"Why did you wait?" Donald Trump seemed confused by CIA's desire not to kill family members of terrorists.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

President Trump’s pronouncement that he would be pulling troops out of Syria “very soon” has laid bare a major source of tension between the president and his generals. 

Trump has made winning on the battlefields of Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan a central tenet of his foreign policy and tough-guy identity. But Trump and the military hold frequently opposing ideas about exactly what winning means. 

Those differences have played out in heated Situation Room ­debates over virtually every spot on the globe where U.S. troops are engaged in combat, said senior administration officials. And they contributed to the dismissal last month of Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster who as national security adviser had pressed the president against his instincts to support an ­open-ended commitment of U.S. forces to Afghanistan. 

Trump’s words, both in public and private, describe a view that wars should be brutal and swift, waged with overwhelming firepower and, in some cases, with little regard for civilian casualties. Victory over America’s enemies for the president is often a matter of bombing “the s--- out of them,” as he said on the campaign trail.

Of course under President Obama the policy was to spare innocent civilians, and family members, and instead use precise targeting to take out the terrorist objective.

As we know that did not always work, and many innocent civilians were also killed.

However Trump does not seem at all bothered by that sort of collateral damage.

Trump came to office promising to give the Pentagon a free hand to unleash the full force of U.S. firepower. His impatience was evident on his first full day in office when he visited the CIA and was ushered up to the agency’s drone operations floor. 

There agency officials showed him a feed from Syria, where Obama-era rules limited the agency to surveillance flights — part of a broader push by the previous administration to return the CIA to its core espionage mission and shift the job of killing terrorists to the military. 

Trump urged the CIA to start arming its drones in Syria. “If you can do it in 10 days, get it done,” he said, according to two former officials familiar with the meeting. 

Later, when the agency’s head of drone operations explained that the CIA had developed special munitions to limit civilian casualties, the president seemed unimpressed. Watching a previously recorded strike in which the agency held off on firing until the target had wandered away from a house with his family inside, Trump asked, “Why did you wait?” one participant in the meeting recalled.

To be clear killing innocent people overseas is how you create more terrorists, not defeat terrorism.

Trump's inability to understand that, or to respect human life, will only ensure that not only does terrorism outlast his term, but that it increases exponentially.

Having said that I am going to tack on the report about those Russian sanctions right here, because I do not think they deserve a post of their own.

Some in the media are trying to give Trump credit for finally cracking down with some aggressive sanctions that will actually hurt the Russian oligarchs who support Putin, but they are fools.

Trump is NOT behind these sanctions. In fact he was clearly dragged kicking and screaming into supporting them, because he had NO choice.

If this were really something that Trump was behind, he would have tweeted the shit out of it, but there is not a peep about this on his account.

To sum up Donald Trump does not value human life, but he absolutely values his relationship with Vladimir Putin.

Putin calls Trump for the second time in four days to thank him for a supposed CIA tip that helped stop a "terrorist" attack. Things that make you go, "Hmm."

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke for the second time in four days on Sunday, the White House said, and agreed that a CIA tip which helped Russia prevent bombings in St Petersburg was “an example of the positive things that can occur when our countries work together”.The two leaders’ first call this week was on Thursday, when Trump thanked Putin for his remarks “acknowledging America’s strong economic performance”, according to the White House. 

The two presidents also discussed ways to address North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic weapons program.

The Kremlin said on Sunday Putin told Trump the information provided by the CIA was sufficient to track down and detain a group of Islamic State-linked suspects who were planning to bomb the Kazan Cathedral and other sites in the city. 

Putin asked Trump to convey his gratitude to the CIA and said Russian law enforcement agencies would hand over any information they get about potential terror threats against the US, as they have done in the past. 

The White House said Trump “appreciated” the conversation and “stressed the importance of intelligence cooperation to defeat terrorists wherever they may be”.

Do you all smell that fishy smell? Or is that just me?

What an amazing coincidence that as Trump and Putin push for some joint intelligence operation between America and Russia, that the CIA just so happens to stumble upon some information about a potential terrorist attack.

And how much more amazing is it that while Trump is suggesting that we need to work with Russia to fight ISIS, that this thwarted bomb attack is credited to them?

And if all of that were not amazing enough, how fortuitous is it that all of this is happening right as Robert Mueller suddenly seems to be getting much closer to learning some devastating new facts about the Trump campaign and their dealings with Russia?

I mean it all seems so perfectly timed, don't you think?

By the way in the past American intelligence agencies have treated Putin's claims of thwarted terrorist attacks with a high degree of skepticism.

Just thought I would throw that in there to provide a little context.

P.S. The Washington Post found the read out of the phone call to be a little troubling. 

The Trump Administration is considering the idea of outsourcing intelligence gathering and the capture of terrorists to a private company. So many red flags here.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed:  

The White House and CIA have been considering a package of secret proposals to allow former US intelligence officers to run privatized covert actions, intelligence gathering, and propaganda missions, according to three sources who’ve been briefed on or have direct knowledge of the proposals. 

One of the proposals would involve hiring a private company, Amyntor Group, for millions of dollars to set up a large intelligence network and run counterterrorist propaganda efforts, according to the sources. Amyntor’s officials and employees include veterans of a variety of US covert operations, ranging from the Reagan-era Iran–Contra affair to more recent actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Amyntor declined to discuss the proposals, but a lawyer for the company said in a statement to BuzzFeed News that the type of contract being contemplated would be legal “with direction and control by the proper government authority.” 

Another proposal presented to US officials would allow individuals affiliated with the company to help capture wanted terrorists on behalf of the United States. In keeping with that proposal, people close to the company are tracking two specific suspects in a Middle Eastern country, the sources said, for possible “rendition” to the United States. 

A source speaking on behalf of the company stressed that while Amyntor officials are aware of and involved in the rendition plan, the company itself would not be involved.

What the actual fuck folks?

This is clearly an attempt to undermine the CIA and to engage in activities that the agency would never sanction.

Which seems to be supported by comments made by sources:  

Those familiar with the proposals say one of the driving impulses for privatizing some missions is a fear by some supporters of President Donald Trump, outside government, that the CIA bureaucracy has an anti-Trump bias that would thwart efforts to fulfill the president’s objectives. “The system does not work,” one source who is sympathetic to the Amyntor efforts told BuzzFeed News. “The people leaking this to you just want to destroy the president.”

Paranoid much?

The agency itself is located in the same small community of Whitefish, Montana which was also home to the company that received that sweetheart deal to restore electricity to Puerto Rico, and then failed miserably to do so. 

Gee, what a coincidence.

How could Congress even provide oversight to a private company like this, and how would the American people have any confidence that they were not breaking international laws in our name?

Such a bad feeling about this.

Former CIA Director, and central figure in James Mueller's Russian investigation, has "lengthy conversation" with Donald Trump over dinner.

Courtesy of Business Insider:

Former CIA Director James Woolsey dined with President Donald Trump last weekend at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida — where, a report said, they had a "lengthy conversation" at the main dining table surrounded by several of Trump's friends, associates, and political allies. 

A tipster told Politico's Playbook about the conversation, which raised eyebrows given Woolsey's centrality to the special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser. 

Woolsey, who served on the board of Flynn's lobbying firm, Flynn Intel Group, was at a meeting on September 19, 2016, with Flynn and Turkish government ministers in which they discussed removing the controversial Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen from US soil, Woolsey has said. 

Woolsey apparently notified Vice President Joe Biden through a mutual friend about the meeting, which he thought could have been an illegal discussion, Woolsey's spokesman, Jonathan Franks, said earlier this year. 

Franks confirmed late last month that Mueller's team had interviewed Woolsey about the meeting. He said Woolsey and his wife had been in touch with the FBI since before Mueller began overseeing the bureau's Russia investigation in May.

I think there can be no doubt that Trump is attempting to either glean information about the investigation, or find a way to undermine it. 

And that is something that a former CIA Director would surely see coming.

So why would be go?

Hmm, I wonder if Trump had him searched for a wire? 

At Trump's bidding CIA Director met with promoter of conspiracy theory that DNC hack was an inside job, and NOT the Russians.

Courtesy of The Intercept: 

CIA Director Mike Pompeo met late last month with a former U.S. intelligence official who has become an advocate for a disputed theory that the theft of the Democratic National Committee’s emails during the 2016 presidential campaign was an inside job, rather than a hack by Russian intelligence. 

Pompeo met on October 24 with William Binney, a former National Security Agency official-turned-whistleblower who co-authored an analysis published by a group of former intelligence officials that challenges the U.S. intelligence community’s official assessment that Russian intelligence was behind last year’s theft of data from DNC computers. Binney and the other former officials argue that the DNC data was “leaked,” not hacked, “by a person with physical access” to the DNC’s computer system. 

In an interview with The Intercept, Binney said Pompeo told him that President Donald Trump had urged the CIA director to meet with Binney to discuss his assessment that the DNC data theft was an inside job. During their hour-long meeting at CIA headquarters, Pompeo said Trump told him that if Pompeo “want[ed] to know the facts, he should talk to me,” Binney said.

So if you are wondering if this is about that old debunked story about the murder of Seth Rich by Hillary Clinton (Which is referenced below.), yes it most certainly is.

This Binney guy is a frequent guest on Info Wars with Alex Jones and just about any fringe conspiracy focused radio show or blog that will have him.

He has some impressive credentials so people often take him seriously, but the majority of the charges he makes remain unsubstantiated. 

This particular conspiracy theory has been debunked by essentially every intelligence agency in the country, including the CIA by the way, so the very fact that Pompeo talked to this guy speaks to Trump's desperation to get Robert Mueller and the other investigators off his back.

This of course is another reason why I was so frustrated with Donna Brazile, because her mentions of Seth Rich in her book only pour more gasoline on the dying embers of the "DNC hack was an inside job" conspiracy theory.

CIA officials keeping a watchful eye on their new director to see if he is running interference for Donald Trump on the Russia investigations.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

As CIA director, Mike Pompeo has taken a special interest in an agency unit that is closely tied to the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, requiring the Counterintelligence Mission Center to report directly to him. 

Officials at the center have, in turn, kept a watchful eye on Pompeo, who has repeatedly played down Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and demonstrated a willingness to engage in political skirmishes for President Trump. 

Current and former officials said that the arrangement has been a source of apprehension among the CIA’s upper ranks and that they could not recall a time in the agency’s history when a director faced a comparable conflict. 

“Pompeo is in a delicate situation unlike any other director has faced, certainly in my memory,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a CIA official for 23 years who served in Russia and held high-level positions at headquarters, “because of his duty to protect and provide the truth to an independent investigation while maintaining his role with the president.”

The Russia issue has complicated Pompeo’s effort to manage a badly strained relationship between the agency and a president who has disparaged its work and compared U.S. intelligence officials to Nazis. Amid that tension, Pompeo’s interactions with the counterintelligence center have come under particular scrutiny.

I think it's pretty obvious that Donald Trump is appointing folks to various agencies in order to protect him from any potential investigations which might take him out of office. 

Along with Pompeo I would also suggest that FBI agents keep an eye on their new Trump appointed director Christopher Wray as well.

Trump tried to get James Comey to stop the investigation and to pledge loyalty to him, it seems more than reasonable that he is asking these individuals to do the same.

And don't forget that he also asked Mitch McConnell to protect him from the investigations as well.

Trump is clearly guilty, because only guilty people work this hard to keep the facts from coming out.

For weeks Michael Flynn continued to sit in on top secret intelligence briefings even after it was determined that he had been compromised.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

Senior officials across the government became convinced in January that the incoming national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, had become vulnerable to Russian blackmail. 

At the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — agencies responsible for keeping American secrets safe from foreign spies — career officials agreed that Mr. Flynn represented an urgent problem. 

Yet nearly every day for three weeks, the new C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, sat in the Oval Office and briefed President Trump on the nation’s most sensitive intelligence — with Mr. Flynn listening. Mr. Pompeo has not said whether C.I.A. officials left him in the dark about their views of Mr. Flynn, but one administration official said Mr. Pompeo did not share any concerns about Mr. Flynn with the president. 

The episode highlights a remarkable aspect of Mr. Flynn’s tumultuous, 25-day tenure in the White House: He sat atop a national security apparatus that churned ahead despite its own conclusion that he was at risk of being compromised by a hostile foreign power.

It should also be remembered that during this time Trump was actively trying to get James Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn's Russian connections.

I think it is high time that CIA Director Mike Pompeo makes another appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Because either he provided classified information to a man that he knew was compromised, or he was out of the loop and did not know he was compromised. Both equally troubling.

When asked previously Pompeo dodged the question: 

Mr. Pompeo sidestepped questions from senators last month about his handling of the information about Mr. Flynn, declining to say whether he knew about his own agency’s concerns. “I can’t answer yes or no,” he said. “I regret that I’m unable to do so.” His words frustrated Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

“Either Director Pompeo had no idea what people in the C.I.A. reportedly knew about Michael Flynn, or he knew about the Justice Department’s concerns and continued to discuss America’s secrets with a man vulnerable to blackmail,” Mr. Wyden said in a statement. “I believe Director Pompeo owes the public an explanation.”

Yep, I agree.

As it stand right now we are left with two options.

Either this Administration is the most incompetent administration in the history of the country, or it is the most corrupt.

New CIA director calls Wikileaks a "hostile" intelligence gathering service.

Courtesy of ABC News:  

CIA Director Mike Pompeo blasted anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks on Thursday calling it a "hostile" intelligence-gathering service that is often "abetted by state actors like Russia." 

"WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service," Pompeo said during an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, saying, "it's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it is." 

He called WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a "fraud" and "coward" and criticized NSA leaker Edward Snowden for championing "nothing but his own celebrity." 

"I am quite confident that had Assange been around in the 1930s and 40s and 50s, he would have found himself on the wrong side of history," Pompeo said.

Well, somebody needed to say it.

Though I have to admit that I never thought I would find myself in agreement with Mike Pompeo.

However it is beyond clear now that Wikileaks is no longer (If they ever were.) the non-partisan data gathering entity that they advertised themselves to be during the Bush Administration.

Now it is clear that they are working alongside Russia and other hostile nations to undermine and  ultimately damage our very foundation as a country.

Interestingly enough Pmpeo himself was not always quite this hostile toward Wikileaks himself.

Courtesy of HuffPo:

Pompeo encouraged people to read WikiLeaks’ first dump of hacked Democratic National Committee emails. 

“Need further proof that the fix was in from Pres. Obama on down? BUSTED: 19,252 Emails from DNC Leaked by Wikileaks,” he tweeted in July from his congressional account. The account, @RepMikePompeo, no longer exists. 

Boy that confirmation bias is a powerful thing, don't you think? 

Well at least he did not go as far as his boss who praised Wikileaks during the campaign and often cited documents they had leaked in his attacks on Hillary Clinton.

It appears that without British secret agents we may never have discovered Trump's ties to Russia. Update!

Courtesy of The Guardian: 

Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, the Guardian has been told. 

GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added. 

Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians, sources said. 

The European countries that passed on electronic intelligence – known as sigint – included Germany, Estonia and Poland. Australia, a member of the “Five Eyes” spying alliance that also includes the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand, also relayed material, one source said.

Actually even after being spoon fed the information it STILL took the American Intelligence agencies an ungodly amount of time to respond:

The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow ahead of the US election. This was in part due to US law that prohibits US agencies from examining the private communications of American citizens without warrants. “They are trained not to do this,” the source stressed. 

“It looks like the [US] agencies were asleep,” the source added. “They [the European agencies] were saying: ‘There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.’ “

The message was: ‘Watch out. There’s something not right here.’”

"It looks like the US agencies were asleep." Well there's an understatement for you.

Apparently the information was considered so sensitive that it was handled at the :director level" which meant that it was delivered to CIA chief, John Brennan by the director of British Intelligence.

As reported earlier the CIA really cannot investigate American citizens, so the information was then passed on to members of Congress, and from them to the FBI.

I then took the FBI even longer to respond effectively because they were focused on the Russian hackers trying to damage Hillary Clinton, and NOT to help Donald Trump.

Just imagine if the FBI had not had their heads so far up their asses, they could have started to investigate this as early as late 2015. How might THAT might have affected the outcome of the 2016 election?

I swear the more we learn about who knew what and when, the more upsetting it is that things worked out the way that they did.

Update: Oops I almost missed this bit buried in the last paragraph:  

One source suggested the official investigation was making progress. “They now have specific concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion,” the source said. “This is between people in the Trump campaign and agents of [Russian] influence relating to the use of hacked material.”

Well now, THAT is certainly some good news to start off your Friday.

Rachel Maddow ignores the distractions from Syria and North Korea and refocuses on the most important story, the ties between Donald Trump and Russian hackers.

Good for Rachel in keeping her eye on the ball and reminding all of us that THIS is the most important story and that everything else is just background noise.

Though clearly there are those who wish that journalists don't pick up on that.

This is why Maddow's ratings and her audiences continue to grow.

Along these same lines it should be noted that even if some members of the press have turned to other things, the investigation continues forward.

Courtesy of CBS News: 

CBS News has learned that U.S. investigators are looking into whether Trump campaign representatives had a role in helping Russian intelligence as it carried out cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee and other political targets in March 2016. 

This new information suggests that the FBI is going back further than originally reported to determine the extent of possible coordination. Sources say investigators are probing whether an individual or individuals connected to the campaign intentionally or unwittingly helped the Russians breach Democratic Party targets. 

In March 2016, both Mr. Trump and Hillary Clinton had emerged as their parties’ most likely nominees.

According to a declassified intelligence assessment, it was in March when Russian hackers “began cyber operations aimed at the U.S. election.” In May, U.S. officials say the Russians had stolen “large volumes of data from the DNC.”

March is significantly earlier than early summer, which is when we had previously been told possible collusion may have begun. 

And I would suggest that the FBI did not get to March without a trail of evidence to lead them there.

This does not sound like the FBI just throwing things against the wall to see what will stick, this sounds like something that would result from digging deep only to discover they have just barely scratched the surface.

CIA knew about Russia's attempts to help get Donald Trump elected even earlier than reported.

Former CIA Director John Brennan

Courtesy of the New York Times:

The C.I.A. told senior lawmakers in classified briefings last summer that it had information indicating that Russia was working to help elect Donald J. Trump president, a finding that did not emerge publicly until after Mr. Trump’s victory months later, former government officials say. 

The briefings indicate that intelligence officials had evidence of Russia’s intentions to help Mr. Trump much earlier in the presidential campaign than previously thought. The briefings also reveal a critical split last summer between the C.I.A. and counterparts at the F.B.I., where a number of senior officials continued to believe through last fall that Russia’s cyberattacks were aimed primarily at disrupting America’s political system, and not at getting Mr. Trump elected, according to interviews. 

The former officials said that in late August — 10 weeks before the election — John O. Brennan, then the C.I.A. director, was so concerned about increasing evidence of Russia’s election meddling that he began a series of urgent, individual briefings for eight top members of Congress, some of them on secure phone lines while they were on their summer break.

One of those briefings was with then Senator Harry Reid, during which Brennan said that the CIA had limited legal ability to investigate possible connections to Trump.

That was a job for the FBI.

So Reid wrote a letter to James Comey, back in August, in which he said that he had “recently become concerned” that Russia’s interference was “more extensive than widely known.”

Unbeknownst to Reid at the time the FBI was already well into their own investigation of the Russian hacking, only THEY were convinced that it was really only directed at hurting Hillary, not at helping Trump.

Then things changed: 

But as the election approached and new batches of hacked Democratic emails poured out, some F.B.I. officials began to change their view about Russia’s intentions and eventually came to believe, as the C.I.A. had months earlier, that Moscow was trying to help get Mr. Trump elected, officials said.

Still the FBI said nothing about the ties between Trump and the Russian, However on October 28th, FBI Director Comey DID issue that letter about those emails on Anthony Weiner's laptop.

Which angered Harry Reid, and convinced him to send this letter to Comey directly:

Holy sh*t.
Harry Reid letter to Comey: you have explosive information about ties between Trump and the Russian govt pic.twitter.com/xJX45hzkpM

— Mark Elliott (@markmobility) October 30, 2016

Still it took until December, AFTER the election, for it to become publicly known that the Russians did what they did to help get Donald Trump elected.

So why didn't the FBI put all of the pieces together as quickly as the CIA?

And why DID James Comey come out publicly to suggest that Clinton was under investigation, but not a word about the investigation into Trump's ties with the Russians?

All good questions. But it MIGHT have something to do with this post from November of 2016 in which the FBI was described as "Trumpland":  

This atmosphere raises major questions about how Comey and the bureau he is slated to run for the next seven years can work with Clinton should she win the White House. 

The currently serving FBI agent said Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.” 

 The agent called the bureau “Trumplandia”, with some colleagues openly discussing voting for a GOP nominee who has garnered unprecedented condemnation from the party’s national security wing and who has pledged to jail Clinton if elected. 

As if that were not terrifying enough, it also appears that the FBI is using information gleaned from an anti-Clinton book and Breitbart news as the foundation for an investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

And that my friends is why we have Trump in the White House instead of the People's President.

So I guess the question that needs to be asked is whether the FBI is still "Trumpland" or can we expect them to do their jobs when it comes to the continuing investigation into the Trump team's possible collusion with the Russians?

Currently I don't know the answer.

The House Intelligence Chairman just tipped off Donald Trump and his associates that their communications were incidentally gathered by US intelligence agencies. Update!

Courtesy of CNN: 

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes said Wednesday that President Donald Trump's personal communications may have been picked up by investigators through "incidental collection." 

Nunes said at a news conference he discovered the potential surveillance of Trump himself while reviewing intelligence reports, but said it was not related to Russia. "This is a normal, incidental collection, based on what I could collect," Nunes said. 

"This appears to be all legally collected foreign intelligence under" the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. 

Nunes said he alerted House Speaker Paul Ryan about the collection and is traveling to the White House Wednesday afternoon. 

"I'm actually alarmed by it," Nunes said.

After making this statement to the press Nunes then ran over to the White House to tattle to Donald Trump that he was being surveilled, thereby tipping him, and his associates, off to the fact that they needed to be more careful and destroy any records of past communications that they may want to keep secret.

Reporter: "But, just to clarify, this is not intentional spying on Donald Trump?"
Rep. Nunes: "I have no idea." https://t.co/Okz2bwUl4f pic.twitter.com/tyt6OyigcT

— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 22, 2017

Keep in mind that his is "incidental collection" and does NOT mean that Trump himself, or members of his team, were being directly investigated.

As you might expect Twitter exploded after Nunes made an appearance outside the White House to inform the press of what he did.

Okay----real talk thread----this Nunes story is insane. In my 7 years covering the Hill, never saw something like this from Intel Chair

— Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) March 22, 2017

Nunes must step down. He may have destroyed an entire investigation. Chairman of Oversight has no business alerting possible targets. Shock!

— FemaleOutrage (@FemaleOutrage) March 22, 2017

Nunes, who is supposed to be investigating Trump, is briefing him on leaked info received from undisclosed source. Did not inform Schiff.

— Impeach Donald Trump (@Impeach_D_Trump) March 22, 2017

This is very simple: @DevinNunes must resign from the House Intel Committee immediately, and surrender himself to the FBI for questioning.

— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) March 22, 2017

This is story is still unfolding and I will update this post as more info becomes available.

Update: Rep. Adam Schiff weighs in.

Adam Schiff -- top Democrat on Intelligence Cmte -- releases blunt statement on what Congressman Nunes did today: pic.twitter.com/khIBihS1Jd

— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) March 22, 2017

This is all fucking unbelievable.

Update 2: Schiff now saying that evidence of collusion between Trump team and Russia "no longer circumstantial."

.@AdamSchiffCA: the case against Trump of collusion with Russia is "no longer circumstantial." #nunes #TrumpRussia #theResistance pic.twitter.com/qpvvKNTSEk

— #TheResistance (@AynRandPaulRyan) March 22, 2017

Holy shit! No wonder the Trump folks are in a blind panic.

Rachel Maddow digs up more evidence to suggest that the Russians are continuing to exert influence over policy in this country.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

“What’s getting to be, I think, particularly unsettling, is that simultaneously, we are … number one, nailing down more direct connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government at the time the Russian government was influencing our election,” Maddow began. “Number two, at the same time, we are also starting to see what may be signs of continuing influence in our country. Not just during the campaign but during the administration. Basically, signs of what could be a continuing operation.”

Maddow once again revisits the fact that the Trump campaign demanded that the language in the GOP platform concerning Russia invasion in Ukraine be softened.

She then pointed out that this was predicted in that infamous Russian dossier.

Rachel goes on to suggest that the Russians did not help Trump win this election for kicks, they wanted a return on their investment. And she further suggests that this recent Wikileaks dump of CIA data, which could severely impact the agency's ability to do its job, is also part of that return on their initial investment.

“The Russian government attacked our election,” Maddow said. “The Russian government was in contact with multiple campaign sources while they were doing it. Russian nemeses in the American government, U.S. State Department, the CIA, are not fairing well since Donald Trump came to power. Is the operation that Russia started during the campaign — is it over? Or are they still running it? Are we still in this now?

Remember Trump has still tweeted NOTHING about this latest Wikileaks dump.

Rachel Maddow is currently doing some of the best investigative journalism available on cable news concerning Trump's connection to the Kremlin and I think that it behooves all of us to pay attention to what she uncovers, because she is tying these threads together every night.

Another news outlet has essentially reached the same conclusion that I have about the Wikileaks dump of hacked CIA materials.

As most of you know I posted about this Wikileaks dump on Tuesday.

During that post I stated that it was unlikely that this leak was a coincidence, that the Russians likely did the hacking, and that Trump's supporters would use it to suggest that the CIA had hacked the DNC computers and then blamed it on the Russians.

I know, crazy right?

However this news outlet, which specializes in foreign policy, does not think it so crazy.

Courtesy of the FP Group: 

In the first place, WikiLeaks has often timed its leaks for maximum political impact. It released 20,000 stolen DNC emails just three days before the Democratic National Convention on July 25, 2016. As expected, WikiLeaks generated headlines about DNC staffers disparaging Sen. Bernie Sanders, buttressing a Trump campaign effort to prevent Clinton from consolidating Sanders supporters. DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned as a result, and the Clinton campaign suffered significant public relations damage. 

In the second place, WikiLeaks, which has often leaked American but never Russian secrets, has been identified by the U.S. intelligence community as a front for Russian intelligence. In January, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a declassified estimate that found “with high confidence that Russian military intelligence … relayed material to WikiLeaks.” This was done with a definite purpose: “Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.”

 .........

It is significant, therefore, that one of the major storylines to emerge from the latest WikiLeaks release is that the CIA supposedly has a program to reuse computer codes from foreign hackers, thus disguising CIA fingerprints on a hacking operation. Never mind that there is no evidence that the codes used to break into the DNC were part of this CIA database. Right-wing outlets are nevertheless trumpeting these revelations with headlines such as this one on Breitbart: “WikiLeaks: CIA Uses ‘Stolen’ Malware to ‘Attribute’ Cyberattacks to Nations Like Russia.” Russian-controlled Internet “bots” are also said to be playing up these claims online. 

The implication is clear. Trump was a victim of a “false flag” operation wherein CIA hackers broke into the DNC and blamed the Russians. This may be nutty, but it’s eminently believable to an audience conditioned to believe that 9/11 was an inside job and that the Sandy Hook massacre was staged — favorite tropes of the radio talk-show host Alex Jones, whose work Trump has praised. Other WikiLeaks revelations — for instance, that the CIA can use Samsung smart TVs as listening devices — lend further credence to Trump’s charge that he was secretly wiretapped. 

Quite apart from its specifics, the WikiLeaks release changes the subject after a bad few days for Trump highlighted by Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from any Kremlingate probe after he was revealed to have lied under oath when he denied meeting any Russian representatives. Last week it was Trump on the defensive. Now it’s his nemeses in the U.S. intelligence community who are answering embarrassing questions about how this leak could have occurred and the contents of the leaked information.

Yep, those are the same conclusions that I reached as well.

Trump's supporters and his fellow Republicans are looking for some reason to reject the fact that the Russians hacked various computers to undermine Hillary Clinton's campaign and help Trump win the election, and this is all they need to make that to happen.  

Now Julian Assange is going to deny that the Russians provided him with the CIA data, just like he denied that they were behind the DNC hack and the John Podesta phishing expedition. But of course we now know that he was lying then, and so it is safe to assume that he will be lying this time.

And what is undeniably true is that he is now handing out the CIA's hacking tools to various technology companies, knowing full well they will find their way into the hands of America's enemies.

The idea presented by Assange is that this will help these technology companies patch their software therefore making it harder to hack, but it of course will also mean that the foreign agencies will now know how to block intelligence agencies from spying on them and that will likely make any further investigation into Trump's ties with Russia just that much harder to prove.

All of this will also undermine the credibility of the American intelligence agencies which will make what they DO reveal that much easier to dismiss by the public at large. 

What is that called? "Collateral damage?"

Or perhaps that was really the target all along.

P.S. It appears that Josh Marshall over at TPM has some more interesting crumbs that involve possible Trump representative Nigel Farage meeting with Assange before his big press conference today: 

During Sean Spicer's daily press briefing, an AP reporter asks Spicer about the Farage/Assange meeting and whether he carrying a message from President Trump. Spicer basically ducked the question. But when asked specifically whether Farage was "delivering a message" from Trump, Spicer replied: "I have no idea."

Hmm, curiouser and curiouser.

Donald Trump's silence on the CIA hack is deafening.

Shhh, nothing to see here.

Courtesy of 9 News: 

In the past few days, Donald Trump has tweeted about Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vladimir Putin, ExxonMobil and wire-tapping. 

But in the wake of the biggest national security leak since Edward Snowden, both Trump and his White House have been decidedly silent. 

Trump has not spoken or tweeted about the 8761 documents and files published by Wikileaks overnight that presents a scathing expose of the intelligence-gathering methods of the CIA. 

It's unusual for an administration to keep mum about such a revelation. The White House could have accused Wikileaks of fabricating the evidence, or have expressed their concern about the privacy breaches, or have offered their resolute support to the CIA. 

But by doing nothing, Trump is leaving the CIA out in the cold. 

So this is from an Australian news outlet but when I read it I thought that they asked a very good question;  "Why hasn't the Twitter tyrant tweeted about this?"

Which by the way goes right along with "Why doesn't Donald Trump EVER criticize Russia for anything that they do either?"

Staying away from any conspiracy theories one might assume that Trump is waiting for more details before he responds, but then of course you would then remember that he accused President Obama of tapping his phones based on a Breitbart article with absolutely NO real facts to back it up.

Okay so then if you got just a little more conspiratorial you might think that since he is having this ongoing battle with the intelligence agencies maybe he is secretly glad that the Russians hacked the CIA and released the data on Wikileaks, but realizes that gloating about it publicly is not exactly a good idea.

However if you go right ahead and take the plunge into the "conspiracy" pool you might assume that since we have been told that Trump is helping the Russians target American journalists, that he is also working with them to go after American intelligence agencies that he also considers his opponents.

Which of course would mean that none of this surprised him in the least, and in fact he was aware that it would come out to deflect from news that these same intelligence agencies are set to testify in front of Congress on March 20th.

Diving a little deeper we might then come to the realization that Trump is in fact an active Russian spy currently working with, if not for, Vladimir Putin and helping him scoop up all kinds of damaging intelligence while also undermining our democracy from within.

But of course those are just conspiracy theories, right?

Right?

Amid an ongoing back and forth between Donald Trump and American intelligence agencies, Wikileaks releases documents from CIA hack.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

WikiLeaks on Tuesday released thousands of documents that it said described sophisticated software tools used by the Central Intelligence Agency to break into smartphones, computers and even Internet-connected televisions. 

If the documents are authentic, as appeared likely at first review, the release would be the latest coup for the anti-secrecy organization and a serious blow to the C.I.A., which maintains its own hacking capabilities to be used for espionage. 

The initial release, which WikiLeaks said was only the first part of the document collection, included 7,818 web pages with 943 attachments, the group said. The entire archive of C.I.A. material consists of several hundred million lines of computer code, it said.

Now Wikileaks offers up some obfuscation to camouflage the source of this hack but if you are not already convinced that it is the Russians than you have simply not been paying attention.

Currently Trump is reeling from one anonymous tip after another showing that his White House is in turmoil, his ties to Russia are multiplying exponentially, and his mental health is in question.

Much of this Trump is blaming on intelligence sources, and as of yesterday those same intelligence sources threw cold water on his claim that President Obama tapped his phones.

In a word he is pissed!

So then we come to today and lo and behold Wikileaks, the same group who released information hacked from the DNC and other sources to help Trump win the election, have suddenly released a treasure trove of information concerning HOW the CIA conducts espionage and gains access to electronic devices.

What a coinky dink.

So how does this help Trump you might ask?

Well besides offering an irresistible distraction to the media, there are tidbits like this:

Another program described in the documents, named Umbrage, is a voluminous library of cyberattack techniques that the C.I.A. has collected from malware produced by other countries, including Russia. According to the WikiLeaks release, the large number of techniques allows the C.I.A. to mask the origin of some of its cyberattacks and confuse forensic investigators.

Now just let that digest a little. And then imagine what Trump supporters will make of that revelation.

Well here let me just tell you, because they are already doing it.

What this Umbrage program suggests is that the CIA could hack into a computer and then leave behind false data that will confuse investigators into believing that the hack came from another source.

So if you are a Trump supporter who does not want to accept the fact that the Russians hacked computers in America in order to help hand the election to your candidate, well now you don't have to accept that fact.  

You can simply convince yourself that the CIA hacked the DNC, State Department, Clinton Campaign, White House, and apparently themselves, and then blamed the whole thing on poor, blameless Vladimir Putin.

And if you don't think they are dumb enough to do this, well like I said you have not been paying attention.

Speaking of Putin and Russia, I would like to bring something else to your attention.

According to the New York Times this material was apparently hacked between 2013 and 2016.

This means that whoever had it in their possession (The Russians) has had all of those CIA tricks in their tool kit for as long as three years.

That means that they could have been using that stolen data to gain access to any number of computers, televisions, and smart phones in the possession of diplomats, reporters, politicians, you name it.

If you then remember that the Russians are famous for using blackmail to force powerful people to bend to their will, well then at this point I think some things might be starting to fall into place.

Now do you remember what else happened in 2013?

That is the year that Edward Snowden flew to Russia after stealing the global surveillance blueprints from the NSA.

As @wikileaks are revealing how the CIA hack, let's ask why they never leak anything about SORM. pic.twitter.com/QHanK2dth3

— Darth Putin (@DarthPutinKGB) March 7, 2017

And once again the picture starts to become a little bit clearer.

CIA agent who worked under both Bush and Obama administrations, cannot bring himself to work under Trump's.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The CIA taught me new skills and exposed me to new cultures and countries. More important, it instilled in me a sense of mission and purpose. As an analyst, I became an expert in terrorist groups and traveled the world to help deter and disrupt attacks. The administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama took the CIA’s input seriously. There was no greater reward than having my analysis presented to the president and seeing it shape events. Intelligence informing policy — this is how the system is supposed to work. I saw that up close for the past three years at the White House, where I worked on loan from the CIA until last month. 

As a candidate, Donald Trump’s rhetoric suggested that he intended to take a different approach. I watched in disbelief when, during the third presidential debate, Trump casually cast doubt on the high-confidence conclusion of our 17 intelligence agencies, released that month, that Russia was behind the hacking and release of election-related emails. On the campaign trail and even as president-elect, Trump routinely referred to the flawed 2002 assessment of Iraq’s weapons programs as proof that the CIA couldn’t be trusted — even though the intelligence community had long ago held itself to account for those mistakes and Trump himself supported the invasion of Iraq. 

Trump’s actions in office have been even more disturbing. His visit to CIA headquarters on his first full day in office, an overture designed to repair relations, was undone by his ego and bluster. Standing in front of a memorial to the CIA’s fallen officers, he seemed to be addressing the cameras and reporters in the room, rather than the agency personnel in front of them, bragging about his inauguration crowd the previous day. Whether delusional or deceitful, these were not the remarks many of my former colleagues and I wanted to hear from our new commander in chief. I couldn’t help but reflect on the stark contrast between the bombast of the new president and the quiet dedication of a mentor — a courageous, dedicated professional — who is memorialized on that wall. I know others at CIA felt similarly. 

The final straw came late last month, when the White House issued a directive reorganizing the National Security Council, on whose staff I served from 2014 until earlier this year. Missing from the NSC’s principals committee were the CIA director and the director of national intelligence. Added to the roster: the president’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who cut his teeth as a media champion of white nationalism.

I have to imagine that there are MANY who feel the same way that Edward Price feels about Trump within the intelligence community. After all he essentially labeled them Nazis at one time.

However I have to hope that the majority of them stay on the job because, despite Trump's indifference to their work, we certainly need them. 

We are living in dangerous times, made even more so by our Kremlin compromised president.

In fact perhaps the greatest need is for them to keep an eye on him, because the danger he presents appears more immediate and potentially harmful than a few ragtag terrorists. 

Russian government arresting FSB operatives with possible ties to hacking of American presidential election. Update!

Courtesy of Radio Free Europe: 

Russian media have reported that another Federal Security Service (FSB) officer has been arrested on treason charges in a case that may be linked to cyberattacks targeting the U.S. presidential election campaign. 

The reports by Rambler News Service on January 26 come a day after the Kommersant newspaper reported that a senior officer of the cyberintelligence department of the FSB -- Russia’s lead security agency -- had been arrested. 

Kommersant said Sergei Mikhailov, deputy chief of the FSB's Center for Information Security, had been arrested in December on treason charges. 

Another Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, on January 26 corroborated the Kommersant report. 

Novaya Gazeta quoted unidentified sources as saying Mikhailov was arrested during a meeting with other FSB officers in Moscow, and was taken from the room with a sack over his head. 

Also arrested in December was a manager of the renowned Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab.

I read about the Mikhailov two days ago on the New York Times who suggested that "the detention of an official who would have been in a position to engage in the election hacking in America could indicate a good-will gesture to the United States, which has penalized Russia for the electoral meddling."

Yeah somehow I doubt that, but RFE suggests another, more sinister, possibility:  

The newspaper quoted unidentified sources as saying that Mikhailov is suspected of providing U.S. intelligence with information about King Servers, a hosting service owned by Russian citizen Vladimir Fomenko. 

King Servers was used as a platform by hackers who targeted state-election computer systems in Arizona and Illinois last year. Fomenko, who rents space on his servers, has denied any links to the perpetrators of the cyberattacks. 

Currently American intelligence agencies are attempting to investigate the Russian hacking and its effect on our last election.

So if it is true that Mikhailov was helping those intelligence agencies, and he has now been arrested by the Russian government and charged with treason, what is the likelihood that he will still be accessible to the FBI and CIA?

If anything it appears that the Russian government is doing a clean sweep to remove the possibility that the American intelligence agencies will be able to find any definitive links between the hacks and the Russian officials.

Update: And the plot thickens.

Courtesy of the Telegraph:  

An ex-KGB chief suspected of helping the former MI6 spy Christopher Steele to compile his dossier on Donald Trump may have been murdered by the Kremlin and his death covered up. it has been claimed. 

Oleg Erovinkin, a former general in the KGB and its successor the FSB, was found dead in the back of his car in Moscow on Boxing Day in mysterious circumstances. 

Erovinkin was a key aide to Igor Sechin, a former deputy prime minister and now head of Rosneft, the state-owned oil company, who is repeatedly named in the dossier.

In Russia there are no coincidences. This is what happens when Vladimir Putin wants you silenced.

In my humble opinion this is confirmation that the Russian did indeed hack our election to help get Donald Trump elected, and that they are now desperately working to cover their tracks before our intelligence agencies can put all of the puzzle pieces together. 

Despite illegality Donald Trump suggests that he might bring back torture.

President Trump tells ABC News he believes waterboarding works – but will "rely" on his Cabinet to determine if the policy is resurrected. pic.twitter.com/0nCFAfhlK1

— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) January 25, 2017

Courtesy of Raw Story:

In an exclusive interview with ABC, President Trump said he believes that torture works and would employ it if he got a sign-off from his close advisors. 

Citing terrorists “cutting off the head of victims,” Trump said he feels he must respond with harsh measures. 

“I want to keep our country safe,” Trump explained. “When they’re chopping off the heads of our people, when they’re chopping off the heads of people because they happen to be a Christian in the Middle East.. would I feel strongly about waterboarding? As far as I’m concerned, we have to fight fire with fire.”

Of course Trump is either lying about those intelligence folks telling him that torture works, or he is talking to some agents who are telling him what he wants to hear in order to garner his favor.

We have already tried this in the past and we found that not only did it not work but that it seriously damaged our reputation around the world and negatively impacted the very psyche of our country.

There is some hope in Trump's statement that he will take direction from General Mattis who said to Trump: 

"I've never found it to be useful,"' Mr. Trump said, describing the general's view of torturing terrorism suspects. He added that Mr. Mattis found more value in building trust and rewarding cooperation with terror suspects: '"Give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I'll do better."'

That seems pretty definitive.

However new CIA Chief Mike Pompeo seems a little wishy washy on the topic:

In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Pompeo had pledged that as CIA director he would not allow the use of torture in interrogations. But in subsequent written questions he appeared to backtrack on that commitment and others, alarming Senate civil rights advocates.

Pompeo also suggested that the Army Field Manua, which currently forbids torture, may be due for a rewrite.

Well on thing for sure if Trump wants to bring back torture he will have to go through John McCain to do it.

.@POTUS can sign whatever executive orders he likes, but the law is the law - we're not bringing back torture https://t.co/m9YjDtNYBQ

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) January 25, 2017

I imagine that McCain will not be alone in his opposition either.

I swear that everyday this nightmare just keeps getting more and more frightening. 

Intercepted communications with Russia part of investigation into Trump team.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former senior American officials said. 

The continuing counterintelligence investigation means that Mr. Trump will take the oath of office on Friday with his associates under investigation and after the intelligence agencies concluded that the Russian government had worked to help elect him. As president, Mr. Trump will oversee those agencies and have the authority to redirect or stop at least some of these efforts. 

It is not clear whether the intercepted communications had anything to do with Mr. Trump’s campaign, or Mr. Trump himself. It is also unclear whether the inquiry has anything to do with an investigation into the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s computers and other attempts to disrupt the elections in November. The American government has concluded that the Russian government was responsible for a broad computer hacking campaign, including the operation against the D.N.C. 

The counterintelligence investigation centers at least in part on the business dealings that some of the president-elect’s past and present advisers have had with Russia.

Mr. Manafort is among at least three Trump campaign advisers whose possible links to Russia are under scrutiny. Two others are Carter Page, a businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the campaign, and Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative.

If Trump does ANYTHING to stop these investigations we will know that he fears what they will find, and THAT should be enough to start a real drive to impeach him. 

I'm not saying that that action alone is an impeachable offense, I am just suggesting that it would fire up lawmakers to find the information that we all already know exists to remove him from office.

This idiot could already be selling, or simply giving, our secrets to his Russian handlers, and the longer he is in office the more at risk he puts our country and our people.