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California?
what foreign power did the DNC collude with to screw bernie?
California?
roasted
planning a toast for 2020
Former CIA Director John Brennan sticks up for Trump
President Trump complains repeatedly about leaks in Washington. He’s got a bit of distinguished company.
“What I have found appalling is the number of leaks that have taken place over the last several months,” former CIA Director John Brennan said at the SALT conference in Las Vegas, the annual gathering of hedge-fund managers and other financiers. “This needs to be stopped.” Brennan was CIA director during President Obama’s second term, stepping down in January, when Mike Pompeo replaced him.
Brennan said Trump made a “serious mistake” when he reportedly shared sensitive intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in an Oval Office meeting in early May. But this mistake wasn’t sharing intelligence; it was violating the protocol for doing so. “I shared intelligence with the Russians when I was the director of the CIA,” Brennan said. “But you share that through intelligence channels, and you make sure you word it in such as way as to not reveal sources and methods. President Trump didn’t do that.”
Brennan said the press coverage of Trump’s impromptu intelligence reveal was “hyperbolic” and possibly more damaging than anything Trump revealed. “The damage that was done is what was leaked in the aftermath, what was put in the media. The real damage to national security is the leaks.” He suggested, without saying so explicitly, that news accounts revealed more sensitive information than Trump did.
“The real damage to national security is the leaks,” Brennan said. “These individuals who still stay within the government and are leaking this stuff to the press need to be brought to task.”
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/f...174513960.html
Trump revealed intelligence secrets to Russians in Oval Office: officials
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKCN18B2MX
Those darn leakers.
So the fact that there were what has been described as an "unusual" amount of contact between Trumps team and Russian govt officials is consistent with the Steele dossiers assertion.
Russian Spy Met Trump Adviser Carter Page and Thought He Was an ‘Idiot’
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/04/...-was-an-idiot/
"Male-1" here [pdf version of FBI do ent]:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.do ent...-complaint.pdf
Another bit out of the dossier that ended up being proven out when looked at.
That is some more of what was confirmed by the do ent.Former Los Angeles Times Moscow correspondent Robert Gillette wrote in an op-ed in the Concord Monitor that the dossier has had at least one of its main factual assertions verified. On January 6, 2017, the Director of National Intelligence released a report assessing "with high confidence" that Russia's combined cyber and propaganda operation was directed personally by Vladimir Putin, with the aim of harming Hillary Clinton's candidacy and helping Trump.[49] Gillette wrote: "Steele's dossier, paraphrasing multiple sources, reported precisely the same conclusion, in greater detail, six months earlier, in a memo dated June 20."[50]
Now lets look at its shortcomings.
Good place to start is Newsweek article.
http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump...hacking-541626
While there are some valid critiques to be had, this is not one of them.1. “Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by Putin, has been to encourage splits and divisions in the Western alliance.”
If true, this makes the Russian regime pretty much psychic, since in 2011 there was little hint that Trump would pursue a political career that would take him much further than his campaign to convince Americans that President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. and therefore was not legally permitted to be president. Five years ago, Trump was recovering from his latest bankruptcy, and concentrating on his reality show The Apprentice and the Miss Universe compe ion. As for “supporting and assisting” Trump during that time period—indeed Miss Universe was held in a mall in Moscow in 2013. Though Trump later hinted that Putin attended the contest, the Russian President and indeed all top Russian officials stayed home.
Trump ran for president before, and was a vocal critic of Obama. Assisting him and getting people close to him would be a good way to further the interest of undermining liberal democracy.since in 2011 there was little hint that Trump would pursue a political career that would take him much further than his campaign to convince Americans that President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S.
Intelligence services of all countries develop all manner of potential sources, even though they know some won't pan out. You can't hit a lucky "7" if you don't throw the dice.
If I remember correctly, Trump declined offer A, because he was pushing for offer B.2. “So far TRUMP has declined serious sweetheart real estate business deals offered him in Russia…”
Really? If Trump declined the deals, why did he push so hard to meet with Russian business leaders after the Miss Universe compe ion? And why did he try and fail to push his Trump Tower deal in Moscow and St. Petersburg as late as 2013, as reported in Newsweek?
Have to re-read the thing, but Trump didn't get what he wanted, but they offered him some other instead. Again, not really a good criticism.
"Clinton and other political rivals".3. “However he and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on Democratic and other political rivals.”
A regular flow of intelligence on Clinton? Such as what exactly? Trump may have coined the “Crooked Hillary” and “Lock Her Up” slogans, in relation to Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State—but there’s no evidence that Trump or his campaign used any kind of secret intelligence in their campaign. The controversial online break-ins at the Democratic National Committee, thought to be the work of two Russian hacking groups, APT 28 and APT 29, were communicated to Wikileaks, not to the Trump campaign. And furthermore, the leaked DNC emails didn’t contain anything particularly explosive or damaging.
Again, sort of a thin criticism. The author does not address the value of the intelligence. What if what the Russians forked over wasn't really all that valuable?
I would say that I thought Trump appeared well briefed on some of the vulnerabilities of his opponents in the Republican debates. It was one of the few things that he really did well, i.e. harp on some weakness, but that is consistent with simply good organic opposition research.
This particular claim is fairly weak, given it is very hard to prove out. A good lawyer team would scrub any do ents, and a good intel officer would make the stuff as hard as possible to track back to its ultimate source.
The interesting thing here is that the dossier specifically says Wikileaks was used to provide plausible deniability to the operation to support Trump. The author of the critique seems oblivious to this.
The assertion is weak, but the author missed the mark.
Yes, it would.4. “Former top Russian intelligence officer claims FSB has compromised TRUMP [whose] conduct in Moscow has included perverted sexual acts which have been arranged/monitored by the FSB.”
Fascinating if true. But it also gives rise to a serious question—if Trump has known about the existence of this tape for some time (as the report later alleges), wouldn't it amount to a ticking time bomb under his campaign and his career?
As stated before:
Trump cheated on his first wife with a woman who was 10 years younger, then married that mistress.
Trump cheated on his second wife with a woman who was 10 years younger, then married that mistress.
Trump has been accused, by multiple women, of all sorts of sexual assault up to and including rape, and is on tape bragging about such.
Trump has a 20+ year track record of remarks objectifying women.
Russia has a very marked machismo culture for wealthy men, wherein high-priced call girls are essentially a coin of the realm and symbol of power.
This particular bit, taken on its face, is extremely plausible. I will go so far as to say more likely than not.
Trump was in Russia on multiple occassions.
Trump is exactly the kind of guy who would partake.
Russian modus operendi is to record such things.
What exact sex acts would be on the tape: Who knows? Beside the point for me.
Again, the author misses something important.5. “A dossier of compromising material on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian intelligence services over many years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia.… However it has not been distributed abroad, including to TRUMP.”
As Secretary of State, Clinton used non-secure communications while in Russia that resulted in “compromising material” being gathered by the FSB? Hard to credit. And the FSB, which was supposedly passing secret information to Trump’s campaign, chose not to share its supposedly compromising material on Clinton? That seems to contradict point 3.
"Bugged conversations" is not the same as "non-secure communications [presumably phone calls or emails]
The dossier notes "bugged" as in "covert listening devices".
Not really much to say here, other than the author doesn't seem familiar with the material.
The Steele dossier talks a lot about Russian intelligence dossiers on Clinton and Trump. Giving dribs and drabs about Clinton, but not the full thing doesn't really "contradict point 3". Anything truly sensitive could be given to Wikileaks anyway, to protect source of information.
Again, the author missed the point. "why?" he asks. "On Putins' orders", that's why. Might not make sense to us, but if something is ordered by Putin within the Russian government, what other reason is needed?6. “The dossier is controlled by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, directly on Putin’s orders.”
Why would such a dossier be controlled by Peskov, whose job is to talk to the press, when it must have originated with the FSB and/or FAPSI, the federal electronic surveillance service? Peskov is a Kremlin courtier, the charming public face of the regime, not a spy.
Best criticism yet, and the most valid TSA's "he was never in country" is a clumsy attempt to get to this.7. “Speaking to a trusted compatriot in June 2016 sources A and B, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure and a former top level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin…”
Hearsay evidence. These sources may be bone fide—but they’re already at least one degree of separation from the author of the report. He has never even spoken to these top level sources himself.
Gossip does tend to get distorted. But then rumor mills more often than one might realize, produce grains of truth. I have seen this first hand after working in large organizations.
Another invalid critique.8. “Source A confided that the Kremlin has been feeding TRUMP and his team valuable intelligence on his opponents, including…Clinton, for several years.”
Several years? Those psychic Russians again. Trump announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015. Clinton announced hers on April 12, 2015.
Developing sources and assets does not have to entail any great predictive powers. You develop everything in hopes that something pans out.
Getting down into the weeds. Ironically, the author presents his own speculation as to the reasons behind the phrasing, and provides his own conclusion, when his main critique of the do ent hinges on doing exactly that in several cases?9. Source D, “a close associate of TRUMP who had organized and managed his recent trips to Moscow” is cited as as an eyewitness to TRUMP’s “personal obsessions and sexual perversions.” “According to Source D, where s/he had been present, TRUMP’s (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton hotel where he knew that President and Mrs OBAMA (whom he hated) had stayed…and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of pros utes to perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms.”
Leaving aside the allegation itself (which is later supposedly backed up by the testimonies of Sources E, F and B), it’s worth looking at the tortured and borderline non-native syntax of this sentence. Would a native English speaker talk of a hotel being “under FSB control”? That’s a clear Russianism ("pod kontrolem FSB") that may be picked up from the original source—or may suggest that the author isn’t actually a British MI6 agent at all.
Sloppy writing does not always make for bad information. Not enough here to say either way, IMO.
Mildly convincing.10. The existence of a “Russian dossier or ‘kompromat’ on Hillary Clinton” is confirmed by “Source B…S/he confided in a trusted compatriot that it had been collated by Department K of the FSB for many years.”
This makes no sense. The FSB’s Directorate K is one of the most controversial departments of Russia’s security elite, and its remit translates as “counter intelligence in financial services.” Directorate K has been involved directly and indirectly in some of the dirtiest scandals of recent times—including the plundering of Hermitage Capital and the murder of their lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009. But it has nothing to do with gathering intelligence on foreign leaders—that’s the SVR, the Foreign Intelligence Service, and FAPSI, the electronic eavesdropping department.
Problematic: bureaucratic infighting and turf war is rarely so clear cut, especially in a place like Russia. Our own services squabble over who gets/does what and where. The author does not present anything supporting this.
Also possible: the source may have gotten the two mixed up.
Again, hard to tell if this is a good bit, without a bit more than is provided to evaluate.
This passage hints at the part of the dossier that most interests me, because it outlines WHO was involved.11. “Source E, an ethnic Russian close associate of…TRUMP admitted that there was a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between them and the Russian leadership. This was managed on the TRUMP side by…campaign manager Paul MANAFORT who was using foreign policy adviser Carter Page and others as intermediaries.”
Source E, who is not described in any more detail, is a goldmine of information. He, or she, claims that in exchange for intelligence on their opponents “the TRUMP team had agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue and to raise US/NATO defence commitments in the Baltics and Eastern Europe to deflect attention away from Ukraine, a priority for PUTIN who needed to cauterise the subject.” Again, oddly non-native syntax here—and also no mention of the fact that all the Trump men mentioned have been long-standing opponents of sanctions on Russia even before any possible intelligence deal.
Every WHO mentioned in this dossier as having contacts with Russians that people have done any digging about has panned out. I care less about grammar, and more about things that can be verified.
The dossier, for all its faults, is the roadmap for the investigation.
I gotta get going.
By the by:
The Dossier itself:
https://www.do entcloud.org/do e...legations.html
Pretty much what I think as well. Worth looking into.
What are your thoughts if I told you that the Steele dossier was paid for by Andrew McCabe/FBI in order to get something to present to the judge in order to get the FISA warrant since their first attempt was shut down? The same Andrew McCabe who is under federal investigation for not recusing himself while leading the Clinton email investigation after it was revealed his wife accepted $700,000 from Clinton allies for her senate bid.
are you saying heads will roll?
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