Kim Strassel - Unable To See The "Conspiracy Theorist" Staring Back At Her In The Mirrror

Kim Strassel in her latest WSJ column ('Mark Warner's Enablers', Jan. 25, p. A13) continues her all in balderdash that her conspiracy theory (actually ideation, since it isn't testable) is the reality and Sen, Mark Warner (and the rest of us) are pushing Trump-Russia "conspiracy theories."  As she puts it:

"Hand it to Sen. Mark Warner. Of the many Russia-collusion theorists, how many get to claim “bipartisan” credentials? That’s one question that accompanied Thursday’s supposedly big news that the Senate Intelligence Committee had subpoenaed former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to testify in February. If anything comes from this appearance—it would be surprising. Senate Intel is the committee Mr. Warner, as ranking Democrat, has turned into the black hole of the Russia investigation, with Republican signoff.."


What Kim means - in her blind consternation- is that committee Chairman Richard Burr has evidently suffered a "mugging" in allowing  Mark Warner's thesis to accumulate credibility - say instead of distorting it and burying it like the scumball Devin Nunes did with the House Intel investigation.   According to Kim, "Mr. Burr appears to have suffered a political mugging".  Then adopting the usual Rightie trick of trying to blame the "left" media for his taking a more principled and honest stand than Nunes.

After all, according to Kim, how could Burr not see the REAL conspiracy  (unearthed by Nunes and his sycophant Reep House cohort) staring him and the other GOP Senate Intel members in the face. As she puts it (ibid.):

"Thanks to House committees, we know the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted surveillance of the Trump team based on opposition research from Hillary Clinton's campaign. And Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee blew the lid off the FBI's feckless relationship with dossier author Christopher Steele."

Re: the House committees, we now know they were fronts set up to protect Trump by deflecting attention to the Steele dossier, the FBI and Hillary (via the 'Uranium One' and Clinton Foundation tropes). With the release of a redacted Democratic memorandum in February, we beheld just how deeply Nunes had embedded himself in Trump's orbit to become his top bootlicker and enabler. At least in the Repug House, by running interference for a traitor.  That Democratic House memo, even with redaction, boldly countered Nunes' claims that top FBI and Justice Department officials has "abused their powers in spying on Carter Page" the former Trump campaign aide. 

Kim - possibly in the throes of an MJ candy high,   vaping overdose or sporadic hormonal imbalance - also again appears not to recall the Fusion GPS oppo research was originally launched by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news site. The relevant  WSJ editorial at the time noted it was funded by big GOP donor Paul Singer.  Singer wanted oppo research done on a two bit Queens' chiseler and lowlife he didn't trust. Singer and a group of old guard GOP donors hired Fusion GPS to do the job of digging up dirt on the Queens' grifter. Subsequently, after Trump won the Repub primary,   the material was handed off to the Clinton campaign. This was NOT in any way sinister or illegal as Strassel tries to portray.  Nor in any way conspiratorial, certainly like seeking the help of a hostile foreign power to meddle in a presidential campaign.

What was illegal was the Trump team holding more than 100 meetings - that we now know of -  with Russians, including GRU intelligence agents.  Specifically in "Trump and His Associates Had More Than 100 Contacts With Russians Before the Inauguration,"   The NY Times tracked down "more than 100 in-person meetings, phone calls, text messages, emails and private messages on Twitter," all made by "at least 17 campaign officials and advisers [who] had contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries."

Further, foreign intercepts of meetings of Trump cronies, e.g. Carter Page, with Russian  (GRU) agents meant that the U.S.  FBI  had to enter the picture with its own FISA warrants, surveillance, etc. Not to do so would have violated agreements with foreign intel sources, assets, and would have amounted to dereliction of duty.   Hence, there was no evil conspiracy by the FBI, it only exists in Kim's mind.  Or perhaps in her fervid, MJ-laced dreams?

Why else spout such unhinged bollocks as:

"In recent weeks Mr. Warner has painted the lurid possibility of Trump-Russia collusion."

Well, it ain't just a "possibility",  Kim. Text messages, phone records, foreign intercepts, emails  - other documentation of the meetings-   point to clear conspiracy with the Russkies to alter  the 2016 election. And as former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocah made clear Friday night ('All In'):

"There's just so many facts in this indictment about the coordination of the Trump campaign with Wikileaks, through Roger Stone. Remember that GRU indictment - if you go back to that- one of the objects of the conspiracy is not just hacking but hacking and disseminating.  You can't look at them alone, you have to go back to everything we know, the Trump Tower meeting, the calling out by Trump to Russia (to grab Hillary's emails)...there's just so many other things."

Rocah, in other words, has put her former federal prosecutor's finger on exactly why the reactionary Right media is able to peddle this balderdash there's "nothing there".  Because they count on massive amnesia of their readers, viewers concerning the reams of evidence that came before.  This is also what fuels The Wall Street Journal's lame editorials, e.g. 'Keystone Kops Collusion', p. A12,  Jan. 26-27)  as when this one claimed:

"Robert Mueller's indictment Friday of Roger Stone proves Donald Trump has awful judgment in political associations. What it doesn't show is Trump-Russia collusion."

Which take could have been right out of Andrew McCarthy's National Review piece, "Stone Indictment Underscores That There Was No Trump-Russia Conspiracy."
 
 But as blogger P.M. Carpenter has observed: "Mueller has never suggested that the Trump campaign's Russia collusion was smooth, slick or sophisticated. Stumblebums and poseurs are often at the center of political campaigns. "

So the WSJ editorial amounts to the classic red herring.

I have also pointed out repeatedly - and Ms. Rocah has also noted -  there is no federal statute for collusion, there is for conspiracy. And that case is nailed shut when the compendium of evidence is assembled from the Papadopolous' meeting onward - say to the Trump Tower meeting, and then Trump's invitation to the Russkies to hack Hillary's emails.

According to Robert Mueller's "GRU  indictments" cited by Rocah:

"On or about July 27, 2016, the conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts on a domain hosted by a third party provider and used by Clinton's personal office. They also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton campaign. '

Most interesting, this happened on the very same day Traitor Trump appeared in front of the media cameras and pleaded with Russia to hack Hillary's emails, e.g.

"I will tell you this, Russia if you're listening, I hope that you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. You will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see if that happens."

And after all, Hillary lost thanks to Trump's conspiracy with the Russians to leverage him into power. So who is really the victim here, Kim?   National Security specialist and counterinsurgency expert Malcolm Nance also reaffirmed yesterday on MSNBC the peril facing Stone and how  he was the "bridge and link for that information" passed from the Trump campaign to Russian intelligence. Adding: "This is a critical,  critical indictment. They're saying they've identified the link.", i.e. in showing the bridge and coordination between Stone,  the Trump campaign, and the Russians.    Adding: "This indictment is based not just on the hearsay or the testimony of others. Robert Mueller brings documentation to the table....And believe me there's also other information in the special counsel's office we don't know about especially from other members of the Trump team including Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn and others."

This was echoed by Georgetown Law professor Paul Butler, citing the "treasure trove" of documents, emails, phone messages, interdicted foreign wiretaps, etc. Mueller has on him.  Prof. Butler then stated Stone could "face twenty" years for his part in the conspiracy.

Strassel's other favorite target has been Christopher Steele and his dossier.  It's almost like Strassel goes to bed every night dreaming about it.  Well,  at least dreaming of novel ways to incorporate it into her conspiracy ideations.  But the facts are much less astounding. The dossier has been a frequent target of  the WSJ- FOX- Dotard Axis which seeks to heap incessant   derision upon it. But the probe into the Trump campaign originally was sparked by a separate matter that Steele never wrote about:  a tip from an Australian diplomat that a Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, appeared to know Russia had obtained damaging emails on the Democrats. (Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents.) 

The dossier itself is actually several memos, based on conversations with Russian sources, that were written between June and December of 2016.   Further, in retrospect nearly all of the dossier has been substantiated or confirmed.

Strassel whines at the end of her piece that "we all want adult behavior"  and to that end "someone on the intelligence committee needs to step up and supervise Mr. Warner."  Actually, the only ones that need supervising - apart from Trump - are Kim Strassel and her coven of Wall Street Journal conspiracy spinners, "witch hunt" protesters and  Trump enablers  - especially as they seem unable to discern real conspiracies from fake ideations. 

See also:

• 
  
• Mueller's case against Roger Stone is open and shut

And:

Donald Trump | Robert Mueller

Hilariously Different Worlds

by P.M. Carpenter | January 28, 2019 - 6:26am | permalink

And:

‘Trump Is Very Worried’: Fears Reportedly Spread That Roger Stone Will Turn on the President — and That Don Jr. Could Be Next

Why The "America First" President Is Really America's First Traitor President (The Evidence Is In Thanks To Max Boot!)

Hanging where he is now, on Putin's puppet strings, and where he should be hanging after stealing the 2016 election with Putin's help

George Will's article appearing in last Sunday's Denver Post ('Perspective', p. 5D, 'Why The  'America First President Put America Last in Helsinki')) basically put the recent Helsinki debacle in somber perspective.. As Will writes:

"America's child president had a play date with a KGB alumnus, who surely enjoyed providing daycare. It was a useful, illuminating event: Because we shall now see how many Republicans retain a capacity for embarrassment."

Well, as it turns out, a lot. At least enough of the throwback, knuckledragger faction - led by Tea baggers Jim Jordan (OH) and Mark Meadows (NC) - who've remained consummate Trump "asslickers" to borrow from Janice's parlance.  How so? Well, because they've launched out on a deranged quest to try to impeach Rod Rosenstein.  (Effort since shelved, probably because Jordan - up to his ears in a  sexual abuse case at Ohio State - has to get his bearings)  So there remain many quislings, i.e. minor traitors,  willing to carry the Traitor's water for him, for whatever reason. As Mr. Will put it:

"In Helsinki the president who bandies the phrase 'America First', put himself first - as always- and America last, behind Vladimir Putin's regime."

Of course, most of us aware, sane and still in contact with objective reality know what he did next: he again tried to deny anything amiss, but then in the next breath - invited Putin over for anther "summit" just before the midterms. Can you say "terrible optics"? How about  'ghastly guilty as sin' optics?  How about using Twitter recklessly like a tweet troll, such as this morning's bombastic effluent about Michael Cohen's assertion he was told in advance about the Trump Tower meet? Well, again, most of us knew that, and that a liar's denials will remain lies.  How does that old saw go? He "doth protest too much?"  In a "liar's contest"  who wins, Trump or Cohen? Well, Trump, hands down.

Then yesterday we were informed the Putin fall  meet was "pushed back" until next year, ostensibly "after the "Russia witch hunt" - according to John 'Ripper' Bolton.  This was echoed by a story in yesterday's WSJ 'Putin Summit Pushed Back' (p. A4) where we read:

"Trump won't hold another official bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin until next year, the White House said Wednesday, citing the  continuing special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election."

Thus the spin was that Dotard controlled the timing, whereas in fact, as security specialist Malcolm Nance pointed out on 'Last Word':  "It was just Putin giving Trump a thumb in the eye, after leading him around with a nose ring in Helsinki."

In other words, Vlad is da boss man here, not the Donald. After the obsequious Dotard blurted out the invite - as a slap to DNI Dan Coats, in Boulder for a security summit- he got a rather cool non- response from  Vlad as if to say: "What the fuck are you thinking, slave boy? You're really gonna invite me to the White House before the midterms after I helped you snatch the presidency in 2016?".  And, of course, nationwide all hell broke loose, because people still in possession of their faculties could not believe their eyes and ears that a sitting president - and I use that term loosely - would actually invite a co-conspirator in facilitating his election two years ago, to the White House. Had he finally gone round the bend?  Was his dementia finally catching up to him as it did his old man, Fred?  In any case "officials said they still hadn't been told what Messrs. Trump and Putin agreed to in their closed door meet in Helsinki".

And not even our intelligence agencies know yet what the duo agreed to, only that the Russkie media has been blurting out non-stop "updates" on alleged agreements.

Another chestnut from the WSJ account (ibid.):

"It is unclear what basis the White House has for believing special counsel Robert Mueller will conclude his investigation by the beginning of next year."

In fact, there is NO basis at all, zero, zilch and nada. Mueller's probe could be going on well into next year at this time or two further years, a la Watergate.  It is only wishful thinking to believe that Trump,  Putin's on site co -conspirator,  will be free of the Mueller spotlight by then. In fact, if he doesn't cooperate in answering questions of the special counsel it could drag on indefinitely.

Oh, wait, did I write 'co-conspirator" with Putin and the GRU in stealing that 2016 election? Yes I did and though the mutt incessantly bellows "no collusion" like a fucking mantra - and at least 264 times since Helsinki -  we  now know the opposite is true. . As Max Boot writes in the WaPo from two days ago:

"Trump is willing, under duress, to briefly and begrudgingly admit that Russian “meddling” took place in 2016 before reverting to calling it a “big hoax.” But he always maintains that the plot against America had no impact; he describes it as a “Democrat excuse for losing the ’16 Election.” Faithfully echoing the president, other Republicans, such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), say it’s “clear” that the Russian interference “didn’t have a material effect on our elections.” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders even claims that the U.S. intelligence community reached that conclusion.

Here is the intelligence community’s assessment, partially declassified in January 2017: “We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election. The US Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion.” When then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo claimed last fall that “the intelligence community's assessment is that the Russian meddling that took place did not affect the outcome of the election,” his own agency rebuked him.

While the intelligence agencies are silent on the impact of Russia’s attack, outside experts who have examined the Kremlin campaign — which included stealing and sharing Democratic Party emails, spreading propaganda online and hacking state voter rolls — have concluded that it did affect an extremely close election decided by fewer than 80,000 votes in three states. Clint Watts, a former FBI agent, writes in his recent book, “Messing with the Enemy,” that “Russia absolutely influenced the U.S. presidential election,” especially in Michigan and Wisconsin, where Trump’s winning margin was less than 1 percent in each state.

We still don’t know the full extent of the Russian interference, but we know its propaganda reached 126 million people via Facebook alone. A BuzzFeed analysis found that fake news stories on Facebook generated more social engagement in the last three months of the campaign than did legitimate articles: The “20 top-performing false election stories from hoax sites and hyperpartisan blogs generated 8,711,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook.” Almost all of this “fake news” was either started or spread by Russian bots, including claims that the pope had endorsed Trump and that Hillary Clinton had sold weapons to the Islamic State."

Even more appalling:

 "the Russians may have been able to 'alter or delete voter registration data,' potentially disenfranchising Clinton voters."

Sounds like an election theft to me!

Boot goes on:

"Then there was the crucial impact of the Russian hacks of Democratic documents disseminated primarily by WikiLeaks. The first tranche of stolen documents — more than 19,000 emails and 8,000 attachments — was strategically released on July 22, 2016, three days before the Democratic convention.  The second tranche of stolen documents was released on Oct. 7, just 29 minutes after The Post reported on the “Access Hollywood” videotape in which Trump is heard boasting about grabbing women by the genitals. These emails, stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, distracted voter attention by revealing the transcripts of lucrative speeches Clinton had given to Goldman Sachs, a populist boogeyman.

A third release of stolen emails, on Oct. 11, revealed that Democratic operative Donna Brazile, while working at CNN, had provided debate questions to Clinton during the primaries and that senior Democratic operatives, who were themselves Catholics, had exchanged emails disparaging Republicans who cherry-picked their faith for political gain. This fueled Trump’s narrative that the election was “rigged” and that the “Clinton team” was, as he said, “viciously attacking Catholics and Evangelicals.” The latter charge, unfair as it was, proved especially important in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — swing states with lots of Catholic voters."

As Boot put it:

"Little wonder that Trump said “I love WikiLeaks” and mentioned its revelations 164 times in the last month of the campaign. “This WikiLeaks stuff is unbelievable,” Trump said on Oct. 12. Eight days later, he marveled, “Boy, that WikiLeaks has done a job on her, hasn’t it?”

Why all the praise for WikiLeaks? Clearly, as Janice put it, "there has to be something rotten in Denmark." ' By contrast, Trump and his apologists like  Devin Nunes and "Nosferatu" Giulani,

pretend that the Russian attack — including the WikiLeaks revelations — was no big deal. That beggars belief, as Boot put it, given the attack succeeded. Dotard got shoehorned into the White House,  after all, and Hillary didn't. This isn't a case of "sour grapes"   but of acknowledging Trump's prime beneficiary - Vlad Putin - who,  as Julia Joffee explained a week ago,  is where the Kompromat lies, e.g.

"Many people tried to speculate on what it was,  what kind of Kompromat, the Russians had on Trump. When the answer - like infidelity or death-  was staring them in the face. Yes, Putin has something on Trump. He helped him win. That's the Kompromat."

So no the collaborators -conspirators  didn’t fail: Trump won, and even then only in the archaic electoral college - which also failed to do its job in stopping a populist demagogue, especially one adopted by one party with billions of bucks at its disposal and Russian agents to help . See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/12/electors-alas-set-to-rubberstamp-4.html

And:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/commentary-why-the-electoral-college-system-makes-little-sense-today

Russian disinformation wasn’t the only factor in the outcome and was probably less important in the end than FBI Director James B. Comey’s announcement 11 days before the election that he was reopening the Clinton email investigation.

But  as former FBI agent Cliff Watts concludes: “Without the Russian influence effort, I believe Trump would not have even been within striking distance of Clinton on Election Day.” 

That is the inconvenient truth the Putin Republicans won’t admit.

Lastly, a clear piece of any whole conspiracy fabric is trying to cover up the crime, or nullify its reporting for history. This happened within days of Helsinki after a Reuters reporter at the press conference directly asked Putin if he'd helped Trump into power.  Within days the official White House transcript and video had been altered as Rachel Maddow originally reported, e.g.

Maddow: White House removed Putin support for Trump from official 

As per The Hill  account from the above link:

"Maddow specifically references a question from Reuters reporter Jeff Mason, who asked Putin if he wanted Trump to win the 2016 presidential election and if he directed any of his officials to interfere in the election to help Trump's campaign. 

Putin responds that he did want Trump to win the election because "he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal." 

Maddow contrasted that footage with what the White House posted, which omits the first part of Mason's question. Mason is only seen asking if Putin directed officials to help with election interference.

"This was by no means malicious," a White House official told CNN. The White House told the outlet that the audio feed used to produce the video and the transcript did not turn up Mason's audio in time to catch the beginning of the question while the translator was still speaking.

But Maddow argued that the White House did it on purpose.

"They just dropped it out," Maddow said. “What the White House has disappeared from the official U.S. government record of that meeting ... is President Putin answering in the affirmative when asked if he wanted Trump to win the election,”

Whom to believe? Having investigated other conspiracies and their methods of cover up, e.g. in the fake paper trails in Iran-Contra and the BCCI banking conspiracies, I side with Rachel.  Probably a more direct analogy is with Warren Commissioner Gerald Ford (who knew diddly  squat about anatomy) altering the JFK autopsy report location of the back wound to conform to the single bullet theory, e.g.

Ford asserted his autopsy edits were merely "minor changes" that didn't affect history - a claim as false and disingenuous as Trump's telling a  Kansas City VFW convention several days ago:

"Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening,” 

Seriously? This is straight out of the playbook of totalitarian  "Oceania" as portrayed in Orwell's  '1984'. As noted in John Hohmann's 'The Daily', Trump's bizarre quote:

"reminded many people — including a former CIA case officer — of “1984,” the dystopian novel. “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command,” wrote George Orwell. “And if all others accepted the lie, which the party imposed, if all records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became the truth.” 

This is what Traitor Trump and his quisling accomplices want to happen, make no mistake. It is thus up to the rest of us - in possession of fully conscious brains and functional eyes,  ears  -  to ensure that travesty doesn't happen. So there you have it. And whether Trump is indicted or not the evidence is out there he's as guilty of high crimes, even treason, as any other historical collaborator n a nefarious conspiracy to undermine our nation.   

Right now this white....errr....orange  trash, lowlife "billionaire" grifter is on Putin's puppet strings. He deserves to swinging from a tree in D.C. after a Mueller indictment for treason.  Giving this treasonous rat a military parade would amount to a consummate insult not only to the military, but the nation. Right now, on learning of that, my Revolutionary War ancestors would be turning over in their graves.

Trump - Officially A Pawn & Intel Asset For Putin And The Russsians

The Traitor-in- Chief - Putin's Personal Puppet - who will do or say anything to provide cover for his master.

"The attempts by Giuliani and others to say 'oh no American involvement', is one hundred percent wrong. We now have it documented what transpired now on the Russian side, but we are within kissing distance of the final hook between the Russian government and the Trump campaign."

Harry Litman, former U.S. Attorney on All In last  night.


Even as the Trump protection media insist he is a king  -  e.g. Kimberly Strassel's WSJ op-ed Friday, that "King" Trump can cut taxes on his own without congress, and today's WSJ  editorial ('After The Strzok Stonewall', p. A12) that  Pete Strzok "stonewalled" so Trump can declassify any and all files  "to learn the truth of what really happened in 2016". In fact,  we already know what happened from the Mueller probe indictment of 12 officers from the GRU intelligence directorate,  yesterday. So the Trump protection alliance can spin all the BS it wants but no one with sense and an IQ over room temperature is buying it.  Trump supporters, voters excepted, who as Harvard Professor Harvey Mansfield put it, "come from the lower half of the IQ curve".(WSJ,  Weekend Interview, March 31).

Let's cut all the Foxite balderdash and cut to the chase: Anyone with more than air between their ears now KNOWS Trump is a goddamned traitor and deserves hanging from the nearest tree, especially if he now goes on to meet Vladimir Putin in secret. This isn't "hyperbole"  or unfair characterization but calling a spade a spade. It is straight unvarnished reality after the orange ape tried to cover for his Russkie collaborators by tossing out the "witch hunt" sound bite on being informed (2 days in advance of its public release) of the latest Mueller indictment.  This was of 12 Russian Military Intelligence officers for whom the names, ranks and roles were even specified . This,  barely 72 hours before the traitor was to hold his one -on- one with Putin.  And despite calls for Trump to cancel his coming secret meet with Putin, we know a traitor never surrenders his cover unless he's caught flat- footed, to the extent he can be hung without question.

True to a Traitor's form, instead of obeying the demands to cancel the covert Putin meeting, in which we'll have no remote idea what he's giving away, Trump doubled down his cover (see David Corn's take at end of post).  Rather than acknowledge the detrimental optics for a private Putin meet, like a true traitor he disparaged the news of the Mueller indictment at a press conference with Therese May;

"I think I have a very good relationship with President Putin.  I think we're being hurt very badly by this witch hunt, I would call it the rigged witch hunt. You know,  in the United States we have this pure stupidity but it makes it very hard to do something with Russia"

Oh, you mean like removing all sanctions imposed, without drawing scrutiny and hyper attention? Is that what's made 'very hard', Mr. Traitor?   Or, do you mean it will be very hard for Russia to help you win in 2020?   Hopefully, maybe by then you'll be hanging from the tallest tree in D.C.

As former assistant Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks put it on All In: "We have no witches here, but we do have a male WARLOCK and his head is almost in the noose. Along with his other warlocks.":

Interestingly,  Mueller's indictment -   the most detailed accusation by the American government to date of the Russian government’s 2016 election interference - came mere hours before Londoners protested the arrival of the treasonous orange maggot in their country,  with an inflatable Baby Trump blimp, e.g.



The Baby Trump captured everything odious about this degenerate, from his infantile, narcissistic nature, to his hideous orange hue via fake tanning creams,  to the incessant need to have his Twitter feed at hand. And his big open yap which never ceases bloviating bullshit and self inflation.

Meanwhile, Mueller's indictment revealed for the first time that a team of Russian Military Intelligence hackers- members of the GRU-  initiated their disruption efforts as early as March, 2016,  or 8 months before the election, and targeting 300 people. This was also around the same time Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos  learned from an Aussie diplomat the Russians possessed "dirt" on Clinton.

Mueller released the indictment day before Trump's planned secret sit down with Putin, obviously as a warning shot over Trump's bow, to behave himself. Or else.  According to the indictment:

"On or about July 27, 2016, the conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts on a domain hosted by a third party provider and used by Clinton's personal office. They also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton campaign. '

Most interesting, this happened on the very same day Traitor Trump appeared in front of the media cameras and pleaded with Russia to hack Hillary's emails.  In front of millions, the Orange Turd had baldly blurted:

"I will tell you this, Russia if you're listening, I hope that you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. You will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see if that happens."

So Trump, in full public view, asked Russia to hack his political opponent.  Did this just come out of the blue as a brain fart blurt? Not at all, given we know Russia has been funding Trump since the late 1980s.  On account of that funding and other Kompromat materials (e.g. the piss video revealed in the Steele dossier), we know Donnie Dotard is  Putin's puppet,  with multiple strings that can be puled at will.

As per The New Republic (Aug./Sept. 2017, . p. 29):

"A review of the public record reveals a clear and disturbing pattern: Trump owes much of his business success, and by extension his presidency, to a flow of highly suspicious money from Russia. Over the past three decades, at least 13 people with known or alleged links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs have owned, lived in, or even run criminal activities out of Trump Tower and other Trump properties. Many used his apartments and casinos to launder untold millions in dirty money .....Taken together, the flow of money from Russia provided Trump with a crucial infusion of financing that helped rescue his empire from ruin, burnish his image, and launch his career in television and politics....It's entirely possible that Trump was never more than a convenient patsy for Russian oligarchs and mobsters."

 And his July 27 invitation to hack Hillary's emails disclosed he was also by then (likely even before) a convenient gopher, puppet and collaborator to the Russkies, who he hoped would help deliver the White House via enough electoral votes in key swing states. Hell, it's been known since earlier this year that Mueller's investigators have been asking witnesses if Trump was advised to make the comment about the Clinton emails from someone outside his campaign.  So Trump tried to coordinate the release of the emails to do the most damage to Clinton, and the GRU provided him with all the material.

In the indictment (see  end of post) we now know one GRU unit engaged in active cyber operations by stealing information, while a second, different unit was responsible for disseminating the stolen information.  Much of this was done via the entity known as "Guccifer 2.0" - who then passed the information on to Wikileaks.

I admit that at the time the initial  (DNC) hacking incidents were exposed (two days before the Clinton email hacks), I wasn't 100 percent convinced it was the Russians, I posted about it (e.g. July 25th, 2016) and wrote at the time:

There was a "claim" - still no evidence - by a DNC -hired bunch of "experts" ('CrowdStrike") that the DNC's email system was breached by "Russian hackers". Even if true, and I haven't seen anything to convince me yet, this doesn't mean the Russian government or Putin was behind it. Further, people need to read this before they jump on that suspicious political meme bandwagon:

http://www.csoonline.com/article/3084594/security/dnc-hacker-slams-crowdstrike-publishes-opposition-memo-on-donald-trump.html

So, until the illustrious 'CrowdStrike' team can provide firm evidence that Guccifer 2.0 was in fact Russian or the "Russian hackers" I will withhold accepting the DNC claim."
  
However, I now believe the case has been made and the details in the indictment have convinced me (at last) we can blame the Russkies for those early hacks.  Also, that Wikileaks was collaborating as when they responded to Guccifer 2.0", i.e.:

"Send any new material (stolen from the DNC) here for us to review and it will have a much higher impact then what you are doing."

That single statement totally altered my perceptions of Wikileaks, from a respectable group  of global citizens out to get the truth (as when they exposed the horrific videos of U.S. helicopter gunships slaughtering civilian Iraqis some 10 years ago), to a detestable bunch of vermin cooperating to undermine a U.S. election.

We now return to the core issue: Was the  July 27, 2016  televised Trump invitation to the Russkies a signal sent to the GRU to launch its hack attack? We don't know, but it sure appears there's enough 'smoke' to infer a fire, one started by the Donald.

According to journalist David Corn, appearing on All In last night, made these remarks concerning the Mueller indictments:

"What this is is a reminder of reality.  Trump and his minions have kept saying this didn't really happen, so in a lot of ways this is an indictment of Donald Trump, of all the people who said the Russia attack never happened. Here we have it in granular detail.  Read between the lines of this iindictment and there's the other half of the equation. That throughout the campaign, and while the attack was going on, Donald Trump and his lieutenants were saying it's not happening. Even when he was briefed by U.S. intelligence he came out and said, 'nope, nothing happening, could be a 400 pound guy, we don't know that it's Russia'

Well, now we know it's Russia. Now we know while they were doing this he was providing cover, he was covering up what they were doing, which was for his benefit. "

In other words, Trump - aka "the Donald" - is effectively a Russian intelligence asset and blatant actor on Putin's behalf, to undermine the U.S. national security interests. This is by way of enabling meddling in our elections to propel Trump to power and act as said agent on Putin's behalf, as well as disrupting friendly alliances and kowtowing to autocrats and dictators - especially Putin.

Readers can believe what they will, I believe this guy should be hung.

[Read the indictment here.]

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/elizabeth-preza/80167/he-doesn-t-read-ex-us-ambassador-to-russia-details-putin-s-strategic-advantage-over-trump-ahead-of-

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/cody-fenwick/80138/a-moment-in-american-history-ex-gop-lawmaker-argues-muellers-latest-charges-should-make-us-fearful-of-

Excerpt:

"The president has known for days about this and he did not pivot in the press conference today to change his message nor is he changing the meeting," he continued. "And what Americans should feel today — and I say this carefully — but we should feel fear. The Department of Justice today issued a statement on behalf of the United States government saying that one of our greatest adversaries in the world, Russia, had intelligence agents interfere with our elections. ... We should be fearful about the allegation. We should be fearful about the statement of facts. At the end of the day, we should be fearful we have a president who has known about this and did not change his behavior."

AND:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/chiara-giaccari/80153/the-trump-putin-helsinki-summit-why-a-meeting-behind-closed-doors
 

With Obama Sanctions on Russkies Should New U.S. Elections Now Be Called?

Many citizens want this little troll dumped before Jan. 20th and either new elections called, or Hillary installed as official President - because of the claimed Russian manipulation of the 2016 elections.

It isn't easy being an obnoxious, entitled little twitter troll drooling at the mouth to fuck the country up as "president" but who is then presented evidence of foreign influence in the recent election. An influence which, arguably, catapulted his lot to power. As noted in a previous post, the deliberate hacking in key battleground states could genuinely overturn the "apple cart" of a free election.

As I noted in my December 28th post, despite the isist4ence of state election officials that their processes are fair and rigorous,

Expert Dan S. Wallach and his colleagues believe a crafty team of pros could strike surgically, focusing on select counties in a few battleground states where “a small nudge might be decisive."

As a battleground state with paperless voting machines, Pennsylvania would be a perfect candidate. In affidavits for the recount. Computer scientist J. Alex Halderman of the University of Michigan laid out how attackers could conduct a successful hack (ibid.):

—Probe election offices well in advance to determine how to break into computers.

—After identifying battleground states, infect voting machines in targeted counties with malware that would shift a small percentage of the vote to a desired candidate.

—After silently altering electronic tallies, erase digital tracks to leave no trace.

Let's concede that this bears serious scrutiny as the Russkie plan called "Grizzly Steppe" was exposed.. Let us also allow, at least as a strong possibility, that Obama and the intelligence services knew at least one of these methods took place at some level, hence the sanctions which include:

- Steps against two FRS spy agencies

- Similar steps against 4 specific GRU intel officials, and two suspected hackers.

- Ejection of 35 Russian intel operatives from their U.S. enclaves, e.g. in D C  and Frisco.

- Shutting down of two Russian compounds., one in MY the other in MD

- Release of evidence of Russian cyber activity including the network addresses of the actual computers used by the Russians to launch the cyber backs

Let us also agree that such serious steps, including proposed covert sanctions, would not be taken unless the Prez and his intelligence community (all 17 agencies) had very solid evidence indeed. They wouldn't just go out on a lark and initiate these sanctions. Not by a long shot.

This brings up the further question of what to do about the sullied recent election, if true. While Obama and his cohort are careful not to claim the Russian influence actually handed Trump the election, at the same time it is logically impossible to assert there was NO tilt at all. If I load 2 dice by 0.01g as opposed to 0.02 g and they land snake eyes 8 of 10 times, am I not responsible for the unbalanced outcome? What about 80 of 100 times?

What we are getting into is a lot of technical "weeds" and the objective differences between "tilting" an election, "rigging" it and "handing" it to one's opponent. I will argue here that it doesn't matter which as long as we are talking of some kind of stochastic tactic, which the culprits knew to be so, but who were satisfied the outcome would be to their distinct benefit, i.e. having Trump elected.

Thus, the letter appearing in the Denver Post three weeks ago from a person I will call "Ms. X" who wrote that if it is shown how Russians could have hacked the election and people, names are called out, then new elections must be called, or Hillary installed as the rightful president by acclamation and default.

As I read the letter out to Janice, we both had a good laugh, because for one thing, new elections would hardly be called now and the recent one held Nov. 8th will not be "nullified".  To say it was "one for the ages" would be understatement. Further, electoral laws state clearly when general elections are held, and with all the tumult of the recent one and harsh attacks there is little chance of holding a do-over. Let me rephrase that: there is about as much chance of that happening as aliens from the third planet of Tau Ceti landing on the DC Mall on the 20th of January and kidnaping Donald Trump. Maybe to make a gourmet dinner out of him back home. at least it would spare us his asinine tweets.  I would also add - and J. agrees - there is the same chance that Hillary will be named President by default. Perhaps she should be, but it ain't gonna happen..(We'd likely have a new Civil War with the Trumpsters on our hands.)

Meanwhile, as expected, Trump tweeted that "It is time to move on to bigger and better things". Hmmmm, like prosecuting or impeaching him for corruption as a result of his business entanglements  - including in the Philippines, Argentina, Taiwan and China? More on this in a future post!

Most interesting, the GOP congress led by Sens. McCain and  Lindsey Graham now plan to go full bore in an investigation - presumably bipartisan- to get to the bottom of it all next year. It should be interest, especially to see how far they will venture in opposition to the Donald's (aka Twitter Troll's) wishes.  Some have said (in the GOP) Obama "didn't go far enough" - but again, Obama is playing 4 dimensional chess and they are stuck in 3 dimensions, or maybe two.  By leaving space for harsher punishments Obama is leaving it to the Republicans in congress to put their money where their big mouths are. He is leaving it to them to show they really do want stronger sanctions, and are not merely performing a political PR stunt.

Before closing, I should note that not everyone, including on the Left, is convinced that there is enough material or direct evidence to justify the sanctions Obama has taken. Or to inculpate the Russians as the culprits. I leave it to readers to see the "other side" in the link below from Robert Parry:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/70475/details-still-lacking-on-russian-hack