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You are here: Home / Politics / Proud to Be A Democrat / Russiagate Open Thread: ‘Paralysis’ Over Those Bounty Payments

Russiagate Open Thread: ‘Paralysis’ Over Those Bounty Payments

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Alternate headline: How much will the GOP do *not* to publicly discuss this, during an election year? Anything they can get away with, according to Politico:

… Citing disputed intelligence assessments and interagency squabbles, lawmakers emerged from top secret briefings cautious and mostly tight-lipped about the veracity of news reports suggesting that the Russians had American blood on their hands.

Those lawmakers — mostly Republicans — repeatedly stressed that there was no consensus on whether the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence unit, orchestrated the bounties, despite news reports from The New York Times and others that have detailed the alleged scheme with increasing specificity.

“I think there are contradictory pieces of intelligence on this,” Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 4 GOP leader and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said after a classified briefing.

The Trump administration also appeared to sow doubt over the issue, with President Donald Trump and his aides either questioning the accuracy of the intelligence or labeling reporting on the bounties an outright hoax. And congressional Republicans recently rejected an amendment to the annual defense policy bill, written by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), that would impose new sanctions on Moscow.

Democrats and Republicans alike have supported stricter sanctions on Russia as punishment for its malign activities, including its interference in the 2016 election and its annexation of Crimea in 2014. But the Trump administration has repeatedly hesitated to fully deploy the sanctions regime Congress authorized in 2017, and Republicans have rarely used their leverage to press the White House on the issue.

“There’s still a whole series of questions about what our policy is vis-à-vis Russia, and why there seems to be this unwillingness to call out Russian bad actions,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee…

In the meantime, Democrats appear to be giving Ratcliffe, the nation’s top intelligence official, a chance to prove himself as a nonpolitical figure, given his history as a strident defender of the president. Some congressional officials raised eyebrows about the timing of his memo — which concluded that the interagency assessments of the bounty intelligence were still mixed and incomplete — given White House attempts to frame the issue as too uncertain to warrant an immediate response. But people familiar with the document said it was straightforward and factual.

“I don’t think Ratcliffe has been in this job long enough to characterize whether he’s going to play it straight and do his job or whether he’s going to be in more of a political role,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), a member of the Intelligence Committee. “I think he has a lot to do to build confidence given his previous role on cable news networks.”

“I didn’t support Mr. Ratcliffe,” added Warner. “Now he’s in, I want him to be successful. And as long as he is transparent and forthcoming with this committee — and we have tried to treat everybody with respect — I want to work with him.”

Democrats emphasized that they still had confidence in the career civil servants who make up the vast majority of the U.S. intelligence community, but said they are concerned Ratcliffe would not tell the president what they believe he needs to hear.

“I’ve made it clear that I think the executive branch has an obligation to be straight with the American people, and the list could go on, but he’s the guy that’s going to be held accountable,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), an Intelligence Committee member, said in a brief interview. “In the last 48 hours, the administration isn’t even close to a passing grade.”…

As I remember it, the GOP was trying to set up Blount as the fall guy for every intelligence failure going back to the start of the impeachment hearings, for the heinous crime of being insufficiently loyal to Dear Leader. So it wouldn’t really surprise me if it turns out Blount gets to be the Repub figurehead ceremonially sacrificed to cover the whole party’s complicity in Trump’s Russia-related treason. Our job as Democrats, of course, will be fighting to ensure that the Treason Enabler Party doesn’t escape a scouring of every single one of their accomplices.

Reader Interactions

80Comments

  1. 1.

    Jerzy Russian

    I assume that first article discusses the motives of the Russians.  How can it be that there remain disputes over the motives?     Also, they did not catch the mob bag man pick up the cash after the hit?  Since when is that needed in cases like this?

  3. 3.

    cmorenc

    Among the first urgent things a potential Biden Presidency will need to take on is: how much lasting damage have Trump and his cronies he installed at top-levels of the intelligence community done to our intelligence / security staff and infrastructure? Particularly, how many mid-to upper-mid level “embeds” have they successfully stuck in career-level positions exempt from Biden’s ability remove-at-discretion?  I.e. who might be inclined to sabotage-from-within?

  6. 6.

    CaseyL

    In this case, it may not just be Trump the GOP Senators want to avoid angering; it might his – and their – Russian masters.

    The dirt Assange and Snowden gave Putin on the GOP must be hair-raising stuff indeed, as the GOP has stopped tip-toeing to the waterline of treason and instead decided to jump all the way in.

  8. 8.

    dopey-o

    The uncertainty over the bounties is mainly whether putin paid in rubles or dollars. drump prefers dollars. so don’t bother him with the details until the check clears.

  10. 10.

    Repatriated

    @Jerzy Russian

    Also, they did not catch the mob bag man pick up the cash after the hit? Since when is that needed in cases like this?

    Perhaps the question isn’t whether there’s proof, but whether that evidence can be revealed without giving up sources and methods.

  11. 11.

    piratedan

    @Cameron: ummmmm…. bullshit. My issue is the fact that anyone in this fucking administration is provided the faintest glimmer of the benefit of doubt based on their established track record of partisan dumpster fire tactics. Its up to them to prove themselves as being an honest civil servant and not some partisan mouthpiece.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    Absent the emergence of a cancelled check with “Payment for confirmed killing of PFC John Jones” in the message line this will continue to have fog ladled over it thicker than the atmosphere of Venus.

    Separating the wheat from the chaff is going to be a long, tedious process.

  15. 15.

    Chetan Murthy

    @NotMax: What I’d read was that rather than a canceled check, they found the remnant half-mill in cash, and the paymaster had skedaddled to Russia.  All looks pretty damning ….

  16. 16.

    lumpkin

    @Cameron:

    Scott Ritter has been one of those contrarian gadfly types for quite some time. Not sure I’d put a lot of credence into what he has to say without corroboration from some more credible sources.

  17. 17.

    Another Scott

    This country deserves better than a President who fights harder for statues of dead Confederates than living US soldiers, condemns peaceful protesters but not white supremacists, hates journalists but not dictators who murder them, and can't put on a mask to save American lives.

    — Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) July 3, 2020

    January 20, 2021 cannot come too soon.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  20. 20.

    Viva BrisVegas

    Those lawmakers — mostly Republicans — repeatedly stressed that there was no consensus

    So were there actually any Democrats who sided with Republicans on this, or is this just more Politico bs?

  21. 21.

    Cacti

    Given the Pentagon’s well documented history of lying its ass off from My Lai to Abu Ghraib to Pat Tillman, the Biden Administration is going to need to do a deep dive to get to the bottom of this.

    And after he fires Gina Haspel, he should turn her over to The Hague for her role in the Bush torture program.  (I know, I’m dreaming on that one)

  24. 24.

    opiejeanne

    @Martin: 
    It’s been a long time since we had a troll in here, I’m wondering if this is the genuine article or just a seagull who swooped in to dump some shit before taking off.

  25. 25.

    jonas

    I’m old enough to remember when Republicans’ critical assessment of intelligence reporting was so sharp that a “¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ?” in a CIA brief was ironclad proof of Iraqi WMDs. I wonder what’s changed?

  26. 26.

    opiejeanne

    I’m out of Twitter Jail!!!! Yay!

    Hello,

    Our support team has reviewed your account and it appears we made an error. We’ve determined there was no violation and have restored your account to full functionality.

    We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate you taking the time to submit your appeal request to us.

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    Twitter

  29. 29.

    Jay

    @lumpkin:

    Ritter was “right” about Iraq and Afghanistan. At the time.

    Few were.

    Still, a flawed human being,  possibly as a result of being attacked over being on of the most credible Bush 9/11 critics.

    He’s no Judith Miller.

    Consortieum News went from being “intelligent” to contrarian the moment Obama was elected. The Ship of State doesn’t turn on a dime, and it takes time, if you get it, to try to fix what the Rethugs broke. Afghanistan and Iraq were so badly broken by Dubya Dubya Me Too, that there is nothing we can do to “fix” them. All we can do is provide support to give them the time to figure out how to fix it themselves.

  32. 32.

    jonas

    From the reporting I’ve seen, if I understand it correctly, the issue seems to be that the CIA and other agencies that collect “HUMINT” on the ground believe that there was a bounty scheme against coalition forces orchestrated by GRU in Afghanistan, but that the NSA (“SIGINT”) couldn’t confirm it, or interpreted stuff they were hearing differently. So this situation is presented to the president in his PDB, who, rather than directing the IC and Pentagon to get to the bottom of it, ignores it because 1. is functionally illiterate and doesn’t read his briefings and 2. won’t listen to anything that’s critical of Russia. So what we have here is not just a case of maybe Russia paying bounties on US troops, or maybe just funneling money to the Taliban for purposes of fucking with us more generally, but of an administration that really just doesn’t care either way.

    I also recall that there had been “conflicting intelligence” about exactly what happened in Benghazi as well, and that didn’t stop Republican lawmakers from claiming it was the worst intelligence failure and war crime in the history of the universe.

  33. 33.

    The Moar You Know

    “Paralyzed”.  That’s fuckin rich.

    Choice: throw Trump under the bus or go down with the ship.  I think the bus is quite safe, sadly.

    I hope these poor paralyzed politicians understand that they cannot live in the United States safely ever again.

  34. 34.

    Martin

    Trump is considering banning TikTok. Increased youth voter turnout in 3… 2… 1…

  39. 39.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    Republicans have rarely used their leverage to press the White House on the issue.

    Their leverage? What would they threaten to do, not jump quite as high as Trump tells them to?

  42. 42.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Asha Rangappa @AshaRangappa_ 1h
    I was trying to figure out why Tucker Carlson is obsessed with Tammy Duckworth and then realized she’s the only one still talking about and demanding answers for Trump’s lack of response to Russia’s bounties on U.S. soldiers so now it all makes sense

  45. 45.

    jonas

    @Martin:Trump is considering banning TikTok.

    How do you even do that? The government here doesn’t control the internet like they do in *checks notes* China.

  46. 46.

    frosty

    @opiejeanne: Well, that should wipe out another 2 or 3 hours of your day. I have enough trouble with BJ and two newspapers. Oh, and FB. I don’t need to go down the twitter rabbit hole. But maybe you’re better at managing your time LOL,

  47. 47.

    Jay

    So, open thread right?

    Cracked my skull open on a chunk of angle iron today. 8 stitches, moderate concussion.

    First Aid and Box Store Mgmt were great. They did have to raid my First Aid kit I carry everywhere for suitable tape, as our ( Corporate) WCB Supplier still hasn’t figured out how to be an “Essential Service” in a time of Covid.

    Ambulance to the hospital. They were great too, hard to understand through their full protection suite.

    The ER is now doing “contactless delivery”. The “outside” Ambulance crew hands you off to an “inside/clean” Ambulance crew ( who reprocess you in part) so that the only possible point of infection is the patient.

    Lots of love and care through the whole food chain. It helps that I’m Kovu’s favorite Associate, ( Amy, our lead First Aid tech’s Belgian Shepherd, 1 year old two days ago).

  48. 48.

    James E Powell

    @Jay:

    All we can do is provide support to give them the time to figure out how to fix it themselves.

    And apparently they are going to need the rest of this century to do that.

  49. 49.

    frosty

    @geg6: Ahem. To be precise it’s an ALMOST top 10,000 blog*.

    * I’ve actually tried to research blog readership to verify this and came up blank. Poor google-fu, I’m afraid.

  50. 50.

    Another Scott

    @Jay: Hey!  Don’t do that!!

    I got hit in the head with a metal gliding swing when I was a youngster.  2 stitches.

    That’s enough.

    Don’t do that again!  Rest easy.  :-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  51. 51.

    jonas

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Duckworth has also vowed to block the approval of over 1000 senior officer commissions until the WH publically promises not to obstruct Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s promotion to colonel, because, you know, they’re a bunch of vindictive little shits. I’m sure this has Carlson and the MAGAts in a tizzy as well.

  52. 52.

    frosty

    @Jay: Ouch!! Sounds like you’ve gotten pretty good care though. I’ve never been so paranoid as to carry my own first aid kit everywhere. Traveling, hiking, even biking yes. But work and walking down the street? I might have to rethink this. At least some Band-Aids.

  53. 53.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Jay:

    Cracked my skull open on a chunk of angle iron today. 8 stitches, moderate concussion.

    Sounds like this joint at times.

  54. 54.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Jay:  Holy crap! That all sounds a great deal more painful than you’re letting on. Rest up and feel better quickly!

    And I sincerely hope you didn’t bring home any nanohitchhikers from the hospital.

  55. 55.

    Amir Khalid

    @Martin:

    Probably because it’s Sarah Cooper’s main platform. Seriously, though, does he have the power to do it?

  58. 58.

    Leto

    @Jay: Man, glad you’re ok!

    Here’s someone else who fell, hit their head, and needed stitches (might also explain some things):
    Chief Justice John Roberts was hospitalized last month after injuring his head in a fall

    Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. suffered a fall at a Maryland country club last month that required an overnight stay in the hospital, a Supreme Court spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday night.

    The 65-year-old chief justice was taken by ambulance to a hospital after the June 21 incident at the Chevy Chase Club, which was serious enough to require sutures. He stayed at the hospital overnight for observation and was released the next morning.

    Roberts has twice experienced seizures, in 1993 and in 2007, but Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathleen Arberg said doctors ruled out that possibility in the latest incident. Doctors believe he was dehydrated, she said.

    Roberts did not publicly disclose the matter, and the court’s confirmation came in response to an inquiry from The Washington Post, which received a tip.

    The scene was apparently witnessed by some at the club, whose list of politically connected members includes another justice, Brett M. Kavanaugh. The person who told The Post about the incident said Roberts’s head was covered in blood.

    The statement from Arberg said: “The Chief Justice was treated at a hospital on June 21 for an injury to his forehead sustained in a fall while walking for exercise near his home. The injury required sutures, and out of an abundance of caution, he stayed in the hospital overnight and was discharged the next morning. His doctors ruled out a seizure. They believe the fall was likely due to light-headedness caused by dehydration.”

    The statement did not address why Roberts had not disclosed his hospitalization.

    Roberts suffered a seizure in July 2007 at his vacation home in Maine. He fell from a dock after experiencing what the court described as a “benign idiopathic seizure.” That means there was no easily identifiable cause for the seizure, such as a tumor.

    Arberg said in 2007 that Roberts quickly recovered from the incident, though he spent the night at the hospital for observation.

    At that time, Arberg said that the chief justice, who has presided over the court since 2005, received minor scrapes from the fall but that a “thorough neurological evaluation … revealed no cause for concern.”

  59. 59.

    Another Scott

    @Leto: Might be more believable if they hadn’t held the news back for two weeks…

    Grrr….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  61. 61.

    Jay

    @Another Scott:

    @frosty:

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:

    wasn’t too bad, I’ve had worse. Got tomorrow off though.

    not worried about Hospital Hitchikers, already colonized by MERS,

    Deal with the public in Covid World, everyday, so PPE all the time, keep clean.

    I carry a First Aid kit everywhere, not just for me. Also basic food and water, water purifier, basic tools, cord,  everwhere. Back before 9/11, that, plus a change of clothes in Carry On, ( Up the Khyber!).  First thing after boarding was picking whom first I would eat if the plane crashed in the mountains.

  63. 63.

    Martin

    @Amir Khalid: Yeah. It’s a foreign app.

    Mind you, it’s a wildly dangerous app from a security standpoint, so he’s not wrong to be concerned about it. But there are a variety of ways to deal with this problem, and he’ll not be able to articulate or implement any of them so it’ll just come off as a buffoonish move.

  64. 64.

    Jay

    @James E Powell:

    probably. All the Afghans ready in 2002 to stand up and create change, for all Afghans, are either dead, in hiding or exile. That’s what happens when “you” put the same Warlords, War Criminals and Drug Dealers back in charge.

    A crapload of Iraqi’s who could have changed Iraq, never survived Bush’s abandonment.

    By the time Obama was elected, Dubya Dubya Me Too and the College Rethuglicans had along with Iran, already entrenched multiple power blocks that will/are very difficult for Irqi’s and Afghans to unroot. Plus you know, the “Constitutions” the College ReThugs wrote, etc.

  65. 65.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Martin:

    it’s a wildly dangerous app from a security standpoint, so he’s not wrong to be concerned about it.

    Wait, we’re talking about Donald Trump here, security, really?  Martin, quit whatever you’re doing, take this act on the road.

  66. 66.

    Martin

    @patrick II: Apple and Google would be required to remove it from their app stores, and potentially disable it remotely from all devices. The problem isn’t watching a video in a browser. The problem is that the app harvests damn near everything it can from your device, encrypts is up and sends it home. Its use of 0-day exploits to accomplish this suggests its malicious nature.

  68. 68.

    patrick II

    @Martin:

    Thanks.  I hate to say anything good about this administration, but data mining has gotten totally out of control.  Although it is ironic that Google would have to remove it from their store — while they keep track of everything else you are doing.

  69. 69.

    prostratedragon

    @NotMax:  Local classical radio here, WFMT, has been giving a lot of airtime to Afro-this-and-that composers the last year or so. Chicago Sinfonietta has many such recordings.

  71. 71.

    patrick II

    @Martin:

    So, after I say it might be a good idea, you say no.  I don’t know enough about what would be a better way to control it, especially if it’s a foreign corporation.

  74. 74.

    Jay

    @Martin:

    TicTok is bailing on Hong Kong out of concerns about the new Security Laws.

    Interesting. The Board seems to be not as PRC controlled as expected.

  75. 75.

    Kent

    @jonas:I also recall that there had been “conflicting intelligence” about exactly what happened in Benghazi as well, and that didn’t stop Republican lawmakers from claiming it was the worst intelligence failure and war crime in the history of the universe.

    Republicans do this so much better than we do.

    If Russian Bounties on US troops had happened under Obama’s watch there would have been 25 separate Congressional committees investigating the topic night and day and breathless Fox news coverage 24/7.  Then all the mainstream media sources would be reporting on the issue daily as well,  just to keep up with “developments” on the “scandal”

    Scorched earth people.  Scorched earth.

  76. 76.

    dopey-o

    @Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):

    Who is Blount? Did you mean Senator Roy Blunt, or is there somebody named Blount who works or worked in the administration?

    Roy Blunt is a resident of Springfield Missouri, a hotbed of fundie-gelical craziness. A nearby town Joplin is a hotbed of Covid-19 infections. Former AG John Ashcroft hales from the same dominionist theology and geographic region.

    blunt serves on the senate intel committee, and when i asked him about the committee’s report on russian interference in 2016, he wrote back some vague drool about evidence for both views.

    in other words, he won’t commit to believing our intel agencies over the imPOTUS. Blunt is up for re-election in 2022.

  77. 77.

    Martin

    @patrick II: So, a few things:

    1. It would be better if the administration worked with Apple and Google to remove the app, rather than do it as a federal government action. I don’t like the idea of the feds banning apps.
    2. The app reveals underlying problems that should be addressed regardless. Again, the administration should be working with and urging Apple and Google to address those. If the Chinese government were using TikTok to harvest this information, it won’t be hard for them to find some other app to do that. TikTok used to be Musical.ly which was then bought by ByteDance. The Chinese government can simply arrange for some other popular app to be purchased and used for the same purpose.
    3. The public won’t trust this action because of how it will get handled.
    4. It’s the wrong way to handle an international problem like this, again, if we believe China is behind it.
  78. 78.

    opiejeanne

    @dmsilev: I probably already have. They had the audacity to tell me to go and sin no more, after they’d already determined that there was no “sin” on my part.

    I posted that note on Twitter, and then called them assholes.

  79. 79.

    trnc

    @frosty: We’re a bit south of top 10,000 though.

    But that’s a ranking of all websites, not just blogs, right? At any rate, I see a rise from 145,000th to 113,000th in 90 days.

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