Russian lawyer involved in Trump Tower meeting admits that she was an informant for the Kremlin.

Courtesy of the NYT: 

The Russian lawyer who met with Trump campaign officials in Trump Tower in June 2016 on the premise that she would deliver damaging information about Hillary Clinton has long insisted she is a private attorney, not a Kremlin operative trying to meddle in the presidential election. 

But newly released emails show that in at least one instance two years earlier, the lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, worked hand in glove with Russia’s chief legal office to thwart a Justice Department civil fraud case against a well-connected Russian firm. 

Ms. Veselnitskaya also appears to have recanted her earlier denials of Russian government ties. During an interview to be broadcast Friday by NBC News, she acknowledged that she was not merely a private lawyer but a source of information for a top Kremlin official, Yuri Y. Chaika, the prosecutor general. 

“I am a lawyer, and I am an informant,” she said. “Since 2013, I have been actively communicating with the office of the Russian prosecutor general.”

Not exactly surprising news I know, but still nice to hear her finally admit it.

Veselnitskava also brought a certain memo with her to that meeting.

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

The Russian lawyer who met with President Donald Trump's son, son-in-law, and campaign chairman last June at Trump Tower brought a memo with her to that meeting that contained many of the same talking points as one written by the Russian prosecutor's office two months earlier. 

The memo Natalia Veselnitskaya provided to the Trump campaign last year focused on banker-turned-human rights activist Bill Browder, whose reputation has become inextricably linked to the global human-rights campaign he launched in 2009 after tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in a Russian prison.

..........

The document's language closely mirrored the contents of a memo provided to Republican US Rep. Dana Rohrabacher by the office of Russia's chief federal prosecutor Yuri Chaika while Rohrabacher was in Moscow last April. 

The document is marked "confidential" but made the rounds on Capitol Hill upon the lawmaker's return to the US and was obtained by Business Insider.

Go ahead, act surprised that Rohrabacher is the one who received this memo.

So now it's confirmed that Junior, Kushner, and Manafort all met with a Russian spy during the campaign. (Well at least one that we know of.)

If you are looking for proof of collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign you really do not have to go much further than this Trump Tower meeting.

But of course it is by no means the only evidence of collusion.

Russia warned the US where they could not bomb in Syria, and the US did not bomb in those locations.

Courtesy of Sky News:  

Russia has revealed it warned the US about "red lines" it should not cross before it launched airstrikes on Syria. 

Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov is reported to have said that officials in Washington were contacted before last weekend's strikes by the US, UK and France. 

Mr Lavrov said: "There were military leadership contacts, between generals, between our representatives and the coalition leadership. 

"They were informed about where our red lines are, including red lines on the ground, geographically. And the results show that they did not cross these red lines."

Keep in mind that Trump also warned Russia and Syria a few days before the actual airstrike, so that they could move the chemicals and anything of value out of the targeted areas.

Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 11, 2018

But even with Trump obeying those orders from his Kremlin overlords, Russia still feels that after this strike they are now free to support Syria, and Bashir al-Assad, with impunity:

Mr Lavrov says that, following the airstrikes, it is morally free to deliver S-300 missiles to the Syrian regime. 

He said: "Now, we have no moral obligations. We had the moral obligations, we had promised not to do it some 10 years ago, I think, upon the request of our known partners. 

"We took into consideration their claim that this could destabilise the situation. Even though it's purely defensive. Now we don't have this moral obligation any longer."

So to be clear, the Kremlin told Trump where he could and could not drop his bombs, he did not drop his bombs in the forbidden areas, and yet the Russians still feel empowered by the airstrike to provide Assad with more military weaponry.

Does anybody else feel that America got played here?

Donald Trump invited Vladimir Putin, who is still orchestrating hacks of our power grid, to the White House.

So wen I visit I will take you room. You can have the couch, understood?

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

President Trump has reportedly invited Vladimir Putin to the White House for a visit, according to a statement from the Kremlin. Putin aide Yury Ushakov told reporters Monday that during a March 20 phone conversation, Trump “suggested that the first meeting could be held in Washington” between the two leaders. “If everything goes well, I hope that the American side would not refuse its proposal to discuss the possibility of organizing the summit talks.” According to an Agence France-Presse reporter, a senior U.S. official did “not deny” that Trump “floated the idea of a White House summit,” noting that “no planning has begun as yet.” According to a TASS state media report, Ushakov told journalists that since the U.S. and Russia has expelled their respective diplomats from their countries, “there have been no specific discussions of a possible meeting.” He also said Russia “would like to believe that preparations for such a meeting will begin.” The news follows reports Trump congratulated Putin on his re-election over the phone on that call after his staff told him explicitly not to—as well as a suspected poisoning of a former Russian spy on British soil and amid special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged Trump campaign collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential election. 

I have said this before, but let me say it again, Donald Trump does not work for the American people.

Donald Trump works for the Kremlin.

And and by way of proof do you remember when Trump kicked out those 60 Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning of that former spy in Britain?

Yeah well that was only for show, because he is allowing all of them to be replaced by new Russian diplomats who will also be spying for the Kremlin.

Like I said, Trump does not work for us. ANY of us.

Hey remember Guccifer 2.0, the guy who distributed those stolen DNC emails to Wikileaks? Turns out that dude was an agent for Russian intelligence.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

Guccifer 2.0, the “lone hacker” who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russia’s military intelligence directorate (GRU), The Daily Beast has learned. It’s an attribution that resulted from a fleeting but critical slip-up in GRU tradecraft. 

That forensic determination has substantial implications for the criminal probe into potential collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia. The Daily Beast has learned that the special counsel in that investigation, Robert Mueller, has taken over the probe into Guccifer and brought the FBI agents who worked to track the persona onto his team. 

While it’s unclear what Mueller plans to do with Guccifer, his last round of indictments charged 13 Russians tied to the Internet Research Agency troll farm with a conspiracy “for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016.” It was Mueller’s first move establishing Russian interference in the election within a criminal context, but it stopped short of directly implicating the Putin regime. 

Mueller’s office declined to comment for this story. But the attribution of Guccifer 2.0 as an officer of Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency would cross the Kremlin threshold—and move the investigation closer to Trump himself.

If you did not already suspect that this was the case you need to give yourself at least five demerits.

I think a lot of us were fairly certain about this way back before the election, but there was not any proof back then.

Now there is.

And now that we know this we also know that Roger Stone was promoting the stolen information that was being provided by the Kremlin to interfere in our election, and that Donald Trump was helping to disseminate that information.

We also know this:

Russian hacker Guccifer sent DNC data ➔ FL GOP operative, whose analysis he sent to Roger Stone#Trumprussia #maddow https://t.co/mBaUh2nNIQ pic.twitter.com/4iquR7uOtu

— Polly Sigh (@dcpoll) May 25, 2017

"Nevins also received from Guccifer internal details re congressional districts in KY, PA, TX, VA, & WV. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC closely tied to Paul Ryan, used the stolen info in attack ads against Dems."#Maddow https://t.co/7c1zfXN7Td

— Polly Sigh (@dcpoll) December 28, 2017

Mueller could actually make the case that the entire GOP was simply working as a propaganda arm of the Russian government in an attempt to destroy Hillary Clinton's campaign and help elect Putin's Manchurian candidate.

That's at least one way to look at it.

Actually, in my mind that is the ONLY way to look at it. 

So Donald Trump really did call to congratulate Vladimir Putin for stealing another election in Russia. Update!

OMGD! I'm so proud of you! You really put the "dick" in dictator. I wish I was there to kiss your ass in person.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

President Trump on Tuesday congratulated President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on his recent re-election victory, but failed to ask him about either the fairness of the Russian vote, which Mr. Putin won with a lopsided margin, or about allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. 

Mr. Trump also did not raise Russia’s apparent role in a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter on British soil — an act that prompted the United States to join with Britain, France and Germany in denouncing the Russian government for violating international law. 

Instead, in his phone call with Mr. Putin, the president focused on what the White House called “shared interests,” including North Korea, Ukraine and the escalating arms race between the United States and Russia. He said he and Mr. Putin were likely to meet soon to discuss those issues. 

“We had a very good call,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, where he was meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. “We will probably be meeting in the not-too distant future to discuss the arms race, which is getting out of control.”

And why is the arms race getting out of control?

Because these two demagogues are in a dick measuring contest.

So just let this steep in your mind for a moment. This president called the man who interfered in our election, has hacked into our power grid, and is currently having people murdered on British soil, to congratulate him for oppressing his people and stealing their right to choose their own leader.

You know who never would have done that?

Hillary Clinton, that's who!

Hell even John McCain would have had the cojones to do the right thing.

An American president does not lead the Free World by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections. And by doing so with Vladimir Putin, President Trump insulted every Russian citizen who was denied the right to vote in a free and fair election. https://t.co/lcQTBi7CA1

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) March 20, 2018

Yeah, no shit!

Take a look at this completely surreal moment when Sarah Huckabee Sanders explains why Trump did not say anything to Putin about stealing this election.

Sarah Sanders is asked whether the Russian election was free and fair: "We don't get to dictate how other countries operate." pic.twitter.com/kqEWvNFeOa

— Axios (@axios) March 20, 2018

Wait, what?

AMERICA does not get to dictate how elections in other countries operate?

 Well I bet Afghanistan and Iraq are glad to hear about that.

And she calls herself a Republican. 

I am so far down this rabbit now hole that I am certain I will never see the sun again.

Update: Courtesy of WaPo:  

President Trump did not follow specific warnings from his national security advisers when he congratulated Russian President Vladi­mir Putin Tuesday on his reelection, including a section in his briefing materials in all-capital letters stating “DO NOT CONGRATULATE,” according to officials familiar with the call. 

Trump also chose not to heed talking points from aides instructing him to condemn Putin about the recent poisoning of a former Russian spy in the United Kingdom with a powerful nerve agent, a case that both the British and U.S. governments have blamed on Moscow. 

The president’s conversation with Putin, which Trump called a “very good call,” prompted fresh criticism of his muted tone toward one of the United States’s biggest geopolitical rivals amid the ongoing special counsel investigation into Russia’s election interference and the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russian officials.

I don't know folks. I'm beginning to think there might be something hinky going on between Trump and Putin. 

Or am I just being paranoid?

Joe Biden comes right out and says that he thinks Donald Trump is being controlled by Vladimir Putin.

(The pertinent portions starts at the 5:25 mark.)

Courtesy of Addicting Info: 

As everyone else avoids directly addressing what is going on with Donald Trump and Russia, former Vice President Joe Biden just doesn’t seem to feel the need to mince words. 

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell asked Biden on Thursday why Trump was “so reluctant to take on Vladimir Putin” — and she got an answer she probably was not expecting. 

“Look, you know, I want to give every American, including the president, the benefit of the doubt, but I can’t fathom any reason other than he is concerned of what Putin might say or do, or what information he may or may not have,” Biden said, adding that the Trump administration was not making a sufficient effort to prevent Russia from again interfering in our elections. 

“But look, unrelated to the whole issue of whether or not there’s collusion, separate and apart from all that, it’s necessary for us to stem this problem,” he told Mitchell. “It’s necessary for us to corral the Russians.”

Leave it to Joe "This is a big fucking deal" Biden to come right out and say what so many of us know to be true.

Yes, Donald Trump is an asset for the Kremlin.

And EVERY American, without regard to party affiliation or ideology, should be demanding that he be removed from office.

I would also add that any American NOT calling for that is essentially a traitor to their country, and that includes every Republican in Washington working to undermine the FBI or to obstruct the Mueller investigation. 

Back in 2013 Carter Page was bragging that he was an adviser to the Kremlin.

Oh you found that letter did you? Damn!

Courtesy of Time: 

Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page bragged that he was an adviser to the Kremlin in a letter obtained by TIME that raises new questions about the extent of Page’s contacts with the Russian government over the years. 

The letter, dated Aug. 25, 2013, was sent by Page to an academic press during a dispute over edits to an unpublished manuscript he had submitted for publication, according to an editor who worked with Page. 

“Over the past half year, I have had the privilege to serve as an informal advisor to the staff of the Kremlin in preparation for their Presidency of the G-20 Summit next month, where energy issues will be a prominent point on the agenda,” the letter reads.

But wait, I thought the whole point of the Devin Nunes "secret memo" was that there was no legitimate reason to issue a FISA warrant against Page, and that the ONLY reason the FBI obtained one was due to that Christopher Steele dossier?

Do you hear that sound?

That is the sound of little right wing heads exploding in frustration.

Joe Biden says that the Obama Administration wanted a bipartisan response to the Russian interference in the last election but were blocked by Mitch McConnell.

Courtesy of Politico:  

Joe Biden said Tuesday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stopped the Obama administration from speaking out about Russian interference in the 2016 campaign by refusing to sign on to a bipartisan statement of condemnation. 

That moment, the former Democratic vice president said, made him think “the die had been cast ... this was all about the political play.” 

He expressed regret, in hindsight, given the intelligence he says came in after Election Day. "Had we known what we knew three weeks later, we may have done something more,” Biden, a potential 2020 presidential candidate, said. 

Biden was speaking at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations, a block from his old office at the Old Executive Office Building, to discuss his new article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, “How to Stand Up to the Kremlin.”

As you might expect McConnell disagrees strongly with this characterization of eventts.

However I reported this exact same event back in December of 2016: 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is rejecting bipartisan calls for a special committee to investigate Russian interference in the U.S. election, which American intelligence says was aimed in part at helping Republican Donald Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. 

What's more a former Obama White House staff echoed Biden's version of events:  

“Our administration's interest in making sure the response was bipartisan wasn't for the sake of being bipartisan. It was necessary because we needed the buy-in from state and local election administrators (many of whom were Republican partisans and/or skeptical of federal government),” the official argued in an email. “Unfortunately, as is well documented, Senator McConnell was unwilling to help — only making matters worse.”

Let's face it Mitch McConnell does not care about protecting American election integrity just so long as the meddling benefits his party's candidate.

As it turns out the Trump inauguration was attended by a number of Kremlin connected Russians. Including that lawyer who promised dirt on Hillary during the Trump Tower meeting.

Here's Rinat Akhmetshin and Natalia Veselnitskaya at party honoring Trump's inauguration hosted by Dana Rohrabacher. https://t.co/qNiEuBz5xc pic.twitter.com/FeobqMEboO

— Rosalind Helderman (@PostRoz) January 21, 2018

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The Washington Post identified at least half a dozen politically connected Russians who were in Washington on Inauguration Day — including some whose presence has not been previously reported. Among them was Viktor Vekselberg, a tycoon who is closely aligned with Putin’s government. 

Another was Natalia Veselnitskaya , the Russian lawyer whose June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr. has become a focus of the Russia investigation. She attended a black-tie inaugural party hosted by the campaign committee of Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), according to an associate who accompanied her. 

Other Russian inaugural guests included Boris Titov, a politician and business advocate who is running for president of Russia with the Kremlin’s blessing. 

Like other VIPs in town that weekend, many flocked to the lobby of the Trump International Hotel, where some encountered fellow Russian associates with surprise.

In case you are wondering if this is actually unusual, the answer is yes, yes it is:  

Michael McFaul, who served as ambassador to Russia under Obama, said he did not recall prominent Russian visitors at Obama’s 2009 events. “It’s strange,” McFaul, the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford, said of the number of influential Russians in attendance last year.

Well it seems only fair that they get to party with the president that their money, funneled through the NRA, helped to elect.

The inauguration was also celebrated in Russia, and the Russian embassy here in America tweeted this:

Happy #InaugurationDay2017!#Diplophoto Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC#Фотомир Мемориал Линкольна, Вашингтон pic.twitter.com/KiD9DFZmYU

— Russia in USA 🇷🇺 (@RusEmbUSA) January 20, 2017

But don't forget this whole Russia investigation is a Democratic hoax meant to undermine the Donald Trump presidency.

Right?

Pro-Kremlin Twittter trolls are coming after Robert Mueller with a vengeance.

Courtesy of Wired:

THE DENSE NETWORK of pro-Kremlin Twitter accounts tracked by the group Alliance for Securing Democracy has spent the last year spreading chaos and discord about topics as diverse as NFL players refusing to stand during the national anthem and Al Franken's alleged sexual misconduct. It was only a matter of time, then, before the troll army set its sights on special counsel Robert Mueller. 

On the website Hamilton68, the Alliance tracks some 600 Twitter accounts it says are associated with a Russia-linked influence network. According to newly released figures, in the month of December, by far the most popular articles shared by the trolls aimed to undermine Mueller and the Department of Justice's investigation into Russian interference. 

In fact, 16 percent of the articles shared by those accounts between December 9 and December 31 were related in some way to the so-called deep state, the bulk of which aimed to discredit Mueller. That's a lot of tweets, considering the site analyzes some 20,000 tweets a day. It's a volume of conversation that, in late November, was reserved for the right's favorite punching bag, Hillary Clinton. The Hamilton68 team keeps its list of suspected Kremlin trolls secret, but it consists of a balance between openly pro-Russia accounts, like Sputnik and RT, as well as bot accounts run by troll factories, and other accounts that consistently amplify pro-Russia themes.

Of course the interesting thing about this is that it coincides with attacks on the Mueller instigation that are coming from Trump supporters and the Washington Republicans.

Odd how the Americans in the GOP are working in concert with the Russian trolls to impede a legal investigation in this country don't you think?

It almost seems that Vladimir Putin is pulling everybody's strings these days.

Perhaps that helps to explain this bullshit.

Senators @ChuckGrassley and @LindseyGrahamSC have referred Christopher Steele to @TheJusticeDept for investigation after information reviewed by committee investigators revealed significant inconsistencies in statements provided to authorities pic.twitter.com/MKhJlscdKP

— Senate Judiciary (@senjudiciary) January 5, 2018

Jailed Russian cyber criminal claims that he was the one who hacked the DNC on orders from the Kremlin, and that he can prove it.

Courtesy of McClatchy:

A jailed Russian who says he hacked into the Democratic National Committee computers on the Kremlin’s orders to steal emails released during the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign now claims he left behind a data signature to prove his assertion. 

In an interview with Russia’s RAIN television channel made public Wednesday, Konstantin Kozlovsky provided further details about what he said was a hacking operation led by the Russian intelligence agency known by its initials FSB. Among them, Kozlovsky said he worked with the FSB to develop computer viruses that were first tested on large, unsuspecting Russian companies, such as the oil giant Rosneft, later turning them loose on multinational corporations.

In written answers from jail made public Wednesday by RAIN TV, a Moscow-based independent TV station that has repeatedly run afoul of the Kremlin, Kozlovsky said he feared his minders might turn on him and planted a “poison pill” during the DNC hack. He placed a string of numbers that are his Russian passport number and the number of his visa to visit the Caribbean island of St. Martin in a hidden .dat file, which is a generic data file. 

That allegation is difficult to prove, partly because of the limited universe of people who have seen the details of the hack. The DNC initially did not share information with the FBI, instead hiring a tech firm called CrowdStrike, run by a former FBI cyber leader. That company has said it discovered the Russian hand in the hacking, but had no immediate comment on the claim by Kozlovsky that he planted an identifier. 

The newest allegations are potentially significant. If the FSB did in fact direct Kozlovsky, then it debunks Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertion that his government had nothing to do with hacking that all major U.S. intelligence agencies put at his feet. It also calls into question the view of a hack that was conducted as a closely held, organized FSB campaign directed from central offices. Kozlovsky says he worked largely from home, with limited knowledge of others and that the political hack was just part of larger relationship with the FSB’s top cyber officials on viruses directed at other countries and the private sector. 

“Based on my experience and understanding of professional intelligence operations, the blending of criminal activity with sanctioned intelligence operations is an old page out of the Russian intelligence-services playbook,” said Leo Taddeo, chief information security officer for Cyxtera Technologies and a former head of cyber operations in the FBI’s New York office. “What the defendant (in Russia) is describing would not be inconsistent with past Russian intelligence operations.”

I would guess that certain intelligence agencies here in America could confirm this "data signature," and once that was accomplished this individual might prove to be a valuable asset for investigators.

It has already been well established that the FSB ordered this attack. But finding out how they did it, and who specially oversaw the operation could help to prevent the next one.

Assuming of course that the now Trump led American law enforcement and intelligence services are interested in preventing the next one.

British journalist, who wrote a book called "Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win," explains that the Steele dossier is not "fake news."

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

Luke Harding: Well I mean, saying the dossier is fake news doesn't make it fake news. It's just an assertion. 

My name is Luke Harding. I'm a journalist and a writer. And my new book is called "Collusion" and it's about Donald Trump and Russia. 

According to people I've talked to, who are kind of close to "Steele", believe that the dossier is not flawless. One or two things may be wrong. He acknowledges that there's raw intelligence but broadly he thinks it's right. And he says it's between 70-90% correct. That's his kind of assessment. Which for an intelligence report is pretty good. 

As we learn more about the Trump team and engagements with Russia, we were told to begin with, "nothing to see here." I think the dossier kind of is standing up pretty well. 

The thing about intelligence is it's kind of not black and white. It's sort of grey. Some sources are better than others. But my understanding is that even though Steele hasn't revealed who his sources are we don't need to know who they are. They're sources that have kind of proven themselves in other areas. 

For example, Steele read a whole lot of reports about the war in Ukraine in 2014, using these same sources that were behind the Trump dossier. And they were well received by US intelligence, who were actually sent up to John Kerry in the State Department and they were accurate.

Harding also responded to the allegation that the dossier was tainted since some of the research was funded by the Democrats, but his response was that it really did not matter WHO paid for it, only whether it was true or not.

And he believes that the majority of it is in fact true.

It is enough to worry the Kremlin, a fact that is supported by the fact that their news agencies have gone out of their way to attack Harding and discredit his new book.

Keep in mind that Trump himself has also ramped up attacks on the dossier which makes me think that portions of it are about to be proven accurate.

WOW, @foxandfrlends “Dossier is bogus. Clinton Campaign, DNC funded Dossier. FBI CANNOT (after all of this time) VERIFY CLAIMS IN DOSSIER OF RUSSIA/TRUMP COLLUSION. FBI TAINTED.” And they used this Crooked Hillary pile of garbage as the basis for going after the Trump Campaign!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2017

So now we learn that the Russians have managed to inject code into the fingerprint analysis software used by the FBI.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed: 

The fingerprint-analysis software used by the FBI and more than 18,000 other US law enforcement agencies contains code created by a Russian firm with close ties to the Kremlin, according to documents and two whistleblowers. The allegations raise concerns that Russian hackers could gain backdoor access to sensitive biometric information on millions of Americans, or even compromise wider national security and law enforcement computer systems. 

The Russian code was inserted into the fingerprint-analysis software by a French company, said the two whistleblowers, who are former employees of that company. The firm — then a subsidiary of the massive Paris-based conglomerate Safran — deliberately concealed from the FBI the fact that it had purchased the Russian code in a secret deal, they said. 

In recent years, Russian hackers have gained access to everything from the Democratic National Committee’s email servers to the systems of nuclear power companies to the unclassified computers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to US authorities.

This September, the Department of Homeland Security ordered all federal agencies to stop using products made by the Moscow-based company Kaspersky Lab, including its popular antivirus software, and media outlets reported that Russian hackers had exploited it to steal sensitive information on US intelligence programs. The department later clarified that the order didn’t apply to “Kaspersky code embedded in the products of other companies.” The company’s founder, Eugene V. Kaspersky, has denied any involvement in or knowledge of the hack. 

The Russian company whose code ended up in the FBI’s fingerprint-analysis software has Kremlin connections that should raise similar national security concerns, said the whistleblowers, both French nationals who worked in Russia. The Russian company, Papillon AO, boasts in its own publications about its close cooperation with various Russian ministries as well as the Federal Security Service — the intelligence agency known as the FSB that is a successor of the Soviet-era KGB and has been implicated in other hacks of US targets.

Is there any part of our government, law enforcement, or intelligence agencies that have NOT been infiltrated by the Russians?

Not that it makes that much difference anymore, since all the Russians have to do to learn what American spies have uncovered is to show up at the White House and get a briefing from their number one asset.

The Washington Post reminds us that rather than Russia pulling back on their trolling of America, they have in fact stepped it up.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Russia’s information operations tactics since the election are more numerous than can be listed here. But to get a sense of the breadth of Russian activity, consider the messaging spread by Kremlin-oriented accounts on Twitter, which cybersecurity and disinformation experts have tracked as part of the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy. 

In a single week this month, Moscow used these accounts to discredit the FBI after it was revealed that an agent had been demoted for sending anti-Donald Trump texts; to attack ABC News for an erroneous report involving President Trump and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser; to critique the Obama administration for allegedly “green lighting” the communication between Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak; and to warn about violence by immigrants after a jury acquitted an undocumented Mexican accused of murdering a San Francisco woman. 

This continues a pattern of similar activity over the past year. Russian operatives have frequently targeted Republican politicians who have been critical of Trump, including Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.). In September, they also attacked Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) after his decisive “no” vote against the Republican health-care bill. 

And in mid-November, after Keurig pulled its advertising from Sean Hannity’s Fox News show for comments the host made defending Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, the Russians used their social media accounts to urge a boycott of the company. For two days, #boycottkeurig was the most used hashtag among Kremlin-influenced Twitter accounts. This was a Russian attack on a U.S. company and on our economy.

WaPo also points out that other countries are starting to follow Russia's lead with troll attacks of thier own.

There was a plan in place defend us against all of this, but that got pushed aside once the Trump Administration took power.

Gee I wonder why?

Essentially we are sitting ducks, and since the guy who is supposed to protect us is currently sharing the duck blind with our attackers there is not a lot we can do about it.

Newsweek reports that veteran intelligence experts believe that Trump is indeed a Kremlin asset.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

In a December 18 interview on CNN, retired Air Force Lieutenant General James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, virtually called Trump a Putin puppet. The Russian president, Clapper noted, is a former KGB “case officer,” or spy recruiter, who “knows how to handle an asset, and that's what he's doing with the president. That’s the appearance to me.” (Pressed to clarify his “asset” comment, Clapper said, “I’m saying this figuratively.”)

“Wow,” tweeted former CIA Russian hand John Sipher. “The rest of us try to find other clever ways to say the same thing. Good on him for having the courage to call out Putin’s behavior. Our president shouldn’t have fallen for it.”

Wow. The rest of us try to find other clever ways to say the same thing. Good on him for having the courage to call out Putin's behavior. Our President shouldn't have fallen for it. https://t.co/J6YdGCxCi4

— John Sipher (@john_sipher) December 18, 2017

Veteran spy handlers have judged Trump an easy mark for Putin, who spent years in the KGB sizing up and exploiting a target’s vulnerabilities. They note how easily he falls for praise, as when Putin thanked him and the CIA for helping him thwart a bomb attack plot in St. Petersburg. “POTUS is a [spy] handlers’ dream,” Asha Rangappa, a former special agent in the FBI’s counterintelligence division, said. “He responds, without fail, to praise and flattery and telegraphs his day-to-day thoughts on Twitter. Likewise, said Harry “Skip” Brandon, a former FBI deputy assistant director of national security and counterterrorism. “He often very publicly states he goes by his instincts. If that is accurate, he may be the ultimate unwitting asset of Russia.”

And so on. The steady drip of revelations emerging from multiple Trump investigations—his business deals with Russian investors, his associates’ many undeclared meetings with Kremlin agents, his resistance to accepting evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and his indiscretion with Israeli intelligence—draws a far darker picture.

Some veteran intelligence operators think it’s well past time to shift the narrative on Trump’s disturbing affinity for Putin, which the president insists is innocent and good for world peace. “Everyone continues to dance around a clear assessment of what’s going on,” says Glenn Carle, a former CIA national intelligence officer responsible for evaluating foreign threats. “My assessment,” he tells Newsweek, “is that Trump is actually working directly for the Russians.”

For a while now I have started to think that the investigations are no longer focused on collusion, but instead are fathering information about a conspiracy between Trump and team, and the Russians.

It is not just that the Russians helped the Trump campaign, and the Trump campaign accepted that help.

It is that there was a long term strategy that Putin worked out to insert an actual Russian asset into the White House, and that asset is Donald Trump himself.

And if that is the case than it makes what Sarah Kendzior said the other day, all the more troubling.

The Kremlin perceives Donald Trump's tweets as official statements.

Dmitry Peskov

Courtesy of Reuters:  

Tweets by U.S. President Donald Trump are viewed in Moscow as his official position and read by his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday it was not his place to comment on Trump’s actions, but added: ”In any case, everything which is published from his authorised Twitter account is perceived by Moscow as his official statement. 

“Naturally, it is reported to Putin along with other information about official statements by politicians,” Peskov said, adding that Putin was not a Twitter user himself.

I would bet big money that other foreign governments also perceive these tweets as official statements, because they KNOW that they are the actual words coming from the man currently occupying the Oval Office.

Which means that tweets like this are considered by many to be the official position of the president of the United States.

CNN’S slogan is CNN, THE MOST TRUSTED NAME IN NEWS. Everyone knows this is not true, that this could, in fact, be a fraud on the American Public. There are many outlets that are far more trusted than Fake News CNN. Their slogan should be CNN, THE LEAST TRUSTED NAME IN NEWS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 9, 2017

Just imagine how our adversaries will use that to target American media outlets or dismiss their reporting altogether. 

Russian hacker admitted in court that his team hacked the DNC under direction from the Kremlin.

Courtesy of Business Insider: 

A Russian hacker believed to be a member of a hacking collective called Lurk said in court over the summer that he was ordered by Russia's security services, known as the FSB, to hack the Democratic National Committee. 

The hacker, Konstantin Kozlovsky, told a Moscow court in August of this year that his nine-member hacking group — which has been accused of stealing over $17 million from Russia's largest financial institutions since 2013 — has been cooperating with the FSB for several years, according to the independent Russian news outlet The Bell. Part of that cooperation included hacking the DNC, he said. 

Kozlovsky said during a hearing on August 15 that he "performed various tasks under the supervision of FSB officers," including a DNC hack and cyberattacks on "very serious military enterprises of the United States and other organizations." Minutes from the hearing, as well as an audio recording, were posted on Kozlovsky's Facebook page. 

The Bell said it confirmed their authenticity with two sources, including a person who was present at the hearing. Kozlovsky also posted a letter that he wrote on November 1, 2016. The letter outlined what he said was his work for the FSB, which he said had spanned nearly a decade and, most recently, involved attacking the DNC servers.

Well so much for this story about Russians hacking our election being "fake news."

On that last point Politifact has now determined the denial that Russia interfered in our election to be the "Lie of the Year."

Well isn't that adorable, now Donald Trump and Sarah Palin have yet another thing in common.

The Kremlin thinks so highly of their intelligence source Rep. Dana Rohrabacher that they gave him his own code name.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

For two decades, Representative Dana Rohrabacher has been of value to the Kremlin, so valuable in recent years that the F.B.I. warned him in 2012 that Russia regarded him as an intelligence source worthy of a Kremlin code name. 

The following year, the California Republican became even more valuable, assuming the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee that oversees Russia policy. He sailed to re-election again and again, even as he developed ties to Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia. 

Then came President Trump. 

As revelations of Russia’s campaign to influence American politics consume Washington, Mr. Rohrabacher, 70, who had no known role in the Trump election campaign, has come under political and investigative scrutiny. The F.B.I. and the Senate Intelligence Committee are each seeking to interview him about an August meeting with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, Mr. Rohrabacher said. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, is said to be interested in a meeting he had last year with Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s short-lived national security adviser. 

At the same time, fellow Republicans — questioning his judgment and intentions — have moved to curtail his power as chairman of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats. And back home in Southern California, where Democrats and Republicans alike smell blood, the 15-term congressman is facing his toughest re-election contest in decades, with well-funded candidates from both parties lining up to unseat him.

Yeah I have a code name in mind for Congressman "There is no Global Warming it's snowing outside" Rohrabacher.

"Traitor."

Oh wait, is that one already assigned to Donald Trump?

The British publicist who set up the meeting between Junior and the Russian attorney now claims he was a "useful idiot." I buy that.

Courtesy of The Independent:  

The British music publicist who arranged a meeting between Donald Trump's inner circle and a Russian lawyer who claimed to have damaging information on Hillary Clinton has insisted he was a merely "useful idiot" who became inadvertently embroiled in the scandal. 

Rob Goldstone has agreed to be questioned by Special Counsel Robert Mueller about the meeting, which is at the heart of a probe into alleged collusion between Mr Trump presidential campaign and the Kremlin. 

The publicist emailed the US leader's son, Donald Trump Jr, last year offering "official" Russian documents he claimed would "incriminate" Hillary Clinton and "be very useful to your father".

......

In his first interview since the scandal erupted, Mr Goldstone said he regretted his involvement but insisted he had merely been a "useful idiot". 

"I never thought in a million years that an email I wrote to [Donald Trump Jr]... would be examined by the world many times over," he told The Sunday Times. "I should have listened to that little voice in my head. I remember specifically saying to Emin: you know, we probably shouldn't get involved in this." 

He said the meeting at Trump Tower ended inconclusively, adding he believed the Russians used the promise of dirt on Ms Clinton as a "pretext" to lobby the Trump campaign on unrelated issues.

Mr Goldstone claimed he "puffed up" the wording of his emails to Mr Trump Jr to secure the meeting. 

"If I'm guilty of anything, and I hate the word guilty, it's hyping the message and going the extra mile for my clients," the publicist added.

Goldstone claims that he does not know of any other collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign but that if there was he had no part in it. 

It really does not make any difference if Goldstone "puffed up" the wording or not, the important thing is that Junior thought he was taking a meeting with the Russians in order to receive illegally obtained information that could be used against his father's opponent, because the Kremlin wanted them to win the election.

Collusion.

Troll talks about work he did for Russian troll farm in 2016.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

In many ways, the IRA was like a normal IT facility, Bespalov told NBC News in an exclusive broadcast interview. There were day shifts and night shifts, a cafeteria, and workers were seated at computers in a large open floor plan. 

But in the squat, four-story concrete building on Savushkina Street in St. Petersburg, secured by camouflaged guards and turnstiles, bloggers and former journalists worked around the clock to create thousands of incendiary social media posts and news articles to meet specific quotas.

The work was all "Lies... a merry-go-round of lies," Bespalov said. "When you get on the carousel, you do not know who is behind you and neither you are aware of who is in front of you — but all of you are running around within the same circle," he said.

Bespalov told NBC News he "absolutely" believes the agency is connected to the Kremlin — a notion backed up by the U.S. intelligence community, which noted that a "close Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence" is the "likely financier" of the agency.

Bespalov described how his own work centered on discrediting Ukraine, but that others in the building focused solely on the U.S. 

Workers in the “American department” were paid the equivalent of between $1,300 to $2,000 a month for sparking social media uproar. Entry level trolls got only about $1,000 a month with paid bonuses.

This was no part time job for these people, undermining our Democracy and spreading falsehoods on the internet was their full time occupation.

And it was directed and funded by the Russian government. 

Any attempts by Donald Trump to suggest that we need to move past this, are complete bullshit, and offers proof that he is compromised by Vladimir Putin.