In a break with his boss, Thomas Bossert said Russian entities clearly tried to meddle in the 2016 race.
By Ali Watkins
07/20/2017 12:49 PM EDT
The hacking and subsequent release of stolen Democratic National Committee emails last year were “unacceptable efforts and behaviors by a foreign nation state,” Thomas Bossert said on Thursday. Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
ASPEN, CO — Donald Trump’s chief counter-terrorism adviser said
Thursday that the Russian government clearly tried to manipulate the
2016 election, and declared that the Obama administration’s retaliatory
sanctions didn’t go far enough.
“There’s a pretty clear and easy answer to this and it’s 'yes,'”
Thomas Bossert said when asked whether the Russians worked to manipulate
the U.S. election — a widely held conclusion that his boss in the Oval
Office has repeatedly questioned.
The Obama White House’s response — kicking out 35 diplomats and
closing two Russian diplomatic facilities in December — “wasn’t adequate
in my mind,” Bossert, a top national security aide under former
President George W. Bush, added during a wide-ranging discussion at the
National Security Forum in Aspen.
Trump has repeatedly questioned the U.S. intelligence community’s
conclusion that Moscow meddled in the 2016 election with the intent of
helping Trump win. Trump said he pressed Russian President Vladimir
Putin on the issue during their recent meeting at the G-20 in Germany,
but the two sides offered different accounts, with Russia saying Trump
accepted Putin’s denials.
The hacking and subsequent release of stolen Democratic National
Committee emails last year were “unacceptable efforts and behaviors by a
foreign nation state,” Bossert said on Thursday. He stressed, though,
that there had been no manipulation of ballot counts.
The administration is not yet in a place to crack down harder on
Russia, Bossert said, but is exploring how to deter cyber-attacks.
There’s “no evidence,” he said, that offensive cyber operations deter
foreign hackers, so the White House is exploring more “draconian”
retaliations, like financial penalties.
Those cyber policies are in the works, he said, but their
implementation — including potential responses to aggressive cyber-attacks from countries like Russia — will take longer than most
would prefer.
“We’ll satisfy you, but we won’t satisfy you in enough time,” Bossert said.
The question of Russian interference in the 2016 election — including
whether any of Trump’s associates colluded with the Kremlin — has
clouded Trump’s presidency. Special counsel Robert Mueller and multiple
congressional committees are probing not only the issue of election
meddling, but other related issues — including whether Trump obstructed
justice by firing FBI Director James Comey.
Bossert touched on several other controversial topics, including
Syria, U.S. detention and interrogation policies, and the creation of a bio-defense force.
The administration continues to explore long-term detention
facilities for captured combatants overseas, including the use of the
Guantánamo Bay detention facility, Bossert said. Further, the White
House is keeping “all options open” when it comes to reopening notorious
black site secret prisons overseas, he said.
Bossert underscored the Trump administration’s commitment to Syria,
but said Syrian President Bashar Assad’s departure was not a top
priority. The White House has reportedly ended a covert program
dedicated to arming anti-Assad groups.
“It’s not important for us to say Assad must go first,” Bossert said,
but added, “The U.S. would still like to see Assad go at some point.”
The Trump adviser repeatedly chastised his interviewer, New York
Times national security reporter David Sanger, about his newspaper’s
coverage of classified U.S. programs. He also strongly objected to a
Times article that he said unfairly implied the U.S. has responsibility
for the effects of computer vulnerability exploitation programs designed
by the U.S. government which fall into foreign hands and are used for
malicious purposes.
Bossert also said the Trump administration would develop a
comprehensive plan to defend the nation against bio-terrorism, an issue
he said has been dangerously neglected, and which has taken on new
urgency because of rapidly advancing biotechnology that allows for the
creation of synthetic viruses.
Bossert said scientists may now be able to create a synthetic
smallpox virus without access to the only two known laboratory samples
of the deadly disease — a prospect he called terrifying.
At this point, any new batshit thing that President Donald Trump says
comes across less as a shock and more like another punch to the face in a
boxing match. If you're an experienced fighter, you know exactly how
it's gonna feel when that glove pounds your chin, but, goddamnit, it
still hurts and, goddamnit, you want it to stop. So this latest New York Times "interview"
(if by "interview," you mean, "a lunatic scrawling in shit on his
rubber room walls") with Trump is the usual serving of blithering,
dithering, and withering, all tossed into a word salad that sounds like
it might be English but is a colloquial bowl of chopped ideas that we
could call "Trumpese."
The usual things that crop up any time Trump speaks were in full effect here:
1. Self-fellatio - Trump praises himself endlessly for doing the most,
having the most, being the most, even if it's a goddamned lie. Here he
is on his speech in Poland: "Enemies of mine in the media, enemies of
mine are saying it was the greatest speech ever made on foreign soil by a
president...You saw the reviews I got on that speech." Or on the
rollback of Obama-era regulations: " I’ve given the farmers back their
farms. I’ve given the builders back their land to build houses and to
build other things." Can you imagine the hategasm that would splooge all
over the airwaves if President Obama had said, "I gave people health
insurance"? We'd be cleaning up that goo for years. But Trump's voters
love that he acts like he's the king. They want a king. They want to be
ruled. They want discipline. Shit, basically, he's their Dom and they're
his loyal Subs, except the rest of us have been dragged into it without
a safe word or, you know, consent.
2. Shitting on others - Yeah, Trump just sprayed
scat all over Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III and the Justice Department
in general. In addition to questioning the motives of Robert Mueller
(as well as threatening to fire him) and bizarrely saying that Sessions
shouldn't have taken the job if he was going to recuse himself from
Russia matters (remember: Sessions tried not to do so until it was
revealed he lied under oath about his meetings), Trump says of his
firing of James Comey, "I think I did a great thing for the American
people." The American people just want someone who'll do the goddamn
job. It's mighty strange, by the way, to say that you did nothing wrong
but wanting the investigation shut down.
2a. Shitting on Hillary Clinton - Because of course he did.
3. Cornered rat babbling - Asked about the conversation with Vladimir
Putin that wasn't reported until well after the G20 summit, Trump was
like a tween caught with weed in his dresser. He wove an elaborate tale
about how the chat came to be, setting the scene at the dinner all the
leaders attended, who was seated where, who was talking to whom, who
else might have been there, the fucking opera they watched. Then Trump
said what he and Putin discussed: "Actually, it was very interesting, we
talked about adoption." The fuck? (I wish Maggie Haberman had said that
instead of "You did?") Trump continued, "We talked about Russian
adoption. Yeah. I always found that interesting. Because, you know, he
ended that years ago. And I actually talked about Russian adoption with
him, which is interesting because it was a part of the conversation that
Don [Jr.] had in that meeting." That means they talked about the
lifting of the sanctions in the Magnitsky Act, which is pretty fucking
important. But a cornered rat will do that. Amid the lies and
distractions, they will squeak out some truth.
4. Paranoid ranting - Everyone is out to get Trump, according to Trump.
The news media, of course, but, more significantly, Barack Obama creeps
into his head and he can't help but go nutzoid insulting his beloved
White House predecessor. "Don’t forget, Crimea was given away during
Obama. Not during Trump," he said, speaking of himself in the third
person, which is so disconcerting. He then went incoherent until he got
back to Obama: "In fact, I was on one of the shows, I said they’re
exactly right, they didn’t have it as it exactly. But he was — this —
Crimea was gone during the Obama administration, and he gave, he allowed
it to get away. You know, he can talk tough all he wants, in the
meantime he talked tough to North Korea. And he didn’t actually. He
didn’t talk tough to North Korea. You know, we have a big problem with
North Korea. Big. Big, big." Jesus, calm down there, big fella. "You
look at all of the things, you look at the line in the sand. The red
line in the sand in Syria. He didn’t do the shot. I did the shot. Had he
done that shot, he wouldn’t have had — had he done something dramatic,
because if you remember, they had a tremendous gas attack after he made
that statement. Much bigger than the one they had with me." Ah, finally
he can let Obama win one: Syria gassed more people under Obama than
under Trump. Such a humble man, our president.
5. Just weird shit - Every interview with Trump is guaranteed to have
some bizarre notes, those moments when Trump sounds like a Hollywood
producer in the 1970's. You could go with his description of the Bastille
Day parade in Paris ("You know what else that was nice? It was limited.
You know, it was two hours, and the parade ended. It didn’t go a whole
day") or even when he jumped subjects like a weasel on meth ("The
Russians have great fighters in the cold. They use the cold to their
advantage. I mean, they’ve won five wars where the armies that went
against them froze to death. It’s pretty amazing. So, we’re having a
good time. The economy is doing great.") But I'm gonna go with the saga
of French President Macron and his love of holding Trump's hand: "He’s a
great guy. Smart. Strong. Loves holding my hand...People don’t realize
he loves holding my hand. And that’s good, as far as that goes...I think
he is going to be a terrific president of France. But he does love
holding my hand." Every night, Macron touches the hand that held
Trump's, and a single tear runs slowly down his face as he remembers
those soft, small fingers interlaced with his.
Keep in mind that these were easy questions because the reporters know
that if you ask Trump something about policy, like "Can you explain a
single fucking thing about how the ACA exchanges work?" or if you
challenge him, like "Why did you lie about Medicaid cuts?" he'll just
shut down like an overstimulated toddler. Even on the softball
questions, he got basic facts wrong and he didn't know when to shut the
fuck up. Sure, Trump ought to be interviewed like anyone would Hillary
Clinton or Barack Obama or, fuck, Mitt Romney, but we all know that he's
fucking stupid so get the stupid people to talk about the one thing
they feel comfortable with: themselves.
It's not shocking anymore. And we need to be careful about that. The
thing about a boxing match is that the fighters can never let it get
boring and rote. It might be exhausting or excruciating. But you gotta
stay in the moments or you'll find yourself flat on your ass, without
health care, with your country at war, with your voting rights gone, and
with your environment collapsing.
In just six short months, it's become absolutely clear: Everyone who
didn't vote for Donald Trump was right and everyone who voted for him
was wrong. Yeah, yeah, they weren't wrong in that Trump won the
election, just as someone isn't wrong for supporting a shitty baseball
team. But it's incredibly clear now that the poor suckers and greedy
fuckers who wanted to nuzzle up to Trump's man-teats for a suckle were
wrong on just about every account regarding who he is and what he'd do.
They were wrong that he's a man of his word, they were wrong that he
would look out for working people, they were wrong that he would make
the nation respected "again" (as if it wasn't before), they were wrong
that he wouldn't have scandals, and they were just wrong about him being
a human being worthy of the office. They were wrong and we who voted
against him (and I'm tossing anyone who voted for Hillary Clinton, Jill
Stein, Gary Johnson, and Deez Nutz into the category of "voted against
him") were right.
Trump voters fucked the goat,
and so everything they say should be framed within the fact that they
are goatfuckers. "Oh, you have an opinion on health care? Sorry, you
fucked a goat. I don't give a shit about your goat-fucking opinion," we
should think. But that's not what we do. We don't shun the goatfuckers,
no matter how savagely they fucked that goat. We see that most clearly
by the fact that the news networks and other media outlets still
entertain the opinions of people who supported the Iraq war and never
said they were wrong about it. Goatfuckers get away with it.
So we're treated on an almost daily basis to articles and stories about
Trump voters and what they think about some issue and whether or not
Trump's evil, batshit incompetence is enough for them to bail on the
Orange King. Every single one of these stories is the same: Here are
some assholes who voted for Trump. Let's treat them with reverence, as
if they have hard-won wisdom because they shovel shit or work at
Wal-Mart. Let's tell them about all the fuckery that Donald Trump has
been up to and see what they think. Oh, look, they don't give a shit
because he still hates the Mooslems and Messicans. And what might change
their minds about Trumpochet? "I don’t know what he would have to
do...I guess maybe kill someone. Just in cold blood."
That's an actual quote from an actual person in a Tennesseeanarticle
on Wayne County, Tennessee, an almost entirely white rural area with
less people than my neighborhood. The thrust of the piece is that Trump
voters couldn't give a happy monkey fuck about the Russia scandal. In
fact, they think Trump is being maligned and Don Jr. is awesome. This
is the newest wrinkle in the genre: What do stupid people think about
something they don't understand at all? In the last week, Vox has done a story on Michigan Trump voters, who don't think the Russian connections are any big deal. The BBC sent a reporter
to the Nebraska State Fair to get some American color (yes, ironic, I
know) and some video of deluded shit heels sharing their delusions.
As Newsweek's Alexander Nazaryn wrote,
"The real story here is how thoroughly Trump supporters have been
deceived, both by Trump and tireless boot-lickers like Hannity and
Jones. Every quote from an Ohioan who declares the Russia investigation
is irrelevant is a testament to the delusive brand of Republicanism that
now reigns supreme." Joshua Green said much the same in the New York Times.
Each of the Trump voter pieces generally has a token interview with
someone who doesn't support Trump. But they are presented as
curiosities, the two-headed cow that shouldn't exist but somehow does.
But the reality is, obviously, people who think Trump is full of shit
vastly outnumber the aforementioned suckers and fuckers who stand by
their man. How about interviewing some of us? How about asking us, "How
did you know?" And we can say, "Anyone with a fuckin' brain knew." Ask
us, "What do you think about the Russia dealie?" And we can say, "Either
we do something about it or we're fucked."
Hell, you don't even have to stick to the cities, where the majority of
the country lives. Since you've got a rural jones, you can head to
Bolivar, Tennessee, a town in the ass-crack of nowhere, near to the
Alabama border, as Deep South as you can get. They went
for Hillary Clinton, as did nearby Whiteville. Of course, those are
majority African American towns, so you'd have to change the whole
goddamned narrative away from the mighty white working class.
Or, here's an idea, why not go to the communities that went for Trump
and find the people who didn't. Talk to them. See if they're feeling
smug or sad or angry. See what their ideas are for getting us out of
this or through this goddamn bullshit time. Find out how they're feeling
about Trump's relationship with Russia. Ask them because they, like the
majority of the country, were right.
Let's spend a little time and energy, dear, sweet reporters, on people who aren't barking mad or madly barking.
(Note: If you didn't vote at all, go suck a donkey's dick.)
(Note: If you wanna write to me about "goatfucker shaming," I hate you
already. Same for "donkey-dick sucker shaming." Some things are just
fucking shameful. Sucking a donkey's dick, fucking a goat, and voting
for Donald Trump, for examples.)
“About two weeks ago, I stopped watching the news,” Wayne Bisher, a
lifelong Democrat who backed Trump in 2016, told the publication.
“Because it was just like, it was too depressing. They’re still bitching
about the Russia thing, which is still not going to amount to anything.
I feel so much better, for the last two weeks.”
“We got fake news, like Trump said, and I’m upset with the news,” 75 year old Bruce Garis told the Guardian. “I won’t even turn on the television any more.”
When asked by the Guardian about assorted Trump scandals, many Trump supporters simply deflect the question to go back to attacking Hillary Clinton.
“No matter how it comes out, even if it comes out that there was some
shady business going on there, I’d rather Trump in there than Clinton,”
43 year old Jack Artley explained. “So, whether he had to cheat or not
to get in, I’m OK with that.”
“You really talk to people and – you know what drove a lot of people?” conservative activists Tom Carroll told the Guardian.
“Believe it or not, they won’t leave Trump for anything. But it’s not
because they love Trump, it’s because they love their families, they
love their country, and they were fearful of what was gonna happen if
Hillary Clinton got elected president.”
Twitter had a field day with this one. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young
Turks, breaks it down.
"President
Donald Trump is set to declare this week “Made In America” week to help
promote products manufactured in the United States, according to The
Hill.
But he’s already coming under fire for the move, given that Trump-branded products are often manufactured overseas.
Many
of Trump’s clothing items have been made in Mexico and China. During
the campaign last year, his use of steel and aluminum from China became a
campaign issue.
And just last week, The Washington Post reported
on the fashion line of first daughter and White House aide Ivanka
Trump, finding that much of it is made by low-wage workers in countries
such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and China.
White House spokeswoman
Helen Aguirre Ferre was asked on Sunday if the president would use “Made
in America” week to push his daughter to make those products in the
United States.”*
MSNBC host and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough announced
on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last week that he was leaving the
Republican Party. I don’t buy it, and you shouldn’t either.
Scarborough wants to capitalize on anti-Trump viewership. He has always
been a loyal Republican, pushing for privatization and elimination of
social safety net programs during his days in Congress, and that’s
exactly what today’s GOP is all about. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins
discusses this.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer returned to the podium on Monday
– though off camera – to address reporters on the first day of “Made In
America Week.” One of the questions asked of Spicer was whether Donald
Trump would begin to manufacture the goods for his brands in the US,
which Spicer deemed an “inappropriate” question. If you can’t ask that
questions during Made In America Week, then when would it be
appropriate? Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.
On Monday, Donald Trump told reporters that his administration has now
passed more legislation than any other administration in US history at
this point. Not only is that completely untrue, but most of what Trump
has signed are bills to just undo what President Obama did. That isn’t
progress, that’s regression. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses
this.
Donald Trump took to Twitter to blame Democrats and “a few Republicans”
for the failure of the GOP healthcare bill in the Senate. He then ended
his infantile rant with an ominous threat that “we will return.” Does
he not understand that people don’t want the GOP’s healthcare “fix” and
that the entire Republican Party needs to simply move on? Ring of Fire’s
Farron Cousins discusses this.
With the recent collapse of their healthcare bill in the Senate, the
Republican Party has shown us that they are incapable of leading this
country. Obviously, the death of their healthcare bill is a good thing,
but you have to wonder how these people can control so much of this
country without any clue how to lead. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins
discusses this.
From the beginning, people around me talked nonstop about the end.
How
long could Donald Trump’s presidency possibly last? Would impeachment
or the 25th Amendment undo him? Before Trump, few of us even knew
of the 25th Amendment, which allows the vice president and a majority
of the cabinet to decree the president unfit. But suddenly everybody was
up to speed, and no sooner had Trump been inaugurated than the “would
you rather” question du jour became him versus Mike Pence. All-purpose
lunacy or religious zeal: Choose your governance. Pick your poison.
Part
of this, yes, reflected the company I keep. It doesn’t brim with Trump
enthusiasts. But more of this came down to Trump himself — the lidless
grandiosity, the bottomless vulgarity, the lies atop lies upon lies.
I’ll never forget his second day in office, not just because he used an
appearance at the C.I.A. to crow
at great length about his many Time magazine covers and to insist,
despite ready evidence to the contrary, that any beef of his with
intelligence agencies was a media invention. It stays with me because of
a text message I received from a journalist who covers him as well as
any other, understands him better and was utterly flabbergasted by that
display.
“We’re
all going to die,” it said. While there was jest and hyperbole in that,
there was also genuine alarm and the dark realization that Trump would
not be transmogrified by the oath of office into anything approaching a
dignified, responsible statesman. No, his extra power was just making
him extra mean, and what we saw before Nov. 8 was what we got from Jan.
20 onward: a child in a man’s suit, a knave in a knight’s armor, a
dangerous experiment with unforeseeable consequences.
They’re
more seeable now. As of Thursday, July 20, Trump will have inhabited
the presidency for a full six months, and we can reach certain
conclusions with a measure of confidence.
No
one can yet say how or when it ends. His dim namesake’s antics,
evasions and omissions have reinvigorated talk of impeachment, but
Republican lawmakers’ statements
last week don’t support that scenario. With rare exception, the
sternest words came from the most predictable quarters and hardly rose
to the level of revolt. Maybe that’s a relief. Can you imagine Trump,
with his thin skin and martyr complex, in the throes of impeachment?
He’d wail and thrash and tear down everything around him. I mean, more
than now.
We have to stop rolling our eyes when he brags about how much he has done, because he’s right. He has done plenty.
With
his stances on climate change, trade and refugees and with all the air
kisses blown at Vladimir Putin, he has altered our place in the world
and splintered its postwar framework.
Don’t be reassured by the recent
pleasantries between him and Emmanuel Macron: Much of Western Europe is reeling
from what it considers a surrender of American leadership. This,
post-Trump, may be reparable. But I wonder if our sturdiest allies will
ever feel quite the same way about this country again.
With
his first Supreme Court appointment, he showed what he would almost
surely do with a second and third: fully indulge the social
conservatives who are one of the most dependable components of his base.
If he lasts a full term and the Senate remains, as is likely, in
Republican hands after the 2018 midterms, he could leave behind a court
that leans sharply to the right for a generation to come.
With his sloppiness, scandals and inner circle of arrogant neophytes, he is frittering away time. That’s hardly a singular accomplishment, but we can’t afford more government paralysis and procrastination. Infrastructure that’s no longer competitive (or safe), a tax code crying out for revision, a work force without the right skills: When do we fix this? How far behind do we fall?
And what, in the meantime, happens to Americans’ already shriveled faith in Washington? Trump’s election reflected many voters’ exasperation with the status quo and sense of permanent estrangement from some gilded clique of winners. He was their pyrrhic retort. How much hotter will their anger burn when they realize they got played?
I’m more likely to win a season of “The Bachelorette” than he is to build that incessantly promised wall. His professed disdain for Wall Street was a campaign-season pose, abandoned the minute he started assembling his administration. Health care that’s better, cheaper and more universal? Oh, please.
It’s possible that Trump’s fans will never blame him, because of one of his most self-serving and corrosive feats: the stirring of partisanship and distrust of institutions into the conviction that there’s no such thing as objective truth. There are only rival claims. There are always “alternative facts.” Charges of mere bias are the antiquated weapons of yesteryear; “fake news” is the new nullifier, and it’s a phrase so dear to him that his unprincipled acolytes are building on it. Last week a Trump adviser, Sebastian Gorka, lashed out at the “fake news industrial complex.” Trump reportedly swooned.
What happens to a democracy whose citizens not only lose common ground but also take a match to the idea of a common reality? Thanks in part to Trump, we may find out. He doesn’t care about civility or basic decency, and even if he did, he lacks the discipline to yoke his actions to any ideals. The Democratic strategist Doug Sosnik expressed it perfectly, telling me, “His presidency is what happens when you have road rage in the Oval Office.”
I was just 9 when Richard Nixon resigned and a teenager during the Jimmy Carter years. I began paying close attention only with Ronald Reagan. He and every one of his successors bent the truth, to varying degrees. He and every successor had a vanity that sometimes ran contrary to the public good. But none came close to Trump in those regards.
None shrugged off conflicts of interest the way he does. None publicly savaged women (and men) based on their looks or supposed cosmetic surgery. None made gloating a trademark of his public discourse. Two scoops for Trump, one for everybody else. He’s president and you’re not. The pettiness radiates outward, as does the viciousness and lack of ethics — to his lawyers, to his kin.
And it’s more than just coarse spectacle. It’s an assault on what it means to be president and what the presidency means. The injury to the office won’t be quick to heal.
I can’t shake two incidents in particular. A few weeks before his inauguration, Trump tweeted a New Year greeting that was, instead, a spitball thrown at anyone who hadn’t genuflected before him. Last month, he coaxed his cabinet members to kiss his ring as the television cameras rolled. Those grotesque bookends affirmed that he is changeless and that he rules as he lives, for Trump and Trump alone.
In Trump's defense on this one, the meeting between Donald Trump Jr.,
Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and a Russian team sent to offer Russian
government "support" for the Trump campaign was a campaign meeting, not a
personal one. So this is fine.
President Donald Trump appears to have used more than half a
million dollars in campaign funds to pay legal fees over the last three
months, new campaign filings show.
The spending included $50,000 in legal expenses to lawyer Alan Futerfas, who is now representing Donald Trump Jr., on June 27th.
That's why Trump quickly launched a "re-election" campaign immediately
after entering office, of course. So he could collect a half-million
dollars from his brigade of red-hat-wearing morons to pay for his legal defenses out of their own pockets.
As we said, it would be a real problem if Donald Trump were siphoning
off cash from his own campaign for the personal benefit of his wealthy
but incredibly stupid son. But Trump is fully acknowledging that the
meeting with a Russian team set up under the explicit declaration that it was "part of" the Russian government's support
for the campaign, a mere week before the Russian government began to
leak thousands of files stolen from Trump's campaign opponent, was a
campaign meeting involving his campaign staff to hear the provided
information in their capacity as leaders of the Trump campaign.
Being a HYPOCRITE is just part of being a TRUMP. How is that fight
against cyber-bullying coming Melania? Or what about women's rights
Ivanka? Hosted by Francis Maxwell. See more TYT Facebook Originals at http://fb.com/theyoungturks/videos
On Monday, the Interceptpublished a classified internal NSA document
noting that Russian military intelligence mounted an operation to hack
at least one US voting software supplier—which provided software related
to voter registration files—in the months prior to last year’s
presidential contest. It has previously been reported that Russia
attempted to hack into voter registration systems, but this NSA document
provides details of how one such operation occurred.
According to the Intercept:
The top-secret National Security Agency document, which was provided
anonymously to The Intercept and independently authenticated, analyzes
intelligence very recently acquired by the agency about a months-long
Russian intelligence cyber effort against elements of the US election
and voting infrastructure. The report, dated May 5, 2017, is the most
detailed US government account of Russian interference in the election
that has yet come to light.
While the document provides a rare window into the NSA’s
understanding of the mechanics of Russian hacking, it does not show the
underlying “raw” intelligence on which the analysis is based. A US
intelligence officer who declined to be identified cautioned against
drawing too big a conclusion from the document because a single analysis
is not necessarily definitive.
The report indicates that Russian hacking may have penetrated further
into US voting systems than was previously understood. It states
unequivocally in its summary statement that it was Russian military
intelligence, specifically the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence
Directorate, or GRU, that conducted the cyber attacks described in the
document:
Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors … executed
cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016,
evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and
hardware solutions. … The actors likely used data obtained from that
operation to … launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing
campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations.
Let's be clear here: The Republican Party holds the power it does
because it is unafraid to lie. From the overhyped fear of Communism to
the overhyped fear of crime to the overhyped fear of terrorism, the GOP
has jumped from lie to lie to lie in order to maintain power, often
pivoting back to ones that work so well, like welfare fraud and, time
and again, crime. They recovered from their near dismantling in 2006 and
2008, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 washed away the Bush bullshit, by
going big with the lies about Barack Obama and, especially, about the
Affordable Care Act. And as Republican leaders in the Senate desperately
try to come up with a way to squeeze out one more turd of a Trumpcare
bill, they are lying with abandon, and not just about what's in the aforementioned turd.
Obamacare markets aren't "collapsing." They're stabilizing. People on the Medicaid expansion aren't desperate to get rid of it. They are satisfied with the care they are getting. Over two-thirds of the country, including a majority of Republicans, support the birth control mandate in Obamacare, the subject of another fake controversy just to appeal to yahoo religious nutzoids.
And the reason that they've gotten away with lying is that they are so
fucking good at it. They are so fucking good at playing the media,
playing their constituents, playing the Democrats, playing everyone.
They are master bullshitters. They get away with it because conservative
ideas in a political context are so fucking simple to understand.
What's easier on the brain? "We should provide decent education,
housing, job-training, and anti-poverty programs to help combat crime"?
Or "Lock 'em up"? Democrats can't compete until they come up with a
better story than the lies that have worked so well for so long.
It was going along so well for the GOP until the Trumps, this family of
outsiders, came along and fucked it all up. Donald Trump, Jared Kushner,
and Junior have lived on a privileged plane of existence, where having a
cadre of brutish dickhead attorneys on retainer is enough of a
deterrent for anyone who would dare question them or try to get paid
fairly. They could intimidate people into silence or, if that fails,
settle any lawsuits with the handy provisions that they admit no guilt
and the plaintiffs can't talk about it. They could be bumblefuck corrupt
business shitheels and get away with it.
The biggest problem in getting into the public arena is that, all of a
sudden, the Trumps have to deal with the federal government, an entity
that doesn't just have lawyers but entire goddamned bureaus devoted to
investigating just the kind of fuckery that the Trumps have regularly
been involved in. Throw in a media that realizes it had better make
itself relevant again or just fucking give up, and a group of people as
boisterously, unashamedly moronic as the Trumps don't stand a chance.
You don't want to be probed and pilloried? Then either don't be corrupt
(except in the usual way of sucking up to Wall Street and other rich
fucks - that's just sadly acceptable now), like Obama, who could take
all the shit and toss it back, or don't fucking run for office.
We'll never know what toxic combination of hubris, narcissism, and
lickspittlism got Donald Trump to run for president to win. But we do
know that another toxic combination got him elected, and one of the
primary ingredients in that poison was the interference of the Russian
government. We also know that we are learning all this because the Trump
family was too fucking dumb to cover it up well. They're shitty liars
as well as being shitty human beings.
You can imagine Karl Rove slapping his bloated forehead when he saw the
emails between cartoon louche Richie Gallstone or whatever the fuck that
guy's name is and Donald Trump, Jr. You can imagine Rove getting on the
phone with John Boehner and the two of them, liars of the first order,
screaming with laughter, "The subject
line...the subject line is 'Russia-Clinton.'" You can imagine them both
calling Mitch McConnell and taunting him about having to deal with this
shit. You can imagine McConnell slowly cursing the fact that he worked
so hard to get all these lies working, all the cocksucking and
ratfucking that went into them, and now they're being brought down by
these Trump assholes.
You can be corrupt. You can be stupid. You can't be stupid and corrupt.
Otherwise, you don't know when to shut the fuck up. You don't know when
to keep your head down. You don't know when to not fucking tweet out the
evidence that, at the very least, reveals the very thing everyone has
been trying to pin on you.
So now it falls to the professional liars, the liars with experience, to
try to unfuck this fucked up situation. You are going to see a
hard-press from the right-wing attack dogs about how this is nothing,
how the Democrats are more corrupt and destructive, how it was just a
Washington naif's error. It's happening already,
and they're saying that it's essentially treasonous to not support the
president, a hypocrisy that they have no problem with. They'll say it's
about bringing down the great man Trump, it's about sour grapes over the
failure in the election, and it's about the mighty flag-waving patriots
who don't want to see the country dragged down by what they don't even
see as a scandal.
Which brings us back to the top of this here post. The Trump lies and
power-at-any-cost actions are part and parcel of what the Republican
Party does. The GOP is filthy with masterful sleaze merchants. They can
fuck your ears and tell you it was God's blessing. It's going to be up
to the Democrats to come up with a simple, straightforward narrative
here that can slap the Republicans down until they scurry back to the
gutter.
How this turns out will reveal who gives a shit about the nation. Who is
enraged that this has happened. Who the real patriots are.
(Note: Sure, Democrats went along some of the time with GOP lies because
they can get swept up in a lie as much as anyone, but they rarely have
been the originators of a big lie in the last 50 years. And, yeah, the
country ain't perfect. No shit. Patriots work to make it better.)
1. Let's do this one more time, President Pussygrabber McCrazy. Consider this a lesson in the law.
James Comey could have leaked all the classified information he could get his large hands on.
Hillary Clinton could have mishandled classified emails and done something something with uranium and Russia.
Bill Clinton could have told Loretta Lynch exactly what to say about Hillary.
Every news channel that isn't Fox could be totally fake.
Barack Obama could have done nothing about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Democrats could have colluded with Russians or Ukrainians or another foreign country during the election.
All the intelligence agencies could be leaking to do damage to the administration.
All of those things can be true, but none of them change the fact that you can still be guilty of obstruction of justice.
A murderer cannot use as a defense that his neighbor is a murderer, too.
But both Trump and his son constantly tweet out what they say others
are guilty of, as if to say, "If you let them get away with it, you have
to let us get away with it." It's like neither of them understand that
Hillary Clinton isn't the president and that Barack Obama is out of
office.
2. Speaking of Pussygrabber McCrazy, Jr., he is still insisting there was nothing untoward about his meeting,
along with Paul "Eyes That Have Seen Trump Nude" Manafort and Jared
"Would Gladly Fuck a Dead Raccoon If His Father-in-Law Told Him To"
Kushner, with a Russian lawyer. His explanation for having giving two
seemingly contradictory statements about the meeting
is "No inconsistency in statements, meeting ended up being primarily
about adoptions. In response to further Q's I simply provided more
details." No, motherfucker, you lied and thought you could get away with
it. It's just like the campaign lied from the start about hookups with Russians in general.
3. First off, this "adoption" thing is a bullshit excuse. It has to do with the Magnitsky Act, passed
by Congress and signed by President Obama in 2012 in order to punish
Russian government officials and oligarchs who are involved in human
rights abuses and fraud. It froze the assets of some really rich Russian
dicks, and Putin had a hissy, so he banned Americans from adopting
Russian babies. Putin hates the Act and wants it repealed. The lawyer
who Junior met with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, is involved in an effort to
get it repealed. Adoption is part of it, but this is about cold fuckin'
cash and power.
4. But the really fucked-up part of this is that when a Russian
associated with the Kremlin wanted to get together at Trump fuckin'
Plaza because she had dirt on Hillary Clinton, Junior's response was,
"Well, sure" when it should have been "I better call the FBI." But he
couldn't do that because Junior is cut from the same scuzzy cloth as his
father and the Trumps likely owe the Russians a metric fuck-ton of money and jump when told to.
4a. One fun part that hasn't gotten much discussion: Veselnitskaya
"recalled that after about 10 minutes, either Mr. Kushner or Mr.
Manafort left the room." She makes it seem that it's because nothing
significant was discussed. But it could have been that they thought,
"Oh, crap, this is illegal" and got the fuck out of Dodge. (Or they were
rushing to tell Daddy about what they learned. He was in the building
that day, June 9, 2016.)
5. Look, I'm not running around with my hair on fire and game theorizing
the shit out of all this on Twitter. I've been circumspect, definitely
leaning towards the "this is hinky" side of things with Russia. But at
some goddamned point, if you keep sucking dicks for money for meth,
you're a meth whore. Sure, sure, you suck one or two dicks and get paid
and then go buy meth, maybe we can let it slide as tweaker shit. But if
you're doing it every day, then you, my friend, have a problem with
meth. And handling your finances. But mostly meth.
It's becoming more difficult to deny that the Trump administration is a meth whore. And we know who the john is.
Over
73 percent of Democrats would give up alcohol for the rest of their
life if it meant President Trump would be impeached tomorrow, according to a survey released on Thursday by a drug and alcohol rehabilitation group.
Only
17 percent of Republicans would give up alcohol for Trump’s
impeachment. The poll also found that nearly 31 percent of Republicans
would give up drinking if it meant the media stopped writing negative
things about President Trump.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) formally introduced an article
of impeachment against President Trump on Wednesday, accusing the
president of obstructing justice during the investigation of Russia’s
2016 election interference. It was the first time a lawmaker had offered
an impeachment article against Trump.
Detox.net
surveyed 1,013 active alcohol drinkers on March 14 and asked questions
related to what they would be willing to sacrifice in exchange for
alcohol. Forty-one percent of those surveyed identified as women, 58
percent as men and 1 percent identified as a gender not listed on the
survey.
As for political affiliation, 21 percent identified as Republican, 43 percent as Democrat and 36 percent as other.
The
minimum amount of money the Americans surveyed would accept to quit
drinking for a year is at least $4,700 and to give up alcohol for life
they would expect at least $365,458.
There was a 5
percentage point margin of error when asking about the average minimum
amount of money respondents would be willing to give accept to give up
alcohol.
Jimmy Kimmel took White House counselor Kellyanne Conway to task on his
Monday night show for her constant refusal to actually address the
questions that the media asks her.
According to the New York Times Donald Trump Jr., his brother in law
Jared Kushner and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort met with a
Russian lawyer to hear what they thought would be information that could
hurt Hillary Clinton.
It’s all very fishy, so we invited White House
spokesperson Kellyanne Conway live via satellite to clear it all up.
Over
the weekend, as the import of the Donald Trump Jr meeting became clear,
but before this morning’s emails release, I started going back through
my notes to piece together the timeline of events and whether they
looked different in the light of the new revelations. And? Good guess!
They look a lot different. For the moment, look at the timeline after
the jump starting in April and running through August. That is the
critical part. The critical addition of the Don Jr meeting fits right
into a critical period when what we understand were Russian intelligence
operatives were trying various vehicles to surface emails that were
stolen during the spring. Look at the timeline after the jump – again,
go ahead to April 2016.
June 16th, 2015: Donald Trump announces his candidacy for President of the United States.
Circa Summer 2015: The US government alleges that Russian hackers first gain access to DNC computer networks.
Circa August 2015: Trump staff arranges first meeting between Trump and General Flynn, according to Flynn’s account in an August 2016 interview
with The Washington Post. “I got a phone call from his team. They asked
if he would be willing meet with Mr. Trump and I did. … In late summer
2015.”
August 8th, 2015: Roger Stone leaves formal role
in Trump campaign. Whether he quits or was fired is disputed. Stone
will continue as a key, albeit informal advisor, for the remainder of
the campaign.
December 10th, 2015: Michael Flynn attends conference and banquet
in Moscow to celebrate the 10th anniversary of RT (formerly Russia
today). Flynn is seated next to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the
concluding banquet.
March 19th, 2016: Hackers successfully hack into Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta’s email.
March 21st, 2016: In a meeting with The Washington Post
editorial board, Trump provides a list of five foreign policy advisors.
The list includes Carter Page but not Michael Flynn. The list is Walid
Phares, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Joe Schmitz, and ret. Lt. Gen.
Keith Kellogg.
March 28th, 2016: Trump campaign hires Paul Manafort to oversee delegate operations for campaign. Manafort becomes the dominant figure running the campaign by late April and takes over as campaign manager on June 21st with the firing of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
February-April 2016: Flynn advisory relationship with Trump appears to have solidified over the Spring of 2016. In late January Flynn is mentioned as an advisor who has “regular interactions” with Trump. There are similar mentions in February and March. Yet as late as mid-March, Flynn appeared to downplay his ties to Trump. By May Flynn is routinely listed as an advisor and by late May is even being mooted as a possible vice presidential pick.
April 2016: DNC network administrators first notice suspicious activity on Committee computer networks in late April, 2016, according to The Washington Post. The DNC retains the services of network security firm Crowdstrike which expels hackers from the DNC computer network. Crowdstrike tells The Washington Post it believes hackers had been operating inside the DNC networks since the Summer of 2015.
April 19th, 2016: “DCLeaks.com” url/address registered.
May 3rd, 2016: Donald J. Trump becomes becomes presumptive nominee after Ted Cruz and John Kasich withdraw from race.
May 26th, 2016: Donald J. Trump officially secure majority of GOP delegates, officially clinching the nomination of the Republican party.
June 3rd, 2016:
First email contact between Rob Goldstone and Donald Trump Jr. about
meeting with “Russian government lawyer” with damaging information about
Hillary Clinton.
June 7th, 2016: Donald J Trump gives speech in which he promises
a major speech about Hillary Clinton’s crimes on June 13th. “I am going
to give a major speech on … probably Monday [June 13th] of next week
and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place
with the Clintons. I think you’re going to find it very informative and
very, very interesting.”
June 8th, 2016: First tweet posted to “DCLeaks” Twitter account.
June 9th, 2016:
Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort meet with Natalia
Veselnitskaya. Trump agreed to take the meeting after being told by
Trump associate Rob Goldstone that Veselnitskaya had damaging
information about Hillary Clinton which came from a Russian government
operation to help his father Donald J. Trump.
June 12th, 2016: Julian Assange first announces
that Wikileaks has Clinton emails which are soon to be released.
“Wikileaks has a very big year ahead … We have emails related to Hillary
Clinton which are pending publication.”
June 14, 2016: Washington Postpublishes first account of hacking of the DNC computer networks, allegedly by hackers working on behalf of the Russian government.
June 15th, 2016:
“Guccifer 2.0”, later identified by US government officials and other
private sector analysts as a fictive persona created by Russian
intelligence operatives, contacts The Smoking Gun to take credit for hacking the DNC.
July 12th, 2016: Official publication date, The Field of Fight by Michael Flynn and Michael Ledeen.
July 22, 2016: Wikileaks releases first tranche of DNC emails dating from January 2015 to May 2016.
July 27th, 2016:
Donald Trump asks Russia to hack Clinton’s email to find 33,000 alleged
lost emails: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you can find the
33,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded
mightily by our press.”
August 1st, 2016: Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort denies Trump campaign changed GOP platform on Russia and Ukraine.
August 8th, 2016: Trump Advisor Roger Stone tells
Southwest Broward Republican Organization “I actually have communicated
with Assange. I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to
the Clinton Foundation but there’s no telling what the October surprise
may be.”
August 14th, 2016: The New York Times publishes
story detailing handwritten ledgers showing “$12.7 million in
undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr.
Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to
Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau.”
August 19, 2016: Paul Manafort resigns from Trump campaign.
August 21, 2016: Trump advisor Roger Stone tweets: “Trust me, it will soon [sic] the Podesta’s time in the barrel.”
September 26th, 2016: Trump Russia-Europe Policy Advisor Carter Page steps down from campaign
while disputing allegations that he engaged in private communications
with Russian government officials. A Yahoo News article from three days
earlier reported that US intelligence officials were probing whether he
met privately with Russian officials in Moscow in July, including an
alleged meeting with close Putin ally Igor Sechin, Chairman of Russian oil company Rosneft.
September 26th, 2016: At first presidential debate, Donald Trump casts doubt
on Russian role in hacking campaign: “It could be Russia, but it could
also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be
somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”
October 7, 2016: A “Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence” officially accuses the Russian government of being behind hacking of the DNC “to interfere with the US election process.”
October 30th, 2016:
In response to FBI Director James Comey’s letter to Congress about new
developments in the Clinton email server probe, Senate Minority Leader
Harry Reid writes a public letter to Comey
in which he claims: “In my communications with you and other top
officials in the national security community, it has become clear that
you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination
between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government.”
December 29th, 2016: Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov vows retaliation for sanctions.
December 29th, 2016: Incoming National Security Michael Flynn has multiple phone conversations with Russian Sergey Kislyak. It is later reported
that the calls covered US sanctions and suggestions that Obama’s
punitive actions could be undone in a matter of weeks. Trump
administration officials had repeatedly denied that the conversations
involved more than pleasantries and logistics about future meetings.
January 19th, 2017: The New York Times reports
that the FBI is leading an interagency task force probing ties between
Russia and three close Trump associates: Paul Manafort, Carter Page and
Roger Stone.
January 26th, 2017: Acting Attorney General
Sally Yates and a senior intelligence official visit to White House
Counsel Donald McGahn to deliver the message that National Security
Advisor Flynn has deceived the Vice President about the subject matter
of his calls and may be subject to Russian blackmail.
February 13th, 2017: Michael Flynn resigns as National Security Advisor.
Conway alleged that the “New Day” co-host was attempting to go viral,
but it was Conway that lit up the Internet with commentary.
The interviews caught her in a series of awkward pivots and obvious
hypocrisy, namely that she mentioned a report about former FBI director
James Comey that cited anonymous sources. Trump and his White House has
notoriously criticized the media for using anonymous sources.
Twitter users weren’t having any of it. They attacked Conway for both
interviews and heralded Cuomo’s dogged attempts to get Conway to
understand Donald Trump Jr. accepting a meeting with a Russian lawyer is
an admission of guilt.
The hacking and subsequent release of stolen Democratic National Committee emails last year were “unacceptable efforts and behaviors by a foreign nation state,” Thomas Bossert said on Thursday. Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
