“… Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who has campaigned against Western-imposed sanctions on Russia, met with Mr. Trump’s closest advisers: his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.; his son-in-law, Jared Kushner; and the Trump campaign chairman at the time, Paul Manafort. The meeting was suggested, as The Post reported Monday, by a Russian pop star whose family has business ties both to the […]
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“… On Sunday, before Donald Trump Jr. acknowledged that there was a Clinton-related aspect to the meeting, Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, was on Fox News suggesting that the Veselnitskaya episode was “a big nothingburger” for the Trump campaign. …”
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“… it is important that when he held his first presidential face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin on Friday, Mr. Trump began by raising the interference issue and then reportedly pressed him more than once on Russian involvement during the course of their two-hour-and-15-minute conversation. …”
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“Russian officials are cautious about expectations for a fresh start in relations with Washington despite a planned first meeting between … Putin and … Trump next week. … Lavrov expressed hope that ‘pragmatism will prevail.’ But he added that U.S.-Russian relations ‘have become hostage to the internal politics’ inside Washington. * * * Russia continues to chafe under U.S. and Western […]
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One of America’s biggest problems in dealing with Russia today is the pressure on policymakers to decide on a course of action without a good understanding of our rival and its motives, goals and priorities. While few would condemn a company for studying the market to assess its competitors, or decry U.S. politicians for doing research on their opponents, attempts […]
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“Nation Contributing Editor Stephen F. Cohen and John Batchelor continue their weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.) Cohen is increasingly alarmed that as Washington and Moscow drift toward military conflict, the US political-media establishment remains obsessed with “Russiagate”-allegations that Russian President Putin ordered the hacking of the Democratic […]
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“Is it all the result of ‘garbage in, garbage out’ or just bad propaganda/stratcomm (strategic communications)? Like the rest of the U.S. mainstream media, ever since the defeat of their preferred candidate in the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton, the Washington Post has been engaged in an extensive ‘hissy fit’ and disinformation campaign that greatly exaggerates and even outright manufactures […]
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The story raises “Can He Do That?” questions for both the Obama and Trump administrations. Can a president fail to sufficiently punish a country that interferes in our democratic elections? Can an incoming president deny that such interference occurred? And what happens when the two leaders transition power?
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“‘After 7 months of investigations & committee hearings about my “collusion with the Russians,” nobody has been able to show any proof. Sad!,’ tweeted … Trump …. his argument is stronger than he suggests, because … Comey’s FBI began looking for evidence of collusion nearly a full year ago. It still hasn’t appeared, which means that Department of Justice Special Counsel […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Michael Riley, Jordan Robertson – June 13, 2017) [See video “How to See If Russia Meddled With Your Vote”: bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-13/russian-breach-of-39-states-threatens-future-u-s-elections] Russia’s cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump’s election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – June 6, 2017) Leonid Bershidsky is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru. The publication that revealed a classified National Security Agency report on alleged Russian attempts to hack U.S. election-related systems, treats the report as possible evidence that […]
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ST. PETERSBURG. June 2 (Interfax) – Donald Trump won the presidential elections in the United States because his work of his team turned out more effective and the accusations made against Russia of interference in the U.S. election campaign are reminiscent of anti-Semitism, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “What fingerprints? Say hornprints, hoofprints. What? Whose prints are these? IP addresses […]
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“When Russian officials and analysts here talk about the U.S. investigation of their alleged hacking of the 2016 campaign, two themes predominate: They’re flattered that their country is seen as such a powerful threat, and they’re amazed that the United States is so preoccupied with the scandal. … * * * You might expect that Russians would feel embarrassed by […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Erik Schatzker, Jake Rudnitsky – June 1, 2017) [Video interview also at: bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-01/russian-banker-says-u-s-involved-in-witch-hunt-against-trump] U.S. politicians have turned an investigation into alleged Russian interference in the presidential elections into a witch hunt to settle domestic political scores, according to the head of Russia’s second-largest bank. “This is effectively a new Cold War,” VTB Group Chief Executive Officer […]
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Subject: The “All 17 Agencies Agreed” Myth Date: Fri, 26 May 2017 From: Jeffrey Carr <greylogic.carr@gmail.com> Founder, Suits and Spooks (suitsandspooks.com) Author, “Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld” (O’Reilly Media, 2009, 2011) The “All 17 Intelligence Agencies Concluded That Russia Is Responsible” Myth that originated with Hilary Clinton is wrong, has always been wrong, and was confirmed as wrong […]
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“The Trump-Russia business is finally coming into clearer, more rational focus. Former Obama CIA chief John Brennan, in testimony this week, offered no evidence of Trump campaign cooperation with Russian intelligence. Instead he spoke of CIA fears that Russia would try to recruit/blackmail/trick Trump colleagues into being witting or unwitting agents of influence.”
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“… Democrats are not fighting for advantage. They are fighting to annihilate their opposition — not just the Trump administration but the Republican Congress. It is not enough to say they are not fighting fair. Everyone knows that. Look at John Brennan: as a national-security official throughout the Obama years, his principal job was to appease Islamist regimes and organizations. […]
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Subject: Re: 2017-#98-Johnson’s Russia List Date: Wed, 24 May 2017 20:01:47 +0300 From: Andrei Liakhov <gaffriloff@yahoo.co.uk> My answer to the “prominent Washington expert”: Dear expert, you have not read the report correctly. [“Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”] The January report never stated unequivocally that Russia’s interference is an established fact. At most, to me, as to […]
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Response by prominent Washington expert on Russia to JRL 2017-#95, 18 May 2017: “I was surprised to read Prof. Robinson’s analysis on your Russia List. His analysis misses one rather central point, without mention of which everything else that he says instantly loses credibility. It is not leaks — what would the in-party do without leaks to blame? — that […]
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“… a question asked at Tuesday’s House Intelligence Committee hearing about the Russia investigation with former Obama CIA Director John Brennan caught our attention: ‘Please tell my constituents, my neighbors, why they should care — and not just in Washington, D.C., but in Washington state and Texas and Connecticut and points in between — and why should they care, and […]
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“Some in the news media who have been intensely critical of the Trump administration are now anticipating a potentially anti-climactic end to the investigation into President Trump’s ties to Russia, as even Democratic leaders are admitting they have seen no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia to interfere with the election. … warnings [from Democratic politicians] have prompted some of Trump’s […]
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“… Trump wants to confront Russia over its actions in Ukraine and Syria and cooperate with the country to fight against Islamic State …. Democrats and other political critics have attacked … Trump for continuing to seek close engagement in Moscow as officials are investigating Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. … Trump has denied any campaign collaboration with Moscow and dismissed […]
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“… in seeking to destroy Trump in this way, his opponents are threatening the internal order of their own country. Perhaps one other explanation for the obsession with Russia is that the ‘Never Trumpists’ aren’t seeking electoral advantage so much as some form of ‘soft coup’ or palace revolution. The hope isn’t to harm Trump’s electoral prospects in 2020, but to […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Stepan Kravchenko, Evgenia Pismennaya, Ilya Arkhipov – May 10, 2017) [Text with charts bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-10/now-it-s-trump-s-turn-to-show-putin-how-to-win-bigly-at-polls] The Kremlin thinks it knows the secret to Donald Trump’s election victory — and it’s not the kind of hacking you might think. The man Putin hired to deliver the crushing re-election win he’s seeking next March, Sergei Kiriyenko, wants to emulate […]
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(The Kennan Institute –wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – MAXIM TRUDOLYUBOV – May 10, 2017) Maxim Trudolyubov, Senior Fellow with the Kennan Institute and editor-at-large with Vedomosti, has been following Russian economy and politics since the late 1990s. He has served as an opinion page editor for Vedomosti and editor and correspondent for the newspaper Kapital. The Trump’s administration’s highest-level meeting with Russia is […]
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“It was probably inevitable that Donald Trump would fire FBI Director James B. Comey. The surprising thing may be … that Trump waited as long as he did. Comey has repeatedly displayed lamentably bad judgment. … [In]Washington … [i]nstitution after institution has come into disrepute because of bungling by top government officials. Comey’s missteps are not an aberration, but part of a […]
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Twitter May 9, 2017 Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” [live feed of tweet also should embed below; tweet also viewable at: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/861713823505494016] The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017
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“#FBI Director James #Comey told senators Wednesday that #Russia remains involved in American politics, saying he thinks the country poses the ‘greatest threat’ to the U.S. political process of any in the world. During a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham – a foreign policy hawk – asked Comey ‘what kind of threat’ Russia presents ‘to the […]
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(Andrew S. Weiss – @andrewsweiss – Twitter – May 1, 2017) [Vice President for Studies, Carnegie Endowment. Russia and Eurasia Program] Kremlin propaganda comes to Showtime. Putin smirks in this trailer when Oliver Stone asks him “Why did Russia hack the election?” Showtime Doc Films @SHO_Docs No topic is off limits. The Putin Interviews, a revealing series of interviews between […]
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“… Soon after #Clinton’s defeat, top strategists decided where to place the blame. ‘Within 24 hours of her concession speech,’ the authors report, campaign manager Robby Mook and campaign chair John Podesta ‘assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack […]
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“… it should be clear that the new normal of Russian conduct on the international stage includes tampering with elections in Western democracies to boost candidates the Kremlin believes likely to do its bidding and to harass those who won’t …”
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… whether the institute’s [a Russian think tank, the Institute of Strategic Studies] memos advised the Kremlin to undertake these actions or whether they were simply piggybacking on a course of action already decided, the 2016 elections should have started a much more robust conversation about the vitality and resilience of American institutions. Very few people have wanted to tackle the unpleasant […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – April 20, 2017) Leonid Bershidsky is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru. In January, the U.S. intelligence community accused the Kremlin of aiding Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and refused to reveal the evidence that led to the claim […]
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“This week Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is making his first diplomatic visit to Russia, where he’s likely to press Moscow on its handling of Syria, which he has called ‘incompetent.’ … Tillerson should recognize that Russia’s involvement in Syria is only one example of the increasingly active, and disruptive, role that … Putin has been playing on the world stage … […]
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(ScottHorton.org – Interview with Jefferey Carr – April 7, 2017) Click here: scotthorton.org/interviews/4717-jeffrey-carr-on-the-pushback-against-crowdstrikes-claims-of-russian-election-hacking/ Jeffrey Carr, an international cybersecurity consultant, discusses the low evidentiary standard the US government and media has used to make very serious accusations about Russian hacking of Ukrainian military software and, by extension, the DNC emails. Carr says that CrowdStrike’s cybersecurity report – the basis for all […]
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“… the first expert company to make a link between the #DNC hacks and the #Kremlin is facing a damaging series of questions over its credibility …. #Cybersecurity firm #CrowdStrike has had to retract portions of a report supporting its allegations of #Russian #cyberattacks – and is also refusing to address #Congress about its findings on Moscow’s #election hacking. CrowdStrike […]
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“Susan Rice returned to the friendly confines of MSNBC … to respond to softball questions about the news that the #Obama national security adviser had ‘unmasked’ the identity of at least one member of the #Trump transition team … surveilled by U.S. #intelligence. … all the more imperative to hear her under oath before #Congress. … Rice didn’t deny that she had sought […]
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“… Schiff … and Maddow are convinced [of] … more than circumstantial evidence of collusion between the … Trump campaign and the Russian government. But … Obama doesn’t see it that way, judging from … comments before and after leaving the White House. It’s a reasonable guess [Obama] has seen more relevant intelligence on this issue than they have. * * * … the Trump White House […]
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“The top Democrat on the House committee investigating the ever-expanding probe into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential race said … that panel members still have no ‘definitive’ evidence that the Trump campaign was working with Moscow to defeat Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. … the FBI as well as the House and Senate intelligence committees are investigating the matter, which includes […]
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“We’ve known since early February that a call by former national security adviser Mike Flynn to the Russian ambassador was monitored by U.S. intelligence. … Flynn’s name was revealed and leaked to the press, along with the substance of his conversation. … Nunes’s own intelligence sources informed him that documents showed further collection of information about, and unmasking of, Trump transition officials. … […]
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“Russian experts painted a sinister picture of Russian meddling in the 2016 election Thursday, telling the Senate intelligence committee about fake news, cyber trolls, smear campaigns and even slayings they say could have ties to the Kremlin. The hearing focused on tactics Moscow is thought to employ in spreading disinformation to influence the opinions of Americans and U.S. policy. There […]
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(Voice of America – voanews.com – Oleksiy Kuzmenko and Pete Cobus – WASHINGTON, March 25, 2017) U.S. #cybersecurity firm #CrowdStrike has revised and retracted statements it used to buttress claims of #Russian #hacking during last year’s American presidential election campaign. The shift followed a VOA report that the company misrepresented data published by an influential British think tank. In December, […]
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“… Schiff, a former prosecutor, … should know better than to treat ‘circumstantial evidence’ as a synonym for guilt by association. There isn’t room to detail the fantastically trivial basis for his portrayal of Trump pilot fish Roger Stone as an intimate of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange and alleged hacker Guccifer 2.0, or the utter fatuity of his attempt to place pilot […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – March 21, 2017) Leonid Bershidsky is a Bloomberg View columnist. He was the founding editor of the Russian business daily Vedomosti and founded the opinion website Slon.ru. Monday’s hearing on Russia’s alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election and the alleged contacts between Donald Trump’s campaign and the Kremlin yielded inspiring news for […]
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(Voice of America – voanews.com – Oleksiy Kuzmenko, Pete Cobus – WASHINGTON – March 21, 2017) [Text with links here voanews.com/a/crowdstrike-comey-russia-hack-dnc-clinton-trump/3776067.html] An influential British think tank and Ukraine’s military are disputing a report that the U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has used to buttress its claims of Russian hacking in the presidential election. The CrowdStrike report, released in December, asserted that […]
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How did the intelligence community know that the Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee? CrowdStrike told them so. From the March 20 House Intelligence Committee hearing: Congressman Will HURD: Have you been able to — when did the DNC provide access for — to the FBI for your technical folks to review what happened? FBI Director COMEY: Well we never […]
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“… The principal problem for Democrats is that so many media figures and online charlatans are personally benefiting from feeding the base increasingly unhinged, fact-free conspiracies … there are now millions of partisan soldiers absolutely convinced of a Trump/Russia conspiracy for which, at least as of now, there is no evidence. And they are all waiting for the day, which they […]
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“… It seemed like a plotline from a vintage James Bond film. From his Moscow lair, Vladimir Putin struck up an alliance with Julian Assange to mount a massive cyber-offensive to discredit Hillary Clinton and her retinue of loyal Democratic Party operatives in the eyes of the American public. The plot was full of twists and turns and hair-raising tangents, […]
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(Voice of America – voanews.com – Ken Bredemeier – March 9, 2017) WASHINGTON – Russian President Vladimir Putin is single-handedly trying to undermine democracy in the United States and Europe and rupture their decades-old NATO alliance by meddling in their elections, foreign affairs analysts and Estonia’s former president told a congressional hearing Thursday in Washington. One of the experts, Peter […]
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