Here’s the live feed:
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Open thread.
The President’s Address Regarding Syria Live FeedPost + Comments (202)
by Adam L Silverman| 202 Comments
This post is in: America, Foreign Affairs, Military, Open Threads, Silverman on Security
Here’s the live feed:
Stay frosty!
Open thread.
The President’s Address Regarding Syria Live FeedPost + Comments (202)
by Adam L Silverman| 155 Comments
This post is in: America, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Politics, Popular Culture, Post-racial America, Silverman on Security, Not Normal
Gonna be that kind of Friday!
From McClatchy:
WASHINGTON
The Justice Department special counsel has evidence that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant, Michael Cohen, secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Confirmation of the trip would lend credence to a retired British spy’s report that Cohen strategized there with a powerful Kremlin figure about Russian meddling in the U.S. election.
It would also be one of the most significant developments thus far in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of whether the Trump campaign and the Kremlin worked together to help Trump win the White House. Undercutting Trump’s repeated pronouncements that “there is no evidence of collusion,” it also could ratchet up the stakes if the president tries, as he has intimated he might for months, to order Mueller’s firing.
Cohen has vehemently denied for months that he ever has been in Prague or colluded with Russia during the campaign. Neither he nor his lawyer responded to requests for comment for this story.
It’s unclear whether Mueller’s investigators also have evidence that Cohen actually met with a prominent Russian – purportedly Konstantin Kosachev, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin — in the Czech capital. Kosachev, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee of a body of the Russian legislature, the Federation Council, also has denied visiting Prague during 2016. Earlier this month, Kosachev was among 24 high-profile Russians hit with stiff U.S. sanctions in retaliation for Russia’s meddling.
But investigators have traced evidence that Cohen entered the Czech Republic through Germany, apparently during August or early September of 2016 as the ex-spy reported, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is confidential. He wouldn’t have needed a passport for such a trip, because both countries are in the so-called Schengen Area in which 26 nations operate with open borders. The disclosure still left a puzzle: The sources did not say whether Cohen took a commercial flight or private jet to Europe, and gave no explanation as to why no record of such a trip has surfaced.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, declined comment.
by Adam L Silverman| 208 Comments
This post is in: America, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Politics, Popular Culture, Post-racial America, Silverman on Security, Not Normal
A lot of news has broken this week, including today. I would argue that everyone take a deep breath and a step back and focus on which bits of the breaking news contain the really important information. I would argue that the really important domestic/American news to have come out so far this week, other than Speaker Ryan calling it quits, is that Michael Cohen is alleged to (may have?) been taping his phone conversations for several years.
From The Washington Post:
President Trump’s personal attorney Michael D. Cohen sometimes taped conversations with associates, according to three people familiar with his practice, and allies of the president are worried that the recordings were seized by federal investigators in a raid of Cohen’s office and residences this week.
Cohen, who served for a decade as a lawyer at the Trump Organization and is a close confidant of Trump’s, was known to store the conversations using digital files and then replay them for colleagues, according to people who have interacted with him.
“We heard he had some proclivity to make tapes,” said one Trump adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. “Now we are wondering, who did he tape? Did he store those someplace where they were actually seized? . . . Did they find his recordings?”
On Monday, FBI agents seized Cohen’s computers and phones as they executed a search warrant that sought, among other records, all communications between the lawyer and Trump and campaign aides about “potential sources of negative publicity” in the lead-up to the 2016 election, The Washington Post reported.
It is unknown whether Cohen taped conversations between himself and Trump. But two people familiar with Cohen’s practices said he recorded both business and political conversations. One associate said Trump knew of Cohen’s practice because the attorney would often play him recordings Cohen had made of his conversations with other top Trump advisers.
“It was his standard practice to do it,” this person said.
Legal experts said Cohen’s taped conversations would be viewed by prosecutors as highly valuable.
“If you are looking for evidence, you can’t do any better than people talking on tape,” said Nick Akerman, a former Watergate prosecutor.
Such recordings “would be considered a gold mine,” said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University who specializes in legal ethics.
“The significance is 9.5 to 10 on a 10-point scale,” he added, noting that investigators know “that when people speak on the phone, they are not guarded. They don’t imagine that the conversation will surface.”
Federal investigators would not automatically get access to any tapes that might have been seized in the raids. First, the recordings would be reviewed by a separate Justice Department team and possibly by a federal judge. The review is designed to protect lawyer-client privilege and to be sure that the conversations turned over are within the terms of the search warrant, legal experts said.
Getting these recordings is among the the most important things, if not the real prize, that was being sought in the raids on Cohen’s office, home office, and the hotel suite where he is staying while his home is being renovated. The President actually sent a real attorney – as in an attorney that know what she’s doing, not attorneys like Michael Cohen – to Federal Court this morning to argue the President has a personal interest in what was seized pursuant to the search warrant that was executed on Monday. And there was a scramble to hire this new attorney – she was only retained two days ago.
For those concerned with potential breaking news regarding Deputy AG Rosenstein, here’s a good primer from Lawfare.
Stay frosty!
Open thread.
The Need To Focus Among Large Amounts of Breaking NewsPost + Comments (208)
by Adam L Silverman| 126 Comments
This post is in: America, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Politics, Popular Culture, Post-racial America, Silverman on Security, Sports
A fitting metaphor for Infrastructure Week. It is always Infrastructure Week…
Rod Salka wore “America 1st” and a wall pattern on his trunks against Mexican fighter Francisco Vargas, and ended up getting his ass kicked #boxing pic.twitter.com/CmNfIeU6X1
— Ryan Songalia (@ryansongalia) April 13, 2018
Open thread!
by Adam L Silverman| 118 Comments
This post is in: America, Election 2016, Foreign Affairs, Military, Open Threads, Politics, Popular Culture, Post-racial America, Silverman on Security, Not Normal
This morning the President warned Russia and its Syrian and Iranian clients that we had the nice, new missiles all ready to go as a response to both the chemical attack on Eastern Ghouta, as well as Russia’s attempts to warn the US and its potential allies – from both the existing US led coalition that is Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve or from a new, smaller coalition of the US, Britain, and France designed to just punish the Assad government for the chemical attacks – off of responding.
Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 11, 2018
Always a good choice to avoid the pre-owned missiles. Sometimes they’re owned by little old ladies who only use them to get to and from church on Sunday. But sometimes they’re used by folks that just abuse them, don’t give them regular maintenance, and run up the mileage on them…
There are already reports of the Syrian military relocating its personnel and equipment to the Russian bases in Syria to protect them.
BREAKING: In past 48 hours, #Syria|n Air Force has relocated all of its airworthy & operational combat aircrafts from #Dumayr, #Shayrat & #Tiyas / #T4Airbase to safe locations while the none-airworthy examples are transferred out of the bases & are covered by camouflage nets. pic.twitter.com/kJsE3STN81
— Babak Taghvaee (@BabakTaghvaee) April 12, 2018
Boy I bet the apron at Russia's Khmeimim Air Base in Syria looks like the Moscow Air Show with all those Syrian Air Force aircraft parked on it by now.
— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) April 11, 2018
This makes anything more than a demonstration strike, which is what was done last year, much, much more dangerous and problematic. The reason for this is that in order to actually reduce Syria’s capability to make war, and specifically try to deter the future use of chemical weapons, means that the US and its partners would have to target Syrian personnel and equipment that are now within Russian lines, for lack of a better term. This is one of the major strategic complications as it would create a de facto reality that the US and its partners have just attacked Russian military sites in order to get at the Syrian assets we want to degrade, attrit, and reduce.
Another part of this strategic complication is that the Russian navy has both sortied its Mediterranean fleet to get it out of port where these ships would be easy targets and has conducted a live fire exercise.
#BREAKING: Satellite photos of Russian naval base in Tartus, Syria show all 11 Russian battle ships have left Syria (Pictures: ImageSat International (ISI)/https://t.co/vHpEjFoxzV) pic.twitter.com/IJhcscOD9x
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) April 11, 2018
NOTAM & navigation warnings in force around #Cyprus for Wed 11th April
'Russian Navy firing exercise' off the #Syria coast. pic.twitter.com/YzTb6cBfbr— Military Advisor (@miladvisor) April 10, 2018
The lone Russian air craft carrier is back in port in Russia – it is actually in dry dock for the better part of the next four years or so undergoing a refit. As a result this eleven vessel fleet has limited capability.
More worrisome is that the Russian’s have begun electronically jamming US intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR) drones.
The Russian military has deployed jamming tactics against US drones that have affected the US military’s ability to operate in the region, NBC News reports.
US officials told NBC News that the Russian military has been jamming smaller US drones. The jamming is focused on the GPS systems of drones, which can result in things like the operators not knowing where the drone currently is, to more extreme results like crashes.
Department of Defense officials speaking to NBC News did not confirm if they lost any of the drones to crashes as a result of the jamming, but one official did say that the jamming is having an operational impact on military operations in Syria.
The drones that have been targeted are smaller surveillance drones, and not the larger ones with strike capability like the MQ-1 Predator or the MQ-9 Reaper, according to NBC News. US military drones are encrypted and are supposed to have defenses against electronic counter measures, suggesting that Russian capabilities are more advanced than previously thought.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, then the commanding general for US Army Europe, said in in 2016 that he has seen Russian “electronic warfare capability at a tactical level that we absolutely don’t have.”
Russia’s ally in Syria, Iran, also reportedly has hacking capabilities. In 2011 it claimed that it hacked into a US RQ-170 Sentinel and forced it to land after it gained access to its GPS.
Russian jamming of our ISR drones is intended to communicate to US and allied military commanders that they will not have a friendly electronic environment if they go with an application of strategic air strikes. This complicates not only targeting, but any potential search and rescue operations that might need to be conducted if something went wrong.
There is another set of strategic complications I want to focus on, which is where Russia has moved its military assets over the past 6 months or so. Russia has begun building out its Western Military District. This is the Russian version of a geographic combatant command that borders the Baltics, Scandinavia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
Russian Ministry of Defense announces that 1 100 military facilities/infrastructures will be built this year in the Western Military District. This includes soldier's dormitories, training area's, service stations, hostels to accomodate soldiers etc. pic.twitter.com/7L5VpxD21V
— Mikhail D. (@Eire_QC) January 9, 2018
This includes ramping up exercises and mobilizations under cover of wildfire season preparedness:
https://t.co/ucq4ogaiUS: In the Western Military District, a training exercise was launched on the use of air defense crews of the Air Defense Forces in extinguishing large forest fires https://t.co/0WxX7SZh1b
— Russian Exercises (@RUSexercises) April 2, 2018
Definite large scale command and staff exercise in Russian Western Military District.
3000 soldiers of combined arms army will exercise in Leningrad region. https://t.co/kYQqaQNv3n
— Aki Heikkinen (@akihheikkinen) March 19, 2018
https://t.co/ucq4ogaiUS: About five thousand troops are in a three-hour stand-by for dealing with emergencies https://t.co/N0T8n8qmdP
— Russian Exercises (@RUSexercises) April 10, 2018
Thats a hefty number of soldiers in 3hrs standby in Russian Central Military District.
Trying to give impression it's for civil emergencies like ice dams but hey, you sure need attack aircraft for that! https://t.co/B9MqvofVbb
— Aki Heikkinen (@akihheikkinen) April 10, 2018
Here’s how Russia’s military is deployed in their military districts:
(Map 1: Russian Military Units)
And here’s how NATO and Russia’s military stack up right now:
(Figure 1: NATO Assets Vs. Russian Assets as of 2017)
(Figure 2: NATO and Russian Deployments as of 2016)
This second strategic complication should be of great concern. The Russian military, despite being much smaller than the US’s and much degraded by Russian economic realities from the vaunted Soviet military, has been deployed and positioned to threaten the US’s NATO and other allies in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Sweden and Finland have been moving towards a war footing, while our Baltic allies have also increased their readiness. Moreover, the Russians have been sniffing around the undersea transatlantic cables that connect the US and Europe for communications purposes. And we now know that Russia’s cyberwarfare capabilities means they don’t have to actually do anything military to retaliate. Russia could just take down parts or all of the US power grid. Russia has also been able to both penetrate for manipulation and penetrate to take down emergency communication systems, as well as planting false stories about natural disasters and terrorist attacks via social media penetration. Imagine what happens should Putin decide to retaliate by turning parts of the US power grid off and interfering with 911 and emergency communications systems, while at the same time spreading disinformation made to look like actual news reports or official municipal, state, and/or Federal responses to the disaster he’s created.
Either a military response against US forces in Syria and Iraq, our NATO allies and partners in Europe, and/or a cyberwarfare response within the US are all potential Russian responses to a US led coalition military response to the chemical weapons attack in Eastern Ghouta last week. These are the strategic complications that the US and its potential allies face in developing their plans and sequels to them. These are the strategic complications faced by the President’s senior military, national security, and foreign policy advisors.
The final strategic complication is the one we started with, the one the President created for himself this morning. By threatening Russian and its Syrian and Iranian proxies with the nice, new, and smart missiles he’s tweeted himself into a corner. He either has to actually do something in response to the chemical weapons attack in Eastern Ghouta or he will have destroyed any credibility on this type of matter in the future, as well as weakened America’s strategic communication capabilities. Regardless of the strategic complications on the ground in Syria, in Europe, or within the cyber domain, the President has boxed himself in. The President has finally tweeted himself into trouble that he can’t tweet himself out of. Either he orders a response and risks an escalation or he backs down and loses what little face he had.
Stay frosty!
Open thread.
by Adam L Silverman| 66 Comments
This post is in: America, Domestic Politics
On 9 April 1865 General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant, Commanding General of the Army of the Potomac. While the Army of Tennessee would fight on for a bit, and other Confederate forces would try to make a last stand in Texas, Lee’s surrender marked the effective end of the Confederacy.
Just sayin…
And as a sign that the arc of justice does indeed bend despite the best intentions of the Confederacy’s political descendants:
On the cusp of turning 112, a whirlwind tour for the oldest living World War II veteran https://t.co/wB0iiHZDBX
— Iverson ?? (@IversonUSA) April 9, 2018
Richard Overton, the grandson of a slave, worked in a furniture store and as a courier for decades until he finally retired when he was 85. That was more than 25 years ago.
Now, Overton — the country’s oldest living World War II veteran — has been enjoying a bit of fame for his longevity, and has a regular stream of visitors to his home in Austin, Texas.
Last week, he mentioned to one of his visitors that he’d like to someday see the National Museum of African American History in Washington, D.C.
The following morning, Overton and a few friends were on a private jet heading toward the nation’s capital. They got a private tour of the museum before it opened to the public Sunday morning.
It was one in a line of stunning and unlikely happenings for Overton, who is believed to be the oldest living American and the third-oldest person in the world. His 112th birthday is next month. His secret to a long life includes cigars, whiskey and speaking his mind.
“I enjoyed every bit of the tour,” Overton said at the museum as he was lunching on soul food.
Then he added, “I didn’t see my name up there,” referring to the World War II exhibit.
His friends chuckled.
“One of these days it will be,” he assured them.
Open thread!
Today Is The Anniversary Of Lee’s Surrender At AppomatoxPost + Comments (66)
by Adam L Silverman| 91 Comments
This post is in: 2020 Elections, America, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Election 2018, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Politics, Popular Culture, Post-racial America, Silverman on Security, Not Normal
Just a quick housekeeping note to clarify something important regarding the FBI executing a Federal search warrant on Michael Cohen’s office, home, and hotel room today. This is a Federal investigation. It is being conducted by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, also known as the Southern District of New York or SDNY. According to reporting by Bloomberg, Special Counsel Mueller brought his investigatory concerns to Deputy AG Rosenstein who then determined that this should be handled by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, not the Office of the Special Counsel.
Mueller brought information involving Cohen to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who decided that the inquiry should be handled by federal prosecutors in New York, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Under Justice Department regulations, Mueller is required to consult with Rosenstein about how to handle evidence and matters that may fall outside his jurisdiction and authority. Mueller is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, whether anyone close to Trump engaged in collusion and whether Trump sought to obstruct justice.
This is a Federal investigation. Michael Cohen is the target of this Federal investigation. It is not, based on reporting, as of now, a joint Federal/NY State investigation. I would expect that the NY state Attorney General Schneiderman will be asked to be read on in case there are parallel charges that would be more appropriately brought in NY state or, in case parts or all of the Federal investigation does not go forward, that could then be brought in NY state.
So just to reiterate: this is currently a Federal investigation being supervised/undertaken by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York as a result of guidance/instructions from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The current US Attorney for the Southern District of New York is Geoffrey S. Berman, who was appointed on an interim basis by Attorney General Sessions on behalf of the current President and assumed his current office in January 2018.
My guess is that in addition to all the other news that broke today, this story is going to continue to develop through the evening and into tomorrow.
Stay frosty!
Open thread.