The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee today released the long-awaited 5th volume of their exhaustive report on Russian interference during the 2016 election. While this volume, titled Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities, doesn’t appear to break a lot of new ground, it’s good to be reminded once again, especially as we’re headed into another election, that members of Donald Trump’s campaign had close personal ties to the Russians, encouraged Russian interference against the Clinton campaign, and sought to obstruct the ensuing lawful and legitimate investigations. And it bears repeating that this isn’t a report issued by some left wing think tank. This, again, is a bipartisan report issued by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee.
According to the report, “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president,” with the intention being to “tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process.” In other words, Donald Trump was completely full of shit when he suggested that it was Ukraine, and not Russia, that had hacked the DNC servers, and when he said that he believed Putin had nothing to do with it. [The Senate report says on page 108, “The Committee identified no reliable evidence that the Ukrainian government interfered in the 2016 election.”]
No, it was the Russians who hacked the DNC, and they did so at the behest of Putin. This is not “fake news.” It’s not a “witch hunt.” It’s a fact. And the Trump administration attempted to stop the very necessary investigation into this at every turn.
Republicans today are latching onto the fact that this report, like the Mueller report before it, stops short of demonstrating collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians who aided their efforts. And this is true. The Senate report issued today does not contain any smoking gun evidence that members of the Trump campaign directly helped orchestrate the Russian active measures campaign intended to “undermine the U.S. democratic process.” What the Senate investigation did find, however, is that Trump and his advisors were open to the help of an American adversary, and that Paul Manafort, the chairman of Trump’s 2016 campaign, was determined to be a “grave counterintelligence threat” due to his repeated contacts with members of Russian intelligence. And, in this area, today’s report does break some new ground, in that it identifies Manafort associate Konstantin Kilimnik as a “Russian intelligence officer” — a Russian intelligence officer that, though his connections, “created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign.” [The Mueller report just identified Kilimnik as having Russian intelligence connections.]
As for collusion, I don’t know how it’s defined in a legal sense, but it seems to me that Roger Stone telling Jerome Corsi to get Julian Assange to “drop the Podesta emails immediately,” when it became known that the “pussy grabbing” Access Hollywood tape was about to come out probably comes pretty close. [It’s also worth remembering that, according to reports this past February, Donald Trump offered Julian Assange a pardon if he denied Russia link to hack.]
Some details about the day of the Access Hollywood tape/Podesta emails release: Trump campaign team heard about the tape an hour before its release. Stone told Corsi to get Assange to "drop the Podesta emails immediately." WikiLeaks did so 30 min after tape published. (249) pic.twitter.com/rKfDnJ511f
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) August 18, 2020
And, yes, Wikileaks was doing the work of the Russians, contrary to what Trump might suggest. Today’s report says that the committee “found significant evidence to suggest that, in the summer of 2016, WikiLeaks was knowingly collaborating with Russian government officials.”
I could go on, but I suspect that all of you capable of rational thought already know what’s up. And the rest of you could never be convinced. So, with that, I’m going to bed.
OK, here’s one last thing. This is what I posted back in July of 2018, upon hearing Donald Trump say that he believe Vladimir Putin and not his own national security advisors on the subject of Russia’s election interference. The post was titled, “Some Dare Call It Treason: When a former CIA Director starts referring to your actions as “treasonous,” I think you might have a problem.”
Well, today was the big day. Following almost immediately on the heels of last week’s big announcement about the grand jury indictments of 12 Russian military intelligence officers for committing acts of cyber warfare against the U.S. during the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump had more than ample opportunity to cancel this morning’s private one-on-one meeting with Vladimir Putin, the man we now know, for a certainty, orchestrated the hacking of Democratic campaign servers in order to aid the Trump 2016 team. Instead of heeding the advice of the U.S. intelligence community, however, Donald Trump continued on with his plans, meeting with the ruthless dictator behind closed doors for over two hours, with no other Americans present. And, sadly, that wasn’t the worst of it.
When the private meeting had concluded, as thinking people everywhere were busy speculating how it was that Putin came to have such a hold over our President, Donald Trump stood up in front a room of reporters next to a smirking Putin and said that, despite the indictments, and the mountains of evidence that had been shown to him, he still saw no reason for concern. In fact, he said, he still wasn’t convinced that it had even happened.
Asked point blank if he believed his own intelligence agencies, and their conclusion that Russia had meddle in our election, Donald Trump said, “My people came to me, [Director of National Intelligence] Dan Coats came to me, some others, they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this, I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
Our Republican President then went on to say, “President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”
Watch for yourselves.
President Trump at the news conference with Putin on Russian interference in the US election: President Putin said it’s not Russia, “I don’t see any reason why it would be” https://t.co/nPWxwvrWp4 pic.twitter.com/7qGzsS18vY
— CNN (@CNN) July 16, 2018
So, now the nation holds its breath and waits to see what our Republican Congress will do, as they hold every lever of power, and have been satisfied to look the other way just as long as Donald Trump agreed to appoint their judges, and cut their taxes. Now, though, according to the Atlantic, it’s “the moment of truth,” where Republicans have to decide whether or not they really care about the country at all, or only the wealth and power that come with control. And people like Democratic Congressmen Adam Schiff are appealing to their last vestiges of decency, urging them to do the right thing before they “become enablers” of something truly horrific, as though that hasn’t been their position from the time the Access Hollywood “pussy grabbing” audio first surfaced, to just recently, when we learned about the toddler prisons on the border. The truth is, they’re now so far down the slippery slope, I doubt they could stop even if they’d wanted to. The momentum, I fear, just won’t let them.
You don't have to be a dentist to recognize the body language of treason. pic.twitter.com/mNFuzCdeMz
— Mark Maynard (@MarkAMaynard) July 16, 2018
And so we wait, as, one by one, the Republican members of Congress weigh in with their statements.
So far, it’s not looking good. While John McCain came out and pronounced it to be “disgraceful,” most wouldn’t allow themselves to go so far. Bob Corker, for instance, just said he was “saddened” and “disappointed.” That, however, was still better than Rand Paul, who praised the “renewing open lines of conversation” between the U.S. and Russia. [McCain went on to say, “No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant.”]
But some seem to be searching for a way off the sinking ship. Newt Gingrich, for instance, took to Twitter and demanded an explanation. “President Trump must clarify his statements in Helsinki on our intelligence system and Putin,” he said. “It is the most serious mistake of his presidency and must be corrected—-immediately.”
But Fox, you can be sure, isn’t going to just sit around and wait for the pressure to build against the President. They’ve already begun spinning, with Sean Hannity going on the offensive this evening, pushing a conspiracy theory in line with their always popular “Obama was worse” narrative. According to Hannity, whatever Putin may have done, Obama did worse when he “interfered in Israel’s election.” This, of course, is a claim that has already been debunked, but what does that matter, right? We, after all, have a war against immigrants to fight here, and Donald Trump is our great white champion, no mater what kind of leverage Vladimir Putin may have over him.
And, as you might expect, Donald Trump has gone back to blaming Hillary Clinton’s server for getting itself hacked, like a rapist arguing that his victim was “asking for it” because of the way that she was dressed.
I wonder how many people are searching, "how to build a guillotine" on Google right now. pic.twitter.com/ct5O3PzDZL
— Mark Maynard (@MarkAMaynard) July 16, 2018
So if you care at all about this country, I’d encourage you to call your elected officials and demand that they speak out. We cannot just allow this to pass the same way that we’ve allowed everything else to pass. And I’m afraid we need to start pressuring the people who support Donald Trump, and not just the man himself. As vile as he may be, and as corrosive as he may be to our democratic institutions, the truth is that he couldn’t have made it in office for one week without a complicit Congress that was willing to look the other way in exchange for wealth and power. And we need to go after those people. And, maybe, just maybe, now that the t-word is being uttered in polite D.C. society, they’ll be forced to re-triangulate and do the right thing.
Speaking of the t-word, the one good thing about Trump’s absolutely jaw-dropping performance in Helsinki today is that people have now started to say it more freely. Here, to give you and example, is something written earlier this afternoon by former CIA Director John Brennan.
Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of “high crimes & misdemeanors.” It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???
— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) July 16, 2018
[note: If something is “nothing short of treasonous,” it’s treasonous.]
So, yeah, when you call your elected officials, be sure to tell them that what we just saw in Helsinki is treason, and that it’ll be the lucky ones who are just driven from office and banished to the wilderness.
The penalty for treason, after all, is death.
There’s more that I could say… I wanted to tell you, for instance, about how Trump actually suggested at some point in the joint news conference that Robert Mueller make information and sources available to the Russians so that they might help investigate, but, in hopes of preserving a bit of my sanity for the street fights to come, I’ve decided to take it easy this evening.
Goodspeed, patriots.
update: Donald Trump responds, accusing others of Treason.
The first words out of Trump's mouth in Yuma, Arizona tease that he wants to shred the Constitution and serve at least 3 terms: "Considering we caught President Obama and sleepy Joe Biden spying on our campaign — treason — we'll probably be entitled to another four more years." pic.twitter.com/PP9nKAvSh6
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 18, 2020
40 Comments
IIRC, Trump told us that Putin said that he didn’t know about it, and Trump said he believed Putin.
https://youtu.be/VZwfEWpG_wA
“Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He’s in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. It is what it is.”
Frosted Flakes
Posted August 4, 2020 at 1:08 pm | Permalink
The problem is Trump is never going to be ready because he is not very good at playing the expert about health stuf—because he is not.
Trump is what he is. Biden is what he is. The truth is what it is .
Despite large differences, FF and Obama agree on something.
“Dear Vladimir Putin, I’m a big fan of yours!’ – DJT
String that traitor up. And the love letters are the icing on the cake. What do we do with the bunch of losers that enabled this treason?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8640863/Donald-Trumps-fawning-letters-Russian-strongman-Vladimir-Putin-revealed.html
He doesn’t need to be an expert, vague guy. He needs to know his limitations when speaking on subjects around health. What is your point? Fauci for president? I’m sure Fauci has no blind spots and weaknesses…
Funny. You all act like Russia and the US haven’t been working to manipulate each other’s elections for the past 75 years.
I’m sure ColuMbo’s reading and analysis was meticulous but does anybody know how to find a “keyword” searchable version of the report?
“Funny. You all act like Russia and the US haven’t been working to manipulate each other’s elections for the past 75 years.”
I’m sure, had it been Obama or Clinton defending the Russian manipulation of our election, and then obstructing the investigation, your response would have been exactly the same.
I agree. I have an entirely different reaction to how the Biden’s and others made millions in Ukraine.
What is the finding based on? Crowdstrike said they never had direct evidence of a hack.
Surely ColuMbo can answer HW’s question quite easily because the answer is to HW’s question would be what ColuMbo’s supposed “fact” is grounded in.
Maynard must be a fast reader. Not as fast as Natasha Bertrand but still fast. LOL
Please know that when ColuMbo is failing to answer that basic question which is necessary to substantiate his claim to be in possession of a fact—that not much of anything even hinges upon whether or not Russia actually did the hacking—it’s simply Dem reframing inorder to avoid the real issues.
But by all means, please do substantiate your “lil fact” that is so important to you Maynard.
The language In the report is just so definitive , “significant evidence to suggest”.
The Democrats are going to find away to loose this election. Keep things focused on current events like the trumpvirus and the defeatist death cult incompetence in addressing it. Or the dismantling and privatization of public services. Every time you choose to talk Russia, you give the playing field back to Trump. As much as you want to think Russiagate is a winner,it should be clear by now, it is not. Pelosie would not impeach Trump over it, Outside of MSNBC and the MSM it never gained much political traction.
Clinton auctioned off White House stays to Chinese and Indonesia businessmen for campaign donations. If you are going to run an empire you have to accept the vassals trying to curry favor.
Who needs to hack when insiders download the contents to a flash drive? RIP Seth. Can you make the hack any easier than to put top secret and confidential emails on a Yahoo server? Or convince Weiner that he has insurance against his Pedogate activities by keeping copies of damaging emails on the laptop where he stores his kiddie porno?
This type of death cult incompetence will have far more traction with voters in Florida than any amount of Russiagate flailing will achieve.
https://www.fox13news.com/news/nearly-300-students-in-florida-county-quarantined-due-to-covid-19-exposure-concerns
Most everyone knows some one dealing with the death cult wanting to kill teachers and students. Almost everyone counts on the mail for bills, payments or other realities of daily life Other than political junkies no body is effected by the open corruption in DC. I mean the SCOTUS says corporations are people—-if that is ok with the political establishment how is a normal citizen going to determine what kind of bribe is a bad bribe v a good bribe.
This will effect the election not a four year old story
A new CDC analysis of children hospitalized for the coronavirus finds:
• 1 in 3 was admitted to the ICU
• Black kids were 5 times as likely as white kids to be hospitalized
• Hispanic kids were about 8 times as likely as white kids to be hospitalized
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/08/900494834/children-can-get-severe-covid-19-cdc-says-especially-black-and-hispanic-children?fbclid=IwAR0nYylXaDr5yaemlUvGR5J7E5Np4Q49MVEQRMQh6kOqAlDeAnYDs2nLSHk
It’s interesting that there is a (outdated) link to Matt Taibbi on the side of the page. It seems like it should be replaced with a link to Rachel Maddow these days.
Has anyone here read Taibbi’s reporting on Russiagate?
Matt’s reporting, as always is reliably and well sourced. Since he is an actual reporter rather than a parrot his work is pretty much ignored by MSM. His latest book sounds like a good read.
“Most everyone knows some one dealing with the death cult wanting to kill teachers and students.”
Come awn, manh…
The President of the USA was asked his opinion of Qanon. I would be interested to hear your interpretation of his response.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuuyvaE0Fos
HW, EOS FF, why isn’t the Leader Breaking up the monopolies? What an utter fake.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/facebook-says-its-cracking-down-on-thousands-of-qanon-linked-accounts-and-groups/ar-BB18a4KW?li=BBnb7Kz
Good catch Anonymous. Please pick a pseudonymous handle and post more observations. Believe me when I tell you that you do not want to continue to post as “Anonymous”. That handle is reserved for “special” commentors. Please consider “Machel Maddow” as your handle….I think it would be great.
No
Contemplation is a human activity that too many of us infrequently engage with. Upon contemplation I was too hasty in dismissing FF’s handle. At first I thought dummy is just a derivative of dumb which is no different than being a dolt. But upon reviewing other authorities I now realize thatdummy is really an artificial creation made up to resemble a human. Since I ve spent most of my life as a robotnik, dummy is not a bad translation if not at all literal.
When I looked up skummy, the urban dictionary defines it as intoxicated.
So FF my apologies, being slurred as a drunken worker is nothing new so feel free to use if it makes you feel good.
Why not just stop trying to smear people in such lame ass ways? That way I can just refer to you as Wobblie. You have many times tried to connect me with criminal acts of violence. It’s so dumb. Dumb. Every. Fucking. Time.
Faceless Fascist it is then. Going to be interesting to see how enforcement of this goes with the virus transmitters arriving in town. Thanks to the death cult, we might see freedom riots- if I cant party what is the sense of a campus experience.
https://www.washtenaw.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1082&fbclid=IwAR2NeZrJzwvUNO1LgfvTpjyaOmw_SJYYyG99vV8caP4ChbWxJiZT1G2HKKs
Who did the forensic examination of the DNC server, the FBI or Crowdstrike? Who is Seth Rich?
What a day huh, one of the Muller special council pleads guilty to altering evidence to obtain FISA on Carter Page. An FIB lawyer no less. Can’t wait to see what’s in that 10 page plea deal he signed… good days, good days.
Obamagate! Am I right?
Speaking of Putin, did you see this headline today in the NYT?
“The Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny was in intensive care after suffering symptoms of what his spokeswoman called poisoning.”
Obamagate is the least of their worries. Yesterday the President responded to a pointed question about Qanon with another question: Is saving the world from cannibal pedos supposed to be a bad thing?
https://news.yahoo.com/supposed-bad-thing-trump-responds-225056380.html
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I don’t know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate. But I don’t know much about the movement. I have heard that it is gaining in popularity. And from what I hear, it’s these are people that, when they watch the streets of Portland, when they watch what happened in New York City in just the last six or seven months– but this was starting even four years ago when I came here– almost four years, can you believe it– these are people that don’t like seeing what’s going on in places like Portland and places like Chicago and New York, and other cities and states. And I’ve heard these are people that love our country, and they just don’t like seeing it.
So I don’t know really anything about it, other than they do supposedly like me, and they also would like to see problems in these areas, like especially the areas that we’re talking about, go away, because there’s no reason the Democrats can’t run a city. And if they can’t, we will send in all of the federal, whether it’s troops or law enforcement, whatever they’d like, we’ll send them in. We’ll straighten out their problem in 24 hours or less. OK?
– Well, [INAUDIBLE] crux of the theory is this belief that you are secretly saving the world from this satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals. Does that sound like something you are behind [INAUDIBLE]?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I haven’t– I haven’t heard that, but is that supposed to be a bad thing or a good thing? I mean, you know, if I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it. I’m willing to put myself out there. And we are, actually. We’re saving the world from a radical left philosophy that will destroy this country. And when this country is gone, the rest of the world would follow. The rest of the world would follow. That’s the importance of this country.
Let the record show that HW believes the world is being run by a secret society of “cannibal pedos” who have it out for Donald Trump because he’s waging a valiant and heroic fight against them.
I try not to believe anything, Karl. Be open to all possibilities and believe nothing. That is the ideal. Our belief/disbelief has nothing to do with the reality so why act like it does?
When the President responds in the affirmative to that particular question I think maybe it is time for some people to re-evaluate their disbelief. Certainly you should think twice about continuing down the ridicule path at this time.
Steve Bannon has been arrested.
Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon arrested on charges of defrauding donors in fundraising scheme
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/20/former-trump-advisor-steve-bannon-arrested-on-charges-of-defrauding-donors-in-fundraising-scheme.html
(From CNBC)
I expect Bannon will be “ratting” on Trump.
https://www.space.com/daredevil-mad-mike-hughes-dies-in-homemade-rocket-launch.html
Hyborian Warlord
Posted August 20, 2020 at 7:29 am | Permalink
I try not to believe anything, Karl. Be open to all possibilities and believe nothing. That is the ideal. Our belief/disbelief has nothing to do with the reality so why act like it does?
When is the next launch?
Hm?
Trying to make a point there that is supposed to have something to do with what I said?
I think Anonymous is hoping you have big aspirations.
Do you think Bannon will “rat” on Trump?