Special Counsel Mueller Charges 12 Russian Intelligence Officers With Hacking Democrats During 2016 Election (cnbc.com) 778
Special counsel Robert Mueller has obtained a new indictment charging 12 Russian intelligence officers with hacking Democrats to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, and with stealing information of about 500,000 American voters, the Justice Department announced Friday. From a report: The indictment lodged in Washington, D.C., accuses the Russian spies of hacking into the Democratic National Committee and the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, and of releasing emails obtained from that cybersnooping with a a goal of influencing the election. The accused also hacked into state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and into companies that provided software used to administer elections, according to Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein said he briefed President Donald Trump about the case earlier in the week.
As they say in Russia (Score:2, Insightful)
The mountain gave birth to a mouse.
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The mountain gave birth to a mouse.
Perhaps they need basic biology lessons. They're sacrificing biology to teach hacking instead.
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You consider an unfriendly power hacking our election to be somehow mouselike?
So you won't mind if a bunch of hackers make sure Ficus wins every election for the next 10 years?
Detecting trolls and sock puppets on Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
If I ever had a mod point to give, then I might give you one on the grounds that it's the only visible mention of "hackers" in this discussion.
In general, I was not made happy by the lack of "funny" comments, even though it's a serious topic with little room for humor. However, it was more saddening to see the dominance of the discussion by obvious trolls and sock puppets. Does it call for a review of the ontology of lies? Or a new ontology of trolls?
The so-called victory of #PresidentTweety was razor thin. What that actually means is that each and EVERY group that can plausibly claim to have influenced about 80,000 voters has an equally plausible claim to be the margin of Trump's residency in the "dump", as he described the White House. Actually, you could argue for 40,000 if they were voters swung away from Hillary and over to Trump.
There are strong and credible evaluations (including some bipartisan ones) that strongly indicate that the tactics of Putin's goons influenced at least that many suckers among the millions of voters they targeted. Ergo, it's rather hard to deny that Trump owes Putin, but it's only a question of degree. My assessment is that Trump is much more beholden to Mike Pence for delivering the votes of the religious lunatics.
Or perhaps it's more significant that the US government is almost surely more guilty of interfering in elections than the Russians? If money does translate into votes, then it would be a sure call. Do you know how much of the Marshall Plan funding was actually diverted to the CIA? And how much of that dark money was used for meddling in elections in places like Italy and Japan?
Still, it feels worse when our own ox has been gored. It might be worse in this case only because of the old KGB kompromat on Trump that Putin inherited. (I still think the Golden Shower rumor is a clever feint created by Putin to make his puppet feel safer.)
Don't blame the EC for failing to do its job (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think these attacks on the EC are well justified because the founders were quite clear that one of the main purposes of the EC was to prevent presidents like Trump, whose only campaign tactic is to make mobs angry. The entire notion of "faithless elector" would be anathema to them, because the electors were NOT supposed to be chained to the voters. If the EC was working as intended, Trump is EXACTLY the president they wanted to prevent.
Perhaps a secret ballot in the EC would help? I really think tha
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The "Founders" created the EC for the same reason they had state governments elect Senators and only gave white male property owners the right to vote: they were elitist pricks who wanted to present the illusion of a representative democracy, while creating an oligarchy ruled by an aristocracy in all but inherited title. They were deathly
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Trump won 2600 counties to Clinton's 500. That's 84%. How is that razor thin? You can blame the Electoral College but it is there for a reason so that voters in the middle of Kansas or Montana or Nevada or Illinois have just as a loud a voice as everyone else.
You need to up your math game. Trump won 100 percent of the votes for Trump.
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Have you forgotten all the ads and fake media campaigns?
No, who could ever forget the Highly Effective fake media campaigns? Here Are 14 Russian Ads That Ran on Facebook During The 2016 Election [gizmodo.com]
Re:As they say in Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
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That's the ads. Seperate from (but related to) fake media campaigns.
You'll never gain understanding if you studiously look away like a baby that doesn't want strained peas.
Re:As they say in Russia (Score:4, Insightful)
Give it time, it's still early days. Watergate took 4 years, Iran Contra took over six.
Re:As they say in Russia (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, the number of mice is now over 30, and the mountain is a long way from done. And never forget what a single mouse can do to an elephant, especially a big, wet, orange elephant with bone spurs.
Re:As they say in Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
Very awful, and highly disliked (you might even say the second most-disliked candidate in the history of presidential polling, after Trump himself).
But that is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not Russians are actively trying to influence elections and subvert democratic processes in the US and Europe.
And it's troubling that so many people in the US are trying to discredit an investigation into whether or not our democratic processes are being actively subverted.
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Yeah, the polls hated him more than her, but the voters hated her more than him.
Well, the popular vote shows otherwise, but the major takeaway is that both major parties put up absolutely awful candidates and tried to convince everyone that voting for anyone else was pointless. 45% of the electorate decided to stay home because of that. The D-R system is actively damaging the US.
As the election demonstrated, it was the will of the voters, not the will of the pollsters.
It was the will of the electoral college, not the people who took the time to vote.
Their estimates of who was more hated is irrelevant because we have an objective measurement of who actually was hated more.
Right, the person with fewer votes, which also matches what the polls say. In a competition between the 2 most-hated candida
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No such thing as popular vote in the United States. Trump didn't bother to campaign in New York and California - where Hillary's margin of "victory" comes from - because he knew he wouldn't win either state. Instead, he went to the Rust Belt - where Hillary didn't bother to campaign - to ask people for their vote. If presidential elections were decided by a popular vote (and they should be) it would have been a completely different race, with completely different res
This has 0 to do with the election (Score:2, Informative)
And by "hacking" we mean - sent a phishing email asking to verify passwords that somebody at the DNC responded to.
Note also the same "Russian Hackerz" tried this with the RNC too but nobody bit.
Re: This has 0 to do with the election (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, that form of hacking is still a crime, and that includes other entities such as the aforementioned state boards of elections, secretaries of state, and companies that provided software used to administer elections. A real problem.
Unlike you know, the hysterics Republicans went into when it was the Georgia elections systems that they could find some way to blame on Obama. And they still think Obama ordered Trump to separate children from their parents.
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Re: This has 0 to do with the election (Score:2)
Well, citation needed, but frankly, the fact that we hear nothing from the Trump campaign suggests four possibilites:
(1) the russians tried and failed (but I think it is clear that Trump would tell everybody about this, if this was the case)
(2) the russians tried and succeded but found nothing of interest. In the words said to be by Cardinal Richelieu:
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
(On the other hand, I guess you migh
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(3) the russians tried, succeed and found something (4) the russians did not try I think the first two, as argued, are not likely to be the right one. The last 2 suggests something problematic.
Wait, what? You think it's problematic if the Russians did not try?
Re: This has 0 to do with the election (Score:2)
Yes, if there are 4 targets and you atrack 3, the obivous question is why not the 4th as well. I have not been able to come with more than 2 reasons: either it is too dangerous or you have an agreement. I can not see how in the concret case that hacking the Trump campaign (assuming no agreement) would be more dangerous for the russian goverment than hacking the other 3.
Therefore, this case suggests some agreement betwen Trump and the russian goverment, which I feel is problematic.
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I'm not exactly sure which four targets you're referencing but I'm going to go on the assumption you're alluding to the three targets listed in the indictment (DNC, Clinton campaign, State Election board) along with Trump. Looking at only the targets listed in the indictment and tossing in Trump is your own bias showing. Russia did attempt to hack RNC assets, that much was admitted by Comey in Jan 2017. They were successful against state and local RNC groups as well as older RNC domains but did not succeed
And Russia Shrugs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And Russia Shrugs (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah we might as well give up and just let these guys wander around the globe and use bank accounts anywhere they please since we can't lock them up. Heck just forget the whole thing happened, I'm sure they learned their lesson.
Re:And Russia Shrugs (Score:5, Insightful)
The purpose of these new indictments is not to bring Russian intelligence operatives to justice. The purpose is to establish grounds for conspiracy charges against Americans. There's still a lot more to come from this investigation. Don't think for a second that this is some sort of conclusion. That mistake has been made every time new indictments are brought: "Is that all Mueller has?" is the cry from the Trump camp every time one of these new indictments is announced. You can tell from the unforced errors coming out of the Trump administration that the pressure is building.
So (Score:2)
"Russia used the "internet"? A communications system the USA has some skill with...
Now the media is told of "how" "Russia" got caught so such skilled US investigative methods cant be used again...
US police methods never get told to the media in real time. Decades later the USA might declassify something about a project.
Doomed (Score:2, Interesting)
If any part of this case relies on the examination of the DNC servers by Crowdstrike then any half competent attorney could take it apart.
1. The server will need to be provided for examination by defense experts.
2. The chain of custody is non-existent.
No server, no evidence. No evidence, no conviction. Even then the lack of any chain of custody calls into question the quality if any evidence found on it.
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The cyber currency will do that part.... ??? Now the world knows how the USA tracks it all.
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Blockchain is the most trackable currency ever invented. No secret government anything needed.
Vote count and election results not changed (Score:4, Informative)
Rosenstien added details from the podium ...
There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime.
There is no allegation the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election results.
Re:Vote count and election results not changed (Score:5, Informative)
Rosenstien added details from the podium ...
There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There is no allegation the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election results.
He's already charged and obtained guilty pleas from Americans in this investigation, just not in this particular indictment.
Determining any effect on the election was never in the purview of the Mueller investigation, just actions taken and the underlying intent. If you think a concerted misinformation campaign had no effect at all on voters, you are free to believe so. You are also free to believe and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
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If you think a concerted misinformation campaign had no effect at all on voters
misinformation campaign as in targeting both sides with trolls and memes. Oh, and airing the dirty laundry of the DNC, the Clinton campaign, and Hillary.
The dirty laundry wasn't misinformation. It probably persuaded some votes particularly Bernie supporters.
How many voters do you think changed their mind because a few trolls and memes that mostly occurred after the election? Methinks you are the one inclined to believe in fairy tales.
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Re:Vote count and election results not changed (Score:4, Insightful)
He keeps saying that... Again and Again... He said it LAST time he charged a pile of Russians.
Honest brokers of the facts *should* include this disclaimer any time they start talking about what these charges mean. If they don't, they are ignorant of all the facts, or purposely being misleading. In the first case, they need to check their sources and use better ones. I the second case, they need to be dismissed as the partisan hacks they are.
Re:Vote count and election results not changed (Score:4, Insightful)
Rosenstein did not claim that election results or vote counts were not affected. Let me bold the important part for you:
There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime.
Every time Mueller puts anything in a court filing, people can't wait to jump up and conclude that this is all there is, and that this is all there ever will be. That's a bit premature. Mueller isn't finished yet.
Cyrillic in the Guccifer 2.0 docs (Score:3)
It would be nice to know what else was used to follow the trail here...
Two movies (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been wondering lately whether I'm the subject of cognitive dissonance.
If you follow Scott Adams [dilbert.com], he talks about cognitive dissonance as two people watching the same movie and seeing different plots. When called to describe the plots, the two views are wildly different, sometimes polar opposite.
And so for many people Trump is a racist, blowing a dog whistle that racists and liberals can hear clearly. For others, Trump is a practical leader doing what's best for the nation.
Which is the correct view? At this point, probably no one knows - there's no unbiased source of information. Best we can do is get unbiased statistics and raw facts (such as immigration numbers, unemployment, reputable polling) and come to our own conclusions.
Which brings me to the Mueller investigation, which I have always believed to be based on nothing. It seems perfectly obvious that the *amount* of Russian involvement in the election is well into the noise - to the tune of something like $13 million over several months, compared to $3 billion (-ish, depends on what you count) spent by Clinton and Trump.
Am I (and half the country) dismissing something important because of cognitive dissonance?
We might just find out.
The Mueller indictments will be based on evidence which can be examined, and accuses specific Russians of hacking and leaking the DNC through wikileaks.
On the other side, Julian Assange has stated several times that the leaks didn't come from Russia [belfasttelegraph.co.uk]. Julian never identified the actual leaks, speculation has it that it was Seth Rich.
Julian Assange is a sufficiently trustworthy source not to be dismissed out of hand, and the US justice system should allow the evidence to be combed through by the media.
This could turn out to be a good touch-stone for validating one side of the cognitive dissonance claim.
I look forward to the public investigations of the evidence.
It will be good to finally see which movie we're actually watching.
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The Mueller indictments will be based on evidence which can be examined, and accuses specific Russians of hacking and leaking the DNC through wikileaks.
That would be great, but these indictments will never result in a trial, so the supposed evidence will never see the light of day.
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I too buy into Adam's theory of parallel movies but I am not convinced that looking at what we call evidence can make a person drop their movie. The choice of the movie is rooted in psychological forces few people can control. They would either need a long time to drop their habit of playing the movie -- unlikely to happen with Trump and media as they are! -- or an emotional shock. As the extreme example you have a paranoid person: no external evidence can convince him they are not out to get him.
Me, I thin
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This could turn out to be a good touch-stone for validating one side of the cognitive dissonance claim.
Lol, no. Whichever side doesn't get the answer they want will still claim they were right, and the result was due to corruption, conspiracy, etc.
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speculation has it that it was Seth Rich.
The problem with this speculation is Seth Rich was not an administrator of the DNC's email system, so he would not have access to the emails in order to leak them. And he definitely was not the administrator of Podesta's GMail account.
But he does serve a useful distraction when building "cognitive dissonance"....
Re:Two movies (Score:4, Insightful)
For others, Trump is a practical leader doing what's best for the nation.
Those people are fooling themselves if they think Trump is doing what he does because it's best for the nation. I'm not going to comment on whether his policies are good for the US or not, but his motivation should be crystal clear to anyone who has paid attention to Donald Trump at any point over the last 30 years or so. Everything he does, every decision he makes, is based upon whether or not it is good for him personally. I don't think he cares about the country beyond the fact that he lives in it and wants it to help him through tax breaks or whatever else. Absolutely everything he does is done because he thinks it will benefit him. Even the North Korea thing - the ink isn't even dry yet and he's on TV talking about how their beaches would look great with high-end condo and apartment buildings on them. I wonder what name he imagines on those buildings.
Like I said, I'm not commenting on whether or not his actions benefit the country, but if you think his motivation is anything other than his own personal self-interest, even if it hurts the country overall, then I think you're not paying attention.
Absolutely (Score:2)
Are you a Russian spy?
Absolutely.
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Blah, blah, and here we have it: the group who jumps out at every Trump discussion and says he's *obviously* a racist in a runaround attempt to stifle debate. It's not obvious at all - I don't think he's a racist at all. Actually, I would agree he's a racist under the new modern definition of racism whereby anyone who doesn't constantly virtue signal to diversity is a racist. We're all racists, including Trump, under the new definition. I'm not even sure what you mean by the word anymore.. are you trying to convince me Trump hates black people and would never hire them? Clearly false.
Exactly. If everybody is a racist, then nobody is.
Every Republican candidate since Goldwater at least has been called a racist, loudly. Nobody listens anymore, except the left, who weren't going to vote for him anyway.
It's just irrelevant theater at this point. Even if a real no kidding racist did somehow run for the nomination, nobody would know, because everyone gets called a racist anyway and no Republican believes it anymore. (And who's fault would that be? Not Republicans'. It would be the boys who
Re:Two movies (Score:4, Informative)
It's a bit of it date now but there's a list: https://www.nytimes.com/intera... [nytimes.com]
Seems like a little more than failure to virtue signal. His companies discriminating against non-whites was proven in court, for example.
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Racism can be subtle, and not even obvious to the individual. Let me give such an example. When Trump addressed the Jewish Coalition he said: [cnn.com]
"I'm a negotiator like you folks, we are negotiators," Trump said, drawing laughter before pivoting to how he would renegotiate the Iran deal. "Is there anybody that doesn't renegotiate deals in this room? This room negotiates them -- perhaps more than any other room I've ever spoken in."
Trump was playing on a Jewish stereotype, one that is often used in a derogatory way. Trump likes to present himself as a dealmaker, so maybe in context it was funny and appropriate. In isolation, we could laugh this off. But we see a lot of statements like this from Trump, and together they create the impression that his view of races and cultures is based on st
Witch hunt! (Score:2)
allowable espionage (Score:2)
Huh. (Score:2)
This isn't an indictment. It's a press release.
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I just can't wait for this to be over (Score:2)
And I can exhale and say, "Let's finally fucking move on now." It's so obvious what's going on here, it's been obvious since the debates, to me at least.
Spies hacking (Score:2)
I'm shocked to hear that, shocked I tell you.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
No collusion... (Score:2, Insightful)
notice, no americans in that indictment... and probably there is an expectation that this "accusation" won't be defended.
Foreign governments rarely show up to a US court to argue they were not guilty.
Thus a baseless accusation can stand because there is no due process because there is no trial generally.
I'd like the Russians to show up. Just send some lawyers to represent their clients. Force the Justice Department to actually argue their case in a court of law.
Already, the justice department was surprised
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if you've got evidence then why can't you go to trial?
Because people are running their mouths and actually don't have evidence.
I know I know... bluster and hummms and hahs... take it to court or its just hot air.
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Re: Comey Testimony (Score:2, Interesting)
Comey's testimony was well over a year ago. It is entirely possible that what he said was true at the time -they really hadn't obtained the DNC server or performed forensic analysis- but that they have since done so. No need for anyone to be lying here.
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So the DNC has now given up the server(s) for inspection that they once refused to let the FBI have and the FBI declined to force?
From this side of the Muller investigation, it's pretty hard to draw conclusions on this question. We don't know if it was surrendered to inspection under duress or willingly or if it was even looked at by Muller's team or not.
All we have is the charges which indicates that the grand jury has seen enough evidence to, in their judgment, believe that a crime MAY have been commit
Re:Comey Testimony (Score:5, Funny)
Damn, you caught'em. Please relay your theory to Fox News, they love that sort of thing.
Re:Comey Testimony (Score:4, Funny)
How's the weather in St. Petersburg today? Do the people you work with still call it Leningrad?
He's got 5 convictions (Score:5, Informative)
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"There is no such thing as a former KGB man."
-Vladimir Putin
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...run by ex KGB...
I prefer KG-used-to-B [imdb.com]
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Time to... MoveOn...
You'd really like that to happen, wouldn't you? Never mind that you have no idea what evidence Mueller has, or who his targets are, or the fact that no one around him leaks so the only information we have from his investigation is court filings. You want to just end everything, in an investigation primarily to determine whether or not a foreign power is actively influencing US democratic processes. You have no idea what he has, but you want the investigation to end. It almost sounds like you're worried
Re:foreigners? (Score:4, Informative)
While your statement is factually correct the narrative to which the submitter is reference is the "Trump-Russia Collusion" narrative. People want it to be true to get rid of Trump. These are all publicly available in indictments.
Papadopoulos [justice.gov] - Perjury
Flynn [justice.gov] - Perjury
Manafort & Gates [justice.gov] - Falsified income tax filings and bank fraud.
Pinedo [justice.gov] - Identity Fraud
van der Zwaan [justice.gov] - Perjury
Only Pinedo, has anything to do with Russian involvement and that has to do with him selling some of the fraud services to the Russians. Pinedo wasn't involved with Trump's campaign. Each of the indictments of individuals associated with the Trump campaign have nothing to do with the operations of the Trump campaign or even involve the Russians.
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While your statement is factually correct the narrative to which the submitter is reference is the "Trump-Russia Collusion" narrative. People want it to be true to get rid of Trump. These are all publicly available in indictments.
Papadopoulos [justice.gov] - Perjury
His perjury was about a meeting on Clinton's emails that he had with a man whom he knew to be connected to the Russian government.
Flynn [justice.gov] - Perjury
Perjury about his phone conversations with the Russian ambassador.
Manafort & Gates [justice.gov] - Falsified income tax filings and bank fraud.
Hiding income that they got working for a Russia-backed politician in Ukraine and other Russian interests.
Only Pinedo, has anything to do with Russian involvement and that has to do with him selling some of the fraud services to the Russians. Pinedo wasn't involved with Trump's campaign. Each of the indictments of individuals associated with the Trump campaign have nothing to do with the operations of the Trump campaign or even involve the Russians.
It's surprising that you went to the trouble to link to the indictments that actually contradict your claims.
I mean Papadopoulous, while on the campaign, met with a Russian connected individual to get informati
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My apologies. I erred when crafting that sentence. I made the assumption that the sentence would be interpreted in the context of the Russian collusion narrative, which is that Trump owes his Presidency to the Russians.
Papadopolous's indictment features a number of false statements regarding attempting to reach out to Russian contacts. The indictment contains no evidence of Papadopolous's statements being much more than an indication that he attempted to arrange a meeting between Trump and the Russian gover
Re:hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
It is important to include all relevant facts.
Peter Strozk, the FBI boss in the news for saying he would "stop Trump" from becoming President, was the person who paid Stefan Halper as an FBI informant and placed him inside the Trump campaign.
Stefan Halper then used his influence inside the campaign to recommend and hire Carter Page, who is now accused of being a Russian spy.
So the trail of facts seems to show a very very different story.
1. FBI's boss (Peter Strozk) hires a mole
2. FBI place mole inside Trump campaign (due to fear of russia)
3. FBI Mole recommends and hires a Russian spy (Carter Page)
4. FBI gets warrants to spy on campaign based on Russian spy "infiltrating" the campaign - Peter Strozk (see 1) leads the investigation
5. Opponents claim Trump colluded with Russians and deny FBI bias.
If Occam's razor can provide a better way to interpret these facts, please share.
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It is important to include all relevant facts.
Peter Strozk, the FBI boss in the news for saying he would "stop Trump" from becoming President, was the person who paid Stefan Halper as an FBI informant and placed him inside the Trump campaign.
Stefan Halper then used his influence inside the campaign to recommend and hire Carter Page, who is now accused of being a Russian spy.
So the trail of facts seems to show a very very different story.
1. FBI's boss (Peter Strozk) hires a mole 2. FBI place mole inside Trump campaign (due to fear of russia) 3. FBI Mole recommends and hires a Russian spy (Carter Page) 4. FBI gets warrants to spy on campaign based on Russian spy "infiltrating" the campaign - Peter Strozk (see 1) leads the investigation 5. Opponents claim Trump colluded with Russians and deny FBI bias.
If Occam's razor can provide a better way to interpret these facts, please share.
Exactly.
Re:hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
If Occam's razor can provide a better way to interpret these facts, please share.
Ok:
FBI announces in late 2016 that they have an active investigation into the Trump campaign working with Russia to affect the election.
That would toss the election to Clinton, since it was pretty close. And it would be really, really easy for the FBI to do if they actually were out to sabotage Trump. Just a press release, like the multiple press releases they sent out for their investigation into Clinton.
Instead, the FBI announced the investigation into Clinton's emails, including a big announcement reviving it in October. The FBI didn't talk about the investigation into the Trump campaign, and actively turned the press away from it by claiming the investigation didn't involve the Trump campaign.
That would be a really bad idea if they were actually out to get Trump.....but it doesn't fit the narrative so the imbalance in press releases somehow doesn't get included when you talk about including all facts.
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First of all, that sound you hear is Russia, quaking in it's boots, lol
Secondly, the US government conducted espionage against a U.S. presidential campaign, with the goal of either making it lose, or as a fallback to be an "insurance policy" in case that candidate won. Any charges going to filed in that? Anything? Beuller?
You know, for a long time it would have been the Republicans who were willing to stand up to Russia and prevent their abuses and they would have called the Democrats weak, or doormats in their handling of Russia. The roles seem to have switched. The Democrats are enraged at Russia and wanting to stand strong and the Republicans are now the doormats.
I wonder why?
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Ii there's any substance to this, it's more likely that the Kremlin didn't want Hillary as president than they wanted Donald. Hillary's an aggressive war mongerer who'll try to push NATO further east, while Donald's a buffoon who's reducing the USA's diplomatic credibility in the world. Sounds like the Kremlin, if they did do this, did the rest of the world a favour.
I'm sure you're pretty close to it. Russia saw Donald as a weak man they could easily manipulate by guiding his ego. Of all the candidates running for any party- Donald was the one most likely to destroy America's relationships with other countries and weaken America's position in the world.
It was really a smart move by Putin. For the many bad things you can say about Putin, you can't call him stupid.
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If this is the actual case, "Russia saw Donald as a weak man they could easily manipulate by guiding his ego," (and I believe it is) then you can say many things about Democrats, but you can't call them smart, effective, or mature.
Controlling someone who has their over-inflated ego attached to a very specific self image, and is incredibly eager to present that self image in public, is easy. You appeal to that nature, couch your desires in terms of how it will reinforce the image they want to portray. Play
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I give you this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EZFBB-MntE [youtube.com]
I've seen lesser crimes called treasonous by the same person.
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32 people were charged. 12 of those were GRU (russian) agents. 3 were trump campaign personell. Article does not say who/what the others are.
?! wrong.
from zerohedge with screen shot of indictment -
"... there is no indication that any American was a knowing participant in this activity, and no indication that these efforts altered the vote count in any way."
https://www.zerohedge.com/site... [zerohedge.com]
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Sigh, You read russian propaganda like zerohedge? you must be so misinformed. Just google the it.
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everything you disagree is russian propaganda? even when it says russians are indicted?
and googling is the way not to be "misinformed"? lol.
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in any case i just pointed to what the indictment and rosenstein statement, with source. does indictment says anything different when it is in some other site?
did i use opinion of the site, whatever its bias?
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you are free to engage in ad hominem logical fallacies, i stick to actual words and facts.
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Get out of here with your facts. They are inconvenient to the rage machine.
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it is justice department press release about justice department's indictment of russian agents.
comment i was replying to, said there were "trump campaign personell" charged. that was wrong, as i said. do you agree i am right on that?
and justice department is specific "no indication that any American was a knowing participant in this activity,"
and could you point to pages in indictment where it names americans knowingly "working with those that committed crimes", as you imply it does.
you are free to speculat
Re:32 people charged (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you limiting your scope to the latest indictments? Because people like Manafort and Papadopoulos have already been indicted by Mueller, and some have pled guilty. The scope of his investigation is very large. It's also not over, and he's actually able to control his people so there aren't any leaks, we have no idea what evidence he has or who his other targets are. The only information we get from Mueller is when he files things in court. So it's probably premature for anyone to conclude anything other than what his filings say. Just because there has not been a filing charging someone with collusion, for example, does not mean that there is no collusion or that he's not investigating it or that he doesn't have evidence of it. He just hasn't filed that yet, so let's hold off on making conclusions about what people definitely did or did not do until he finishes his work.
Re:32 people charged (Score:5, Informative)
What have the FBI, the NSA, and the rest of our wonderful "intelligence" apparatus been doing, while this was going on?
Oh, yeah, they were busy trying to sabotage [realclearpolitics.com] Trump [cnn.com]
Strzok sat on evidence incriminating Trump campaign members in connection with Russian election interference -- and didn't publish it. And Comey basically threw the election to Trump by reopening the Clinton investigation in late October. That's some strange behaviour for people supposedly trying to "sabotage Trump".
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No one indicted so far needed the Special Counsel to be indicted... None of the indictments implicate Trump in any wrong-doing either.
That you are biased is obvious. That you are so biased, the above truths aren't clear to you, is rare...
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No COLLUSION By Any US Citizen
Re: 32 people charged (Score:2, Informative)
You mean Prigozhin's company, Concord Consulting? That's still proceeding to trial.
This is different and involves a bunch of GRU officers.
"Russian GRU officers hacked the website of a state election board and stole information about 500,000 voters," Rosenstein said. "They also hacked into computers of a company that supplied software used to verify voter registration information."
The defendants worked for two units of the GRU that "engaged in active cyber operations to interfere in the 2016 presidential el
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I'll readily agree to that. But doesn't mean I have to bow and grovel to the moron in charge. We were given a choice of two awful people. The problem is with all the hypocrites saying "we won, so shut up and take it!" when during the Obama years they were bitching and moaning just as loudly. I'm really annoyed that people treat politics like it was a simple sports game. Modern political discussion is like listening to two drunk guys in a bar.
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The two are not mutually exclusive.
Hillary Clinton lost to an incompetent businessman who had (and has) no idea of how to be President of the United States. She's that bad.
...or the Russians are that good.
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Really though, Hillary Clinton lost to the single most-disliked candidate in the history of presidential polling. The major reason she lost is probably because she's in second place on that list.
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This. A million times this. I would rather have Putin himself be our president than her.
Careful what you wish for!
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People who live in reality don't have to rationalize anything. We just accept what is happening and truth. That truth being, Trump is doing a good job. No amount of "rationalization" by people with TDS will change that.
Of course by living in reality if Trump stops doing a good job we will accept that too.
As for his tweets, I don't see why anyone really pays attention to them. Well they are good at setting TDS people to frothing. When like the mythical nuclear war that didn't happen they have conq
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There is what I was waiting for..
Not only do those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) suffer from the ability to separate fantasy from reality, it also clouds their ability to carry on a rational discussion. This should be evident. The subject was incensed by by a factual statement but was unable to refute it. The subject continued to get more agitated as more facts where placed in front of him. Facts that while true, didn't fit with the subjects world view as viewed under the effect of
Re: so this... (Score:4)
Truth hurts. You decided to get personal, I just decided to distance myself from you. You didn't come here to debate, you came to argue. If I can't educate you, I'll educate people that are reading.
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> carry one phone.
That's a BS excuse. Even my old second generation iPhone from 2008 supported multiple email accounts.https://politics.slashdot.org/story/18/07/13/1629245/special-counsel-mueller-charges-12-russian-intelligence-officers-with-hacking-democrats-during-2016-election.
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I believe the correct spelling of your name should be Arkhangelsk. But, really, feel free to keep linking to a site actively trying to discredit an ongoing investigation into Russians trying to subvert the democratic processes of the US. Let's just act like that's not happening, because that's totally patriotic and in all of our best interests, right?
Really, it's becoming so tiresome that so many people in the US apparently don't want to know whether and how Russia is trying to influence our country at th
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That's because Trump continues to campaign. Continuing to hold political rallies even in off years is rare to see in democratic republics.