CIA: Senate briefed in September on Russian efforts to deliver a Trump victory

[Razgovory]

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/15/politics/monica-crowley-twitter-vladimir-putin-donald-trump/index.html

That time Monica Crowley tweeted that Putin should hack Clinton's emails

Washington (CNN) Donald Trump's pick for senior director of strategic communications for the National Security Council once suggested Russian President Vladimir Putin should hack former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's emails.

In June, Monica Crowley tweeted a Daily Caller article that reported that the State Department wouldn't release Clinton's emails for 27 months.

She wrote in her tweet, "I guess Putin is going to have to do it."

Her message received criticism from followers on Twitter, who -- after her new role was announced -- wrote that a senior member of the National Security Council shouldn't advocate for Russia to hack emails.

The tweet was also resurfaced in light of Thursday's news that US intelligence shows the hacked emails during the 2016 election were carried out with sophisticated hacking tools, the equivalent of those used by the US National Security Agency. The use of the advanced tools suggests Putin was involved in the hacks.

This isn't the first time Crowley has faced criticism for her tweets. In October 2015, she tweeted what appeared to be a message of support for Trump's plan to build a wall between the US and Mexico with a photo of her standing next to what was left of the Berlin Wall, Crowley wrote, "At the Berlin Wall last week. Walls work."

An hour later, in an attempt to clarify her tweet, she wrote that critics "missed the point."

She wrote, "For those of you who have missed the point, this is what remains of the Berlin Wall."

The photo in the tweet shows a marker denoting the years during which the wall, a symbol of the Cold War and communist oppression, divided Berlin.

And now she's discovered to be a Plagiarist.

[jimmy olsen]

Even Trump backers in the Senate not denying it.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/pro-trump-senators-back-intelligence-officials-hacking-report-n705241

Jan 10 2017, 3:23 pm ET

Pro-Trump Senators Back Intelligence Officials on Hacking Report

by Erik Ortiz

Two of President-elect Donald Trump's biggest supporters on the Senate Intelligence Committee told the nation's top intelligence officials Tuesday they have no reason to doubt Russia interfered in last year's election.

Their decision to endorse the findings comes after Trump spent weeks sowing doubts about Moscow's alleged involvement and its preference that he win the presidency over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — findings that the president-elect said had "absolutely no effect on the outcome" of the 2016 presidential election.

The committee meeting Tuesday was the first time Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, appeared to directly endorse the intelligence findings.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, also a vocal Trump supporter, didn't challenge the conclusions that the Russian government was targeting the election either, but said Clinton was at fault for faltering to Trump.

She "lost this election not because of Vladimir Putin or fake news or that she lost the electoral college, but because she ran a bad campaign," Cotton said.

Senators peppered FBI Director James Comey, along with James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, Adm. Michael Rogers, the head of the National Security Agency, and John Brennan, the CIA director, with questions about Russian conducting cyberespionage to influence the presidential election.

Comey said that the agency's requests to examine the servers of the Democratic National Committee were denied — disputing a report this month that the FBI never asked for access.

Comey's comments were his first made publicly since the November election and since last week's release of a declassified report into the alleged Russian interference.

He was called to the Capitol to speak about the alleged Russian hacking and was not specifically asked about the FBI's investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state. Comey faced criticism for his decision to notify Congress just 11 days before the election that the agency was reviewing a new batch of emails that appeared to be pertinent to their investigation.

Moscow tried to help Trump "by discrediting Secretary Clinton," according to the 25-page report, the contents of which was met with "high confidence" from the FBI and CIA. The NSA "has moderate confidence" in the findings implicating Russia.

Russia has repeatedly denied involvement in the attacks.

Trump met with U.S. intelligence officials Friday after weeks of openly feuding with the community, and stopped short of fully accepting the intelligence report. He insisted in a statement that the hacking had "absolutely no effect on the outcome."

The Democratic National Committee, the White House, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the State Department and American corporations were targeted by the cyberattacks, two U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News about the report. Republicans were also targeted in the cyberespionage campaign although they did not suffer the same email leaks as the Democrats did.

Comey told senators Tuesday that there were intrusions at state-level voter registration databases, but there was no evidence that Russian hackers targeted the Trump campaign or current Republican National Committee domains.

Clapper said that only stolen information from Democrats was released.

He added that Russia could be seeking to influence political views in about a couple dozen other countries.

Commitee member Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, said the Russians got what they wanted by creating chaos "to get us to fight each other over whether our elections were legitimate."

Rubio also raised the worry — and Clapper endorsed it — that the Russians could plant incriminating information on a U.S. politician to discredit him or her.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-New Mexico, said Russia's motive was simply to "help Russia and to weaken America."

"In the next election, the shoe could be on the other foot, and a foreign power could decide they want a Democrat to win next time," he added.

Trump has said he would put together a plan within 90 days to "aggressively combat and stop cyberattacks," but indicated discussions on how to do so wouldn't be done publicly.

In retaliation against Russia, President Barack Obama last month unveiled sanctions against the country's intelligence service and expelled 35 of its diplomats from the United States.
 

[CountDeMoney]

Seriously, what the fuck is up with Trump and Putin?  Trump is super inconsistent about every single issues I can think of, except for his sycophantic expression of admiration for Putin. 

Something doesn't add up here.  Even if there is no funny business there and he wants to reconcile with Russia out of pure pragmatism, why broadcast your infatuation to everyone and give up all your bargaining power?

He is a compromised asset.  Both he and Flynn have made multiple trips to Russia in recent years--as private citizens, and therefore without benefit of the proper security awareness, or measures such as TSCM taken. 

We don't know how compromised they are, and to what degree.  Phones, laptops, personal devices. The ability to conduct and maintain state espionage starts there.  That's why they are both national security threats in the matter in which they conduct themselves. 

Breakink News, Yes
Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him

(CNN) - Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.
The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump.

The classified briefings last week were presented by four of the senior-most US intelligence chiefs -- Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers.

One reason the nation's intelligence chiefs took the extraordinary step of including the synopsis in the briefing documents was to make the President-elect aware that such allegations involving him are circulating among intelligence agencies, senior members of Congress and other government officials in Washington, multiple sources tell CNN.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/10/politics/donald-trump-intelligence-report-russia/index.html

[11B4V]

Cueing Trumpent sycophants on national news outlets in 3....2.....1.......Distort the truth blah blah blah.

[Admiral Yi]

Comey declined to respond to the question whether the FBI was investigating possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.

[sbr]

No need to respond to anything now, the election is over.

[grumbler]

Comey declined to respond to the question whether the FBI was investigating possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Of course he's not going to talk about it; it isn't weeks before an election, and Trump is Republican, anyway.

[frunk]

This would all be very funny if I wasn't living on this planet.

[FunkMonk]

So the rumors of Trump's Russian orgies are true

[CountDeMoney]

So the rumors of Trump's Russian orgies are true

Knowing Trump, as textbook as his pathologies are, it's probably just basic, run-of-the-mill, boring bang-em-three-at-a-time stuff.  The man's completely predictable.

[katmai]

And water sports!

[CountDeMoney]

Too worried about his hair.

[Ed Anger]

So the rumors of Trump's Russian orgies are true

Knowing Trump, as textbook as his pathologies are, it's probably just basic, run-of-the-mill, boring bang-em-three-at-a-time stuff.  The man's completely predictable.

Nothing wrong wit that

[CountDeMoney]

So the rumors of Trump's Russian orgies are true

Knowing Trump, as textbook as his pathologies are, it's probably just basic, run-of-the-mill, boring bang-em-three-at-a-time stuff.  The man's completely predictable.

Nothing wrong wit that

[CountDeMoney]

Comey declined to respond to the question whether the FBI was investigating possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Of course he's not going to talk about it; it isn't weeks before an election, and Trump is Republican, anyway.

Definitely the Asshole of the Year.  And that's saying something this year.

Testifying before the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday, James Comey said he could not comment in public on a possible investigation into allegations of links between Russia and the Trump campaign.

"I would never comment on investigations – whether we have one or not – in an open forum like this, so I really can't answer one way or another," said Comey, at a hearing into the US intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russia intervened in the election to benefit Trump.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/10/james-comey-trump-russia-links-investigation-senate