How did the data get to WikiLeaks? Russian state sponsored hackers.
No evidence for that, Wikileaks has released alot of damaging leaks on Russia as well like the money transfer between Syria and Russia.
It's a smokescreen by politicians.
Ironic since the democrats loved wikileaks when wikileaks went after Bush for the Iraq war.
Russia has been blamed for Brexit as well, so thats how i know its just a scapegoat.
ironically the country that there is hard evidence of attempts to middle in international politics and elections is the American Government, since the CIA literally tried to infiltrate the 2012 France parties.
And of course America spying on American ally politicians (like Angela Merkel) is par for the course.
The Russian Conspiracy Angle is a perfect text-book case of media journalism being dead. The proper role of Journalism is to be skeptical, act as a check against their Government and want facts. Considering the Democrat Party is pushing the Russian Conspiracy Angle, the media should demand evidence for it
Since they should be: 1. Skeptical of claims by Government political parties 2. Actually want facts rather then speculation.
It's mostly engaged in speculation to drive ratings and de-legitimize Trump.
The Russian Conspiracy Angle is a perfect text-book case of media journalism being dead. The proper role of Journalism is to be skeptical, act as a check against their Government and want facts. Considering the Democrat Party is pushing the Russian Conspiracy Angle, the media should demand evidence for it
It's not the democratic party that is pushing the russia conspiracy angle.
The FBI is investigating it along confirmation by 17 other intelligence agencies. International countries have intercepted communications between russia and the Trumps so it's not like a partisan thing.
If anything yeah the democrats are mad that the same guys who loved investigating hillary's email servers are refusing to do anything about conflicts of interest or Russia swaying the election. At least publicly they don't seem bothered by the links between the trump campaign and presidency and russia - Paul Manafort to Michael Flynn and everyone in between seems to have had links and communications to Russia. Is it going to get swept under the rug? Why yes, Trump was trying to do just that.
Democrats aren't making that stuff up, it really happened and the FBI is supposedly investigating it. But for some reason, they aren't blasting it from the mountaintop like they did with Hillary's emails.
It's not the democratic party that is pushing the russia conspiracy angle.
The FBI is investigating it along confirmation by 17 other intelligence agencies. International countries have intercepted communications between russia and the Trumps so it's not like a partisan thing.
If anything yeah the democrats are mad that the same guys who loved investigating hillary's email servers are refusing to do anything about conflicts of interest or Russia swaying the election. At least publicly they don't seem bothered by the links between the trump campaign and presidency and russia - Paul Manafort to Michael Flynn and everyone in between seems to have had links and communications to Russia. Is it going to get swept under the rug? Why yes, Trump was trying to do just that.
Democrats aren't making that stuff up, it really happened and the FBI is supposedly investigating it. But for some reason, they aren't blasting it from the mountaintop like they did with Hillary's emails.
Disregarding the fact that the FBI and Intelligence Agencies have stated no evidence of election meddling.
I hope you know that the only hard evidence of collusion between Russia and America is between the Clintons/Obama and Russia.
The Clintons actually were given massive amounts of money to their Clinton foundation by Russia, subsequently the Clintons arranged Uranium shipments to Russia multiple times.
As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.
This is why all this talk about Russia conspiracy amuses me.
Btw the claim of 17 agencies is false, James Clapper heads the department overseeing the 17 Agencies and he got involved in the politics of the Russian Angle (which he subsequently confirmed there is no evidence of Russian hacking).
Subsequently the Hillary Campaign claimed during the debate, that due to James Clapper running the department overseeing all 17 Agencies, that therefore all 17 agencies are investigating which is not true (and is impossible as many of those agencies are not involved in these kind of affairs).
Again, smoke and mirrors, exaggeration and hyperbole which masks the real truth. There was no Russian hacking.
You might also like to know that the report by the CIA considers Russian state TV having a negative coverage of Hillary is election meddling.
I can go further and actually start citing The actual report if you'd like, where something as ridiculous as another countries state-run TV is erroneously claimed by the Intelligence community as election 'meddling' (or 'influencing' using their actual term), subsequently the mainstream media, instead of going into detail of the report, instead chose to exaggerate in vague terms to give an air of conspiracy.
How did the data get to WikiLeaks? Russian state sponsored hackers.
No evidence for that, Wikileaks has released alot of damaging leaks on Russia as well like the money transfer between Syria and Russia.
It's a smokescreen by politicians.
Ironic since the democrats loved wikileaks when wikileaks went after Bush for the Iraq war.
Russia has been blamed for Brexit as well, so thats how i know its just a scapegoat.
ironically the country that there is hard evidence of attempts to middle in international politics and elections is the American Government, since the CIA literally tried to infiltrate the 2012 France parties.
And of course America spying on American ally politicians (like Angela Merkel) is par for the course.
The Russian Conspiracy Angle is a perfect text-book case of media journalism being dead. The proper role of Journalism is to be skeptical, act as a check against their Government and want facts. Considering the Democrat Party is pushing the Russian Conspiracy Angle, the media should demand evidence for it
Since they should be: 1. Skeptical of claims by Government political parties 2. Actually want facts rather then speculation.
It's mostly engaged in speculation to drive ratings and de-legitimize Trump.
With regard to Brexit the Russian policy experts who I've read/ listened to seem to agree that it would be fair to say that Russia supported the Leave campaign and devoted some resources to campaigning for it, and that that could have influenced the vote, though probably by less than 1.0%. In France some people were concerned that Marie Le Pen's party have debts to a Russian bank as well... But Russia is of course taking advantage of existing problems rather than creating them.
One would like to see more actual evidence for Russia's role in the US campaign, it's not like intelligence agencies have an absolutely spotless record on truth telling. Russia probably didn't expect to be dealing with a Trump presidency however, and in some ways Hilary Clinton leading a divided America might have been more predictable and easier for Putin to deal with. Russia's tactical advantage is not playing by the rules, and if Trump's America starts behaving similarly then Russian toes get stepped on.
I discussed the intelligence community's judgments on, and evidence for, Russian interference earlier in the thread. Since I don't like repeating my old posts (that would be spamming), I'll just link them:
On January 7, 2017, I summarized the report on Russian involvement that the intelligence community had promised they would issue 3 weeks prior (at which point the intelligence community had reached the consensus that previously did not exist).
I will repeat one point: if the intelligence community cooked up all of this just to hurt Trump, they would have done it before Election Day, when it could have damaged his chances at the presidency. But these reports all came after the election had already ended, when there was no chance of the evidence having a political impact.
Which means there was no political motive behind the intelligence community's judgment. It's just analysts doing their jobs while ignoring political pressure from both sides.
In reality, there were suspicions of Russian involvement before November 8, but the intelligence community, when asked by reporters, refused to offer any judgment until it had time to analyze the issue properly--which meant their conclusions did not arrive until after the election was over.
As i stated, i will examine the declassified report on Russian actions on the US election focusing on the stated evidence they use for their conclusions, and clearly identifying discrepancies with mainstream media and what is in the report.
This report includes an analytic assessment drafted and coordinated among The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and The National Security Agency (NSA), which draws on intelligence information collected and disseminated by those three agencies.
We have the first problem, only 3 agencies are involved, not '17'. A claim that is curiously not corrected by the mainstream media.
Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or “trolls.”
We have the next problem, ambiguity. The report lumps in, basically, anything that is said by Russian intermediaries as involvement in the election (this includes Russian TV saying anything about the candidates) so we need to see the details of each charge, which i will go into more detail.
We assess with high confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election, the consistent goals of which were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency
An important statement, but a vague charge. Why is the word 'influence' used? It is quite vague, it can cover unethical behavior or completely benign behavior, let us see closely what the report details.
Stated Evidence of Putin involvement in US election
Beginning in June, Putin’s public comments about the US presidential race avoided directly praising President-elect Trump, probably because Kremlin officials thought that any praise from Putin personally would backfire in the United States. Nonetheless, Putin publicly indicated a preference for President-elect Trump’s stated policy to work with Russia, and pro-Kremlin figures spoke highly about what they saw as his Russia-friendly positions on Syria and Ukraine. Putin publicly contrasted the President-elect’s approach to Russia with Secretary Clinton’s “aggressive rhetoric.”
So this is the evidence of Putin's clear involvement, and what is it? Nothing more then Putin saying he favors Trumps statements on better relations with Russia. If this is unethical, then surely every single European countries officials speaking disparagingly of Trump during the Election is just as bad, curiously this standard isn't applied across nations.
Is this the 'Influence Campaign'? this means Obama is guilty of the exact same thing for virtue of his comments about Trump and Hillary.
Evidence of Wikileaks and Russia involvement In early September, Putin said publicly it was important the DNC data was exposed to WikiLeaks, calling the search for the source of the leaks a distraction and denying Russian “state-level” involvement. The Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet RT (formerly Russia Today) has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks. RT’s editor-in-chief visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in August 2013, where they discussed renewing his broadcast contract with RT, according to Russian and Western media. Russian media subsequently announced that RT had become "the only Russian media company" to partner with WikiLeaks and had received access to "new leaks of secret information." RT routinely gives Assange sympathetic coverage and provides him a platform to denounce the United States.
This is an extraordinary tenuous use of evidence that Russia 'may have' given Wikileaks info of the DNC. Assange being given air-time on Russian TV to make statements is quite a stretch, as that would implicate virtually every media organisation in the U.S. and Europe since they did the same.
Focus on Russia Media's Preference of Donald Trump Russian Propaganda Efforts. Russia’s state-run propaganda machine—comprised of its domestic media apparatus, outlets targeting global audiences such as RT and Sputnik, and a network of quasi-government trolls—contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences. State-owned Russian media made increasingly favorable comments about Presidentelect Trump as the 2016 US general and primary election campaigns progressed while consistently offering negative coverage of Secretary Clinton.
The majority of the report is in fact simply about Russian public media having a preference for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in its coverage. This is quite the extraordinary thing to focus on, if i were for a moment to consider this seriously, Then most of the American media and European media is more guilty of the same.
There are some important questions to ask from this report and the mainstream media's conduct.
1. Why didn't the media correct itself and it is not 17 Agencies, but 3? Curiously corrections aren't issued where it may just seem favourable to Trump in some fashion.
2. Why didn't the media go into detail of the only report about Russian activities pertaining to the Election? This is literally the only solid and official evidence of the intelligence agencies pertaining to this issue.
3. Why is there no focus on every single media organisation in America and Europe? If favourable coverage of Trump in Russian media is clearly grounds for concern of state-actors, then every single media organisation, as well as every Government that had officials making disparaging comments of Trump should fall under the same suspicion.
4. Why is there absolutely zero mention of the various Russian deals and money trails between the Clinton foundation and Hillary when she was Secretary of State? Hillary is one of the candidates of the election, There were massive donations to the Clinton foundation around the time of Uranium deals between the American Government and Russia when she was Secretary of State. This is well documented in American news outlets, so why was this not included? the report seem's completely focused against one political party. Reading the heading, it is not 'our investigation pertaining to Trump and the elections' but 'Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections'. That is broad and means that Hillary Clinton should be subject to investigation, i'd like to know why her activities were not in the report at all.
5. Why is Obama not under suspicion for campaigning for Hillary Clinton? If our level of ethics is so high we cannot allow any even tenuous ties to Government, then i would like to know why the media is not in a complete uproar that Obama can campaign for Hillary or make any statements pertaining to the two. Because i would have to worry that Obama may have used Presidential powers to aid Hillary and hinder Trump.
Finally, i'd like to know one thing. Hacking is quite serious crime especially when done around the election.
I'd like to know why there is not complete uproar and media coverage over HomeLand Security trying to hack Georgia during the election
The Georgia Secretary of State's Office now confirms 10 separate cyberattacks on its network were all traced back to U.S. Department of Homeland Security addresses. The first one happened on Feb. 2, the day after Georgia’s voter registration deadline. The next one took place just days before the SEC primary. Another occurred in May, the day before the general primary, and then two more took place in November, the day before and the day of the presidential election. http://www.wsbtv.com/news/georgia/georgia-secretary-of-state-says-cyberattacks-linked-back-to-dhs/475707667
Curious indeed, why little to no uproar over this compared to Russia? Is it possibly because it would take away focus from Russia since it would implicate the American Government and by extension possibly the Democratic Party?
Democrats wanted the intelligence community to say "yes" before Election Day. Republicans wanted them to say "no."
They did neither. Refusing to bow down to political pressure is the very definition of neutrality.
And it was rich to hear Comey when asked about the Russian investigation to claim that they never comment on pending investigations. Because he'd breathlessly blabbed to everyone about the Hillary investigation that went nowhere.
Stated Evidence of Putin involvement in US election
Beginning in June, Putin’s public comments about the US presidential race avoided directly praising President-elect Trump, probably because Kremlin officials thought that any praise from Putin personally would backfire in the United States. Nonetheless, Putin publicly indicated a preference for President-elect Trump’s stated policy to work with Russia, and pro-Kremlin figures spoke highly about what they saw as his Russia-friendly positions on Syria and Ukraine. Putin publicly contrasted the President-elect’s approach to Russia with Secretary Clinton’s “aggressive rhetoric.”
So this is the evidence of Putin's clear involvement, and what is it? Nothing more then Putin saying he favors Trumps statements on better relations with Russia.
They discuss far more examples of Putin's involvement than just those public statements. The paragraph you quote is just a single bullet point in a long list out of many different sections. In fact, that section isn't even a list of "Stated Evidence of Putin involvement in US election"; it's a list of some of the DNI's conclusions. The evidence for those conclusions appears on the following pages. The evidence is highly specific--not vague at all--and comes from multiple sources.
There are answers to your questions:
1. The Director of National Intelligence (headed by James Clapper) speaks for all 17 intelligence agencies, and for what it's worth, no intelligence agency has disputed the report, so it's not like there's disagreement among the agencies anyway. I don't know how many of them actually participated in the study (some of the agencies don't deal with this kind of thing), but I do find it terribly significant that three separate agencies all reached the same conclusion. If this issue were murky or unclear, they wouldn't have a consensus.
2. I first heard of the existence of this report from the New York Times, which discussed the report in detail. Typing "january 6 intelligence report" into Google yields lots of results. There's even a Wikipedia page on it. So the media did discuss the specifics.
3. The difference between RT's coverage of Trump and Clinton and the U.S. media's coverage of Trump and Clinton is because the U.S. media is a collection of journalists (and "journalists"), while RT is entirely state-funded propaganda.
In the view of the intelligence community, RT isn't suspicious because it supported Trump; its support of Trump is suspicious because it's a known propaganda agency, under the direct control of the Kremlin, whose very purpose is to promote the Kremlin's interests. It is therefore a valuable primary source for assessing Moscow's motives.
In a word, the intelligence community doesn't view American non-government journalists and Russian government propagandists as the same thing. One of them is controlled by a hostile government; the other is free.
4. The media did discuss this, at great length. Typing "clinton foundation russia" into Google yields lots of articles on the issue. Even the New York Times, which endorsed Clinton early in the campaign, published a massive report on it.
I don't know what the intelligence community thinks of the Clinton Foundation, but Snopes has said that the Russian uranium scandal at least is no example of wrongdoing for two main reasons: 4a. "The Uranium One deal was not Clinton’s to veto or approve" (only the President could veto it, and an official said Clinton didn't interfere with the relevant committee's decisions) 4b. "The timing of most of the donations does not match" More importantly, the DNI report doesn't discuss financial ties between Trump and Russia, so I don't see why it would discuss financial ties between Clinton and Russia. Their evidence for Russian involvement did not involve business connections; they were basing it on other things.
5. We already know Obama supported Clinton. Americans can support whichever candidate they like. That's how a free election works. But it's not normal for foreign governments to be involved; we've never seen that happen before in American history. It's bad enough we allow super PACs to influence our elections; it's far worse for hostile foreign governments to do so. It would be disturbing if Canada tried to sway an American election, much less Russia.
America's enemies aren't allowed to influence American elections for the same reasons we don't allow them to vote in our elections.
If the head that oversees all intelligence agencies lied under oath and committed the crime of perjury, can i have confidence in him or his department?
On what basis of confidence can i trust his assessment in this election? I already know he lies.
3. The difference between RT's coverage of Trump and Clinton and the U.S. media's coverage of Trump and Clinton is because the U.S. media is a collection of journalists (and "journalists"), while RT is entirely state-funded propaganda.
Then i presume the following media organisations fall equally under the same suspicion because of these links.
ABC News executive producer Ian Cameron - Susan Rice (democrat National Security Advisor) married CBS President David Rhodes - Ben Rhodes (Obama's deputy national security adviser) Brother CNN President Virginia Moseley -Tom Nides (Hillary Deputy Secretary) married ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman - Jay Carney (Whitehouse Press Secretary) married ABC News, Univision reporter Jaffe - Katie Hogan (Obama Deputy Secretary) brother ABC Political head Anchor George Stephanopolos - Former Clinton head of Communication and White
All those news agencies, if they had any sort of bias in its coverage and having such strong ties to the Democratic party, equally fall under the suspicion of unethical behavior and collusion with the Democratic Party.
Is there any sort of public scrutiny over this?
Also to my prior point, The Obama administration having any dealings with foreign Governments, and any official of that Government speaking disparagingly of Trump is grounds for the exact same investigation, let us pick Angela Merkel.
More importantly, the DNI report doesn't discuss financial ties between Trump and Russia, so I don't see why it would discuss financial ties between Clinton and Russia. Their evidence for Russian involvement did not involve business connections; they were basing it on other things.
The DNI report is of Russian attitudes towards the U.S. election and their listed evidence for it, Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State and her dealing with Russia definitely falls into this category.
Hillary Clinton as having the position of Secretary of State, should have far higher scrutiny in any sort of investigation between Russia and the U.S. elections.
I don't know what the intelligence community thinks of the Clinton Foundation, but Snopes has said that the Russian uranium scandal at least is no example of wrongdoing for two main reasons: 4a. "The Uranium One deal was not Clinton’s to veto or approve" (only the President could veto it, and an official said Clinton didn't interfere with the relevant committee's decisions) 4b. "The timing of most of the donations does not match"
Why does Snopes disagree with itself on this? i quote from Snopes.
Of the remaining individuals connected with Uranium One who donated to the Clinton Foundation, only one was found to have contributed during the same time frame that the deal was taking place, according to The New York Times
What does it mean that 'only one' was found in the correct time frame as a rebuttal? does that mean if one big payment was found, this actually proves it false? How does that logically make sense if you just found a payment that was in the correct time frame?
This seems to imply that unless you found multiple payments, if you found only one massive donation to A Secretary of State (which btw is unethical on the face of it) you can't be suspicious.
It is also unclear why Snopes assumes you need ONE BIG PAYMENT AT THE SAME TIME as the Uranium Deal, why cannot Snopes invision a scenario that Russian Government actors simply kept donating to Hillary over time to keep a working relationship, and subsequently called on her for a favor later on for the Uranium Deal?
Among the ways these accusations stray from the facts is in attributing a power of veto or approval to Secretary Clinton that she simply did not have. Clinton was one of nine cabinet members and department heads that sit on the CFIUS, and the secretary of the treasury is its chairperson
What kind of logic is this? this is 'Setting up an imaginary claim to refute it, to disprove a larger point' which doesn't make sense.
I consider the fact that Hillary was on the board that approves such deals, and she had any kind of donation from Russian individuals linked to Uranium One as grounds for investigation.
Hillary got a massive donation as Snopes agrees, i think it is in the realm of possibility she lobbied for giving Russia Uranium as part of that board.
Which is again, unethical.
In fact i would like to know why Hillary kept getting donations from prominent Russian actors during her tenure as Secretary of State.
Snopes seems to say this as fact, why didn't the intelligence community include this in the report? I consider a history of donations from Russia to Hillary Clinton in her term as Secretary as State pretty important if i want to investigate Russian Government attitudes towards the Election since she is literally one of the Candidates, it should be investigated and subject to intense media scrutiny by itself anyway.
That is quite literally what the Report is supposed to deal with.
Again, why is there nothing about these donations?
The FBI has indeed investigated Clinton (although not necessarily for every single thing people have suggested), but it wouldn't really make sense for the NSA or especially the CIA to be investigating Clinton. Their purpose is to deal with foreign threats. Handling domestic problems and crimes is a job for other agencies.
The report treated Trump and Clinton exactly the same, as they should have: they were left out of the report entirely, because it was a report about Russia. It never promised to dig up dirt on either of the candidates. No matter how justified it could possibly have been, they're not supposed to do that, because it would jeopardize their status as non-partisan, non-political agencies. The intelligence community absolutely has to stay out of the political fray, and that's what they have done.
If you want Clinton or Trump investigated, that's the job of the FBI, Congress, the press, and the courts. It is not the job of the NSA or the CIA.
This investigation was never about Trump, or Clinton, or any American. It was about Russia's actions.
The intelligence community said three weeks in advance that the report would be about Russia's actions. Clinton is not Russian.
The FBI has indeed investigated Clinton (although not necessarily for every single thing people have suggested), but it wouldn't really make sense for the NSA or especially the CIA to be investigating Clinton. Their purpose is to deal with foreign threats. Handling domestic problems and crimes is a job for other agencies.
The report treated Trump and Clinton exactly the same, as they should have: they were left out of the report entirely, because it was a report about Russia. It never promised to dig up dirt on either of the candidates. No matter how justified it could possibly have been, they're not supposed to do that, because it would jeopardize their status as non-partisan, non-political agencies. The intelligence community absolutely has to stay out of the political fray, and that's what they have done.
If you want Clinton or Trump investigated, that's the job of the FBI, Congress, the press, and the courts. It is not the job of the NSA or the CIA.
This investigation was never about Trump, or Clinton, or any American. It was about Russia's actions.
The intelligence community said three weeks in advance that the report would be about Russia's actions. Clinton is not Russian.
Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State and donations from Russia to her is grounds for investigation.
I can make it no clearer that Hillary Clinton served In an important official capacity in the American Government and having monetary donations to her from Russian actors is grounds for investigation.
It is the fact that a person in the election campaigning to be President, previously served in a high position in the former Government and had monetary influx from Russian prominent actors that she should be investigated in this report.
This report is about Russian Government actions and attitudes towards this election, one of the candidates for this election served as Secretary of State of America and had donations in her tenure from Russia.
I don't know what you mean by them being left out of the report, you may need to read it again.
Let me quote the reports 'Scope' and why this immediately qualifies Hillary to be investigated.
The assessment focuses on activities aimed at the 2016 US presidential election and draws on our understanding of previous Russian influence operations.
and Russian views of key US players derive from multiple corroborating sources.
Donations to one of the candidates for the election, immediately qualifies as Russian 'influence' operations, but of course we know that donations are often done to influence politicians.
Russian Views of key US players, one of the candidates, requires an analysis of past history with Russia especially in any formal capacity in the American Government at least.
Again i ask, if this report is about Russian Government attitudes towards key US players in the US election, where is the detail of Hillary's dealing with the Russian Government?
Would the Russian Government not take into account their history of dealing with Hillary Clinton as part of their views on Key players in the U.S. election?
Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State and donations from Russia to her is grounds for investigation.
I can make it no clearer that Hillary Clinton served In an important official capacity in the American Government and having monetary donations to her from Russian actors is grounds for investigation.
It is the fact that a person in the election campaigning to be President, previously served in a high position in the former Government and had monetary influx from Russian prominent actors that she should be investigated in this report.
This report is about Russian Government actions and attitudes towards this election, one of the candidates for this election served as Secretary of State of America and had donations in her tenure from Russia.
I don't know what you mean by them being left out of the report, you may need to read it again.
And the guy that actually won the election has numerous ties to Russia that look way worse than that.
Among the things - his original campaign manager resigned due to accepting russian money and ties there. Why's there no investigation there? The lawyer that went on stage next to him to say that it's all good that he owns businesses and accepts money from foreign governments as president is just fine as long as his sons run the day to day of his business was from russia's law firm of the year 2016. His pick for National Security Adviser had to resign due to negotiating with a foreign country (Russia) as a private citizen. It's been reported that after his numerous bankruptcies Donald Trump could not get loans so had to go to Russia. He probably still owes money to Russia. As ridiculous as it sounded at first, the dossier from a British Intelligence agent that leaked saying that Russia has compromising information on Donald Trump has had some details verified. Links from the Trump staffers to Russian agents during the campaign has been corroborated by US and international intelligence agencies. The fact that the President to this day refuses to say a bad thing about Putin is cause for investigation.
And the guy that actually won the election has numerous ties to Russia that look way worse than that.
Nothing is as bad as Hillary accepting donations during her tenure as Secretary of State.
All those allegations, which should be investigated, and they were and no criminality was found, were operations by Trump or Manafort before the election even took place, decades before.
To claim that Trump's business dealings as a private citizen in the Russian country 10-20 years ago, is somehow equivalent to Hillary accepting donations while she was Secretary of State is pretty silly.
Please don't talk about the silly dossier by the British agent, have you read it?
Your talking about a Dossier that claims Michael Cohen was some mastermind and went to and fro Russia to coordinate with Trump, only for Michael Cohen to post his passport on twitter to show he never has been to Russia.
This is the same dossier that claims that Trump went to a hotel, found out Obama slept there previously, and hired a bunch of prostitutes to do 'Golden Showers' on there.
This is that report.
Well ok, I'll wait for hard evidence of any wrongdoing because clearly the media is relying on such trash as unverified stories that Trump likes to do golden showers in rooms Obama previously visited.
If you believe this stuff, i imagine this election has been incredibly entertaining.
So you just claim Snopes is wrong, despite their lengthy debunking of your argument that Clinton accepted foundation cash for a uranium sale. This entire story came from the book "Clinton Cash" which was nothing more than a right-wing hit piece written by a 'frickin Breitbart editor, when Breitbart's head was running Trump's campaign and is now his senior advisor. Nothing fishy about that, surely.
As for the six media members that keep getting mentioned (which I also highly suspect is coming from Breitbart or a similar site), what would you like them all to do?? Get divorced, renounce their families, or quit their jobs?? It doesn't prove anything besides that they are, indeed, married to or related to those people. If you're implying because of who they are married to they are, by default, unqualified to do their jobs, you're going to have to scour Washington clean of a hell of alot more than those 6 people. It's an incestuous place by it's very nature.
So you just claim Snopes is wrong, despite their lengthy debunking of your argument that Clinton accepted foundation cash for a uranium sale. This entire story came from the book "Clinton Cash" which was nothing more than a right-wing hit piece written by a 'frickin Breitbart editor, when Breitbart's head was running Trump's campaign and is now his senior advisor. Nothing fishy about that, surely.
Never read Clinton Cash, and i linked the story from here.
The Uranium deal did happen, Clinton was on the board of directors that had decision-making power over it, it is a well known fact Clinton had numerous donations to her by Russian actors over the course of her tenure as Secretary of State, and even one at the time of the actual deal itself.
All of this Snope agrees with, since you seem to cite Snopes.
Are you disputing any of those elements?
I consider all of this, but simply just the fact she is getting donations from foreign Governments during her tenure as Secretary of State as grounds for investigation, i do not even think this should be allowed.
Let's steer clear of sarcasm... at least, when we're talking about another person's claims (sarcasm about political figures should be fine).
And if one argument refutes another, it does not need to be said. We can let arguments stand on their own. No need to say "I win."
Sometimes people don't respond to counterarguments because they feel they've already made their point in previous posts. Other times people don't respond because they think the counterargument is valid, or simply needs no rebuttal.
In this case I'm backing away to make sure @vanatos and I don't end up arguing over semantics.
So you just claim Snopes is wrong, despite their lengthy debunking of your argument that Clinton accepted foundation cash for a uranium sale. This entire story came from the book "Clinton Cash" which was nothing more than a right-wing hit piece written by a 'frickin Breitbart editor, when Breitbart's head was running Trump's campaign and is now his senior advisor. Nothing fishy about that, surely.
Never read Clinton Cash, and i linked the story from here.
The Uranium deal did happen, Clinton was on the board of directors that had decision-making power over it, it is a well known fact Clinton had numerous donations to her by Russian actors over the course of her tenure as Secretary of State, and even one at the time of the actual deal itself.
All of this Snope agrees with, since you seem to cite Snopes.
You cited Snopes, and claimed they were wrong. I wouldn't have given a second thought to this story because I remember when it came out and who the Times relied on for that article. And the book and author I mentioned are smack dab in the middle of it as the genesis of the information.
You cited Snopes, and claimed they were wrong. I wouldn't have given a second thought to this story because I remember when it came out and who the Times relied on for that article. And the book and author I mentioned are smack dab in the middle of it as the genesis of the information.
I cited Snopes because someone else linked Snopes as a rebuttal.
I explained in my view that Snopes conclusion doesn't make sense from the stated facts they present.
For example Snopes accepts that Hillary has been garnering donations from Russian actors (even Government actors) over her tenure as Secretary of State.
Snopes accepts that at least one payment fits the time-frame of the deal itself.
Snopes somehow considers this a rebuttal since only one was in the time-frame? That doesn't make sense.
I asked the question, why couldn't Snopes envision the case that Russian actors may have just donated to Hillary over the course of her tenure and simply asked later for a favor back when the Uranium deal came up?
Here is a video yesterday of Senator Cotton and Chuck Todd.
This exchange is very important, and is one of the great crimes committed by the media today (time 309). Senator Cotton: You cannot credit stories that are based on anonymous sources. You should look into them especially if you’re in a position of responsibility, but you can’t simply credit them. https://youtu.be/ZjZ5R5NhvlE?t=309
Unverified stories, rumors or leaks should never be promoted in the media, not at least with an extremely heavy disclaimer it is unverified.
However what we have seen in this election, is the media treating rumors as having credibility just from its own existence.
If a journalist has an unverified story from an anonymous source, they should not immediately present such a story, they should investigate it and present it publicly when they have hard evidence.
Otherwise the media is engaging in rumor spreading and treating it as legitimate.
Here is a video yesterday of Senator Cotton and Chuck Todd.
This exchange is very important, and is one of the great crimes committed by the media today (time 309). Senator Cotton: You cannot credit stories that are based on anonymous sources. You should look into them especially if you’re in a position of responsibility, but you can’t simply credit them. https://youtu.be/ZjZ5R5NhvlE?t=309
Unverified stories, rumors or leaks should never be promoted in the media, not at least with an extremely heavy disclaimer it is unverified.
However what we have seen in this election, is the media treating rumors as having credibility just from its own existence.
If a journalist has an unverified story from an anonymous source, they should not immediately present such a story, they should investigate it and present it publicly when they have hard evidence.
Otherwise the media is engaging in rumor spreading and treating it as legitimate.
You are mixing up two issues here. Unverified stories and anonymous sources. You mean like how the media believed GW Bush when he said that Iraq had WMDs? That was (at best) an unverified story. In investigative journalism important news stories often depend on such information. For example, the Watergate scandal that led to the downfall of U.S. president Richard Nixon was in part exposed by information revealed by an anonymous source ("Deep Throat") to investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The Trump admin is trying to be very secretive, why? Is it because they are doing illegal stuff? It sure looks like it, until the truth came out about Michael Flynn President Trump knew about his Russian dealings for at least 3 weeks AND was doing nothing.
You are mixing up two issues here. Unverified stories and anonymous sources.
You missed the point where i said unverified stories should be investigated, but they are not credible till there is evidence.
Such as you claiming there was 17 agencies because the media exaggerated such a claim, then we find out it was 3, and we find out from the report there is nothing meaningful, and your reliance on a dossier that likes to claim Trump finds where Obama has stayed in hotels and orders prostitutes to golden shower the beds.
Not exactly credible.
The mistake that the media is making, is creating conspiracy and treating it as fact by tenuously linking disparate points, to de-legitimize Trump.
Furthermore the mistake is preferring conspiracy over a common-sense explanation.
So Flynn called Russia after Trump was elected President but before he was inaugurated as a diplomatic call, a pretty big nothing-burger since every administration before has done the same thing.
However lets investigate the past of these people whom you state have a conspiracy with Russia.
Michael Flynn n 1981 Flynn was commissioned in the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant in Military Intelligence and assigned as a paratrooper to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Flynn is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island, has an MBA, and a degree from the U.S. Naval War College. Flynn has held a number of military intelligence leadership posts, including commander of a military intelligence battalion in Afghanistan, director of Intelligence for United States Central Command, which oversees all U.S. military operations in the Middle East, and director of Intelligence for the Joint Staff. Most recently, Flynn was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency before he was forced out after facing "pressure from Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. and others in recent months," according to The Washington Post. The Military Times reported that he was "forced out of his role after sparring with Obama advisers on a range of policy decisions. "I was asked to step down," Flynn told Foreign Policy. "It wasn't necessarily the timing that I wanted, but I understand." -http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/26/politics/michael-flynn-donald-trump-vp-search/
So this person has served in multiple posts in the military, has made numerous stints in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He was a heavy critic of Obama's numerous initiatives in the middle-east, arming Syrian rebels to oust Assad, handling of ISIS and criticism of Islamic extremism handling.
General Dempsey and his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs of Staff kept their dissent out of bureaucratic channels, and survived in office. General Michael Flynn did not. ‘Flynn incurred the wrath of the White House by insisting on telling the truth about Syria,’ said Patrick Lang, a retired army colonel who served for nearly a decade as the chief Middle East civilian intelligence officer for the DIA. -https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military
Is he a partisan? No he is actually a registered Democrat but broke from the Democrat party because of the Democrat party becoming the party of war in the middle-east.
So in terms of Flynn we have this
1. He has served the U.S.A. by his military service, especially in regards to actually being involved in multiple war-zones. 2. He is incredibly realistic over U.S. meddlings and its disastrous results in the middle-east 3. He was a vocal critic of the Obama administrations handling even when he actually served in the Obama administration 4. He is not a political partisan, but willing to break ties to his own political party over these issues.
So no I don't think he is some Russian Agent, I think he genuinely cares about America and has become extremely angry over America's meddling in the middle-east.
Why do i conclude this? Perhaps because by Military Service he has literally risked himself for the country. By even going against the Obama Administration while he was serving them he risked his own job, for the country.
I take a dim view of the media's exaggeration and hyperbole to implicate someone as a Russian Agent, who has sacrificed alot for the country, In order spread a Russian conspiracy angle for petty politics.
It's going to be interesting to see just how long Trump and the right think they can get away with using Hillary Clinton as a foil and blaming the Democrats for anything since the former has essentially disappeared from public view and the later holds NO power in Washington at present.
You missed the point where i said unverified stories should be investigated, but they are not credible till there is evidence.
Such as you claiming there was 17 agencies because the media exaggerated such a claim, then we find out it was 3, and we find out from the report there is nothing.
In terms of Flynn, having a phone call with Russian Government after Trump was elected President, what he did is what every administration did before him, he was fired because he himself lied to Mike Pence.
To put it another way, you should be applauding Trump for holding an ethical standard that is beyond the Obama administration since Hillary Clinton hasn't exactly been fired for actually taking donations from foreign Governments.
I would not agree that Trump is ethical. He still owns his businesses and is making decisions that impact the money that he is making. This is the definition of personal corruption. He says "the president can't have a conflict of interest" that appears to be false on the emouluments clause of the constitution but for some reason the Republicans aren't doing anything about it. They are also trying to kill the Russia investigations. Why? If there's nothing there, then let them look and say nothing is there. So far it's all seemingly been true - nothing has been proven false as far as I know but each revelation seems to be showing that there are more revelations just around the corner.
His swampy cabinet is full of big oil, big pharma, etc. His Russian medal winning department of State was literally the CEO of Exxon Mobile. He's had two nominees drop out due to financial conflicts of interest. His head of the EPA was in the pocket of big oil if you look at his emails and he also used a private email server for government business. I could go on at any rate his cabinet is filled with conflicts of interest.
The problem with Flynn was that he was not authorized at the time to make the call. He was negotiating with a foreign power as a private citizen. Was he fired for lying to Mike Pence? He was fired because the situation leaked to the public that he had been negotiating with Russia and the deflection was was that he lied to Pence. What was being done about the criminal violation of the Hatch act that President Trump knew about? Nothing was being done until the truth came out.
17 agencies was what was reported, at any rate, several agencies foreign and domestic have confirmed that the Trump campaign was in regular contact with Russian agents.
I would not agree that Trump is ethical. He still owns his businesses and is making decisions that impact the money that he is making.
You probably missed it when Trump has signed and stepped away from running his businesses to avoid conflicts of interest.
Something that is unprecedented and not even required by law.
You probably also missed when Trump specifically did not take donations from large corporations on the campaign trail.
If your not going to acknowledge all the unprecedented acts by Trump that no one has done before him, even when you wish to discuss ethics.
Then your evaluation of him isn't going to be fair.
The De-classified report by the intelligence Agencies shows 3, not 17 being involved.
That reports main findings is simply that Russian TV has favourable coverage of Trump.
None of the Russian Conspiracy angle by the mainstream media is credible, the actual report from the intelligence agencies doesn't support their wild and exaggerated claims.
A minor point: Just because Flynn served his country doesn't mean his record is necessarily spotless. You can be a war hero and still do something unethical.
Comments
It's a smokescreen by politicians.
Ironic since the democrats loved wikileaks when wikileaks went after Bush for the Iraq war.
Russia has been blamed for Brexit as well, so thats how i know its just a scapegoat.
ironically the country that there is hard evidence of attempts to middle in international politics and elections is the American Government, since the CIA literally tried to infiltrate the 2012 France parties.
And of course America spying on American ally politicians (like Angela Merkel) is par for the course.
The Russian Conspiracy Angle is a perfect text-book case of media journalism being dead.
The proper role of Journalism is to be skeptical, act as a check against their Government and want facts.
Considering the Democrat Party is pushing the Russian Conspiracy Angle, the media should demand evidence for it
Since they should be:
1. Skeptical of claims by Government political parties
2. Actually want facts rather then speculation.
It's mostly engaged in speculation to drive ratings and de-legitimize Trump.
The FBI is investigating it along confirmation by 17 other intelligence agencies. International countries have intercepted communications between russia and the Trumps so it's not like a partisan thing.
If anything yeah the democrats are mad that the same guys who loved investigating hillary's email servers are refusing to do anything about conflicts of interest or Russia swaying the election. At least publicly they don't seem bothered by the links between the trump campaign and presidency and russia - Paul Manafort to Michael Flynn and everyone in between seems to have had links and communications to Russia. Is it going to get swept under the rug? Why yes, Trump was trying to do just that.
Democrats aren't making that stuff up, it really happened and the FBI is supposedly investigating it. But for some reason, they aren't blasting it from the mountaintop like they did with Hillary's emails.
I hope you know that the only hard evidence of collusion between Russia and America is between the Clintons/Obama and Russia.
The Clintons actually were given massive amounts of money to their Clinton foundation by Russia, subsequently the Clintons arranged Uranium shipments to Russia multiple times.
As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.
And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.
-https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0
This is why all this talk about Russia conspiracy amuses me.
Btw the claim of 17 agencies is false, James Clapper heads the department overseeing the 17 Agencies and he got involved in the politics of the Russian Angle (which he subsequently confirmed there is no evidence of Russian hacking).
Subsequently the Hillary Campaign claimed during the debate, that due to James Clapper running the department overseeing all 17 Agencies, that therefore all 17 agencies are investigating which is not true (and is impossible as many of those agencies are not involved in these kind of affairs).
Again, smoke and mirrors, exaggeration and hyperbole which masks the real truth.
There was no Russian hacking.
You might also like to know that the report by the CIA considers Russian state TV having a negative coverage of Hillary is election meddling.
I can go further and actually start citing The actual report if you'd like, where something as ridiculous as another countries state-run TV is erroneously claimed by the Intelligence community as election 'meddling' (or 'influencing' using their actual term), subsequently the mainstream media, instead of going into detail of the report, instead chose to exaggerate in vague terms to give an air of conspiracy.
Actually i'll do that next post.
One would like to see more actual evidence for Russia's role in the US campaign, it's not like intelligence agencies have an absolutely spotless record on truth telling. Russia probably didn't expect to be dealing with a Trump presidency however, and in some ways Hilary Clinton leading a divided America might have been more predictable and easier for Putin to deal with. Russia's tactical advantage is not playing by the rules, and if Trump's America starts behaving similarly then Russian toes get stepped on.
In December 2016, I said the intelligence community had not yet reached a consensus on Russian hacking.
Later that month, I summarized an early report about the intelligence community's judgment.
Later that month, I posted an announcement that the intelligence community would release a report on the issue in 3 weeks. I also explained briefly how people can figure out who is responsible for a hack, with a link to the Mandiant report that explains the methodology in great detail.
On January 7, 2017, I summarized the report on Russian involvement that the intelligence community had promised they would issue 3 weeks prior (at which point the intelligence community had reached the consensus that previously did not exist).
I will repeat one point: if the intelligence community cooked up all of this just to hurt Trump, they would have done it before Election Day, when it could have damaged his chances at the presidency. But these reports all came after the election had already ended, when there was no chance of the evidence having a political impact.
Which means there was no political motive behind the intelligence community's judgment. It's just analysts doing their jobs while ignoring political pressure from both sides.
In reality, there were suspicions of Russian involvement before November 8, but the intelligence community, when asked by reporters, refused to offer any judgment until it had time to analyze the issue properly--which meant their conclusions did not arrive until after the election was over.
They did neither. Refusing to bow down to political pressure is the very definition of neutrality.
Link to Document.
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
This report includes an analytic assessment drafted and coordinated among The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and The National Security Agency (NSA), which draws on intelligence information collected and disseminated by those three agencies.
We have the first problem, only 3 agencies are involved, not '17'. A claim that is curiously not corrected by the mainstream media.
Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or “trolls.”
We have the next problem, ambiguity. The report lumps in, basically, anything that is said by Russian intermediaries as involvement in the election (this includes Russian TV saying anything about the candidates) so we need to see the details of each charge, which i will go into more detail.
We assess with high confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election, the consistent goals of which were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency
An important statement, but a vague charge. Why is the word 'influence' used? It is quite vague, it can cover unethical behavior or completely benign behavior, let us see closely what the report details.
Stated Evidence of Putin involvement in US election
Beginning in June, Putin’s public comments about the US presidential race avoided directly praising President-elect Trump, probably because Kremlin officials thought that any praise from Putin personally would backfire in the United States. Nonetheless, Putin publicly indicated a preference for President-elect Trump’s stated policy to work with Russia, and pro-Kremlin figures spoke highly about what they saw as his Russia-friendly positions on Syria and Ukraine. Putin publicly contrasted the President-elect’s approach to Russia with Secretary Clinton’s “aggressive rhetoric.”
So this is the evidence of Putin's clear involvement, and what is it? Nothing more then Putin saying he favors Trumps statements on better relations with Russia.
If this is unethical, then surely every single European countries officials speaking disparagingly of Trump during the Election is just as bad, curiously this standard isn't applied across nations.
Is this the 'Influence Campaign'? this means Obama is guilty of the exact same thing for virtue of his comments about Trump and Hillary.
Evidence of Wikileaks and Russia involvement
In early September, Putin said publicly it was important the DNC data was exposed to WikiLeaks, calling the search for the source of the leaks a distraction and denying Russian “state-level” involvement. The Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet RT (formerly Russia Today) has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks. RT’s editor-in-chief visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in August 2013, where they discussed renewing his broadcast contract with RT, according to Russian and Western media. Russian media subsequently announced that RT had become "the only Russian media company" to partner with WikiLeaks and had received access to "new leaks of secret information." RT routinely gives Assange sympathetic coverage and provides him a platform to denounce the United States.
This is an extraordinary tenuous use of evidence that Russia 'may have' given Wikileaks info of the DNC.
Assange being given air-time on Russian TV to make statements is quite a stretch, as that would implicate virtually every media organisation in the U.S. and Europe since they did the same.
Focus on Russia Media's Preference of Donald Trump
Russian Propaganda Efforts. Russia’s state-run propaganda machine—comprised of its domestic media apparatus, outlets targeting global audiences such as RT and Sputnik, and a network of quasi-government trolls—contributed to the influence campaign by serving as a platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences. State-owned Russian media made increasingly favorable comments about Presidentelect Trump as the 2016 US general and primary election campaigns progressed while consistently
offering negative coverage of Secretary Clinton.
The majority of the report is in fact simply about Russian public media having a preference for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in its coverage.
This is quite the extraordinary thing to focus on, if i were for a moment to consider this seriously, Then most of the American media and European media is more guilty of the same.
There are some important questions to ask from this report and the mainstream media's conduct.
1. Why didn't the media correct itself and it is not 17 Agencies, but 3?
Curiously corrections aren't issued where it may just seem favourable to Trump in some fashion.
2. Why didn't the media go into detail of the only report about Russian activities pertaining to the Election?
This is literally the only solid and official evidence of the intelligence agencies pertaining to this issue.
3. Why is there no focus on every single media organisation in America and Europe?
If favourable coverage of Trump in Russian media is clearly grounds for concern of state-actors, then every single media organisation, as well as every Government that had officials making disparaging comments of Trump should fall under the same suspicion.
4. Why is there absolutely zero mention of the various Russian deals and money trails between the Clinton foundation and Hillary when she was Secretary of State?
Hillary is one of the candidates of the election, There were massive donations to the Clinton foundation around the time of Uranium deals between the American Government and Russia when she was Secretary of State. This is well documented in American news outlets, so why was this not included? the report seem's completely focused against one political party.
Reading the heading, it is not 'our investigation pertaining to Trump and the elections' but 'Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections'. That is broad and means that Hillary Clinton should be subject to investigation, i'd like to know why her activities were not in the report at all.
5. Why is Obama not under suspicion for campaigning for Hillary Clinton?
If our level of ethics is so high we cannot allow any even tenuous ties to Government, then i would like to know why the media is not in a complete uproar that Obama can campaign for Hillary or make any statements pertaining to the two.
Because i would have to worry that Obama may have used Presidential powers to aid Hillary and hinder Trump.
Finally, i'd like to know one thing. Hacking is quite serious crime especially when done around the election.
I'd like to know why there is not complete uproar and media coverage over HomeLand Security trying to hack Georgia during the election
The Georgia Secretary of State's Office now confirms 10 separate cyberattacks on its network were all traced back to U.S. Department of Homeland Security addresses.
The first one happened on Feb. 2, the day after Georgia’s voter registration deadline. The next one took place just days before the SEC primary. Another occurred in May, the day before the general primary, and then two more took place in November, the day before and the day of the presidential election.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/georgia/georgia-secretary-of-state-says-cyberattacks-linked-back-to-dhs/475707667
Curious indeed, why little to no uproar over this compared to Russia? Is it possibly because it would take away focus from Russia since it would implicate the American Government and by extension possibly the Democratic Party?
And on another topic
As featured on Fox & Friends
http://www.hillarybeattrump.org
Details in spoilers to avoid cluttering the thread.
Sometimes you portray small sections of the document as if they were the entirety of the report's evidence and argument: They discuss far more examples of Putin's involvement than just those public statements. The paragraph you quote is just a single bullet point in a long list out of many different sections. In fact, that section isn't even a list of "Stated Evidence of Putin involvement in US election"; it's a list of some of the DNI's conclusions. The evidence for those conclusions appears on the following pages. The evidence is highly specific--not vague at all--and comes from multiple sources.
There are answers to your questions:
1. The Director of National Intelligence (headed by James Clapper) speaks for all 17 intelligence agencies, and for what it's worth, no intelligence agency has disputed the report, so it's not like there's disagreement among the agencies anyway. I don't know how many of them actually participated in the study (some of the agencies don't deal with this kind of thing), but I do find it terribly significant that three separate agencies all reached the same conclusion. If this issue were murky or unclear, they wouldn't have a consensus.
2. I first heard of the existence of this report from the New York Times, which discussed the report in detail. Typing "january 6 intelligence report" into Google yields lots of results. There's even a Wikipedia page on it. So the media did discuss the specifics.
3. The difference between RT's coverage of Trump and Clinton and the U.S. media's coverage of Trump and Clinton is because the U.S. media is a collection of journalists (and "journalists"), while RT is entirely state-funded propaganda.
In the view of the intelligence community, RT isn't suspicious because it supported Trump; its support of Trump is suspicious because it's a known propaganda agency, under the direct control of the Kremlin, whose very purpose is to promote the Kremlin's interests. It is therefore a valuable primary source for assessing Moscow's motives.
In a word, the intelligence community doesn't view American non-government journalists and Russian government propagandists as the same thing. One of them is controlled by a hostile government; the other is free.
4. The media did discuss this, at great length. Typing "clinton foundation russia" into Google yields lots of articles on the issue. Even the New York Times, which endorsed Clinton early in the campaign, published a massive report on it.
I don't know what the intelligence community thinks of the Clinton Foundation, but Snopes has said that the Russian uranium scandal at least is no example of wrongdoing for two main reasons:
4a. "The Uranium One deal was not Clinton’s to veto or approve" (only the President could veto it, and an official said Clinton didn't interfere with the relevant committee's decisions)
4b. "The timing of most of the donations does not match"
More importantly, the DNI report doesn't discuss financial ties between Trump and Russia, so I don't see why it would discuss financial ties between Clinton and Russia. Their evidence for Russian involvement did not involve business connections; they were basing it on other things.
5. We already know Obama supported Clinton. Americans can support whichever candidate they like. That's how a free election works. But it's not normal for foreign governments to be involved; we've never seen that happen before in American history. It's bad enough we allow super PACs to influence our elections; it's far worse for hostile foreign governments to do so. It would be disturbing if Canada tried to sway an American election, much less Russia.
America's enemies aren't allowed to influence American elections for the same reasons we don't allow them to vote in our elections.
Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans
James Clapper: No.
If the head that oversees all intelligence agencies lied under oath and committed the crime of perjury, can i have confidence in him or his department?
On what basis of confidence can i trust his assessment in this election? I already know he lies.
And why did he lie? Then i presume the following media organisations fall equally under the same suspicion because of these links.
ABC News executive producer Ian Cameron - Susan Rice (democrat National Security Advisor) married
CBS President David Rhodes - Ben Rhodes (Obama's deputy national security adviser) Brother
CNN President Virginia Moseley -Tom Nides (Hillary Deputy Secretary) married
ABC News correspondent Claire Shipman - Jay Carney (Whitehouse Press Secretary) married
ABC News, Univision reporter Jaffe - Katie Hogan (Obama Deputy Secretary) brother
ABC Political head Anchor George Stephanopolos - Former Clinton head of Communication and White
All those news agencies, if they had any sort of bias in its coverage and having such strong ties to the Democratic party, equally fall under the suspicion of unethical behavior and collusion with the Democratic Party.
Is there any sort of public scrutiny over this?
Also to my prior point, The Obama administration having any dealings with foreign Governments, and any official of that Government speaking disparagingly of Trump is grounds for the exact same investigation, let us pick Angela Merkel.
Why isn't there intense media scrutiny over this? The DNI report is of Russian attitudes towards the U.S. election and their listed evidence for it, Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State and her dealing with Russia definitely falls into this category.
Hillary Clinton as having the position of Secretary of State, should have far higher scrutiny in any sort of investigation between Russia and the U.S. elections. Why does Snopes disagree with itself on this? i quote from Snopes.
Of the remaining individuals connected with Uranium One who donated to the Clinton Foundation, only one was found to have contributed during the same time frame that the deal was taking place, according to The New York Times
What does it mean that 'only one' was found in the correct time frame as a rebuttal? does that mean if one big payment was found, this actually proves it false? How does that logically make sense if you just found a payment that was in the correct time frame?
This seems to imply that unless you found multiple payments, if you found only one massive donation to A Secretary of State (which btw is unethical on the face of it) you can't be suspicious.
It is also unclear why Snopes assumes you need ONE BIG PAYMENT AT THE SAME TIME as the Uranium Deal, why cannot Snopes invision a scenario that Russian Government actors simply kept donating to Hillary over time to keep a working relationship, and subsequently called on her for a favor later on for the Uranium Deal?
Among the ways these accusations stray from the facts is in attributing a power of veto or approval to Secretary Clinton that she simply did not have.
Clinton was one of nine cabinet members and department heads that sit on the CFIUS, and the secretary of the treasury is its chairperson
What kind of logic is this? this is 'Setting up an imaginary claim to refute it, to disprove a larger point' which doesn't make sense.
I consider the fact that Hillary was on the board that approves such deals, and she had any kind of donation from Russian individuals linked to Uranium One as grounds for investigation.
Hillary got a massive donation as Snopes agrees, i think it is in the realm of possibility she lobbied for giving Russia Uranium as part of that board.
Which is again, unethical.
In fact i would like to know why Hillary kept getting donations from prominent Russian actors during her tenure as Secretary of State.
Snopes seems to say this as fact, why didn't the intelligence community include this in the report?
I consider a history of donations from Russia to Hillary Clinton in her term as Secretary as State pretty important if i want to investigate Russian Government attitudes towards the Election since she is literally one of the Candidates, it should be investigated and subject to intense media scrutiny by itself anyway.
That is quite literally what the Report is supposed to deal with.
Again, why is there nothing about these donations?
The report treated Trump and Clinton exactly the same, as they should have: they were left out of the report entirely, because it was a report about Russia. It never promised to dig up dirt on either of the candidates. No matter how justified it could possibly have been, they're not supposed to do that, because it would jeopardize their status as non-partisan, non-political agencies. The intelligence community absolutely has to stay out of the political fray, and that's what they have done.
If you want Clinton or Trump investigated, that's the job of the FBI, Congress, the press, and the courts. It is not the job of the NSA or the CIA.
This investigation was never about Trump, or Clinton, or any American. It was about Russia's actions.
The intelligence community said three weeks in advance that the report would be about Russia's actions. Clinton is not Russian.
I can make it no clearer that Hillary Clinton served In an important official capacity in the American Government and having monetary donations to her from Russian actors is grounds for investigation.
It is the fact that a person in the election campaigning to be President, previously served in a high position in the former Government and had monetary influx from Russian prominent actors that she should be investigated in this report.
This report is about Russian Government actions and attitudes towards this election, one of the candidates for this election served as Secretary of State of America and had donations in her tenure from Russia.
I don't know what you mean by them being left out of the report, you may need to read it again.
Let me quote the reports 'Scope' and why this immediately qualifies Hillary to be investigated.
The assessment focuses on activities aimed at the
2016 US presidential election and draws on our understanding of previous Russian influence operations.
and Russian views of key US players derive from multiple corroborating sources.
Donations to one of the candidates for the election, immediately qualifies as Russian 'influence' operations, but of course we know that donations are often done to influence politicians.
Russian Views of key US players, one of the candidates, requires an analysis of past history with Russia especially in any formal capacity in the American Government at least.
Again i ask, if this report is about Russian Government attitudes towards key US players in the US election, where is the detail of Hillary's dealing with the Russian Government?
Would the Russian Government not take into account their history of dealing with Hillary Clinton as part of their views on Key players in the U.S. election?
Among the things - his original campaign manager resigned due to accepting russian money and ties there. Why's there no investigation there? The lawyer that went on stage next to him to say that it's all good that he owns businesses and accepts money from foreign governments as president is just fine as long as his sons run the day to day of his business was from russia's law firm of the year 2016. His pick for National Security Adviser had to resign due to negotiating with a foreign country (Russia) as a private citizen. It's been reported that after his numerous bankruptcies Donald Trump could not get loans so had to go to Russia. He probably still owes money to Russia. As ridiculous as it sounded at first, the dossier from a British Intelligence agent that leaked saying that Russia has compromising information on Donald Trump has had some details verified. Links from the Trump staffers to Russian agents during the campaign has been corroborated by US and international intelligence agencies. The fact that the President to this day refuses to say a bad thing about Putin is cause for investigation.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4643763/king-asks-comey-investigations
All those allegations, which should be investigated, and they were and no criminality was found, were operations by Trump or Manafort before the election even took place, decades before.
To claim that Trump's business dealings as a private citizen in the Russian country 10-20 years ago, is somehow equivalent to Hillary accepting donations while she was Secretary of State is pretty silly.
Please don't talk about the silly dossier by the British agent, have you read it?
Your talking about a Dossier that claims Michael Cohen was some mastermind and went to and fro Russia to coordinate with Trump, only for Michael Cohen to post his passport on twitter to show he never has been to Russia.
This is the same dossier that claims that Trump went to a hotel, found out Obama slept there previously, and hired a bunch of prostitutes to do 'Golden Showers' on there.
This is that report.
Well ok, I'll wait for hard evidence of any wrongdoing because clearly the media is relying on such trash as unverified stories that Trump likes to do golden showers in rooms Obama previously visited.
If you believe this stuff, i imagine this election has been incredibly entertaining.
As for the six media members that keep getting mentioned (which I also highly suspect is coming from Breitbart or a similar site), what would you like them all to do?? Get divorced, renounce their families, or quit their jobs?? It doesn't prove anything besides that they are, indeed, married to or related to those people. If you're implying because of who they are married to they are, by default, unqualified to do their jobs, you're going to have to scour Washington clean of a hell of alot more than those 6 people. It's an incestuous place by it's very nature.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?_r=0
The Uranium deal did happen, Clinton was on the board of directors that had decision-making power over it, it is a well known fact Clinton had numerous donations to her by Russian actors over the course of her tenure as Secretary of State, and even one at the time of the actual deal itself.
All of this Snope agrees with, since you seem to cite Snopes.
Are you disputing any of those elements?
I consider all of this, but simply just the fact she is getting donations from foreign Governments during her tenure as Secretary of State as grounds for investigation, i do not even think this should be allowed.
And if one argument refutes another, it does not need to be said. We can let arguments stand on their own. No need to say "I win."
Sometimes people don't respond to counterarguments because they feel they've already made their point in previous posts. Other times people don't respond because they think the counterargument is valid, or simply needs no rebuttal.
In this case I'm backing away to make sure @vanatos and I don't end up arguing over semantics.
I explained in my view that Snopes conclusion doesn't make sense from the stated facts they present.
For example Snopes accepts that Hillary has been garnering donations from Russian actors (even Government actors) over her tenure as Secretary of State.
Snopes accepts that at least one payment fits the time-frame of the deal itself.
Snopes somehow considers this a rebuttal since only one was in the time-frame? That doesn't make sense.
I asked the question, why couldn't Snopes envision the case that Russian actors may have just donated to Hillary over the course of her tenure and simply asked later for a favor back when the Uranium deal came up?
This exchange is very important, and is one of the great crimes committed by the media today (time 309).
Senator Cotton: You cannot credit stories that are based on anonymous sources. You should look into them especially if you’re in a position of responsibility, but you can’t simply credit them.
Unverified stories, rumors or leaks should never be promoted in the media, not at least with an extremely heavy disclaimer it is unverified.
However what we have seen in this election, is the media treating rumors as having credibility just from its own existence.
If a journalist has an unverified story from an anonymous source, they should not immediately present such a story, they should investigate it and present it publicly when they have hard evidence.
Otherwise the media is engaging in rumor spreading and treating it as legitimate.
Such as you claiming there was 17 agencies because the media exaggerated such a claim, then we find out it was 3, and we find out from the report there is nothing meaningful, and your reliance on a dossier that likes to claim Trump finds where Obama has stayed in hotels and orders prostitutes to golden shower the beds.
Not exactly credible.
The mistake that the media is making, is creating conspiracy and treating it as fact by tenuously linking disparate points, to de-legitimize Trump.
Furthermore the mistake is preferring conspiracy over a common-sense explanation.
So Flynn called Russia after Trump was elected President but before he was inaugurated as a diplomatic call, a pretty big nothing-burger since every administration before has done the same thing.
However lets investigate the past of these people whom you state have a conspiracy with Russia.
Michael Flynn
n 1981 Flynn was commissioned in the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant in Military Intelligence and assigned as a paratrooper to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Flynn is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island, has an MBA, and a degree from the U.S. Naval War College.
Flynn has held a number of military intelligence leadership posts, including commander of a military intelligence battalion in Afghanistan, director of Intelligence for United States Central Command, which oversees all U.S. military operations in the Middle East, and director of Intelligence for the Joint Staff.
Most recently, Flynn was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency before he was forced out after facing "pressure from Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. and others in recent months," according to The Washington Post. The Military Times reported that he was "forced out of his role after sparring with Obama advisers on a range of policy decisions.
"I was asked to step down," Flynn told Foreign Policy. "It wasn't necessarily the timing that I wanted, but I understand."
-http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/26/politics/michael-flynn-donald-trump-vp-search/
So this person has served in multiple posts in the military, has made numerous stints in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He was a heavy critic of Obama's numerous initiatives in the middle-east, arming Syrian rebels to oust Assad, handling of ISIS and criticism of Islamic extremism handling.
General Dempsey and his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs of Staff kept their dissent out of bureaucratic channels, and survived in office. General Michael Flynn did not. ‘Flynn incurred the wrath of the White House by insisting on telling the truth about Syria,’ said Patrick Lang, a retired army colonel who served for nearly a decade as the chief Middle East civilian intelligence officer for the DIA.
-https://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military
Is he a partisan? No he is actually a registered Democrat but broke from the Democrat party because of the Democrat party becoming the party of war in the middle-east.
So in terms of Flynn we have this
1. He has served the U.S.A. by his military service, especially in regards to actually being involved in multiple war-zones.
2. He is incredibly realistic over U.S. meddlings and its disastrous results in the middle-east
3. He was a vocal critic of the Obama administrations handling even when he actually served in the Obama administration
4. He is not a political partisan, but willing to break ties to his own political party over these issues.
So no I don't think he is some Russian Agent, I think he genuinely cares about America and has become extremely angry over America's meddling in the middle-east.
Why do i conclude this? Perhaps because by Military Service he has literally risked himself for the country.
By even going against the Obama Administration while he was serving them he risked his own job, for the country.
I take a dim view of the media's exaggeration and hyperbole to implicate someone as a Russian Agent, who has sacrificed alot for the country, In order spread a Russian conspiracy angle for petty politics.
His swampy cabinet is full of big oil, big pharma, etc. His Russian medal winning department of State was literally the CEO of Exxon Mobile. He's had two nominees drop out due to financial conflicts of interest. His head of the EPA was in the pocket of big oil if you look at his emails and he also used a private email server for government business. I could go on at any rate his cabinet is filled with conflicts of interest.
The problem with Flynn was that he was not authorized at the time to make the call. He was negotiating with a foreign power as a private citizen. Was he fired for lying to Mike Pence? He was fired because the situation leaked to the public that he had been negotiating with Russia and the deflection was was that he lied to Pence. What was being done about the criminal violation of the Hatch act that President Trump knew about? Nothing was being done until the truth came out.
17 agencies was what was reported, at any rate, several agencies foreign and domestic have confirmed that the Trump campaign was in regular contact with Russian agents.
Something that is unprecedented and not even required by law.
You probably also missed when Trump specifically did not take donations from large corporations on the campaign trail.
If your not going to acknowledge all the unprecedented acts by Trump that no one has done before him, even when you wish to discuss ethics.
Then your evaluation of him isn't going to be fair.
The De-classified report by the intelligence Agencies shows 3, not 17 being involved.
That reports main findings is simply that Russian TV has favourable coverage of Trump.
None of the Russian Conspiracy angle by the mainstream media is credible, the actual report from the intelligence agencies doesn't support their wild and exaggerated claims.
Do you want me to go through it again?