Trump and Putin, behind the scenes

[Admin]

Remember, that guy used to be head of the Russian desk at MI6..

The FBI is using the explosive, unverified collection of memos detailing instances of alleged collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign team and Russia as a "roadmap" for its investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, the BBC's Paul Wood reported on Wednesday.

"The roadmap for the investigation, publicly acknowledged now for the first time, comes from Christopher Steele, once of Britain's secret intelligence service MI6," wrote Wood, one of the journalists who obtained an early copy of Steele's dossier before it was published in full by Buzzfeed in January.

Some of the dossier's claims — many of which appear to align with events along the campaign trail — are slowly being corroborated. CNN reported earlier this month that the FBI has information to suggest that the Trump campaign "communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton's campaign."  

One reason the FBI may be taking cues from Steele's dossier is because they've worked with him in the past, according to Wood. Steele, who had cultivated an extensive network of Russian sources during his time on MI6's Moscow desk, apparently worked with the FBI on Russia and Ukraine-related matters between 2013 and 2016.

Specifically, Steele had worked with the FBI's Eurasian Joint Organized Crime Squad, according to a lengthy profile in Vanity Fair.

Trump-Russia dossier an FBI 'roadmap' for investigation: Report - Business Insider

No wonder Nunes is blowing smoke and cancelling meetings left, right and center..

[Admin]

Soo, these are the guys that provided Nunes with his info?

Two White House officials helped provide intelligence documents to the House intelligence committee chairman, Devin Nunes, the New York Times reported on Thursday.

Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a former House Intelligence Committee staffer who now works as a lawyer on national security issues at the White House Counsel’s Office, assisted "in the disclosure of the intelligence reports" to Nunes, the Times reported.

White House officials helped Devin Nunes get access - Business Insider

[Admin]

Ah, Cohen-Watnick close to Rasputin Bannon, Kushner and Flynn, that explains..

One of the two White House aides who helped provide classified intelligence reports to the House Intelligence Committee chairman, according to a Thursday New York Times report, was told days earlier by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster that he would be removed from his job on the National Security Council.

But President Donald Trump intervened to keep the aide, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, in place, according to a March 14 Politico report. Cohen-Watnick is the senior director for intelligence at the NSC.

McMaster decided after weeks of pressure from CIA officials who were unsure of the operative to move Cohen-Watnick to another job, according to Politico. Cohen-Watnick appealed the decision to White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and senior adviser Jared Kushner, two men he became close with during the transition.
Bannon and Kushner then presented his case to Trump, who overruled McMaster, Politico reported.

Cohen-Watnick had worked for Michael Flynn, the ousted national security adviser whom McMaster replaced, when Flynn was in charge of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Trump intervened to stop removal of one of Nunes sources, reports say - Business Insider

[Admin]

Wait, there is more..

One of the two White House aides who helped provide classified intelligence reports to the House Intelligence Committee chairman, according to a Thursday New York Times report, was told days earlier by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster that he would be removed from his job on the National Security Council. But President Donald Trump intervened to keep the aide, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, in place, according to a March 14 Politico report. Cohen-Watnick is the senior director for intelligence at the NSC. 

In a bombshell report Thursday, the New York Times named the sources who provided Nunes with classified intelligence reports purportedly validating some of Trump’s wiretapping claims — and both of them are Trump administration political appointees working directly in the White House complex. That means Nunes — the lawmaker charged with leading an investigation into the administration’s unfounded wiretapping allegations — used information he received from the Trump White House itself to publicly try to deflect blame from Trump.

It also means Nunes was misleading the American public when he said his sources were whistleblowers, and that he went to the White House compound because it was the only secure place to review classified information. (This is not true: Capitol Hill has secure facilities for just this reason.) 

Instead, we now know Nunes’s sources, and they’re far from disinterested parties. They are Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the National Security Council’s senior director for intelligence, and Michael Ellis, a White House counsel attorney who, prior to the Trump administration, worked for Nunes. Cohen-Watnick uncovered the raw intelligence, according to the Times, and Ellis briefed Nunes on it directly.

The Times story, sourced to “current American officials,” also reveals new information about the substance of the calls that Nunes was briefed on. According to the newspaper, the intelligence reports were intercepts of foreign officials’ conversations about the Trump team, not taps on Trump or his associates’ phones (it’s standard practice for US intelligence to spy on high-ranking foreigners).

Devin Nunes's wiretapping claims came from his former lawyer and a 30-year-old Trump aide - Vox

Sigh:

• Nunes gets info from the White House, to supposedly vindicate Trump's wild accusation that Obama had him under surveillance
  
• He didn't go to the House committee, he ran with the info to.. the White House, didn't reveal the info, didn't reveal his sources
  
• The people who provided the info weren't whistleblowers, they were White House officials, one previously worked for Nunes
  
• The info does nothing to vindicate Trump. In fact, it wasn't even accidental wiretapping (as a collateral of a Trump official being on the other line of a foreign subject under surveillance), it was just people under surveillance talking about the Trump team.
  

This guy should step down immediately.

[Admin]

LOL..

"Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!" Trump tweeted.

One old comment of Flynn's is gaining new prominence in light of The Journal's report. Speaking about Hillary Clinton's private email server in September, Flynn told MSNBC commentator Chuck Todd: "When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime."

Now that Trump has weighed in on immunity, people are pointing to his past comments on the subject, including one from a September rally in Florida in which Trump said, "If you're not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for, right?"

TRUMP Mike Flynn should ask for immunity - Business Insider

[Admin]

And then, what to make of this. Did Spicer know and tip his hand?

While criticizing reporters for pointing out the White House’s hypocrisy in being fine with leaks that appear to be favorable to them while decrying all others, Spicer said, “When the information that is occurring now, which is two individuals who are properly cleared — or three or whoever he met with, I don’t know — that, they are sharing stuff that is entirely legal with the appropriate clearances, and then there is an obsession on the process.” One day later we learned that, indeed, two individuals with the proper clearance were reportedly “sharing stuff” with Nunes on the White House grounds last week.

Spicer has played dumb on Nunes. But did he accidentally tip his hand yesterday?

[Admin]

US intelligence officials had serious concerns about Michael Flynn’s appointment as the White House national security adviser because of his history of contacts with Moscow and his encounter with a woman who had trusted access to Russian spy agency records, the Guardian has learned.

US and British intelligence officers discussed Flynn’s “worrisome” behaviour well before his appointment last year by Donald Trump, multiple sources have said.

They raised concerns about Flynn’s ties to Russia and his perceived obsession with Iran. They were also anxious about his capacity for “linear thought” and some actions that were regarded as highly unusual for a three-star general.

Michael Flynn: new evidence spy chiefs had concerns about Russian ties | US news | The Guardian

[Admin]

Just a quick summary:

• Session not revealing talks with the Russians under oath, serious enough to recuse himself
  
• Flynn's lies even to the VP, which gets him sacked and he's now asking for immunity
  
• Carter Page, Roger Stone (who seem to have advance knowledge of the hacking and talked to the hacker on twitter) Paul Manafort all had multiple contacts with Russian operators and the latter was paid millions by a Russian oligarch close to Putin and Yannokovich, a former Russian puppet in Ukraine. They all had 'bad' memories as well
  
• Now Kuchner talking to a Kremlin bank, UNDER US sanctions, not having mentioned it either, on the behest of the Russian ambassador, and giving a diametrically opposed explanation compared to the bank itself about what was discussed (courtesy versus business)
  
• Bumbling deflection efforts by Nunes
  

Some basic facts

• The Russians interfered in the US elections, per unanimous US intelligence services
  
• Trump has been hell bent on denying this
  
• Trump has been incredibly praising Putin at ever turn and proposing fundamental policy changes going against decades of Republican stance with curious efforts to change the platform on the RNC.
  
• The FBI deems it all serious enough to warrant a thorough investigation
  
• Multiple Republicans arguing a president can't be under Federal investigation (of course, that was meant for someone else..)
  
• Multiple Republicans arguing that if you demand immunity, you must have done something criminal (also meant for someone else, needless to say).
  
• Trump not releasing his tax returns.
  

Yes, all of this can just be a coincidence. But as far as coincidences go, it's quite a stunner, and at the minimum, require a thorough impartial, non-political investigation with the capacity to question people under oath.

Imagine Fox news if this was about Hillary. Remember that we had 7 or 8 tax payer funded inquiries into Benghazi that turned up nothing yet this was spun for years..

For sure there is lots of stuff we left out, so help us keep it update..

[Admin]

And it's Stone's communications with a Russian hacker and his alleged communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that have put him in the crosshairs of the FBI as investigators look for connections between Trump's campaign and Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Stone says he has nothing to do with Russia, but messages he has sent to the hacker accused of a cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee, as well as Stone's own provocative statements, continue to raise questions. 

On August 12, nearly a year after he left Trump's campaign and a few weeks after WikiLeaks published the first set of stolen emails from the DNC, Stone reached out through a private message to a Twitter user named "Guccifer 2.0."

Earlier that August, Stone had written on the alt-right website Breitbart, then controlled by Steve Bannon, that it was "a hacker who goes by the name of Guccifer 2.0" — and not the Russians — who hacked the DNC and fed the documents to WikiLeaks. But experts quickly linked Guccifer 2.0 back to Russia and concluded that the so-called hacker was the product of a Russian disinformation campaign.

In his messages with Guccifer 2.0, Stone asked if the hacker could retweet his Breitbart column about the 2016 presidential election possibly being "rigged." Guccifer 2.0 responded: "i'm pleased to say that u r great man. please tell me if i can help u anyhow. it would be a great pleasure to me." Stone later told Business Insider that the interaction he had with the hacker was so "brief and banal" that he "had forgotten it."

Stone's tweets in the days after his communications with Guccifer 2.0 have raised questions about whether he knew in advance that Podesta's emails would be imminently published by WikiLeaks. On August 21, Stone sent a series of famously prescient tweets. "Trust me, it will soon the Podesta's time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary." On October 1 Stone tweeted: "Wednesday @HillaryClinton is done."

On October 3 he tweeted: "I have total confidence that @wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon #LockHerUp." Four days later, WikiLeaks published its first set of emails stolen from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta. 

In October, Stone said he had "back-channel communication with Assange," but has denied having any direct contact with WikiLeaks, saying that he had been getting his information from a mutual friend he shares with Assange..

Who is Roger Stone and why is the FBI investigating him? - Business Insider

[Admin]

Oops..

Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, failed to disclose payments from a Russian television network and a second firm linked to Russia in a February financial disclosure form, according to documents released by the White House on Saturday.

Michael Flynn didn't reveal payments from Russian companies - Business Insider

My oh my, they sure are forgetful, especially when Russia is involved..

And then there is this:

Nunes then said those documents may indicate that President Barack Obama's administration incidentally surveilled Trump's team, a claim for which law enforcement officials have said there was no evidence. After viewing the documents at the White House himself, Schiff asked how administration officials knew the documents he viewed were the same that were shown to Nunes. "How does the White House know that these are the same materials that were shown to the chairman, if the White House wasn't aware what the chairman was being shown?" he asked. "If these were produced either for or by the White House, then why all the subterfuge? There's nothing ordinary about the process that was used here at all."

Schiff: Trump's conduct on Russia probe 'should set off alarm bells' - Business Insider