justice department indicts 12 Russian officers for election hacking

Some startling information is being released on CNN which may be that one of the 12 had success in hacking SOS, election boards, and most important hacking of the election software companies. Huge first step, but opens the door to challenge all weak portals in our election system.

Hopefully, pressure will develop to cancel the summit with Russia until they respond and acknowledge their criminal acts.

Steve Cohen is calling for Putin to be indicted on CNN.

Three posts in a row! Does the gentleman need his medication?

Mueller’s new indictments remind us of 2 core truths about the Trump-Russia story

Crimes were committed and Trump has sought impunity for the criminals.


By Matthew Yglesias@mattyglesiasmatt@vox.com Jul 13, 2018, 1:10pm EDT

Special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers for crimes related to computer hacking aimed at the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign on Friday. It’s a powerful reminder of two core truths about the Trump-Russia story that have often gone missing amid the political controversy and amateur detective work.

First, regardless of the culpability of anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign, real crimes were committed in 2016 with real victims.

Second, both as a candidate for office and then continuing onward as president-elect and president, Donald Trump has worked to shelter the people who committed those crimes from exposure or accountability.

These points are worth dwelling on because they cut against two commonplace narratives about the case. One renders the entire issue as a question of mystery and spycraft, leading ultimately to things like Jonathan Chait’s maximalist speculation that perhaps Trump has been a KGB asset for decades. The other renders it as a narrowly political question in which passionate fans of Hillary Clinton should perhaps feel robbed of an election win — but her critics, whether on the right or the left, can feel smugly self-assured that there were other reasons for her loss.

Pro-Trump hackers committed serious crimes
Illegal hacking and invasion of privacy is a bad thing on its own terms regardless of the election outcome.

When Russian hackers pilfered the entire contents of John Podesta’s Gmail inbox, they didn’t exclusively obtain material that was highly relevant to the career and political prospects of Hillary Clinton. Indeed, the vast majority of what they found was simply the personal correspondence of a man who is involved in Democratic Party politics. That email was then laundered through WikiLeaks to disguise its origins and the entirety of it was posted online with no regard to privacy or newsworthiness.

The contents included a risotto recipe, an email sent by a friend of mine announcing the birth of his baby daughter, my wife’s performance evaluation at a previous job, and hundreds upon hundreds of other examples of personal correspondence that had nothing to do with Clinton or American politics.

From a journalistic standpoint, once the emails were out there were few viable alternatives but to cover them. And one can certainly understand why Republicans chose to opportunistically take advantage of the crimes by gleefully citing them as a damning indictment of Clinton. (The inclination of many on the left to do so as well is more puzzling.)

But fundamentally, all Americans who use email have a genuine interest in seeing this form of invasion of privacy not become a routine aspect of our life. It’s illegal for a reason, and it would be good for people who commit this kind of crime to be caught and punished. But Trump has consistently acted to prevent any form of accountability.

Trump has been helping the criminals
During the campaign, of course, Trump very publicly and repeatedly lauded the criminals.



WikiLeaks

@wikileaks
Donald Trump, October 10, 2016: "This just came out. WikiLeaks! I love WikiLeaks!"

6:10 AM - Apr 21, 2017
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Twitter Ads info and privacy
This was poor form, he should not have done it, and the fact that he was doing it probably deserved to be a bigger point of emphasis in the coverage at the time.

But what’s really remarkable is that Trump has continued to operate as a kind of de facto accessory after the fact to the crimes, by repeatedly denying the existence of a Russian hacking campaign and by over and over again suggesting that Mueller and the federal investigators looking into the crime are nothing but a partisan political ploy.

Yet even on the most generous possible construal of Trump’s behavior, it’s Trump rather than Mueller who is viewing the matter through an exclusively political lens.

Obviously it’s possible to be less generous in one’s interpretation of Trump: You could believe that he is trying to stymie the investigation because he is aware that he is, personally, guilty of serious crimes and he fears that a thorough investigation will expose those crimes. But even if that’s not the case and he’s merely reacting to partisan interest in the investigation with his own partisan reflexes, the misconduct involved is serious.

A president has obligations to the country and to its citizens, even those citizens who didn’t vote for him. Trump’s inability to even feign anger or outrage at the real crimes committed against real American citizens is remarkable relative to the context of what’s ordinarily considered acceptable presidential behavior.

That it seems banal from Trump itself is perhaps understandable given how flagrantly and constantly he reminds us that he doesn’t care about anyone outside his narrow circle of support. But that’s merely a measure of how far we’ve fallen as a society in the Trump era — it’s not a real reason to ignore it.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/13/17568816/mueller-indictments-russia-gru-crime

State board of election hacks. Wow, as this unravels it appears the Russians penetrated much deeper than many thought. This attack on America was done by the Russian Military.....Treason.

Trump made his "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 33,000 emails that are missing..." comment on July 27, 2016.

Here's a link to that comment, at about 40 seconds into it:






Now, go to the bottom of Page 7 of the indictment, Item #22. It continues to the top of Page 8

Here's a link to the full indictment, you can scroll through it at your leisure:

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/13/17568806/mueller-russia-intelligence-indictment-full-text



There you'll find this:




Hmm-m-m-m...    Is Mueller trying to send a message to the American public? Gosh-o-willikers, whatever is he trying to say?

http://dailycaller.com/2018/07/12/ig-clinton-foreign-emails/

A member of the House Committee on the Judiciary said during a hearing Thursday that a government watchdog found that nearly all of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails were sent to a foreign entity and that the FBI didn’t follow-up on that finding.

The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) found an “anomaly on Hillary Clinton’s emails going through their private server, and when they had done the forensic analysis, they found that her emails, every single one except four, over 30,000, were going to an address that was not on the distribution list,” Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas said during a hearing with FBI official Peter Strzok.

“It was going to an unauthorized source that was a foreign entity unrelated to Russia,” he added.

Gohmert said the ICIG investigator, Frank Rucker, presented the findings to Strzok, but that the FBI official did not do anything with the information.

Strzok acknowledged meeting with Rucker, but said he did not recall the “specific content.”

“The forensic examination was done by the ICIG and they can document that,” Gohmert said, “but you were given that information and you did nothing with it.”

He also said that someone alerted the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz to the issue.

“Mr. Horowitz got a call four times from someone wanting to brief him about this, and he never returned the call,” Gohmert said.

The ICIG previously caught problems regarding Clinton’s server that the FBI missed. The bureau didn’t notice that some emails were openly marked classified with a “(C)” when they were sent. (RELATED: FBI Missed Clinton Emails Openly MARKED Classified, Wanted To Conclude Probe Before IG Caught Mistake)

The ICIG spotted the oversight after the FBI missed it, texts between Strzok and his mistress, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, show.

“Holy cow,” Strzok wrote, “if the FBI missed this, what else was missed? … Remind me to tell you to flag for Andy [redacted] emails we (actually ICIG) found that have portion marks (C) on a couple of paras. DoJ was Very Concerned about this.”

In late 2017, ICIG Chuck McCullough — who was appointed by former President Barack Obama — took the unusual step of coming forward publicly to say that he perceived pushback after he began raising the alarm about issues with Clinton’s servers to then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

He said he found it “maddening” that Democrats, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, were underselling the amount of classified information on the server.

McCullough said he “expected to be embraced and protected,” but was instead “chided” by someone on Capitol Hill for failing to consider the “political consequences” of his investigative findings, Fox News reported.

The ICIG has not publicly disclosed the findings Gohmert described in the meeting between Rucker and Strzok, but the congressman said the watchdog can document them.

Thursday’s exchange is below:

Gohmert: You said earlier in this hearing you were concerned about a hostile foreign power affecting the election. Do you recall the former Intelligence Community Inspector General Chuck McCullough having an investigation into an anomaly found on Hillary Clinton’s emails?

Let me refresh your memory. The Intelligence Community Inspector General Chuck McCullough sent his investigator Frank Rucker along with an IGIC attorney Janette McMillan to brief you and Dean Chapelle and two other FBI personnel who I won’t name at this time, about an anomaly they had found on Hillary Clinton’s emails that were going to the private unauthorized server that you were supposed to be investigating?

Strzok: I remember meeting Mr. Rucker on either one or two occasions. I do not recall the specific content or discussions.

Gohmert: Mr. Rucker reported to those of you, the four of you there, in the presence of the ICIG attorney, that they had found this anomaly on Hillary Clinton’s emails going through their private server, and when they had done the forensic analysis, they found that her emails, every single one except four, over 30,000, were going to an address that was not on the distribution list. It was a compartmentalized bit of information that was sending it to an unauthorized source. Do you recall that?

Strzok: Sir, I don’t.

Gohmert: He went on the explain it. And you didn’t say anything, you thanked him, you shook his hand. The problem is it was going to an unauthorized source that was a foreign entity unrelated to Russia and from what you’ve said here, you did nothing more than nod and shake the man’s hand when you didn’t seem to be all that concerned about our national integrity of our election when it was involving Hillary Clinton. So the forensic examination was done by the ICIG — and they can document that — but you were given that information and you did nothing with it. And one of the things I found most egregious with Mr. Horowitz’s testimony, and — by the way Mr. Horowitz got a call four times from someone wanting to brief him about this, and he never returned the call.

“There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result. The special counsel’s investigation is ongoing and there will be no comments on the special counsel at this time.” Rosenstein

There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime.

A big Duh. The indictment did not mention you either, so why would they mention irrelevant third parties in an indictment before a grand jury.....a big double duh.

Ivan killed the mailman.......there is no indication in his indictment that any American committed a crime.....brilliant legal logic. Like one indictment is going to be a catch all for other indictments.....you cannot make this chit up.

2seaoat wrote:There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime.

A big Duh.  The indictment did not mention you either, so why would they mention irrelevant third parties in an indictment before a grand jury.....a big double duh.

Ivan killed the mailman.......there is no indication in his indictment that any American committed a crime.....brilliant legal logic.  Like one indictment is going to be a catch all for other indictments.....you cannot make this chit up.

All true, Sea, and duh is right, but the fact remains that Rosenstein went out of his way to point these things out, proving he's a Republican through and through and probably afraid for his job.  I wouldn't even be surprised to learn that, when he advised Trump a while back that this was going down, Trump strongly "suggested" those things be stated, even though, as you've indicated, they're completely meaningless at this point.

Mueller Has the Goods - All of the Goods

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

14 July 18


Wittingly or unwittingly, a huge cast of American characters was in on the plot.

The conspiracy had as its object impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful governmental functions of the United States by dishonest means in order to enable the Defendants to interfere with U.S. political and electoral processes, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

—United States of America v. Internet Research Agency et. al.


Goddamn them all.

Goddamn the hackers. Goddamn the journalists who laundered the pilfered material. Goddamn any of them who treated Roger Stone as a source, or as a cute prankster, instead of the nasty vandal he’s always been. Goddamn the pundits who chortled over the pilfered material. Goddamn the politicians who profited from the hacking. Goddamn the politicians who minimized the hacking. Goddamn the politicians who still stonewall about the hacking. Goddamn the “activists” who ranted about “McCarthyism” when anybody pointed out that the 2016 presidential election had been poisoned from afar. Goddamn them all as traitors, if not to the American nation, then to everything that ever made that nation worth the bother.

They conspired, wittingly or unwittingly. They colluded, wittingly or unwittingly. They are accessories, before and after the fact, to the hijacking of a democratic election. So, yes, goddamn them all.

Bob Mueller dropped the first of many shoes on Friday. Rod Rosenstein announced the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers on charges of helping to ratfck the 2016 presidential election under the noms de ratfck "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0." Rosenstein went out of his way to say that no Americans were named in the indictment, so the White House grabbed onto that as though it were the last floating deck chair off the Lusitania. But it is very clear from the indictment that Mueller has the goods, all of the goods, and that nothing is going to slow him down or knock him off pace. (Notice how the indictment details how seriously the Russians took the president* appeal to them to find HRC’s “lost” emails.) The mills of the gods and all that.

Here’s the whole indictment, and its Tolstoyan cast of defendants, for you to read. Nobody has any illusions that these folks ever will see the inside of a United States federal courthouse, although a little discreet abduction wouldn’t be out of line, as far as I’m concerned. (Not really, but, maybe.) But there’s enough in the indictment to make a lot of people in this country nervous. To wit:

Between in or around June 2016 and October 2016, the Conspirators used Guccifer 2.0 to release documents through WordPress that they had stolen from the DCCC and DNC. The Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, also shared stolen documents with certain individuals.

a. On or about August 15, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress. The Conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate’s opponent.

b. On or about August 22, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, transferred approximately 2.5 gigabytes of data stolen from the DCCC to a then-registered state lobbyist and online source of political news. The stolen data included donor records and personal identifying information for more than 2,000 Democratic donors.

On or about August 22, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, sent a reporter stolen documents pertaining to the Black Lives Matter movement. The reporter responded by discussing when to release the documents and offering to write an article about their release.

44. The Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, also communicated with US. persons about the release of stolen documents. On or about August 15, 2016, the Conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, wrote to a person who was in regular contact with senior member of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, “thank for writing back . . . anyt[h]ing interesting in the docs I posted?”

On or about August 17, 2016, the Conspirators added, “please tell me if i can help anyhow . . . it would be a great pleasure to me.? On or about September 9, 2016, the Conspirators, again posing as Guccifer 2.0, referred to a stolen document posted online and asked theperson, “What do think of the info on the turnout model for the democrats entire presidential campaign?” The person responded, “[p]retty standard.”

Ignorance will be pleaded. The candidate, lobbyist, journalist, and person close to the Trump campaign will argue that they thought they were dealing with that 400-pound guy in New Jersey. It’s too late now to start believing those protestations. There was enough out there about the ratfcking in the middle of the summer of 2016 to make anyone who cared to look suspicious of being handed anything by hackers, and this includes WikiLeaks, which has had its halo knocked into the Bay of Fundy for good and all by this indictment. Too many people didn’t care, because Trump couldn’t ever win, and because it had been open season on Hillary Rodham Clinton for 25 years, and, boy, was that ever fun!

There's so much more coming. You can feel the hoofbeats of the horseman and the baying of the hounds behind every syllable of this indictment. My guess is that Mueller's not going to move on anyone in the United States until very late in the game. He's given all those folks a look at just a piece of what he's got. That's got to have their knees watery. And, because this is 2018, and everything is awful and strange, the president* this conspiracy helped to install is meeting, one on one, with the architect of it all, the Tsar of all the ratfckers, tomorrow. Everyone should be so very proud.


https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/51180-focus-mueller-has-the-goods-all-of-the-goods

Mueller is buying time to continue the complex nature of this investigation. I think they have Trump nailed to the wall, but have deep intelligence sources which would be exposed if they have to lead with those sources, so like a puzzle they will have to reverse engineer and not show the sources. I think they knew about the pee pee incident and more. I think they have deep deep financial connections and more information which is not going to be released until they can reverse engineer......the intelligent component of information and the protection of that apparatus is a primary goal until reverse engineering can be accomplished protecting those sources.

Intelligence agencies and operatives break the laws of other countries all the time.  That's what they DO!  Even we do it.  Can anoyone honestly say the United States has never endeavored to influence elections in other countries?

These indictments of foreign intelligence operatives are really much ado about nothing.  They are feel-good indictments.  But of course, if any US persons were directly involved they should be taken to task for it if we can get their hands on them.  But that has yet to be shown.

Lets put the responsibility for these activities having occurred with whom it really lies.  President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton and Kerry, Director Brennan, and others should have protected us better from such activities. But no. They didn't.  They were too busy going hat in hand to other countries around the world trying to be liked, and trying to be world-citizens, rather than commanding respect as President Trump is doing.   They might not like him, they might not like America, but they WILL respect him as our President and they will respect America as greatest nation in the history of the earth and the leader of all other nations.

Intelligence agencies and operatives break the laws of other countries

Ok They also have murders in other nations. Does the fact that a crime happens in another country diminish the crime in this country? I do not understand where this sophomoric logic originates.....oh, I forgot.....President Trump..........