Scott Ritter analyzes the recently released responses of Shawn Henry, a private security consultant, to Adam Schiff’s questions about data exfiltrated from the DNC.
Shawn Henry presenting at the International Security Forum in Vancouver, 2009. (Hubert K, Flickr)
By Scott Ritter
Special to Consortium News
It is one of the hottest conversations making the rounds on the internet — Shawn Henry, the retired FBI cyber-sleuth-turned private cyber security consultant, speaking with Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, recorded in transcripts of executive session testimony conducted on December 5, 2017, and only recently released to the public.
Schiff: Do you know the date in which the Russians exfiltrated the data from the DNC?
Henry: I do. I have to just think about it. I don’t know. I mean, it’s in our report that I think the Committee has.
Schiff: And, to the best of your recollection, when would that have been?
Henry: Counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC, we have indicators that data was exfiltrated. We do not have concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated.
Schiff: And the indicators that it was exfiltrated, when does it indicate that would have taken place?
Henry: Again, it’s in the report. I believe — I believe it was April of 2016. I’m confused on the date. I think it was April, but it’s in the report.
Representative Adam Schiff.
Schiff: It provides in the report on 2016, April 22nd, data staged for exfiltration by the Fancy Bear actor. [Note: Fancy Bear is an attribution label used by Henry’s parent firm, CrowdStrike, to identify specific hacking methods and tools which are collectively referred to as an “advanced persistent threat”, or APT. Fancy Bear is also known by other cyber security organizations as APT-28, and is assessed by the U.S. government as being affiliated with Russian Military Intelligence, or GRU.]
Henry: Yes, sir. So that, again, staged for, which means there’s not — the analogy I used with Mr. Stewart [Congressman Chris Stewart, R-Utah] earlier was we don’t have a video of it happening, but there are indicators that it happened. There are times when we can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case, it appears it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don’t have the evidence that says it actually left.
Henry’s testimony has been used by many detractors of the “Russia-did-it” narrative promulgated by many congressional Democrats (including Schiff), the U.S. Intelligence Community (including the FBI), and former Special Prosecutor Robert Muelleras clear cut evidence that CrowdStrike had no direct evidence that any data or emails had been stolen from the DNC, and as such the entire narrative used to sustain the allegations that Russia was behind the thefts was, in fact, baseless.
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Such a sweeping conclusion, however, is not sustained by either Shawn Henry’s testimony, or the available evidence. While there remain serious questions about the efficacy of the official narrative laying the alleged cyber attacks on the DNC at the feet of Russian intelligence, Henry’s testimony in and of itself does not make that case. Indeed, information subsequently released by the FBI suggests that, Henry’s assertions notwithstanding, data transfers did, in fact, occur on April 22.
“On or about April 22,” an indictment charging Russian military intelligence officers with the hacking of the DNC server alleges, “the Conspirators compressed gigabytes of data from DNC computers, including opposition research. The conspirators later moved the compressed DNC data using X-Tunnel to a GRU-leased computer located in Illinois.” Based on an analysis of the Illinois computer and another in Arizona, Mueller likewise asserts, in his report, that “[T]he GRU also stole documents from the DNC network shortly after gaining access. On April 22, 2016, the GRU copied files from the DNC network to GRU-controlled computers.”
[In a footnote to his report, Mueller uses the qualifier “appear” to say that GRU “officers appear to have stolen thousands of emails and attachments, which were later released by WikiLeaks in July 2016.” He was never able to establish how the emails got to GRU headquarters.]
What Henry’s testimony does do, however, is dismantle the official predicate used by the FBI to initiate its counterintelligence investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, into alleged collusion between persons affiliated with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump and the Russian government to influence the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election in favor of Trump.
The date of the alleged “staging” of data for “exfiltration” — April 22, 2016 — is highlighted by Schiff, during his questioning of Henry.
Schiff: In your report, when you stated the data was staged for exfiltration on April 22ndof last year, that would have been the first time that you found evidence that the data was staged for exfiltration?
Henry: I believe that is correct.
Schiff: Did you have a chance to read the information that was filed in conjunction with the George Papadopolous plea? [Note: George Papadopolous was a one-time foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign who pled guilty to lying to FBI agents.]
Henry: I did not.
Schiff: In that information, it states that Mr. Papadopolous was informed at the end of April that the Russians were in possession of stolen DNC or Clinton emails. If that information is correct, that would only be days after that data was staged for exfiltration?
Henry: Yes.
Crossfire Hurricane
FBI headquarters. (Wikimedia Commons)
Recently declassified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications submitted by the Department of Justice to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a unique judicial body that approves requests for secret warrants used by law enforcement to conduct covert electronic and physical surveillance of U.S. citizens, reveal that the predicate for the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into alleged Russian collusion by the Trump campaign was triggered by a May 10, 2016, meeting between Papadopolous and an Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer (who at the time was the Australian Ambassador to the United Kingdom) in a London bar.
According to Downer, Papadopolous revealed that, based upon an April 26 conversation with a Maltese professor named Joseph Mifsud, “he [Papadopolous] thought that the Russians may release information, might release information, that could be damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign at some stage before the election.”
Downer and a fellow Australian diplomat who was also at the meeting and witnessed Papadopolous’ statement, drafted a cable back to the Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Canberra recording the gist of the conversation. “There was no suggestion from Papadopoulos nor in the record of the meeting that we sent back to Canberra, there was no suggestion that there was collusion between Donald Trump or Donald Trump’s campaign and the Russians,” Downer said. “All we did is report what Papadopoulos said.”
After the release by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, of thousands of emails allegedly sourced from the DNC, Downer, concerned that there might be a link between Papadopolous and the DNC emails, provided a copy of his cable to the U.S. Embassy in London, which forwarded it onto the FBI. This cable was used by the FBI to initiate its Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign; a derivative investigation into Papadopolous was given the codename “Crossfire Typhoon.”
Former Trump adviser George Papadopolous.
As far as predicates for sensitive counterintelligence investigations of presidential campaigns go, the Papadopolous conversation with Misfud is transparently weak. A cursory examination of the emails released by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, shows that no in-time reference pre-dates May 25, 2016, more than a month after the alleged “data staging” event that Schiff highlighted as the link between the DNC hack and Papadopolous.
In short, regardless of the content of Papadopolous’s conversation with Mifsud, as relayed by Downer, there was no linkage between any emails alleged to be in the possession of Russia at the time of the April 26, 2016, Papadopolous-Misfud meeting and the actual data released by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, that the FBI used to justify the opening of both the Crossfire Hurricane and Crossfire Typhoon investigations. As Mueller notes in his report, the information released by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, coincides with a separate, alleged cyber attack on the DNC Microsoft Exchange Service between May 25 and June 1, 2016 — an attack that Mifsud could not have known about when he met with Papadopolous in April.
Moreover, the FBI knew before it interviewed Papadopolous on Jan. 27, 2017, that Papadopolous was not involved in any scheme to acquire purloined Russian emails on behalf of the Trump campaign. In September and October of 2016, the FBI made use of two confidential human sources (CHS) to engage Papadopoulos in conversations designed to elicit corroboration into its now-debunked theory.
In a Sept. 15, 2016, meeting between Papadopolous and an FBI-controlled CHS, Papadopolous was asked outright whether or not the Trump campaign could benefit from third-party intervention from the likes of WikiLeaks or Russia. Papadopolous made it clear in his response that no one in the campaign was advocating for this kind of intervention because it was “illegal,” “compromised national security,” and “set a bad precedent.”
“At the end of the day,” Papadopolous said, “it’s an illegal, it’s illegal activity. Espionage is treason. This is a form of treason.” And when asked by a second FBI-controlled CHS on Oct. 29, 2016,about who he thought was behind the hacking of the DNC, Papadopolous responded that it could be “the Chinese,” “the Iranians,” “Bernie supporters,” or “Anonymous” — but not the Russians. “Dude, Russia doesn’t have any interest in it anyways,” Papadopolous said. “They — dude, no one knows how a president is going to govern anyways. I mean…Congress is very hostile to Russia anyways.” It was a prescient, and telling, exchange — one the FBI chose to ignore.
No Connection
News media around the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 7, 2018, waiting for former Trump adviser George Papadopolous, found guilty of lying to the FBI, (Phil Roeder, Flickr)
In the court filing detailing the facts sustaining Papadopolous’s guilty plea, Mueller declared that “defendant PAPADOPOULOS impeded the FBI’s ongoing investigation into the existence of any links or coordination between individuals associated with the Campaign and the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.”
However, any careful examination of the data used by the FBI to link Papadopolous to the WikiLeaks release of DNC emails on July 22, 2016, clearly shows that there was absolutely no connection. As such, Papadopolous’s conversation with Mifsud had zero material bearing on the FBI’s investigation, a fact known to the FBI prior to its interview of Papadopolous on Jan. 27, 2017.
Indeed, the demonstrative lack of connection between Papadopolous and the hacking of the DNC should have been grounds for shutting down the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. There is only one explanation for the FBI’s actions in continuing to pursue Papadopolous — the interview was a perjury trap, plain and simple, designed to generate a conviction that would politically damage a sitting president and create the impression that the investigation into Russian collusion was more credible than it actually was.
The Papadopolous saga has been overshadowed by the ongoing controversy swirling around the Department of Justice decision to drop its charges against former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn who, like Papadopolous, pled guilty to lying to an FBI agent. The same kind of prosecutorial misconduct, perpetrated by many of the same individuals, that prompted dropping Flynn’s charges infects every aspect of the Papadopolous matter — even more so.
While Papadopolous cannot undo his sentence, or get back the time he served in prison, he can be exonerated by a much-deserved presidential pardon. Anything less would represent a victory by those who have corrupted American justice for political purposes, and a defeat for every American citizen who believes in the foundational principle of impartial justice.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Nice !
Fascinating and incredible! And incredibly believable because …FACTS.
However, as someone far away but following closely, can anyone tell me if there is a correlation between the work Binney and McGovern did to uncover the internal email download trail? At a glance, and with my limited knowledge, this seems to be at odds with what they found.
Am I misreading or misinterpreting?
Now that the truth has been exposed that Joseph Mifsud had nothing to do with the Wikileak DNC emails, he can come in from the cold and answer who he was working for.
Great piece Scott. If Michael Flynn was running the National Security Council there would have been less slaughter in Syria.
One aspect of Mueller’s indictment storyline seems more implausible every time i read about it. According to Mueller the GRU hacked the DNC, zipped the data and “moved” it to GRU leased computers in Illinois and Arizona. Why would foreign agents lease computers (conveniently leaving a paper trail & MAC #’s for Mueller or domestic intelligence to find?) instead of requisitioning a computer from their embassy, doing the hack and immediately returning the computer to their embassy.
Alternatively, they build a PC per u-tube video, take it online, join social media, move around the web until domestic intelligence logs it as just another new computer. They don’t install the big HHD/SSD until they are ready to do the hack. After the hack the SSD is immediately hand carried to the home country embassy or consulate and moved out of the US asap.
The Russiagate hoax also collapsed because the public simply doesn’t believe it. An indication that Americans recognize party propaganda as readily as Russians came to recognize soviet propaganda.
I have a comment for the author. Scott you work always seems to be rock solid and this piece is no different. Good stuff.
I’ve been a rabid fan of yours from day one, it takes character to take on intelligence community, even when its your survival you are fighting for.
I left a comment on Patrick Lawrence’s “See No Evil” phase of Russia Gate, May 14, 2020 at 22:53. I think while you may not agree with my comments you may have an appreciation for and knowledge of where I’m headed with them.
The favor here is can you read my comments and the material I refer to in them. I’m trying not to offend CN by using this space for personal use other than making comments. I did manage to list a site in my comment and I don’t want to abuse that privilege.
Realizing that I do not want to be viewed as digging for info I’ll ask a rhetorical question to make my intentions clear.
After reading my comments to Patrick Lawrence’s “SEE NO EVIL” and then reading the article I refer to there ,hereis my question.
Doesn’t the simple fact that everyone involved here seems to have themselves tied in knots trying to make this story go away tells me we need to very cautious while dealing with this issue and how the truth does end up being revealed?
We have the intelligence community, law enforcement and the attorney general all involved in what MUST BE essentially a political matter. WHY?
Could it be because no one listed here has any respect for the rule of law or is this all a farce designed to increase and protect the already abused Presidential Powers. This whole thing stinks, I’m thinking someone got caught up in this because of a major mistake. We all know the cover up in most cases is what gets everyone caught..
Something happened here, wiki leaks ended up with data, Julian Assange is jailed for no real reason and Seth Rich got murdered in the process.
I don’t need a reply from you, I need to know what the hell happened here. All American do!
Thanks to all at CN
You are very diplomatic and polite. I felt both your comments really didn’t need a response but for one thing. They didn’t seem contraversial (errant) in any way.
But correct my understanding of your very nuanced set of points.
As a student and project manager, …
A) Most of the system was very much behind O’Bama. That’s democracy and not nefarious but sociological. However that can become very distorted and has risks.
B) All groups talk and plan privately. As every person has an ideology and plan. I could have said conspiracy and agenda setting a tone imply bad intent. So you must (did) speak to the character of the group and members, their intentions and actions. Is the plan even written down and have a concensus?
C) I’m philosophically a skeptic / stoic / minimalist. I study cognitive bias and corruption from a biological slant. You won’t get a argument from me about KEEPING AN OPEN MIND. That should be default state where you examine your feelings (emotions) carefully.
D) I started in 2017. They seemed terribly conflicted internally on both sides. The whole country. But as a rule I assume it’s my ignorance that’s the problem. But YOU said that, so I then might confirm impressions as maybe valid.
E) Yes this community should figure out the W5H. It’s why I follow you folks.
Or the who, what, where , why and how. How is distinct. When all you will ever have is scraps of info actions and (contradictive) words are what you got. Scenario fields. Only actions really matter in the end.
Anyway I agree that the backroom room stuff is intense these days. And these folks come up with some ideologically distorted, often niave and just weird strategies.
However whatever that is, it seems what’s driving it is very surface level. Society has seen big changes (the Internet and big data), the polarization issue and a slow collapse of empire.
There is the left and now right dominance over recent decades. And the normalization, not a collapse per se, of the US empire is a one hundred year slow rolling event.
That said, this situation can just blow up suddenly or collapse suddenly and unpredictably. That is becoming likely.
The multipolar world, geofascism and potential dollar collapse is a terribly long discussion. One where my questions might be of value but my provisional views and opinion is not.
I didn’t think your comment needed a response because nobody, not I, not even our elite clowns, knows what going on or what the plan is.
Yeah. We better figure this out and defuse this conflict between the liberal and conservative classes everywhere. It’s global.
Two aphorisms:
Bullshit walks and money talks.
What goes around, comes around.
The US has been perpetrating “regime change” (a regime being anyone we don’t like) for decades. This is a case of the locals trying to do regime change in Washington. The effort’s not much different than what we fomented in Brazil.
In the emergent or here middle phase, fascism goes from attacking external others to attacking it’s population internally. That’s how I reduce this to a statement.
I see Robert the Deep State blog on CN. I have been led to their articles a few times. What do you think of them?
The “Russian Collusion” is a regime change coup attempt. All perpetrators should be brought to justice and punished – I’d say by hanging or firing squad, if I were not opposed to capital punishment. But since this is not happening – US of A is a country that one was….
It was not Russain Collusion — it was Israeli Collusion but Mr. Adam Schiff is cognitive blind towards the unholy alliance of ziocons with Al Qaeda in the Middle East and with neo-Nazi in Ukraine:
see: unz.com/pgiraldi/israel-to-annex-the-united-states/?showcomments#new_comments
General Michael Flynn was set up by the FBI after Flynn openly stated that the Obama administration used terror groups against Bashar al-Assad to win the war in Syria. Israelis and Israel-firsters in the US want Golan Heights by any means, the US and human decency be damned: see: hannenabintuherland.com/usa/general-michael-flynn-was-set-up-by-fbi-after-calling-out-obama-working-with-al-qaida-in-syria/
It is ridiculous that Adam Schiff is the Democratic chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Anna, You are correct it was Israeli Collusion, but you are wrong about the reason why.
In the call to the Russian Ambassador, Flynn asked Mr. Kislyak, to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s settlements in the West Bank.
The Obama administration was going to abstain, but Trump’s transition team decided to reach out to Russia and see if it would be willing to veto the resolution.
The Trump team’s decision to contact Russia was made following requests by senior Israeli officials that they try to intervene.
While the focus is on Flynn’s lying, why no mention of the underlying crime of working for the Israeli government which was the reason for his lying? Flynn, with Trump’s approval was working on behalf of the Israeli government to undermine US policy at the UN. Betraying one’s country by undermining it’s policies is called treason and its a crime.
But I guess it isn’t a crime to work for the Israeli government to undermine our own government.
Violent regime change rarely has a good outcome. IE vs Gandi. However as I play a sort of comedic character frequently online the lamp posts topic has been material lately.
That’s important.
Upset Guy: We don’t have enough lamp posts to hang all these people.
Me: Hey don’t worry, they can make them for us.
I am sure you all see the reference to camps and slavery, or the US prison system, left fascism here and all the horrific implications.
A war could happen in theory. You defend yourself. But I think it’s a question of how extreme you are forced to be. Or… some folk want to bathe in blood. It’s true.
.
So while the anti-fascist (or ANTIFA) strategy is in theory emulating fascist tactics that really depends on the people involved. Any power structure attracts deviant types. It concerns me.
Yeah so I focus on this. And I feel it. So being predisposed to hanging these criminals really worries me. Jokes reflect truth.
I don’t even believe in the death penalty. But all people have these thoughts. They can be swayed. And even act on them. Yikes.
My appreciation to Scot Ritter for this clear description of one of the initiating elements of the criminal fiasco of what has become known and long-endured, these last three and a half years, as Russiagate.
Recent “evidence” of former Predident Barack Obama’s concerns about the “Rule of Law” as expressed in the “leaked” phone call (to whom is not made clear) ring rather hollow.
Obama’s gravest concern, one may reasonably speculate, is his own vulnerability to consequence, historical and legal, for what may, possibly, his own involvement in, and knowledge about, the contrived predicates used to entrap Papadopolous and Flynn.
Despite the fact (or allegation) that Obama is a “Constitutional Scholar”, or even because of that claim, Obama must have known that, should the made up justifications to go after Papadopolous and Flynn be revealed as fallacious, or collapse under their own weight, as both the FBI and the DoJ were clearly being made political use of, even as FISA court judges were being snookered, he must have considered that he, personally, would not, could not, be called to account. One imagines that Joe Biden assumes similar immunity from serious consequences, should he be shown to have been “in the loop”, and appraised, periodically about the “progress” of “Hurricane”.
Just as Obama may well have felt no compunction, as Presudent, in terming Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning “guilty”, before Manning even went to trial – a proclamation clearly prejudicial TO the outcome of that trial, an action one should think thoroughly repugnant TO the Rule of Law – so too, might Obama have felt privileged to encourage, or tolerate, what must be understood as amounting to nothing less than an attempted coup against his successor.
It matters not what one may think of Donald Trump or the Trump presidency (though my assessment of both is not admiration), what matters is whether we respect what a genuine rule of law, premised upon actual and unchanging principles truly requires and insists upon.
As well, if information systems (the media) are compromised and become simply conduits for propaganda and manipulation of awareness, then truth, perspective, nuance, and “history” become meaningless rituals of convenience and pretense (not unlike “elections” held, not to further actual democracy, but simply to further a pretense of democracy to lend “legitimacy” to corruption and oligarchic rule).
At this point, as “Russia-did-it” unravels totally, even as much of the media seeks to further ignore and thus hide or obscure the truth of things, a very real question of legitimacy, of justice, and of the rule of law must be made clear: If Joe Biden, or any other replacement Democrat is elected in November, then will all the criminal behavior of members of the U$ government and “other” actors (and it is criminal behavior which transpired) now being exposed, simply be excused and forgotten?
Indeed, might Trump, if re-elected, pull an Obama and say, “Look forward”, as Obama did regarding the use, by U$ “Intelligence” agencies and the U$ military, of torture, and excuse such behavior, as engaged in by the FBI and DoJ, as mere “policy differences” with the implication that it does not matter and that, “It is not us”?
Both torture and corruption at the highest levels, actually IS “us”.
And, when those things are joined to “our” tendency and policy to see war and violence as “solution”, mewlings about respecting the “rule of law”, of complying with “international law” while waging both “hot” and economic warfare by a military empire (“us”), then “we” (and the rest of the world) face a most uncertain, vicious, and “interesting” future.
As a parting thought, considering the rule of law; Since “our” legal system is premised upon money, it always tends to favor the privileges of wealth and power to the disadvantage of the many who are neither wealthy nor powerful and, should any fundamental and substantive challenge to wealth or power arise, U$ law permits the courts to use the issue of “standing” to preclude both justice and necessary change.
Just as Julian Assange or Dred Scott.
No US president has the power to do anything but “look forward” regarding war crimes and other violations of the rule of law. In fact it is even worse. They must soon after inauguration become the next “war criminal in chief” or TPTB will soon realize that the new president must be subverted or worse. It is like becoming a “made guy” in the Mafia.
Precisely so, Skip Scott.
The main purpiss of seeking to gain the U$ presidency is control of the spoils.
Graft, grift, bribery, and the “good life”.
Unfortunately, the average U$ian KNOWS that the U$ is the greatest country, ever. That the President, whoever he (or she) may be, is the manifestation either of all that is good, or all that is vile and despicable, according to the corporate duopoly which also conveniently own the channels of communication (the media) and, as well, control the educational system from grade school to grad school such that critical thinking skills, which would allow that average U$ian to see the truth of things, are snuffed out as early as possible or marginalized effectively to limit the contagion.
Thus, as a result of those two things (and numerous others), the U$ is a “not see” society, even as its military empire is crumbling, which society will permit, even encourage, U$ aggression of the most vicious sort, as it lashes out in spasms of rage at other societies, while placing more and more of its own members in financial, physical, and mental jeopardy.
Of course, the many can “not see” this as they are captured by myth and manipulation.
For such a society, karma is going to be both massive and devastating.
The elite plan to retreat to their hideaway bunkers, staffed by either shock-collared minions or lovely robots, when things become totally untenable.
Those plans may melt in the event of a nuclear shootout if the ruggedly individualistic elite push the designated “enemies”, primarily Russia and China, too far, despite the Hollywood scenarios of heroic U$ian superheroes valiantly outwitting the Hitler-clone baddies the “not sees” are constantly programmed to hate and despise (those things do have to be taught, after all).
I would say that Caitlin Johnstone’s most recent article, here, at CN, well sums up the charade, the Kabuki, although I do yet hope that Ray McGovern might be correct, that some small cracks or chinks might be made visible to all, through that (tap! tap!) invisible shield, which keeps the “not see” many in the dark.
Real “transparency” requires both light and a willing to look at what the light reveals.
Agreed that Scott Ritter is a reliable reporter. His information from Syria has been valuable.
The difficulty with this report is the peculiar language that American Courts allow. Instead of clarification there is obfuscation. It seems the Judiciary is concerned for something other than the pursuit of truth.
I rank Scott Ritter up there on the list with Hans Blix, Ian Henderson, Katarina Gun, Andrei Nekrasov, Bill Binney, a few independent journalists.
People who have preserved their sense of personal integrity, justice and honour against the pressure of the system they worked for.
There are so few good women and men left in this world.
Yes, Scott Ritter, based on his straightforward unfiltered interviews during the Iraq war based-on-lies fiasco, is a welcome voice to help untangle this shameful politically soaked mess. I hope he and others here, as info beomes available, continue to peel back the layers on this. I feel that may be necessary to save Julian Assange’s life if it’s possible to do in time. This country will not be a country until it values its whistleblowers and stops wasting $trillions on wars for profit that serve only the micimatt and steal from the rest of us and kill/displace millions.
Thanks to Scott Ritter for the link to the transcripts…it was absurd for the FBI to rely on an outside “expert” to simply take a photo of a server….what purpose does a photo of the outside of a server or computer do to investigate electronic data?
And if the FBI discovered the “compromise” of the DNC computers why would they not insist on doing the forensics themselves to complete the investigation of what happened? Why would the DNC not demand that too?
Why trust a firm that was politically connected? It’s not a good look even if they had good intentions….
It all seems pretty sloppy, dontcha know…..
Do other countries use absurd tag names such as dancing bear/fancy bear crossfire hurricane that seem tainted with ideology and intention of outcome?
Why are we expected to pay $trillions for politicized information?
I for one would appreciate transparency and honesty and respect for decent honest whistleblowers.
Any disinformation that comes out of the opaque halls of power is intended to fool only us….that’s its purpose, it seems – kabuki theater.
Is this a democracy?
Or a kleptocracy?
Bernie’s not perfect but at least he- as the target of DNC shenanigans – is a decent honest guy who respects people and his wise policy positions all intertwine to work together for goals that serve everyone and are sustainable and stabilizing. Covid-19 is proving MEDICARE4ALL necessary to everyone’s well being. The DNC couped him this time too…couped his voters and any promise of coping with all the ills we face including climate disruption…
But the MICIMATT doesn’t apparently give a darn about the welfare of the people who are paying for the corruption….in $$$$$ and suffering…
The capitalist-imperialist state’s attempted soft coup against the Trump regime along with the major media’s propagandizing for the whole disgraceful charade is one of the most shameful episodes in American history.
Now we see the Covid issue morphing into a ‘get Trump’ campaign as it’s being used as a completely partisan battering ram to weaken Trump in November. Yes, Trump doesn’t deserve the working person’s vote and his lack of an effective response to Covid left something to be desired, but let’s attack him for genuine reasons and not forget that the corporate Dems STILL won’t advocate for Medicare-for-All. So who’s response to Covid is more callous? An inept Commander in Chief or the conscious decision by the Wall St Dems to eschew any thought of Medicare-for-All?