Trump's own FBI Director completely deflated the White House spin on Rob Porter.

Courtesy of TPM: 

FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday appeared to contradict the Trump administration’s claims about the background investigation into a former White House staffer who left the administration last week amid allegations of domestic violence. 

Various outlets have reported that the FBI alerted the White House to the allegations of domestic violence made against former staff secretary Rob Porter by two ex-wives and an ex-girlfriend before those allegations were made public last week. The administration has said in its defense that Porter’s background check was incomplete at the time of his ouster, and that they wanted to allow the FBI to finish its investigation before passing judgement on Porter. 

But Wray’s account of the FBI’s communications with the Trump administration, told to the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday, seemed to differ from the White House’s. 

“What I can tell you is that the FBI submitted a partial report on the investigation in question in March, and then a completed background investigation in late July,” he said, noting that the FBI “followed the established protocol” with Porter. 

“Soon thereafter we received requests for follow-up inquiry and we did the follow-up and provided that information in November. And then we administratively closed the file in January,” he continued. “And then earlier this month we received some additional information and we passed that on as well.”

This revelation caused Sarah Huckabee Sanders to start her spin cycle once again, only now she laid the blame on the White House personnel office, which she characterized as "career officials. " (That is clearly code for "deep state.")

Now as entertaining as all of this is, and it really is, there was also something else revealed during that hearing yesterday.

Courtesy of Mother Jones:

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) appeared to surprise the witnesses by asking if Trump had specifically urged them to address the Russian threat. 

“I can’t say I’ve been specifically directed to blunt or actually stop” Russian influence efforts, NSA Director Mike Rogers replied. Rogers added that he considers it his agency’s job to gather intelligence for policymakers rather than act on it. 

CIA Director Mike Pompeo, appearing eager to defend Trump, said the president has generally asked the intelligence community to address threats, adding that the CIA takes “all kinds of steps to disrupt what the Russians are trying to do.” But he did not say that Trump has specifically directed the agency to prevent Russian interference. 

FBI Director Christopher Wray said he has not been “specifically directed by the president” to combat Russian meddling. Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, similarly said Trump has not urged him to address Russian meddling. Nor has Trump pressed for any interagency effort to combat Russian interference, Coats conceded. “We essentially are relying on the investigations that are underway,” he said.

During the hearing ALL of the intelligence chief's unanimously stated that Russia was continuing to meddle in our politics, and to engage in cyber attacks, and yet Trump has not only refused to personally direct the government to do anything about it, but has also refused to implement the sanctions that Congress overwhelmingly voted to put in place in order to punish them for what they have ALREADY done.

You know if you were trying to convince people that you were secretly working for the Kremlin, this is exactly how you would do that.

Donald Trump misrepresented a New York Times story in order to attack his own intelligence agencies.

According to the @nytimes, a Russian sold phony secrets on “Trump” to the U.S. Asking price was $10 million, brought down to $1 million to be paid over time. I hope people are now seeing & understanding what is going on here. It is all now starting to come out - DRAIN THE SWAMP!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 10, 2018

So that was the Trump tweet from from Friday.

Today this is tweeted out by former sepcial counsel Ryan Goodman.

I think this is important:

CIA Director Pompeo just told the Senate: the NYT story—which
is the basis for Trump’s tweet below—was false. Pompeo’s words: the reporting
was “atrocious” and “ridiculous.”

Someone should ask White House why Trump then used the NYT story like this 👇 https://t.co/hds8TIxOqW

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) February 13, 2018

Well that is all well and good to point out that Trump is using false information to smear American intelligence agencies, but Goodman failed to note that Trump completely misrepresented what the Times story said.

Here is the pertinent portion:

After months of secret negotiations, a shadowy Russian bilked American spies out of $100,000 last year, promising to deliver stolen National Security Agency cyberweapons in a deal that he insisted would also include compromising material on President Trump, according to American and European intelligence officials. 

The cash, delivered in a suitcase to a Berlin hotel room in September, was intended as the first installment of a $1 million payout, according to American officials, the Russian and communications reviewed by The New York Times. The theft of the secret hacking tools had been devastating to the N.S.A., and the agency was struggling to get a full inventory of what was missing. 

Several American intelligence officials said they made clear that they did not want the Trump material from the Russian, who was suspected of having murky ties to Russian intelligence and to Eastern European cybercriminals. He claimed the information would link the president and his associates to Russia. Instead of providing the hacking tools, the Russian produced unverified and possibly fabricated information involving Mr. Trump and others, including bank records, emails and purported Russian intelligence data. 

The United States intelligence officials said they cut off the deal because they were wary of being entangled in a Russian operation to create discord inside the American government. They were also fearful of political fallout in Washington if they were seen to be buying scurrilous information on the president.

Now of course I have no sources to prove the accuracy of this reporting, or to discredit it. But it should be noted that the article does NOT say that the intelligence agencies were shopping around for dirt on Trump.

In fact they were trying very hard NOT to access any potential dirt on Trump.

What they were after was to get back the stolen NSA cyber weapons that have made it so easy for the Russians to hack agencies and businesses here in America.

Now if the intelligence agencies were tricked out of $100,000 dollars in pursuit of those, that could be a story in an of itself.

But this article clearly states that the agencies were wary of stumbling onto any potentially information about Trump's ties to Russia, and aborted the mission in order to escape entanglement.

Neither one of the above tweets reflect accurately the contents of the actual article.

Dutch intelligence services were the first to discover Russian hacking of DNC, and even hacked them back, but now are wary of sharing information with America. Guess why.

Hey, have I warned you about the Dutch yet?

Courtesy of Nieuwsuur: 

In the Summer of 2015, Dutch intelligence services were the first to alert their American counterparts about the cyberintrusion of the Democratic National Committee by Cozy Bear, a hacking group believed to be tied to the Russian government. Intelligence hackers from Dutch AIVD (General Intelligence and Security Service) had penetrated the Cozy Bear computer servers as well as a security camera at the entrance of their working space, located in a university building adjacent to the Red Square in Moscow. 

Over the course of a few months, they saw how the Russians penetrated several U.S. institutions, including the State Department, the White House, and the DNC. On all these occasions, the Dutch alerted the U.S. intelligence services, Dutch tv programme Nieuwsuur and de Volkskrant, a prominent newspaper in The Netherlands, jointly report on Thursday. This account is based on interviews with a dozen political, diplomatic and intelligence sources in The Netherlands and the U.S. with direct knowledge of the matter. None of them wanted to speak on the record, given the classified details of the matter. 

Not only had Dutch intelligence penetrated the computer network of the hackers, they also managed to hack a security camera in the corridor. This allowed them to see exactly who entered the hacking room. Information about these individuals was shared with the US intelligence services. Dutch intelligence services consider Cozy Bear an extension of the SVR, the Russian foreign intelligence service, which is firmly controlled by President Putin.

The information the Dutch gathered ended up in the hands of Robert Mueller, so that is even more information that he has to work with.

Earlier reports only identified help from a "Western ally" but now the Dutch have come out to identify themselves as that ally.

But they also tell us this: 

Last Sunday on Dutch television programme College Tour, Rob Bertholee, head of AIVD, said that he had no doubt that the Kremlin was directly responsible for the Russian cyber campaign against U.S. government agencies. Bertholee as well as Pieter Bindt, who was heading MIVD at the time, personally discussed the DNC matter with James Clapper, at the time overall head of the US intelligence services, and Michael Rogers, who is soon to retire as the head of the NSA. 

As of now, the AIVD hackers do not seem to have access to Cozy Bear any longer. Sources suggest that the openness of US intelligence sources, who in 2017 praised the help of a Western ally in news stories, may have ruined their operation. The openness caused great anger in The Hague and Zoetermeer. In the television programme College Tour, this month, AIVD director Bertholee stated that he is extra careful when it comes to sharing intelligence with the U.S., now that Donald Trump is President.

This clearly suggests that the American intelligence agencies under Donald Trump were careless in revealing that the Dutch were involved, which led to their operation losing access to those Russian hackers, and has convinced our "western allies" that they can no longer trust the leader of our country with sensitive information.

It essentially implies that Trump is an agent for the Kremlin.

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.

Former DNI James Clapper makes it clear that when he said there was no evidence of Trump colluding with Russia, he did NOT know about many of the things that have been revealed since he made the statement.

(I am focused on only one portion of this interview with James Clapper and John Brennan, but there is much more to learn by watching the entire clip.)

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told CNN on Sunday that he did not know about the meeting top Trump campaign advisers took with a Russian lawyer last year at Trump Tower to obtain dirt on Hillary Clinton when he said in January that he had seen no evidence of collusion between the campaign and Moscow. 

Clapper was also not aware that a foreign policy adviser to the campaign, George Papadopoulos, was told about the Russian "dirt" on Clinton last April and had been trying for months to arrange a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the former top intelligence official told CNN's Jake Tapper. 

"You said in January 2017 that you knew of no collusion," Tapper said. "Did you know of those two events?" 

"No, I did not," Clapper replied. 

"The statement I made at the time was true," he continued. "I had no direct evidence of collusion. We had lots of concerns, because we were aware of multiple meetings that were going on." 

Clapper said that, for his part, he was "not directly aware of the content of these meetings." 

"But we were certainly concerned," he said. "The dashboard warning lights were clearly on about what was going on. To say specifically that we had smoking gun evidence of collusion, no. But, of course, a lot more has come out that raises, I think, circumstantial questions if nothing else."

If you think about it we have learned an enormous amount since January, and it seems clear to me by how James Clapper and John Brennan phrased their responses that their assessment of Trump's involvement with the Russian interference may have changed dramatically since they were on the job.

Personally I am fairly convinced that Robert Mueller has plenty of evidence to tie Trump to Putin's hijacking of our election, and look forward to watching how he presents this evidence and Trump's reaction when he realizes the jig is up.

Donald Trump kinda sorta tries to walk back his statement of belief in Vladimir Putin when he says he did not interfere in the 2016 election.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

At a news conference in Vietnam, Trump distanced himself from remarks he made on Saturday in which he suggested he believed Putin when he said there had been no Russian meddling in the election that took him to the White House. 

The comments had drawn criticism at home because U.S. intelligence agencies have long since concluded there was Russian meddling. 

“As to whether I believe it or not, I’m with our agencies, especially as currently constituted,” Trump said at a news conference with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang. 

“As currently led, by fine people, I believe very much in our intelligence agencies.”

Of course this only came after Trump was excoriated by folks like John McCain, Preet Bharara, and even his own CIA Director.

And you will notice he only wants to give credit to the current leaders of the intelligence agencies that HE appointed even though they are in total agreement with their predecessors.

However before anybody gives Trump a standing ovation for finally trusting his own intelligence agencies over a former KGB agent, you should probably hear this part as well: 

Trump said he still believed Putin did not think there had been Russian meddling. 

“I believe that President Putin really feels, and feels strongly, that he did not meddle in our election,” Trump said, while adding: “What he believes is what he believes.”

So Trump believes the intelligence agencies in that he think that the Russians influenced out elections, but not when they say it was directed by Vladimir Putin himself?

Or does he completely trust them but think that Putin suffers from some kind of split personality disorder, where there is a good Vlad, who only wants to repair Russia's relationship with America, and a bad Vlad, who wants to destroy western democracy everywhere in the world?

Because if you truly believe our American intelligence agencies, Putin not only interfered in our 2016 election, but interference directed at America and other western countries continues to this day.

For his part Putin also offered a few other denials as well yesterday.

Courtesy of The Hill:

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday denied any connections between his country and President Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, claiming that such ties are false rumors being propagated by the U.S. leader's political opponents. 

During a briefing at the conclusion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Vietnam, Putin also dismissed reports that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross holds a stake in a company that does business with a Russian company with possible ties to the Russian president's son-in-law, according to multiple reports. 

I am just going to go ahead and assume that Trump is taking Putin's side on these allegations as well.

Saves time that way. 

On another somewhat related note Trump is now lobbing preschool insult at the leader of North Korea.

Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me "old," when I would NEVER call him "short and fat?" Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend - and maybe someday that will happen!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2017

Every day, it just gets worse.  

James Clapper states publicly that intelligence community assessment of Russian interference serves to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Trump's victory.

Courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

On CNN last night, Erin Burnett questioned former Defense Intelligence Agency director James Clapper about Russian interference in the election. 

She asked him about Trump's reaction to those intelligence briefings. 

"When we briefed him, if you're speak of the briefing on the 6th of January, he was very curious, complimentary and he did listen," Clapper said. 

"And frankly, the evidence that we provided in detail --which of course we couldn't expose publicly-- was pretty overwhelming. It's why we had such a high confidence level in what we said in that assessment. And so I thought it was a good discussion. He had some doubts about some things, but that's fine to be skeptical about some things. But on balance, I thought we successfully conveyed the message because the substantiating evidence was quite compelling and we didn't hear anything about the 400 pound guy in his bed in New Jersey." 

"Which is and I think very important, as you said, because I think obviously when he says publicly is different than what you're describing, which is sort of the way you want an incoming president to respond, courteous and receptive and listen," Burnett said.

"I have to say, Erin, I think what this was maybe the first or early harbinger of what I think really motivated him is, our intelligence community assessment did, I think, serve to cast doubt on the legitimacy of his victory in the election and I think that, above all else, is what concerned him. I think that transcends, unfortunately, the real concern here, which is Russian interference in our political process, which by the way, is going to continue," Clapper said.

And there you have it.

This is why Trump is desperate to shut down these investigations.

He KNOWS they will ultimately de-legitimize his victory and that is what terrifies him to his core.

Russian politician shames American intelligence community for missing it "when Russian intelligence stole the president of the United States."

#Russia's state TV mocks American intelligence services:
MP Vyacheslav Nikonov says U.S. spies slept while Russia elected a U.S. President. pic.twitter.com/BmMNBTr41R

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 11, 2017

Courtesy of The Hill:

On a Sunday panel show, a Russian politician said U.S. “intelligence missed it when Russian intelligence stole the president of the United States.” 

Vyacheslav Nikonov, a member of the Russian parliamentary body, the Duma, made the remarks on the panel show “Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov.” 

The focus of the episode was the decline of U.S. power in the world. In that context, said University of Virginia professor Allen Lynch via email, Nikonov was less stating the extent of Russia's involvement in the 2016 election, and more mocking the resulting chaos as emblematic of U.S. weakness. 

“His point in making the remark was that if the U.S. can’t protect the integrity of its own electoral system, then how powerful can it really be?” wrote Lynch.

It should be noted that this is NOT he same Russian politician who earlier this month suggested that Russia should release the "kompromat" they have on Donald Trump.

Which means that these are two different Russian politicians, both on government controlled TV, essentially admitting that the Russians did exactly what Vladimir Putin has denied they did all of this time.

And now they get to brag about it to their constituents while we are left trying to fix the damage that they caused.

During Senate hearing Al Franken calls Donald Trump out for spreading Russian propaganda.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

The Minnesota Democrat questioned FBI counterintelligence chief Bill Priestap and Justice Department national security official Adam Hickey about whether they had reason to doubt the intelligence assessment that Russia attempted to influence the election, and they agreed there was no evidence to question that finding. 

“Just last week, the newly minted White House communications chief Anthony Scaramucci appeared on CNN and said, quote, ‘Somebody said to me yesterday — I won’t tell you who — that if the Russians actually hacked this situation and spilled out those ­e-mails, you would have never seen it,’ Franken said.

As I mentioned yesterday Scaramucci identified that source as Donald Trump, and then of course the New York Times reported that Trump got that propaganda straight from Vladimir Putin. 

“The president of the United States is taking the word of Vladimir Putin over that of the U.S. intelligence agencies, which demonstrates a stunning lack of confidence in the men and women who put their lives on the line to keep us safe,” Franken said. “The president of the United States then goes on to repeat that Russian lie to the American press and to Mr. Scaramucci, effectively spreading Russia’s misinformation for them.”

Franken followed that up by  quoting from testimony by James Comey which stated that the Russian hacking was "unusually loud" as if they not only wanted to be identified as the hackers but that they wanted it to be reported in the media that they had successfully penetrated the American election process.

Both Priestap and Hickey agreed with that assessment.

So to be clear not only is Donald Trump spreading Russian propaganda, but it is propaganda which completely contradicts the findings of the FBI and other security agencies who state clearly that Russia was not even attempting to be sneaky.

And the fact that Donald Trump is a tool of the Kremlin is now part of the Senate record.

US Intelligence agencies overheard Russian officials discussing Donald Trump and his associates way back in 2015.

Donald Trump sitting with a number of people mentioned in Junior's collusion email in 2013.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal: 

Investigators are re-examining conversations detected by U.S. intelligence agencies in spring 2015 that captured Russian government officials discussing associates of Donald Trump, according to current and former U.S. officials, a move prompted by revelations that the president’s eldest son met with a Russian lawyer last year. 

In some cases, the Russians in the overheard conversations talked about meetings held outside the U.S. involving Russian government officials and Trump business associates or advisers, these people said.

The 2015 conversations were detected several months before Mr. Trump declared his candidacy for the White House. The conversations have been in investigators’ possession for some time, but officials said the Donald Trump Jr. news this week prompted them to look at them again.

In 2015, intelligence agencies weren’t sure what to make of the surveillance reports, which they viewed as vague and inconclusive, the current and former officials said. But the volume of the mentions of Trump associates by the Russians did have officials asking each other, “What’s going on?” one former official said.

Now, in light of the release of emails Tuesday by the president’s eldest son, describing a 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer, investigators are going back to those early reports. They are seeking new leads as they probe whether the Trump campaign colluded in what several U.S. intelligence agencies say was a Russian government-sponsored effort to meddle in the election to benefit Mr. Trump.

As the Cheshire Cat would say,  "Curiouser and curiouser."

But wait, there's more.

Courtesy of McClatchy:

Investigators at the House and Senate Intelligence committees and the Justice Department are examining whether the Trump campaign’s digital operation – overseen by Jared Kushner – helped guide Russia’s sophisticated voter targeting and fake news attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016. 

Congressional and Justice Department investigators are focusing on whether Trump’s campaign pointed Russian cyber operatives to certain voting jurisdictions in key states – areas where Trump’s digital team and Republican operatives were spotting unexpected weakness in voter support for Hillary Clinton, according to several people familiar with the parallel inquiries. 

Also under scrutiny is the question of whether Trump associates or campaign aides had any role in assisting the Russians in publicly releasing thousands of emails, hacked from the accounts of top Democrats, at turning points in the presidential race, mainly through the London-based transparency web site WikiLeaks. 

At this point I think that there is no longer any question that members of the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to change the outcome of the 2016 election, the only questions remaining are how many of them were involved, and what exactly did they do?

Donald Trump tweets about meeting with Putin and it is just as bad as you might imagine.

I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I've already given my opinion.....

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

Yes he did, and that opinion was that the Russians "probably" hacked computers during the 2016 election, but that it might have been "other people in other countries" as well.

...We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!

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

Wait, so that's it. He "strongly pressed," Putin denied it, and now it is time to just drop it?

Actually no, it gets worse than that.

Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded..

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

...and safe. Questions were asked about why the CIA & FBI had to ask the DNC 13 times for their SERVER, and were rejected, still don't....

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

...have it. Fake News said 17 intel agencies when actually 4 (had to apologize). Why did Obama do NOTHING when he had info before election?

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

Holy shit!

So not only is Trump dismissing the reports from American intelligence agencies about Russian hacking as "fake news," but he is literally inviting the Russians inside our cyber security systems to help them do a better job of hacking the elections the next time around.

(By the way since the DNI signed off on that intelligence report identifying Russia as the hackers, it was technically correct that all 17 agencies agreed on that since the DNI is an umbrella group which represents them, however it is true that only the FBI, CIA, NSA, the Justice Department, and the DNI were directly involved in the investigation.  Really not sure how pointing that out helps explain why Trump is not holding the Russians accountable.)

But wait, there's more.

Sanctions were not discussed at my meeting with President Putin. Nothing will be done until the Ukrainian & Syrian problems are solved!

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

Sure, why would Trump talk about sanctions when clearly does not believe there is any reason for them?

Okay well if you still entertained any doubts that Trump was a puppet of Vladimir Putin's I think you can put those doubts to rest. 

Buzzfeed requests FOIA of the Federal Government for access to information and testimony pertaining to that Russian dossier.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Add this surprising entry to the growing list of those issuing subpoenas for insight into the imbroglio involving President Donald Trump and the Russians: BuzzFeed. 

The online media outlet sent formal demands Thursday to the CIA, the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, seeking details on the distribution of an unverified intelligence dossier about Trump said to have been in the possession of Russian intelligence during last year’s presidential campaign, POLITICO has learned.

BuzzFeed is also seeking testimony from fired FBI Director James Comey, as well as former DNI James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan, said a source familiar with the subpoenas.

Now the reason that Buzzfeed is requesting this FOIA is to bolster their claim that publishing the dossier was protected by  the fair report privilege in order to fight a lawsuit against them from one Aleksej Gubarev, a Russian technology executive whose name happened to be included in that dossier.

Whatever the reason this could prove quite interesting as Buzzfeed will surely report on the progress of the subpoenas as well as share what they can of the testimony from Comey, Clapper, Brennan, and whoever else gets caught in their net.

I am also curious as to exactly how much of that dossier has been confirmed by the various intelligence agencies.

And this could be one way to find that out.

The James Comey round up.

Unless you have been living in a cave you are undoubtedly aware that tomorrow former FBI director James Comey is going to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

And as a prelude to that event there has been a veritable tidal wave of breaking news stories which paint a very troubling picture for one Donald J. Trump.

First up, Trump's a liar.

Courtesy of CNN:  

In his much-anticipated congressional testimony on Thursday, fired FBI Director James Comey will dispute President Donald Trump's interpretation of their conversations, according to sources familiar with Comey's thinking. 

Trump has made a blanket claim that Comey told him multiple times that he was not under investigation. 

But one source said Comey is expected to explain to senators that those were much more nuanced conversations from which Trump concluded that he was not under investigation. Another source hinted that the President may have misunderstood the exact meaning of Comey's words, especially regarding the FBI's ongoing counterintelligence investigation.

He misunderstood nothing, Trump simply lied.  There is no longer any reason to give him the benefit of the doubt about anything.

And if Trump attempts to refute Comey's testimony he should know that the former FBI Director has back up: 

One by one this winter, then-FBI Director James B. Comey pulled aside three of the bureau’s top officials for private chats. In calm tones, he told each of them about a private Oval Office meeting with President Trump — during which, Comey alleged, the president pressed him to shut down the federal criminal investigation of Trump’s then-national security adviser, Michael Flynn. 

Those three officials, according to two people with detailed, firsthand knowledge of the matter, were Jim Rybicki, Comey’s chief of staff and senior counselor; James Baker, the FBI’s general counsel; and Andrew McCabe, then the bureau’s deputy director, and now the acting director, following Trump’s firing of Comey last month. Comey spoke to them within two days of his Oval conversation with Trump, the sources said, and recounted the president’s comments about the Flynn investigation.

As noted by Vox all three of these men are lawyers so of course they took notes of the conversation.

But wait, there's more courtesy of WaPo: 

The nation’s top intelligence official told associates in March that President Trump asked him if he could intervene with then-FBI Director James B. Comey to get the bureau to back off its focus on former national security adviser Michael Flynn in its Russia probe, according to officials.

Ouch!

But wait there is even more, this time courtesy of the New York Times:

The day after President Trump asked James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, to end an investigation into his former national security adviser, Mr. Comey confronted Attorney General Jeff Sessions and said he did not want to be left alone again with the president, according to current and former law enforcement officials. 

Mr. Comey believed Mr. Sessions should protect the F.B.I. from White House influence, the officials said, and pulled him aside after a meeting in February to tell him that private interactions between the F.B.I. director and the president were inappropriate. But Mr. Sessions could not guarantee that the president would not try to talk to Mr. Comey alone again, the officials said.

The Times does not identify what it was about his meeting that freaked Comey out so much, but I think we can imagine. 

So yes tomorrow is going to be a very interesting day, but just what we have learned in the last twenty four hours is more than enough to start a serious conversation about impeachment.

US intelligence agencies asked the Justice Department to open criminal investigation into leaks, because remember the leaks are much worse than actual collusion with the Russians.

Courtesy of ABC News:  

Looking to stem the tide of bombshell news reports linking Russian operatives with associates of President Donald Trump, U.S. intelligence agencies have taken the significant step of formally referring as many as six recent leaks to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to sources familiar with the matter. 

Word of the criminal referrals comes as President Trump tries to use growing hostility toward the press as a means of making money for the Republican National Committee. 

"Do your part to fight back against the media's attacks and deceptions," the president said Friday in a fundraising email blasted out by the RNC and obtained by ABC News. "They don’t care about the truth." 

Meanwhile, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein may issue a private memorandum to his entire workforce in the coming weeks, reinforcing department guidelines that govern when employees can engage with members of the media, according to Justice Department insiders. 

For months, President Trump and key Republican lawmakers have been calling on the Justice Department to investigate who told reporters about classified information uncovered during the U.S. government's ongoing probe of Russian meddling in last year's presidential election. But there's only one voice that can really prompt a Justice Department leak investigation: the U.S. intelligence community.

So I guess now that Trump has his people running the intelligence agencies, the obstructionism can begin in earnest.

Of course this is not without precedent as Richard Nixon once asked his FBI Director to be as ruthless as the Nazis in attempting to find Deep Throat.

And we all know how well THAT worked out.

By the way those leakers might be closer than Donald Trump dares to suspect.

Wow. @JoeNBC says Steve Bannon bragged about having damaging info about Kushner days before Kushner meeting w/ Gorkov leaked to the NYT.

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) June 2, 2017

Oh my God! It's coming from inside the house!

The biggest story to break last night, Jared Kushner attempted to establish a "back channel" to secretly communicate with the Russians.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports. 

Ambassador Sergey Kislyak reported to his superiors in Moscow that Kushner, son-in-law and confidant to then-President-elect Trump, made the proposal during a meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials. Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications. 

The meeting also was attended by Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser. 

The White House disclosed the meeting only in March, playing down its significance. But people familiar with the matter say the FBI now considers the encounter, as well as another meeting Kushner had with a Russian banker, to be of investigative interest.

Gee, ya think?

When I first heard this news my first thought was, wait didn't we already hear this?

That's when I remembered a story from last month about Erik Prince, Betsy DeVos' brother, working to establish the same kind of back channel: 

The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladi­mir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials. 

According to the article the Prince meeting happened about a month or so after Kushner's meeting, which essentially proves that this was something that the Trump team really wanted to set up, and not some spur of the moment suggestion.

Now the question to ask yourself is why in the hell would a presidential transition team want so badly to set up a communication network, controlled by the Russians mind you, that would bypass our own intelligence gathering agencies?

Go ahead, try to think of a reason that does not make this group seem to be the Keystone Kops of Russian spies.

While you are contemplating that I should also inform you that a Russian oligarch with ties to Trump's former campaign manager is now seeking immunity from Congress:   

Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian oligarch once close to President Trump’s former campaign manager, has offered to cooperate with congressional committees investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but lawmakers are unwilling to accept his conditions, according to congressional officials. 

Mr. Deripaska’s offer comes amid increased attention to his ties to Paul Manafort, who is one of several Trump associates under F.B.I. scrutiny for possible collusion with Russia during the presidential campaign. The two men did business together in the mid-2000s, when Mr. Manafort, a Republican operative, was also providing campaign advice to Kremlin-backed politicians in Ukraine. Their relationship subsequently soured and devolved into a lawsuit.

Like I said in an email to my friend yesterday, what we are seeing right now is no longer just smoke. This is clearly fire. 

And perhaps that is why the Senate Intelligence Committee is now requesting  ALL campaign documents that relate to Russia.

Donald Trump uses former DNI James Clapper's statements as proof there is no collusion with Russia, Clapper refuses to let him get away with that.

Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is "no evidence" of collusion w/ Russia and Trump.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017

When James Clapper himself, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

So the tweets up above are what Trump has been using to convince the public that he is in the clear and there is no evidence of wrongdoing on his part.

However that is highly inaccurate as Vox points out in their article yesterday.

First off here is what James Clapper actually said to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee:

In our intelligence community assessment, we made the point that we could not make that call. The intelligence community has neither the authority, the expertise or the resources to make that judgment. The only thing we said was we saw no evidence of influencing voter tallies at any of the 50 states. But we were not in a position to judge whether — what actual outcome on the election.

You will notice that this is specifically talking about the Russians affecting the voter tallies directly, NOT whether they influenced the outcome through their use of propaganda, and says nothing about collusion.

So yesterday Clapper goes on MSNBC and gets a little more specific.

Here is the transcript of his remarks: 

Well, it might be useful, first, to explain the unique position that the FBI occupies in that it straddles both intelligence, as a part of the intelligence community and law enforcement. 

My practice during the six and a half years that I was at DNI was always to defer to the director of the FBI, be it Director Bob Mueller or Director Jim Comey on whether, when, and what to tell me about a counterintelligence investigation when the possibility was there that this could devolve into some sort of a criminal investigation. 

So I left it to the judgment of the FBI and that was certainly the practice I followed here. But that was consistent with what I did during the whole six and a half years. 

So it's not surprising or out of — or abnormal that I would not have known about the investigation, or, even more importantly, the content of that investigation. 

So I don't know if there was collusion or not. I don't know if there is evidence of collusion or not, nor should I have in this particular context.

Clapper goes on to say, quite definitively, that though there was no evidence of collusion that found it's way into that Intelligence Community Assessment which was released confirming that the Russians meddled in our election, that it does not mean there wasn't any evidence.

So essentially Clapper kneecapped Trump's argument that Clapper's words had vindicated him that all of this is nothing but a witch hunt.

Here is Rachel Maddow's take on the revelation that the British Intelligence agencies were the first to identify Trump's ties with Russia.

I know that much of this simply reiterates what I posted at 6:15 however first off I think this information deserves to be shared repeatedly, and second Rachel does an amazing job of sharing it in a way that is both informative and entertaining.

Which by the way has certainly gained her show some special notice.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow dedicated 53 percent of her program over the past six weeks to Russia, according to a Thursday analysis from the left-leaning The Intercept. 

“Maddow’s Russia coverage has dwarfed the time devoted to other top issues, including Trump’s escalating crackdown on undocumented immigrants (1.3 percent of coverage); Obamacare repeal (3.8 percent); the legal battle over Trump’s Muslim ban (5.6 percent), a surge of anti-GOP activism and town halls since Trump took office (5.8 percent), and Trump administration scandals and stumbles (11 percent)," the analysis reads. 

As we have mentioned before this approach has garnered Maddow quite a number of new viewers and the ratings for show continue to climb.

And the fact that this is clearly driving the Trump supporters around the bend is easily measured by the number of angry comments we receive right here on IM, insulting Rachel and attacking the format of her show, which is apparently too factually driven for habitual viewers of Fox News and Alex Jones.

Let's face it good journalism is enjoying a renaissance right now, and information seekers are finally starting to recognize the incredible contribution made by folks like Rachel Maddow.

Lacking confidence in the intelligence agencies, Donald Trump demands to see "raw data" himself. Oh I have a bad feeling.

"I'm like very smart."

Courtesy of The Hill:

Officials have urged the intelligence community to supply President Trump with fewer analysis reports compiled by experts and more raw intelligence, the Associated Press reported Saturday. 

Raw intelligence was a larger priority under the former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the report said. He was ousted last month for misleading White House officials about the contents of his discussion with Russia's U.S. ambassador. 

Many intelligence experts in the past have raised concerns about the possibility that Trump would want to sidestep data analysts during his presidency. 

“The risk is that you request raw data to support a conclusion and you avoid seeing anything that contradicts it,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told The Hill in January. 

“We can already see we have a president-elect who has difficulty with facts that are at odds with the narrative that he wants to tell or diminish his achievements.”

Do you know that feeling you get when the music gets louder in the horror movie right before somebody gets axed in the face?

Yeah well I have that feeling right now. 

Donald Trump knows NOTHING about intelligence gathering and he would not be able to make heads or tails out of it.

So who is he going to call in to help to understand what he is looking at?

I can tell you right now that the guy whose hand would go up the fastest to volunteer for that job would be Stephen Bannon.

You know, the conspiracy theorist who used to head Breitbart news and once thought that Sarah Palin was destined for the White House.

Yep, here comes the axe to the face.

Trump fires off new Twitter tirade in response to report on Fox "fake" News.

Wow, @FoxNews just reporting big news. Source: "Official behind unmasking is high up. Known Intel official is responsible. Some unmasked....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2017

..not associated with Russia. Trump team spied on before he was nominated." If this is true, does not get much bigger. Would be sad for U.S.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 1, 2017

And then just this morning Trump followed up with this.

The real story turns out to be SURVEILLANCE and LEAKING! Find the leakers.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2017

The impetus for Trump's hyperactive tweets seems to be this story from Fox News claiming that they have a source who located the "very well known, very high up, very senior in the intelligence world" individual who targeted Donald Trump.

The "source" also made this claim: 

“Opposition by some in the intelligence agencies who were very connected to the Obama and Clinton teams was strong. After Trump was elected, they decided they were going to ruin his presidency by picking them off one by one."

The problem for Trump of course is that Fox News is the World Net Daily of cable news and they are notorious for having "experts" on their programs who are later discredited and shown to be charlatans.

In fact they already temporarily suspended Judge Andrew Napolitano for making a very similar claim just last month.

But Trump doesn't care, as far as he is concerned any new outlet that back him up is a good news source, and all others are "fake news."

Devin Nunes backtracks on claim that Trump and aides were incidentally monitored by US Intelligence agencies.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

The chairman of the House intelligence committee has backed down from his dramatic assertion that Donald Trump and his aides were "monitored," by U.S. spies — a claim the Republicans have cited this week in emails to loyalists. 

Rep. Devin Nunes told reporters Friday he can't be sure whether conversations among Trump or his aides were captured in the surveillance that has become a source of controversy since Nunes made it public in two news conferences this week. 

"He said he'll have to get all the documents he requested from the (intelligence community) about this before he knows for sure," his spokesman, Jack Langer, said earlier.

Nunes continued to refuse to say how he had learned about the surveillance, including whether his source was in the White House.

I want to say WTF here but that doesn't even seem to cover this.

This idiot went before reporters, not once but twice, claiming that he had seen this evidence and that he was "actually alarmed by it."

And now he is not sure that he saw anything of the kind?

What's more Nunes just cancelled a major public hearing with former CIA director John Brennan, former DNI James Clapper, and former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates.

BREAKING: Chairman just cancelled open Intelligence Committee hearing with Clapper, Brennan and Yates in attempt to choke off public info.

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) March 24, 2017

This was how Nunes explained this decision:

Panel chairman Devin Nunes said he had to cancel next Tuesday's hearing with officials from former Democratic President Barack Obama's administration in order to have a classified briefing with the directors of the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

"The committee seeks additional information ... that can only be addressed in closed session," Representative Nunes told reporters. 

But Rep. Schiff was having none of it:  

Representative Adam Schiff, the intelligence committee's top Democrat, said the cancellation was not in the public interest. 

"I think that there must have been a very strong pushback from the White House about the nature of Monday's hearing. It's hard for me to come to any other conclusion about why an agreed upon hearing would be suddenly canceled," Schiff told a separate news conference.

At this point there is literally no other conclusion that can be reached except that Nunes is attempting to sabotage this investigation.

The only question I have is who has the dirt on Nunes?

Trump or Putin?