DNI Letter Supports Allegation That Hillary Clinton Created 'Russiagate'
Were the allegations that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential elections made up by the Clinton campaign?
A letter sent by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe seems to suggest so:
On Tuesday, Ratcliffe, a loyalist whom Trump placed atop U.S. intelligence in the spring, sent Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) a letter claiming that in late July 2016, U.S. intelligence acquired “insight” into a Russian intelligence analysis. That analysis, Ratcliffe summarized in his letter, claimed that Clinton had a plan to attack Trump by tying him to the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee.
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Ratcliffe stated that the intelligence community “does not know the accuracy of this allegation or to the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration or fabrication.”
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The letter says that then CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on the intelligence. He reported that the Russians believed that Clinton approved the campaign plan on July 26 2016.
So U.S. intelligence spying on Russian intelligence analysts found that the Russians believed that Clinton started a 'Trump is supported by the Russian hacking of the DNC' campaign. The Russian's surely had reason to think that.
Emails from the Democratic National Committee were published by Wikileaks on July 22 2016, shortly before the Democratic National Convention. They proved that during the primaries the DNC had actively worked against candidate Bernie Sanders.
On July 24 Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook went on CNN and made, to my knowledge, the very first allegations (video) that Russia had 'hacked' the DNC in support of Donald Trump.
It is likely that the Russian analysts had seen that.
Mook's TV appearance was probably a test balloon raised to see if such claims would stick.
Two days later Clinton allegedly approved campaign plans to emphasize such claims.
In the infamous Steele dossier, prepared for the Clinton campaign by a 'former' British spy, the first entry that is tying the Trump campaign to the 'Russian DNC hack' was allegedly written on July 28 2016.
The president of Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company which investigated the DNC leak, later said that his company never found any proof that Russia had hacked the DNC.
There are suspicions that Seth Rich, an IT administrator for the DNC and Bernie Sanders supporter, has leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks. Rich was murdered on July 10 2016 in Washington DC in an alleged 'robbery' during which nothing was stolen.
The claims made in the Ratcliffe letter fit the timeline of the scandal as it developed. They support the assertion that the Clinton campaign made up 'Russiagate' from whole cloth. It was supported in that by a myriad of media and by dozens of high level anti-Trump activists in the FBI and CIA.
Posted by b on September 30, 2020 at 16:04 UTC | Permalink
next page »i've always suspected (assumed) russiagate came from the clinton campaign.
Posted by: annie | Sep 30 2020 16:36 utc | 2
Another "conspiracy theory" turned into conspiracy fact.
With regards to Killary being "supported in that by a myriad of media and by dozens of anti-Trump activists...", well, it's a pay-to-play world and CGI was the piggybank at that particular time...
Posted by: LXV | Sep 30 2020 16:37 utc | 3
thanks b... the timeline certainly fits and is consistent here.... larry johnson at sst has an article up on the same topic... how much of this is coming out now due the election and how much of it is coming out now, just because it happens to be coming out now??
Posted by: james | Sep 30 2020 16:38 utc | 4
It's hard to tell when Trump is ever being truthful, but in last night's debate he clearly stated:
"There was no transition because they came after me trying to do a coup. They came after me spying on my campaign. They started from the day I won and even before I won. From the day I came down the escalator with our First Lady. They were a disaster. They were a disgrace to our country. And we’ve caught ‘em. We’ve caught ‘em all. We’ve got it all on tape. We’ve caught ‘em all."
Whether that is indicative of an imminent substantial October surprise i guess we will all have to wait and see.
Posted by: Et Tu | Sep 30 2020 16:41 utc | 5
The murder/robbery of Seth Rich has frequently been described as "botched", which I have always felt was a strange way to describe a murder. It is as if the mass media were trying to exculpate the murderer even though we are supposed to not know who the murderer actually is.
So nothing was taken from Rich, but perhaps that is because the murderer couldn't find what he was looking for? The USB thumb drive with the purloined emails, maybe? Of course, by the time Rich was murdered the emails had already been passed along to Wikileaks, but I suppose the murderer might not have known that at the time. That would make an effort to retrieve the emails "botched", wouldn't it? This suggested to me from the moment that I heard it that those in the mass media who seeded the story of a robbery being "botched" in fact were knowingly covering for the effort to control the leak which was what was "botched".
The need to then cover for murder added to the urgency to propagate the whole "Russiagate" fiction. The US' misnamed "intelligence community" and mass media both were complicit in the murder of Rich, so they had additional motivation to lead the public off the scent with an entirely fabricated false narrative.
Posted by: William Gruff | Sep 30 2020 16:50 utc | 6
With no evidence at all my suspicion is that Rich was killed as a crime of passion committed by a hotheaded member of his own family, which would explain both the family's reticence and the somewhat muted investigation.
Posted by: Cousin Jack | Sep 30 2020 16:59 utc | 7
There are suspicions that Seth Rich, an IT administrator for the DNC and Bernie Sanders supporter, has leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks. Rich was murdered on July 10 2016 in Washington DC in an alleged 'robbery' during which nothing was stolen.
That explains why Bernie Sanders suddenly became the "sheep dog". He flat out doesn't want to be assassinated and doesn't want his family to be also assassinated.
While it would be a boon for the nation, I rather doubt Trump will have Barr indict the Clintons for their crimes or go after the daily fraud committed at the Fed or on Wall Street. I doubt Trump has any inkling that in order to truly make America Great Again he must first destroy the Financial Parasites who caused America's downfall in the first place. Thirty-four days to go.
Assange repeatedly stated russia didn't leak the emails. i saw no compelling reason to think he would lie about it. then when the steel dossier came out it was so over the top and reeked of fabrication. the whole thing was so far fetched and then ratcheted up 1000 fold after she lost the election as an excuse. she never took any responsibility for her loss.
i think what amazes me most is how the media, and everyone following along, believed this story that drove the narrative for years. this ridiculous obsession with russia was all part of a coverup to distract the public from how rotten to the core the dnc is.
Posted by: annie | Sep 30 2020 17:37 utc | 11
Thanks b.
The mention of Seth Rich in connection with Russiagate prompted a hazy recollection of an article over at SST by Larry C Johnson (LCJ), who has been exposing flaws in the Russiagate fiasco for several years. LCJ deduced from the publicly-available Wikileaks/DNC files that they couldn't have been hacked over the WWW because the timestamp for each file indicated that those files came from a portable device, a thumb drive. From that info, and Assange being very upset about the murder of Seth Rich, LCJ concluded that Rich sent the DNC files to Wikileaks.
I looked up SST's "Russiagate" files and found the relevant article dated August 28, 2019 from which the following brief extract is the section mentioning file-types which LCJ found so compelling...
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An examination of the Wikileaks DNC files shows they were created on 23 and 25 May and 26 August respectively. The fact that they appear in a FAT system format indicates the data was transfered to a storage device, such as a thumb drive.
How can you prove this? The truth lies in the “last modified” time stamps on the Wikileaks files. Every single one of these time stamps end in even numbers. If you are not familiar with the FAT file system, you need to understand that when a date is stored under this system the data rounds the time to the nearest even numbered second.
Bill examined 500 DNC email files stored on Wikileaks and found that all 500 files ended in an even number—2, 4, 6, 8 or 0. If a system other than FAT had been used, there would have been an equal probability of the time stamp ending with an odd number. But that is not the case with the data stored on the Wikileaks site. All end with an even number.
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Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Sep 30 2020 18:06 utc | 12
Maybe the Russians had read this article from july 26th : http://patricklawrence.us/shades-cold-war-dnc-fabricated-russian-hacker-conspiracy-deflect-blame-email-scandal/.
Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Sep 30 2020 18:06 utc | 13
I doubt that it was solely a Clinton operation. After all, CIA director Mike Morrell kicked it off with his piece in the NY Times, which signaled some significant level of support at least parts of the intelligence community.
The whole Russiagate affaire was very reminiscent of the Ken Starr inquisition, which yielded nothing until Bubba cavalierly incriminated himself with Monica. Trump has yet to prove himself that stupid.
I suspect that Hillary was delighted at the prospect of revenge for all she and Bubba had gone through in the 1990s...except that she totally blew it...
Posted by: JohnH | Sep 30 2020 18:13 utc | 14
Remember when Tulai Gabbard called out Hillary Clinton about getting the media to support her Russiagating of her? Here it is, you can see she blames Hillary as the source of the story:
"Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain. From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why. Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly."
The Ballad of Tulsi and Hillary shows us how much the US and the world lost by the media supporting Hillary in her plan to Russiagate the world.
Posted by: Kali | Sep 30 2020 18:20 utc | 15
The letter says that then CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on the intelligence. He reported that the Russians believed that Clinton approved the campaign plan on July 26 2016.
I was one of those who thought that the whole Russia conspiracy was dubious from day one, although I might have been kind of, "Well, maybe …" for a day or so.
But that line from your post I quoted above points to one of the earliest and most convincing pieces of evidence to me that the whole thing was fake. It was reported early on that Obama had been briefed on the Russian interference and he wanted to go public to the American people about what was going on, but Senator Mitch McConnell wouldn't agree to it!
Seriously, Mr. President? You have been given a personal intelligence briefing from your CIA Director that one of the candidates to succeed you in the Presidency is an actual, bought and paid-for agent of Russia? And you don't go public because Ole Meanie Mitch won't let you?
This said to me that Obama knew it was all BS from the beginning. Of course, there have been gobs of disclosures and evidence since that it was fake and BS, and none whatsoever that it was real.
Posted by: Prairie Bear | Sep 30 2020 18:23 utc | 16
Even with all the revelations debunking the whole Russiagate narrative, the Deep State has been successful in instilling in the news media, Hollywood, political elites of both parties, and the overwhelming base of the democratic party that Russia somehow "installed" Trump, that he is a Putin "puppet/puppy" (your choice), and any resistance to establishment democratic party power is due to Russian manipulation of social media, and in general Russia (etc.) is fundamental to causing social and political problems. It took America about seven years to get over McCarthyism. Russiagate will stay in American discourse for a long time.
The dangerous part of Russiagate is that it has reached the level of hysteria that it can be used by American Deep State to justify direct and dangerous confrontations with Russia up to and including war. Russiagate pales the propaganda about Saddam and WNDs. Let us remember that two days into the US invasion of Iraq, the invasion had a 72% approval rating according to Gallup. Any conflict with Russia will probably have even higher approval levels.
Between Trump and Biden, it is Biden who will be the most likely to start the final conflagration.
Posted by: Erelis | Sep 30 2020 18:26 utc | 17
Also nice, a list of journalists, commentators etc & media organizations who never succumbed to Russiagate :
https://medium.com/@codecodekoen/list-of-vindicated-russiagate-skeptics-3f6fc0e55812
Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Sep 30 2020 18:30 utc | 18
@12 hoarse
Thx for the info.
If anyone has seen the recent Battlestar Galactica Remake show which aired on Sci-Fi btw ~2004-2010, they would remember that the Cylon Holocaust affected all the planets and ships of the humans, except the Battlestar Galactica which was not hooked up to the central network, instead opting for its own LAN, and so was impervious to the initial Cylon onslaught.
If you haven't seen the show, it's a beaut.
Perhaps that is why all the great leaks that the public has been privvy to have all come at great cost and by people who either were there themselves or were able to access files on local networks and extract them to alternative media outlets.
Indeed, the first Mission: Impossible film starring Tom Cruise had that great extraction scene where Cruise was lowered into a room at the CIA headquarters on a rope to not trigger the pressure-sensitive floors and that so he could access their server which could not be accessed by any other means.
Film geek, coming through!
This may explain why hacker groups like anonymous and others around the world have never given us anything to sink our teeth into. And when they do mess up as when Hillary used a non-secured private server for "official" business, the establishment just chalk it up to human error...their arrogance hidden in plain sight.
Nothing to see here, pleb!
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Sep 30 2020 18:37 utc | 19
@19
The probability of all 500 files having even numbers as a random outcome starts with a decimal point followed by 150 zeroes and then a three.
Posted by: spudski | Sep 30 2020 18:50 utc | 21
@hoarsewhisperer I trust that the time stamps indicates that a FAT format was used at a certain stage. What I don't recall is that how this would exclude workflows which involve an USB stick at any later stage after a hack. I think this technical proof is not as decisive as it seems and calculating huge statistical odds does not change that. The fact that the NSA has not come up with proof, now that does mean something. Something Baskervillish.
Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Sep 30 2020 19:05 utc | 22
Who cares.
Found it interesting that in the very mainstream ‘Friends’ sitcom it was already a joke in the 90s that “gi joe looks after american foreign oil interests”.
Except for a few conflict sitreps there really hasn’t been much of note posted here this year.
Posted by: Rae | Sep 30 2020 19:25 utc | 23
Former NSA Technical Director Bill Binney has also argued that the data could not have been hacked because internet speeds at the time were not sufficient for the transfer of the data when it was extracted. He claims that the speed was consistent with saving to a thumb drive.
Posted by: spudski | Sep 30 2020 19:27 utc | 24
The word "botched" could have been invented to explain why nothing was stolen, in order to put off those who questioned the motive.
No witness came forward but it could be that someone saw the shooting from a distance and yelled at the perp.
Posted by: Bart Hansen | Sep 30 2020 19:35 utc | 25
"Ratcliffe's letter, which is based on information obtained by the CIA, states that Hillary decided on 26 July 2016 to launch the Russia/Trump strategem. But the CIA was mistaken. The Clinton effort started in 2015--December 2015 to be precise.
Thanks to Wikileaks, we have a copy of an email exchange between Hillary's Campaign Manager, John Podesta and longtime Democratic operative Brent Budowsky talking about how Hillary should take on The Donald. Budowski tells Podesta:
“Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria.”"
Larry Johnson wrote today in his article "I Told You Long Ago, Hillary's Team Helped Fabricate the Trump Russia Collusion Lie by Larry C Johnson"
Posted by: Per/Norway | Sep 30 2020 19:46 utc | 26
If I remember correctly Obummer signed legislation making it ok for the press to openly lie to everyone in the us! HR4310, legalized propaganda for US consumption. He gave us fake news!
Posted by: TrixiefromDixie | Sep 30 2020 19:55 utc | 27
The constant stream of US, UK, NATO, EU fabrications framing Russia, from MH17, Skripal, 'interfering in elections' garbage, the Navalry poisoning, coupled with endless provocations like interfering in the Syrian settlement, twisting the OPCW work, attempting to destroy the Iran nuclear agreement and so much more appear to -finally - running out Russia's strategic patience with the Trump administration.
1. 24 September Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov:
"...the incumbent US administration has lost its diplomatic skills almost for good."
https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4350105
2. 30 September FM Lavrov:
"we have come to realise that in terms of Germany and its EU and NATO allies’ conduct, ...it is impossible to deal with the West until it stops using provocations and fraud and starts behaving honestly and responsibly."
https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4350105
The Russiagate fabrication was a political convenience for the Dems, but it allowed Trump and his NATO/EU agents to sanction, pressurise, interfere with Russia in every dimension, because Trump 'had to' to show they he was not Russia's sock puppets!
Looks like Russia might be shifting strategy from strictly going through the defined and agreed processes in relation to problems with the West to perhaps not engaging so meticulously.
After all, what's the point when the agreed processes are ignored by the other party?
So, does "impossible to deal with" mean "will not deal with"?
We'll see.
Posted by: powerandpeople | Sep 30 2020 20:11 utc | 28
The video I just watched and linked to on the Week in Review thread makes this observation: The Ds burned the US-Russia relationship while the Rs made no real protest; now we have the Rs burning the US-China relationship while the Ds make no real protest. Many other nations are watching, some already having joined the China-Russia bloc while others get ready as they watch what little remains of US soft power go down the tubes thanks to Imperial tactics being deployed onto US streets. Meanwhile, lurking not too far away is the coming escalation of the financial crisis which Trump's Trade War has exacerbated. Those running this show are myopic to the max--in order to post an economic recovery, the markets existing in those nations now being alienated will be essential since the domestic market will be far too weak to fuel a recovery by itself, even with enlightened leadership.
Regarding the allegation by "b" that:
"On July 24 Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook went on CNN and made, to my knowledge, the very first allegations (video) that Russia had 'hacked' the DNC in support of Donald Trump."
It is not the case that it was the first such allegation. To my knowledge, the first such allegation that was published was published on 14 June 2016 in the Washington Post, headlining "Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump" and I provide here an archived link to it instead of that newspaper's link, so that no paywall will block a reader from seeing that article:
https://archive.is/T4C2G
Posted by: Eric Zuesse | Sep 30 2020 20:53 utc | 30
powerandpeople @28: "So, does "impossible to deal with" mean "will not deal with"?"
Highly unlikely. The Russians will continue to pursue reason even after the war on Russia goes hot. If the Russians give up on diplomacy then that means Lavrov is out of a job. The Russians are capable of walking and chewing gum, or shooting and talking as the case may be, at the same time.
By the way, I think the same is true for the Chinese, even if they have not done much shooting lately. When America's war against them goes hot they will keep the door to diplomacy open throughout the conflict. Neither of these countries wants a war and it is the US that is pushing for one. They will be happy to stop the killing as soon as the US does. Personally I think that may be a mistake because when the war goes hot and the US suffers some military defeats and sues for peace, if America still has the capability to wage war then the peace will just be temporary. The US will use any cessation of hostilities to rearm and try to catch its imagined enemies off guard.
Whether or not the US will be able to rearm after significant military defeats in its current de-industrialized condition is another matter.
Posted by: William Gruff | Sep 30 2020 21:09 utc | 31
How can the US possibly contemplate a war with China? The US cannot function without China's production. To cite just one example; eighty percent of US pharmaceuticals are produced in China. The US needs China far more than China needs the US. A war with China is a war the US cannot win.
Posted by: David | Sep 30 2020 21:28 utc | 32
Eric Zuesse @30
Assange announced on June 12, 2016 that a new tranche of DNC emails had been leaked to Wikileaks and was being prepared for publication. The effort to manufacture the false narrative about Russian hacking began immediately after that, likely within minutes of the announcement.
Posted by: William Gruff | Sep 30 2020 21:37 utc | 33
We already knew that Hillary had engaged Steele in Spring 2016 as what was termed an "insurance policy". This "insurance" angle makes no sense: 1) Hillary was the overwhelming favorite when she engaged Steele and had virtually unlimited resources that she could call upon. And, 2) the bogus findings in Steele's dossier could easily be debunked by any competent intelligence agency so it wasn't any sort of "insurance" at all.
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That Hillary started Russiagate is not surprising. This limited hangout, which is so titillating to some, is meant to cover for a far greater conspiracy than Hillary's vindictiveness.
We should first recognize a few things:
- the Empire is a bi-partisan affair;
- the Presidency is the lynch-pin of the Empire;
- it became apparent in 2013-14 that the Empire (aka "World Order") was at grave risk as Russia's newfound militancy showed that her alliance with China had teeth.
- the 2016 race was KNOWN to be rigged via Hillary's collusion with DNC and Sanders' sheepdogging (Note: After the collusion became know, Hillary gave disgraced Debra Wasserman-Shultz a high-level position within Hillary's campaign - further angering progressives). Why does it surprise anyone that the General Election was also rigged?
These facts lead to the following conclusions:
- A "populist outsider" will NEVER be allowed to win the Presidency. It was claimed that Obama was also a "populist outsider" yet he served the Deep State/Empire and the US establishment very well.
- Hillary's 2016 "campaign mistakes" were likely deliberate/calculated to allow Trump to win. MAGA Nationalist Trump was the Deep State's favorite. This explains why Trump announced that he would not investigate the Clintons within days of his being elected and why Trump picked close associates of all his 'Never Trump' Deep State enemies to fill key posts in his Administration such as: John Brennan's gal Gina Haspel for CIA Director; John McCain's guy Mike Pence as VP; the Bush's guy William Barr for Attorney General; and the neocon's John Bolton for NSA.
- Russiagate was primarily a means of initiating a new McCarthyism as part of a plan to counter Russia and China.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 30 2020 21:43 utc | 34
David @32: "How can the US possibly contemplate a war with China?"
Sadly, the United States is suffering from delusions of exceptionality. Mass psychosis. The importance of industrial capacity is radically underestimated by the top economic theorists (and thus advisors) in the West, and except for some of the deplorable working people in America and perhaps about five or six Marxists in the country, the rest of the American population is equally delusional. "Well, if we can't get it from China then we will just order it from Amazon!"
No, really, it's that bad.
Posted by: William Gruff | Sep 30 2020 21:46 utc | 35
IMO Rich was probably Mossad. His pretended death meant that Wikileaks would definitely publish the material he gave them.
IMO it was planned that Rich's "leak" would be blamed on Russian hacking and Wikileaks would be described as a hostile intelligence agency working with USA enemies to undermine USA elections.
Rich is probably sipping Mai Tai's on a Tel Aviv beach with Epstein right now and laughing at how gullible we all are.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 30 2020 21:52 utc | 36
Good comments. And good to see,@13, a link to Patrick Lawrence's column in 2016.
The truth always was, and remains, that the entire "Russiagate" nonsense has always been incredible for anyone of intelligence. It was aimed at a Middle America which had been marinated, for several generations in anti-Russian and anti-socialist propaganda. Such an audience, situated in the echo chamber of a media world dominated by capitalist corporations, could be counted on to believe, or pretend to believe, anything based on the principle that the Kremlin is central to all evil and anti-American plots.
It is significant that in this propaganda MI6, the Foreign Office and other British organs were deeply involved-it was from them that most of the falsified information and media manipulation came: it is what they do best and what they have done since the days when right wingers in the Labour government (1945-51) set up the Information Research Department, for which, among others, Robert Conquest ( a Communist renegade) worked and for whom the lies and distortions which formed the ideology of several generations in the western world, were developed.
Above there is a useful list of many of those who were sceptical, not to say contemptuous of the lies about Russia and 2016. The list which is really needed, and ought to be published in letters of fire against the night sky, is that of the many corrupt, time serving careerists who must have known how suspect this story was but, nevertheless, for selfish and dishonest reasons persisted in spreading and embroidering it. It is their names which honest people should never forget. They have done much evil, brought the world closer to a war from which there could be no recovery and, for a handful of silver, condemned millions into death or poverty, by getting in the way of that international cooperation and human solidarity which, as the current pandemic has shown, is so essential to us in this time of crises.
Posted by: bevin | Sep 30 2020 21:52 utc | 37
David @Sep30 21:28 #32
How can the US possibly contemplate a war with China?
Many believe that USA/Empire is already in a "Cold War" or "fourth-generation war" with them.
As with Iran and Venezuela, USA/Empire would prefer to avoid a shooting war by forcing regime-change.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 30 2020 21:59 utc | 38
David @32--
Excellent observations! Crooke and Escobar agree that the attempt to disconnect with China will also cost the Outlaw US Empire dearly, as if it lost a "major organ, like a lung or even the heart." That's very serious; and given that Steve Bannon's the author of this policy move, IMO it's so poorly thought through it's essentially juvenile as would be expected from such an amateur. And the overall domestic economic picture continues to worsen as the announced adjustments to GDP and GDI (Gross Domestic Income) expanded the downward direction. Shadowstats announced it will publish a Special Economic Commentary by Oct 3. I don't know anyone credible predicting anything good economically until far into the future--2023. The next massive plunge is being delayed by the various eviction and debt payment moratoriums; but since those debts aren't being written down, they will become due someday and escalate the crisis. And with no other nations willing to buy US debt, how will it finance any further war?
Seth Rich was able to get to his neighborhood on foot because he didn't have any significant bleeding. His neighbors persuaded him to go to the ER. The Senior Surgical Resident on call took him to the OR, cleaned up his wounds and sent him to the SICU. The next morning the Surgery Attending Physician told the nurses and Residents to stay out of his room and he saw Seth alone. Seth died a few hours later. This information was reported by the Resident who operated on him during the night. He said Seth should not have died. I told others about this back then and I remember these details clearly.
Posted by: William H Warrick MD | Sep 30 2020 22:19 utc | 40
Royal Canadian Mounted Police apparently arrested Shehroze Chaudhry (25) for violation of its terrorism hoax laws, claiming fraudulent fabrication of experience as a Takfiri ISIS (DAESH) member personally involved in executions and terrorism in Syria. The NYT produced a podcast "Caliphate" in which it featured Abu Huzyfah as a character to portray those fabrications; If the times cannot prove its claim that it geolocated Huzayfah on the banks of the Euphrates in Syria, does that mean audiences wrongfully impacted by pdocast "Caliphate" are entitled to just compensation?
propaganda should be criminal in the USA governed America..
Posted by: snake | Sep 30 2020 22:21 utc | 41
"On July 24 Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook went on CNN and made, to my knowledge, the very first allegations (video) that Russia had 'hacked' the DNC in support of Donald Trump."
I believe Alexandra Chalupa was the first to make the allegation. She is the Ukrainian-American DNC "consultant" who worked with the Ukrainian Embassy to dig up dirt on Paul Manafort and Trump. Here is the article from the Washington Post's Michael Isikoff dated July 25, 2016:
“Since I started digging into Manafort, these messages have been a daily occurrence on my Yahoo account despite changing my password often,” she wrote in a May 3 email to Luis Miranda, the DNC’s communications director, which included an attached screengrab of the image of the Yahoo security warning.
Since she alleged a hack back on May 3rd - assuming that email actually exists - she is likely the one who initiated the entire "Russians hacked DNC" story line. She has connections with right-wing Ukrainians through the Ukrainian Embassy - which likely includes right-wing Ukrainian hackers. It would have been easy to arrange for Ukrainian hackers who hate Russia to fake a hack on either her or the DNC.
This article goes into more detail with a timeline of Chalupa's activities which stretch back to 2014.
January 2016 – Chalupa informs a senior DNC official that she feels there is a Russia connection with the Trump Campaign.Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump’s campaign, “I felt there was a Russia connection,” Chalupa recalled. “And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election,” said Chalupa, who at the time also was warning leaders in the Ukrainian-American community that Manafort was “Putin’s political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections.”
March 25 2016 – Chalupa shared her concerns with the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S.
She said she shared her concern with Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, and one of his top aides, Oksana Shulyar, during a March 2016 meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy. According to someone briefed on the meeting, Chaly said that Manafort was very much on his radar, but that he wasn’t particularly concerned about the operative’s ties to Trump.
March 29 2016 – Chalupa briefs DNC Communication staff.
The day after Manafort’s hiring was revealed, she briefed the DNC’s communications staff on Manafort, Trump and their ties to Russia, according to an operative familiar with the situation.
A former DNC staffer and the operative familiar with the situation agreed that with the DNC’s encouragement, Chalupa asked embassy staff to try to arrange an interview in which Poroshenko might discuss Manafort’s ties to Yanukovych.
While the embassy declined that request, officials there became “helpful” in Chalupa’s efforts, she said, explaining that she traded information and leads with them.
Chalupa said the embassy also worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions.
In my view, this indicates - if not establishes - that it was Chalupa who came up with the idea to connect Trump to Russia, and who submitted the plan to the DNC, which was subsequently implemented in April or May, 2016, when the DNC became aware of the emails leak to Wikileaks. "Russiagate" was an overall plan to tar Trump with Russia, while the "DNC hack" was a cover story for the damaging DNC *leak* to Wikileaks.
One of the earliest thoughts I had when I learned about the alleged DNC "hack" in 2016 - and a number of infosec experts such as Jeffrey Carr were saying the attribution to Russia was flawed - was the likelihood that Ukrainian hackers might be responsible in an effort to frame Russia. Among the reasons is the fact that some of the malware alleged by Crowdstrike as used in the alleged "hack" originated or is available in Ukraine hacking circles.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Sep 30 2020 22:22 utc | 42
Posted by: William Gruff | Sep 30 2020 21:37 utc | 33 Assange announced on June 12, 2016 that a new tranche of DNC emails had been leaked to Wikileaks and was being prepared for publication. The effort to manufacture the false narrative about Russian hacking began immediately after that, likely within minutes of the announcement.
I believe it was earlier. Crowdstrike came in to the DNC in late April. They did nothing to prevent the emails leaking up until near end of May. The DNC was aware of the email leakage at least in April - or at least of the alleged "breach". The "hack" story was prepared shortly after they became aware of the leak and how damaging it could be to the Clinton campaign. As I indicated above, there is reason to believe this was a no-brainer for them since the plan to tar Trump with Russia had already been decided sometime between January and April, likely initiated by Chalupa. If Chalupa's May 3rd email is real, then she was already touting "Russian hackers" to the DNC on May 3rd. So this indicates that the DNC was aware of the leak in April, and the false narrative was constructed in April or May.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Sep 30 2020 22:36 utc | 43
Posted by: Eric Zuesse | Sep 30 2020 20:53 utc | 30 To my knowledge, the first such allegation that was published was published on 14 June 2016
"Published", yes. See my comments above. I believe the DNC was aware of the leak in early to mid-April, was advised by Alexandra Chalupa to fake a "hack" as a cover story in line with her plan to tar Trump with Russia with she suggested to the DNC in January. The DNC then called in Crowdstrike in late April, who did nothing to prevent the email leaks through May 25-26 (the date of the last emails leaked). Once Assange announced the leak, the DNC then rolled out the PR campaign to convince everyone it was a "Russian hack." But that had been planned back to at least early May, and likely in April - as soon as they were aware that someone was leaking emails.
The issue is whether Crowdstrike was brought in because the DNC knew that emails were being leaked and wanted to stop it or were brought in to *manufacture evidence* of a "hack". Either is possible since Crowdstrike is "compromised" by its CEOs anti-Russia connections. There is also the possibility that Alexandra Chalupa connections to Ukraine might have enabled Ukrainian hackers to stage a fake "hack" in order to manufacture "evidence" of a Russian hack. There is also the possibility that *real* Russian hackers - private or state - had been detected in the DNC network and Crowdstrike was called in for them - and *then* when Assange announced the email leaks, the DNC began a PR effort to tie that to the alleged "hack".
So what isn't clear is exactly how, when and why Crowdstrike was brought in. I lean to the theory that the DNC was aware of *leaks* in early to mid-April, Chalupa offered the "Russian hack" cover story in mid- to late April, and Crowdstrike was brought in as part of the implementation of that plan in late April.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Sep 30 2020 22:53 utc | 44
Posted by: Per/Norway | Sep 30 2020 19:46 utc | 26 Thanks to Wikileaks, we have a copy of an email exchange between Hillary's Campaign Manager, John Podesta and longtime Democratic operative Brent Budowsky
Yes, I was aware of that. I think, however, that the original idea came from Alexandra Chalupa, because she suggested it to the DNC in January, 2016, but she herself had been working on it since 2015 and on Paul Manafort since 2014. As a Ukrainian-American with ties to Ukraine, she would be the most likely to have a serious bone to pick with Putin and Russia. Tying Trump to both would be something she would gravitate to.
Of course, there's no way to be sure without an official investigation of her emails, phone calls, etc., in the period from 2014 through 2016. The Republicans wanted her to be investigated, but I don't think that ever happened.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Sep 30 2020 23:00 utc | 45
Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Sep 30 2020 19:05 utc | 22 What I don't recall is that how this would exclude workflows which involve an USB stick at any later stage
Correct. What it does prove is that the official narrative of Russians hacking the DNC *over the Internet* is false. If I were Russian intelligence officers (or any hackers, for that matter) wanting to hack the DNC, I'd do it from a mobile vehicle using wireless access to the DNC servers and downloading to local storage which would then be hand carried to its destination. The NSA would have no record of that at all.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Sep 30 2020 23:05 utc | 46
John Podesta on the DNC leaker:"I'm definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker whether or not we have any real basis for it."
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/792875315920048128?lang=en
Posted by: NoOneYouKnow | Oct 1 2020 0:28 utc | 47
A. I put an USB stick into a computer and copy over files. I then walk away to somewhere else and upload the same files to the internet.
B. I hack a server over the internet, then I do everything in A.
Then I do whatever in addition at any stage of either A or B or before or later, you can't tell because you don't know me or what I did.
No one can tell if I'm doing A or B. No one even asks if Wikileaks stored the leak on a FAT filesystem and perhaps uploaded it from a USB thumbdrive (which often comes with FAT) or even thought to ask them if they clean their files including the dates on the files in order to protect their sources …because FAT is old and a public standard and all different kinds of date information can be changed, easily, for anyone proficient like plenty of people at Wikileaks and everywhere else in the world would be. The dates are simply data, no different in nature than any other bits and bytes, no different than writing this comment only slightly more obscure (but a hex editor running under root should do just fine).
It's not magic.
Then some retards including "big names" and fancy titles claim they can do legitimate computer forensics on the "same" files they download from some server.
They're 100% full of bullshit.
If any of this was to hard to understand then too bad. I've been saying this for years now but plenty of people don't read it or believe it or understand any of it. The same will be true in a hundred years or a thousand. At least I spoke.
*shrug*
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Oct 1 2020 0:45 utc | 48
Hillary did not just wave a magic wand and make the Russia story have legs. The whole media establishment pushed the story relentlessly. The National Security State pushed the story relentlessly. The National Security State owns the mainstream media.
It was endless bloviating and bullshit. It worked for them and others here seem to know why. Make Russia public enemy number one and place Hillary in power. Trump was talking early about getting closer to Putin to fight the jihadists. This must have scared the poop out of the establishment.
Believe me, they would have rather had the other Bush son Jeb or Romney. Trump is a wild ass they cannot completely control.
Posted by: circumspect | Oct 1 2020 0:46 utc | 49
May I recommend the excellent investigative reportage of the American George Eliason.
Mr Hack is getting warm. Mr Eliason cuts to the chase.
George Eliason, for the Saker blog.
Ukraine's DNC Hackers Out of the Closet/Assange Exonerated/Crowdstrike Liable
and
The Terrorists Among Us9/Hillary Clinton's Democratic Coup Against the President
Posted by: Australian lady | Oct 1 2020 0:47 utc | 50
By the way Wikileaks likes having more than one source for what they publish.
DNC server security was known to be piss poor. These are the same Hillary Clinton pretended to "clean by mistake" as if she was doing some dusting (like she has ever done any in her life).
And all of this is a great big red herring to make everyone talk about shit that doesn't matter while we wait for Biden to pronounce how honored he is to be the third black president either before or after any inauguration or for the hypersonics to strike faster than NORAD can put away their tray of coke.
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Oct 1 2020 1:04 utc | 51
To Sunny Runny Burger | Oct 1 2020 1:04 utc | 51
The culprit, according to Gucci, is "...NGP VAN Company that operates the DNC network. And this is its CEO Stu Trevelyan who is really responsible for the breach.
Their software is full of holes. And you knew about it even before I came on stage."
Posted by: Curmudgeon | Oct 1 2020 1:11 utc | 52
I'm still waiting for something in depth on Imran Awan. He seems like an important key to the puzzle. I don't think he was drawing 6-figure psychecks from many Democrats as some sort of "consultant" because he was a necessary expense to keep DNC emails secure. I would be surprised to learn that he wasn't simply an internal DNC spy rooting out all the true Sanders supporters from within the DNC.
There are/were definitely security video of Seth Rich copying those files if the data rates (SATA transfer speeds) of the transfers alleged by Guccifer 2.0 are accurate. I'm fairly sure Awan was at the same event as Rich the night Rich was "robbed".
Posted by: Rutherford82 | Oct 1 2020 1:11 utc | 53
I left Fakebook in disgust in late 2017. Before that I saw people I head right were (by American standards) intelligent regurgitating this Russia hack story each day, every day, for a year and a half, without rest. One of those people was a woman I had known for one a decade that that point, first on Orkut, then Multiply, then Fakebook. I sent her a private message asking whether she actually believed any of the things she was posting. She admitted immediately that she knew it was all rubbish but that she was spreading it because it was the only way she could think of to get rid of Trump.
Therefore whether the story "flew" isn't important, even the story is of no importance. They would have accused Trump of eating a hamster if they had to.
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Oct 1 2020 1:13 utc | 54
"Before that I saw people I had thought were..."
This site needs an edit function.
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Oct 1 2020 1:15 utc | 55
The Chalupa angle is very intriguing, particularly the predictive mention of Manafort. Russiagate as a joint DNC-Ukraine coup interests’ effort may be the ultimate verdict, with Ukraine interests initially driving the train.
Posted by: jayc | Oct 1 2020 1:45 utc | 57
William Gruff #35
Thank, so true and that Amazon line is just perfect.
Every thinking nation on earth must see that USA is not agreement capable. Sure that won't stop them trading and kowtowing.
Such a sad stark reality.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Oct 1 2020 2:25 utc | 58
circumspect @Oct1 0:46 #49
Hillary did not just wave a magic wand and make the Russia story have legs. The whole media establishment pushed the story relentlessly. The National Security State pushed the story relentlessly. The National Security State owns the mainstream media.
Yes, essentially. Caitlin Johnstone calls them narrative managers.
=
Believe me, they would have rather had the other Bush son Jeb or Romney. Trump is a wild ass they cannot completely control.
No. What kind of control is necessary? Trump's ego and the potential financial gains make him a willing participant. And Trump is media-savvy, adept at kayfabe, and unperturbed by any moral qualms.
We saw the same bait-and-switch from Obama: pretended populism that masks/sugar-coats willing service to the Deep State and the establishment. No extraordinary 'control' was necessary. This Nobel Peace Prize winner and Constitutional lawyer bragged about his drone targeting ability and insisted that no boots on the ground meant that Congress didn't need to approve his bombing of Libya. He also made the Bush tax cuts permanent, bailed out Wall Street with no prosecutions; lied about providing a 'public option' in Obamacare (he had an arrangement with the healthcare industry to not offer such an option); covered for BP's environmental disaster; refused to investigate and charge those responsible for CIA rendition and torture; continued the war on whistle-blowers, made the 'willful decision' to allow the rise of ISIS; and threatened to make Syria a quagmire for Russia (which Trump has continued). And his much-touted "Peace Agreement" with Iran is best seen as little more than a delaying tactic because the war in Syria was taking longer than expected (if Obama had really stood behind the JCPOA he would've used the bully pulpit to push for Congress to ratify it).
U.S. Presidents don't need to be controlled because they're part of the team.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 1 2020 2:46 utc | 59
Richard Steven Hack @ 42 - 46:
As Australian Lady @ 50 says, the American journalist George Eliason has done work linking Alexandra Chalupa and her sisters Irena and Andrea to Ukrainian intelligence, The Atlantic Council and Dmitri Alperovich (head of Crowdstrike, Senior Fellow of The Atlantic Council). It is better though to look him up on a search engine using his name and the Chalupa sisters' names as keywords.
Conservapedia article on Alexandra Chalupa
Beyond The DNC Leaks – Funding the Hacks and Sedition (Mint Press)
Unpacking the Shadowy Outfit Behind 2017’s Biggest Fake News Story (Consortium News)
Posted by: Jen | Oct 1 2020 3:07 utc | 60
Sunny Runny Burger #48
ABSOLUTELY RIGHT thank you.
Posted by: uncle tungsten | Oct 1 2020 3:19 utc | 61
@ circ. #49
Hillary did not just wave a magic wand and make the Russia story have legs. The whole media establishment pushed the story relentlessly.
In the evening of January 10, 2017, ten days prior to Trump's inauguration, President Obama delivered his emotional farewell speech. When he finished, the major networks who covered his speech addressed the various emotions and topics involved in the historic event. There was so much to talk about at the networks!
All except one network. At the end of Obama's speech Jake Tapper and crew had no time for Obama. No, at CNN they breathlessly announced and described the details of an earthshaking document that had just been revealed to them. It was called a dossier, a strange (at that time) term that seemed to give it credence. Anyhow Tapper and crew went on and on about it.
And of course we know that every CNN broadcast every day since then has led with some anti-Trump "news," much of it about "Russian collusion" that was inaugurated ten days before Trump was, and lived on as a story and an investigation.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Oct 1 2020 3:48 utc | 62
@Jackrabbit | 34
FBI /DOJ August 16th 2016 sub investigations opened on Trump friendly general Flynn was McCabe, Strzok, Page .. insurance policy - pre election.
https://www.redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2020/09/28/remember-the-strzok-page-insurance-policy-exchange-flynn-investigation-case-agent-adds-insight/
Posted by: Antonym | Oct 1 2020 3:52 utc | 63
Having had an excess of spare time over the last few years I have spent (wasted?) a lot of time following this story. There is no doubt HRC and the DNC along with their allies in the press and intelligence communities created this saga, initially as a smoke screen for the embarrassing revelations from the leaked DNC emails. It seems more than likely that after Trump won, full on panic ensued as the DNC gang belatedly realized that they were vulnerable from government records they had left behind. HRC destroyed her emails against the orders of (Senate/Congress, blurry on that detail)showing it's better to destroy evidence and face the consequences which in this case were none or losing the election, I suspect the latter by how narrowly she lost.
I watched the Senate hearing yesterday and was initially alarmed and then gleefully astonished as Ted Cruz ate Comey's lunch, I guess we will have to see who wins the election to see if Comey is going to do jail time.
Trump has been described many many times as "literally Hitler" If the US response in WW2 was to send a geriatric old man to deal with him the world would be very different today.
This is all BS and a lot of people should be in jail.
Posted by: Ramon Zarate | Oct 1 2020 4:08 utc | 64
And I would be a Democrat if the current bunch didn't make Trump look like the better candidate. The DNC needs to be replaced by a party that serves the interests of the American people, not the oligarch class.
Posted by: Ramon Zarate | Oct 1 2020 4:13 utc | 65
As much as I can't stand Clinton for sabotaging Bernie's campaign in 2016 and again this year, I have moved on because the immediate threat besides Covid is TRUMP. Besides, Hillary ended up throwing the election to Trump. Yet another reason for me to hate her, although, she was just as bad in other ways.
However it's very obvious that you cannot leave Clinton in the rear view mirror, as you also cannot defend Trump's debate performance. There are only so many self-inflicted hits to one's credibility one can assume before one becomes ridiculous and irrelevant.
But hiding from the truth isn't standing for the truth either.
How could you possibly explain away Trump's positions on masks, social distancing, confinement, gradual reopening and the vaccine? You can't.
Can you justify Trump's mail-in voting conspiracy, designed to steal the election and all his other rants at the debate?
Guess not, cos here we are regurgitating the past. Okay. Here's a blast from the past. A prosecutor from Mueller's team, Andrew Weissmann, was on Cuomo Prime Time tonight and he stated that when Mueller decided not to cross Trump's Red Line i.e. not to investigate Trump's finances, although Weissmann supported that decision at the start, he dissented later and believed Trump's finances should have been investigated even more so now that he became aware of the 420 million $ debt Trump owes. He claims Mueller was in a difficult position because Trump was threatening to fire him and that would annihilate other parts of the investigation.
Oddly though, Mueller now claims that Weissmann was not aware of the full picture that made him take that decision. He doesn't think Weissmann has all the facts, and that W's dissent was based on incomplete information, and Mueller states he didn't make the decision not to investigate Trump's finances out of fear of the consequences, i.e. risk of getting fired.
I always stated that Mueller discovered something that stopped him from an indictment of Trump. And Trump is far from innocent!
If Mueller states Weissmann didn't have all the facts that he, Mueller was privy to, then Mueller is doing the entire country a disservice keeping those DAMN FACTS to himself, especially now!
Damn you, Mueller.
Posted by: Circe | Oct 1 2020 5:15 utc | 66
I am not an expert but, for those computer experts here, is Bill Binney wrong?
Posted by: spudski | Oct 1 2020 6:04 utc | 67
The most interesting question is: is this whole thing a criminal act which leads to an investigation and which can be prosecuted by a public prosecutor?
And most of all, will it be done?
Posted by: mac | Oct 1 2020 6:32 utc | 68
One of the main features of american "diplomacy" is that their diplomatic apparatus is infested with rich businessmen and -women,working for themselves and being instrumental to deepstate action.So who can the foreigners trust,who can they talk to if there is nobody to keep word or promises.I guess those countries with real diplomats are sighing and waiting for american softpower to collapse while american military hardpower will make some very stupid big mistake where for the whole world to see they keep on shooting themselves in the foot,and then in the chest.MSM blabbering on in an unrealistic manner a bit more each day looses its importance in the end.USA has created a league for its own,and now nobody else wants to be part of it.
Posted by: willie | Oct 1 2020 7:06 utc | 69
@spudski, Binney et al did technically sound research which allows to exclude some straightforward extraction scenarios. The disagreement is about the strength of their conclusions. Scott Ritter did not sign the VIPS memo at the time because of this. Don't focus on the math, that part is good enough. There is a discussion on here which is good: https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/a-leak-or-a-hack-a-forum-on-the-vips-memo/ .
Posted by: Tuyzentfloot | Oct 1 2020 7:07 utc | 70
So Trump's business dealings with Russia and the contacts between his organization, his election campaign and the Russian government played no role in this "witch hunt"?
Posted by: Malchik Ralf | Oct 1 2020 9:43 utc | 71
Posted by: spudski | Oct 1 2020 6:04 utc | 67
"is Bill Binney wrong?"
He's not wrong, but he is not provably right, it's just "highly likely" that he is right; and as an ex-nerd once very familiar with FAT/NT time stamps etc. I agree it's "highly likely" Binney is right.
Posted by: Bemildred | Oct 1 2020 10:31 utc | 72
Next round in the Navalny Saga. Hours after Navalny came out pointing the finger at the Kremlin for poisoning him because he had “no other explanation for what happened", Russian Government spokesman rejected the allegations and is now claiming that Navalny has been handled directly by the CIA.
"Probably, it is not the patient [Navalny] who works for the Western special services, but that the Western intelligence services work with him, this would be more correct (to say)" Dmitry Peskov explained. “I can even be specific - these days, specialists from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America are working with him.”
Posted by: vato | Oct 1 2020 11:12 utc | 73
The bunny spake thus: "We already knew that Hillary had engaged Steele in Spring 2016 as what was termed an "insurance policy". This "insurance" angle makes no sense: 1) Hillary was the overwhelming favorite when she engaged Steele and had virtually unlimited resources that she could call upon. And, 2) the bogus findings in Steele's dossier could easily be debunked by any competent intelligence agency so it wasn't any sort of "insurance" at all."
It is an interesting point, but the bunny doesn't follow the logic any further. Bunnies have short attention spans, I suppose.
Why would the DNC need insurance against Trump in early 2016? There were half a dozen more credible opponents to be concerned about in the Republican primaries, any one of which could have easily beaten Clinton in the general election. Why would the Clinton campaign concern itself with a joke candidate in the election? Did they also commission a "dossier" on Vermin Supreme?
No, the Clinton campaign knew through Clinton's connections with the misnamed "intelligence community" that the Mighty Wurlitzer was going to take out the competition so that Clinton would be running against someone she could beat, so the campaign wouldn't need "insurance" against any candidate but Trump. Furthermore, Clinton was expected to win by very big margins and the "insurance" was just ammunition to heap additional shame on the deplorable losers, isolating and silencing opponents of war, political correctness, and identity politics all at the same time.
How do we know that this was the point to the Steele "dossier"? The bunny squeaks the answer itself: "...the bogus findings in Steele's dossier could easily be debunked by any competent intelligence agency..."
Had Clinton won, the incoming President would magnanimously "Let bygones be bygones. That's in the past. We need to focus on our future!" (remember Obama?) and the Steele "dossier" would be dropped from the news cycle, never to be heard about again. On the other hand, Trump winning was a guarantee that the Steele "dossier" would have to be looked at closely and fully investigated. The establishment and public would need to know if the lurid charges in the "dossier" were true.
The very fact that the Steele "dossier" was so weak and couldn't stand up to any skeptical scrutiny at all (Russia's Miami consulate, anyone?) is proof that it was never intended to stand to any scrutiny. It was just a bag of rocks that would be "leaked" by the typical "anonymous sources" to sensationalist trash rags like the Washington Bezos Post to throw at Trump in the eleventh hour of the election to seal his fate as a political laughingstock. Clinton would have her overwhelming electoral mandate for wars and imperial interventions around the globe, and identity politics would be enthroned as America's, and thus the West's, unassailable cultural norm.
The very weakness and implausibility of the Steele "dossier" is yet more proof that the establishment never even considered the possibility of a Trump win in 2016.
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 1 2020 11:35 utc | 74
Ramon Zarate @Oct1 4:08 #64
There is no doubt HRC and the DNC along with their allies in the press and intelligence communities created this saga, initially as a smoke screen for the embarrassing revelations from the leaked DNC emails.
Hillary's campaign hired Steele well before the DNC email "hack".
Hiring Steele was later termed an "insurance policy" (as I mentioned above, the "insurance" motivation makes little sense). Now we fed the lie that Russiagate started with DNC email "hack".
<> <> <> <> <> <>
There's reason to believe that Russiagate was planned much earlier than Hillary's hiring of Steele because there's reason to believe that the entire 2016 election was a sham that was planned before Trump entered the race. Kissinger had called for MAGA in 2014 and Trump was the only MAGA candidate in the race. And the election was used as a means to setup Manafort, Assange, and Flynn.
Manafort was lured back to USA to be Trump's campaign manager despite having spent many years working in Ukraine. And Flynn was setup via a consulting contact with a Turkish company with ties to the Turk government. These setups were independent of Russiagate but required that MAGA Trump be the Republican nominee - which he did rather easily despite the supposed anger and dismay of the establishment.
Then there's other weirdness like Gina Haspel's time in London and a British national in the Sanders campaign.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 1 2020 11:48 utc | 75
@19
The probability of all 500 files having even numbers as a random outcome starts with a decimal point followed by 150 zeroes and then a three.
Posted by: spudski | Sep 30 2020 18:50 utc | 21
what 500 files? Never seen that number in connection with the known ones nor the surfacing badly wanted ones? There were 500 mailed copies on a NYC laptop?
Posted by: xy | Oct 1 2020 11:59 utc | 76
In reply to William Gruff | Oct 1 2020 11:35 utc | 74
That's why I call it a hit piece. It shouldn't have had to stand up to any scrutiny. I've always believed the hit piece came from republicans to use during the primaries. Donald Trump was there to provide disruption. Certainly he wasn't expected to win the nomination. So the SHTF and McCain handed it over to the DNC to do the best they could with it.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | Oct 1 2020 12:05 utc | 77
Posted by: spudski | Sep 30 2020 18:50 utc | 21
Ok, are you alluding to Guccifer the Second?
Posted by: xy | Oct 1 2020 12:07 utc | 78
If I remember correctly Obummer signed legislation making it ok for the press to openly lie to everyone in the us! HR4310, legalized propaganda for US consumption. He gave us fake news!
Posted by: TrixiefromDixie | Sep 30 2020 19:55 utc | 27
Explain, would you. BHO got two Republicans to introduce a fakenews law and get it passed?
Posted by: Vig | Oct 1 2020 12:23 utc | 79
Wm Gruff, Curmudgeon @Oct1 12:05 #77, everyone
If Hillary felt the need to arrange such a 'hit piece' or "insurance" then why did she make careless mistakes like snubbing progressives, ignoring blacks, insulting white "deplorables", and failing to campaign in the three state that SHE KNEW would decide the election?
And if there was an organized effort to unseat Trump by 'Never Trump'-ers like Hillary, McCain, Bush, Brennan, and the neocons then why did Trump give their associates top positions in his Administration? McCain's buddy Pence is Vice President. John Brennan's gal Gina Haspel is CIA Director. Bush-connected Wm Barr is Attorney General. And Trump brought the neocons are back with headliners John Bolton and Elliot Abrams.
Trump announced, with in days of winning the 2016 election, that he would not investigate the Clintons. And Trump may have also 'paid' the Clinton's debt to Acosta, who had negotiated Epstein's sweetheart deal, via a cabinet position. Bringing Acosta into his Administration was certainly not helpful to grab -em by the pussy Trump who already had a fraught history with women.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 1 2020 12:53 utc | 80
The first point claims an "insight" into Russian intelligence, never verified but maybe "exaggeration or fabrication..." The date of this supposedly shocking news was after the Wikileaks of DNC emails and after Trump publicly asked for Russian intelligence to look for Clinton's emails. The idea that it would take Russian intelligence to discover after Trump asked publicly for Russian intelligence to intervene in the election is remarkably stupid. The fact that Assange is currently in danger of being executed or tormented by cruel imprisonment for the rest of his shortened life, as a Russian agent if he is successfully extradited shows that the US government officially deems Assange a Russian agent. The chances the "IC" didn't think Wikileaks a Russian intelligence asset in July 2016 are exceedingly low. The "insight" that the Russians were thinking Clinton would follow this up?
The other two points even allege that Brennan, who must be a key player, if not *the* mastermind in the "Deep State" campaign against Trump was still dutifully passing on unverified, possible "exaggeration or fabrication" as grounds for investigation. The use of such feeble "evidence" is typical. The Steele dossier was another such example of using possible "exaggeration or fabrictation" to launch an investigation.
In short this letter is yet another nothingburger, passed off as something because, Trumpery. Trying to allege Comey was conspiring for Clinton when his pursuit of another nothingburger, those emails and the email server, when he violated protocol about releasing information on an investigation in order to interfere with the election *in Trump's favor* takes a shameless disregard for truth, in any form whatsoever. Barr releasing this information is so flacks can pretend there was a Deep State conspiracy.
Shameful!
Posted by: steven t johnson | Oct 1 2020 12:54 utc | 81
In the infamous Steele dossier, prepared for the Clinton campaign by a 'former' British spy, the first entry that is tying the Trump campaign to the 'Russian DNC hack' was allegedly written on July 28 2016.
________________________________________________________
Russiagate is a Kayfabe controversy. It was nurtured by both the Clinton and Trump campaign. Trump did his part on July 27 when he invited "Russia if you are listening can you find Hillary's 30,000 missing emails"
https://www.c-span.org/video/?413263-1/donald-trump-urges-russia-find-hillary-clinton-emails-criticizes-record-tpp#
[goto the 12 min. mark for Trump's Russia remarks]
Who started Russiagate is irrelevant. After Trump got elected it was Trump that kept it going. Clinton did not hire Mueller. It was the Trump White House that hired Mueller to keep the Russiagate ball in the air for 2 more years.
And it was the Trump White House that provided all the leaks to the press that kept everybody on the edge of their seats for years in this phony Kayfabe battle that was designed from the beginning to end with Trump being victorious. That is how Kayfabe works the winner is picked at the outset and the battle is made to look as if the chosen winner is losing until the very end when the chosen winner against all odds pulls off the victory.
Here is a brief summary of the highlights of the kayfabe Russiagate BS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppGj5FOFckM
Posted by: jinn | Oct 1 2020 12:59 utc | 82
In reply to Jackrabbit | Oct 1 2020 12:53 utc | 80
Those are good points for discussion, but I don't see the correlation. Ie one doesn't necessarily relate to the other. Clinton wasn't responsible for the hit piece. It was handed off to the handlers once it was obvious the Donald Trump would get the nomination. Clinton's handlers made a lot of mistakes, among them not taking Donald Trump seriously. We continue to make the same mistakes.
So I keep asking who are his handlers. He seems to be autonomous, but my strategic muse keeps nagging at me that the idea is nonsense. We all serve somebody. I doubt there's a serious push to unseat the president, otherwise it would have happened already.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | Oct 1 2020 13:05 utc | 83
Gruff wrote:
It was just a bag of rocks that would be "leaked" by the typical "anonymous sources" to sensationalist trash rags like the Washington Bezos Post to throw at Trump in the eleventh hour of the election to seal his fate as a political laughingstock.
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Sure that is precisely what should have happened if the goal was to defeat Trump
What is so remarkable about the Steele Dossier is that it would have been very damaging to Trump if leaked before the election, but it was not published. It was leaked. Apparently everyone in Washington knew about the Steele Dossier before the election but everyone kept quiet about it. What does that tell you about who they wanted elected.
But then of course after the election it is released to help to preserve Trump's bona fides as the anti-establishment President.
Posted by: jinn | Oct 1 2020 13:10 utc | 84
In reply to jinn | Oct 1 2020 12:59 utc | 82
All of which makes sense when I consider the R&D collusion. The only 'dispute' was over which agent, Clinton or Trump, delivers the message. We shoot messengers casually when we don't like the message.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | Oct 1 2020 13:14 utc | 85
Curmudgeon @Oct1 13:05 #83
You're not thinking this through or you want to be spoon fed or you just don't want to see it.
!!
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 1 2020 13:19 utc | 86
That's one of the reasons I participate here, to learn. I'm not proud. Enlighten us.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | Oct 1 2020 13:23 utc | 87
The bunny questions: "...why did [Clinton] make careless mistakes like snubbing progressives, ignoring blacks, insulting white "deplorables", and failing to campaign in the three state that SHE KNEW would decide the election?"
Arrogance and hubris. She was running against a clown who had 0% chance of winning. If you know your opponent in the kayfabe match is going to take a dive, then you can put more effort into the theatrics.
Progressives have to be snubbed. There is no two ways about that. That the capitalists have to be served by the political establishment is not optional, and the progressives were moving towards socialism. That has to be stopped.
Blacks are considered stupid and will vote Democrat no matter what. More importantly, the alternative was a character being cast as an arch racist monster who was portrayed as the equivalent to the Grand Wizard of the KKK. That is the perfect "whip" to get the darkies into the voting fields for their masters in the Dim party. What else was necessary?
Insulting the "deplorables" was a major point to the whole campaign, if not the single most important point. The "deplorable" working class, despite being badly beaten up over the last few decades in America, remains by far the biggest threat to the establishment. Every effort must be made to convince them right to their core that they are powerless and discourage them from organizing. To the capitalist overlords, the "deplorables" need to be morally crushed and forced into the self-pity isolation of identity politics.
The bunny continues its confusion with "And if there was an organized effort to unseat Trump by 'Never Trump'-ers..."
Trump was never the enemy of the "Deep State", he just played one for the camera. Picking insiders was just Trump's (ultimately failed) effort to placate and calm the establishment that had gone completely hysterical over their plans exploding in their faces.
As for Trump refusing to investigate the Clintons, that is expected of the winner in the election. He never expected to win in the first place, so he never expected to have to make good on any campaign promises anyway, and certainly not subjecting his friends the Clintons to criminal investigation.
Again, Trump was playing the heel in the kayfabe. Trump losing was intended to discredit everything that he stood for in the election. Clinton's victory was intended to be an overwhelming mandate for the opposite of everything Trump stood for in the election. Instead of pulling troops out of foreign engagements (and don't go full retard by replying "But Trump didn't pull troops out!"), Trump's loss would power the false narrative that the American people wanted more wars abroad. Instead of critically examining identity politics and why Blacks and women are getting the shitty end of the stick for real, Trump's loss would cement identity politics as the norm in America that would result in you being silenced and "cancelled" if you questioned. Some token corporate board positions for Blacks and maybe a little welfare for them and the whole issue of the working class being oppressed gets banished from public discourse.
These things have been explained before and I have no expectation of separating the bunny from the narrative it is trying to spin. This is posted just to help others see through that "The establishment is infallible and all-powerful!" narrative.
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 1 2020 14:06 utc | 89
All of which makes sense when I consider the R&D collusion. The only 'dispute' was over which agent, Clinton or Trump, delivers the message.
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What is the message you are referring to?
Posted by: jinn | Oct 1 2020 14:10 utc | 90
jinn @84
There were lots of bags of rocks available for the establishment to throw at Trump. The Steele "dossier" was just one of them, and after the murder of Seth Rich and the effort to distract people with Russia it was starting to look like there was a possibility that issues related to Russia would get serious attention regardless of who won.
You are quite right that everyone in the establishment (including mass media) knew about the Steele "dossier", and they knew that it was one of the weakest points of the whole farce. It was the broken thread in the sweater that if someone started pulling on it the whole sweater would disintegrate. That "dossier" was created just to be dirt to throw at Trump and was never expected to have to support a whole ridiculous "Russia rigs the election!" narrative. To keep that narrative going the establishment and their minions had to stay well clear of the Steele "dossier".
Had Seth Rich not leaked the DNC emails to Wikileaks and the "Russian hacking" narrative not been needed to distract from the damage to Clinton that those leaks would cause, then the Steele "dossier" would have been used more as planned.
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 1 2020 14:20 utc | 91
In reply to jinn | Oct 1 2020 14:10 utc | 90
I intended its use as a metaphor, but I think it's fair question. I don't really know, but my original assumption was the delivery of war between the US and Iran which would serve as catalyst to war with Russia/Soviet stakeholders. Obviously there's no formal Soviet Union as we once knew it. Ideas can't be killed that simply. There's a similar idea of a United States which can't be killed, but I think the formal entity is already dead since around 100 years or more.
Some would welcome war with Iran, and by the notion I'd say Donald Trump threw a wrench into the gears. That is overly simple, so I've sidelined the premise preferring to rest with "I don't know".
Posted by: Curmudgeon | Oct 1 2020 14:21 utc | 92
Posted by: Australian lady | Oct 1 2020 0:47 utc | 50
Posted by: Jen | Oct 1 2020 3:07 utc | 60
Re: George Eliason Yes I'm aware of Eliason's articles (although not the one Australian Lady refers to, which is more recent.) Eliason's work is what pointed me to Chalupa in the first place IIRC.
Posted by: spudski | Oct 1 2020 6:04 utc | 67 I am not an expert but, for those computer experts here, is Bill Binney wrong?
No, he isn't, not quite. Binney admits that the Guccifer 2.0 emails were tampered with so the date evidence is weakened. So he believes those entire files are now useless to tell what actually happened. He still does not believe the original emails (not Guccifer's) were transferred directly over the Internet, however, and he's likely right on that. He's also right when he says the NSA would know it if they had been transferred over the Internet. The NSA would have a record of everything going into and out of the DNC servers and where those connections came from and went to.
There's a difference between the official story the Mueller report would have everyone believe and what actually did happen. The Mueller story doesn't hold water. But how either the leak or any related hacks were done, we still don't know. And never will because no real investigation will ever be done. That would require every single email, phone or in-person conversation with literally everyone in the DNC, the Clinton Campaign, Crowdstrike, the FBI, the CIA, everyone, would have to be investigated, as well as a fully independent analysis by outside infosec experts of the server images that Crowdstrike provided to the FBI, as well as full NSA data retrieval on everything going into and out of the DNC for at least the first half of 2016, and possibly earlier. It would be a massive investigation that probably would beggar the expense the Mueller investigation required. It's never going to happen - too many "important" people would end up at legal risk. not to mention the institutional risk.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Oct 1 2020 14:22 utc | 93
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 1 2020 14:20 utc | 91
That's what always irritated me about the whole "Russiagate" nonsense. The DNC "hack" was at least fifty percent of the reason people believed the Trump=Russia connection. But other than a few infosec experts who doubted the attribution of the alleged "hack", no one was interested in what actually happened, i.e., the circumstances around the Wikileaks emails and whether there actually was a "hack" at all. But without the alleged "hack", the Steele dossier was weak tea, as you say.
I've given up caring much. As I said above, it's now water under the bridge and we'll never know what happened - unless Assange and Wikileaks violates their policy and tells us who the source is. And I've long believed Assange and Wikileaks should do just that, regardless of their source policy. Assange offered "technical evidence" that it was not Russia to the DoJ Inspector General, but that got shut down because Comey wanted it blocked and Wikileaks got cold feet. So unless the Butowsky lawsuit goes somewhere, we'll never know what really happened. And the perpetrators will walk free yet again.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Oct 1 2020 14:34 utc | 94
Arrogance and hubris. She was running against a clown who had 0% chance of winning.
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Your projecting your own arrogance and hubris. Anybody who believed Trump was not going to win was brainwashed by the MSM. Anybody who saw past the false messaging of the MSM could see Trump would win.
I bet you don't know that there is close to half the population that considers the information provided by the MSM as fake news. We can see which side you fall into
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Blacks are considered stupid and will vote Democrat no matter what.
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Nope, had blacks voted for Clinton in the swing states she would be president. If Clinton had got just 80% of the black vote from 2012 in the swing states that would have changed the outcome.
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Again, Trump was playing the heel in the kayfabe. Trump losing was intended to discredit everything that he stood for in the election.
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You don't even know what kayfabe is. It means the battle is scripted and the outcome is predetermined. Whoever lost, the message they stood for, would be considered rejected by the people.
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Trump's loss would cement identity politics as the norm in America that would result in you being silenced and "cancelled" if you questioned.
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Anybody who thinks the donor class wants to cement identity politics as the norm in America and wants to silence those who disagree is a naive ignoramus. You are just so far out of touch with reality it is shocking. just because the NYT says something does not make it true.
The donor class that hires the politicians wants the populace split right down the middle on all the culture war issues that have no real effect or impact on the donor class. They don't care what the people believe about identity politics as long as half of them believe one way and the other half believe the other way and both sides are absorbed in bashing each other over the issue. Trump has delivered exactly what the donor class wants like no other politician in history.
Posted by: jinn | Oct 1 2020 14:45 utc | 95
Curmudgeon @92
my original assumption was the [messahe was] delivery of war between the US and Iran
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I seriously doubt that 1 in 10 voters could tell you whereexactly either Clinton or Trump stood on war with Iran.
The people at MOA seem to be obsessed with which candidate would be (or not be) responsible for the delivery of war between the US and Iran and you all can't seem to agree. I don't see how you think that message could have reached the general population if the people looking closely for it can't seem to find it.
Posted by: jinn | Oct 1 2020 14:56 utc | 96
Richard Steven Hack @94
Exactly! With the "hack" narrative getting the hard sell, the Steele "dossier" suddenly became much more important than just a source for casual innuendo and smears.
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 1 2020 14:59 utc | 97
" Anybody who saw past the false messaging of the MSM could see Trump would win."
I didn't see it because I believed the selection process had decided on a Clinton presidency. In that case I doubt the MSM had any influence, but I'm as fallible as anyone else. People who predicted the Trump victory were ecstatic for good reason. For me it was more like a snowfall in July, not because of the Trump victory but because Clinton would not be in our faces for four years.
Posted by: Curmudgeon | Oct 1 2020 15:01 utc | 98
@96 jinn
People are aware that BEFORE Trump there was a JCPOA to prevent war, and with Trump the JCPOA was replaced with severe, destructive sanctions and multiple provocative Acts of War against Iran.
So which alternative is asking for trouble and begging for war? People can see a distinct difference. No one is THAT stupid, except Trump bootlickers.
Posted by: Circe | Oct 1 2020 15:07 utc | 99
On 07 September 2016, U.S. intelligence officials forwarded an investigative referal to FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok regarding "U.S. Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton's approval of a plan concerning U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private mail server."
That last paragraph of the letter is interesting, and I assume this would correspond to that last minute decision to further investigate Clinton shortly before the election. Does the timing fit, someone? When was that decision anounced (by Comey, if I remember rightly)? Obviously Comey and Strzok are going to pull out all the stops to find ways of blocking or neutering any such investigation. That it was announced to happen at all is rather surprising, but the "investigation" that followed was evidently no more than a ruse. One surmises that the referal was initially rejected, and the proposers then continued to push it until the fake investigation was announced, which would result in a delay. It all seemed very strange at the time, but evidently was staged as a mock response to the officials pushing for investigation. A bureaucracy can never be 100% controlled.
Posted by: BM | Oct 1 2020 15:11 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
Are you trying to tell me b that "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton is suspected of wrongdoing?/snark
I am all for bringing down the whole house of corrupt cards that fronts for the private finance cult. The Clintons are just examples of semi-recent to recent corruption. Obama is in that boat as is Biden and others.
But just remember that Trump was already entirely corrupt before (s)elected into power. Trump is just another front for global private finance evil that humanity must face.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Sep 30 2020 16:30 utc | 1