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You are here: Home / Archives for Politics / Trumpery / Russiagate

Russiagate

Fool Them Thrice…

by Betty Cracker|  February 22, 202412:18 pm| 86 Comments

This post is in: Elections 2024, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Russiagate, Trump-Russia, Our Failed Media Experiment

It’s a good thing for House Republicans that they lack the capacity for shame. Otherwise, the revelation that Russian operatives have been leading them around by their dicks would cause them to die of it:

CNN — The former FBI informant charged with lying about the Bidens’ dealings in Ukraine told investigators after his arrest that Russian intelligence officials were involved in passing information to him about Hunter Biden, prosecutors said Tuesday in a new court filing, noting that the information was false.

Prosecutors also said Alexander Smirnov has been “actively peddling new lies that could impact US elections” after meeting with Russian spies late last year and that the fallout from his previous false bribery accusations about the Bidens “continue[s] to be felt to this day.”

Smirnov claims to have “extensive and extremely recent” contacts with foreign intelligence officials, prosecutors said in the filing. They said he previously told the FBI that he has longstanding and extensive contacts with Russian spies, including individuals he said were high-level intelligence officers or command Russian assassins abroad.

The GOP House committees have been a shit-show since they won their narrow majority and set off on multiple idiotic quests to make crackpot online conspiracy theories a thing in real life. They’ve been pantsed repeatedly, but they aren’t the only ones wearing egg masks.

show full post on front page

Special counsel David Weiss is also facing a unique dilemma as both the erstwhile dupe and current prosecutor of Smirnov. Weiss is another Trump-appointed US attorney whom AG Merrick Garland chose to head up a politically fraught investigation, this time into the president’s son: (TPM gift link)

Hunter Biden’s lawyers are now claiming, as part of their effort to force new disclosures by Weiss’s office, that it was new or newly specific accusations from Smirnov which scuttled the plea deal which blew up as it was being agreed to in a federal court room. That point about the plea deal remains an accusation and obviously an interested one from Biden’s attorneys. But given what we’ve learned over the last week from the prosecution side — the folks who were repeatedly duped and took actions on the basis of disinformation directly from Russian intelligence — it seems to me highly likely that it’s true.

A semi-side note here is that I can’t see how Weiss’s office can manage its two cases at once. It’s prosecuting Smirnov for knowingly injecting Russian disinformation into U.S. law enforcement. He’s also prosecuting Hunter Biden for charges that appear to stem from the dissolution of the plea deal, which was itself quite likely tainted by Smirnov’s manipulation. How can you possibly do those two things credibly at once? Is Weiss going to take the stand at Smirnov’s trial as one of Smirnov’s marks and explain how he tricked him into blowing up Biden’s plea deal? While he’s also prosecuting the cases that stem from blowing up that plea deal? That seems absurd.

Yep, it sure does. Marshall also notes that mainstream news outlets haven’t covered themselves in glory either. After serving as a conduit for Russian operatives who sowed discord with hacked DNC emails, most MSM outlets hesitated to run with the Hunter Biden laptop story in the waning days of the 2020 election.

That’s what they should have done since the provenance of the laptop material was unknown and followed a well-established influence operation pattern. But in the days since, they allowed themselves to be shamed by clowns in the House GOP and fascism-adjacent oligarch Elon Musk into repudiating their original, correct decision. And they still aren’t connecting the dots.

The real issue, as I note above, is the reporters, editorialists and commentators, who vouched for and credited this whole edifice of lies and bullshit. Yes, they guffawed when James Comer came forward yet again with more revelations that never quite panned out. But they didn’t give up hope. They were always waiting for the next revelation. Comer and his Republican colleagues hadn’t provided “hard evidence” yet but there sure was a lot of smoke.

This entire thing has been based on Russian plants and intelligence operations from the start. Every bit of it. It’s been obvious. And yet, well … they’re all dupes. Somehow almost a decade after this whole thing started we’re shocked to see, wow, Weiss’s office was being led around by another cat’s paw of the Russian intelligence services. We’re shocked. But why are we shocked? Every last person among the serious people of the nation’s capital and the sprawling thing called elite received opinion has egg on their face. And it’s not even clear they fully realize it yet.

Putin has a lot riding on the upcoming election and much to gain from re-empowering his stooge Trump, so the disinformation onslaught will be fierce. To repeat a point made in another post about how our shitty political media actively sabotages democracy, we can’t count on the Fourth Estate to help us defend democracy. We’ll have to find a way to win with their dead weight strapped to our backs.

Fool Them Thrice…Post + Comments (86)

Trump Crime Cartel Open Thread: Where’s the *Binder*, Mark?

by Anne Laurie|  December 16, 20235:34 pm| 99 Comments

This post is in: Excellent Links, Foreign Affairs, Republican Venality, Russiagate, Trump Crime Cartel

NEW: A binder containing highly classified information about Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election has been reported missing pic.twitter.com/0crLGiYegY

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) December 15, 2023

Helluva story @CNN. Good work. I'm old enough to remember when Trump & his cult said Hillary Clinton must be locked up for mishandling emails. Here we have a trove of sensitive intel re Russia & sources and methods that went missing from the Trump WH!https://t.co/v9PBIk6nin

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) December 15, 2023

Per CNN, “The mystery of the missing binder: How a collection of raw Russian intelligence disappeared under Trump”:

A binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, raising alarms among intelligence officials that some of the most closely guarded national security secrets from the US and its allies could be exposed, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Its disappearance, which has not been previously reported, was so concerning that intelligence officials briefed Senate Intelligence Committee leaders last year about the missing materials and the government’s efforts to retrieve them, the sources said.

In the two-plus years since Trump left office, the missing intelligence does not appear to have been found.

The binder contained raw intelligence the US and its NATO allies collected on Russians and Russian agents, including sources and methods that informed the US government’s assessment that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to help Trump win the 2016 election, sources tell CNN…

The binder was last seen at the White House during Trump’s final days in office. The former president had ordered it brought there so he could declassify a host of documents related to the FBI’s Russia investigation. Under the care of then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the binder was scoured by Republican aides working to redact the most sensitive information so it could be declassified and released publicly.

The Russian intelligence was just a small part of the collection of documents in the binder, described as being 10 inches thick and containing reams of information about the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. But the raw intelligence on Russia was among its most sensitive classified materials, and top Trump administration officials repeatedly tried to block the former president from releasing the documents.

The day before leaving office, Trump issued an order declassifying most of the binder’s contents, setting off a flurry of activity in the final 48 hours of his presidency. Multiple copies of the redacted binder were created inside the White House, with plans to distribute them across Washington to Republicans in Congress and right-wing journalists.

Instead, copies initially sent out were frantically retrieved at the direction of White House lawyers demanding additional redactions…

Click the link for a whole lot of interactive information on the Who, Where, What of this intelligence heist.

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"The binder was last seen at the White House during Trump’s final days in office. The former president had ordered it brought there so he could declassify a host of documents related to the FBI’s Russia investigation." https://t.co/OWvD20HMPL

— Clean Observer (@Hammbear2024) December 15, 2023

“All of it is playing into Putin hands…this is another example of why Donald Trump should never step foot in the Oval Office ever again”

-Former Pence aide @OliviaTroye on the Binder of classified material on Russia that went missing

pic.twitter.com/Y5d0xNnskV

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) December 16, 2023

Cassidy Hutchinson on the disappearance of the Crossfire Hurricane binder from the Trump White House:

“There was a mentality in the Trump administration of being frivolous with the country’s most sensitive national secrets. Do we really want people like that back in power?” pic.twitter.com/lFcCTSXQVf

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) December 15, 2023

Today it was reported that a binder with top-secret information on Russian election interference vanished under Trump’s watch.

That classified information still hasn’t been found.

Demonstrating once again, Trump’s utter disregard for our national security.

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) December 15, 2023

Mark Meadows pic.twitter.com/e2MhUoaMNH

— Voice of Reason (@raggapegs) December 16, 2023

“Don’t forget your binder of intelligence secrets and tell Vlad I said enjoy!” pic.twitter.com/lvpBcnfyDm

— Hoodlum 🇺🇸 (@NotHoodlum) December 15, 2023

Trump Crime Cartel Open Thread: Where’s the *Binder*, Mark?Post + Comments (99)

Open Thread: Maybe President Biden Can Trade Rohrabacher Back to Putin?

by Anne Laurie|  June 15, 20219:44 pm| 33 Comments

This post is in: Republican Venality, Russiagate, Violent Insurrection at the Capitol

Exclusive: "Putin's favorite Congressman," former Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, confirms he marched on the Capitol Jan. 6. My interview with him in the @pressherald (in his new homestate of Maine.) https://t.co/quAynzmLbJ

— Colin Woodard (@WoodardColin) June 14, 2021

He’s not worth much, of course, but it would be a little treat for those of us who don’t love treason…

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Former Rep. Dana Rohrabacher confirmed his presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 after @capitolhunters discovered him on restricted grounds: https://t.co/ftI2UgyR8j

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) June 15, 2021

He was there as a designated volunteer Information specialist regarding layout and entrances

— MisterZofter (@Zoftwarz) June 15, 2021

Dana Rohrabacher (once dubbed "Russia's favorite congressman") marched at the Capitol on Jan. 6. He says: “I thought the election was fraudulent and it should be investigated, and I wanted to express that…But I was not there to make a scene and do things that were unacceptable" https://t.co/bGx2maE1vq

— Versha Sharma (@versharma) June 15, 2021

Former congressman Dana Rohrabacher says he protested outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 https://t.co/QkSlsSXbFJ

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 15, 2021

Oh yes. Yes please. Pretty please yes I've waited so long. https://t.co/LKC9rikkU6 pic.twitter.com/kpDDbOmcNi

— zeddy (@Zeddary) June 13, 2021

I do not remotely expect feds to charge many of the people who committed misdemeanor trespass on the Capitol grounds but a former f***ing Congressman who has had shady af ties to both Russia and American fringe characters for decades should be a priority.

— zeddy (@Zeddary) June 13, 2021

Rohrabacher went to Russia so often the GOP told him they wouldn't cover his travel expenses to Russia anymore. I've always suspected he may have had a second family there. https://t.co/PsvvVHeozl

— M. A. Meyer (@mmeyer115comcas) June 13, 2021

pic.twitter.com/RoaCoPCQ5M

— #QisPUTIN ✌️? Putin & Seagal QUEENS of RUSSIA (@RNMukMuk2) June 15, 2021

Open Thread: Maybe President Biden Can Trade Rohrabacher Back to Putin?Post + Comments (33)

The Black PSYOP Comes Home To Roost: The National Security Implications of Today’s DOJ Raids on Giuliani and Toensing

by Adam L Silverman|  April 28, 20214:54 pm| 162 Comments

This post is in: America, An Unexamined Scandal, Crazification Factor, Domestic Politics, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Politics, Russia, Russiagate, Silverman on Security, Trump-Russia

So About That Third Party Spoilers Thing... The Libertarian Presidential Candidate And A Possibly Rabid Bat Edition

Now that the news has broken that the DOJ executed search warrants at Rudy Giuliani’s home and office, as well as for Victoria Toensing’s electronic devices from her office in DC, here’s what I think is going under the water line. This is connecting the known, through open source reporting national-security dots. It is not a legal analysis of what the warrants and their execution means in terms of potential criminal prosecutions. For that, I recommend Ken White, who tweets as Popehat. His excellent legal analysis is in this thread. And Ryan Goodman’s excellent analysis in this thread, which has a much more national-security approach to the news.

Back in October 2019, I laid out what Rudy Giuliani, Victoria Toensing, and her husband Joe DiGenova were doing in Ukraine, especially in terms of where the national security and political implications overlapped. And this context is important to review and keep in mind in regard to today’s news. Pay specific attention to the second and third parts of the operation:

That larger operation, which is a domestically focused Black PSYOP, has three lines of effort, each with multiple parts, and they all are now interconnected.

1) The Ukrainian deliverable.
A) The real deliverable wasn’t manufactured dirt on the Bidens. Rather, it was getting Zelensky to go on CNN to announce the opening of an investigation into the Bidens, because CNN is a mainstream news outlet and is in opposition to the President in its reporting. As soon as that happened, the President’s team would have campaign ads running 24/7 with this. They’d be pushing the reporters they often use, or who are primed for this type of cheap high like Ken Vogel, at mainstream outlets to get all over Zelensky’s announcement, thereby further laundering it and disseminating it through mainstream and legitimate outlets.
B) The fallback, when Zelensky wouldn’t play ball, was to have Hannity interview Shokin – the disgraced, corrupt prosecutor who was forced out under pressure from the US, EU, the IMF, and others. From the reporting over the past two or three days, Parnas and Fruman and Giuliani were all going to Vienna to arrange for this to happen the next night, which would be the night after Parnas and Fruman were arrested. It was also the night after Barr both returned to the US from his “fact finding trip”, met with the SDNY, and then had dinner with Rupert Murdoch.
C) The Romania and China gambits are also fallbacks. The President’s senior advisor for trade issues, Peter Navarro refused to answer CNN’s Jim Sciutto’s questions yesterday about whether the PRC had been told that in order to get a trade deal they had to manufacture dirt on Hunter Biden. I think it is reasonable to conclude that his refusal to answer should be taken as a yes. NBC/MSNBC had new reporting on Hunter Biden and Romania earlier this evening.
D) Barr’s criminal investigation is another fallback here. In this case it turns the DOJ into the propaganda laundry.

2) The Firtash initiative. Firtash wants off house arrest in Vienna and out from under the extradition order to send him to the US to face the Federal crimes he’s been indicted for. The reason Firtash wants this done is because he’s Putin’s man in Ukraine’s natural gas industry. If Firtash can get back to Kyiv he can then once again try to take over Ukraine’s natural gas sector, suck it dry of profits, and fuck up its operations, which will force the Ukrainians to buy natural gas from Russia while removing Ukrainian natural gas as an alternative to Russian natural gas for the rest of the EU market. This all benefits Putin, who is Firtash’s krysha (roof/ceiling) in the Russian mob. Just as he is for every other one of these oligarchs aligned with him.
A) Firtash’s efforts weren’t going very far, so he fired his US attorneys and hired Toensing and DiGenova. They then hired Parnas to do their translation work despite it being reported that Firtash and most of his staff speak fluent and/or functional English.
B) Firtash was laundering manufactured dirt and conspiracy theories about the Bidens, about the Democrats working with Ukraine to steal the 2016 election, etc through Parnas and Fruman and Toensing and DiGenova to Giuliani. Giuliani who was being paid/worked for Parnas, but also somehow also Parnas’s boss.
C) Toensing and DiGenova are also working for free to assist Giuliani with manufacturing dirt on the Bidens.

3) The lift Russian sanctions initiative. Here’s where it all ties together, by laundering these conspiracy theories, especially that the Democrats and the Ukrainians, in conjunction with DNI, CIA, FBI, NSA, and DOJ, conspired to steal the 2016 election by running a false flag (maskirovka) operation to make it look like Russia was actually conspiring with Trump, his campaign, Republicans, and major conservative movement organizations to steal the 2016 election, it provides a fig leaf for Trump to order the lifting of US sanctions against Russia that went on after the seizure of Crimea and the invasion of Donbass and were expanded as a result of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
A) Manafort, through his attorney, was feeding Giuliani this conspiracy theory from jail and then prison.
B) This provides cover to pardon Manafort and Flynn and several others.
C) It was reported today that DiGenova and Toensing are the attorneys representing the conspiracist masquerading as an investigative journalist John Solomon who was (finally) just fired from The Hill. And here is where #3 wraps back into #1. Solomon was laundering all of these conspiracy theories, from Uranium 1 to the Democrats conspired with the Ukrainians, the DNI, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and the DOJ to frame the Russians for trying to steal the 2016 election in order to steal the 2016 election for the Democrats to the Biden bullshit.

A couple of final points. Giuliani and Toensing and DiGenova are now claiming that Parnas, Fruman, and now, I suppose, Solomon cannot be deposed, questioned, etc by investigators since they were either working for Giuliani and/or Toensing and DiGenova or are represented by them and therefore everything they know is either attorney-client privilege or attorney work product. So you can’t ask Giuliani about what Toensing or DiGenova are doing. Or what Parnas or Fruman are doing. You can’t ask Toensing and DiGenova about what Giuliani, Parnas, and/or Fruman are doing. You can’t ask Parnas and Fruman what Giuliani or Toensing or DiGenova are doing. You can’t ask Toensing and DiGenova what Solomon is doing. You can’t ask Soloman what DiGenova and Toensing are doing. You can’t ask Firtash what Giuliani, Toensing, DiGenova, and/or Parnas and Fruman are doing. You can’t ask Giuliani, Toensing, DiGenova, and/or Firtash is doing. And because Giuliani claims all of this is on behalf of his client, the President, you also can’t, because of executive privilege, ask Giuliani, Parnas and Fruman who are working for him and who he is working for, and/or Toensing and DiGenova who are assisting him pro bono and employing Parnas anything because they are all covered from having to divulge anything or answering any questions under executive privilege.

If this sounds familiar, it is similar to how Roy Cohn handled his legal representation of the organized crime families he represented in New York. They’d hold all their business/decision making meetings in his dining room with him present or with him on the phone in case of an emergency, so it was all covered under attorney-client privilege. Nobody, from any angle of inquiry, can say nothing about nothing and no one because everything is privileged.

It is important to note that John Solomon, who was laundering disinformation and agitprop through The Hill and Fox News is referenced in the warrant for Giuliani and Toensing’s phones/electronic devices.

Giuliani's lawyer tells WSJ that search warrant seeks "communications between Mr. Giuliani and individuals including John Solomon."

WSJ, NYT, CNN point to investigation of activities with Ukraine.

Reminder of Giuliani-Solomon-Devin Nunes Timeline?https://t.co/6LmTrXJ7My

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) April 28, 2021

(Do read Goodman’s entire thread)

Now that we’ve refreshed ourselves on the context, here’s what I think is going on:

  1. Parnas, recognizing that his only way out is to give up people more important, more powerful, and more well connected than him, which is basically everyone, agreed to cooperate early on and has given the Feds what they need to work their way up the network.
  2. All of this is going to wind up connected back to Firtash, who, again, is Putin’s guy in Ukraine’s natural gas sector, and, likely, several other pro-Putin Ukrainian oligarchs.
  3. A Federal magistrate seems to have decided that the Roy Cohn gambit – that every one of these people’s communications regarding Ukraine was covered under attorney-client privilege because they were working for Giuliani who is Trump’s lawyer or for Toensing who is a lawyer and was assisting Giuliani for free as he was assisting her for free while working for Trump for free – is not in play here. Hence, the specific reference to communications regarding John Solomon and others.
  4. Trump world has just an astounding level of connections to pro-Putin Ukrainian oligarchs. The Philadelphia lawyer they brought into the campaign to advise on Pennsylvania’s recount rules is the attorney for Igor Kolomoiski. So is Bruce Kasowitz, who is one of Trump’s other personal attorneys. Just off the top of my head, Giuliani is tied to Kolomoiski, Derkach, Firtash, and several others. Toensing is tied to Firtash. And there’s plenty more that would take too long to list.
  5. I expect that the Feds will play the bigger fish off of each other as the investigation moves forward. If part of that is playing Toensing off against Giuliani, she’s going to eat him alive to save her, her husband’s, and her son’s tuchases as she’s still very sharp, despite being way through the map, whereas Rudy is Rudy.

50/50 Rudy makes a foolishly incriminating statement by close of business

— VealBeerHat (@Popehat) April 28, 2021

Rudy Giuliani deleted his tweet saying he would speak live on WABC at 3 pm ET. So much for that, I guess.

— Jan Wolfe (@JanNWolfe) April 28, 2021

If you want in on the “will Rudy Giuliani be able to stay off of Sean Hannity’s show tonight” action, please see Ann Laurie on the mezzanine level between the concession stands and the merchandise shop. While you’re waiting to get in on the action, I recommend the nachos and the Balloon Juicers hockey jersey. Pro tip: spring for the authentic one with the tie down strap, it comes in handy in a fight…

Open thread!

The Black PSYOP Comes Home To Roost: The National Security Implications of Today’s DOJ Raids on Giuliani and ToensingPost + Comments (162)

At least Nero allegedly fiddled…

by Betty Cracker|  September 11, 202011:34 am| 178 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity, Russiagate, Trumpery

As noted in this space before, Biden has an excellent rapid response ad team. I am pleased they so quickly made hay of Trump’s admission Wednesday that he lolls around watching Fox News all day like the common, lazy, loud-mouthed, wingnut retiree that he is:

More than 1,000 people died from COVID yesterday.@realDonaldTrump watched eight hours of TV.

If I’m president, you might not always agree with me. But I promise you I will always show up and fight for you. pic.twitter.com/HvVJLS83TZ

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 11, 2020

It’s been obvious for a few years now that Trump eschews official briefings in favor of the blathering of pro-Trump Fox News “personalities.” In this instance, he was citing “the shows” to explain how a fantastical notion — that Obama and Biden committed “the biggest political scandal in the history of our country” by spying on his 2016 campaign — became lodged in his bloated orange gourd, noting that “the crime is very obvious to everybody.”

It’s not, of course. Barr and his man Durham have been squeezing that turnip for months by re-investigating the origins of the Russia probe. So far, all they’ve got to show for it is a plea deal from one unlucky FBI lawyer nobody ever heard of connected with paperwork on a surveillance renewal for a Trump campaign flunky no one outside the cult gives a shit about.

But I digress — it was helpful for Trump to admit he watches so much TV that it amounts to a full-time job. At least Nero allegedly played the fiddle. We’ve got a lazy couch potato (of the yam variety) who sits around on his ass all day. Dude’s gotta go! Open thread.

At least Nero allegedly fiddled…Post + Comments (178)

GOP Venality Open Thread: Yep, RUSSIAGATE IS REAL

by Anne Laurie|  August 19, 20208:32 am| 101 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Republican Venality, Russiagate, Trump Crime Cartel

BREAKING: In a thousand-page bipartisan report, US Senate Intel Cmte. says the Trump admin. obstructed its investigation with "novel claims" of executive privilege, and paints portrait of a Trump campaign eager to accept help from a foreign power in 2016. https://t.co/BfpgoOGJvX

— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 18, 2020

I’m sure better-informed front pagers will be covering this, but… Looks to me like the Repub-dominated Intel Committee used the cover of the Democratic National Convention to dump their ‘fifth & final’ report on 2016’s GRU/Trump crime cartel fvckery when they hoped it wouldn’t get much notice.

Here’s a whole bunch of news sources agreeing, yep, looks like all those high crimes averred by the Democrats actually happened!

A nearly 1,000-page report by a Senate intelligence panel concludes that Russia used former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Wikileaks and others to try to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Donald Trump https://t.co/0AEETMq35S pic.twitter.com/KixuO9ffwN

— Reuters (@Reuters) August 19, 2020

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Senate report on Russia blows a hole in Trump’s ‘hoax’ claims https://t.co/5u6bacGcew

— Quin Hillyer (@QuinHillyer) August 18, 2020


The Washington Examiner is quite a conservative / right-wing outlet, but even they aren’t trying to whitewash this:

A new, bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee confirms, unambiguously, that the Justice Department had good reason to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election. It also indicates that investigators were right to examine potential conspiracy with the Kremlin by Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Again, this is a bipartisan report, not a partisan Democratic attack document. It is endorsed by Republican committee chairman (on leave), Richard Burr of North Carolina, by acting Chairman Marco Rubio of Florida, and by all other Republicans on the committee in addition to the committee Democrats.

The very first substantive words of the report say this: “The Committee found that the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multi-faceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.”

The report “focuses on the counterintelligence threat, outlining a wide range of Russian efforts to influence the Trump Campaign and the 2016 election. In this volume the Committee lays out its findings in detail by looking at many aspects of the counterintelligence threat posed by the Russian influence operation,” with special attention on the multitudinous Russian connections of Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, who for more than a decade had conducted “influence operations” on behalf of a major Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska.

Also, “Manafort hired and worked increasingly closely with a Russian national, Konstantin Kilimnik. Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer.” And: “[C]ontinuing throughout his time in the Campaign, Manafort directly and indirectly communicated with Kilimnik, Deripaska, and the pro-Russian oligarchs in Ukraine. On numerous occasions, Manafort sought to secretly share internal Campaign information with Kilimnik.”

That’s just from the report’s initial summary. The report contains 952 pages of evidence and analysis showing that these Russian efforts were a serious intelligence threat. Moreover, several Trump officials were at least somewhat aware of, and quite open to, the Russian help, even if not criminally “conspiring” with the Russians…

"The Republican and Democratic chairmen of the Senate Intelligence Committee made criminal referrals of Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Erik Prince and Sam Clovis to federal prosecutors in 2019” https://t.co/MRsgRiBaaP

— Eric Rauchway (@rauchway) August 18, 2020

Statute of limitations for a violation of 18 USC 1001 is five years. https://t.co/6N6U9Fd1L6

— Mieke Eoyang (@MiekeEoyang) August 18, 2020

3 things happened that day in October:
1. The Obama admin made its first public intelligence assessment about Russian election interference
2. The Washington Post published the Access Hollywood tape/story
3. Roger Stone arranged for Wikileaks to start dropping Podesta's emails https://t.co/SDKphWwsBc

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) August 18, 2020

Bipartisan Senate report shows extensive evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia https://t.co/3h9xXAXIlE

— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) August 18, 2020

It is so disturbing and hard to comprehend that Bill Barr is trying to undo the Russia investigations and pretend there was nothing that merited investigation. https://t.co/i0IRd2pqDg

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) August 18, 2020

Trump campaign Russia contacts were 'grave threat', says Senate report https://t.co/mCHfKX3HD6

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 19, 2020

Schiff statement on the SSCI report: https://t.co/CmAnlPqIC3 pic.twitter.com/Os0eYWRw8z

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) August 18, 2020

Bipartisan Senate report: Russia undertook an extensive campaign to sabotage the 2016 election to help Trump become president and some members of his circle of advisers were open to the help from a US adversary. ?@MarkMazzettiNYT? ?@npfandos? https://t.co/icW1xGKlmo

— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) August 18, 2020

Christ. As I've noted previously, this was also the EXACT SAME DAY that the Obama administration put out its first major warning that Russia was trying to influence the election https://t.co/mcXn3XdYMO https://t.co/NNrYZTXuSM

— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) August 18, 2020

The Senate Intelligence Committee found that Trump spoke to Stone about WikiLeaks, despite telling the special counsel in written answers he had "no recollections" that they had spoken about it via @CNN. https://t.co/8B42DTQz30

— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) August 18, 2020

NEW Trump’s 2016 campaign chair Paul Manafort was a ‘grave counterintelligence threat,’ had contact with Russian intelligence, Senate intelligence committee finds@karoun https://t.co/wMPnD9Deb5

— Spencer Hsu (@hsu_spencer) August 18, 2020

Footnote for the ages in the new Senate report (p. 256): pic.twitter.com/j5gKBr6YPu

— Charles Homans (@chashomans) August 18, 2020

GOP Venality Open Thread: Yep, RUSSIAGATE IS REALPost + Comments (101)

Repub Venality Open Thread: Lt. Colonel Vindman Is Retiring from the Army

by Anne Laurie|  July 8, 202011:40 pm| 68 Comments

This post is in: Military, Open Threads, Republican Venality, Russiagate, Trump Crime Cartel

Today I officially requested retirement from the US Army, an organization I love. My family and I look forward to the next chapter of our lives. pic.twitter.com/h2D9MRUHY2

— Alexander S. Vindman (@AVindman) July 8, 2020

Congratulations to @AVindman my twin brother on a glorious military career. Love you bro!

— Yevgeny (Eugene) Vindman (@YVindman) July 8, 2020

A sentiment I can only second, from one of Vindman’s fellow Soviet refugees:

If ever in my lifetime the Dems go extinct and the GOP platform has free healthcare, spiritual fulfillment for all and peace on Earth, I'll still rather have my eyes eaten out by rats rather than consider voting Republican.
No forgiveness for this. Ever.https://t.co/ZBGJLewHIp

— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) July 8, 2020

JUST IN: Full statement from VINDMAN attorney on Vindman’s retirement. pic.twitter.com/nn99aXA5Wj

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 8, 2020

Speaker Pelosi on Lt. Col. Vindman: "It is sad that America is losing this patriotic soldier because of the President's cruel vindictiveness and disrespect for the Constitution and our national security."

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 9, 2020

Rep. Schiff: "What makes the punishment of Col. Vindman possible, is not just this amoral president, but it's a GOP and Congress that is not only unwilling to lift a finger or speak a word in his defense, but quite to the contrary piled on the attacks on Col. Vindman." pic.twitter.com/9bZh7JaFI8

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) July 8, 2020

show full post on front page

The entire civilian and military leadership in the DoD can go fuck themselves. https://t.co/KroXkl9K61 pic.twitter.com/CuMVekqcTV

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) July 8, 2020

It's unprecedented that someone selected for the US Army War College and on the promotion list for Colonel would be bullied out of the Army by a Commander-in-Chief who is allowing Russia to place bounties on American troops in Afghanistan. https://t.co/G14WVbX2Kc

— VoteVets (@votevets) July 8, 2020

No the most insufferable part is that cult of personality cost America another honorable public servant.

— Steve Metz (@steven_metz) July 8, 2020

Trump can't help himself so he'll totally take a victory lap over sabotaging the career of a lieutenant colonel with a flawless service record.

And then probably pardon some Leavenworth s***bag who curbstomped an Iraqi 8-year old.

— Zeddy (@Zeddary) July 8, 2020

To put it in terms the Oval Office Occupant might understand: Every day Lt. Colonel Vindman shits better presidents than Donald Trump will ever be.

Thank you for your service and your patriotism, @AVindman.

pic.twitter.com/m4QUwGJTg6

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 9, 2020

Repub Venality Open Thread: Lt. Colonel Vindman Is Retiring from the ArmyPost + Comments (68)

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