 2020 or at lease to choose who the Dem candidate will be. It is also, of course, meant to sabotage detente with Russia and damage both Trump and Bernie Sanders. Sanders is probably regarded as even more dangerous than Trump by the deep state and by the corrupt, no-talent leaders of the pathetic Dem party — just look at Shumer’s ridiculous and unpatriotic demand that Trump cancel the summit. The current Dem leaders have absolutely nothing positive to offer the American people in terms of foreign policy and do nothing but repeat neocon nonsense, but the deep state supports the Dems at the moment because they want to see Trump impeached and Bernie make a fool of himself by criticizing Russia with no evidence. Bernie lost a lot of support with his recent uninformed Russophobic statement. The strong implied focus on defending Podesta and by further implication Hillary, obvious from the similarities with the Webb lawsuit, shows the real aim of the indictments. As Lauria points out, it’s all for internal consumption. But there are several apparent contradictions in the indictment, and those contradictions will be no doubt be pointed out in the coming days by computer experts, so this indictment may have no lasting effect outside of people who are already True Believers in Russiagate. Even so, the failure to interview Assange and Craig Murray is truly shocking and disappointing.
George Webb has talked with Bill Binney and despite being somewhat eccentric should not be dismissed out of hand. He is rumored to be former Mossad. From his videos of the last three days (days 15, 16, 17) it appears that he thinks Russian-born hackers living in the USA were indeed involved, but that they were not working for the Russian government but rather for various Americans (including well-known American politicians), concentrating on economic espionage.
Remember that Assange when questioned repeatedly emphasized that that the emails did not come from Russian “state” actors. Putin recently seems to have wanted to imply the same point.
According to Webb the hackers received their training from Russian military intelligence.
Webb also ties the hacking and espionage to the wider picture of pipeline politics in Europe and the Middle East. Even if Webb is wrong, or if he represents Israeli interests, it’s an interesting view that is worth investigating.
Webb (for what it’s worth): “They’re really not Trump’s Russians; they’re really not Putin’s Russians — they’re really Rosenstein and Comey’s Russians.”
Rosenstein makes the announcement. 8 minutes into this video he states:
There are no allegations in the indictment any American knew they were in contact with Russians or with a Russian operation,
any American committed a crime in relation to this,
or that the operation changed or influenced the election.
http://youtu.be/mYXCsxf9TsE
Fist thoughts:
If there is no allegation (evidence) the operation influenced the election, then why do we care about any of this?
Seems odd no Americans did anything worthy of investigating. Exonerating the DNC/ DCCC of all wrong doing?
How does Rosenstein (or anyone in the FBI) know Russians did this “hack” without having access to examine the DNC computers? Are we going by what CrowdStrike says they found?
Hmmm…
You will not, however, find that Very Important Comment referenced in the frantic
news reports of The Indictment. It should at least be in the background, sort of like
the ‘side effects’ of various medications that are read in a very fast voice-over during
the endless commercials for the latest miracle drugs (e.g. caution, side effects may
include death, please tell your doctor if you wake up dead . . .)
How? Ouija boards, astrology, remote viewing…
Mueller should be prosecuted for violating the Logan Act. The timing of this is an illegal attempt to interfere with Foreign Policy.
Right on!
Apparently Mueller couldn’t get a U-2 to fly over Russia and get shot down (which in 1960 scuttled a summit between President Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Khrushchev).
“That argument was either ignored or dismissed by Mueller’s team”.
Don’t rule out the possibility that they just didn’t understand it. Lawyers, like politicians and many senior business executives, tend to be allergic to numbers.
“Some members of the Veterans’ Intelligence Professionals for Sanity argue that the trans-Atlantic transfer speeds in 2016 were not capable of transmitting a large amount of hacked material…”
This is entirely incorrect. What VIPS (correctly) stated was that the Internet connection to the “hacked” server itself was too slow to jibe with the recorded timestamps of the transfer. The latter suggests a local copy operation, presumably to a USB thumb drive or the like.
Trans-Atlantic transfer speeds are actually very high indeed, and the limiting factor is always the sending or receiving system or some intermediate server. (Not to mention that the Internet’s fundamental design ensures that files transferred from the USA to Europe do not necessarily have to cross the Atlantic by cable, but could be routed via the Pacific or even through a satellite link to anywhere in the world).
thank you for your correction. it is just such devilish detail that utterly undermines “muh russia”, russiagate, crossfire hurricane, aka the special counsel investigation. one hopes that at least one of the dozen indicted russians is brave and patriotic enough to present himself and demand the right to depose, say, crowdstrike and the fbi that were “rebuffed” by the dnc’s refusal to make available their email servers. maybe even seth rich’s attending physician when he died in hospital. wouldn’t it be nice?
Good clarification, although I think Joe Lauria probably meant (the slow local links leading to) the high-speed transatlantic links.
Forensic analysis from forensicator:
https://theforensicator.wordpress.com/
http://g-2.space/
His analysis of the metadata indicates the information was copied to a USB.
I thought and still think the VIPS’s refutation of the Russian hacking claims is definitive. Mueller doesn’t even mention it, and Joe Lauria gives it rather short shrift as well:
“Some members of the Veterans’ Intelligence Professionals for Sanity argue that metadata evidence points to a local download from the Democratic computers, in other words a leak, rather than a hack.”
That’s not the way Ray McGovern and Wm Binney would summarize their findings, and I am inclined to believe the former technical director of the NSA (and former British ambassador Craig Murray, who says he knows the person who handed over the material to Wikileaks and it was definitely not a Russian!). Why doesn’t Lauria say: “The VIPS have proved that it was a leak, not a hack, and therefore all the intelligence reports, including this indictment, are nothing but fraudulent anti-Russian propaganda”?
The transfer speed story makes me wonder about the VIPS guys. Any sysadmin knows when you download a file, it wipes all old metadata and creates all new metadata since you create a new file anytime you download. Since it would be impossible for them to have the original downloads of the files… i.e. the original “thumb drive”… then it’s impossible for them to know the original download speed of the “hacker” or “leaker”, or the download time, etc.
If you read their report, you will see the reasoning.