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You are here: Home / Politics / America / Shaping the Operational Environment: McClatchy Reports that the US Intelligence Community is Investigating Ties Between the Trump Campaign and Russia

Shaping the Operational Environment: McClatchy Reports that the US Intelligence Community is Investigating Ties Between the Trump Campaign and Russia

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Among all the other news, big, medium, and small was this important report:

McClatchy has reported that:

WASHINGTON

The FBI and five other law enforcement and intelligence agencies have collaborated for months in an investigation into Russian attempts to influence the November election, including whether money from the Kremlin covertly aided President-elect Donald Trump, two people familiar with the matter said.

The agencies involved in the inquiry are the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Justice Department, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and representatives of the director of national intelligence, the sources said.

Investigators are examining how money may have moved from the Kremlin to covertly help Trump win, the two sources said. One of the allegations involves whether a system for routinely paying thousands of Russian-American pensioners may have been used to pay some email hackers in the United States or to supply money to intermediaries who would then pay the hackers, the two sources said.

And:

The working group is scrutinizing the activities of a few Americans who were affiliated with Trump’s campaign or his business empire and of multiple individuals from Russia and other former Soviet nations who had similar connections, the sources said.

 

ETA: I want to emphasize something important I failed to above or below in the original post: this probe started months before anyone in the US Intel Community new anything about the oppo research documents that were leaked last week:

The informal, inter-agency working group began to explore possible Russian interference last spring, long before the FBI received information from a former British spy hired to develop politically damaging and unverified research about Trump, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the inquiry.

(we now return you to the original post)

While I cannot prove it, it is logical to reason that this information was provided to the McClatchy reporters so that it would be reported before the inauguration on Friday. By getting the information out now, the purpose of the reporting is to make it much more difficult for the incoming Administration to shut this investigation down or to interfere in how it is conducted.

For good, bad, or otherwise this is not going away. And the President-elect and his team seem unwilling to even try to provide reasonable explanations to knock the suspicions back. The longer this drags out the worse it will be. For all of us.

As I wrote last week before the President-elect’s press conference:

As a national security professional, what I would like to see is the President-elect address the now long standing and ongoing allegations regarding his connection to Russia. If the allegations are spurious, as he and his team have claimed every time they’ve come up, or if there is a straightforward and simple explanation that can be made, he needs to make it. I think a lot of the foreign, defense, and national security policy concerns that many across the political spectrum have with the President-elect’s longstanding policy preferences dating back to 1987 arise from all of the smoke around the claims of Russian connections and interference for Russia’s, not the US’s, not the President-elect’s, interests.

The sooner the President-elect and his team can either provide evidence for why the allegations and rumors are spurious or provide a simple and straightforward explanation for the seeming preference for Russia and the abandonment of the post WW II and post Cold War international order the better.

Reader Interactions

234Comments

  1. 1.

    Yarrow

    I assume you saw this:

    Also, when full Trump+RIS story comes out, FBI, esp NYFO, has a scandal on its hands that'll make Whitey Bulger look like a routine error.— John Schindler (@20committee) January 18, 2017

  3. 3.

    Mary G

    It’s that one change they made to the Republican party platform, taking out sending arms to Ukraine, that seems most like a smoking gun to me. The denials by the campaign lacked credibility. A clear quid pro quo if they can find the quo.

  4. 4.

    Seth Owen

    I think it’s clear that there is no explanation that won’t be worse than the scandal they are willing to endure. When we find out the truth — or my grandchildren find out the truth, because I’m not likely to live long enough to see it myself — it will be worse than we can imagine.

    Sad to say, our best hope is that there are enough brave patriots in the IC to see this through despite the risks. Careers will be sacrificed — maybe even lives — before this is over.

  5. 5.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: I’ve been out consulting and then at the gym. So no. But this doesn’t surprise me. It also means that other parts of the IC are pissed at the FBI, especially the NY Field Office. If they weren’t, Schindler wouldn’t know about it to tweet about it.

  6. 6.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mary G: See Adam Khan’s reporting. Its all by twitter. He’s got the documentation that allegedly demonstrates that the Russian mob (Bratva) has been funding Trump. They refloated him after the casinos went bust and his last bankruptcy. This is where the real action is.

  7. 7.

    Roger Moore

    The sooner the President-elect and his team can either provide evidence for why the allegations and rumors are spurious or provide a simple and straightforward explanation for the seeming preference for Russia and the abandonment of the post WW II and post Cold War international order the better.

    How about never? Does never work for you? Because they will never do either of those things. They can’t provide evidence for why the rumors and allegations are spurious- they aren’t- and they won’t admit they’re favoring Russia because Putin has their balls in a vise.

  8. 8.

    Ian

    so that it would be reported before the inauguration on Friday. By getting the information out now, the purpose of the reporting is to make it much more difficult for the incoming Administration to shut this investigation down or to interfere in how it is conducted.

    Those of us here heard rumour of this from Adam and others, but why the fuck did we not hear about this from the FBI director before the election?

  9. 9.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Seth Owen: There are enough brave patriots in the IC. And I’m using small p patriot for a reason. The real question is are there enough Americans that aren’t 1) completely tuned out except for the week before every election and 2) aren’t morons.

  11. 11.

    Lurking Canadian

    There has got to be some law under which somebody can prosecute Comey. There was a multi-agency investigation into the possibility that a major party’s presidential candidate was a literal Russian spy, but nobody told the public because “We don’t comment on ongoing investigations”, but this fucking guy goes public with baseless allegations against Clinton TWICE???

    There has got to be a law against that, right? Something?

  12. 12.

    celticdragonchick

    @Yarrow:

    Information presently public and available confirms that Erik Prince, Rudy Giuliani, and Donald Trump conspired to intimidate FBI Director James Comey into interfering in, and thus directly affecting, the 2016 presidential election. This conspiracy was made possible with the assistance of officers in the New York Police Department and agents within the New York field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All of the major actors in the conspiracy have already confessed to its particulars either in word or in deed; moreover, all of the major actors have publicly exhibited consciousness of guilt after the fact. This assessment has already been the subject of articles in news outlets on both sides of the political spectrum, but has not yet received substantial investigation by major media.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-domestic-conspiracy-that-gave-trump-the-election_us_587ed24fe4b0b110fe11dbf9?

    Eric Prince is the brother of Betsy DeVos…and founder of Blackwater.

  15. 15.

    Roger Moore

    @Ian:

    why the fuck did we not hear about this from the FBI director before the election?

    Because the people who were doing the investigation were following the rules about not discussing ongoing investigations, especially investigations of politicians shortly before elections. The real question is why the investigation of Hillary Clinton was talked about, and what consequences there will be for the people who clearly violated DOJ policy by talking about it.

  17. 17.

    celticdragonchick

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The NY filed office went completely off the reservation, if I understand what I heard correctly. Like…people actually questioning the mental health of some agents who were on a “destroy Hillary at any and all costs” mission.

    This also means we have a nightmare problem in federal law enforcement that will not go away any time soon. We also have half the country that wants it just the way it is, so that LE can use guns and investigation powers on…the rest of us.

  22. 22.

    SiubhanDuinne

    How is it possible that in slightly less than 40 hours….?

    I can’t even finish that.

  24. 24.

    celticdragonchick

    @p.a.:

    Giuliani, Eric Prince and their sources in the FBI and NYPD are the ones you really want.

    Comey screwed himself when he made that public statement in July. It allowed the NY office to corner him when they threatened him to go public or the Weiner story would be leaked and sink him as well.

  26. 26.

    mike in dc

    I’m hoping for one more info dump before the inauguration. Something big enough to dominate the news Thursday night and Friday morning. And to piss off Trump still further.

  30. 30.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    I wonder if Trump or anybody around him have any clue how badly this is going to end for them. It took, what, a year for the Watergate shit to seep out into the open. How long is this going to take? A month? Two weeks? Less? This isn’t seeping; it’s a steady flow, and when people begin to feel like they’re the next in line to get left hung out to get reamed, this is going to begin gushing.

  31. 31.

    MomSense

    @Adam L Silverman:

    But they don’t have much time to get the information out before the next administration bury it.

    I really would like to know what the strategy and tactics will be for trying to force the administration and congress to release the information, investigate the allegations, and then to hold the actors accountable.

  32. 32.

    Yarrow

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I think that’s where the pressure is going to come from. People like, say, senior GOP leadership who suddenly find their questionable activities and knowledge of Trump’s activities are in danger of being made public. You pressure them and they’ll turn on Trump. They may be scared of Trump’s voters but they’re more afraid of going to prison themselves.

  33. 33.

    Pogonip

    There is sad news tonight out of Clumbus Ahia, home of THE Ohio State University and also of a fine zoo. In that fine zoo, Colo, the first gorilla to survive being born in captivity, arrived 58-60 years ago (accounts differ) and died Tuesday in her sleep. She will be buried in a private, unmarked grave on the zoo grounds.

  37. 37.

    cmorenc

    @Calouste:

    There is a simple and straightforward explanation that involves hookers.

    …and blow too. That’s got to be in there somewhere, since hookers and blow go together like cake and icing.

  38. 38.

    mike in dc

    @MomSense:

    The whistleblower who leaks documents proving the allegations against Trump et al should wind up not only with a pardon but a Presidential Medal of Freedom. And a ticker tape parade.

  39. 39.

    Another Scott

    So, I’m thinking about using this as a sticker/small sign on Saturday:

    Trump? Никогда!

    Is that the best translation? (It’s from Google Translate.)

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  40. 40.

    p.a.

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Spooks don’t spook. Donnie DaintyDigits can’t bluster the IC. We may differ with their methods at times, and philosophy, but they take national security seriously and know how to respond to threats (security threats AND bureaucratic threats.) If the other orgs think the FBI/Comey is compromised, our main problem will be keeping up with the shitstorm of leaks intending to blow the offending parties (including a certain political party??) up.

  42. 42.

    Yarrow

    Trump better be careful too. If he becomes a liability to the Russians they won’t be happy with him. They don’t play around. Polonium tea, etc. I feel sorry for Trump’s food taster.

  43. 43.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    @celticdragonchick: Yeah, he can try that, but I think things have gone too far for that to work any longer. It’s weird; with a lot of things, there’s some kind of threshold beyond which things begin to take a life of their own. They get some momentum going, and you can’t stop it. Catch it and shut it down early enough, and you can maybe ride it out until people forget about it. The amazing thing is how fast we’ve reached this threshold. People are seriously talking about impeachment, and nobody is laughing at them the way they did at people who talked about impeachment toward the end of Bush’s time in office. Those guys somehow rode it out. But this is only gathering speed. I don’t gamble, but if I did, I’d bet money that even the Very Serious People are going to be talking about impeachment within a week of Trump’s taking office. And once that happens, once Mark Halperin and Joe Scarborough begin talking about that, then, shit, it’s all over. As Lyndon Johnson might have once said, when you lose Joe Scarborough, you’ve lost the Village.

  45. 45.

    celticdragonchick

    @efgoldman: Eric Prince and his grifter sister Betsy come from right wing religious fanatic royalty. Their father was a co-founder of the hate group The Family Research Council. The connections they have over the last 30 years are a who’s who of billionaire astroturf founders, charlatans, anti GLBT Calvanists and Ayn Rand troo beleevers.

    I ran into her and her astroturf bullshit while researching a paper on how progressive community organizing models differ from conservative community organizing.

  46. 46.

    Feebog

    So I’m wondering when this closet full of shoes is going to drop? And just as importantly, are they going to drop one at a time, or in an avalanche of pumps, loafers, heels, sneakers and slippers.

  47. 47.

    Aleta

    Google has been linking to the NYT obituary (headline and 1st page) for George Bush, though when you click on the link the NYT page is not available. The link on the NYT site describes itself as interactive/obituary. So either they’re queued up and ready, and it slipped into Google’s machine, or he is gone but they’re withholding news due to the inaug. ?

  52. 52.

    Emerald

    Laurence Tribe keeps asking on Twitter why there is no Independent Prosecutor. Time is running out. On Friday afternoon it will be too late to appoint one.

  53. 53.

    lurker dean

    hopefully all these traitors will be exposed, tried, and imprisoned. if only they could also imprison all the fox news traitors like hannity who cheered about the russia connections.

    meanwhile, this is just unreal. i mean it isn’t, since trump is an incompetent, but this is ridiculous.

    “When President-elect Donald J. Trump offered Rick Perry the job of energy secretary five weeks ago, Mr. Perry gladly accepted, believing he was taking on a role as a global ambassador for the American oil and gas industry that he had long championed in his home state.

    In the days after, Mr. Perry, the former Texas governor, discovered that he would be no such thing — that in fact, if confirmed by the Senate, he would become the steward of a vast national security complex he knew almost nothing about, caring for the most fearsome weapons on the planet, the United States’ nuclear arsenal.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/us/politics/rick-perry-energy-secretary-donald-trump.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

  58. 58.

    Aleta

    @Major Major Major Major: It starts out “George Bush’s life in 13 Objects.

    George Bush played baseball at Yale, as his father had, and he became captain of the university’s team in 1948. Poppy, as he was known in his years as a student, was a popular player, and he was known for his sense of humor. When he was president,”

  59. 59.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: Guiliani buried the money laundering accusations against Trump back in the late 80s when Trump was donating money to and hosting fundraisers for Guiliani’s mayoral run:
    http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/wayne-barrett-donald-trump-rudy-giuliani-peas-pod-article-1.2776357

    Rudy and Donald first got together in the late 1980s shortly before Donald became a co-chair of Giuliani’s first fundraiser for his 1989 mayoral campaign, sitting on the Waldorf dais and steering $41,000 to the campaign. A year earlier, Tony Lombardi, the federal agent closest to then-U.S. Attorney Giuliani, opened a probe of Trump’s role in the suspect sale of two Trump Tower apartments to Robert Hopkins, the mob-connected head of the city’s largest gambling ring.

    Trump attended the closing himself and Hopkins arrived with a briefcase loaded with up to $200,000 in cash, a deposit the soon-to-felon counted at the table. Despite Hopkins’ wholesale lack of verifiable income or assets, he got a loan from a Jersey bank that did business with Trump’s casino. A Trump limo delivered the cash to the bank.

    The government subsequently nailed Hopkins’ mortgage broker, Frank LaMagra, on an unrelated charge and he offered to give up Donald, claiming Trump “participated” in the money-laundering — and volunteering to wear a wire on him.

    Instead, Lombardi, who discussed the case with Giuliani personally (and with me for a 1993 Village Voice piece called “The Case of the Missing Case”), went straight to Donald for two hour-long interviews with him. Within weeks of the interviews, Donald announced he’d raise $2 million in a half hour if Rudy ran for mayor. Lamagra got no deal and was convicted, as was his mob associate, Louis (Louie HaHa) Attanasio, who was later also nailed for seven underworld murders. Hopkins was convicted of running his gambling operation partly out of the Trump Tower apartment, where he was arrested.

    Lombardi — who expected a top appointment in a Giuliani mayoralty, conducted several other probes directly tied to Giuliani political opponents, and testified later that “every day I came to work I went to Mr. Giuliani to seek out what duties I needed to perform” — closed the Trump investigation without even giving it a case number. That meant that New Jersey gaming authorities would never know it existed.

  60. 60.

    Yarrow

    @lurker dean: From that article:

    If approved by the Senate, he will take over from a secretary, Ernest J. Moniz, who was chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics department and directed the linear accelerator at M.I.T.’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science. Before Mr. Moniz, the job belonged to Steven Chu, a physicist who won a Nobel Prize.

    For Mr. Moniz, the future of nuclear science has been a lifelong obsession; he spent his early years working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Mr. Perry studied animal husbandry and led cheers at Texas A&M University.

    Ohhhh. Burn.

  63. 63.

    Tractarian

    The sooner the President-elect and his team can either provide evidence for why the allegations and rumors are spurious or provide a simple and straightforward explanation for the seeming preference for Russia and the abandonment of the post WW II and post Cold War international order the better.

    Is this a joke?

  65. 65.

    Adam L Silverman

    I’ve done an Edited to Add up top. For something I forgot to emphasize before I hit post. Sorry, been a long, tiring day…

  66. 66.

    Kathleen

    @MomSense: I’m sure Intelligence Agencies have, shall we say, insight into behaviors of certain power players in Washington which may or may not include pictures of prominent Thuglicans in compromising positions with goats. It would be irresponsible not to speculate. Or certain spurned business associates or companions. That’s the beauty of believing in karma. I think they will fall quickly. As so many have said here, it’s to our benefits to be prepared to help Democrats fill the void. And trust me, I’m usually the most cynical, despairing, and terrified person I know but I think this is a time of reckoning.

    ETA And while our own major broadcast outlets will not cover this story, I think enough online and print publications will cover it here. Plus overseas press definitely will not let this go. This may hasten the demise of our broadcast media as we know it and hate it today.

  69. 69.

    dm

    You know, the way these Trump cabinet nominations are being rushed through confirmation (bypassing ethics vetting) may have a golden lining: once they’re confirmed, their ethical violations become crimes. Not that this will matter much until there’s a Justice Department interested in enforcing conflict of interest laws, and I suppose there’s always the President’s power to pardon.

  73. 73.

    celticdragonchick

    @Adam L Silverman:

    That was around the same time when Giuliani helped instigate the cop riot. 1992, actually…

    It was one of the biggest riots in New York City history.

    As many as 10,000 demonstrators blocked traffic in downtown Manhattan on Sept. 16, 1992. Reporters and innocent bystanders were violently assaulted by the mob as thousands of dollars in private property was destroyed in multiple acts of vandalism. The protesters stormed up the steps of City Hall, occupying the building. They then streamed onto the Brooklyn Bridge, where they blocked traffic in both directions, jumping on the cars of trapped, terrified motorists. Many of the protestors were carrying guns and openly drinking alcohol.

    Yet the uniformed police present did little to stop them. Why? Because the rioters were nearly all white, off-duty NYPD officers. They were participating in a Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association demonstration against Mayor David Dinkins’ call for a Civilian Complaint Review Board and his creation earlier that year of the Mollen Commission, formed to investigate widespread allegations of misconduct within the NYPD.

    In the center of the mayhem, standing on top of a car while cursing Mayor Dinkins through a bullhorn, was mayoral candidate Rudy Giuliani.

    “Beer cans and broken beer bottles littered the streets as Mr. Giuliani led the crowd in chants,” The New York Times reported . . .

  74. 74.

    MomSense

    @Kathleen:

    I found it quite discouraging when I found out that Prince is advising the Nunca Naranja. He is a snake and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were political hits.

  76. 76.

    celticdragonchick

    @HinTN: The approximate half that shows up to vote and that hates our guts so much they will sell the country out to a hostile foreign power if that means they get to use the N word and burn “faggots and trannies” again.

    How’s that?

  80. 80.

    MomSense

    @HinTN:

    I don’t think these GOP vipers exoerience shame. It will probably only be when Agent Orange’s poll numbers are down to the crazification that the Republican assholes will act based on self preservation.

  82. 82.

    Gin & Tonic

    Man, I’m so old I can remember when Democrats were pinko commies who hated the CIA and Republicans worshiped the US gov’t and hated the Russians.

  92. 92.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: Even worse, he’s currently being run by the People’s Republic of China. And he’s, himself, under a counter-intelligence investigation:
    https://theintercept.com/2016/03/24/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-under-federal-investigation/

    RIK PRINCE, founder of the now-defunct mercenary firm Blackwater and current chairman of Frontier Services Group, is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for attempting to broker military services to foreign governments and possible money laundering, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case.

    What began as an investigation into Prince’s attempts to sell defense services in Libya and other countries in Africa has widened to a probe of allegations that Prince received assistance from Chinese intelligence to set up an account for his Libya operations through the Bank of China. The Justice Department, which declined to comment for this article, is also seeking to uncover the precise nature of Prince’s relationship with Chinese intelligence.

    Prince, through his lawyer, Victoria Toensing, said he has not been informed of a federal investigation and had not offered any defense services in Libya. Toensing called the money-laundering allegations “total bullshit.”

    The Intercept interviewed more than a half dozen of Prince’s associates, including current and former business partners; four former U.S. intelligence officers; and other sources familiar with the Justice Department investigation. All of them requested anonymity to discuss these matters because there is an ongoing investigation. The Intercept also reviewed several secret proposals drafted by Prince and his closest advisers and partners offering paramilitary services to foreign entities.

    For more than a year, U.S. intelligence has been monitoring Prince’s communications and movements, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence officer and a second former intelligence official briefed on the investigation. Multiple sources, including two people with business ties to Prince, told The Intercept that current government and intelligence personnel informed them of this surveillance. Those with business ties were cautioned to sever their dealings with Prince.

  95. 95.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: That idiot Roger Stone went on InfoWars yesterday and claimed he had been poisoned with pollonium, his doctor caught it early, the CDC confirmed it, and he’s now, fortunately, recovered. He claims he was poisoned to keep him quiet about the truth regarding Trump and Russia, which exonerates Trump.

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Yarrow: Doesn’t sound like me… I think I said that they changed the law post Clinton impeachment, so no more independent prosecutors, only special prosecutors. Special prosecutors are easier to shut down.

  102. 102.

    aangus

    @Yarrow:

    Well, after following Mr. Bulgers career for so long, I would find that remakable.
    (Yes I know that was comment #1. I just woke up from a nap.)

  107. 107.

    amk

    @lurker dean: jeez, the rest of the world has seen his predecessor negotiating Iran nuclear deal and here is this utter corrupt moron fuckstick thinking his post is all about oil.

  113. 113.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Major Major Major Major: I’m not convinced protesting Palantir is a good idea. They’re not nearly as bad as a lot of people think they are.

    I can’t say WHY I know this, but it’s pretty airtight on my end. At least as of 5 or 6 months ago.

  115. 115.

    Adam L Silverman

    @amk: Sure until they’re trying to convince the rubes they’ve been poisoned with polonium, but are doing much better now.

  118. 118.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    Disclaimer: posting without reading through comments. Isn’t it interesting that Comey wouldn’t discuss this in the Congressional meeting? Or that he didn’t mention it when commenting on the investigation of the other candidate – the one who used the wrong email? Fuckem.

  120. 120.

    dm

    @Adam L Silverman: His lawyer is Victoria Toensing? Victoria “exposing Valerie Plame can’t be a crime because she wasn’t really covert” Toensing? Good to know that there are so few lawyers to draw from for that sort of thing that they have to recycle her.

  129. 129.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: 1) Requires Senatorial confirmation. 2) Has never, as far as I know, gone to someone who wasn’t a certified law enforcement officer – usually at the Federal level.

  133. 133.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Major Major Major Major: Peter Thiel is absolutely evil, but he’s barely connected to Palantir in terms of operation or business sense. Their CEO is the guy to talk about, and last updated checked he was relactively solid.

    Seriously though, Palantir has a bad reputation for bad reason. To their knowledge, their software isn’t being used for TIA, but is being used for doing things like analyzing financialninfon to identify terrorist funding streams, etc. Their tool are meant for data organization rather than data analysis, and don’t contain any data gathering capability.

  134. 134.

    piratedan

    My understanding is that a special prosecutor would likely have to be appointed by the Congress and they’re a bit busy at the moment taking away the healthcare that people have, so they likely can’t be bothered to really look closely at the guy who is likely to sign any stinky diaper full of legislation that they choose to send along.

    I really am ambiguous about the media, who while they love to swim in scandal, really don’t like to swim in GOP scandal because of how they’re wired and who they’re beholden to. It will be interesting to see if the power of scandal will outweigh their current courtier tendencies.

    As to how and why this unfolded, it seems pretty simple. Putin knew that Clinton was a competent hard-ass when it came to dealing with threats and as such, he maneuvered to put the most pliable person he had control of in charge of the largest check of his ambitions. The GOP let their hatred of Hillary overrule any sense of moral and ethical obligation to the country because they think that they can ride the tiger better than Putin can, so they blithely looked away. Apparently the thinking is that they can let the rest of the world take care of itself while they attempt to set themselves up in perpetuity here.

    Will let those shoes drop and see if anyone has the stones to prosecute these fuckers for their crimes. The thing is, what will be seen as a crime and what will the nation accept as simply “politics”.

  138. 138.

    Major Major Major Major

    @MisterForkbeard: that’s true, but that’s actually one area where (by my understanding) the security apparatus is quite deficient in terms of realizing TIA. I personally don’t care much about Palantir itself but it’s not like people are going to go protest PayPal and get good coverage for their cause.

  142. 142.

    MisterForkbeard

    Another note re: Palantir. Their CEO has denounced Trump previously, publicly stated he disagrees with Thiel, and donated the maximum to the Clinton campaign.

    If you want to protest Thiel, I’d go to Paypal. That’s where he made all his money. :)

  148. 148.

    jharp

    @Pogonip:

    I went to visit Colo at the Columbus Ohio for my Anthropology 100 class at The Ohio State University.

    About 1979. And I think he was the oldest in captivity at that time.

  149. 149.

    dm

    @amk: She criticized Trump’s Carrier stunt as “crony capitalism”. Enough to boot her out the door, but not enough to require the ritual humiliation Romney received for his apostasy.

  151. 151.

    Emrys

    @Woodrowfan: Who does? The FBI hates to share, even in the national interest – unless they want credit for something and then they will leak like a sieve.

  153. 153.

    Another Scott

    @amk: Trump didn’t want Palin because he didn’t want the competition for attention. Donnie has to be the “star”.

    Notice that nobody in his cabinet has any star power even if they have lots of money.

    Also notice, as Kevin Drum pointed out, that “Donald Trump has apparently been very careful to make sure that he’s the richest guy in his administration.”

    Trump is an insecure bully. He has to be the “big man” and couldn’t tolerate someone like Palin soaking up his “well-deserved” attention.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  155. 155.

    Feathers

    @Emerald: Never

    @Woodrowfan: Everybody hates the FBI. In my mystery writing days, met a guy who sang a little ditty he learned from his college criminal justice professor, sung to the tune of “if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands:”

    “If you want to screw things up you call in the Feds, clap, clap, clap, clap;
    If you want to screw things up you call in the Feds, clap, clap, clap, clap;
    If things aren’t going fine and you call the FBI
    Remember it’s you that screws thing up by calling the Feds, clap, clap, clap”

    It went on for a while in this vein.

    It’s a real problem for law enforcement. Everyone in the FBI has to qualify as a special agent (and pass the excruciating background check). Everyone in the police has to start as a beat cop. This means that the FBI misses out on a lot of people whose talents don’t include a taste for heavy physical fitness and firearms training. And police departments have huge monoculture problems as well.

  156. 156.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Major Major Major Major: @MisterForkbeard: The larger problem, and I say this as someone that spent a year of my life I’m never getting back, working on these issues for the Army, including being roped into one of the most bizarre working group’s I’ve ever been in*, is that everyone is looking for a technical solution to a problem that technology can’t solve. It can help. It can make things a bit better, but it can’t fix the problem. Everyone is convinced that if they take raw info, whether raw intel or just useful info and run enough of it through the right program or programs, and out the other end will become the solution set that will let us win the war, stop the terrorist attack, whatever. Basically everyone is looking at this as if its alchemy: if we just touch the base metal (the raw info or raw intel) to the philosopher’s stone (the software) we’ll get gold (the solution) as a result. In the real world none of it works this way. But the tech is a big, bright shiny object. And the pitches always sound good. And there’s money to be made. And then folks like me have to explain, once we’re way up the creek and the paddles aren’t helping, that things don’t work that way.

    * Funny story: so we’re in the working group (WG), summer 2009, and someone says “what’s the official NSC guidance on X?” The person running the WG says she has it right here and passes out hard copy. I look at it and notice its dated from 2007 and its signed by Stephen Hadley. I get up and walk to the phone in the back of the room and ask: “is this an unclassified line?” The person running the WG says “yes, why?” I replied: “I’m calling Person Named Y who is the Director for X on the National Security Council – she’s somewhere between a professional colleague and a professional friend.” The person running the WG asks: “why would you need to do that?” I replied: “Because if we’re going to start with the official guidance on X, then perhaps it should come from the current Administration. This stuff was replaced by the Obama Administration earlier this year.” Genius…

  158. 158.

    zhena gogolia

    @Another Scott:

    That’s fine.

    I like За Америку без Трампа (“for an America without Trump”), because it chimes with the slogan of the Moscow protests, “For a Russia without Putin.”

  160. 160.

    Peale

    @Adam L Silverman: it wasn’t the IC. It was me that did the poisoning. Sadly, I got the dosage right. Apparently when your target in league with the devil, you need to use a triple dose.

    God I hope Putin tried to sow more discord by offing some of these old douchebags.

  164. 164.

    Millard Filmore

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I’ve done an Edited to Add up top. For something I forgot to emphasize before I hit post. Sorry, been a long, tiring day…

    Heh! I constantly do that even on easy days.

  166. 166.

    lurker dean

    @Adam L Silverman: i guess i shouldn’t be surprised, but i was. i’m not surprised that trump, who is incompetent, would nominate someone incompetent for purely political reasons. and i’ve read that perry is no genius, despite being tx governor (which i understand is a less powerful governorship than others). but for perry not to understand *anything* about the position, and to not have the basic common sense or decency to run a quick search on the internet to see what the job entails, is just mind boggling. the complete and absolute disdain the GOP has for knowledge and competency leaves me speechless.

  167. 167.

    Another Scott

    @zhena gogolia: Excellent. Thanks.

    Yours is great, but I’m hoping for something that immediately draws the reader’s attention to Trump and Russia even if they can’t read Russian. :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  170. 170.

    Jeffro

    @Baud:

    She is literally too daft for Trump. Inconceivable, I know.

    In a cabinet that counts as its members Rick Perry, Betsy DeVos, and Ben Carson? Technically that bar is set below ground.

  171. 171.

    Jinchi

    @dm:

    Giulani, a dozen others have their passwords exposed.

    Although undoubtedly, Rudy’s password “911911911” probably wasn’t all that hard to crack.

  177. 177.

    Adam L Silverman

    @amk: It was just stupid. Hey we have to solve this problem for the Geographic Combatant Commander, lets look at the official policy. Hands out official policy. Official policy is two years old and from the previous Administration. Room full of people. From different Services and Agencies and Departments and none of them even thought twice when they got the hand out. And it was just a coincidence that I knew the person in that staff position. She’d only started there a month or two before. If you’re going to set theater strategy and policy you can’t base it on an out of date Federal policy position.

    And that wasn’t even the weirdest thing at that working group. There was a young woman from one of the DOD agencies that was just pissed off and rude the whole time, behaved like only she knew what was going on. I was there paired up with the deputy director of a test development (TD) my program was involved with/funding. He was former military and while I was ignoring her being rude and dismissive to me, though I had the operational experience and she didn’t, he decided he’d had enough and let her have it with both barrels about how she was treating me. And it was only me because I was the only other PhD in the room.

  182. 182.

    Mike in NC

    @dm: Guess we have seen the last of Mitt Rmoney, a filthy rich guy who could have flipped off Trump but instead groveled on his belly for the chance to eat frog legs with the bloated creep. Glad we dodged that bullet in 2012.

  187. 187.

    Another Scott

    @debbie: Donnie lied about his height, also too:

    Donald Trump and Donald Trump’s doctor say he’s 6’3″, but his drivers license apparently says otherwise.

    A copy of the president-elect’s driver’s license, newly obtained by Politico, suggests that Trump is only 6’2″ — and not 6’3″, as he likes to say.

    […]

    Slate speculates that Trump may want to add an inch to his height to avoid being classified as clinically obese. Trump weighs 236 lbs, and if he’s 6’3″, that puts his BMI at 29.5– overweight, but not obese. But if he’s actually 6’2″, which it appears he is, then that means his BMI is 30.3, which means he’s officially obese.

    He’s so vain he had to lie about his height so that he wouldn’t be in the “obese” bin. (Of course, he probably weighs more than 236, also too…)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  188. 188.

    Adam L Silverman

    @aangus: Yes, Cheryl Rofer is working on a guest post about Governor Perry not knowing that the Secretary of Energy isn’t the American ambassador on behalf of the petroleum industry. Its going to be YUUUGE! BIGLY! BULEEVE ME!

  193. 193.

    Elmo

    @Pogonip: One of my favorites.

    I had the privilege of having dinner with him as a college freshman. But mostly I remember that he hated California, and as a homesick San Diego native, it laid a pall over the evening.

    I just hired a new assistant a week ago – an internal hire – and I won’t deny that our duet at the Company Christmas party of Tom Lehrer’s “Christmas Time” may have played a role in her selection. She’s young enough to be my daughter and she is hip to Tom Lehrer? She needs to come work for me.

  196. 196.

    Another Scott

    @efgoldman: Kevin lists her at $1.3B.

    Of course, Donnie is in hock to Deutsche Bank and who knows who else for who knows how much, so she may indeed be richer than him.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  198. 198.

    dm

    @Adam L Silverman: Not too long from now that scene will be puzzling to the younger members of its audience. “Why doesn’t he ask what its name is so he can get its attention?”

  202. 202.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    I have to confess that I used to lie about my height. I admitted it; I told people that the weight on my driver’s license was accurate but I lied about my height. At my last renewal, the woman said “what about hair color – do you still want to go with red?” I thought that was pretty kind – she smiled when she asked, and I told her “I better while I still can.” There will be no question at the next renewal (it’s now quite obviously steel gray).

  214. 214.

    aangus

    Yeah, and what do I get when I refresh.
    Another Cole rant.

    Why do we pay this guy anywayÉ

    eta Oh, great, now my keyboard is fucking up.
    Imagine my thrill.

  216. 216.

    danielx

    @Calouste:

    There is a simple and straightforward explanation that involves hookers.

    And blow.

    @lurker dean:

    the complete and absolute disdain the GOP has for knowledge and competency leaves me speechless.

    But not shocked, I trust.

  219. 219.

    Shalimar

    @Adam L Silverman: They need to be more than pissed at the FBI. They need to be investigating FBI agents for treason. Make all of those in the NY Field Office who leaked to the press about Clinton investigations and slowed down Trump investigations prove that they were just being American partisans rather than traitors to their country.

  220. 220.

    BruceFromOhio

    The sooner the President-elect and his team can either provide evidence for why the allegations and rumors are spurious or provide a simple and straightforward explanation for the seeming preference for Russia and the abandonment of the post WW II and post Cold War international order the better.

    Hillary. Emails. C’mon, people, we’ve been over this, get with the fucken program already.

  227. 227.

    dm

    @MomSense: I keep waiting to hear Manucher Ghorbanifar’s name come up. Maybe when it comes time to tear up the Iran nuclear arms limitation agreement and “get a better deal”.

  228. 228.

    cosima

    I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this bit of news was the only thing yesterday that made me hopeful. I’ve been having a difficult time getting to sleep over the politics and other life things, and last night I was lying in bed coming up with reasons why this is a good thing and could lead to the end of the shitgibbon nightmare.

    There are obviously intelligence officers/agencies in the US and in other countries that have a lot of information about this, photos, phone calls, money trails, etc. Russia/Putin is hostile to the EU community (including the UK in that) so there is incentive on this side of the pond to undermine him through leaking this information in a certain way, withholding some info, passing it on strategically/selectively. Letting certain people know that there is information that incriminates them, and unless they want to find themselves in jail they will do A/B/C. Various combinations of a variety of strategies vs. dumping it all out on the table and relying on certain media channels to report it accurately & forcefully.

    It seems to me that there would have been very few world leaders who did *not* know of the shitgibbon’s Russia ties, and prepared by holding on to the info in case they needed it. Now it can all begin to be leaked, slowly or quickly, undermining & exposing some, blackmailing others to bend them.

    I don’t have a lot of faith in this being productively handled in the US, but the incoming administration or its media, but I do have some faith in the rest of the free world. They know who their allies are, and Russia, and now the US, do not make the list.

  229. 229.

    cosima

    Guess what’s flying over our lovely home in the Scottish highlands. Fighter jets. That has never happened before while we’ve lived here.

  230. 230.

    Chris

    @cosima:

    I’d like to believe that. But the rising far right parties of Europe are all just as head over heels in love with Putin as the teabaggers in the U.S. are, and it’s a mentality that’s infested much of the center right, as well.

  232. 232.

    cosima

    @Chris: That is definitely true. However, I think that, just as is the case in the US, they aren’t yet outnumbering the sane people, they are just much louder about their beliefs.

    I also think that Europe seems to be concerted in their efforts to combat the growth of that faction, particularly in the spread of fake news, hate speech/actions, etc. There’s a lot of sound & fury in the US about that, but no action taken, because ‘free speech.’

    Frankly, it’s the only hope for the US, that Europe and the UK remain united in their efforts against Russia (and, from tomorrow, the US, which is a horrible thing to contemplate.)

  233. 233.

    jake the antisoshul soshulist

    All this is extremely disturbing.
    If this was coming from the right, I would dismiss it completely as paranoid conspiracy theorizing. We all live in Bizarro World now. I have been watching Person of Interest on Netflix. I am beginning to think it may be a documentary. :-(

  234. 234.

    Chris

    @cosima:

    I hope that’s true. One difference I definitely do note about Europe is that the “center right” and the “far right” are still two different things over there, whereas here they’ve been fused since 1968 or 1980. I’ve been terrified for years of seeing that change in Europe, though, and there are lots of signs indicating that much of the center right wouldn’t mind at all following the American path there.

    (Varying from country to country, of course).

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