VIPS: Mueller’s Forensics-Free Findings

The final Mueller report should be graded “incomplete,” says VIPS, whose forensic work proves the speciousness of the story that DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking.

March 13, 2019

MEMORANDUM FOR:    The Attorney General

FROM:   Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT:   Mueller’s Forensics-Free Findings

Executive Summary

Media reports are predicting that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is about to give you the findings of his probe into any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump. If Mueller gives you his “completed” report anytime soon, it should be graded “incomplete.” Major deficiencies include depending on a DNC-hired cybersecurity company for forensics and failure to consult with those who have done original forensic work, including us and the independent forensic investigators with whom we have examined the data. We stand ready to help.

We veteran intelligence professionals (VIPS) have done enough detailed forensic work to prove the speciousness of the prevailing story that the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks came from Russian hacking. Given the paucity of evidence to support that story, we believe Mueller may choose to finesse this key issue and leave everyone hanging. That would help sustain the widespread belief that Trump owes his victory to President Vladimir Putin, and strengthen the hand of those who pay little heed to the unpredictable consequences of an increase in tensions with nuclear-armed Russia.

There is an overabundance of “assessments” but a lack of hard evidence to support that prevailing narrative. We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of “evidence,” particularly if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions. We know only too well — and did our best to expose — how our former colleagues in the intelligence community manufactured fraudulent “evidence” of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

We have scrutinized publicly available physical data — the “trail” that every cyber operation leaves behind. And we have had support from highly experienced independent forensic investigators who, like us, have no axes to grind. We can prove that the conventional-wisdom story about Russian-hacking-DNC-emails-for-WikiLeaks is false. Drawing largely on the unique expertise of two VIPS scientists who worked for a combined total of 70 years at the National Security Agency and became Technical Directors there, we have regularly published our findings. But we have been deprived of a hearing in mainstream media — an experience painfully reminiscent of what we had to endure when we exposed the corruption of intelligence before the attack on Iraq 16 years ago.

This time, with the principles of physics and forensic science to rely on, we are able to adduce solid evidence exposing mistakes and distortions in the dominant story. We offer you below — as a kind of aide-memoire— a discussion of some of the key factors related to what has become known as “Russia-gate.” And we include our most recent findings drawn from forensic work on data associated with WikiLeaks’ publication of the DNC emails.

We do not claim our conclusions are “irrefutable and undeniable,” a la Colin Powell at the UN before the Iraq war. Our judgments, however, are based on the scientific method — not “assessments.” We decided to put this memorandum together in hopes of ensuring that you hear that directly from us.

If the Mueller team remains reluctant to review our work — or even to interview willing witnesses with direct knowledge, like WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange and former UK Ambassador Craig Murray, we fear that many of those yearning earnestly for the truth on Russia-gate will come to the corrosive conclusion that the Mueller investigation was a sham.

In sum, we are concerned that, at this point, an incomplete Mueller report will fall far short of the commitment made by then Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “to ensure a full and thorough investigation,” when he appointed Mueller in May 2017. Again, we are at your disposal.

Discussion

The centerpiece accusation of Kremlin “interference” in the 2016 presidential election was the charge that Russia hacked Democratic National Committee emails and gave them to WikiLeaks to embarrass Secretary Hillary Clinton and help Mr. Trump win. The weeks following the election witnessed multiple leak-based media allegations to that effect. These culminated on January 6, 2017 in an evidence-light, rump report misleadingly labeled “Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).” Prepared by “handpicked analysts” from only three of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, and NSA), the assessment expressed “high confidence” in the Russia-hacking-to-WikiLeaks story, but lacked so much as a hint that the authors had sought access to independent forensics to support their “assessment.”

The media immediately awarded the ICA the status of Holy Writ, choosing to overlook an assortment of banal, full-disclosure-type caveats included in the assessment itself — such as:

When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as ‘we assess’ or ‘we judge,’ they are conveying an analytic assessment or judgment. …Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. … Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary … High confidence in a judgment does not imply that the assessment is a fact or a certainty; such judgments might be wrong.”

To their credit, however, the authors of the ICA did make a highly germane point in introductory remarks on “cyber incident attribution.“ They noted: “The nature of cyberspace makes attribution of cyber operations difficult but not impossible. Every kind of cyber operation — malicious or not — leaves a trail.” [Emphasis added.]

Forensics

The imperative is to get on that “trail” — and quickly, before red herrings can be swept across it. The best way to establish attribution is to apply the methodology and processes of forensic science. Intrusions into computers leave behind discernible physical data that can be examined scientifically by forensic experts. Risk to “sources and methods” is normally not a problem.

Direct access to the actual computers is the first requirement — the more so when an intrusion is termed “an act of war” and blamed on a nuclear-armed foreign government (the words used by the late Sen. John McCain and other senior officials). In testimony to the House Intelligence Committee in March 2017, former FBI Director James Comey admitted that he did not insist on physical access to the DNC computers even though, as he conceded, “best practices” dictate direct access.

In June 2017, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr asked Comey whether he ever had “access to the actual hardware that was hacked.” Comey answered, “In the case of the DNC … we did not have access to the devices themselves. We got relevant forensic information from a private party, a high-class entity, that had done the work. …” Sen. Burr followed up: “But no content? Isn’t content an important part of the forensics from a counterintelligence standpoint?” Comey: “It is, although what was briefed to me by my folks … is that they had gotten the information from the private party that they needed to understand the intrusion by the spring of 2016.”

The “private party/high-class entity” to which Comey refers is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm of checkered reputation and multiple conflicts of interest, including very close ties to a number of key anti-Russian organizations. Comey indicated that the DNC hired CrowdStrike in the spring of 2016.

Given the stakes involved in the Russia-gate investigation – including a possible impeachment battle and greatly increased tension between Russia and the U.S. — it is difficult to understand why Comey did not move quickly to seize the computer hardware so the FBI could perform an independent examination of what quickly became the major predicate for investigating election interference by Russia. Fortunately, enough data remain on the forensic “trail” to arrive at evidence-anchored conclusions. The work we have done shows the prevailing narrative to be false. We have been suggesting this for over two years. Recent forensic work significantly strengthens that conclusion.

We Do Forensics

Recent forensic examination of the Wikileaks DNC files shows they were created on 23, 25 and 26 May 2016. (On June 12, Julian Assange announced he had them; WikiLeaks published them on July 22.) We recently discovered that the files reveal a FAT (File Allocation Table) system property. This shows that the data had been transferred to an external storage device, such as a thumb drive, before WikiLeaks posted them.

FAT is a simple file system named for its method of organization, the File Allocation Table. It is used for storage only and is not related to internet transfers like hacking. Were WikiLeaks to have received the DNC files via a hack, the last modified times on the files would be a random mixture of odd-and even-ending numbers.

Why is that important? The evidence lies in the “last modified” time stamps on the Wikileaks files. When a file is stored under the FAT file system the software rounds the time to the nearest even-numbered second. Every single one of the time stamps in the DNC files on WikiLeaks’ site ends in an even number.

We have examined 500 DNC email files stored on the Wikileaks site. All 500 files end in an even number—2, 4, 6, 8 or 0. If those files had been hacked over the Internet, there would be an equal probability of the time stamp ending in an odd number. The random probability that FAT was not used is 1 chance in 2 to the 500th power. Thus, these data show that the DNC emails posted by WikiLeaks went through a storage device, like a thumb drive, and were physically moved before Wikileaks posted the emails on the World Wide Web.

This finding alone is enough to raise reasonable doubts, for example, about Mueller’s indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking the DNC emails given to WikiLeaks. A defense attorney could easily use the forensics to argue that someone copied the DNC files to a storage device like a USB thumb drive and got them physically to WikiLeaks — not electronically via a hack.

Role of NSA

For more than two years, we strongly suspected that the DNC emails were copied/leaked in that way, not hacked. And we said so. We remain intrigued by the apparent failure of NSA’s dragnet, collect-it-all approach — including “cast-iron” coverage of WikiLeaks — to provide forensic evidence (as opposed to “assessments”) as to how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks and who sent them. Well before the telling evidence drawn from the use of FAT, other technical evidence led us to conclude that the DNC emails were not hacked over the network, but rather physically moved over, say, the Atlantic Ocean.

Is it possible that NSA has not yet been asked to produce the collected packets of DNC email data claimed to have been hacked by Russia? Surely, this should be done before Mueller competes his investigation. NSA has taps on all the transoceanic cables leaving the U.S. and would almost certainly have such packets if they exist. (The detailed slides released by Edward Snowden actually show the routes that trace the packets.)

The forensics we examined shed no direct light on who may have been behind the leak. The only thing we know for sure is that the person had to have direct access to the DNC computers or servers in order to copy the emails. The apparent lack of evidence from the most likely source, NSA, regarding a hack may help explain the FBI’s curious preference for forensic data from CrowdStrike. No less puzzling is why Comey would choose to call CrowdStrike a “high-class entity.”

Comey was one of the intelligence chiefs briefing President Obama on January 5, 2017 on the “Intelligence Community Assessment,” which was then briefed to President-elect Trump and published the following day. That Obama found a key part of the ICA narrative less than persuasive became clear at his last press conference (January 18), when he told the media, “The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive … as to how ‘the DNC emails that were leaked’ got to WikiLeaks.

Is Guccifer 2.0 a Fraud?

There is further compelling technical evidence that undermines the claim that the DNC emails were downloaded over the internet as a result of a spearphishing attack. William Binney, one of VIPS’ two former Technical Directors at NSA, along with other former intelligence community experts, examined files posted by Guccifer 2.0 and discovered that those files could not have been downloaded over the internet. It is a simple matter of mathematics and physics.

There was a flurry of activity after Julian Assange announced on June 12, 2016: “We have emails relating to Hillary Clinton which are pending publication.” On June 14, DNC contractor CrowdStrike announced that malware was found on the DNC server and claimed there was evidence it was injected by Russians. On June 15, the Guccifer 2.0 persona emerged on the public stage, affirmed the DNC statement, claimed to be responsible for hacking the DNC, claimed to be a WikiLeaks source, and posted a document that forensics show was synthetically tainted with “Russian fingerprints.”

Our suspicions about the Guccifer 2.0 persona grew when G-2 claimed responsibility for a “hack” of the DNC on July 5, 2016, which released DNC data that was rather bland compared to what WikiLeaks published 17 days later (showing how the DNC had tipped the primary scales against Sen. Bernie Sanders). As VIPS reportedin a wrap-up Memorandum for the President on July 24, 2017 (titled “Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence),” forensic examination of the July 5, 2016 cyber intrusion into the DNC showed it NOT to be a hack by the Russians or by anyone else, but rather a copy onto an external storage device. It seemed a good guess that the July 5 intrusion was a contrivance to preemptively taint anything WikiLeaks might later publish from the DNC, by “showing” it came from a “Russian hack.” WikiLeaks published the DNC emails on July 22, three days before the Democratic convention.

As we prepared our July 24 memo for the President, we chose to begin by taking Guccifer 2.0 at face value; i. e., that the documents he posted on July 5, 2016 were obtained via a hack over the Internet. Binney conducted a forensic examination of the metadata contained in the posted documents and compared that metadata with the known capacity of Internet connection speeds at the time in the U.S. This analysis showed a transfer rate as high as 49.1 megabytes per second, which is much faster than was possible from a remote online Internet connection. The 49.1 megabytes speed coincided, though, with the rate that copying onto a thumb drive could accommodate.

Binney, assisted by colleagues with relevant technical expertise, then extended the examination and ran various forensic tests from the U.S. to the Netherlands, Albania, Belgrade and the UK. The fastest Internet rate obtained — from a data center in New Jersey to a data center in the UK — was 12 megabytes per second, which is less than a fourth of the capacity typical of a copy onto a thumb drive.

The findings from the examination of the Guccifer 2.0 data and the WikiLeaks data does not indicate who copied the information to an external storage device (probably a thumb drive). But our examination does disprove that G.2 hacked into the DNC on July 5, 2016. Forensic evidence for the Guccifer 2.0 data adds to other evidence that the DNC emails were not taken by an internet spearphishing attack. The data breach was local. The emails were copied from the network.

Presidential Interest

After VIPS’ July 24, 2017 Memorandum for the President, Binney, one of its principal authors, was invited to share his insights with Mike Pompeo, CIA Director at the time. When Binney arrived in Pompeo’s office at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017 for an hour-long discussion, the director made no secret of the reason for the invitation: “You are here because the President told me that if I really wanted to know about Russian hacking I needed to talk with you.”

Binney warned Pompeo — to stares of incredulity — that his people should stop lying about the Russian hacking. Binney then started to explain the VIPS findings that had caught President Trump’s attention. Pompeo asked Binney if he would talk to the FBI and NSA. Binney agreed, but has not been contacted by those agencies. With that, Pompeo had done what the President asked. There was no follow-up.

Confronting James Clapper on Forensics

We, the hoi polloi,do not often get a chance to talk to people like Pompeo — and still less to the former intelligence chiefs who are the leading purveyors of the prevailing Russia-gate narrative. An exception came on November 13, when former National Intelligence Director James Clapper came to the Carnegie Endowment in Washington to hawk his memoir. Answering a question during the Q&A about Russian “hacking” and NSA, Clapper said:

Well, I have talked with NSA a lot … And in my mind, I spent a lot of time in the SIGINT business, the forensic evidence was overwhelming about what the Russians had done. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind whatsoever.” [Emphasis added]

Clapper added: “… as a private citizen, understanding the magnitude of what the Russians did and the number of citizens in our country they reached and the different mechanisms that, by which they reached them, to me it stretches credulity to think they didn’t have a profound impact on election on the outcome of the election.”

(A transcript of the interesting Q&A can be found hereand a commentary on Clapper’s performance at Carnegie, as well as on his longstanding lack of credibility, is here.)

Normally soft-spoken Ron Wyden, Democratic senator from Oregon, lost his patience with Clapper last week when he learned that Clapper is still denying that he lied to the Senate Intelligence Committee about the extent of NSA surveillance of U.S. citizens. In an unusual outburst, Wyden said: “James Clapper needs to stop making excuses for lying to the American people about mass surveillance. To be clear: I sent him the question in advance. I asked him to correct the record afterward. He chose to let the lie stand.”

The materials brought out by Edward Snowden in June 2013 showed Clapper to have lied under oath to the committee on March 12, 2013; he was, nevertheless, allowed to stay on as Director of National Intelligence for three and half more years. Clapper fancies himself an expert on Russia, telling Meet the Presson May 28, 2017 that Russia’s history shows that Russians are “typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever.”

Clapper ought to be asked about the “forensics” he said were “overwhelming about what the Russians had done.” And that, too, before Mueller completes his investigation.

For the steering group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:

William Binney, former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (ret.)

Richard H. Black, Senator of Virginia, 13th District; Colonel US Army (ret.); Former Chief, Criminal Law Division, Office of the Judge Advocate General, the Pentagon (associate VIPS)

Bogdan Dzakovic, former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security (ret.) (associate VIPS)

Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)

Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator

James George Jatras, former U.S. diplomat and former foreign policy adviser to Senate leadership (Associate VIPS)

Larry C. Johnson, former CIA and State Department Counter Terrorism officer

John Kiriakou, former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003

Edward Loomis, Cryptologic Computer Scientist, former Technical Director at NSA (ret.)

David MacMichael, Ph.D., former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst; CIA Presidential briefer (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council & CIA political analyst (ret.)

Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)

Peter Van Buren, US Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)

Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)

Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA

Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army reserve colonel and former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers and congressional staffers. The organization, founded in 2002, was among the first critics of Washington’s justifications for launching a war against Iraq. VIPS advocates a US foreign and national security policy based on genuine national interests rather than contrived threats promoted for largely political reasons. An archive of VIPS memoranda is available at Consortiumnews.com.

132 comments for “VIPS: Mueller’s Forensics-Free Findings

  1. Tom
    March 22, 2019 at 20:47

    Since Jennifer Palmieri started the Russiagate nonsense, why hasn’t she been arrested? If I file a false police report or cause one to be started, in many places that’s a felony. I could also be liable for the investigation costs. How come this doesn’t apply to her? Is it just because the rich and powerful behind the scenes would say kill it before it would even start?

  2. Nikol-A. von Obernitz
    March 20, 2019 at 04:56

    Just reading your interesting news I wisch to send kindest regards to Richard H.”Dick” Black ( US COL ret ) whom I probably might have met 1980-83 as follower of Götz von Berlichingen in G2-Plans at HEIDELBERG/GE.
    “Nick” von Obernitz ( GE LTC ret )

  3. Da Prof
    March 19, 2019 at 09:10

    Thanks to Consortium and the brave VIPS for yet another brilliant piece of actual journalism.
    Thanks to all the commenters for the intelligent discussion and additional, highly interesting truth digging.
    It is so good that this place exists. All is not lost yet. The ENTIRE swamp WILL first be drained and then burnt. One way or another. Real democracy CAN be imagined and IS possible. Perhaps for the first time in millenia. The multicolored nihilist swamp beast rats know it’s coming. No weapon, no mercenary army, no Swiss bank account, no dark allegiance or secret hand shake will save even one of them.
    Thanks again.

  4. Regula
    March 18, 2019 at 17:24

    This statement by the VIPS is what things look like when they have substance. The US government allocates some $82b for the NSA and affiliated intel agencies and with that amount of money the NSA et al could ‘t produce a substantiated report? Surely, that alone proves that they all know full well that their accusations of Russian hacking are false and used solely for the purpose of creating and maintaining “Russiagate” and justify suffocating sanctions with intent to destroy the Russian economy and Putin’ presidency in Russia.

    Is that really all the US has to show for its presumed greatness? And because it isn’t credible anymore introduce censure of speech everywhere in hope of shutting off the dangerous dissenting voices that base their dissent on genuine facts?

    Heil to Soviet-America. It learned well from both the Nazis and Stalin but forgot its origins in a quest for democracy.

  5. Atom libertie
    March 18, 2019 at 09:39

    This is interesting.
    The forensics facts are appreciated, as these details won”t be shared in the Corp media.

    However I do find it a bit disturbing this info is seemingly being used to dismiss claims of possible Russian interference.
    Political interference (which can assume the form of numerous types of influence) IS A GIVEN.

    Nation’s are always seeking advantage for themselves via the policy of other nations.
    It’s standard MO.

    It’s absurd to think/claim Russia wasn’t doing the same in 2016.
    It’s no secret the Russian gov’t and media favored Mafia Don (whom openly favored lessening/removing Russian sanctions) over Killary.

    The Russian gov’t, and Putin, are no Innocents.
    They are no friends of personal liberty, rights, equality, freedom or justice.

    They are slipping into authoritarianism, just as China and the U.U. (and numerous EU and other countries) are.

    People need to be highly concerned, but concerned over the increasing loss of liberties.

    There’s a much larger story behind this Russian collusion narrative.

    Trump was likely seeking help from Russia (he openly encouraged it), but also the DNC conspired to favor Hillary over Sanders, and the Sanders campaign was found to posses info on Hillary’s campaign that they shouldn’t have had.

    Every side is guilty of malfeasance & crimes.
    The DNC likely didn’t hand over servers because there was too much to hide.
    That should also be a focal point of this narrative.
    They”re obviously happy to divert the story towards other factors.

    This whole affair reeks of MASSIVE SYSTEM-WIDE CORRUPTION.

    The whole political process and system are infected with massive corruption.

    Finding fault in this whole broken system is like trying to find fault among warring mobster families.

    Even the ATI (any three initials) “security” & “intelligence” agencies are wholly rotten to the core.
    They’re likely distracting from their own severe deficiencies.

    Former Mobster White Bulger once commented on how the Mob seeks to influence/control ANY entity in control of massive capital.
    Money is power.

    Substitute Mob above with any power/money seeking group (like politicans and/or corporate Lords) and one can see why our entire political process is so completely broken.

    ALL parties involved (Dems, GOP, bureaucratic agencies, etc.) are merely seeking out political advantage for themselves & their cronies….in spite of the greater good of the nation and the People as a whole.

    The mindless masses are just allowing themselves to be distracted towards supporting one corrupt faction over (and in opposition to) another.

    THE WHOLE SYSTEM IS BROKEN.

    • Regula
      March 18, 2019 at 17:45

      While much of what you say is obvious, before you accuse Russia of having tried to influence the outcome of the US elections you also have to ask how they would have done so and if they really would have an interest in doing so. The fact that Khirinovsky made a big spectacle on Russian TV in favor of Trump is really not an attempt at influencing western voters – it is part of free speech that everybody can have an opinion on who they would vote for. We do that too with respect to Russia. Given the despotic overlordusm by the US over other countries, it is obvious that US elections are observed in all other countries. As to those few adds – if US voters get confused by a few ads then the entire US election campaign system would have to be abolished since that confuses US voters. As to the hacks into electoral systems – they never took place or were recognized as criminally motivated data harvesting. Russia can do very little with such info and is unlikely the culprit. But as the VIPS showed from the start, the emails were never hacked but leaked instead. Combined with the uninvestigated murder of Seth Rich, that paints a rather different picture. Especially given that the Clintons murdered many people to hide their corrupt deals.

      Yes, all nations spy. But the info they seek and for which they will hack has to do with political decisions and policies as a defense against attacks on a nation’s own goals. Don’t forget that Russia has a much smaller budget for spying and hacking and general surveillance than the US has. Influencing the elections is not worth the money since Russia is fully aware that the presidents change but the US foreign policy does not. They already knew Hillary and would have been perfectly able to deal with her. Trump was a wild card and brutal. Surely they would have known him from his business deals with Russian oligarchs.

  6. Norumbega
    March 17, 2019 at 15:28

    I’ve touched on this matter in some comments I’ve already left in response to several posts by others, but here I want to outline what Craig Murray has actually claimed in his interview with Scott Horton. If this interview were more widely known, several points of confusion would be cleared up. Here I will summarize the key contents of that interview, and also summarize what we have reason to believe about the identities of the WikiLeaks leakers and Guccifer 2 from this and a few other sources.

    See: “December 13, 2016 – Craig Murray: DNC, Podesta emails leaked, not hacked – Episode 4328”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbOql1gt-8c&t=1455s

    I summarize the key points as follows:

    1. Murray asserts that the DNC leak and the Podesta leak involved two entirely different sources.

    2. Murray flatly asserts that in both cases the leaks were “by Americans” who had access to the information they leaked as part of their jobs.

    3. Murray flatly asserts that Guccifer 2.0 was not the source in either case.

    4. The person he met in Washington was clearly the Podesta leaker.

    5. Murray says this meeting occurred after the Podesta material was already safely with WikiLeaks.

    6. Murray insinuates rather plainly that the person was involved (within American intelligence or law enforcement) in monitoring John Podesta’s communications as a registered and paid lobbyist for Saudi Arabia.

    7. Murray suggests that the answer to the question “was the leaker someone from intelligence/law enforcement, or was the leaker someone from the Democratic Party/DNC?” that the answer will be different in the two cases – which, given points (1) and (6), implies that the DNC leak was from a Democratic insider.

    8. Murray says that Julian Assange’s statement about Seth Rich reflects concern that Rich may have been killed on orders of someone who _thought_ he was the leaker – whether correctly or incorrectly. Thus Murray does not deny that Seth Rich was the DNC leaker but also avoids confirming it. We must still assume _some_ rational basis for so thinking on the part of Rich’s possible killers is being implied by Assange – such as knowledge that Rich had been in touch with WikiLeaks.

    9. Turning to other sources of information, it is clear that Murray’s meeting in Washington with the Podesta leaker will have occurred after he left the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence banquet early in order to do so. (In other interviews which I haven’t kept track of, Scott Horton says that two other people he’s interviewed (Phil Giraldi and Ray McGovern?) were there at the banquet and witnessed Murray leave early.) This was on September 25, 2016.

    10. In video extracted in the course of Bill Binney’s recent interview with Jason Goodman, Murray says that the purpose of the meeting was “administrative” only. He says that “even whistleblowers have administration and bureaucracy.” He says “I never in my life met Seth Rich, and he, of course, had sadly been murdered some months before the occasion on which I was there meeting someone.”

    In this latter interview with Binney, Binney reveals “the people I know, they have at least two other avenues of information coming to them that verify what Seth [sic – clearly Sy Hersh, the recording of whom regarding Seth Rich he had just referred to] said about the FBI having the data on Seth Rich’s computer, where he contacted WikiLeaks and transferred some data and wanted money for the rest of the data. I don’t think that’s publicly known yet.” See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwUoE8UecC0&t=527s

    So, summarizing the available information pertaining to the three sources of information (DNC, Podesta and G-2):

    We have Julian Assange implying that Seth Rich’s killers would have had reason to suspect a connection between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks.

    We have Ambassador Murray claiming to know that both the DNC and Podesta leaks were “by Americans”, implying that the DNC leak was by a Democratic insider, and implying the same thing regarding Seth Rich as Assange does (without actually confirming that such suspicions were fully correct).

    We have file-sharing entrepreneur Kim Dotcom claiming that he himself was involved with Seth Rich in the DNC leak, further indicating that he had been in communication with Rich since 2014, and offering to testify in detail to American investigators given assurances against prosecution.

    We have Sy Hersh attesting to the existence of FBI knowledge from Seth Rich’s computer implicating Seth Rich in the DNC leak. And now we have Bill Binney saying Hersh’s information has been independently confirmed by people he knows.

    We have Ed Butowski claiming that his source who had contacted him after returning from London revealed to him that Seth Rich had been responsible for the WikiLeaks DNC leak along with his brother Aaron, that Seth Rich’s parents at first privately acknowledged this, that Seth had downloaded the emails to a $56 Western Digital hard drive, transferred the trove to WikiLeaks on or about June 23, 2016, and been paid some $48,000 by WikiLeaks.

    Murray strongly hints that the person responsible for the Podesta leak was an American intelligence or law enforcement insider. Steve Pieczenik strikes me as someone who’s testimony must be treated with caution. But it must be pointed out that in his (admittedly rather strange in some respects) Youtube video of November 1, 1016, Pieczenik claims that the Podesta leaker was an associate of his in American intelligence or law enforcement. Thus, Murray’s and Pieczenik’s statements are in agreement on this point.

    Binney and Johnson’s finding that whereas the WikiLeaks DNC files show FAT formatting, the WikiLeaks Podesta files do not. This is consistent with Murray’s claim that there were two independent sources involved.

    Binney has suggested (without claiming to know for sure) that the Guccifer 2 persona was part of a CIA disinformation effort in which Brennan had a hand. The illicit Sy Hersh recording has him also referring to a Brennan disinformation op.

    Personally, I think that the Vault 7 revelations about the CIA’s ability to engage in hacks while leaving signs that would cause attribution to others is a red herring. The timing alone suggests hasty responses to Julian Assange’s announcement were involved in the June 14 WP story and the June 15 debut of G-2. There need have been no real hack involved in that case either – as the VIPS’ previous download speed study suggests. The forensics of the first documents released by G-2 – as developed by The Forensicator and Adam Carter – suggest methods of creating the “Russian fingerprints” in the first G-2 were different and less sophisticated.

    Comey has testified that “we think they [the Russians] used cutouts of some kind” (or similar wording) to transfer the material to WikiLeaks. This may be as close as he’ll come to admitting that he knows the identities of the real leakers, and also about the Guccifer 2 deception operation used as cover. Note he didn’t say that Guccifer 2 was such a cutout.

    • Skip Scott
      March 18, 2019 at 06:40

      Fantastic summary! Thanks.

      • Norumbega
        March 18, 2019 at 18:51

        Thanks for your interest!

        I have since transcribed Comey’s actual wording (it’s shown as a clip in Democracy Now!’s interview with Julian Assange from April 12, 2017). I was mistaken that he spoke of “cutouts”, plural. Rather, he spoke of a ‘cutout’, singular:

        Comey: “We assess that they [the Russians] used some kind of cutout [i.e. intermediary, to transfer the material to WikiLeaks]. They didn’t deal directly with WikiLeaks, in contrast to DC Leaks and Guccifer 2.0” – who thus _did_ ‘deal directly’ with the Russians, according to Comey.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpXbgx4hnlc

        My expedition through the comments yesterday eventually brought me to Mark F. McCarty’s blog at Medium. His article “So Why Does the NSA have 32 Pages of Secret/Top Secret Documents on Seth Rich?” contains an interesting addendum from Publius Tacitus over at Sic Semper Tyrannis (Col. Pat Lang’s blog; also where Binney and Johnson’s new findings first appeared last month). Publius Tacitus said: “No, Sy was not the source for the Fox report. Two of the sources are closely tied to Julian’s lawyer.”

        I think that Rod Wheeler, in his interview with George Webb and Jason Goodman, described how the Fox reporter, Malia Zimmerman told him about information she had received from a “Federal investigator” who she characterized as very reliable.

    • Calico Jack
      March 19, 2019 at 22:43

      Much thanks for this, and the added insight you provide. But the date of June 23, 2016 for the transfer of the DNC emails to Assange can’t be correct, because that is the date of _release_ of that tranche. It was June 12 that Assange announced the forthcoming release of the DNC emails, and May 25 that was the last date of the emails contained, so Wikileaks must have received them in between those two dates.
      Regarding Guccifer 2.0, everything I see points to a hasty and rather clumsy attempt at distraction from within the DNC IT department. The persona appeared right after the shrill shriek of “Russia Hacks” from the DNC and the Hillary campaign, and posted the exact content cited by DNC (opposition research paper). The person used a Cyrillic keyboard in a clumsy attempt to feign Russian fingerprints, and showed an unusual knowledge of American political figures for a Romanian hacker. At this time, mid-April 2016, the DNC is _secretly replacing_ its servers, so the IT department is working OT on the computers.

      https://www.vpro.nl/argos/lees/nieuws/2018/Timeline-EN.html

      http://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/3559/A-Seth-Rich-Chronology-Part-1.aspx

      Finally, the metadata carelessly left from the Word document shows the owner to be Warren Flood of the DNC IT department , this from the Still Report, SR1732.

      • Calico Jack
        March 19, 2019 at 22:52

        Sorry, the time for the replacement of the DNC servers is mid-June 2016, not mid-April.

      • Norumbega
        March 20, 2019 at 18:08

        Thanks for making this good point. I was aware of the problem this June 23 date has for the timeline when I cited it (as noted in a couple others of my comments below) but included it because I thought it was a pertinent to give this detail of what Ed Butowski had alleged (though I was then reporting it from memory).

        Since my post I have listened again to what Butowski said in one of his interviews. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_g59wv42xA What struck me is that he referred to the June 23 transaction immediately before alleging that Rich was paid some $48,000. It could well be that this could well refer to the date of the payment not of the transfer of DNC emails.

        If is so, a partial timeline (from memory) would be as follows:

        May 23-26: Seth Rich downloads the DNC files to an external storage device.

        Before June 12: negotiations with and transfer of files to WikiLeaks.

        June 12, Assange announces forthcoming release

        June 12-15 Fear sets in (I agree with your comments on Guccifer 2)

        June 23 S.R. paid $48,000 (according to Butowski)

        July 10 S.R.’s murder

        July 22 Publication of the DNC files by WikiLeaks

        About Warren Flood, I would look at what Adam Carter is saying. I recall that recently some new elements were discovered suggesting just how his name came to be in the documents. I don’t think it right to suspect him personally as having been involved with G-2. And although the invention of G-2 was evidently a hasty affair, and may well have included participation the DNC-hired Crowdstrike or even DNC officials, I would also not be surprised by an FBI or CIA hand in this disinformation operation. I’m just suspicious as you are of the idea that the CIA would have dipped into its sophisticated-hacking-toolkit for this purpose.

  7. Teotonia Pinto
    March 17, 2019 at 07:31

    WOW Russia and TRUMP are at work ONCE again. Already trying to discredit the report because they know they are GUILTY and want a head start on trying to brain wash everyone with their FAKE news and FALSE propaganda. SHAME ON us for allowing this to go on. TRUMP needs to be impeached by Americans this next election. HE IS NOT worth the time or money congress would spend or time. WE the American votes NEED to get rid of the cancel NOW> before it eats our country alive with all of us in it.

  8. furtive
    March 16, 2019 at 16:19

    The entire investigation is a COVER UP to insulate the Klinton Krime Kartel & their con-men-spirators from the illegal domestic spying, treachery against Trump & his associates they undertook during the 2016 presidential campaign.
    The con-men loyal to the kkklintons are completely compromised by payoffs.

    The biggest, Mule-LIAR, was selected as the “moat” not the selector of his staff.
    His “authority” gave the ostensible appearance of honest dealing & due diligence.
    Rumor has it, he never shows up for a day’s pay, yet he has billed $25 million with a phony budget, much going to his bottomless libations at the local bar.

    Why not? Taxpayers have no say at all to the freeflowing money.

    In fact the opposite is true.
    THIS WAS NEVER AN INVESTIGATION ABOUT HACKING.

    It was a DELAY OF THE DAY OF RECKONING.

    Now the con-spirators are falling overboard one at a time.

    The VIPS NEVER ADDRESSED that THEIR GOAL TO SOLVE THE “Hack” was nothing but a distracting narrative by the FBI /CIA to cover up the way they violated our 4th amendment for decades.

    The VIPS ARE GULLIBLE.

    …And Arrogant Dumbbell McCabe is now playing “Catch me if you can, America!” on the tv circuit.
    Hopefully, we will.

  9. March 16, 2019 at 07:55

    The Truth is Out There. I Want to Believe!

    Same old scams, different packaging. That’s New & Improved for you.

    http://opensociet.org/2019/03/16/the-return-of-the-hidden-persuaders

  10. Raymond Comeau
    March 15, 2019 at 12:35

    I could not suffer through reading the whole article. This is mainly because I have watched the news daily about Mueller’s Investigation and I sincerely believe that Mueller is Champion of the Democrats who are trying to depose President Donald Trump at any cost.
    For what Mueller found any decent lawyer with a Degree and a few years of experience could have found what Mueller found for far far less money. Mueller only found common crimes AND NO COLLUSION BETWEEN PRESIDENT TRUMP AND PUTIN!

    The Mueller Investigation should be given to an honest broker to review, and Mueller should be paid only what it would cost to produce the commonplace crimes Mueller, The Democrats, and CNN has tried to convince the people that indeed Trump COLLUDED with RUSSIA. Mueller is, a BIG NOTHING BURGER and THE DEMOCRATS AND CNN ARE MUELLER’S SINGING CANARYS! Mueller should be jailed.

    • Teotonia Pinto
      March 17, 2019 at 07:40

      My dear American Mueller is a republican and a very ethical man, you are trying to destroy him but you can’t. NONE of you can. Look to Trump and all his guilty associates. All we need is to have a decent man or woman as our leader, This has no party not religion. This is our country . We are all Americans red or blue Please don’t tell us that you want Trump to stay in office. AND if you do God help you and the rest of us. NO one is just trying to get rid of this parasite who is SO UNFIT for office. We all republicans and democrats, independents it does not matter what party we belong to. WE NEED PEACE of mind a sane person with access to red buttons, and one that knows something about the truth NOT lie every time his lips are moving. WE NEED DECENCY. Nixon did wrong but NOTHING compared to this guy. Be an American , put your country first. NOT your party. I served out nation , I am a military veteran and if I was still in the military I would NOT solute this parasite. I am decades old, NEVER in my life did I have thing we would have such trash in our White house. Such unqualified people the President depends on his daugher for advise? What does she know . And her husband, they are all there to benefit their business PERIOD>

      • Calico Jack
        March 20, 2019 at 00:45

        If you want to see guilt see this:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NfFAaPZqs8

        A criminal with decades of treason, corruption and crime fears the noose. That is the reason for the “Russia Hacking” probe-to delay the time Hillary and her husband will have to pay for their crimes. I agree with you that Trump lies, appears to be bad-tempered, and comes across as something of a buffoon. I did not vote for him, but no way in Hades would I vote for a proven criminal like Hillary. Since the election, Trump has proved not as bad as I feared. He exposed the biased MSM, and has the guts to tackle the tough problems his predecessors would not: North Korea, Syria, Afghanistan, China trade.

  11. Bogdan Miller
    March 15, 2019 at 11:04

    This article explains why the Mueller Report is already highly suspect. For another thing, we know that since before 2016, Democrats have been studying Russian Internet and hacking tactics, and posing as Russian Bots/Trolls on Facebook and other media outlets, all in an effort to harm President Trump.

    It appears the FBI, CIA, and NSA have great difficulty in differentiating between Russians and Democrats posing as Russians.

    B.J.M. Former Intelligence Analyst and Humint Collector

  12. vinnieoh
    March 15, 2019 at 08:17

    Moving on: the US House yesterday voted UNANIMOUSLY (remember that word, so foreign these days to US governance?) to “urge” the new AG to release the complete Mueller report. A non-binding resolution, but you would think that the Democrats can’t see the diesel locomotive bearing down on their clown car, about to smash it to pieces. The new AG in turn says he will summarize the report and that is what we will see, not the entire report. And taxation without representation takes a new twist.

    Well, well ,well. The Democrats so sure, and not one dissenting Republican vote. Ruhh-ro. Do any of them have privileged knowledge of what it might actually conclude? Does the AG? As Alice said – curiouser and curiouser.

    Inquiring minds are just SOOL.

    • Raymond Comeau
      March 15, 2019 at 12:38

      What else would you expect from two Political Parties who are really branches of the ONE Party which Represents DEEP STATE”.

  13. DWS
    March 15, 2019 at 05:58

    Maybe the VIPS hould look into the murder of Seth Rich, the DNC staffer who had the security clearance required to access the DNC servers, and who was murdered in the same week as the emails were taken. In particular, they should ask why the police were told to stand down and close the murder case without further investigation.

    • Raymond Comeau
      March 15, 2019 at 12:47

      EXACTLY! But, Deep State will not allow that. And, it would ruin the USA’ plan to continue to invade more sovereign countries and steal their resources such as oil and Minerals. The people of the USA must be Ostriches or are so terrified that they accept anything their Criminal Governments tell them.

      Eventually, the chickens will come home to roost and perhaps the USA voters will ROAST when the crimes of the USA sink the whole country. It is time for a few Brave Men and Women to find their backbones and throw out the warmongers and their leading Oligarchs!

    • Norumbega
      March 17, 2019 at 10:12

      My _opinion_ is that they should _first_ focus on the question of whether Seth Rich was involved in the DNC leak. If that proves to be the case, _then_ the question of this being a possible motive for his murder naturally arises. But first things first. Let’s not conflate the two questions.

      Second, in fact, your statement that SR “was murdered in the same week as the emails were taken” is erroneous. The error here is conflating the July 5, 2016 Guccifer 2 persona-linked hack (or leak) with the WikiLeaks DNC leak (0r hack). We know that all of these emails were dated May 26 or earlier, that their last-modified dates were May 23, 25 and 26 (see article above) and these times show FAT formatting. This dates their transfer to an external storage device. They would have been taken no later than this.

      Furthermore Seth Rich cannot have been behind Guccifer 2 (unless with others who survived him), since Guccifer 2 clearly outlived him.

      Craig Murray has stated very clearly that the WikiLeaks DNC and Podesta materials were provided by two different American _leakers_. He also flatly denies that _either_ had anything to do with Guccifer 2. Thus he is asserting the existence of three separate actors.

      Thus we must clearly distinguish (1) the DNC leaker, (2) Guccifer 2 and (3) the Podesta leaker.

  14. Thomas Carter
    March 14, 2019 at 23:37

    Thank you, VIPS for pursuing the truth.

  15. KiwiAntz
    March 14, 2019 at 18:44

    What a brilliant article, so logical, methodical & a forensic, scientific breakdown of the phony Russiagate project? And there’s no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election by initiating a soft coup or Regime change op on a elected Leader, a very American Coup, something the American Intelligence Agencies specialise in, everywhere else, on a Global scale, too get Trump impeached & removed from the Whitehouse? If you can’t get him out via a Election, try & try again, like Maduro in Venezuela, to forcibly remove the targeted person by setting him up with fake, false accusations & fabricated evidence? How very predictable & how very American of Mueller & the Democratic Party. Absolute American Corruption, corrupts absolutely?

    • Raymond Comeau
      March 15, 2019 at 12:49

      Excellent post. Merci Beacoup!

    • Norumbega
      March 17, 2019 at 10:22

      “there’s no doubt, this was a co-ordinated, determined Intelligence project to reverse the results of the 2016 Election”

      The intelligence project was evidently coordinated with foreign intelligence agencies of (at least) Britain and Ukraine, and seems to have originated in late 2015 and early 2016. The intention originally would have been to _prevent_ Trump’s election. The possible post-election motives will include not only reversing the result, but also boxing Trump in to the maximum extent regarding his stated intention to have good relations with Russia, and covering their own criminal trail.

  16. March 14, 2019 at 13:51

    We keep hearing that the Mueller report is almost finished but would he do so. He has had a gravy train for months. I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes on for the rest of Trump’s term in office.

    • Anne Jaclard
      March 15, 2019 at 00:34

      There’s evidence he’s going to stop pretty soon, but that’s why the Democrats in the House have opened up another Russiaphobic investigations board so the witch hunt never ends.

    • Brian Murphy
      March 15, 2019 at 10:33

      Right. Since its purpose is to destroy Trump politically, the investigation should go on as long as Trump is in office.

      Alternatively, if at this point Trump has completely sold out, that would be another reason to stop the investigation.

      If the investigation wraps up and finds nothing, that means Trump has already completely sold out.

      If the investigation continues, it means someone important still thinks Trump retains some vestige of his balls.

  17. DH Fabian
    March 14, 2019 at 13:19

    By last June or July. the Mueller investigation has resulted in roughly 150 indictments for perjury/financial crimes, and there was a handful of convictions to date. The report did not support the Clinton wing’s anti-Russian allegations about the 2016 election, and was largely brushed aside by media. Mueller was then reportedly sent back in to “find something.” presumably to support the anti-Russian claims.

  18. mike k
    March 14, 2019 at 12:57

    From the beginning of the Russia did it story, right after Trump’s electoral victory, it was apparent that this was a fraud. The democratic party however has locked onto this preposterous story, and they will go to their graves denying this was a scam to deny their presidential defeat, and somehow reverse the result of Trump’s election. My sincere hope is that this blatant lie will be an albatross around the party’s neck, that will carry them down into oblivion. They have betrayed those of us who supported them for so many years. They are in many ways now worse than the republican scum they seek to replace.

    • DH Fabian
      March 14, 2019 at 13:26

      Trump is almost certain to be re-elected in 2020, and we’ll go through this all over again.

      • hetro
        March 14, 2019 at 15:31

        With the Democrats divided and fractious, which seems likely to continue, you’re probably right. Biden as a Hillary substitute is looking more likely, and Bernie to be shoved aside and acquiesce again? Bernie is up against the deep disappointment he left behind him in 2016. IMV the time was never better for a third party to rise up and run as a people’s independent party–clearly against Establishment Politics.

        • Skip Scott
          March 15, 2019 at 07:10

          Forty-two percent of registered voters didn’t vote in 2016. The time is ripe for a 3rd party challenge. They just need the 15 pct to get to the TV debates. That’s the hard part, since the MSM will most likely deny coverage. The candidate would need some kind of “star” power to lure the MSM controllers. Considering they are invested in the status quo, it’s a very difficult task. Maybe the power of the internet has increased enough that a third party campaign could base itself there. Interesting times ahead for sure.

          • Brian
            March 16, 2019 at 15:42

            Agree, but getting to that 15% will be all but impossible using totally corruptible voting machines, one of the main reasons both parties are complicit with using them.

          • Calico Jack
            March 20, 2019 at 01:21

            15% is a set as an arbitrary & extremely high hurdle for 3rd parties, chosen by the 2 major parties to exclude them. It is recent, 1997 I think, and has no legitimacy. Just an arbitrary decree by two parties with no legal authority.

          • Skip Scott
            March 20, 2019 at 08:06

            Calico Jack-

            Yes. It is arbitrary and shows the complicity to maintain the two party duopoly. Ross Perot got 20 pct, but he had a ton of money to get his message out. I am hoping that Tulsi, or another peace candidate, will abandon the Democrats and make enough noise to get over the threshold. It’s really our only hope. Once people see they have a choice other than the “lesser evil” I think we’ll reach a tipping point, and the two party flimflam will be history.

            Brian’s point is valid as well. We need to get control of the integrity of the voting machines. Venezuela has a great system with a printed receipt and a thumb print. We’ve got serious problems with our electoral system, and they’ve got nothing to do with Russia.

    • Raymond Comeau
      March 15, 2019 at 12:55

      Led by that RANCID VESSEL of EVIL Hillarious Klintonious!

      I hope she runs again and gets ZERO Votes!

  19. Tom
    March 14, 2019 at 12:00

    The very fact that the FBI never had access to the servers and took the word of a private company that had a history of being anti-Russian is enough to throw the entire ruse out.

    • LJ
      March 14, 2019 at 14:39

      Agreed!!!! and don’t forget the FBI/Comey gave Hillary and her Campaign a head’s up before they moved to seize the evidence. . So too, Comey said he stopped the Investigation , thereby rendering judgement of innocence, even though by his own words ‘gross negligence’ had a occurred (which is normally considered grounds for prosecution). In doing so he exceeded the FBI’s investigative mandate. He rationalized that decision was appropriate because of the appearance of impropriety that resulted from Attorney General Lynch having a private meeting on a plane on a runway with Bill and Hillary . Where was the logic in that. Who called the meeting? All were Lawyers who had served as President, Senator, Attorney General and knew that the meeting was absolutely inappropriate. . Comey should be prosecuted if they want to prosecute anyone else because of this CRAP. PS Trump is an idiot. Uhinfortunately he is just a symptom of the disease at this point. Look at the cover of Rolling Stone magazine , carry a barf bag.

    • Jane Christ
      March 14, 2019 at 18:51

      Exactly. This throws doubt on the ability of the FBI to work independently. They are working for those who want to cover -up the Hillary mess . She evidently has sufficient funds to pay them off. I am disgusted with the level of corruption.

  20. hetro
    March 14, 2019 at 10:50

    Nancy Pelosi’s announcement two days ago that the Democrats will not seek impeachment for Trump suggests the emptiness of the Mueller investigation on the specific “collusion” issue. If there were something hot and lingering and about to emerge, this decision is highly unlikely, especially with the reasoning she gave at “so as not to divide the American people.” Dividing the people hasn’t been of much concern throughout this bogus witch hunt on Trump, which has added to his incompetence in leavening a growing hysteria and confusion in this country. If there is something, anything at all, in the Mueller report to support the collusion theory, Pelosi would I’m sure gleefully trot it out to get a lesser candidate like Pence as opposition for 2020.

    • March 14, 2019 at 11:17

      We know and Assange has confirmed Seth Rich, assassinated in D.C. for his deed, downloaded the emails and most likely passed them on to former British ambassador Craig Murray in a D.C. park for transport to Wikileaks.

      We must also honor Shawn Lucas assassinated for serving DNC with a litigation notice exposing the DNC conspiracy against Sanders.

      • hetro
        March 14, 2019 at 15:18

        Where has Assange confirmed this? Assange’s long-standing position is NOT to reveal his sources. I believe he has continued to honor this position.

        • Skip Scott
          March 15, 2019 at 07:15

          It has merely been insinuated by the offering of a reward for info on Seth’s murder. In one breath he says wikileaks will never divulge a source, and in the next he offers a $20k reward saying that sources take tremendous risk. Doesn’t take much of a logical leap to connect A to B.

        • Calico Jack
          March 20, 2019 at 01:43

          OK, if you insist, Assange does not reveal his sources and has not directly said this in so many words.
          BUT
          Assange strongly implied this in his interview on Dutch TV, linking the “substantial risks” of his sources to Seth Rich’s murder,
          AND
          Assange was first to offer a reward for the killer,
          AND
          His representative, Craig Murray identifies the source as from inside the DNC.

          Assange has repeatedly said his source is not Russian
          d

      • Norumbega
        March 17, 2019 at 13:10

        Your post reflects a common confusion that would be cleared up if what Craig Murray has said in his December 2016 interview with Scott Horton were more widely known.

        Murray’s meeting with the Podesta leaker on September 25, 2016 on the American University campus after he left the Sam Adams award banquet early occurred after, according to Murray, the Podesta materials were already safely with WikiLeaks. Obviously, this meeting was not with Seth Rich, whom Murray says (in video extracted in the course of Jason Goodman’s recent interview with Bill Binney) he “never met”.

    • DH Fabian
      March 14, 2019 at 13:30

      Are you aware that Democrats split apart their 0wn voting base in the 1990s, middle class vs. poor? The Obama years merely confirmed that this split is permanent. This is particularly relevant for Democrats, as their voting base had long consisted of the poor and middle class, for the common good. Ignoring this deep split hasn’t made it go away.

      • hetro
        March 14, 2019 at 15:24

        Even more important is how the Democrats have sold out to an Establishment view favoring neocon theory, since at least Bill Clinton. Pelosi’s recent behavior with Ilhan Omar confirms this and the split you’re talking about. My point is it is distinctly odd that Pelosi is discouraging impeachment on “dividing the Party” (already divided, of course, as you say), whereas the Russia-gate fantasy was so hot not that long ago. Again it points to a cynical opportunism and manipulation of the electorate. Both parties are a sad excuse to represent ordinary people’s interests.

        • Skip Scott
          March 15, 2019 at 07:21

          She said “dividing the country”, not the party. I think she may have concerns over Trump’s heavily armed base. That said, the statement may have been a ruse. There are plenty of Republicans that would cross the line in favor of impeachment with the right “conclusions” by Mueller. Pelosi may be setting up for a “bombshell” conclusion by Mueller. One must never forget that we are watching theater, and that Trump was a “mistake” to be controlled or eliminated.

  21. March 14, 2019 at 08:04

    Mueller should be ashamed that he has made President Trump his main concern!! If all this investigation would stop he could save America millions!!! He needs to quit this witch-hunt and worry about things that really need to be handled!!! If the democrats and Trump haters would stop pushing senseless lies hopefully this would stop ? It’s so disgusting that his democrat friend was never really investigated ? stop the witch-hunt and move forward!!!!

  22. torture this
    March 14, 2019 at 07:29

    According to this letter, mistakes might have been made on Rachel Maddow’s show. I can’t wait to read how she responds. I’d watch her show, myself except that it has the same effect on me as ipecac.

  23. Zhu
    March 14, 2019 at 03:37

    People will cling to “Putin made Trump President!!!” much as many cling “Obama’s a Kenyan Muslim! Not a real American!!!”. Both nut theories are emotionally satisfying, no matter what the historical facts are. Many Americans just can’t admit their mistakes and blaming a scapegoat is a way out.

  24. O Society
    March 14, 2019 at 02:03

    Thank you VIPS for organizing this legit dissent consisting of experts in the field of intelligence and computer forensics.

    This so-called “Russiagate” narrative is an illustration of our “freedom of the press” failure in the US due to groupthink and self censorship. He who pays the piper is apt to call the tune.

    It is astounding how little skepticism and scientifically-informed reasoning goes on in our media. These folks show themselves to be native advertising rather than authentic journalists at every turn.

    • DH Fabian
      March 14, 2019 at 13:33

      But it has been Democrats and the media that market to middle class Dems, who persist in trying to sell the Russian Tale. They excel at ignoring the evidence that utterly contradicts their claims.

    • March 15, 2019 at 15:50

      Oh, we’re well beyond your “Blame the middle class Dems” stage.

      The WINNING!!! team sports bullshit drowns the entire country now the latrine’s sprung a leak. People pretend to live in bubbles made of blue or red… quite like the Three Little Pigs, isn’t it? Except instead of a house made of bricks saving the day for the littlepiggies, what we’ve got here is a purple puddle of piss.

      Everyone’s more than glad to project all our problems on “THEM” though, aren’t we?

      Meanwhile, the White House smells like a urinal not washed since the 1950s and simpletons still get their rocks off arguing about whether Mickey Mouse can beat up Ronald McDonald.

      T’would be comic except what’s so tragic is the desperate need Americans have to believe, oh just believe! in something. Never mind the sound of the jackhammer on your skull dear, there’s an app for that… or is it a pill?

      I don’t know, don’t ask me, I’m busy watching TV. Have a cheeto.

      https://opensociet.org/2018/12/18/the-disneyfication-of-america/

  25. Sam F
    March 13, 2019 at 18:45

    Very good analysis clearly stated, especially adding the FAT timestamps to the transmission speeds.

    Minor corrections: “The emails were copied from the network” should be “from the much faster local network” because this is to Contradict the notion that they were copied over the internet network, which most readers will equate with “network.” Also “reportedin” should be “reported in.”

    • Norumbega
      March 17, 2019 at 10:42

      “Very good analysis clearly stated, especially adding the FAT timestamps to the transmission speeds.”

      The “addition” here involves apples and oranges. This is a mistake I see all over the place. The transmission speeds evidence pertains to the G-2 “hack” of July 5, 2016 and by extension to the larger corpus of materials associated with G-2.

      The FAT timestamps evidence pertains to the WikiLeaks DNC emails taken at latest on May 26, 2016 and eventually published on July 22, 2016.

      These two things are at least presumably totally different things. E.g. the WikiLeaks DNC (and Podesta) materials had none of the “Russian fingerprints” of the G-2 (in that case June 15, not July 5) materials.

      Craig Murray has asserted that the DNC and Podesta materials came from two different American leakers and that NEITHER had anything to do with Guccifer-2. That means we’re looking for THREE distinct sources. Please, people start keeping this distinction clearly in mind.

  26. F. G. Sanford
    March 13, 2019 at 18:27

    Sarcasm Alert:

    Evidence matters, examples are rife. That’s how Jeff Epstein got thirty to life.
    Confident diplomats vouched for the prince, gruesome recordings just failed to convince.
    Kashoggi was questioned, he just fell apart, the embassy staff swore they saw him depart.
    OJ is rotting on death row today, his appeals were denied since he chopped up his wife.

    That Warren Commission Report got it right, ballistics would prove bullets pause in mid flight.
    The fragments weighed more than the bullets intact, and dozens of marksmen repeated the act.
    It turned out the cocaine involved in that search was imported to Mena for cancer research,
    The Liberty Incident was a mistake, and John McCain’s daddy set everything right.

    Jimmy Carter’s success getting hostages freed would save Nicaraguans gravely in need.
    Elliot Abrams and Oliver North had peace-keeping missions and carried them forth,
    The coroner said he was shot from behind; they named Bobby’s killer for his state of mind.
    George Bush got elected by those hanging chads, an August 6th brief was advice he would heed!

    An interviewee said Assange was a creep. She claimed he and Epstein were both in real deep.
    They both hired Dershowitz hoping to skate, she claimed that the evidence framed the debate.
    The DoJ argued that laws were unclear, In Hillary’s case, there was nothing to fear.
    The kid on the submarine still went to jail, and Russia-gate fans weren’t fleeced in their sleep.

    The world’s greatest mastermind lived in a cave. His followers praised him and said he was brave.
    The spooks were bewildered, his crimes wouldn’t stop; he accomplished it all, with just a laptop.
    Now Abrams and Barr are right back in the game. Some of the players look oddly the same.
    Pompeo and Binney would candidly talk, Pompeo is loyal, he’ll take that to the grave.

    Juan Guaido is legitimate State would allege, Palladino got miffed when Matt Lee wouldn’t pledge.
    “But there’s evidence tailored to prove he’s the guy, he was self nominated, now why would we lie?”
    Ghaddafi had weaponized Viagra pills, and Assad was just swimming in chemical spills,
    The evidence proved Saddam’s nuclear plan, there are details galore if you read Zerohedge.

    The evidence matters, no doubt about that. DoJ will all read this, they’re not pussycats:
    Both parties are blameless their hands are all clean, corruption in DC has never been seen.
    Ukrainians proved Russia shot down that plane, their motives were pure, they had nothing to gain.
    Notice they’re hoping that nobody talks, everyone walks with what’s under their hats.

    Cherry picked evidence wouldn’t accrue: It’s not what the evidence serves to construe.
    All of those sanctions they’ve now got in place, despite UN warnings that it’s a disgrace,
    Have so far escaped all judicial review. Nadler, Pelosi and Schiff may turn blue,
    They’d like to impeach, but so far, Trump does everything those neocons want him to do.

  27. Michael
    March 13, 2019 at 18:25

    It is likely that New Knowledge was actually “the Russians”, possibly working in concert with Crowdstrike. Once an intelligence agency gets away with something like pretending to be Russian hackers and bots, they tend to re-use their model; it is too tempting to discard an effective model after a one-off accomplishment. New Knowledge was caught interfering/ determining the outcome in the Alabama Senate race on the side of Democrat Doug Jones, and claimed they were merely trying to mimic Russian methods to see if they worked (they did; not sure of their punishment?). Occam’s razor would suggest that New Knowledge would be competent to mimic/ pretend to be “Russians” after the fact of wikileaks’ publication of emails. New Knowledge has employees from the NSA and State department sympathetic to/ working with(?) Hillary, and were the “outside” agency hired to evaluate and report on the “Russian” hacking of the DNC emails/ servers.

    • Norumbega
      March 17, 2019 at 10:51

      Interesting possibility – but I’ve yet to see direct evidence. By all means look into it. Offhand, I don’t see (though I haven’t done original research) New Knowledge being implicated as a “real agent” behind the the Internet Research Agency of St. Petersburg’s activities. As far as I know, the latter were Russians, though there is substantial evidence against the accusation that this was a state sponsored psy-ops activity equivalent to western activities like Brigade 77 and the Integrity Initiative.

  28. DH Fabian
    March 13, 2019 at 17:48

    Mueller released report last summer, which resulted in (the last I checked) roughly 150 indictments, a handful of convictions to date, all for perjury/financial (not political) crimes. This wasn’t kept secret. It simply wasn’t what Democrats wanted to hear, so although it was mentioned in some lib media (which overwhelmingly supported neoliberal Hillary Clinton), it was essentially swept under the carpet.

    • Billy
      March 13, 2019 at 23:11

      Barr, Sessions, every congressmen all the corporate MSM war profiteer mouth pieces. They all know that “Russia hacked the DNC” and “Russia meddled” is fabricated garbage. They don’t care, because their chosen war beast corporate candidate couldn’t beat Donald goofball Trump. So it has to be shown that the war beast only lost because of nefarious reasons. Because they’re gonna run another war beast cut from the same cloth as Hillary in 2020.

      • Realist
        March 14, 2019 at 03:22

        You betcha. Moreover, who but the Russians do these idiots have left to blame? Everybody else is now off limits due to political correctness. Sigh… Those Catholics, Jews, “ethnics” and sundry “deviants” used to be such reliable scapegoats, to say nothing of the “undeveloped” world. As Clapper “authoritatively” says, only this vile lineage still carries the genes for the most extremes of human perfidy. Squirrels in your attic? It must be the damned Russkies! The bastards impudently tried to copy our democracy, economic system and free press and only besmirched those institutions, ruining all of Hillary’s glorious plans for a worldwide benevolent dictatorship. All this might be humorous if it weren’t so funny.

        And those Chinese better not get to thinking they are somehow our equals just because all their trillions invested in U.S. Treasury bonds have paid for all our wars of choice and MIC boondoggles since before the turn of the century. Unless they start delivering Trump some “free stuff” the big man is gonna cut off their water. No more affordable manufactured goods for the American public! So there!

        As to the article: impeccable research and analysis by the VIPS crew yet again. They’ve proven to me that, to a near certainty, the Easter Bunny is not likely to exist. Mueller won’t read it. Clapper will still prance around a free man, as will Brennan. The Democrats won’t care, that is until November of 2020. And Hillary will continue to skate, unhindered in larding up the Clinton Foundation to purposes one can only imagine.

        • Joe Tedesky
          March 14, 2019 at 22:02

          Realist I have posted this article ‘the Russia they Lost’ before and from time to time but once again it seems appropriate to add this link to expound upon for what you’ve been saying. It’s an article written by a Russian who in they’re youth growing up in the USSR dreamed of living the American lifestyle if Russia were to ever ditch communism. But…. Starting with Kosovo this Russian’s youthful dream turned nightmarishly ugly and, as time went by with more and yet even more USA aggression this Russian author loss his admiration and desire for all things American to be proudly envied. This is a story where USA hard power destroyed any hope of American soft power for world unity. But hey that unity business was never part of the plan anyway.

          https://slavyangrad.org/2014/09/24/the-russia-they-lost/

          • Realist
            March 15, 2019 at 22:38

            right you are, joe. if america was smart rather than arrogant, it would have cooperated with china and russia to see the belt and road initiative succeed by perhaps building a bridge or tunnel from siberia to alaska, and by building its own fleet of icebreakers to open up its part of the northwest passage. but no, it only wants to sabotage what others propose. that’s not being a leader, it’s being a dick.

            i’m gonna have to go on the disabled list here until the sudden neurological problem with my right hand clears up–it’s like paralysed. too difficult to do this one-handed using hunt and peck. at least the problem was not in the old bean, according to the scans. carry on, sir.

          • Skip Scott
            March 17, 2019 at 06:08

            Best of luck Realist. Hope to see you back soon.

  29. Brian James
    March 13, 2019 at 17:04

    Mar 4, 2019 Tom Fitton: President Trump a ‘Crime Victim’ by Illegal Deep State DOJ & FBI Abuses

    https://youtu.be/ixWMorWAC7c

    • DH Fabian
      March 13, 2019 at 17:55

      Trump is a willing player in this game. The anti-Russian Crusade was, quite simply, a stunningly reckless, short-sighted effort to overturn the 2016 election, removing Trump to install Hillary Clinton in office. Trump and the Republicans continue to win by default, as Democrats only drive more voters away.

  30. March 13, 2019 at 16:36

    Thank you Ray McGovern and the Other 17 VIPS C0-Signers of your National Security Essay for Truth. Along with Craig Murray and Seymour Hirsch, former Sam Adams Award winners for “shining light into dark places”, you are national resources for objectivity in critical survival information matters for our country. It is more than a pity that our mainstream media are so beholden to their corporate task masters that they cannot depart from the company line for fear of losing their livelihoods, and in the process we risk losing life on the planet because of unconstrained nuclear war on the part of the two main adversaries facing off in an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. Let me speak plainly. THEY SHOULD BE TALKING TO YOU AND NOT THE VESTED INTERESTS’ MOUTHPIECES. Thank you for your continued leadership!

  31. March 13, 2019 at 16:36

    How can you dismiss a report that hasn’t been released yet? I confess that I didn’t read your article, so maybe you list excellent sources on the committee who have given you advance information. It may sound strange that I’m questioning your article without reading it, but then, you’re criticizing a report that, to my knowledge, hasn’t yet been written.

    • March 13, 2019 at 17:00

      Wrong it certainly has been written. Most likely for some time now however it doesn’t cut the mustard as far as proving anything it had been billed as proving ie that Trump colluded with Russia or for that matter that Russia hacked the DNC. Mueller has been stalling for months now to try to come up with anything convincing. Remember the Bogus Ken Start investigation during the Bill Clinton years? Same thing here just different target.

      • March 14, 2019 at 11:28

        Roger Ailes founder of FOX news died, “falling down stairs” within a week of FOX news exposing to the world that the assassinated Seth Rich downloaded the DNC emails.

    • DH Fabian
      March 13, 2019 at 18:03

      Google the Mueller investigation report from last June or July. When it was released, the public response was like a deflated balloon. It did not support the “Russian collusion” allegations — the only thing Democrats still had left to sell. The report resulted in roughly 150 indictments for perjury/financial crimes (not political), and a handful of convictions to date — none of which had anything to do with the election results.

    • Hank
      March 13, 2019 at 18:19

      Much ado about nothing. All the talk and chatter and media airplay about “Russian meddling” in the 2016 election only tells me that these liars think the American public is that stupid. They are probably right, but the REAL reason that Hillary lost is because there ARE enough informed people now in this nation who are quite aware of the Clinton’s sordid history where scandals seem to follow every where they go, but indictments and/or investigations don’t. There IS an internet nowadays with lots of FACTUAL DOCUMENTED information. That’s a lot more than I can say about the mainstream corporate-controlled media!

      I know this won’t ever happen, but an HONEST investigation into the Democratic Party and their actions during the 2016 election would make ANY collusion with ANY nation look like a mole hill next to a mountain! One of the problems with living in this nation is if you are truly informed and make an effort 24/7 to be that way by doing your own research, you more-than-likely can be considered an “island in a sea of ignorance”.

    • Rick james
      March 13, 2019 at 20:39

      “I confess I didn’t read your article” lol. Try giving it a read, and you will easily understand.. or not.

    • Tom
      March 14, 2019 at 12:13

      We know that the FBI never had access to the servers and a private company was allowed to handle the evidence.Wasnt it a crime scene?The evidence was tampered with And we will never know what was on the servers.

  32. Mark McCarty
    March 13, 2019 at 16:10

    As a complement to this excellent analysis, I would like to make 2 further points:

    The Mueller indictment of Russian Intelligence for hacking the DNC and transferring their booty to Wikileaks is absurd on its face for this reason: Assange announced on June 12th the impending release of Hillary-related emails. Yet the indictment claims that Guccifer 2.0 did not succeed in transferring the DNC emails to Wikileaks until the time period of July 14-18th – after which they were released online on July 22nd. Are we to suppose that Assange, a publisher of impeccable integrity, publicly announced the publication of emails he had not yet seen, and which he was obtaining from a source of murky provenance? And are we further to suppose that Wikileaks could have processed 20K emails and 20K attachments to insure their genuineness in a period of only several days? As you will recall, Wikileaks subsequently took a number of weeks to process the Podesta emails they released in October.

    And another peculiarity merits attention. Assange did not state on June 12th that he was releasing DNC emails – and yet Crowdstrike and the Guccifer 2.0 personna evidently knew that this was in store. A likely resolution of this conundrum is that US intelligence had been monitoring all communications to Wikileaks, and had informed the DNC that their hacked emails had been offered to Wikileaks. A further reasonable prospect is that US intelligence subsequently unmasked the leaker to the DNC; as Assange has strongly hinted, this likely was Seth Rich. This could explain Rich’s subsequent murder, as Rich would have been in a position to unmask the Guccifer 2.0 hoax and the entire Russian hacking narrative.

    https://medium.com/@markfmccarty/muellers-new-indictment-do-the-feds-take-us-for-idiots-5406ef955406

    https://medium.com/@markfmccarty/how-did-crowdstrike-guccifer-2-0-know-that-wikileaks-was-planning-to-release-dnc-emails-42e6db334053

    • DH Fabian
      March 13, 2019 at 18:25

      After his report of last summer, Mueller was sent back in to “find something,” but what Democrats want him to find simply isn’t there. The anti-Russian allegations were investigated, and fell flat. Consider how those allegations fit with the 2016 election results. Both 2016 candidates were opposed by much of their own voting bases, for some of the same reasons. Roughly half of all registered voters rejected BOTH Clinton and Trump. They voted third party or withheld their votes. In the end, Clinton got more votes (in spite of so much Dem voter opposition), but Trump got the most electoral votes — and we learned that millions of educated Americans forgot how the electoral college process works.

      The issue that continues to be resisted: Most voting choices come down to eco0nomic issues. Democrats split their voting base wide apart in the 1990s, middle class vs. poor, and the Obama years confirmed that this split is permanent. Just how should we evaluate a party that divided and conquered its own voting base? We’ll just keep pretending that the Democrats’ war on the poor has had no co0nsequences…

    • Sam F
      March 13, 2019 at 19:06

      Curious that Assange has Not explicitly stated that the leaker was Seth Rich, if it was, as this would take pressure from himself and incriminate the DNC in the murder of Rich. Perhaps he doesn’t know, and has the honor not to take the opportunity, or perhaps he knows that it was not Rich.

      • March 14, 2019 at 11:40

        View the Dutch TV interview with Asssange and there is another interview available on youtube in which Assange DOES subtly confirmed it was Seth Rich.

        Assange posted a $10,000 reward for Seth Rich’s murders capture.

      • Tom
        March 14, 2019 at 12:15

        WikiLeaks protects it’s whistle blowers.

      • Norumbega
        March 17, 2019 at 11:52

        If, as Ed Butowski has claimed, Seth’s brother Aaron also participated in the leak, and if Aaron doesn’t want this information to come out, that could also explain Assange’s continuing to be somewhat circumspect.

        Also, Craig Murray (in his badly neglected interview with Scott Horton) has suggested that Assange meant to say that his concern was that Rich may have been killed by someone who _thought_ he was the leaker, whether correctly or incorrectly. But that would still imply that Assange knew something that would have made it rational for them to think so. Also, Assange clearly did not know who killed Seth Rich, but if Rich had been in contact with WikiLeaks, that would explain WikiLeaks’ particular interest in solving his murder.

    • Abby
      March 13, 2019 at 22:11

      Another mistaken issue with the “Russia hacked the DNC computers on Trump’s command” is that he never asked Russia to do that. His words were, “Russia if you ‘find’ Hillary’s missing emails let us know.” He said that after she advised congress that she wouldn’t be turning in all of the emails they asked for because she deleted 30,000 of them and said that they were personal.

      But if Mueller or the FBI wants to look at all of them they can find them at the NYC FBI office because they are on Weiner’s laptop. Why? Because Hillary’s aid Huma Abedin, Weiner’s wife sent them to it. Just another security risk that Hillary had because of her private email server. This is why Comey had to tell congress that more of them had been found 11 days before the election. If Comey hadn’t done that then the FBI would have.

      But did Comey or McCabe look at her emails there to see if any of them were classified? No they did not do that. And today we find out that Lisa Page told congress that it was Obama’s decision not to charge Hillary for being grossly negligent on using her private email server. This has been known by congress for many months and now we know that the fix was always in for her to get off.

      • Norumbega
        March 17, 2019 at 12:01

        “Another mistaken issue with the “Russia hacked the DNC computers on Trump’s command” is that he never asked Russia to do that. His words were, “Russia if you ‘find’ Hillary’s missing emails let us know.” He said that after she advised congress that she wouldn’t be turning in all of the emails they asked for because she deleted 30,000 of them and said that they were personal.”

        Another point I would like to make is that my strong recollection from listening to the press conference at the time was that the media questioner wanted to talk about Trump-Russia (yes, already at that time), and that Trump wanted to shift the discussion back to Hillary’s deleted e-mails. His appeal to “Russia, if you’re listening” (a kind of joke many others have used in the face of the Russia hysteria) was simply Trump’s humorous way of shifting from one idea to the other.

    • Norumbega
      March 17, 2019 at 11:43

      I appreciate the care you show here in looking at the evidence and raising good questions. Look forward to looking at your links.

      Further thoughts about the timing. Whoever initiated the claim that the transfer to WikiLeaks occurred during July 14 to 18 (why can’t they pin it down to one specific date?) could conceivably have wanted to set a date after Seth Rich was out of the picture, and also after G-2’s claimed July 5 “hack”, to “establish” that he was not the source, and insinuate that their “fake Romanian hacker who is now exposed as ‘Russian'” was the actual source.

      Ed Butowski has claimed (if I remember correctly) that his sources say that Seth Rich transferred (or WikiLeaks obtained) the data on June 23. It has occurred to me that this timing presents a similar difficulty to the point you make about the July 14-18 transfer date.

      Butowski further claims that Seth Rich had dowloaded the materials onto a $56 Western Digital hard drive, and that he received $48,000 from WikiLeaks, and that Seth’s brother Aaron was also involved. (I’m relying on memory of his interview with Cassandra Fairbanks of Gateway Pundit and a radio interview also on Youtube.)

      Would a Western Digital hard drive also count as an external storage device that would save files with FAT formatting?

      On the other hand, Binney has recently revealed (in an interview with Jason Goodman) that an associate of his has two sources which confirm what Sy Hersh said in the illicit recording, namely that Rich had contacted WikiLeaks, sent them a sample, and asked for money for the whole trove.

      Butowski’s dating could be wrong, or it could reflect the date of the money payment. It does seem surprising that Assange would have said anything about an upcoming release before the whole trove was safely with WikiLeaks.

  33. robert e williamson jr
    March 13, 2019 at 15:26

    I want to thank you folks at VIPS. Like I have been saying for years now the relationship between CIA, NSA and DOJ is an incestuous one at best. A perverse corrupted bond to control the masses. A large group of religious fanatics who want things “ONE WAY”. They are the facilitators for the rogue government known as the “DEEP STATE”!

    Just ask billy barr.

    More truth is a very good thing. I believe DOJ is supporting the intelligence community because of blackmail. They can’t come clean because they all risk doing lots of time if a new judicial mechanism replaces them. We are in big trouble here.

    Apparently the rule of law is not!

    You folks that keep claiming we live in the post truth era! Get off me. Demand the truth and nothing else. Best be getting ready for the fight of your lives. The truth is you have to look yourself in the mirror every morning, deny that truth. The claim you are living in the post truth era is an admission your life is a lie. Now grab a hold of yourself pick a dogdamned side and stand for something,.

    Thank You VIPS!

  34. Joe Tedesky
    March 13, 2019 at 14:58

    Hats off to the VIP’s who have investigated this Russian hacking that wasn’t a hacking for without them what would we news junkies have otherwise to lift open the hood of Mueller’s never ending Russia-gate investigation. Although the one thing this Russia-gate nonsense has accomplished is it has destroyed with our freedom of speech when it comes to how we citizens gather our news. Much like everything else that has been done during these post 9/11 years of continual wars our civil rights have been marginalized down to zero or, a bit above if that’s even still an argument to be made for the sake of numbers.

    Watching the Manafort sentencing is quite interesting for the fact that Manafort didn’t conclude in as much as he played fast and loose with his income. In fact maybe Manafort’s case should have been prosecuted by the State Department or, how about the IRS? Also wouldn’t it be worth investigating other Geopolitical Rain Makers like Manafort for similar crimes of financial wrongdoing? I mean is it possible Manafort is or was the only one of his type to do such dishonest things? In any case Manafort wasn’t charged with concluding with any Russians in regard to the 2016 presidential election and, with that we all fall down.

    I guess the best thing (not) that came out of this Russia-gate silliness is Rachel Maddow’s tv ratings zoomed upwards. But I hate to tell you that the only ones buying what Ms Maddow is selling are the died in the wool Hillary supporters along with the chicken-hawks who rally to the MIC lobby for more war. It’s all a game and yet there are many of us who just don’t wish to play it but still we must because no one will listen to the sanity that gets ignored… keep up the good work VIP’s some of us are listening.

  35. Andrew Thomas
    March 13, 2019 at 12:42

    The article did not mention something called to my attention for the first time by one of the outstanding members of your commentariat just a couple of days ago- that Ambassador Murray stayed publicly, over two years ago, that he had been given the thumb drive by a go-between in D.C. and had somehow gotten it to Wikileaks. And, that he has NEVER BEEN INTERVIEWED by Mueller &Company. I was blown away by this, and found the original articles just by googling Murray. The excuse given is that Murray “lacks credibility “, or some such, because of his prior relationship with Assange and/or Wikileaks. This is so ludicrous I can’t even get my head around it. And now, you have given me a new detail-the meeting with Pompeo, and the complete lack of follow-up thereafter. Here all this time I thought I was the most cynical SOB who existed, and now I feel as naive as when I was 13 and believed what Dean Rusk was saying like it was holy writ. I am in your debt.

    • Bob Van Noy
      March 13, 2019 at 14:33

      Andrew Thomas I’m afraid that huge amounts of our History post 1947 is organized and propagandized disinformation. There is an incredible page that John Simpkin has organized over the years that specifically addresses individuals, click on a name and read about them.

      https://spartacus-educational.com/USAdisinformation.htm

    • Mark McCarty
      March 13, 2019 at 16:18

      A small correction: the Daily Mail article regarding Murray claimed that Murray was given a thumbdrive which he subsequently carried back to Wikileaks. On his blog, Murray subsequently disputed this part of the story, indicating that, while he had met with a leaker or confederate of a leaker in Washington DC, the Podesta emails were already in possession of Wikileaks at the time. Murray refused to clarify the reason for his meeting with this source, but he is adamant in maintaining that the DNC and Podesta emails were leaked, not hacked.

      And it is indeed ludicrous that Mueller, given the mandate to investigate the alleged Russian hacking of the DNC and Podesta, has never attempted to question either Assange or Murray. That in itself is enough for us to conclude that the Mueller investigation is a complete sham.

      • Norumbega
        March 17, 2019 at 12:18

        I would want to make the same correction – Murray does not claim to have personally received the materials for WikiLeaks. People interested in having a much more accurate idea about just what Murray is claiming should listen carefully to Murray’s long-neglected interview with Scott Horton in December 2016 (which only became available on Youtube after Horton much later transferred his radio-show archives there, one reason few seem to be aware of it). This is in many ways more revealing than what Murray has said on his blog.

        Another key point is that the person Murray met on September 25, 2016 on the American University campus sometime after his early departure from the Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence banquet was clearly THE PODESTA LEAKER, not the DNC leaker who he says (though without claiming the same kind of direct knowledge) was not the same person.

        In footage extracted in Jason Goodman’s recent interview with Bill Binney, Murray asserts flatly that he never met Seth Rich. He also describes his September meeting in Washington as “administrative”, and says something like “even leakers need administrators; I hope you’ll understand if I leave it at that.”

        Mueller’s favorite charge is “lying to investigators”. This is an additional reason why the excuse that Murray is considered an unreliable witness due to his association with WikiLeaks will not wash.

    • Ian Brown
      March 13, 2019 at 16:43

      It’s pretty astonishing that Mueller was more interested in Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi as credible sources about Wikileaks and the DNC release than Craig Murray!

  36. LJ
    March 13, 2019 at 12:29

    A guy comes in with a pedigree like that, “”” former FBI head “”” to examine and validate if possible an FBI sting manufactured off a phony FISA indictment based on the Steele Report, It immediately reminded me of the 9-11 Commission with Thomas Kean, former Board member of the National Endowment for Democracy, being appointed by GW Bush the Simple to head an investigation that he had previously said he did not want to authorize( and of course bi partisan yes man Lee Hamilton as #2, lest we forget) . Really this should be seen as another low point in our Democracy. Uncle Sam is the Limbo Man, How low can you go? After Bill and Hillary and Monica and Paula Jones and Blue Dresses well,Golden Showers in a Moscow luxury hotel, I guess that make it just salacious enough . Mueller looks just like what he is. He has that same phony self important air as Comey . In 2 years this will be forgotten.. I do not think this hurts Trumps chances at re-election as much as the Democrats are hurting themselves. This has already gone on way too long.

  37. March 13, 2019 at 11:59

    Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic charade and he’s left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and Russians.

    Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin “hacking” the election to favor Trump, which was the entire raison d’etre behind Rosenstein, Brennan, Podesta and Mueller’s crusade on behalf of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. It will be fascinating to witness how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face?

    So sickening to see the manner in which many DNC sycophants obsequiously genuflect to their godlike Mueller. A damn prosecutor who was likely in bed with the Winter Hill Gang.

    • Jack
      March 13, 2019 at 12:21

      You have failed. An investigation is just that, a finding of the facts. What would mueller have to extricate himself from? If nothing is found, he has still done his job. You are a divisive idiot.

      • Skip Scott
        March 13, 2019 at 13:13

        Yes, he has done his job. And his job was to bring his royal Orangeness to heel, and to make sure that detente and co-operation with Russia remained impossible. The forever war continues. Mission Accomplished.

      • March 13, 2019 at 14:12

        @Jack,
        Keep running cover for an out of control prosecutor, who, if he had any integrity, would have hit the bully pulpit mos ago declaring there’s nothing of substance to one of the most potentially dangerous accusations in world history: the Kremlin hacking the election. Last I checked it puts two nuclear nation-states on the brink of potential war. And you call me divisive? Mueller’s now a willing accomplice to this entire McCarthyite smear and disinformation campaign. It’s all so pathetic that folks such as yourself try and mislead and feed half-truths to the people.

        You’re failing Jack, in more ways than you know.

        • Maxwell Quest
          March 13, 2019 at 17:17

          Spot-on rebut, Drew!

          • March 14, 2019 at 09:31

            Thank you. We must support each other in this fight against irrationality and potential warmongering.

        • Gregory Herr
          March 13, 2019 at 21:13

          https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/scheer-intelligence/liberals-are-digging-their-own-grave-with-russiagate-2019-03-08

          Drew, you might enjoy this discussion Robert Scheer has with Stephen Cohen and Katrina vanden Heuvel.

          • March 14, 2019 at 09:32

            Thank you Mr. Herr. I actually read that transcript last Sunday night. It’s a terrific discussion.

        • Realist
          March 15, 2019 at 03:38

          Moreover, as the Saker pointed out in his most recent column in the Unz Review, the entire Deep State conspiracy, in an ad hoc alliance with the embarrassed and embarrassing Democrats, have made an absolute sham of due process in their blatant witch hunt to bag the president. This reached an apex when his personal lawyer, Mr. Cohen, was trotted out before congress to violate Trump’s confidentiality in every mortifying way he could even vaguely reconstruct. The man was expected to say anything to mitigate the anticipated tortures to come in the course of this modern day inquisition by our latter day Torquemada. To his credit though, even with his ass in a sling, he could simply not confabulate the smoking gun evidence for the alleged Russian collusion that this whole farce was built around.

          • Bob Van Noy
            March 16, 2019 at 08:53

            Realist, excellent and unique observation. I viewed a link that showed a short response that Mr. Cohen gave and my quick analysis was “Mafia”, then I thought about statements I had heard about President Trump’s developments in and around Manhattan. Work doesn’t get done in Manhattan without a complex maze being successfully navigated. Probably what we were witnessing was NY business as usual.

            I was deeply impressed by Sally Denton and Rodger Morris’ book “The Money And The Power” The Making Of Las Vegas and It’s Hold On America. She mentions that if one thinks of the Mafia as The Godfather movies that would be incorrect, it is actually illegal special interests working in their own special category (my take). The deeply intriguing aspect of this line of thought is that it directly relates to America’s “business as usual” post WWII and the associations made prior to and directly after that War. See too, “Manifest Destiny” F. William Engdahl’s brilliant book on post Soviet Russia. It’s all related.

      • Tom
        March 14, 2019 at 12:30

        Mueller stood with Bush as he lied the world into war based on lies and illegally spied on America and tortured some folks.

    • George Collins
      March 13, 2019 at 14:02

      QED: as to the nexus with the Winter Hill gang…wasn’t there litigation involving the Boston FBI, condonation of murder by the FBI and damages awarded to or on behalf of convicted parties that the FBI had reason to know were innocent? The malfeasance reportedly occurred during Mueller time. Further on the sanctified diligence of Mr. Mueller can be gleaned from the reports of Coleen Rowley, former FBI attorney stationed in Milwaukee??? when the DC FBI office was ignoring warnings sent about 9/11. See also Sibel Edmonds who knew to much and was court order muzzled about FBI mis/malfeasance in the aftermath of 9/11.

      I’d say it’s game, set, match VIPS and a pox on Clapper and the
      complicit intelligence folk complicit in the nuclear loaded Russia-gate fibs.

  38. Kiers
    March 13, 2019 at 11:47

    How can we expect the DNC to “hand it ” to Trumpf, when, behind the scenes, THEY ARE ONE PARTY. They are throwing faux-scary pillow bombs at each other because they are both complicit in a long chain of corruptions. Business as usual for the “principled” two party system! Democracy! Through the gauze of corporate media! You must be joking!

  39. Skip Scott
    March 13, 2019 at 11:28

    “We believe that there are enough people of integrity in the Department of Justice to prevent the outright manufacture or distortion of “evidence,” particularly if they become aware that experienced scientists have completed independent forensic study that yield very different conclusions.”

    I wish I shared this belief. However, as with Nancy Pelosi’s recent statement regarding pursuing impeachment, I smell a rat. I believe with the help of what the late Robert Parry called “the Mighty Wurlitzer”, Mueller is going to use coerced false testimony and fabricated forensics to drop a bombshell the size of 911. I think Nancy’s statement was just a feint before throwing the knockout punch.

    If reason ruled the day, we should have nothing to worry about. But considering all the perfidy that the so-called “Intelligence” Agencies and their MSM lackeys get away with daily, I think we are in for more theater; and I think VIPS will receive a cold shoulder outside of venues like CN.

    I pray to God I’m wrong.

    • Sam F
      March 13, 2019 at 19:32

      My extensive experience with DOJ and the federal judiciary establishes that at least 98% of them are dedicated career liars, engaged in organized crime to serve political gangs, and make only a fanatical pretense of patriotism or legality. They are loyal to money alone, deeply cynical and opposed to the US Constitution and laws, with no credibility at all beyond any real evidence.

      • Eric32
        March 14, 2019 at 16:24

        As near I can see, Federal Govt. careers at the higher levels depend on having dirt on other players, and helping, not hurting, the money/power schemes of the players above you.

        The Clintons (through their foundation) apparently have a lot of corruption dirt on CIA, FBI etc. top players, some of whom somehow became multi-millionaires during their civil service careers.

        Trump, who was only running for President as a name brand marketing ploy with little desire to actually win, apparently came into the Presidency with no dirt arsenal and little idea of where to go from there.

  40. Bob Van Noy
    March 13, 2019 at 11:09

    I remember reading with dismay how Russians were propagandized by the Soviet Press Management only to find out later the depth of disbelief within the Russian population itself. We now know what that feels like. The good part of this disastrous scenario for America is that for careful readers, disinformation becomes revelatory. For instance, if one reads an editorial that refers to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or continually refers to Russian interference in the last Presidential election, then one can immediately dismiss the article and question the motivation for the presentation. Of course the problem is how to establish truth in reporting…

  41. Jeff Harrison
    March 13, 2019 at 10:41

    Thank you, VIPs. Hopefully, you don’t expect this to make a difference. The US has moved into a post truth, post reality existence best characterized by Karl Rove’s declaration: “we’re an empire now, when we act, we create our own reality.” What Mr. Rove in his arrogance fails to appreciate is that it is his reality but not anyone else’s. Thus Pompous can claim that Guaido is the democratic leader in Venezuela even though he’s never been elected….

  42. March 13, 2019 at 10:21

    Thank you. The next time one of my friends or family give me that glazed over stare and utters anymore of the “but, RUSSIA” nonsense I will refer them directly to this article. Your collective work and ethical stand on this matter is deeply appreciated by anyone who values the truth.

    Russiagate stands with past government propaganda operations that were simply made up out of thin air: i.e. Kuwaiti incubator babies, WMD’s, Gaddafi’s viagra fueled rape camps, Assad can’t sleep at night unless he’s gassing his own people, to the latest, “Maduro can’t sleep at night unless he’s starving his own people.”

    The complete and utter amorality of the deep state remains on display for all to see with “Russiagate,” which is as fact-free a propaganda campaign as any of those just mentioned.

  43. Marc
    March 13, 2019 at 10:13

    I am a computer naif, so I am prepared to accept the VIPS analysis about FAT and transfer rates. However, the presentation here leaves me with several questions. First, do I understand correctly that the FAT rounding to even numbers is introduced by the thumb drive? And if so, does the FAT analysis show only that the DNC data passed through a thumb drive? That is, does the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred to a thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg, to give a copy to Wikileaks? Second, although the transatlantic transfer rate is too slow to fit some time stamps, is it possible that the data were hacked onto a local computer that was under the control of some faraway agent?

    • Jeff Harrison
      March 13, 2019 at 11:12

      Not quite. FAT is the crappy storage system developed by Microsoft (and not used by UNIX). The metadata associated with any file gets rewritten when it gets moved. If that movement is to a storage device that uses FAT, the timestamp on the file will end in an even number. If it were moved to a unix server (and most of the major servers run Unix) it would be in the UFS (unix file system) and it would be the actual time from the system clock. Every storage device has a utility that tells it where to write the data and what to write. Since it’s writing to a storage device using FAT, it’ll round the numbers. To get to your real question, yes, you could hack and then transfer the data to a thumb drive but if you did that the dates wouldn’t line up.

      • Skip Scott
        March 14, 2019 at 08:05

        Jeff-

        Which dates wouldn’t line up? Is there a history of metadata available, or just metadata for the most recent move?

    • David G
      March 13, 2019 at 12:22

      Marc asks: “[D]oes the analysis distinguish whether the DNC data were directly transferred to a thumb drive, or whether the data were hacked and then transferred to a thumb drive, eg, to give a copy to Wikileaks?”

      I asked that question in comments under a previous CN piece; other people have asked that question elsewhere.

      To my knowledge, it hasn’t been addressed directly by the VIPS, and I think they should do so. (If they already have, someone please enlighten me.)

      • Skip Scott
        March 13, 2019 at 13:07

        I am no computer wiz, but Binney has repeatedly made the point that the NSA scoops up everything. If there had been a hack, they’d know it, and they wouldn’t only have had “moderate” confidence in the Jan. assessment. I believe that although farfetched, an argument could be made that a Russian spy got into the DNC, loaded a thumb drive, and gave it to Craig Murray.

        • David G
          March 13, 2019 at 15:31

          Respectfully, that’s a separate point, which may or may not raise issues of its own.

          But I think the question Marc posed stands.

          • Skip Scott
            March 14, 2019 at 07:59

            Hi David-

            I don’t see how it’s separate. If the NSA scoops up everything, they’d have solid evidence of the hack, and wouldn’t have only had “moderate” confidence, which Bill Binney says is equivalent to them saying “we don’t have squat”. They wouldn’t even have needed Mueller at all, except to possibly build a “parallel case” due to classification issues. Also, the FBI not demanding direct access to the DNC server tells you something is fishy. They could easily have gotten a warrant to examine the server, but chose not to. They also purposely refuse to get testimony from Craig Murray and Julian Assange, which rings alarm bells on its own.

            As for the technical aspect of Marc’s question, I agree that I’d like to see Bill Binney directly answer it.

    • Norumbega
      March 17, 2019 at 12:56

      I don’t have technical expertise myself, but as far as I am aware the VIPs analyses do not rule out the two alternative hypotheses you have proposed, the first of which is that the FAT signature could have been created post-hacking operation (but before transfer to WikiLeaks, and also no later May 23-26, 2016, which also coincides with the last email date of about the same) in order to falsely make it look like a transfer to a local storage device (implying a leak, not a hack) that occurred on about that date.

      When you listen to Binney’s more careful statements, he makes the point that the prosecutor (Mueller) – having asserted that a hack occurred, without so much as mentioning let alone dealing with the prima facie evidence for a local download – has failed to meet the legal burden of proof and thus certainly has not established the prosecution theory beyond reasonable doubt.

      As for their earlier transfer speed study, again I think one can devise possible alternatives such as the one you mention.

      In Binney and Johnson’s original report, they associate the FAT formatting with external storage devices such as a thumb-drive or CD ROM. Ed Butowski claims that Seth Rich downloaded the DNC emails onto a $56 Western Digital hard drive. I haven’t personally confirmed that the latter would also produce FAT formatting, though it would certainly count as an “external storage device”. For now, my point is that “thumb drive” may be too narrow as an assumption.

      My personal hobby horse is to get people to clearly understand that the DNC leak-or-hack, the Guccifer 2 leak-or-hack, and the Podesta leak-or-hack were, at least presumably, three different things. And not only presumably – this is just what Craig Murray has claimed, and he explicitly says that both sets of WikiLeaks materials were from American _leakers_ and had nothing to do with G-2.

      So we need to clearly separate the implications of the two VIPs studies. We should speak of “the DNC [WikiLeaks] data” on the one hand, and “another set of [DNC] data” associated with G-2, on the other.

      • Skip Scott
        March 18, 2019 at 12:13

        I imagine it is possible for Seth to have used an external hard drive initially, and then put stuff onto a thumb drive or CD ROM for delivery to Wikileaks. I’m not sure, but I don’t think external hard drives use FAT. I am not familiar with Ed Butowski. Where does he say he got his info from?

        • Norumbega
          March 18, 2019 at 18:15

          You’ve probably figured out by now, but Ed Butowski was the person who produced the illicit Sy Hersh recording regarding Seth Rich. He was also involved in financing Rod Wheeler, and hence with the flaps involving Wheeler and Fox News. The following are the two meaty interviews with Ed Butowski that I’ve listened to before. I’d need to check just what he says.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qtkKX5HflM
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_g59wv42xA

          As far as I clearly remember, his original source was an acquaintance who had just returned from London. That’s as much as he’ll say publicly. In these interviews he describes how he got in touch with the Rich family (who he says confirmed that they already knew the truth, but didn’t want to be blamed for electing Trump/were worried about the safety of their other son). Through word of mouth he learned about Sy Hersh’s interest in the case. I believe he says that it was Hersh who initiated the famous phone call.

          • Skip Scott
            March 19, 2019 at 11:25

            Ed insinuates that that we can guess since his contact was returning from London that it was a person connected to Wikileaks and Julian. I’d forgotten he was the source for the Sy Hersh tape. I think the info about the external hard drive probably came from Rod Wheeler, but I’ll check on his stuff more closely later.

            Thanks for the links. Two good interviews.

          • Norumbega
            March 19, 2019 at 20:04

            You spell out clearly what Butowski was obviously insinuating about where his first source got her information.

            Do you have a particular reason for thinking the external hard drive detail came from Rod Wheeler? I’m relying on memory, but I did recently listen to Wheeler’s interview with George Webb and Jason Goodman. I distinctly recall him saying that Malia Zimmerman had described her own “Federal investigator” source to him as very reliable. It seemed that he was somewhat dependent on what she told him – more so than I previously thought. It could also be that he’s withholding some things – he’s pretty clear about that in the interview.

            I listened to the second of the two interviews with Butowski again myself last night. I was struck by his mention of June 23 and the $48,000 payment in quick succession. I had thought, and written in my long summary post, that he was alleging June 23 as the date the emails were transferred. Such a date would be problematic given the known timeline (in which Julian Assange announces forthcoming publication on June 12, 2016) – for the reason Mark McCarty states in a comment above. However, after listening again, June 23 could well be the date of the payment.

            I assume Butowski will be including these details in the libel-lawsuit he said he intends to file. Would be worth looking out for that.

          • Skip Scott
            March 20, 2019 at 08:20

            Norumbega-

            I could easily be mistaken about the source for the external hard drive being the transfer method. Ed talks about Rod doing a good job with his investigation, so I presumed he was the one with some inside dope from an investigator with the police or FBI. But I suppose it could just as easily have been Malia’s source.

            I think you’re right about June 23rd being the payment date. Calico Jack above mentions that the last date on the emails is May 25th, and Wikileaks announcement was June 12th. It’s logical to assume the transfer was between those two dates.

      • Skip Scott
        March 18, 2019 at 13:23

        I did a bit of research, and I was wrong. Windows will indeed format an external hard drive with FAT32.

        • Norumbega
          March 18, 2019 at 18:19

          Thanks. I didn’t know that, but had been wondering myself. Maybe we should work to play down talk of a “thumb drive” since there now exists a specific allegation that the device in question was a $56 Western Digital hard drive.

Comments are closed.