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House Dems Investigating Trump Loans for Russian Connections

by ShelbyNorthcott Posted on May 24, 2017

Mother Jones

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Since Donald Trump became a presidential candidate, journalists and investigators looking at his business holdings have wondered if there are any Russian connections to the complicated and opaque finances of his real estate empire. So far, no solid evidence of a Moscow link has emerged. But on Wednesday a group of House Democrats took a significant step on this front. They sent a letter to German banking giant Deutsche Bank asking for information regarding the four large loans Trump has received from the bank. In particular, the lawmakers are looking for information indicating whether the Russian government guaranteed any of the Trump loans or if these transactions “were in any way connected to Russia.”

According to financial disclosures made by Trump during the campaign, he owes more than $714 million to several banks. But his biggest lender—by far—is Deutsche Bank, which has provided Trump at least $364 million in financing. Deutsche Bank has regularly clashed with US regulators in recent years, and it is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice for its role in a 2011 scheme to allegedly launder money out of Russia using a complex system of what are known as “mirror trades.” Given that Trump now oversees the Department of Justice, his loans with the German bank are one of his most glaring conflicts of interest.

In February, the Guardian reported that sometime after Trump launched his bid for the presidency, Deutsche Bank undertook a review of Trump’s business with the bank. The review, which has not been made public, reportedly did not find a link to Russia. But the Democrats want to see that review to make sure. Their letter, which was sent to Deutsche Bank’s American CEO, asks for a copy of the review and related documents.

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In the 1990s, as Trump struggled with assorted bankruptcies, his relationship with many Wall Street banks deteriorated. Deutsche Bank remained one of the few major banks willing to lend him money. In 2005, he borrowed $640 million from Deutsche Bank to fund the construction of his Chicago tower, but when the 2008 financial crisis hit, this partnership turned rocky. In November 2008, just as he was about to miss a payment on the loan, Trump sued Deutsche Bank for more than $3 billion, arguing that the bank’s actions on the world market had led to the financial collapse that had hurt Trump’s real estate business. The bank, in turn, counter-sued, demanding that Trump pay back the $40 million he had personally guaranteed on the loan. The dispute lingered in court for several years before finally being settled. Oddly, Trump subsequently worked out four new hefty loans with Deutsche Bank: one for that Chicago tower; two loans totaling $125 million to finance his purchase of the Doral National golf course in Miami; and a $170 million loan for renovating Trump’s new hotel in Washington, DC. The loan for the Washington hotel was issued in August 2015, a couple months after Trump entered the presidential race.

“At a time when nearly all other financial institutions refused to lend to Trump after his businesses repeatedly declared bankruptcy, Deutsche Bank continued to do so—even after the President sued the Bank and defaulted on a prior loan from the Bank—to the point where his companies now owe your institution an estimated $340 million,” the Democratic lawmakers stated in their letter to Deutsche Bank. “Only with full disclosure can the American public determine the extent of the President’s financial ties to Russia and any impact such ties may have on his policy decisions.”

Last fall, a Deutsche Bank spokeswoman confirmed to Mother Jones that all of Trump’s loans from Deutsche Bank came from its “private bank,” a division that caters to high net-worth individuals who typically maintain large personal or brokerage accounts with the bank. According to Trump’s personal financial disclosure, he had at least two brokerage accounts with Deutsche Bank. Additionally, a failed concrete manufacturing business started by Donald Trump Jr. received a loan from Deutsche Bank, and Jared Kushner and his mother jointly have a loan from Deutsche Bank. (Trump eventually purchased from Deutsche Bank the loan it had made to his son’s failed business.)

In the letter, the House Democrats also asked for the bank’s records regarding a 2011 internal investigation of its “mirror trading” operation in Moscow. According to a New Yorker report last summer, between 2011 and 2015, Deutsche Bank employees in Moscow used a complicated trading procedure to help move as much as $10 billion out of Russia, possibly to help wealthy Russians evade sanctions imposed on the Putin regime.

The five Democrats who signed the letter are Reps. Maxine Waters (Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Financial Services committee, Daniel Kildee (Mich.), Gwen Moore (Wis.), Al Green (Texas), and Ed Perlmutter (Colo.). A spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank did not respond to a request for comment regarding the Democrats’ inquiry.

A full copy of the letter is below.

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Ltr Fsc to John Cryan Deutsche Bank Mirror Trade and Trump Accounts 5 23 17 (PDF)

Ltr Fsc to John Cryan Deutsche Bank Mirror Trade and Trump Accounts 5 23 17 (Text)

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House Dems Investigating Trump Loans for Russian Connections

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Watch the Top Democrat on the Senate Intel Committee Explain the Trump-Russia Scandal

by charlenestahl1 Posted on March 30, 2017

Mother Jones

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The US Senate intelligence committee on Thursday convened its first hearing in its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. In stark contrast to the House intelligence committee’s investigation—which has been brought to a halt by the partisan brinksmanship of the panel’s chair, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)—the leaders of the Senate investigation say they are trying to keep things as bipartisan and transparent as possible. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the committee’s vice chairman, used his opening statement to sum up Russia’s election interference—and the ways that Trump associates may have been connected to this Kremlin operation. “We are seeking to determine if there is an actual fire, but there’s clearly a lot of smoke,” Warner said. Read his full statement below:

Today’s hearing is important to help understand the role Russia played in the 2016 presidential elections.

As the U.S. intelligence community unanimously assessed in January of this year, Russia sought to hijack our democratic process, and that most important part of our democratic process, our Presidential elections. As we’ll learn today, Russia’s strategy and tactics are not new, but their brazenness certainly was.

This hearing is also important because it is open, as the chairman mentioned—which is unusual for this Committee. Due to the classified nature of our work, we typically operate behind closed doors.

But today’s public hearing will help, I hope, the American public writ large understand how the Kremlin made effective use of its hacking skills to steal and weaponize information and engage in a coordinated effort to damage a particular candidate and to undermine public confidence in our democratic process.

Our witnesses today will help us to understand how Russia deployed this deluge of disinformation in a broader attempt to undermine America’s strength and leadership throughout the world.

We simply must – and we will – get this right. The Chairman and I agree it is vitally important that we do this as a credible, bipartisan, and transparent a manner as possible. As was said yesterday at our press conference, Chairman Burr and I trust each other, and equally important, we trust our colleagues on this committee that we are going to move together and we are going to get to the bottom of it and get it right.

As this hearing begins, let’s take a minute to review what we know: Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a deliberate campaign carefully constructed to undermine our election.

First, Russia struck at our political institutions by electronically breaking into the headquarters of one of our political parties and stealing vast amounts of information. Russian operatives also hacked emails to steal personal messages and other information from individuals ranging from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta to former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

This stolen information was then “weaponized.” We know that Russian intelligence used the “Guccifer 2.0” persona and others like WikiLeaks and seemingly choreographed times that would cause maximum damage to one candidate. They did this with an unprecedented level of sophistication about American presidential politics that should be a line of inquiry for us on this committee and candidly, while it helped one candidate this time, they are not favoring one party over another, and consequently should be a concern for all of us.

Second, Russia continually sought to diminish and undermine our trust in the American media by blurring our faith in what is true and what is not. Russian propaganda outlets like RT and Sputnik successfully produced and peddled disinformation to American audiences in pursuit of Moscow’s preferred outcome.

This Russian “propaganda on steroids” was designed to poison the national conversation in America. The Russians employed thousands of paid Internet trolls and bot-nets to push-out disinformation and fake news at high volume, focusing this material onto your Twitter and Facebook feeds and flooding our social media with misinformation.

This fake news and disinformation was then hyped by the American media echo chamber and our own social media networks to reach – and potentially influence – millions of Americans.

This is not innuendo or false allegations. This is not fake news. This is actually what happened to us, and understanding all aspects of this attack is important.

Russia continues these sorts of actions as we speak. Some of our close allies in Europe are experiencing exactly the same kind of interference in their political processes. Germany has said that its Parliament has been hacked. French presidential candidates right now have been the subjects of Russian propaganda and disinformation. In the Netherlands, their recent elections, the Dutch hand-counted their ballots because they feared Russian interference in their electoral process.

Perhaps, most critically for us, there is nothing to stop them from doing this all over again in 2018, for those of you who are up, or in 2020, as Americans again go back to the polls.

In addition to what we already know, any full accounting must also find out what, if any, contacts, communications or connections occurred between Russia and those associated with the campaigns themselves.

I will not prejudge the outcome of our investigation. We are seeking to determine if there is an actual fire, but there’s clearly a lot of smoke. For instance:

• An individual associated with the Trump campaign accurately predicted the release of hacked emails weeks before it happened. This same individual also admits to being in contact with Guccifer 2.0, the Russian intelligence persona responsible for these cyber operations.
• The platform of one of our two major political parties was mysteriously watered-down in a way which promoted the interests of President Putin — and no one seems to be able to identify who directed that change in the platform.
• A campaign manager of one campaign, who played such a critical role in electing the President, was forced to step down over his alleged ties to Russia and its associates.
• Since the election, we have seen the President’s national security advisor resign — and his Attorney General recuse — himself over previously undisclosed contacts with the Russian government.
• And, of course, in the other body, on March 20th, the Director of the FBI publicly acknowledged that the Bureau is “investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russian efforts.”

I want to be clear, at least for me: This investigation is not about whether you have a “D” or an “R” next to your name. It is not about re-litigating last fall’s election. It is about clearly understanding and responding to this very real threat.

It’s also, I believe, about holding Russia accountable for this unprecedented attack against our democracy. And it is about arming ourselves so we can identify and stop it when it happens again. And trust me: it will happen again if we don’t take action.

I would hope that the President is as anxious as we are to get to the bottom of what happened. But I have to say editorially, that the President’s recent conduct — with his wild and uncorroborated accusations about wiretapping, and his inappropriate and unjustified attacks on America’s hard-working intelligence professionals — does give me grave concern.

This Committee has a heavy weight of responsibility to prove that we can continue to put our political labels aside and get to the truth. I believe we can get there. I have seen firsthand, and I say this to our audience, how seriously members on both sides of this dais have worked so far on this sensitive and critical issue.

As the Chairman and I have said repeatedly, this investigation will follow the facts where they lead us .If at any time I believe we’re not going to be able to get those facts, and we’re working together very cooperatively to make sure we get the facts we need from the intelligence community, we will get that done.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your commitment to this serious work and your commitment to keeping this bipartisan cooperation, at least, if not all across the hill, alive in this committee. Thank you very much.

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Watch the Top Democrat on the Senate Intel Committee Explain the Trump-Russia Scandal

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British, Dutch Passed Along Intel About Meetings Between Trump Team and Russia

by OlaWDHLsrir Posted on March 2, 2017

Mother Jones

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The New York Times reports today on new revelations about contacts between the Trump team and Russia during the last month of the Obama administration:

American allies, including the British and the Dutch, had provided information describing meetings in European cities between Russian officials — and others close to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin — and associates of President-elect Trump, according to three former American officials who requested anonymity in discussing classified intelligence. Separately, American intelligence agencies had intercepted communications of Russian officials, some of them within the Kremlin, discussing contacts with Mr. Trump’s associates.

Some of this is coming to light as a result of deliberate efforts by outgoing Obama officials:

Mr. Trump has accused the Obama administration of hyping the Russia story line as a way to discredit his new administration. At the Obama White House, Mr. Trump’s statements stoked fears among some that intelligence could be covered up or destroyed — or its sources exposed — once power changed hands. What followed was a push to preserve the intelligence that underscored the deep anxiety with which the White House and American intelligence agencies had come to view the threat from Moscow.

….Some officials began asking specific questions at intelligence briefings, knowing the answers would be archived and could be easily unearthed by investigators….At intelligence agencies, there was a push to process as much raw intelligence as possible into analyses, and to keep the reports at a relatively low level of classification to ensure as wide a readership as possible across the government….There was also an effort to pass reports and other sensitive materials to Congress.

….Throughout the summer…European allies were starting to pass along information about people close to Mr. Trump meeting with Russians in the Netherlands, Britain and other countries….But it wasn’t until after the election, and after more intelligence had come in, that the administration began to grasp the scope of the suspected tampering and concluded that one goal of the campaign was to help tip the election in Mr. Trump’s favor. In early December, Mr. Obama ordered the intelligence community to conduct a full assessment of the Russian campaign.

As the story acknowledges, it’s still unclear what all these meetings were about, but “the Russians, it appeared, were arguing about how far to go in interfering in the presidential election.”

This has the feel of a scandal that will pass into urban legend without anyone ever knowing for sure what actually happened. It’s pretty obvious at this point that something happened, but with every new disclosure it seems as if the truth drifts a little farther out of reach. Unless someone has a smoking gun tape somewhere, it’s not clear if this story will ever get resolved.

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British, Dutch Passed Along Intel About Meetings Between Trump Team and Russia

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The Question the White House Won’t Answer: Did Trump’s Campaign Have Contact With Russia?

by cheriehatten008 Posted on February 14, 2017

Mother Jones

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The first question at White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s daily briefing on Tuesday—half a day after the news broke that national security adviser Michael Flynn had resigned—focused on a key issue: Flynn’s contacts with the Vladimir Putin regime during the campaign. Flynn has been under fire for his post-election conversations with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak, during which he discussed the sanctions President Barack Obama was imposing on Russia as punishment for Moscow’s meddling in the US election. But ABC News’ Jonathan Karl asked whether any Trump associates were in touch with the Russian government before the election.

This is important, for that would mean that Trump folks were in contact with the Putin regime while it was attacking American democracy. Trump and his team have adamantly denied there were any interactions with Russian officials. At a press conference in mid-January, Trump ignored a question about such contacts. Once the event was over, he said, “No contact.” Days later, on Face the Nation, incoming Vice President Mike Pence said the Trump campaign had no interactions with Moscow. Host John Dickerson asked him, “Did any adviser or anybody in the Trump campaign have any contact with the Russians who were trying to meddle in the election?” Pence declared, “Of course not. And I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.”

Yet the Washington Post reported days ago that Kislyak told the newspaper he had been in touch with Flynn since before the election. The ambassador declined to say what he and Flynn had discussed. And the newspaper reported that the Flynn-Kislyak conversations “were part of a series of contacts between Flynn and Kislyak that began before the Nov. 8 election and continued during the transition, officials said.” These facts and Kislyak’s comment undercut Trump’s and Pence’s assertions there were no pre-election contacts.

So what was Spicer to say when Karl posed this query? At first, Spicer said that Flynn did speak to the Russian ambassador during the transition. No, Karl protested, that’s not the question. What about before the election? Spicer then sputtered out this reply: “There’s nothing that would conclude me that anything different has changed with respect to that time period.”

That contorted reply would seem to mean that the White House is sticking to its previous denial. But this assertion runs contrary to what is now the public record: that the Trump campaign was in contact with Putin’s man in Washington while Putin was subverting an American election to help Trump. What was going on? What was said? What messages did Flynn send to the Putin regime? These are the obvious questions that warrant answers. They are also dangerous questions for Trump. And that’s why Spicer cannot acknowledge the hard truth that the Flynn scandal started before the election. These contacts deserve as much, if not more, attention than the conversations that triggered this controversy, for they are relevant to the fundamental subject at hand: Trump’s relationship with the autocratic leader who mounted an operation to subvert American democracy to assist Trump.

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The Question the White House Won’t Answer: Did Trump’s Campaign Have Contact With Russia?

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House Democrats Demand Investigation of Trump’s National Security Adviser

by stellamaclaurin Posted on February 14, 2017

Mother Jones

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On Monday night, all 17 Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sent a letter to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the committee chairman, requesting that he either initiate a full investigation of Michael Flynn—President Donald Trump’s national security adviser who was caught misrepresenting conversations he had with the Russian ambassador—or “step aside and allow the Committee to vote on conducting basic oversight going forward.”

Flynn has been under fire since the Washington Post reported last week that he had discussed “US sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador to the United States during the month before President Trump took office,” despite claims to the contrary from Trump administration officials, including White House press secretary Sean Spicer and Vice President Mike Pence. Flynn, too, had previously denied discussing with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislya the sanctions levied by President Barack Obama in response to Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 election during a series of conversations in late December. But a spokesman for Flynn told the Post on Thursday that “he couldn’t be certain that sanctions never came up.”

On Monday, Kellyanne Conway, a senior White House adviser, said Flynn “does enjoy the full confidence of the president.” Less than an hour later, Spicer issued a statement saying that Trump was “evaluating the situation.” Monday night, the Post reported that then-Acting Attorney General Sally Yates told the White House in late January that she believed “Flynn had misled senior administration officials about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador.” The paper noted that she had “warned that Flynn was potentially vulnerable to Russian blackmail.”

The House Democrats’ letter to Chaffetz notes that Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, has repeatedly asked Chaffetz to investigate Flynn’s contacts with the Russian government and put forward the case for an investigation:

Grave questions have been raised about the fitness of General Flynn to serve as National Security Adviser and to continue having access to classified information. It has now been reported that General Flynn took payments of an undisclosed amount to travel to Moscow to dine with Vladimir Putin and celebrate RT, which US intelligence officials warn is the “Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet”; that he potentially failed to obtain the consent of Congress to receive those funds in violation of the Constitution; that he communicated repeatedly with Russian officials while that nation was engaged in an attack on our democracy and our presidential election; that he secretly discussed with the Russian ambassador, in possible violation of the Logan Act, sanctions imposed by President Obama in response to these Russian attacks; and that he may have lied about these discussions not only to the American people, but to his own White House colleagues, including the Vice President.

…

If you are not willing to initiate this investigation…then we ask that you not prevent us from calling up this matter at the next business meeting so we may request a vote on this and other proposals going forward on this matter.

Chaffetz, who was eager to investigate Hillary Clinton’s email controversy, has come under pressure from Democrats on the committee and his own constituents for going soft on Trump and not launching inquiries regarding Trump’s financial conflicts of interest. Cummings and other Democrats have previously asked Chaffetz for a committee investigation of contacts between Trump associates and Russia—and he has ignored these requests.

Read the full letter below:

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House Oversight Democrats Letter to Chaffetz Feb. 13 (PDF)

House Oversight Democrats Letter to Chaffetz Feb. 13 (Text)

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House Democrats Demand Investigation of Trump’s National Security Adviser

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NSA May Be Withholding Intel from President Trump

by BrandenBwp Posted on February 13, 2017

Mother Jones

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This was the scene at Mar-a-Lago as news came in that North Korea had conducted a missile test. The public is all around. Classified documents are lying on the table. People are on the phone where anyone can overhear them. There is no operational security at all. This picture was taken by some random guest from a few feet away. Trump himself just looks bored by the whole thing. Facebook

John Schindler got a lot of attention over the weekend for his Observer article, “The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins.” Here’s the bit that raised the most eyebrows:

A new report by CNN indicates that important parts of the infamous spy dossier that professed to shed light on President Trump’s shady Moscow ties have been corroborated by communications intercepts….SIGINT confirms that some of the non-salacious parts of what Steele reported, in particular how senior Russian officials conspired to assist Trump in last year’s election, are substantially based in fact.

….Our spies have had enough of these shady Russian connections—and they are starting to push back….In light of this, and out of worries about the White House’s ability to keep secrets, some of our spy agencies have begun withholding intelligence from the Oval Office. Why risk your most sensitive information if the president may ignore it anyway? A senior National Security Agency official explained that NSA was systematically holding back some of the “good stuff” from the White House, in an unprecedented move.

….What’s going on was explained lucidly by a senior Pentagon intelligence official, who stated that “since January 20, we’ve assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the SITROOM,” meaning the White House Situation Room, the 5,500 square-foot conference room in the West Wing where the president and his top staffers get intelligence briefings. “There’s not much the Russians don’t know at this point,” the official added in wry frustration.

“Inside” reporting about the intelligence community is notoriously unreliable, so take this with a grain of salt. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. But just the fact that stuff like this is getting a respectful public hearing is damning all by itself. For any other recent president, a report like this would be dismissed as nonsense without a second thought. But for Trump, it seems plausible enough to take seriously. Stay tuned.

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NSA May Be Withholding Intel from President Trump

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Trump’s Business Plan Won’t Eliminate His Conflicts of Interest

by Isabelta5 Posted on January 11, 2017

Mother Jones

At a long-awaited press conference Wednesday, Donald Trump outlined an extensive list of steps he plans to take to separate himself from his business interests. But he stopped short of the one thing that ethics experts agree he needs to do to eliminate conflicts of interest: divest his billions in assets and debts and place the proceeds in a blind trust.

Standing in front of a large stack of papers and manila folders that he said represented agreements he has signed to separate himself from his businesses, Trump steadfastly insisted he did not have to take any measures to avoid conflicts because federal ethics rules do not apply to presidents or vice presidents. According to Trump and a lawyer he retained to devise a plan to limit his business conflicts, he was voluntarily taking steps to make sure there are no questions about whether he is acting in the public interest while in office. Under the plan detailed at the press conference, Trump’s assets will be placed into a trust that will be run by his sons and another Trump executive, and all of the Trump Organization’s deals will be vetted by an ethics adviser who will have the right to veto any new deals that might present a conflict.

But the Trump trust will not be a blind trust—that is, an entity run by an independent third party containing assets the beneficiary is unaware of. It will just be a trust. Many of Trump’s assets are already in a trust—the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust—but according to Trump and his attorney, Sheri Dillon, he won’t play a role in managing the new trust. Dillon said Trump will not be provided with detailed statements showing how his companies are performing. He will just receive updates showing the profits or losses of his assets.

Dillon also attempted to stave off concerns that Trump might violate the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which prohibits federal officials from receiving financial benefits from a foreign government. Ethics experts have pointed out that Trump’s financial entanglements may violate this provision. Among other things, he is part of a partnership that owes money to a government-owned Chinese bank. And foreign diplomatic delegations have rushed to book space at Trump’s new Washington, DC, hotel—seen by many as an attempt to curry favor. According to Dillon, Trump will donate all hotel profits connected to any foreign government to the US Treasury.

None of Trump’s proposals seemed to impress his critics. Norm Eisen, who served as a lead ethics attorney in Barack Obama’s administration, said the plan laid out by Trump and Dillon fails all five standards that he and Richard Painter, a former ethics attorney for the George W. Bush administration, laid out prior to the press conference.

“Tragically, the Trump plan to deal with his business conflicts announced today falls short in every respect,” Eisen said, calling it “an inadequate and scantily detailed ethics wall.”

“Mr. Trump’s ill-advised course will precipitate scandal and corruption,” Eisen added.

One of Trump’s most intractable conflicts of interest is the debt he owes to lenders around the globe. Trump has reported owing $713 million. His biggest lender is Deutsche Bank, the troubled German bank that recently agreed to a $7.2 billion settlement with the Justice Department for its role in the 2008 mortgage crisis. The bank remains under investigation by the Justice Department for possibly participating in an attempt to funnel money out of Moscow in defiance of international sanctions. Trump did not address the loans other than to say he believed his company has very little debt.

As he left the stage, Trump said he was happy to leave his sons in charge of his business empire and that he will judge how they have performed when he leaves the White House. “I hope they do a good job,” Trump said in closing, “but if they don’t a good job, I’ll say, ‘You’re fired!'”

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Trump’s Business Plan Won’t Eliminate His Conflicts of Interest

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Democrats Turn Up Pressure on Republicans for Russian Hacking Investigation

by StewartPeachey Posted on January 6, 2017

Mother Jones

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At Thursday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Russian hacking of Democratic targets during the 2016 campaign, it was obvious that most Republicans don’t want to get involved with a matter that puts them on the wrong side of Donald Trump, who has repeatedly questioned the intelligence community’s conclusion that Moscow meddled in the election in order to help him win. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the chair of the committee, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), did each decry the Russian intervention and called for a thorough investigation. Yet the other GOPers on the panel were largely mute. This silence suggested that Rs on the Hill are generally not eager to dig into this touchy (for Trump) subject. And that explains why McCain has so far failed in his effort to persuade Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to set up a special select committee to conduct a probe. Instead, McConnell prefers to leave most of this work to the (naturally) overly secretive Intelligence Committee, on which neither McCain nor Graham, the two loudest Republican voices on this front, sit. These machinations demonstrate that politics is shaping how congressional Republicans are reacting to a fundamental threat to American democracy and electoral integrity. And that makes all the more relevant a revived Democratic push to create an independent commission to investigate Russian intervention in the election.

Last month, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Government Oversight Committee, and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, introduced a measure to create a bipartisan commission—much like the highly praised 9/11 commission—to probe the Russian hacking. Their proposal did not gain a great amount of attention. Even top Democrats on Capitol Hill who supported the idea were not loudly demanding a robust investigation. But on Friday afternoon, Cummings and Swalwell reintroduced the bill, and this time more than 150 of their fellow House Democrats, including the top Democrat on every House committee, were co-sponsoring the proposed legislation.

The bill would establish a 12-member commission with the authority to interview witnesses, obtain documents, issue subpoenas, and receive public testimony. The panel would examine attempts by the Russian government to influence, interfere with, or undermine trust in last year’s US elections. And the commission would have to issue a report with recommendations within 18 months.

With this move, House Democrats are upping the ante, just as the Obama administration is completing its review of the Russian intervention in the election and Trump keeps tweeting positively about Vladimir Putin and suggesting the story has been hyped to taint his election. This week, a bipartisan collection of former senior intelligence and defense officials—including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and former Acting Director of Central Intelligence Michael Morrell—issued a letter urging Congress to create this sort of commission to “understand fully and publicly what happened, how we were so vulnerable, and what we can do to protect our democracy in future elections.”

It’s unlikely that many, if any, Republicans on the Hill will embrace this proposal. But Dems are attempting to generate political pressure. “There’s overwhelming agreement across America that our democracy was attacked this past presidential election,” Swallwell says. “Now everyone’s asking what our nation’s leaders will do about it.” For most Republicans, the answer seems to be: not much.

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Democrats Turn Up Pressure on Republicans for Russian Hacking Investigation

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Did Russia Spy on Donald Trump When He Visited Moscow?

by WalterHua9800982 Posted on December 14, 2016

Mother Jones

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With the Washington Post‘s bombshell report that the CIA has assessed the Russian hacking of Democratic targets was done as part of a Kremlin operation to help Donald Trump win the election, here’s an intriguing question: has Russian intelligence spied on the president-elect and, if so, what private information has it collected on him? A counterintelligence veteran of a Western spy service in October told Mother Jones that he had uncovered information—and had sent it to the FBI—indicating Russian intelligence had mounted a years-long operation to cultivate or co-opt Trump and that this project included surveillance that gathered compromising material on the celebrity mogul. Yet there have been no indications from the FBI whether it has investigated this lead. Still, several intelligence professionals say that Trump would have indeed been a top priority for Russian intelligence surveillance—especially when he was in Moscow in November 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant, which he owned at the time.

To present the contest in the Russian capital, Trump, who had long tried to do real estate deals in Russia, had teamed up with Aras Agalarov, a billionaire oligarch close to Vladimir Putin (whose son is a popular pop singer). The glitzy event, which included a swanky after-party, drew various Russian notables, including a member of Putin’s inner circle and an alleged Russian mobster. Trump later boasted that he had mingled with “almost all of the oligarchs.” Trump had hoped that Putin would attend the pageant—tweeting months earlier, “if so, will he become my new best friend?”—but the Russian leader was a no-show.

During Trump’s stay in Moscow, US intelligence experts note, he would have been a natural and obvious target for Russian intelligence. At the time, Trump was a prominent American, an international businessman, and a celebrity. He was also deeply involved in US politics. He had almost run for president in 2000 and nearly did so again in 2012, and he had been a leading foe of President Barack Obama, having pushed the conspiracy theory that Obama had been born in Kenya.

A former high-ranking CIA official, who asked not to be identified, says in an email,

It is nearly certain that Russian intelligence would have done some sort of surveillance on him. Could have been low-key physical surveillance (following etc) or deeper surveillance, such as video/audio of hotel room and monitoring of electronics (your communications while in Moscow is on their network).

James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, points out, “It’s safe to assume that high-profile public figures and billionaires attract the attention of the Russian security services, including bugging any hotel rooms.” And Malcolm Nance, a terrorism and intelligence expert and author of The Plot To Hack America, says that the Russian version of the National Security Agency, the Spetssvyaz, manages specialized technical teams that would have been all over Trump:

These communications intercept units are designated for high-importance personages of political and diplomatic standing, such as Donald Trump. These units would’ve employed the most advanced intelligence collection systems in the nation. Anything short of a highly encrypted communications suite using military-grade technology would be simple for Russian intelligence to exploit. Donald Trump’s mobile phone would be among the easiest to exploit. His mobile phone, Bluetooth, and laptops were most likely not shielded and could have been intercepted and exploited any number of ways. This means virtually everything he said, everything he texted, everything he wrote, and every communication he had in the electronic spectrum would be in the possession of Russian intelligence then and now. His guest rooms in Moscow could have had virtually undetectable voice and video communications intercept devices planted in such a way that nothing could be done by Trump in private and would defy detection. The Spetssvyaz would also employ Russian military intelligence subunits as well as Federal Security Service (FSB) surveillance units which could follow him anywhere that he goes with seemingly normal people and detect, document, and provide a record of anything and anyone he met.

Trump could have attempted to take counter-measures to defeat any surveillance. “About the only way to ensure against electronic surveillance,” the former CIA official says, “is to use a burner phone—one you’re not going to use again—stay off your normal personal email (use a one-time address you will not use again), and keep communications on that one to routine, non-sensitive messages… That was my practice in Moscow…during which all I sent were innocuous text messages on a phone I never used again.” And Lewis remarks, “If you used a mobile phone with an encrypted app and kept that phone in your possession for the entire trip, you could make it harder for them. A lot of people use Signal or Telegram for encrypted texting, but the Russians could still have many ways around this when you are in Moscow.”

Mother Jones asked Trump—through his transition team, his spokeswoman, and his lawyer—what he did to secure his communications and to thwart surveillance during his Moscow trip. Did he use secured phones and text services? Did he sweep his hotel room for surveillance devices? Trump’s representatives did not respond. Nor did the spokeswoman for Miss Universe when presented with a similar set of questions.

While he was in Moscow, Trump did continue his normal practice of tweeting often. Here are several tweets he sent out:

According to the Trump Twitter Archive, all the tweets Trump zapped out from Moscow came from an Android phone. A 2016 analysis found that Trump’s personal tweets—as opposed to those written by staffers on his account—were generated by an Android phone. (His staff-composed tweets came from an iPhone.)

The intelligence experts agree: Trump would have been in the sights of Russian intelligence. But what might Moscow’s spies have found? There is no telling. In the famous Access Hollywood video, Trump boasted of committing lewd (and illegal) action. Any intelligence operative would be delighted to catch Trump in such an act. Nance speculates:”That some of this would be salacious or information he would not want exposed to the public is without question. This unknown to the US intelligence community makes Donald Trump not just a national security threat but potentially a victim of blackmail by our oppositions intelligence agencies.” Nance also points out that if Russian intelligence penetrated Trump’s phone when he was in Moscow, its officers could have continued to intercept Trump’s conversations once he was back in the United States.

During the campaign, Trump and his supporters railed about Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of her private email server and claimed she had jeopardized US secrets. Her actions—while never shown to have led to any compromise of classified information—were troubling. A related but different set of issues faces Trump. Did he fail to take precautions that would prevent the Russians from gaining access to his private personal and professional information? If so, might the Russians possess secret information on the next president of the United States? Should that be true, Nance adds, it could pose “a monumental potential intelligence crisis never before seen in American history.”

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Did Russia Spy on Donald Trump When He Visited Moscow?

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Even Trump-Friendly Media Thinks Putin Prefers Trump

by DonnaShimp426 Posted on July 25, 2016

Mother Jones

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John Schindler on the DNC email leak:

The important part of this story is that Russian intelligence, using its Wikileaks cut-out, has intervened directly in an American presidential election….The most damaging aspect to the DNC leak is the certainty that Moscow has placed disinformation—that is, false information hidden among facts—to harm the Democrats and the Clinton campaign.

….It’s obvious that Moscow prefers Trump over Clinton in this election, which ought not surprise given the important role of Putin-friendly advisors in the Trump campaign, and what better way to help is there than to discredit Team Clinton?

This is mostly interesting for where it appeared: the New York Observer, which is owned by Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump’s husband. Sometimes you can’t even count on family to protect you.

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Even Trump-Friendly Media Thinks Putin Prefers Trump

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