Russians, Trump & the U.S. Election ~ Explained

QueEx

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QueEx

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Donald J. Trump: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."


Moscow had contacts with Trump team during campaign, Russian diplomat says


MOSCOW — Russian government officials had contacts with members of Donald Trump’s campaign team, a senior Russian diplomat said Thursday, in a report that could reopen scrutiny over the Kremlin’s role in the president-elect’s bitter race against Hillary Clinton.

Facing questions about his ties to Moscow because of his statements in favor of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump repeatedly denied having any contact with the Russian government.

But Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, in an interview with the state-run Interfax news agency, said that "there were contacts" with the Trump team.

"Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage,” Rybakov said. “Those people have always been in the limelight in the United States and have occupied high-ranking positions. I cannot say that all of them but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives.”

"We have just begun to consider ways of building dialogue with the future Donald Trump administration and channels we will be using for those purposes," Ryabkov said.​

Obama administration officials have blamed Russian hackers, possibly with high-level intelligence links, for infiltrating the email account of Clinton’s campaign chief, John Podesta. The emails were then disclosed by Wikileaks in an effort that Clinton supports claim was intended to damage her White House bid.


SOURCE: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...at-says/ar-AAk7Qne?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp



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QueEx

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CIA concluded that Russia worked to elect Trump.
Republicans now face an impossible choice.



imrs.php

A boy looks at a mural depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and U.S. President-elect
Donald Trump in Belgrade, Serbia, on Dec. 5, 2016. The message on the mural reads in Serbian,
Russian and English 'Kosovo is Serbia'. (Andrej Cukic/European Pressphoto Agency)
This post has been updated with a defiant statement from the Trump transition team.

Washington Post

By Aaron Blake
December 9, 2016

The Washington Post is now reporting that the CIA has concluded something widely suspected but never flatly stated by the intelligence community: that Russia moved deliberately to help elect Donald Trump as president of the United States — not just to undermine the U.S. political process more generally.

The Post's report cites officials who say they have identified individuals connected to the Russian government who gave WikiLeaks emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee and top Hillary Clinton aide John Podesta. One official described the conclusion that this was intended to help Trump as “the consensus view.”

The report highlights and exacerbates the increasingly fraught situation in which congressional Republicans find themselves with regard to Russia and Trump. By acknowledging and digging into the increasing evidence that Russia helped — or at least attempted to help — tip the scales in Trump’s favor, they risk raising questions about whether Trump would have won without Russian intervention.

Trump, after all, won by a margin of about 80,000 votes cast across three states, winning each of the decisive states by less than one percentage point. So even a slight influence could have plausibly made the difference, though we'll never be able to prove it one way or another.

While saying that Russia clearly tried to help Trump doesn't inherently call into question the legitimacy of Trump's win —earlier Friday, the White House made sure to emphasize that it's not making that case — it's not hard to connect the dots. And Trump and his party know it. The Post's report cited Republicans who expressed skepticism about the available evidence when presented with it in September, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

In addition, any GOP effort to dig into the matter risks antagonizing the president-elect, who has said flatly that he doesn’t believe Russia interfered with the election, despite receiving intelligence briefings to the contrary. And he's proved more than willing to go after fellow Republicans who run afoul of him.

On the other hand, if Republicans play down the issue, they risk giving a pass to an antagonistic foreign power that significant majorities of Americans and members of Congress do not trust and which, if the evidence is accurate, wields significant power to wage successful cyberwarfare with the United States.

Already, House Democrats have begun pushing for something akin to the 9/11 Commission to look into allegations of Russian meddling. During the campaign, they pushed for hearings on the same issue.

Until this week, they'd been unable to get much buy-in from congressional Republicans. But Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) voiced support for a probe on Wednesday, and now Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) says he is working with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) on a wide-ranging Senate probe, as The Post’s Karoun Demirjian reported Thursday.

“I’m going after Russia in every way you can go after Russia,” Graham said. “I think they’re one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage. I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want [Russian President Vladimir] Putin personally to pay the price.”

But even as these probes start to materialize, Trump is singing a far different tune. In his interview with Time magazine for his “Person of the Year” award, Trump suggested that the interference could just as well have come from someone in New Jersey as from the Russian government.

“I don’t believe they interfered,” Trump said. “That became a laughing point — not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say, ‘Oh, Russia interfered.’”

Trump added: “It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.”

Trump also maintained over and over again on the campaign trail that he wanted a better relationship with Russia and praised Putin as a strong leader — while minimizing Russia’s favoritism for his campaign. And he did all of this at a time when Putin was very unpopular in the United States and even as the evidence was pointing in the direction of Russian meddling.

In other words, Trump has shown that he's committed to seeing the best in Russia, and it's unlikely another report from the “dishonest media” citing anonymous sources is going to change his mind

And Trump has every reason to continue to dig in. He doesn’t want to breathe any life into the story line that he owes his election to Russian interference. Trump, after all, is a winner, and the idea that someone else might have won it for him just won't fly.



CIA briefers told senators in a closed-door briefing -- it was now “quite clear” that electing Trump was Russia’s goal, according to officials. CIA briefers told the senators in a closed-door briefing it was now “quite clear” that electing Trump was Russia’s goal, according to officials. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

While saying that Russia clearly tried to help Trump doesn't inherently call into question the legitimacy of Trump's win —earlier Friday, the White House made sure to emphasize that it's not making that case — it's not hard to connect the dots. And Trump and his party know it. The Post's report cited Republicans who expressed skepticism about the available evidence when presented with it in September, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

In addition, any GOP effort to dig into the matter risks antagonizing the president-elect, who has said flatly that he doesn’t believe Russia interfered with the election, despite receiving intelligence briefings to the contrary. And he's proved more than willing to go after fellow Republicans who run afoul of him.


On the other hand, if Republicans play down the issue, they risk giving a pass to an antagonistic foreign power that significant majorities of Americans and members of Congress do not trust and which, if the evidence is accurate, wields significant power to wage successful cyberwarfare with the United States.

Already, House Democrats have begun pushing for something akin to the 9/11 Commission to look into allegations of Russian meddling. During the campaign, they pushed for hearings on the same issue.

Until this week, they'd been unable to get much buy-in from congressional Republicans. But Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) voiced support for a probe on Wednesday, and now Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) says he is working with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) on a wide-ranging Senate probe, as The Post’s Karoun Demirjian reported Thursday.

“I’m going after Russia in every way you can go after Russia,” Graham said. “I think they’re one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage. I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want [Russian President Vladimir] Putin personally to pay the price.”


But even as these probes start to materialize, Trump is singing a far different tune. In his interview with Time magazine for his “Person of the Year” award, Trump suggested that the interference could just as well have come from someone in New Jersey as from the Russian government.

“I don’t believe they interfered,” Trump said. “That became a laughing point — not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say, ‘Oh, Russia interfered.’”

Trump added: “It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey.”

Trump also maintained over and over again on the campaign trail that he wanted a better relationship with Russia and praised Putin as a strong leader — while minimizing Russia’s favoritism for his campaign. And he did all of this at a time when Putin was very unpopular in the United States and even as the evidence was pointing in the direction of Russian meddling.

In other words, Trump has shown that he's committed to seeing the best in Russia, and it's unlikely another report from the “dishonest media” citing anonymous sources is going to change his mind.

And Trump has every reason to continue to dig in. He doesn’t want to breathe any life into the story line that he owes his election to Russian interference. Trump, after all, is a winner, and the idea that someone else might have won it for him just won't fly.

Update: A statement from Trump's transition team, as expected, took a defiant tone about The Post's report: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and 'Make America Great Again.'”
But for congressional Republicans, the evidence is increasingly getting to the point where they simply can’t ignore it, and some of them are feeling compelled to act — in a way that Trump isn’t likely to embrace.

Compounding the dilemma for these Republicans is that many GOP and Trump voters are disinclined to think Russia meddled in the election. A poll released Friday by Democratic pollster Democracy Corps showed 55 percent of Trump voters and Republicans who didn’t vote for Trump say it’s probably true that stories alleging Russian interference in the election are conspiracy theories pushed by Clinton.

Many Republicans are undoubtedly concerned about this. But as long as Trump is holding fast to the idea that this is all made up in an effort to undermine him, this whole thing could reinforce the long-standing chasm within the GOP, with him and his base pitted against establishment Republicans who will (again) be made to look like they’re trying to take down their outsider president-elect. And you can bet that’ll be how Trump pitches it.

It all presents a possibly inauspicious start for the GOP Congress in the Trump era: a potential Trump vs. congressional-Republicans-battle over the same election that surprisingly installed him as president.


SOURCE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-an-impossible-choice/?utm_term=.f49456184886



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COINTELPRO

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Registered
If it is true, the Russians have taken a page from the Americans. These tactics are widely used in the U.S. where your systems are hacked and leaked. It is designed to be disruptive.

I have experienced some of this methods used against me, the next you know some idiot on TV is saying things you was writing about.
 

ORIGINAL NATION

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I have not read this article but when third world countries were starving to death America struck up big wheat deals with Russia. America may try to teach us that Russia is an enemy of theirs but they will help Russia because it is a white power nation like them. We are the real enemy to their world. Mickey Leland lost his life for trying to force America to do more for Ethiopia. On one of his trips to Ethiopia he was holding a 12 year old girl in his arms and she died right their in his arms. She actually starved to death while he was holding her. That set him off with a veal to do more for Ethiopia. They were already upset with him for his constant campaign to have more done. So his next trip over the plane crashed. They say the engine stalled. In the case in Rwanda the plane was shot out of the sky as part of a master plan to get rid of blacks that look to other blacks for breaking the control of them by white power. On 911 they used planes that were remotely controlled. The so called hi jackers did not even know they were on their way to their death.
COINTELPRO the movie Snowden was about some of that. I have checked out some of the documentaries on that. And there is a case where the evidence against a dude was taken off of his computer. But the way they got it was while his computer was off and they picked a time when they would not be interrupted. They turned the computer on without being there. Searched the computer and found what they was looking for. Copied it off of there and turned the computer off all without being there.
 

COINTELPRO

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COINTELPRO the movie Snowden was about some of that. I have checked out some of the documentaries on that. And there is a case where the evidence against a dude was taken off of his computer. But the way they got it was while his computer was off and they picked a time when they would not be interrupted. They turned the computer on without being there. Searched the computer and found what they was looking for. Copied it off of there and turned the computer off all without being there.

Some reporter was looking into Benghazi and was hacked and messed with by the government to disrupt her reporting. What the Russians are alleged to be doing is no different.

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ORIGINAL NATION

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Some reporter was looking into Benghazi and was hacked and messed with by the government to disrupt her reporting. What the Russians are alleged to be doing is no different.

2hhmaf8.png
That was an interesting post. So the only real news is news they control. Attkisson is on dangerous ground. I wonder what the one investigative report that told a friend of his that he had a story that was going to blow this government away. He told his friend that he got to get off of the radar right now. And he was found dead that day. I wonder what his story was and what it was about. I forgot the reporter name was but he had controversial material for a while. I think his name was Michael Hastings.
 

QueEx

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Team Trump Response:

The Trump camp has dismissed the report — along with the credibility
of the U.S. intelligence community. “These are the same people that said
Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” said a statement by
the Trump transition team. “The election ended a long time ago in one of
the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s time to move on and
‘Make America great again.’”


Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/russia-hacking-trump-election_us_584b658ae4b04c8e2bb01356


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QueEx

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CALLING FOR A PROBE

Displaying rare bipartisanship, four leading senators from both political parties on Sunday called for an urgent inquiry into allegations of Russian meddling in the recent election.

“Recent reports of Russian interference in our election should alarm every American,” the senators, who include Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat who is the party’s leader in the Senate, said in a
joint statement.

The statement said recent hacking attacks “have cut to the heart of our free society” and require urgent investigation and action to halt the threat they “pose to our national security.”


“This cannot become a partisan issue. The stakes are too high for our country,” the senators said in the three-paragraph statement.

Joining in the statement were Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, and Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island. Both Graham and Reed are members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which McCain chairs.

McCain went further in an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “It’s clear the Russians interfered,” he said. “Facts are stubborn things. They did hack into this campaign.”

McCain and Graham are both Republican hawks on Russia. McCain called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a thug, a murderer and a killer” on “Face the Nation.” Their open opposition to Trump over the hacking allegations underscores how Russia and Putin himself are becoming a wedge issue between Trump and leading legislators of his own party.

Graham tweeted on Saturday that, “Russia is trying to break the backs of democracies – and democratic movements – all over the world.”

Trump, in a Fox News interview, hailed his leading candidate to be secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, chief executive of Exxon Mobil, as a “world-class player” who “does massive deals with Russia” for his oil company.

In the interview, taped Saturday and aired Sunday, Trump belittled reports in the Washington Post and New York Times that the CIA believes Russian agents interfered to assure his victory in the election.


Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nat...-security/article120263278.html#storylink=cpy
 

QueEx

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Trump, CIA on collision course over Russia’s role in U.S. election

AAloONX.img
© Alex Wong/Getty Images The seal of the CIA in the lobby of the agency’s headquarters in Virginia.


The simmering distrust between Donald Trump and U.S. intelligence agencies escalated into open antagonism Saturday after the president-elect mocked a CIA report that Russian operatives had intervened in the U.S. presidential election to help him win.

The growing tensions set up a potential showdown between Trump and the nation’s top intelligence officials during what some of those officials describe as the most complex threat environment in decades.

The Washington Post reported Friday that the Central Intelligence Agency had determined that Russia had intervened in the presidential election not just to make mischief but to boost Trump’s chances.

Trump’s reaction will probably deepen an existing rift between Trump and the agencies and raised questions about how the government’s 16 spying agencies will function in his administration on matters such as counterterrorism and cyberwarfare. On Friday, members of Trump’s transition team dismissed the CIA’s assessments about Iraq’s stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

Given his proclivity for revenge combined with his notorious thin skin, this threatens to result in a lasting relationship of distrust and ill will between the president and the intelligence community,” said Paul Pillar, former deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.

U.S. intelligence officials described mounting concern and confusion about how to proceed in an administration so openly hostile to their function and role. “I don’t know what the end game is here,” a senior U.S. intelligence official said. “After Jan. 20,” the official said, referring to Inauguration Day, “we’re in uncharted territory.”

Pillar added: “Everything Trump has indicated with regard to his character and tendencies for vindictiveness might be worse” than former president Richard Nixon, who also had a dysfunctional relationship with the intelligence community.


The Obama Ordered Probe


The tensions between Trump and spy agencies could escalate even further as dozens of analysts begin work on a project, ordered by President Obama, to deliver a comprehensive report on Russian intervention in the election before Trump’s inauguration in January.

Led by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., the investigation is aimed at reaching a definitive judgment about the Russian role in the election. Obama aides have pledged to make as much of the report public as possible once it is completed.

“We want to make sure we brief Congress and relevant stakeholders, like possibly state administrators who actually operationalize the elections,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters Friday.

But such a report could also pose a more complicated challenge for Trump, potentially pitting the entire U.S. intelligence community against a newly sworn-in president who has repeatedly denigrated their work.

The Post reported late Friday that the CIA had concluded that individuals with close ties to the Russian government delivered thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee, including from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, to WikiLeaks a few weeks before the election. Intelligence officials have determined that Russia’s goal was to help Trump win, rather than simply undermine confidence in the election.

In a statement, Trump suggested that the CIA had discredited itself over faulty intelligence assessments about Iraq’s weapons stockpile more than a dozen years ago.

“These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

The belittling response alarmed people in the intelligence community, which already had questioned Trump’s temperament and lack of national security experience. Despite mounting evidence over Moscow’s involvement in a hack of the Democratic National Committee, Trump has consistently refused to entertain any doubts about the Russians’ role or about Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The president-elect has spoken admiringly of Putin in the past, calling him a stronger leader than Obama, and one of Trump’s former campaign managers had business associations with Russian companies.

“I don’t believe it. I don’t believe they interfered,” Trump told Time magazine of the Russians in a recent interview during which he suggested the accusations from the United States were politically driven.

Instead, Trump took direct aim at the professional spies charged with assessing what Clapper in September called the “most complex and diverse array of global threats” in his 53 years of service.

Intelligence agencies are tracking Russia’s military interventions in Syria and Ukraine, Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal, North Korea’s nuclear weapons testing and China’s maritime challenges in Asia and theft of trade secrets. The CIA is operating a covert program to arm and train moderate rebels in Syria to overcome the brutal rule of President Bashar al-Assad, even as Trump has praised Russia’s approach to backing Assad.

Since his electoral triumph last month, Trump has attended only a limited number of intelligence briefings, and he appointed as his national security adviser retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who was forced out of his job as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency by Obama administration officials.

Trump also has created a climate of uncertainty over how his administration would approach counterterrorism and intelligence gathering after speaking approvingly of torture methods, including waterboarding terrorism suspects, which was banned by Obama. Trump has since appeared to moderate his position after meeting with retired Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis, whom he intends to nominate as defense secretary and who has said such techniques don’t work.

Trump’s transition aides have explained his unwillingness to make time for more intelligence briefings as a consequence of his busy schedule building an administration and selecting Cabinet members. Vice President-elect Mike Pence has reportedly attended such briefings most days.

But Trump’s approach has contrasted with that of his predecessors, including Obama and George W. Bush, who attended multiple briefings each week leading up to their inaugurations.

In his statement, Trump emphasized that the election was over and vowed to “move on,” and he did not, as is his habit, react to the CIA story on social media in the hours after it was published.

Congressional Democrats have called for investigations into Russia’s interference, but reaction among Republican leaders was divided. Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) vowed to pursue the matter, but Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.) said Russia has been involved in cyberattacks for years and said the new allegations were “serious, but hardly news.”

Trump’s handling of questions regarding Russian intervention will put enormous strain on his nominee to lead the CIA, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), who may find himself caught in the crossfire between the agency and his president. Pillar said he already has concerns about Pompeo’s ability to deliver impartial views to the White House.

Pompeo, along with Flynn and Mattis, has been a strident critic of the Iran nuclear deal, and Pillar wondered whether Pompeo would be a dispassionate actor if intelligence agencies conclude that Iran is abiding by the deal.

“I see the danger of a lasting dysfunctional relationship based on the president-elect’s perception that he is being wronged by the intelligence community,” Pillar said.


SOURCE: http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...lection/ar-AAlp8XM?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp


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QueEx

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Former ambassador to Russia: Putin wanted 'revenge' against Clinton


Russia interfered in the U.S. elections to get revenge against Hillary Clinton, a former U.S. ambassador to the Kremlin said Sunday.

Michael McFaul, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, said he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to help Donald Trump win the presidency to hurt Clinton.

"Let's remember that Vladimir Putin thinks [Clinton] interfered in his election -
the parliamentary election in December 2011 - and has said as much publicly,
and I've heard him talk about it privately," McFaul said on NBC's "Meet the Press.


"http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...clinton/ar-AAlqzaw?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp



 

MASTERBAKER

༺ S❤️PER❤️ ᗰOD ༻
Super Moderator


DNC chair Donna Brazile said Russian hackers persisted in trying to break into the organization's computers "daily, hourly" until after the election -- contradicting President Obama's assertion that the hacking stopped in September after he warned Putin to "cut it out." http://abcn.ws/2hIPpKG
 

muckraker10021

Superstar *****
BGOL Investor
Donna Brazile needs to retire and get as far away from U.S. national politics as possible.
She is hopelessly in-over-her-head and unqualified to lead any battles as it pertains to todays
21st century unlimited $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and
'There's No Such Thing as Facts' political warfare against the neo-fascist Trump & the alt-right bully boys.





God Damn!
From corrupt Billary staffer wasserman-schultz
to docile, flacid, courageless, "Safe", "good Black" Brazile


brazile-rove.jpg


Karl Rove to Donna Brazile:
“I did you a great favor bringing you into politics in the 1860 campaign and this is how you repay me?”

http://www.salon.com/2016/06/06/kar...e_1860_campaign_and_this_is_how_you_repay_me/





CoIgiQJUsAEzynG.jpg:large
 
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COINTELPRO

Transnational Member
Registered
The Supreme Court opened this Pandora Box with their Citizen United decision stating that the voter is sophisticated enough to deal with Corporate sponsored messages about candidates. Therefore, other countries can participate in our democracy since an election can affect trade or diplomatic relationships and the voter would be sophisticated enough to deal with the disclosure of information about a candidates.

Why does a multinational corporation have unfettered and free speech rights to our election that has operations in many countries, yet another country does not?
 
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QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator

Obama administration announces measures
to punish Russia for 2016 election interference


Obama_45496.jpg-64d35-0566.jpg

President Barack Obama blames the "highest level of the Russian government for hacks," as he speaks during a news conference, Friday,
Dec. 16, 2016, in the briefing room of the White House in Washington. (Susan Walsh/




The new measures include sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies, three companies that are believed to have provided support for government cyber operations, and four Russian cyber officials. The administration will also shut down Russian-owned facilities in Maryland and New York that Obama said where used for intelligence activities and would declare 35 Russian operatives “persona non grata,” meaning they would be required to leave the United States.


The State Department said it is taking action against these 35 individuals in response to Russia’s interference in the U.S. election and to the harassment of U.S. diplomats overseas over the last four years.

Obama also suggested Thursday the United States may undertake covert activity in response to Russian activities.

“Any anti-Russian sanctions are fruitless and counterproductive,” said Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian foreign ministry official in charge of democracy and human rights, according to Interfax. “Such one-sided steps have the goal of damaging relations and complicating their restoration in the future.”

The Obama administration’s announcement culminates months of vigorous internal debate over whether and how to respond to Russia’s unprecedented election-year provocations, ranging from the hacks of the Democratic National Committee to the targeting of state electoral systems.

U.S. officials believe that a military spy agency in Russia hacked into the Democratic National Committee and stole emails later released by WikiLeaks. Emails hacked from the account of John Podesta, who chaired Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, were also made public, and state electoral systems were targeted.

The cyber-intervention was aimed primarily at Democrats, U.S. officials concluded.

[Obama administration is close to announcing measures to punish Russia for election interference]

Russia has denied involvement in attacks related to the election and promised to retaliate against any new sanctions.

President-elect Donald J. Trump has already suggested that the United States should drop its effort to retaliate against Russia, telling reporters this week that “we ought to get on with our lives.” Trump has also cast doubt on U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia was behind the hacks.

As part of the new measures, the administration has amended a 2015 executive order allowing the president to respond to foreign cyberattacks. Because that order was intended primarily for attacks against infrastructure or commercial targets, officials adapted the order to cover attempts to undermine the electoral process.

Read more:




imrs.php

Ellen Nakashima is a national security reporter for The Washington Post. She focuses on issues relating to intelligence, technology and civil liberties.
Follow @nakashimae

SOURCE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...917067331bb_story.html?utm_term=.31510834afcd


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QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
The luxurious, 45-acre compound in Maryland is
being shut down for alleged Russian espionage



Adam Taylor
WorldViews
December 29 at 5:28 PM

On Thursday afternoon, the Obama administration announced its long-awaited reta-
liation for what has been characterized as Russian interference in November's presi-
dential election.


Among the wide-ranging measures, the White House announced that the State Department would be closing two Russian-owned compounds — one in Maryland and one in New York — that it says were used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes. It is also declaring 35 Russians “persona non grata” for their alleged role in intelligence operations.

How hidden were these alleged spy compounds? At least in the case of Maryland, the answer is simple: not very.


[U.S. takes action against Russia for election hacking]

The compound in Maryland sits on around 45 acres of land at Pioneer Point, a peninsula where the Corsica and Chester rivers merge — around a 90-minute drive from downtown Washington, by the Eastern Shore town of Centreville in Queen Anne's County.

The site was purchased by the Soviet government in 1972, and became something of a resort for Soviets living in the United States. It is the former estate of John J. Raskob, a former executive for DuPont and General Motors perhaps best known as the builder of the Empire State Building. The Soviets later added to the estate by making a deal with the State Department, which received two properties in Moscow in return.


At the time of its purchase, there was some resistance to the sale of the building to the Soviets, with the local newspaper reporting there were “fears of nuclear submarines surfacing in the Chester River to pick up American secrets and defectors.”

But by 1974, the New York Times reported that many locals had been won over, with the help of dinner parties and gifts of vodka and caviar. “As far as neighbors are concerned you couldn't ask for better,” Joe Handley, a former estate manager for Raskob, told The Washington Post in 1979. “They don't bother anybody.”

A reporter from the local Star Democrat newspaper in Easton visited the site in 1987 — in large part because of the long-standing rumors that it was being used for espionage. The resulting article, also published in The Post, noted the tall chain-link fence outside the compound and the video cameras monitoring the gate, but also the lime-green bungalows, swimming pools and numerous tennis courts.

“Tomorrow we have a game,” one tennis player identified as Yevgeny told the reporter. “We have a tournament with the International Monetary Fund. They have a beautiful team. But this year, God knows who will win.”

After the turmoil of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Pioneer Point was bought by the Russian Federation — at the time, the Associated Press reported its value was $3 million. Local residents told the AP that they didn't have any problems with the Russians who visited the compound.

''I live down the road from them. We fish and crab with them. There's usually one that speaks English for the group,'' a woman named as Bonnie Delph told the AP.

The compound has been in the news very little since then. Nine years ago, the Russian ambassador to the United States, Yuri Ushakov, invited a reporter from Washington Life magazine to tour the grounds, explaining that for him it was like the traditional Russian summer house, or dacha, he was used to back home. “Because we have such a hectic life in Washington, we need a place to hide for a while,” his wife, Svetlana, was quoted as saying.

A man who answered the phone for a number listed online for the Pioneer Point compound said it was a wrong number, before adding that he did not speak English.

On Thursday, U.S. officials would not confirm the location of the New York compound being shut down — saying only that it was a 14-acre property on Long Island that had been purchased by the Soviet government in 1954. However, a number of Russia-watching bloggers pointed towards the Killenworth estate on Dosoris Lane in Glen Cove, which acts as the country home for Moscow's delegation to the United Nations. The grand country house was once owned by American philanthropist George Dupont Pratt.

Russia could disconnect itself from global Internet during a crisis, Putin adviser says


SOURCE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ged-russian-espionage/?utm_term=.422c88703f97


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QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
Obama's Russia sanctions put Hill Republicans in a box
They're caught between the GOP's longstanding tough-on-Russia stance and Donald Trump.


President Barack Obama’s eleventh-hour Russia sanctions present a big test for congressional
Republicans, who are torn between decades-old GOP principles and their new standard-bearer's
unorthodox embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Democrats are already seeking to exploit this rift, drafting legislation designed to make it
harder for President-elect Donald Trump to unilaterally roll back Obama’s new sanctions.

The goal is to force Republicans into a tough spot in which they can either soften
their long-standing animosity toward Russia
, opening themselves to charges of
hypocrisy — or defy Trump, who on Wednesday
dismissed efforts to punish
Russia by saying “we ought to get on with our lives.”


A Senate Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it will be telling
whether Republicans get on board with such measures. “It remains to be seen whether these
guys are all talk and no action,” said the aide, who noted that “this is the Republican Party
that in 2012 called Russia the No. 1 geopolitical foe for the United States in the world.”


FULL ARTICLE: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/russia-sanctions-hill-republicans-obama-trump-233039


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QueEx

Rising Star
Super Moderator
How Trump Made Russia's Hacking More Effective
It was the president-elect’s hyperbolic characterizations of the pilfered
material that turned routine documents into the stuff of scandal.



“It’s all just an attempt to delegitimize Donald Trump.” That’s the argument you hear from Trump supporters each time new information comes to light about how hard Russian spy services worked to damage Hillary Clinton. You heard it again on Thursday.

The Trump supporters are 100 percent right: The information is delegitimizing. The president-elect of the United States reportedly owes his office in considerable part to illegal clandestine activities in his favor conducted by a hostile, foreign spy service. It’s hard to imagine a crisis of presidential legitimacy more extreme than that. But that’s no argument against airing this information. It’s precisely why the information must be aired.

Vladimir Putin took a fearful risk. If the Electoral College had taken a slightly different bounce on November 8, Putin would now be facing an enraged President-elect Hillary Clinton. Putin had every reason to expect that he probably would end up facing a President Clinton. Yet he took the gamble anyway, apparently doing something none of his Soviet predecessors had ever dared to do: mount a clandestine espionage and disinformation campaign on behalf of one candidate for U.S. president, and against another.

The word “clandestine” is the key term here. In every election, foreign governments have their preferred candidates. It was no secret in 2004 that America’s French and German allies hoped George W. Bush would lose, or that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu felt the same way about President Obama in 2012. Those allies made their wishes known through the familiar and lawful method of grumbling to sympathetic American journalists about the awfulness of the incumbent administration. What they did not do was organize their spy agencies to break the law of the United States. But that is evidently what Russia did—and it seems to have worked.

Obama pledged today that before he leaves office, the American people will learn more fully how the Russians did it.

This will be important to know. But there is something else important to keep in mind.

The content of the Russian-hacked emails was actually remarkably unexplosive.
  • Probably the biggest news was that Hillary Clinton had expressed herself in favor of a hemispheric common market in speeches to Wall Street executives.
  • Otherwise, we learned from them that some people at the Democratic National Committee favored a lifelong Democrat for their party’s nomination over a socialist interloper who had joined the party for his own convenience.
  • We learned that many Democrats, including Chelsea Clinton, disapproved of the ethical shortcomings of some of the people in Bill Clinton’s inner circle.
  • We learned that Hillary Clinton acknowledged differences between her “public and private” positions on some issues.
None of this even remotely corroborated Donald Trump’s wild characterizations of the Russian-hacked, Wikileaks-published material.

These Wikileaks emails confirm what those of us here today have known all along: Hillary Clinton is the vessel for a corrupt global establishment that is raiding our country and surrendering our sovereignty. This criminal government cartel doesn’t recognize borders, but believes in global governance, unlimited immigration, and rule by corporations.​

OR

The more emails WikiLeaks releases, the more lines between the Clinton Foundation, the secretary of state's office and the Clintons' personal finances—they all get blurred … I mean, at what point—at what point do we say it? Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt person ever to seek the office of the presidency.
Without Trump’s own willingness to make false claims and misuse Russian-provided information, the Wikileaks material would have deflated of its own boringness. The Russian-hacked material did damage because, and only because, Russia found a willing accomplice in the person of Donald J. Trump.

Many questions remain about how the Russian spy services did what they did. That includes Putin’s motives for ordering the operation. But on issues from Crimea to Syria to NATO to the breakup of the European Union, Trump’s publicly expressed views align with Putin’s wishes.

Over Trump’s motives for collaborating so full-throatedly with Russian espionage, there hangs a greater and more disturbing mystery—a mystery that Trump seems in no hurry to dispel. And maybe he is wise to leave the mystery in place: as delegitimizing as it is, it’s very possible the truth would be even worse.



SOURCE: https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...p-made-russias-hacking-more-effective/511880/


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COINTELPRO

Transnational Member
Registered
This is messed up after having a diplomat get shot from behind, than expelling their diplomats in this country. The timing could not be worse.

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US intel report: Putin ordered cyberattacks to sway election

Dedi Choen Remember at the debate, when Hillary called out Trump for being Putin's puppet, and he replied :"no puppet,no puppet, you'r puppet". Well, now its clear to all what a big puppet of Putin he is. Ronald Reagan would be rolling in his grave. We are doomed. https://youtu.be/OCFgYzf4DV4#PutinPuppet. #TrumpTraitor




News

US intel report: Putin ordered cyberattacks to sway election
By Daniel Halper and Bob Fredericks

January 6, 2017 | 4:22pm

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Trump, after intel briefing, insists Russia didn't sway election
A damning report by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies released Friday concludes that the Russian government under the direction of the military and President Vladimir Putin employed cyberattacks to undermine Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump.

“Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations,” read the 25-page report, prepared by the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency.

“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency,” it read.

“We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.”

Trump has repeatedly scoffed at the allegations, and earlier Friday called the probe a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

Trump met with the country’s intelligence chiefs on Friday and said later there was no evidence that Russian hacking influenced the outcome of the presidential election.

“While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines,” Trump said in a statement.

During a roughly 90-minute sitdown at Trump Tower, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan and FBI Director James Comey briefed the president-elect on Russia’s meddling in the US election.

Trump did not reveal what was said during the briefing or whether he agreed with their assessment.

The president-elect called his briefing constructive.

“I had a constructive meeting and conversation with the leaders of the Intelligence Community. I have tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this community to our great nation,” he said.

He also blamed the DNC, saying their computers were hacked because their cybersecurity was lax.

“There were attempts to hack the Republican National Committee, but the RNC had strong hacking defenses and the hackers were unsuccessful,” he said.

And he pledged to tackle the issue of cybersecurity within 90 days of assuming office.

“Whether it is our government, organizations, associations or businesses we need to aggressively combat and stop cyberattacks. I will appoint a team to give me a plan,” Trump said.
 

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Don’t be surprised if Trump himself leaked the story about prostitutes defiling a bed Obama once slept in

Gersh Kuntzman

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, January 11, 2017, 8:59 AM

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U.S. intelligence warned Trump about Russian 'perverted sexual acts' blackmail, report says
NY Daily News

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You should not be surprised that Donald Trump may have hired prostitutes to urinate all over a bed that President Obama once slept in.

The reason is that this salacious tale — part of a super-secret trove of documents just published by Buzzfeed — makes Trump look good.

So good, in fact, that I'm guessing he's the one who leaked it.

As someone who has covered Trump on and off for 25 years, I can heartily testify that he's a jerk. When he wanted to look good, he leaked favorable information about himself to the press — sometimes calling as himself and other times disguising his voice as a publicist named John Miller.

U.S. intelligence warned Trump about alleged Russian blackmail

When he hooked up with Marla Maples, it wasn't enough for the public to know he was squiring the Georgia Peach around town. He leaked Maples' sexual satisfaction to the New York Post, which ran it under the headline, "Best sex I ever had."

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Americans shouldn’t think Trump is above hiring hookers to defile a bed that President Obama once slept in.
(Gerry Broome/AP)
Here's the problem: Trump was the source of the quote, not Maples. This is a guy who was such a monumental cad that he would not only kiss and tell — but then call the newspaper to exaggerate his skills on behalf of his girlfriend.

A few years later, I joined the staff of the New York Post. I was on hand one day when Trump called one of our gossip reporters and said that he was going to dump Maples. He pretended he felt bad about it, so he convinced the reporter to post an item about the marital difficulties — except there was one problem.

"Donald," the reporter asked, "who can I attribute this story to?"

Russia denies having compromising dirt on Donald Trump

"Well, you could say, '...a source close to Marla,'" he replied.

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Remember when Trump used to leak stories about himself while pretending to be a publicist named John Miller?
(Matt Rourke/AP)
So suddenly Donald Trump's failure in yet another marriage was spun in his favor — by Trump himself providing the words supposedly spoken by someone else.

Remember, people: This is the guy who bragged about grabbing women by the p---y — and then won the presidency. Face it, many voters secretly admire a man who would indeed grab women in that way, so calling it "locker room talk" only ended up helping Trump with his base.

So why would we be surprised if Trump hired hookers to pee all over a bed in the presidential suite at a Russian hotel that had once hosted President Obama and the First Lady? If you spent the last year bragging about molesting women, locking up political opponents and shooting people on Fifth Ave. as part of a macho political persona, of course you'd hire hookers to pee where Obama slept.

Trump still denies Russia report, compares leak to 'Nazi Germany'

It's what the alpha dog does.

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This is the same man who bragged about grabbing women by the p---y in a leaked “Access Hollywood” video — and then won the presidency.
(The Washington Post)
And there's no point being the alpha dog unless everyone knows you're the alpha dog.

Do you think Sen. Chuck Schumer would hire prostitutes to pee all over a bed that George W. Bush once slept in?

Didn't think so.
 

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Molly Too And the latest weather: There is a strong chance of golden showers forecast for the DC area and later for the NY metro region.


Former British ambassador to Russia alerted U.S. intelligence agencies to dossier on Donald Trump: report
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U.S. intelligence warned Trump about Russian 'perverted sexual acts' blackmail, report says
NY Daily News

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Chris Sommerfeldt
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Friday, January 13, 2017, 6:53 AM


A former British ambassador to Russia played a major part in alerting U.S. intelligence agencies to the existence of an unverified dossier alleging that President-elect Donald Trump engaged in “perverted sex acts” at a ritzy Moscow hotel while colluding with the Kremlin, according to a report.

Andrew Wood, who served as Britain’s head of mission in Moscow between 1995 and 2000, told The Independent that he met Arizona Sen. John McCain at an international security conference in Canada after Trump’s election this past November.

The two spoke at length about a 35-page document that claimed Trump was being blackmailed by Russia over “perverted” sexual activity he engaged in during a visit to Moscow in 2013. The document, which cannot be corroborated by the Daily News, also claimed that Trump's campaign cooperated with the Kremlin in its effort to sway the 2016 presidential election in his favor.

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Ex-British ambassador to Russia Andrew Wood said alerted Sen. John McCain to the dossier while at a conference in Canada last year.
(Reuters)
“The issue of Donald Trump and Russia was very much in the news and it was natural to talk about it,” said Wood, who’s highly respected in diplomatic circles. “We spoke about the kind of activities the Russians can be engaged in. We also spoke about how Mr. Trump may find himself in a position where there could be an attempt to blackmail him with ‘kompromat’ and claims that there were audio and video tapes in existence.”

Trump 'dossier' author's allegations backed up by fellow spies

McCain grew so concerned from his conversation with Wood that he requested a private meeting with FBI director James Comey immediately upon returning to the U.S. The Republican senator passed along the information to Comey, who folded it into a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election presented to President Obama and Trump last week.



8 photos view gallery
Donald Trump's road to the White House since Election Day

McCain confirmed in a statement Wednesday that he alerted the intelligence community to the dossier. Several European media outlets thereafter reported that the longtime senator obtained the document from an unidentified former British ambassador to Russia, who had in turn received the information straight from the author, former MI6 agent Christopher Steele.

But Wood told The Independent that he wasn’t the one to hand the dossier to McCain, claiming he only briefed the senator on its contents, which he asserted “should be investigated.”

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Sen. McCain confirmed Wednesday that he alerted the U.S. intelligence community to the damning document.
(CARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS)
“I would like to stress that I did not pass on any dossier to Senator McCain or anyone else and I did not see a dossier at the time,” Wood said. “I do know Christopher Steele and in my view he is very professional and thorough in what he does.”

Obama briefed on Trump claims amid fear leaks would become public

Wood also said he spoke to McCain about hacking campaigns allegedly launched by the Kremlin against Democrats in order to curry favor for Trump.

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The damning 35-page document was put together by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele (pictured in 2015).
(Chris Williamson/Getty Images)
“I find it difficult to believe that Donald Trump could not have known something about the hacking,” Wood said. “He had basically asked people to prove it; he has never said this is something which should be investigated. My view is that these are serious matters and that they should be investigated.”

“I don’t think I have done anything wrong at all in what I have done,” he added.

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Wood said he didn't hand the dossier to Sen. McCain, but only briefed him on its contents.
(SHAWN THEW/EPA)
Wood’s comments come amid reports about members of multiple spy agencies corroborating the allegations outlined in Steele’s dossier, which was published in full by BuzzFeed.

Clapper calls Trump Russia dossier leak 'extremely corrosive'

BBC Washington correspondent Paul Wood claimed in a first person report Thursday that a British spy told him back in August that the head of an Eastern European intelligence agency was aware of Russian operatives using damaging information on Trump as blackmail.

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Trump and his team have vehemently denied the allegations outlined in the dossier.
(Evan Vucci/AP)
Wood said he passed that information along to active duty CIA officers through an intermediary, who confirmed that the agency was aware of several tapes and audio recording that featured Trump and was “of a sexual nature.”

President-elect Trump and his team have vehemently denied the allegations, blasting media organizations reporting on them of peddling “fake news.”

“It’s all fake news. It’s phony stuff. It didn’t happen,” Trump said athis first press conference since Election Day on Wednesday. “It was gotten by opponents of ours. It was a group of opponents that got together. Sick people and they got together and put that crap together.”

What's in the unverified dossier about Trump's Russia ties?

Steele, the former MI6 agent who penned the dossier, reportedly went into hiding after BuzzFeed published the document, telling British media outlets he is "terrified for his safety."



Mary Workman Balderson Last year? Now, Senator McCain, tell us ehat a "patriot" you are for turning it over NOW.
Like · Reply · 4 · 20 mins

Molly Too
And the latest weather: There is a strong chance of golden showers forecast for the DC area and later for the NY metro region.
Like · Reply · 1 · 24 mins

Byron Bridgeman
Why do you think two of his wives are from Eastern Europe.Must be their good eating.
Like · Reply · 12 mins

John Dough
The CIA got played by 4chan! #GoldenShowers Bwhahahaha.
Like · Reply · 1 · 27 mins · Edited

Kathy Jane Lankford
Hopefully they have pics of Huma and Hillary, too.....
Like · Reply · 1 · 24 mins · Edited
7 Replies · 5 mins


John Smith
That alone give more credibility to the story.


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Linda Chavez

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Opinion

The most worrisome effect of Russia’s election meddling
By Linda Chavez
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January 13, 2017 | 7:47pm

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President-elect Donald Trump conceded this week that he thinks Russia was responsible for hacking the e-mails of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign, though he couldn’t help but add the caveat that it ‘‘could have been others also.”

Trump’s reluctance to accept the conclusions of the intelligence community on this issue until this week has always been based on the fear that it might cast a pall over his election victory. But what if the point of Russia’s interference was not to try to pick a winner but to delegitimize the democratic process altogether?

This seems far likelier than the questionable theory that Russian President Vladimir Putin preferred Trump to win.

No matter how fawning Trump has been over Putin, Republicans in Congress, as well as Republican appointees who make it through confirmation in any Republican administration, are more reliably committed to a strong, assertive national defense than their Democratic counterparts. It seems naive to believe that Putin’s Russia would prefer a Republican administration — even one led by Trump — over a Democratic administration.

What Putin wants is an America that is diminished in the eyes of the world. And what better way to accomplish that aim than to make people lose confidence in America’s democratic institutions and sow seeds of doubt about the legitimacy of our democratic process, no matter who won? The Russians seem to have done a pretty good job at accomplishing that goal.

If elections in the United States are not free and fair, if their outcome can be tampered with or influenced by outside intervention, if Americans themselves are no longer capable of making informed decisions, how is the US any different from countries such as Russia itself? We are looking more and more like a laughingstock, and our institutions, including a free press, are becoming more vulnerable.

When the inauguration takes place next week, Americans will be more divided over the fitness and abilities of the man being sworn in than at any time in recent memory. It’s true that there were many of us who didn’t believe that Barack Obama was up to the job of leading the Free World based on his limited experience, but even his critics were, for the most part, willing to give him a chance.

Obama assumed office with a 75 percent approval rating during the transition period; even George W. Bush entered office with a 65 percent approval rating despite the contentious court battle over whether he had won the election. The same can’t be said of Trump.

The country remains equally divided over how he has handled his transition, 48-48 percent. More disturbing, only 37 percent of Americans approve of Trump as he enters office. The transfer of power in any democracy requires that the people accept the outcome of the election, even if they don’t particularly like it. But the resistance to Trump is worse than any I’ve seen in my 45-year history in politics. Putin must be chuckling in Moscow.

One of the most important pillars of maintaining a democracy is a free press — and here, too, Russia played a destructive role during the election. Russia’s interference in the election wasn’t restricted to hacking e-mails and releasing embarrassing information; the intelligence community also found evidence that Russia was behind ‘‘fake news” stories that millions of Americans tapped into online.

But again, what is most worrisome about this meddling is that it has added to doubt in the minds of many Americans about the media in general. The right distrusts the mainstream media (and has for decades), so many conservatives simply tune them out, refusing to believe anything reported by The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN or the major networks.

When, according to a 2016 Gallup Poll, only 32 percent of the public trusts mass media to report news ‘‘fully, accurately and fairly,” we’ve got a problem. The media need to correct bias — or even the appearance of bias — but it is also incumbent on our political leaders, especially the president-elect, to stop bashing the media. Putin is cheering on this distrust, as are all enemies of freedom.

Democracy can only exist as long as the people trust its institutions. The greatest calamity of this election cycle has been the weakening of that trust. Putin’s aims can be accomplished only if we allow him to undermine our belief in our system.
 

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Co-President-Elect Putin Blames Obama Administration For Undermining Trump
by Ben Yakas in News on Jan 17, 2017 12:18 pm


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Saturday Night Live's Beck Bennett as Vladimir Putin during last weekend's show.
Co-President-elect Vladimir Putin didn't cultivate information on Donald Trump for five years just to see it all go to hell thanks to some nosy, good-for-nothing American reporters. Putin weighed in on everything Trump in a news conference Tuesday, castigating the Obama administration for attempting to "undermine the legitimacy of the president-elect" despite his "convincing" victory. He even said that the people behind the dossier claims are "worse than prostitutes."

"I have an impression they practiced in Kiev and are ready to organize a Maidan in Washington, just to not let Trump take office," Putin said according to Business Insider, as he discussed the Trump dossier, which included allegations that Russian operatives have compromising personal and financial information about Trump. In case half the words in Putin's statement don't make sense to you off-hand, Putin was referring to the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine that led to the ousting of the country's pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014.

"The media frenzy surrounding Trump speaks of the degradation of US political elites," Putin is also quoted as saying. He added, in a completely unsuspicious way without twirling his mustache or darting his eyes back and forth like a cartoon villain, that he was "not acquainted with Trump" and therefore had "no reasons either to defend or attack him." Yup, no reasons whatsoever!

Also, Trump himself said in 2013 that he had a relationship with Putin, not that his aides think we should be taking anything Trump says as necessarily true: "I do have a relationship," Trump said of Putin at the time. "And I can tell you that he’s very interested in what you and I are doing here today. He’s probably very interested in what you and I are saying here today. He’s probably going to see it in some form. But I do have a relationship with him." This truly is the most horrifying remake of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

As Randy Newman so eloquently put it, these chicken farmers and file clerks and American intelligence agencies really are gonna be the death of Putin.

Anyway, if you think that Putin wouldn't comment on the most salacious details in the dossier—that Trump hired two prostitutes to pee in a bed that the Obamas once slept in while staying in Moscow—you'd be very wrong indeed. He said that Trump "has been with the most beautiful women in the world, so why would he need prostitutes in Moscow?"

"Trump organized beauty contests," he added, according to Business Insider. "It's unlikely he met with young women with such a low social responsibility." If you are wondering about that translation, Bloomberg has their own version of the quote:

Trump is “a grown man, and secondly he’s someone who has been involved with beauty contests for many years and has met the most beautiful women in the world,” Putin said. “I find it hard to believe that he rushed to some hotel to meet girls of loose morals, although ours are undoubtedly the best in the world.”
But perhaps we should pity Trump (no we shouldn't), since he clearly has no idea what he's doing or who he's dealing with, as outgoing CIA director John Brennan noted this weekend in an interview with Fox News Sunday: "I don’t think he has a full understanding of Russian capabilities and the actions they are taking on the world," Brennan said. "Mr. Trump has to understand that absolving Russia is a road that he needs to be very, very careful about moving down."

For his part, Trump has called the dossier "fake news" and "a complete fraud," and pointed the finger at Brennan and the CIA for leaking the document (even though the dossier was already widely circulating among politicians and journalists for months). Trump even had the balls to compare his treatment to that of Nazi Germany, which understandably incensed Brenann:

“Tell the families of those 117 CIA officers who are forever memorialized on our wall of honor that their loved ones who gave their lives were akin to Nazis," Brennan told the Wall Street Journal yesterday. "Tell the CIA officers who are serving in harm’s way right now and their families who are worried about them that they are akin to Nazi Germany. I found that to be very repugnant, and I will forever stand up for the integrity and patriotism of my officers who have done much over the years to sacrifice for their fellow citizens."
 

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U.S. eases some economic sanctions against Russia
Doug Stanglin , USATODAY Published 12:29 p.m. ET Feb. 2, 2017 | Updated 4 minutes ago
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(Photo: Kirill Kudryavtsev, AFP/Getty Images)

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday eased some economic sanctions against Russia, specifically licensing cyber-security sales to the Russian Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB, according to official documents.

The license, listed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Treasury Department, covers "all transactions and activities" involving the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB, that were prohibited by earlier executive orders.

It notes in particular that "requesting, receiving, utilizing, paying for, or dealing in licenses, permits, certifications, or notifications issued or registered by the Federal Security Service (FSB) for the importation, distribution, or use of information technology products in the Russian Federation," is allowed.

The initial sanctions, as imposed by President Obama in April 2015, were titled "Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities." That was further strengthened in December in an order entitled, "Taking Additional Steps to Address the national emergency with Respect to Significant Malicious Cyber-enabled Activities."

In Washington, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said‌, in response to the reports,"We're not easing sanctions" on Russia. He referred questions to the Treasury Department.

The Treasury department did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The December sanctions were put in place after Obama charged that the Russians sought to affect U.S. elections via cyber-espionage.


Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., ranking member of a House CIA subcommittee, accused the Trump administration of “rewarding” the FSB for tampering with the U.S. elections.

“This is the same group (FSB) that, just a month ago, our intelligence community determined was responsible for the attack on our democracy,” Swalwell told USA TODAY. “We just made it easier for the same group to import into Russia the tools they could use to hack us or our allies again.”

Swalwell said he will explore methods for Congress to enact its own sanctions.

“We have French and German elections coming up, and we just made it easier (for the FSB) to go after them,” he said. “They can sharpen the knives and come after us again.”

The Russian news agency TASS, in reporting the easing of sanctions, said Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to make a statement on the decision.

"First we need to understand what it is all about," Peskov said, according to TASS. "If we turn to the rocket engines matter, we will see that our U.S. counterparts never impose sanctions that could damage their own interests."

The move comes as some members of Congress have proposed adding new sanctions to Russia in connection with the hacking allegations.

Last month, Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham pushed for greater sanctions against Russia for trying to influence the U.S. election and said then President-elect Donald Trump was in danger of being in conflict with congressional Republicans if he didn't get tougher on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Contributing: John Bacon in McLean, Va.

Babar Bhutto As expected. Trump just said thank you to Putin for election assistance.
Like · Reply · 47 · 19 mins · Edited

Kim Adkins-Greene
Would love to see more details on this. Easing sanctions on licensing of cyber-security sales seems a little odd considering they have probably been hacking us.
Like · Reply · 10 · 12 mins

Faustina Sandoval
While Putin's army continues to march deeper into the Ukraine. The Mango just threw Europe under the bus
Like · Reply · 1 · 2 mins

Jason Allan Wang
So how much money is trump getting out of this deal ?
Like · Reply · 11 · 20 mins

Jimmy Romero
We have compensate for them helping us beat the wicked witch killary
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;)
Like · Reply · 6 · 17 mins

Abdou Olleak
The initial sanctions, as imposed by President Obama in April 2015, were titled "Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities." That was further strengthened in December in an order entitled, "Taking Additional Steps to Address the national emergency with Respect to Significant Malicious Cyber-enabled Activities."
Like · Reply · 22 · 24 mins

Adam Herrera
Good. The Democrats conspiracy theories were garbage anyways.
Like · Reply · 6 · 19 mins
2 Replies · 8 mins

Niel Rhine
Still thinking he doesn't owe Putin?
Like · Reply · 12 · 17 mins

Anibal Salazar
To those who still don't believe that Trump has sold this country to the KGB, today's news ought to clear the air a little more
Like · Reply · 1 · 7 mins

Glenda Sims
I'm sure he had promised his pal, Putin (an ex-KGB agent), some quid pro quo for his help in the election.
Like · Reply · Just now

Michael Williams
lol putin pulled some strings
Like · Reply · 12 · 22 mins

Alexander Serpas
But crooked Hillary...

And what do trump supporters have to say? Baaaaaaaaaa

 
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