Mark Zaid, JFK and Trump

[James DiEugenio]

William:

First the IPR story turned out to be dubious.  The DNC leak story is also dubious.

Now this story in The Intercept also has its own problems printed right in the artcle:

While the document provides a rare window into the NSA’s understanding of the mechanics of Russian hacking, it does not show the underlying “raw” intelligence on which the analysis is based. A U.S. intelligence officer who declined to be identified cautioned against drawing too big a conclusion from the document because a single analysis is not necessarily definitive.

[James DiEugenio]

8 minutes ago, Douglas Caddy said:

Roger Stone’s dream of booting judge for sentencing comments brutally crushed by ex-US Attorney: ‘He’s met his match’

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/roger-stones-dream-of-booting-judge-for-sentencing-comments-brutally-crushed-by-ex-us-attorney-hes-met-his-match/

Doug:

Thanks to Pelosi, Trump is on a roll.  I would not doubt that he is going to pardon both Stone and Manafort soon.  The latest will be after the election, win or lose.

Edited February 22, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Cliff Varnell]

9 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Doug:

Thanks to Pelosi, Trump is on a roll.  I would not doubt that he is going to pardon both Stone and Manafort soon.  The latest will be after the election, win or lose.

Apparently DiEugenio only started following the career of Donald Trump last September.

Anyone actually versed in American politics knows Trump has been “on a roll” toward Theocratic Fascism since he rolled down the Trump Tower escalator June 2015.

Like all Trumpenlinks propagandists, DiEugenio must bend over backwards to attack Democrats.

[James DiEugenio]

Look, there are legitimate questions about Seth Rich.  And you don't have to subscribe to Fox News to ask them.

As Joe B points out, what was he doing in that area at that hour for that long?

If it was a robbery, why was nothing robbed?

If the DNC hack was not a hack, but a leak, then why did Assange suggest something about Rich in that interview I posted with him that no one except Dennis Berube wants to note?

Why, the  day after that interview, did Wikileaks offer a reward for info in the Rich murder?

Why did Craig Murray, who represented Wikileaks, say he met around American University to retrieve the stolen emails from someone who knew the person who stole them from the DNC?

Why did Mueller not do a formal deposition with Assange during his so called inquiry?  The fact that he did not is one more indication--see George P and Carter Page--that he did something thing an investigator should not do:  he made up his mind before he started his inquiry and then fit everything into that paradigm.

 

[Jeff Carter]

1 hour ago, Bob Ness said:

Part of the reason I'm skeptical of much of the "fake Russiagate" claims is the fact that 15-20 IC agencies plus several private entities have maintained it wasn't fake. Several people here use the claims of a former NSA employee who hasn't worked there in 20 years to refute those claims, which is ridiculous. It's an interesting argument I'll grant but not enough to overturn the IC opinion.

Bob - dismissing William Binney as merely a “former NSA employee” makes me wonder the extent by which you view these issues objectively.

I don’t share the opinion that 15-20 IC agencies have actually bought into the “Russians hacked the election” premise. It seems to be an exaggerated partisan talking point. The Assessment which started all of this, from January 2017, was widely touted as a community-wide product but after a few months it was downgraded to the work of a very few hand-picked agents representing two or three agencies at most. And hand-picked by arch Russophobic Trump foes Brennan and Clapper, both of whom have track records of deceit and lying to the the public. The Report itself states clearly that its findings are in no way established fact, and concedes that it might all be wrong.

The Senate Intelligence Committee Report which you have touted as definitive concedes that its conclusions are based on what it describes as “aspirational” intentions I.e. the bad guys by definition intend to do bad things so therefore they must have, in fact, done the bad things.It is an extremely poor product, and makes the Warren Report appear as a model of investigation.

The one Russian program which has been established - the Internet Research Agency’s clickbait scheme - was so ridiculously underfunded and small scale as to have been virtually invisible. A million dollar budget over two or three years and yet the entire Republic almost fell? That’s ridiculous. Over the past week it was revealed that British intelligence basically funded and ran the media outreach service for the so-called “rebels” in Syria. That effort had a budget of over half a million dollars every month, and was supported in turn by White Helmets ($80 million over five years) and probably other expensive initiatives. Now that’s a true covert disinformation effort and the disparity is obvious.

 

There was a delay of some weeks between the time the DNC began to realize they had a security breach and when their tech security team Crowdstrike leapt into action. Using Salandria’s scepticism model - what would be the expected reaction of persons and institutions? - that delay is inexplicable. In my opinion, everything which occurred is entirely consistent with an improvised cover story (the Russians did it) which spun completely out of control after Trump unexpectedly won the election. With a large portion of the population reacting “emotionally” to this event (as Joe has put it), the improvised cover story has exploded into something akin to a psychosis which has been fuelled by irresponsible politicians and media concerns.

[Cliff Varnell]

1 minute ago, James DiEugenio said:

[H]e  made up his mind before he started his inquiry and then fit everything into that paradigm.

Perfect description of RussiaGate Denial!

Would Julian Assange ever reveal a source? His self-appointed defenders seem to think so!

[James DiEugenio]

Bob:

Who here thinks that Podesta was involved in child sex trafficking?

Is that not what Pizzagate was about?

I hope you were being tongue in cheek.

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

https://www.salon.com/2020/02/15/what-is-happening-to-assange-will-happen-to-the-rest-of-us_partner/

A really interesting article

Bob was right about the CIA spying on Assange, and it might set him free.

https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/477939-will-cia-misbehavior-set-julian-assange-free

Edited February 22, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Douglas Caddy]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Doug:

Thanks to Pelosi, Trump is on a roll.  I would not doubt that he is going to pardon both Stone and Manafort soon.  The latest will be after the election, win or lose.

Thanks to Pelosi, Trump will be defeated in November. The polls show 57% will vote against him no matter what.

[James DiEugenio]

Really Doug?

This article from New Yorker is based on 538 and Nate Cohn, and there are no better analysts of polling than those two.

RCP does not weigh job-approval polls for reliability and partisan bias, so sometimes its numbers are suspect. But FiveThirtyEight conducts multiple adjustments to boost accuracy, and its job-approval ratings for Trump are also spiking in the direction of previously unreached levels. It’s at 44.3 percent utilizing all polls, and at 45.9 percent if you limit the sample to those of registered voters or likely voters (as opposed to “all adults”). Both these numbers are highs for Trump since early 2017.

Beyond the fact that assessments of Trump are suddenly rising after years of stagnation, what’s notable is that he’s getting into the territory normally associated with a president who can get reelected.

How anyone can make he same mistake twice by underestimating Trump again is simply amazing.

 

Edited February 22, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[Douglas Caddy]

Prof. Juan Cole today:

Indeed, that desire is almost certainly the reason that Moscow might be trying to help the Sanders campaign, if it is. Many Russian politicians and pundits are convinced that Sanders cannot win.

They are wrong in this glib conclusion. They don’t understand how much Trump is hated, including by white women who are usually a Republican bedrock. They don’t understand Bernie Sanders’ appeal to the white working class in the Rust Belt and to Hispanics in Texas and California.

[Douglas Caddy]

Trump’s NSA Robert O’Brien blasted for ‘weaponizing’ classified intel against Bernie Sanders as Nevada caucuses

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/trumps-nsa-robert-obrien-blasted-for-weaponizing-classified-intel-against-bernie-sanders-as-nevada-caucuses/

 

[Douglas Caddy]

Turmoil at the National Security Council, From the Top Down

 

Michael T. Flynn, left, the national security adviser, before boarding Air Force One on Friday. He accompanied President Trump and Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, on a visit to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla.Credit...Al Drago/The New York Times

By David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt and Peter Baker

• Feb. 12, 2017 The New York Times
• •  
  •  

Over the weekend, The Times published this investigation into the agency that Michael T. Flynn was leading before he stepped down. Read our updated article on Mr. Flynn’s resignation.

WASHINGTON — These are chaotic and anxious days inside the National Security Council, the traditional center of management for a president’s dealings with an uncertain world.

Three weeks into the Trump administration, council staff members get up in the morning, read President Trump’s Twitter posts and struggle to make policy to fit them. Most are kept in the dark about what Mr. Trump tells foreign leaders in his phone calls. Some staff members have turned to encrypted communications to talk with their colleagues, after hearing that Mr. Trump’s top advisers are considering an “insider threat” program that could result in monitoring cellphones and emails for leaks.

The national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, has hunkered down since investigators began looking into what, exactly, he told the Russian ambassador to the United States about the lifting of sanctions imposed in the last days of the Obama administration, and whether he misled Vice President Mike Pence about those conversations. His survival in the job may hang in the balance.

 

Although Mr. Trump suggested to reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday that he was unaware of the latest questions swirling around Mr. Flynn’s dealings with Russia, aides said over the weekend in Florida — where Mr. Flynn accompanied the president and Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe — that Mr. Trump was closely monitoring the reaction to Mr. Flynn’s conversations. There are transcripts of a conversation in at least one phone call, recorded by American intelligence agencies that wiretap foreign diplomats, which may determine Mr. Flynn’s future.

Stephen Miller, the White House senior policy adviser, was circumspect on Sunday about Mr. Flynn’s future. Mr. Miller said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that possibly misleading the vice president on communications with Russia was “a sensitive matter.” Asked if Mr. Trump still had confidence in Mr. Flynn, Mr. Miller responded, “That’s a question for the president.”

This account of life inside the council — offices made up of several hundred career civil servants who advise the president on counterterrorism, foreign policy, nuclear deterrence and other issues of war and peace — is based on conversations with more than two dozen current and former council staff members and others throughout the government. All spoke on the condition that they not be quoted by name for fear of reprisals.

“It’s so far a very dysfunctional N.S.C.,” Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a telephone interview.

In a telephone conversation on Sunday afternoon, K. T. McFarland, the deputy national security adviser, said that early meetings of the council were brisker, tighter and more decisive than in the past, but she acknowledged that career officials were on edge. “Not only is this a new administration, but it is a different party, and Donald Trump was elected by people who wanted the status quo thrown out,” said Ms. McFarland, a veteran of the Reagan administration who most recently worked for Fox News. “I think it would be a mistake if we didn’t have consternation about the changes — most of the cabinet haven’t even been in government before.”

 

There is always a shakedown period for any new National Security Council, whose staff is drawn from the State Department, the Pentagon and other agencies and is largely housed opposite the White House in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

 

President Barack Obama replaced his first national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, a four-star former supreme allied commander in Europe, after concluding that the general was a bad fit for the administration. The first years of President George W. Bush’s council were defined by clashes among experienced bureaucratic infighters — Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell among them — and by decisions that often took place outside official channels.

But what is happening under the Trump White House is different, officials say, and not just because of Mr. Trump’s Twitter foreign policy. (Two officials said that at one recent meeting, there was talk of feeding suggested Twitter posts to the president so the council’s staff would have greater influence.)

A number of staff members who did not want to work for Mr. Trump have returned to their regular agencies, leaving a larger-than-usual hole in the experienced bureaucracy. Many of those who remain, who see themselves as apolitical civil servants, have been disturbed by displays of overt partisanship. At an all-hands meeting about two weeks into the new administration, Ms. McFarland told the group it needed to “make America great again,” numerous staff members who were there said.

New Trump appointees are carrying coffee mugs with that Trump campaign slogan into meetings with foreign counterparts, one staff member said.

 

Video

 

 

 

Michael T. Flynn served in the military for 33 years before becoming a singular and divisive figure in the intelligence community during the Obama administration. Matthew Rosenberg looks at President Trump’s former national security adviser.CreditCredit...Kevin Hagen for The New York Times

Nervous staff members recently met late at night at a bar a few blocks from the White House and talked about purging their social media accounts of any suggestion of anti-Trump sentiments.

 

Mr. Trump’s council staff draws heavily from the military — often people who had ties to Mr. Flynn when he served as a senior military intelligence officer and then as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency before he was forced out of the job. Many of the first ideas that have been floated have involved military, rather than diplomatic, initiatives.

 

 

Last week, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was exploring whether the Navy could intercept and board an Iranian ship to look for contraband weapons possibly headed to Houthi fighters in Yemen. The potential interdiction seemed in keeping with recent instructions from Mr. Trump, reinforced in meetings with Mr. Mattis and Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, to crack down on Iran’s support of terrorism.

But the ship was in international waters in the Arabian Sea, according to two officials. Mr. Mattis ultimately decided to set the operation aside, at least for now. White House officials said that was because news of the impending operation leaked, a threat to security that has helped fuel the move for the insider threat program. But others doubt whether there was enough basis in international law, and wondered what would happen if, in the early days of an administration that has already seen one botched military action in Yemen, American forces were suddenly in a firefight with the Iranian Navy.

Ms. McFarland often draws on her television experience to make clear to officials that they need to make their points in council meetings quickly, and she signals when to wrap up, several participants said.

And while Mr. Obama liked policy option papers that were three to six single-spaced pages, council staff members are now being told to keep papers to a single page, with lots of graphics and maps.

“The president likes maps,” one official said.

Paper flow, the lifeblood of the bureaucracy, has been erratic. A senior Pentagon official saw a draft executive order on prisoner treatment only through unofficial rumors and news media leaks. He called the White House to find out if it was real and said he had concerns but was not sure if he was authorized to make suggestions.

 

Officials said that the absence of an orderly flow of council documents, ultimately the responsibility of Mr. Flynn, explained why Mr. Mattis and Mike Pompeo, the director of the C.I.A., never saw a number of Mr. Trump’s executive orders before they were issued. One order had to be amended after it was made public, to reassure Mr. Pompeo that he had a regular seat on the council.

White House officials say that was a blunder, and that the process of reviewing executive orders has been straightened out by Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff.

 

 

Still, Mr. Flynn presents additional complications beyond his conversations with the Russian ambassador. His aides say he is insecure about whether his unfettered access to Mr. Trump during the campaign is being scaled back and about a shadow council created by Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s top strategist, who was invited to attend meetings of the “principals committee” of the council two weeks ago. For his part, Mr. Bannon sees the United States as headed toward an inevitable confrontation with two adversaries — China and Iran.

Mr. Flynn finds himself in a continuing conflict with the intelligence agencies, whose work on Russia and other issues he has dismissed as subpar and politically biased. Last week, in an incident first reported by Politico, one of Mr. Flynn’s top deputies, Robin Townley, was denied the high-level security clearance he needed before he could take up his job on the council as the senior director for Africa.

It was not clear what in Mr. Townley’s past disqualified him, and in every administration some officials are denied clearances. But some saw the intelligence community striking back.

Two people with direct access to the White House leadership said Mr. Flynn was surprised to learn that the State Department and Congress play a pivotal role in foreign arms sales and technology transfers. So it was a rude discovery that Mr. Trump could not simply order the Pentagon to send more weapons to Saudi Arabia — which is clamoring to have an Obama administration ban on the sale of cluster bombs and precision-guided weapons lifted — or to deliver bigger weapons packages to the United Arab Emirates.

 

Several staff members said that Mr. Flynn, who was a career Army officer, was not familiar with how to call up the National Guard in an emergency — for, say, a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina or the detonation of a dirty bomb in an American city.

At the all-hands meeting, Mr. Flynn talked about the importance of a balanced work life, taking care of family, and using the time at the council to gain experience that would help staff members in other parts of the government. At one point, the crowd was asked for a show of hands of how many expected to be working at the White House in a year.

Mr. Flynn turned to Ms. McFarland and, in what seemed to be a self-deprecating joke, said, “I wonder if we’ll be here a year from now?”

[Bob Ness]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Bob:

Who here thinks that Podesta was involved in child sex trafficking?

Is that not what Pizzagate was about?

I hope you were being tongue in cheek.

 

Pretty much.

[Bob Ness]

3 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

Bob - dismissing William Binney as merely a “former NSA employee” makes me wonder the extent by which you view these issues objectively.

I don’t share the opinion that 15-20 IC agencies have actually bought into the “Russians hacked the election” premise. It seems to be an exaggerated partisan talking point. The Assessment which started all of this, from January 2017, was widely touted as a community-wide product but after a few months it was downgraded to the work of a very few hand-picked agents representing two or three agencies at most. And hand-picked by arch Russophobic Trump foes Brennan and Clapper, both of whom have track records of deceit and lying to the the public. The Report itself states clearly that its findings are in no way established fact, and concedes that it might all be wrong.

The Senate Intelligence Committee Report which you have touted as definitive concedes that its conclusions are based on what it describes as “aspirational” intentions I.e. the bad guys by definition intend to do bad things so therefore they must have, in fact, done the bad things.It is an extremely poor product, and makes the Warren Report appear as a model of investigation.

The one Russian program which has been established - the Internet Research Agency’s clickbait scheme - was so ridiculously underfunded and small scale as to have been virtually invisible. A million dollar budget over two or three years and yet the entire Republic almost fell? That’s ridiculous. Over the past week it was revealed that British intelligence basically funded and ran the media outreach service for the so-called “rebels” in Syria. That effort had a budget of over half a million dollars every month, and was supported in turn by White Helmets ($80 million over five years) and probably other expensive initiatives. Now that’s a true covert disinformation effort and the disparity is obvious.

 

There was a delay of some weeks between the time the DNC began to realize they had a security breach and when their tech security team Crowdstrike leapt into action. Using Salandria’s scepticism model - what would be the expected reaction of persons and institutions? - that delay is inexplicable. In my opinion, everything which occurred is entirely consistent with an improvised cover story (the Russians did it) which spun completely out of control after Trump unexpectedly won the election. With a large portion of the population reacting “emotionally” to this event (as Joe has put it), the improvised cover story has exploded into something akin to a psychosis which has been fuelled by irresponsible politicians and media concerns.

I don't dismiss Binney but I do question whether he's up to date on intelligence product that would not be available to him. We know from Snowdens exposure of Bull Run that the IC and 5  Eyes are capable of decrypting 1024 bit data from at least ten years ago and intercept of communications through proxies used during the attacks were most certainly compromised.

I'm not going to point out again that you have no idea what the budget of IRA was and how much was organic SEO. I've been down that road and you went silent. The following went on DURING the Cozy Bear shenanigans.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/dutch-intelligence-hacked-video-cameras-in-office-of-russians-who-hacked-dnc/

Edited February 22, 2020 by Bob Ness