Before the Mueller investigation, there was a counterintelligence investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 elections. That investigation (or those investigations) were supposedly wrapped into the Mueller investigation. Or perhaps they continue today. We need to hear more about them.
The purpose of counterintelligence is to thwart the activity of other countries’ intelligence networks. The FBI gives a more expansive definition. For reasons I don’t fully understand, counterintelligence tends to be even more secretive than ordinary intelligence. It has also developed a mystique that may be keeping reporters from digging into questions that the American public needs to know the answers to.
Trump fired James Comey on May 9, 2017, and the next day bragged about it in the Oval Office to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and the ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. He also divulged highly secret Israeli intelligence to the two men, and said that Russia’s interference in the 2016 election was not a problem.
A counterintelligence investigation began shortly after that, according to a New York Times article. The investigation was to understand whether Trump was working for foreign interests.
But there was another counterintelligence investigation even before that. The earlier investigation seems to have begun in July 2016. This is the one that the New York Times famously and inaccurately claimed, just before the 2016 election, had found no wrongdoing on Trump’s part. This investigation looked at Carter Page and Roger Stone as possible Russian connections.
By some accounts, both of these investigations were swept into Robert Mueller’s investigation. Mueller’s investigation was chartered a week after the Oval Office meeting. The Mueller investigation is sometimes described as broader than the counterintelligence investigation. Ron Rosenstein’s order defines Mueller’s scope as “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump” and related matters.
That is indeed a broad mandate, but the public Mueller report focused on criminal acts. The order appoints Mueller as Special Counsel and authorizes him to prosecute crimes as appropriate, but it does not limit his purview to criminal acts.
In May, Philip Bump interviewed Adam Schiff, who wanted to know more about the counterintelligence side of the Mueller investigation and had issued subpoenas without much luck. Presumably Schiff continues to seek that report, although it has probably gone to a back burner. The Congressional Gang of Eight had been briefed on the counterintelligence investigation regularly until Comey was fired.
In Mueller’s testimony to Congress, he seemed to say that the counterintelligence investigation continued.
Was (Is?) there an investigation into the full extent of Russian interference in the 2016 election? What were its findings? Here is where that counterintelligence secrecy becomes a problem. We need to know as much as possible about Russian interference in order to deal with it next year.
That counterintelligence investigation could overlap with the “investigation” now being pursued across the globe by Attorney General William Barr and presidential attorney Rudy Guiliani. Although the theory of Barr’s and Guiliani’s case have already been debunked, an FBI investigation could provide additional information to fill in holes in the story we now know.
How were people like Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and Sam Clovis drawn into the campaign? What was the role of Joseph Mifsud? Stefan Halper?
Were Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin connected to the Trump campaign through the NRA?
Were Donald Trump and Michael Pence aware of Michael Flynn’s phonecalls to Kislyak about sanctions in December 2017? (A number of questions are now coming out in Flynn’s trial, in which he is being extremely uncooperative.)
Was the Internet Research Agency the whole of Russia’s attempt to influence American voters by social media? (Mueller brought indictments against the IRA.)
Did Mueller receive all the information available about Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak? If not, why not? (See this Lawfare article)
What is the scope of these investigations? How was that decided?
Finally, we have to ask why the scope of the open Mueller report seems truncated. Was the investigation ended early? If so, was the reason Mueller’s health? Or at Barr’s urging? Did the counterintelligence aspects result in overclassification?
At this point, the necessity for Congress and the American people to know more about the counterintelligence investigation would seem to outweigh considerations of classification, although of course it’s impossible to know on the basis of the information available.
As much as possible of the counterintelligence investigation must be made public. With another election coming up, the country needs to know what to look for in disruptions by Russia. The government needs to know in order to prevent those disruptions. And we need to know the extent of Presidential wrongdoing.
Cross-posted at Nuclear Diner
Just Chuck
No matter the outcome of next election, this investigation MUST continue. Way too many GOP congressmen going to Russia …
smintheus
The latest news on this front was that in a phone call with Theresa May last summer Trump insisted up and down for 10 minutes that he doubted Russia was involved in poisoning the Skripals. The pretence that it’s not perfectly obvious Trump is a Russian asset reminds me of the pretence back in early 1973 that it wasn’t perfectly obvious that Nixon was involved in the Watergate breakin and coverup.
Patricia Kayden
Depose Johnson.
twitter.com/KatiePhang/status/1180936507638665219
Outrageous.
zhena gogolia
Wouldn’t it be cool if Mueller were a whistleblower? (I have no idea if this is even possible, I just keep wondering what the hell is going through his mind now.)
NotMax
For those of us of a certain age, COINTELPRO forever soured the term “counterintelligence operation.”
Omnes Omnibus
Mueller’s health?
Leto
@NotMax: They shortened it to “COIN” (COunter INsurgency) for my generation. Different name, same flavor. New Coke v Classic.
@zhena gogolia: “You mean they didn’t tell me about the information on the secret server?!?!? Dratz!!!”
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, that sounds like buying into a RW meme.
Omnes Omnibus
@Leto: Counter intelligence vs counter insurgency. Different things.
Cheryl Rofer
@Omnes Omnibus:
@zhena gogolia:
Not buying into anything. It’s one possibility.
I like to consider a broad spectrum of scenarios. YMMV
Mary G
I think Bob Barr shut this down as soon as he was confirmed and buried it in a deep, deep hole and is trying to manufacture false information to throw the election. I hope somebody on Mueller’s staff is as patriotic as the whistleblower.
schrodingers_cat
Have the Rs thought of one thing? That if Russians can manipulate the R base so easily, the R office holders are easily replaceable. Indian Princes who kowtowed to the Company (East India) found that out to their dismay rather quickly.
Cheryl Rofer
@NotMax: That’s one danger of counterintelligence and why, imo, it deserves less secrecy than other intelligence operations.
Leto
@Omnes Omnibus: same overarcing principles. While different… very much the same.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cheryl Rofer: I just questioned it because I had never seen any reference to that explanation before.
RAVEN
@Leto: Strategic Hamlets
Omnes Omnibus
@Leto: How so?
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Peter Baker and his wife and other MSM journalists were going on and on about an enfeebled Mueller when he testified in Congress about his report.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Good god.
ThresherK
Semi-tangent: Jay Rosen on Twitter:
Chuck Todd’s work today is different. Rosen considers Todd’s “patience for denial has run out” and the “gravity of events has sunk in”.
Rosen: Jake Tapper is asking R’s, It’s legacy time, do you want to be remembered this way? Chris Cuomo? Not so much.
Leto
@Omnes Omnibus: It ate my edit:
@Omnes Omnibus: same overarcing principles. While different… very much the same.
Edit: because I know you’re going to try to explain to me the months and months of training I went through, here off the Wiki page for COINTELPRO:
“Common tactics used by COINTELPRO were perjury, witness harassment, witness intimidation, and withholding of evidence.”
This basically describes a large % of our actions in Iraq wrt how we “rounded up” individuals who were suspected of terrorism/supporting al-queda in Iraq/etc… local would make a complaint, we’d go in and arrest, come to find out neighbor had a long standing feud with person we arrested, etc… not to mention our our torture facilities/black sites.
Yup, totally “different”.
NotMax
@RAVEN
No need to drag Denmark into it.
:) :) :)
Raven
@Leto: Phoenix
Omnes Omnibus
@Leto: 1. Thanks for being a complete dick. 2. Is your comparison with COINTELPRO only or counterintelligence in general?
Leto
@Omnes Omnibus: 1) welcome to BJ, glad you’re new here 2) just COINTELPRO. Are they exactly alike, no, but at the 30k ft level with how the FBI conducted themselves and how the military/CIA conducted itself in Iraq (and long forgotten Afghanistan) they’re similar and overlapping. The above description is what some of the teams I supported told me they were doing/experiencing, which is also what came out in mainstream journalism.
@Raven: I honestly don’t know enough about that program but from a brief glance at it… ugh…
Omnes Omnibus
@Leto: 1. Go blow a goat. 2. My comment was more about counterintelligence in general, so I have no real argument with you.
RAVEN
@Leto: And the Tiger Force? The testimony about this is key to understanding the RWNJ’s hatred for the press.
But in May 1967, as American commanders grew frustrated by a war in which their foes could blend into the civilian populace, Tiger Force was sent to Quang Ngai province to move civilians into relocation centers so the farmers couldn’t grow rice, depriving the enemy of a crucial food supply.
Rather than soldiers fighting soldiers, they were destroying peoples’ lives, uprooting them from their homes. It was hateful work, and a dozen Tiger Force veterans told The Blade that it led them to become more brutal and begin taking out their aggression on the people they were supposed to protect. First they killed prisoners, but soon they were gunning down defenseless civilians.
Cheryl Rofer
Guys
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Politico, July 24: “Bob Mueller Is Struggling.”
There was some speculation elsewhere, including that his apparent hearing problems may have been related to the room’s acoustics. I make no judgment.
RAVEN
@Steeplejack: Shit, all of us have “hearing problems”!My VA hearing aids help but still. . .
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: @RAVEN: I know very few Vietnam combat vets who do not have hearing problems.
Leto
@Omnes Omnibus: 1) I’ve had goat (both in Iraq and there’s a good Caribbean place nearby that serves an excellent curried goat) so who knows?!?! 2) /thumbs up
@Omnes Omnibus: @RAVEN: @Steeplejack: Have you guys seen the hearing plug lawsuit ads that are currently running, “if you served from 200X-20XX, and were issued THESE ear plugs, you could get compensation!” I did have those earplugs issued by the Army, but AF Public Health issued us better fitting ones, plus with roughly 20 years of listening to test tones… I mean, I do have my hearing loss documented in my medical records so when I head to the VA in the next few months to do the follow up service claims I guess that’ll be added to the total claim file.
piratedan
@ThresherK: well…. the President vehemently denied it, well that solves everything considering his track record on just about every fucking subject known to mankind. Thank You Senator!!!!!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Leto: Yeah, I’ve seen the ads. In my day, most of us just used the little yellow foam rubber plugs.
realbtl
@Omnes Omnibus: Hell I don’t know many people the age of Raven and me who don’t have hearing loss. I still remember a late 60’s Who concert where my ears were ringing the next day.
Well that and playing electric guitar myself for 60 years.
Leto
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, those are still handed out on the range. If you didn’t bring your own plugs they would give you those. I’m waiting for the same type of ads to come out against the general issued eye wear. /shrug
RAVEN
@Leto: We got nuttin, M-14’s, 60’s, 3.5’s and I was in a 105 outfit in Korea. . . zipola. I went in in 66 and I think they issued them later but no soup for us!
RAVEN
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t consider myself a “combat vet”, I save that for the grunts.
Omnes Omnibus
@RAVEN: I was thinking of people like my uncle who was an MP. His hearing is still fine.
Jay
Jay
Leto
@RAVEN: Here’s the thing: I honestly don’t know any grunts who wore them in the field. Eye protection, yes. But hearing? The Army has instilled in their people, “ALWAYS HAVE YOUR FUCKING EYEPRO ON; ALWAYS!!!!” In-garrison eating at the DFAC (chow hall), a sea of people with eyepro on. But hearing protection requires more conscious effort, plus I can see the young privates wanting to lip off to the SgtMajor with, “I didn’t hear you sir because of my ear plugs” so that would be one of the first things to go.
I can’t speak to the armor and mortar crews. They might use them? I guess depends on unit level leadership and all. Safety is one of those continually evolving efforts, which is in direct conflict with war. Don’t get me wrong, I like that we try to make sure that our people come out as well as they went in, if not better, but it can only go so far. (I know I’m preaching to choir here)
RAVEN
@Omnes Omnibus: Like realbtl said, mine is a combo of weapons and the Dead in the Wisconsin Field House !
RAVEN
@Leto: I was driving the lead jeep in convoy and the gunner let go with the 60 right over my head. The muzzle blast was like getting hit with a hammer!
Omnes Omnibus
@Leto: In the army, it would vary with the culture of the branch. 13 series MOSs (field artillery) are going to be more likely to wear hearing protection than some others.
RAVEN
@Omnes Omnibus:
Poster for a “Grateful Dead” concert held on March 14, 1971 (3/14/71), at the Camp Randall Field House, Madison, Wisconsin. Features Jerry Garcia with a mandala design around him. Sponsored by the Wisconsin Students Association.
We drove up for that one!
Cheryl Rofer
@Jay: That is the question I’ve been asking for a long time now. It’s hard to see what he would be doing differently if he were working for Russia.
Or, let me step back. There is one thing: He would be working harder to remove sanctions on Russia. He would be subtler about his admiration for Vladimir Putin.
Trump is so impulsive and hard to control that he’s a very poor subject, just as the Russians who tried to recruit Carter Page decided that he was too dumb and crazy to be useful.
I may be proved wrong later, but I’ll continue to believe he’s more useful idiot than fellow traveler.
Omnes Omnibus
@RAVEN: That is about the time my little brother was being baptized in Wausau.
RAVEN
@Omnes Omnibus: Such a time it was. . .
Mark Johnson
GO Braves!!!
Leto
@RAVEN: Update that to my time: HMMV and ma Duce or a 240B (m-60 replacement). This was just training, thankfully, but even with hearing protection but it was still an experience. I did do a few down range convoys (different thread) but they were few and uneventful.
@Omnes Omnibus: True true. It’s the same for the AF.
TS (the original)
@Just Chuck:
This is just so weird – given the history of Russia/USSR/USA. The why sure does need investigation.
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: What difference does it make if he an asset or an agent? He is actively subverting US interests and following Putin’s agenda.
Another Scott
Since we keep hearing occasionally that “Russia continues to try to influence our elections”, I assume that some sort of counter-intelligence-like investigation is continuing. E.g. Sen. Mark Warner:
I don’t know why this stuff doesn’t get more press.
Grrr…
Cheers,
Scott.
James Powell
@realbtl:
We’ve got the same issue for apparently the same reason. I stood in front of the speakers at more concerts than I should have. Loud amps on stage and standing in front of the drums didn’t help either. I remember my doctor telling me to wear earplugs when I was playing and me thinking, doctors, what do they know about rock and roll?
jl
From what I’ve read and clips on youtube, GOP hacks and pols all over the map on how to defend Trump
Boy, that Trump, he sure is a joker, we shouldn’t take what he says seriously. C’mon, lighten up, people
Sure I was upset when the Ukrainian aid was blocked, and maybe the texts look bad, if you HATE Trump, but he swore to my face everything is cool.
The WB’s complaint was entirely second hand [that is false, BTW], so even though everything we’ve seen corroborates it, it doesn’t count
Trump did wrong things, but it’s really important to look into the truth of Trump’s grand conspiracy theory of everything before we move an inch on what Trump did
Democrats haven’t liked Trump for years, and have wanted to impeach him since he took office, and they are happy about it, so, everything they do is discredited and illegitimate
My dog ate my homework
James Powell
I see on Josh Marshall’s page that Senator Tirade wants whistleblowers to testify in public. What’s he up to? Since when to Republicans want witnesses to say what they know about Trump in public?
Cheryl Rofer
@schrodingers_cat: In the very broad way you describe, no difference.
It will make a difference in prosecutions when (if) they come.
It makes a difference in how the counterintelligence investigation is pursued – what kinds of networks they look for.
And I am curious to see if I’m right that he’s more of a useful idiot. If he’s a fellow traveler, that tells me something about how Russia does its spying or about Donald Trump, possibly both.
I also like to be careful in my analyses, rather than plonk down a conclusion in the middle of things without much support.
But yes, we don’t need to know that to impeach him. His behavior is more than sufficient for that.
Ruckus
@James Powell:
They want to know who s/he is so they can attempt to smear her/him before they testify and so they can attempt to get them to recant.
Cacti
@Ruckus:
Yep. Character assassination/intimidation.
The very reason we have whistle blower laws.
jl
@Ruckus: I agree. There is an effort at misdirection here. Several GOPers have tried to make the Trump crimes solely about the WB’s accusation, and ignore all the other evidence that’s come out. they think if they can misdirect attention away from all the other evidence, and find something wrong with the WB, then the case against Trump will collapse, at least in public opinion.
They want to reduce the whole crime and all the evidence to THE accuser (WB) mano a mano with Trump, like a reality show face off. And then discredit the WB and the whole not niceness to Trump will go away.
It seems tied to Brennan as the new Dr. Evil behind the treasonous global plot to be not nice to Trump. I heard several GOPers mention Brennan in ominous tones. I don’t understand the fever dreams behind that. Brennan is the new Soros? I didn’t know Brennan was Jewish (bitter snark)
joel hanes
@RAVEN:
I saw them on that same tour, at the old Field House in Iowa City.
They played for hours and hours — longest concert performance I ever saw, by far.
“Festival seating” — no chairs on the floor, just mats.
When we all filed out, thousands of empty Boone’s Farm and Ripple bottles on the mats.
joel hanes
@Leto:
I drove a Gama Goat for a couple years, ’73-75. They were kind of fun in mud.
Detroit Diesel beer-truck engine, exhaust directly behind the driver’s seat, no appreciable exhaust muffling. They didn’t tell us we needed hearing protection until the second year. They _did_ give us orange silicone finned earplugs for the firing range and for artillery fire, and did encourage us in the Army way to use them. We had to wear the clear plastic earplug container on a beaded chain on our field jacket epaulet when turning out for those kinds of training.
I did wear the plugs pretty consistently, and have only a little hearing damage.
jl
Rick Perry was working the money angle of the Ukraine scheme. So Trumpster bogus claims of Biden scandal and treasonous anti-Trump global plolt, were cover stories for their own money graft crime as well as a request for foreign assistance in 2020 election. I’ll let the psychological projection experts take it from there.
AP sources: Trump allies pressed Ukraine over gas firm
By DESMOND BUTLER, MICHAEL BIESECKER and RICHARD LARDNER
” But the effort to install a friendlier management team at the helm of the gas company, Naftogaz, would soon be taken up with Ukraine’s new president by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, whose slate of candidates included a fellow Texan who is one of Perry’s past political donors.
It’s unclear if Perry’s attempts to replace board members at Naftogaz were coordinated with the Giuliani allies pushing for a similar outcome, and no one has alleged that there is criminal activity in any of these efforts. And it’s unclear what role, if any, Giuliani had in helping his clients push to get gas sales agreements with the state-owned company. ”
apnews.com/d7440cffba4940f5b85cd3dfa3500fb2
frosty
@realbtl:
For me it was Grand Funk Railroad with Black Sabbath opening. My ears rang for a day and a half. And I can hear them ringing right now as a matter of fact. I suspect it was wind noise from driving the Triumph on the freeway with the top down too many times that gave me the tinnitus.
And the electric guitar, too, but with a 4W Vox Pathfinder amp (one EL84 power tube) I couldn’t make a whole lot of noise.
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: You make good points. I wonder if we will ever find out the answers to the questions you are posing.
Jay
BC in Illinois
@realbtl:
@frosty:
I realized in my mid-60s that I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t have ringing in my ears. I didn’t directly connect it to my concert-going in the middle to late 1960s. I also saw the Who, in Columbia MD, a week before Woodstock. (Think of all of “Tommy,” followed by what you saw on the Woodstock movie or on the “Live at Leeds” album.) We put cigarette filters in our ears and, yes, my ears were still ringing the next day.
But that concert has the moment that I still can go back to, 50 years later.
The end of “Tommy.”
The end of “We’re not gonna take it.”
The Chord.
The chord that leads into “See me, feel me.”
When they played that chord, 20,000 people breathed in, at once.
Worth whatever hearing loss the rest of the concert caused.
John Revolta
@RAVEN: @joel hanes: July 1974. International Amphitheater, Chicago. They were still using the “Wall of Sound”then. Thing about the Dead shows was that yeah, they were LOUD, but the sound through their PA was so clean (i.e. low distortion) that you didn’t realize HOW loud they were- until you got outside afterwards, and tried to talk to somebody. Yowzah!
Amir Khalid
@James Powell:
RAVEN
@John Revolta: It was actually more of a metaphor for years of rock and roll!
tokyokie
@frosty: I got my hearing loss and tinnitus by listening to the Ramones. With the volume turned to 10. Through headphones rigged up to the speaker jacks. Hey, it helped with my typing crap for school.
sdhays
@jl: Every. Single. Accusation is a confession with these people.
Steve in the ATL
@Another Scott:
Yeah, you do
J R in WV
I was a bosun’s mate in the navy, and when not handling cargo, etc, we chipped rusty spots, sometimes with a little hammer, more often with a power tool. They handed us earmuffs with the tool, and I wore them.
But I shoot guns at targets, and as a kid we didn’t have hearing protection at all. Since getting out of the USN I have used earmuff protection pretty consistently.
Rock and roll… NO one used hearing protection at rock shows in the ’60s-’80s. I now have hearing protection designed to allow you to hear all the notes while cutting the volume evenly, several different makes and models. Hearing protection for target shooting doesn’t evenly modulate volume, so the sound of the music is pretty damaged.
Tinnitus, yeah, I have that. We listen to “relaxing” classical music at bedtime, all night often. It drowns out the tinnitus, mostly. Dr recommended it, and it works. About good sound versus clipped sound. Back in 2011 I went to a ZZ Top show, openers were Southern Rockers Lynard Skynard, Confederate Treason Flags and a cheap overdriven sound system. I wore ear protection, also not expensive.
Then ZZ Top played their set… quality sound system, plain old great sound, took the hearing protection off. In NYC last fall, took custom music hearing protection with, didn’t really need it, ears didn’t hurt. I do note that many high end rock acts wear custom ear pieces to protect themselves from going deaf from their art. I’m sure that’s really expensive…
Just Chuck
I’m not sure … no, I’m quite positive that the Constitution never provided for the possibility of one branch of congress being an agent of a hostile power. What do we do?
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
My tinnitus comes from a nitromethane explosion that I was standing about 3 feet from 16 yrs ago. Funny thing is that nitro is somewhat difficult to start at normal vapor concentrations but if you attempt to compress the liquid with no air involved about 15 -17 times, it becomes something of a high explosive.
Ruckus
@Just Chuck:
Don’t mean to be a downer but isn’t the executive involved as well?
TerryC
If you are a veteran with tinnitus, you need to know that tinnitus is the number one VA disability and almost a certain, sure thing as a ten percent disability if you have some hearing loss along with it, which you probably do.
That’s enough to qualify you for VA care overall, and if you already have ten percent disability it will get you another non-taxable $140/month.
Every veteran should know this.