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Hacks, Leaks, and Tweets: Everything We Now Know About the Attack on the 2016 Election

by LillaSchimmel Posted on May 30, 2017

Mother Jones

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The drumbeat of revelations over the past several weeks has been overwhelming. So we’ve created this timeline—from the hacking of the Democratic National Committee through the aftermath of Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey—to help you follow this scandal threatening the presidency.

April 2016: The Democratic National Committee contacts the FBI about suspicious computer activity and hires cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which ties the hacking to Russian intelligence.

June 15: Guccifer 2.0, a persona later connected to the Russians, takes credit for the DNC hack and begins posting documents.

Mary Altaffer/AP

July 5: FBI Director James Comey announces the bureau found no evidence to support criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server as secretary of state. But he adds that Clinton and her staff were “extremely careless” in their handling of classified information. Donald Trump tweets, “No charges. Wow! #RiggedSystem.”

July 22: Three days before the Democratic convention, WikiLeaks publishes nearly 20,000 hacked DNC emails. Some indicate that party officials favored Clinton over Bernie Sanders, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who resigns as party chair. Spread in part by Twitter bots, the emails further pit Clinton and Sanders supporters against each other.

July 24: Trump’s future CIA director, Rep. Mike Pompeo, tweets, “Need further proof that the fix was in from Pres. Obama on down? BUSTED: 19,252 Emails from DNC Leaked by WikiLeaks.” (Pompeo later deletes the tweet.)

July 27: Trump calls for Russia to hack Clinton’s email: “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Late July: The FBI begins to investigate contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.

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Aug 8: Longtime Trump confidant and political dirty trickster Roger Stone boasts to a GOP group in Florida about WikiLeaks’ founder: “I actually have communicated with Julian Assange…There’s no telling what the October surprise may be.”

Aug 21: Stone tweets about Clinton campaign CEO John Podesta: “Trust me, it will soon be the Podesta’s time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary.”

#CrookedHillary #WikiLeaks #LockHerUp Seth Wenig/AP

Aug 27: After being briefed on classified information, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid sends a letter to Comey urging an investigation: “The prospect of individuals tied to Trump, WikiLeaks and the Russian government coordinating to influence our election raises concerns of the utmost gravity.”

Sept 9: Guccifer 2.0 communicates online with Stone about voter turnout and Democratic strategy.

Sept 15: Guccifer 2.0 posts stolen Democratic Party documents strategizing about battleground states.

Sept 26: In the first presidential debate, Trump suggests the DNC hack could be the work of China or “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”

Oct 1: Stone tweets, “Wednesday @HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks.”

Oct 3: Stone tweets, “I have total confidence that @wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon #LockHerUp.”

Oct 7: US intelligence agencies announce they are “confident” the Russian government aimed to interfere in the election and collaborated in the DNC leaks. Later in the day, a 2005 Access Hollywood video emerges in which Trump brags about sexually assaulting women. Within an hour, WikiLeaks begins releasing several thousand emails stolen from Podesta.

Oct 10: “I love WikiLeaks!” Trump declares at a campaign rally.

Oct 11: The Obama White House announces it is considering retaliation against Russia for cyberattacks.

Oct 12: The Wall Street Journal reports the FBI suspects Russian intelligence hacked Podesta’s emails. Stone tells a Miami TV station that he has “back-channel communications” with Assange.

Oct 19: During the final debate, Clinton says Trump would be Putin’s “puppet” if elected and rebukes his call to hack her email. “You encouraged espionage against our people.”

Oct 28: Comey notifies Congress that the FBI is reopening the Clinton matter, after a criminal probe into disgraced Rep. Anthony Weiner reveals his laptop contains emails between his wife, Huma Abedin, and Clinton, her boss.

Oct 31: At a campaign rally, Trump says, “It took guts for Director Comey to make the move that he made…where they’re trying to protect her from criminal prosecution…What he did was the right thing.”

Nov 8: Trump is elected president.

Nov 15: National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers remarks about Russia and WikiLeaks, “This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.”

Jan 4: Trump tweets, “Julian Assange said ‘a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta’—why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!”

Jan 6: The CIA, the FBI, and the NSA concur Russia tried to help Trump win via hacking operations involving Guccifer 2.0, DC Leaks, and WikiLeaks.

Jan 10: At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Comey declines to say whether the FBI is investigating Trump campaign ties to Russia. He notes that Russian hackers also attacked the Republican National Committee but that none of that material was released.

Jan 11: Trump acknowledges the Russians hacked the DNC: “I think it was Russia.”

Jan 14: Rep. John Lewis tells NBC’s Chuck Todd that he does not consider Trump to be “a legitimate president,” and he says he won’t attend Trump’s inauguration: “I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.”

Jan 15: Incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus says Trump has confidence in the FBI director: “We have had a great relationship with him over the last several weeks. He’s extremely competent.”

Jan 20: Trump is sworn in as president.

Jan 22: At a White House event, Trump greets Comey: “Oh, there’s Jim. He’s become more famous than me.”

Andrew Harrer/CNP/ZUMA

Jan 24: The FBI interviews national security adviser Michael Flynn about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Jan 26: Acting Attorney General Sally Yates warns the Trump White House that Flynn lied about his conversations with Kislyak and is vulnerable to blackmail by the Kremlin.

Jan 27: Trump and Comey have a one-on-one dinner at the White House, where, it is later reported, Trump asks Comey to swear his political loyalty. Comey declines.

Jan 30: Trump fires Yates after she refuses on constitutional grounds to defend his travel ban targeting seven majority-Muslim countries.

Feb 13: After the Washington Post reveals Flynn lied about his conversations with Kislyak, Flynn resigns.

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Feb 19: Following a meeting with Comey, the Senate Intelligence Committee sends letters to more than a dozen agencies, groups, and individuals asking them to preserve all communications related to Russia’s 2016 election interference.

March 2: In the wake of revelations that Attorney General Jeff Sessions failed during his confirmation hearings to disclose two conversations with Kislyak, Sessions announces, “I have now decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matter relating in any way to the campaigns for president of the United States.”

March 4: Based on no evidence, Trump tweets, “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”

March 7: In the wake of intense media coverage of Trump’s wiretapping claim, WikiLeaks releases more than 8,000 CIA files, code-named “Vault 7.”

March 8: Former NSA Director Michael Hayden says, “I’m now pretty close to the position that WikiLeaks is acting as…an agent of the Russian Federation.”

March 20: During a public hearing held by the House Intelligence Committee, Comey confirms the FBI is investigating possible “coordination” between the Trump campaign and Russia. He debunks Trump’s claims of surveillance by Obama: “I have no information that supports those tweets.”

March 27: “Trump Russia story is a hoax,” Trump tweets.

April 12: Asked if it’s “too late” for him to request Comey’s resignation, Trump tells Fox Business, “No, it’s not too late, but you know, I have confidence in him. We’ll see what happens. You know, it’s going to be interesting.”

April 30: Trump again casts doubts on the election attack, telling CBS News’ John Dickerson, “Could’ve been China. Could’ve been a lot of different groups.”

May 2: Trump tweets Comey is “the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton” and the “Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election.”

May 3: Comey tells the Senate Judiciary Committee, “It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we may have had some impact on the election,” but says he reopened the Clinton probe because Abedin had forwarded “hundreds and thousands of emails, some of which contain classified information.”

First week of May: Comey seeks more resources for the Trump-Russia investigation.

May 8: Trump tweets, “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper tells Congress that by sowing doubts, Trump “helps the Russians” damage the US political system.

May 9: The FBI corrects Comey’s testimony: Only “a small number” of Abedin emails were forwarded, few contained classified information, and none were new. The same day, Trump fires Comey via a letter delivered to FBI headquarters. Comey, in Los Angeles, learns of the news via a TV screen and initially thinks it’s a prank. Trump’s letter says he was prompted by Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who wrote a three-page memo critical of Comey’s handling of the Clinton probe. Trump’s letter also claims Comey personally absolved him on three separate occasions.

May 10: Trump unleashes a tweetstorm, including, “Comey lost the confidence of almost everyone in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike. When things calm down, they will be thanking me!”

Alexander Shcherbak/TASS/ZUMA

Meanwhile, at Putin’s request, Trump greets Kislyak and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office, where a Russian state-sponsored photographer is the only media allowed in. Trump tells them Comey was “a real nut job” and that firing him took “great pressure” off Trump with regard to Russia.

May 11: Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe testifies that, contra White House statements, the Russia probe is “highly significant” and “Comey enjoyed broad support within the FBI and still does to this day.” Trump tells NBC’s Lester Holt a new version of why he fired Comey: “I decided to just do it. I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.'”

May 12: Trump tweets, “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”

May 15: The Post reports that Trump disclosed highly classified intelligence on ISIS to Lavrov and Kislyak during their Oval Office meeting. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker says the White House is “in a downward spiral” and “has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order.”

May 16: The Times reports that Comey kept detailed memos on his interactions with Trump—including when Trump pressured him at an Oval Office meeting in February to shut down the FBI investigation into Flynn. “I hope you can let this go,” Trump told Comey.

May 17: Amid rising turmoil on Capitol Hill, including talk of possible impeachment of Trump for obstruction of justice, the Senate Intelligence Committee seeks Comey’s memos and invites him to testify. Rosenstein appoints former FBI Director Robert Mueller to serve as a special counsel overseeing the continuing FBI investigation.

See our entire updated Trump-Russia timeline dating back to the 1980s.

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Hacks, Leaks, and Tweets: Everything We Now Know About the Attack on the 2016 Election

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Republicans Focus on Protecting Trump at Russia Hearing

by LillaKdw749 Posted on May 23, 2017

Mother Jones

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The Republicans still are not serious about investigating the Trump-Russia scandal. That message came through resoundingly when the House Intelligence Committee held a public hearing on Tuesday morning with former CIA chief John Brennan. (Actually, this was not officially a committee hearing. Democrats on the committee were informed earlier that this would be considered a “task force” hearing because the Republican chairman of the committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, could not appear because he had recused himself from the Russia investigation.)

At the witness table, Brennan told a harrowing tale. As CIA director last summer, he saw what was happening with the hack-and-leak attack on the Democratic National Committee, and he reviewed top-secret intelligence and concluded that Russia was mounting this assault to disrupt the election, hurt Hillary Clinton, and help Donald Trump. He also at the time was aware of intelligence that showed contacts between Trump associates and Russia, and that caused him to conclude a thorough FBI investigation was warranted. He testified, “I saw interaction” that warranted concern.

This was a big deal. In March, then-FBI chief James Comey revealed during testimony to this committee that in July 2016 the bureau launched an investigation of contacts between Trump associates and Russia. Now the CIA head from then was stating that there was clear intelligence that justified that probe. He also revealed that in early August he was so concerned about the Russian operation he spoke to the head of Russia’s FSB, the country’s intelligence service, and warned him to knock it off. Brennan also revealed that in August and September he briefed a small number of congressional leaders and shared with them top-secret intelligence about Moscow’s effort to subvert the election in part to benefit Trump. (This means that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan knew many details about the Russian operation but didn’t challenge or correct Trump’s continued public assertions that Russia was not necessarily the culprit in the DNC hack.)

Yet once again Republicans did not focus on the main elements of the story. When the Republicans on the committee had the chance to question Brennan, they did not press him for more details on Russia’s information warfare against the United States. Instead, they fixated on protecting Trump.

The Republicans zeroed in on the issue of whether Trump and his associates colluded with any Russians involved in the attack on US democracy—to push Brennan to say he had not seen concrete evidence of such conspiring. Reps. Tom Rooney (R-Fla) and Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) grilled Brennan repeatedly on this point. They posed the same basic query: Did you see any evidence that Trump or his associates plotted with Russians? “I don’t do evidence. I do intelligence,” Brennan replied. Still, they kept pressing him. They were obviously hoping he would state that he had not come across any such evidence so Trump and his champions could cite Brennan as a witness for their claim no collusion occurred.

In the face of this questioning, Brennan repeatedly stated that the intelligence he saw regarding contacts between Trump associates and Russia was worrisome and deserved full FBI scrutiny. So the Republicans failed in their mission to provide cover for Trump—and they ended up highlighting the legitimacy of the FBI inquiry begun under Comey.

A similar effort fell flat. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) questioned Brennan about the intelligence community assessment released in early January that concluded the Russian clandestine operation was designed to assist Trump. He several times asked Brennan if there had been evidence contrary to this conclusion that was not included in the report. Brennan explained that the assessment was the result of a thorough interagency process that looked to develop a consensus position. Still, King seemed to suggest that the assessment might be open to question. And Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) asserted he had reviewed raw intelligence, and he insisted the information supporting the assessment that Moscow had preferred Trump was not as solid as the intelligence community maintained. Here were Republicans trying to find wiggle room for Trump.

Rooney took another stab at undermining the dominant narrative of the Trump-Russia scandal. He asked whether the Russians had been rooting for Clinton to fail or for Trump to win. “It was both,” Brennan replied. Rooney suggested that the Russians had gathered information damaging for Clinton’s campaign that it did not release, and he asked Brennan, what would that mean for the conclusion that Russians were trying to help Trump? It appeared as if Rooney thought this would be an a-ha! moment: If the Russians sat on anti-Clinton material, well, that must be an indicator they hadn’t’ engaged in cyber-skullduggery to help Trump. Brennan shot this down with a simple reply: Since the Russians, like many others, believed Clinton would win, they might have been holding on to that material to damage her once she became president.

Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) also tried to race to Trump’s rescue. Complaining that some Democrats on the committee have publicly said they have seen evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, Turner asked Brennan if it would be accurate to characterize the intelligence Brennan saw when he was CIA chief as evidence of collusion. Brennan responded that this would not be an accurate characterization. Turner smiled, as if he had just blown a hole in the Democrats’ case. Moments later, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) asked Brennan if he had seen the evidence and material shared by the FBI with the House Intelligence Committee in classified meetings. No, he had not. So Turner had proved nothing.

Perhaps the most absurd act of GOP distraction came when Rep. Ben Wenstrup (R-Ohio) raised an episode from 2012, when President Barack Obama was caught on a hot mic telling Dmitry Medvedev, then the president of Russia, that he would have more flexibility to negotiate with Vladimir Putin after the US presidential election. Calling this moment “pretty disturbing,” Wenstrup asked Brennan, “Would you question that interaction?” Brennan didn’t take the bait and said he had nothing to say in response. Wenstrup suggested that perhaps this should be investigated. Brennan didn’t reply.

Gowdy finished up his questioning by concentrating on leaks and the unmasking within top-secret reports of Americans picked up incidentally by US intelligence surveillance. This has become a favorite topic of Republicans looking to defect from the core features of the Trump-Russia scandal. And Gowdy, a bit defensively, noted he had waited until the end of the hearing to pose these questions so the claim could not be made that Republicans are “hyperfocused” on the matter. Yet compared with previous hearings, Gowdy was restrained in declaiming leaks. This time he did not suggest, as he has before, that journalists should be prosecuted for publishing stories containing classified information.

When the hearing ended, the Republicans departed the room quickly. A few Democratic members lingered. One complained about the slow pace of the committee’s investigation. Another pointed out that Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who’s leading the committee’s Russia investigation in Nunes’ absence, had barely participated in the hearing. Conaway had opened the hearings without any reference to the interactions between Trump associates and Russia, but he had presented a prayer that invoked Jesus. As one Democrat noted, Conaway did not ask a single question during the proceedings. “That tells you all you need to know,” this member said.

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Republicans Focus on Protecting Trump at Russia Hearing

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Trump Confirms His Intel Blabbing Originated With Israel

by MuhammadHutcheon Posted on May 22, 2017

Mother Jones

Remember the top secret intel that President Trump shared with the Russians in the Oval Office? We all pretty much know that it came from Israel, but for some reason Trump decided to confirm this today:

As many people have pointed out, this was just a photo op. Trump didn’t have to say anything. But he’s Trump, so he had to have the last word. It continues to be remarkable how easy it is to bait the guy.

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Trump Confirms His Intel Blabbing Originated With Israel

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McMaster: Trump’s Blabbing Was "Wholly Appropriate"

by MyrtisPlace Posted on May 16, 2017

Mother Jones

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National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster at a press briefing this morning: President Trump didn’t reveal anything wrong to the Russians. “It was wholly appropriate to that conversation.”

So there you have it. McMaster refuses to say if the information Trump shared with the Russian foreign minister was classified; whether it came from a foreign partner; whether it had been shared with anyone else; whether it referred to a specific city; whether his own office was in touch this morning with the NSA and CIA about this; or whether anyone has spoken with the foreign partner about what happened. He’ll say only that it was “appropriate” over and over and over.

But at the very end of his Q&A, McMaster (accidentally?) says Trump hadn’t even been briefed on the source of the information he shared. He had no idea where it came from.

McMaster is going to regret saying this. He basically said that Trump blabbed about this stuff even though he had no idea how sensitive it was. And why didn’t he know? McMaster scurried off the stage before anyone could ask, but the best guess is that Trump refuses to read even the bullet points in the one-page intelligence briefings he insists on. So he had no idea just how sensitive this stuff was.

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McMaster: Trump’s Blabbing Was "Wholly Appropriate"

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Jeff Sessions Will Recuse Himself From Russia Probe

by KathleeKobayash Posted on March 2, 2017

Mother Jones

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions will recuse himself from any investigations into contact between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, Sessions announced at a press conference Thursday afternoon. Sarah Isgur Flores, Sessions’ spokeswoman, told Mother Jones that neither the attorney general nor any of his staff would take part in any internal discussions on whether or not an independent special prosecutor would be appointed to investigate the 2016 campaign. That decision would presumably be left to acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente.

The hastily called press conference came as lawmakers from both parties called for Sessions to recuse himself from any investigations into Russia’s role in the election. During Sessions’ confirmation hearing, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) asked him what he would do if reports that Trump campaign associates and Russian officials had been in contact during the campaign turned out to be true. Sessions responded by denying that he had any contact with the Russians: “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I didn’t have—did not have communications with the Russians.” But on Wednesday, news broke that Sessions had twice met with the Russian ambassador.

As reporters waited for Sessions to begin his press conference at DOJ headquarters Thursday, televisions tuned to CNN replayed the exchange with Franken—followed by a segment with the chyron, “Calls grow for attorney general to resign.”

When he took the podium shortly after 4 pm ET, Sessions claimed that he was innocent of any wrongdoing and had not purposefully misled the Senate during his confirmation hearing. “My reply to the question of Sen. Franken was honest and correct as I understood it at the time,” he said.

Sessions said that he would be writing to the Senate Judiciary Committee in the next day or two to explain his testimony. He added that his decision to remove himself from any investigations into the 2016 presidential campaign came following his review of ethics rules and input from his staff. “In the end, I have followed the right procedure, just as I promised the committee I would,” he said.

As for his September meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in his Senate office, Sessions said he didn’t recall many details, before naming terrorism and Ukraine as topics that came up. Sessions also said that he and Kislyak had discussed a visit Sessions paid to a Russian church in the 1991 and that Kislyak had told him he was not religious. “I thought he was pretty much in an old-style Soviet ambassador,” Sessions said.

When asked by reporters whether he and the ambassador had discussed the 2016 presidential campaign during their meeting, Sessions joked that “most of these ambassadors are pretty gossipy” but then switched into lawyer mode and said, “I don’t recall.”

This is a developing news story that will be updated.

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Jeff Sessions Will Recuse Himself From Russia Probe

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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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GOP Senator Calls for Investigating What FBI Did About Russia-Trump Intelligence

by RoxannaGuest Posted on January 20, 2017

Mother Jones

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The night before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, the New York Times dropped a bombshell: intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been examining intercepted communications and financial transactions in an investigation of possible contacts between Trump associates and Russian officials. This report seemed to confirm previous indications that the US government has collected sensitive intelligence about interactions between Trump insiders and Russians. And hours before the inauguration, I ran into Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who has been one of the few Republicans to call for a special investigation of the Russian hacking that helped Trump, and I asked him about this latest development.

Graham, a member of the Senate judiciary committee, said that he didn’t know anything about the intelligence intercepts. He remarked, “I want to learn and investigate all things Russian, wherever it leads.” He noted that it was clear that Vladimir Putin’s regime had “tried to undermine our election” and “succeeded in creating discontent and discord.” He added, “I want to know what they did and who they did it with.” He went on: “I want to see all of it…I want to know what Russia did…If there is campaign contacts, I want to know about it.”

Graham said he hoped to examine what the FBI knew about any Trump-Russia contacts and what actions the bureau had taken. (Before the election, FBI Director Jim Comey talked rather publicly about the bureau’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s handling of her email at the State Department. But Comey has declined to say anything in public regarding whether the bureau has probed links between Trump associates and Russians.) “I hope to be able to work with Sen. Grassley the chair of the judiciary committee to look into the FBI’s role,” Graham said, “in terms of what they did, what they know, and what they can provide to Congress.”

At the moment, the Senate investigation of the Russian hacking and possible contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign is being conducted by the Senate intelligence committee. So it’s unclear whether Graham will get his wish for a judiciary committee inquiry into the FBI end of this matter.

Before darting off to inauguration business, Graham, who often tussled with Trump during the 2016 campaign, criticized the incoming president for trying to downplay Russian meddling in the 2016 election. “Trump,” he said, “seems to be in the forgive-and-forget mode.” He noted the “biggest mistake” Trump could make would be “forgiving Russia…for what they did in our election.”

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GOP Senator Calls for Investigating What FBI Did About Russia-Trump Intelligence

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Trump’s Shouty and Insane Press Conference Reminded Russians of…Putin

by KerryDye078 Posted on January 14, 2017

Mother Jones

During Donald Trump’s first press conference as president-elect, he called BuzzFeed a “failing pile of garbage,” shouted down questions from a CNN reporter, and evaded tough questions about the dossier released the day before alleging that Russia had been cultivating Trump for years and had assembled compromising material on him. In the United States, many found Trump’s harsh approach shocking. “It is our observation,” said Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, referring to Trump’s treatment of CNN, “that neither they nor any other journalists should be subjected to belittling and delegitimizing by the president-elect.”

But for some Russians, Trump’s bombastic style at the press conference, his animosity toward journalists, and his rambling nonanswers seemed all too familiar.

“Well, now the U.S. also has a president who never answers a direct question and is rude to journalists,” tweeted opposition activist Tikhon Dzyadko.

Others joked about what would have come next for the disobedient journalists, were they in Putin’s Russia:

“So I guess now Trump will close BuzzFeed and replace the head editor of CNN,” one user tweeted, alluding to the 2013 episode in which Putin unexpectedly shuttered RIA Novosti, a Kremlin-owned but somewhat independent news agency, restructured it as Rossiya Segodnya (“Russia Today,” no relation to the English-language RT), and replaced its top editor with Dmitry Kiselyov, a pro-Putin TV commentator known for extreme anti-gay comments, in what Russian media viewed as another example of the president’s tightening grip over the country’s media sector.

After the press conference, Russian journalist Alexey Kovalev, speaking from his own experience, published a letter to the US press on Medium about what to expect from Trump’s behavior toward journalists:

Congratulations, US media! You’ve just covered your first press conference of an authoritarian leader with a massive ego and a deep disdain for your trade and everything you hold dear. We, in Russia, have been doing it for 12 years now—â&#128;&#138;with a short hiatus when our leader wasn’t technically our leaderâ&#128;&#138;—â&#128;&#138;so quite a few things during Donald Trump’s press conference rang my bells.

One additional point of comparison: The leaders’ disrespect for facts. “You can’t hurt this man with facts or reason. He’ll always outmaneuver you,” writes Kovalev. “He always comes with a bag of meaningless factoids (Putin likes to drown questions he doesn’t like in dull, unverifiable stats, figures and percentages), platitudes, false moral equivalences and straight, undiluted bullshit.”

Some Russians went a step further, spoofing what the conference would have looked like if some Putinlike idiosyncrasies had been applied. At Putin’s press conferences, journalists are allowed to bring signs, often hinting at the subjects of their questions (“Education,” “the Arctic,” and “Gratitude for the Russian People” are actual signs in the photo below) to attract the leader’s attention. One Twitter user edited a photo from Putin’s December 2016 press conference, adding only a swoop of orange hair and the caption, “The first press conference of US President-elect Donald Trump.” (Hat tip for these tweets to the Moscow Times.)

Other users wondered in jest why American journalists’ questions were so serious—a far cry from the softball queries that have become mainstays of the Russian leader’s press conferences:

“What sort of a press conference is this, after which no one got a new apartment, and an American girl wasn’t gifted a cute puppy?” wrote this user, alluding to times Putin has created pseudo news events by doling out goodies to constituents.

“Why isn’t anyone asking Trump about the roads? I was in Arizona yesterday, there are definitely a couple of potholes.”

“American journalism is dead, insofar as no one is asking Trump where he’ll be spending New Years and what he’ll be serving at his table.”

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Trump’s Shouty and Insane Press Conference Reminded Russians of…Putin

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Trump Doesn’t Deny Contact Between His Team and Russia During Campaign

by MichealFeetham Posted on January 11, 2017

Mother Jones

In his first press conference in half a year, Donald Trump came close to acknowledging the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia had meddled in the election to benefit him, saying, “I think it was Russia.” But he quickly added that others are always trying to hack US targets and downplayed the Russian hack, asking why it received so much more attention than a Chinese cyber-attack on the US government several years ago. And when Trump was given a chance to rebut claims that his campaign team had been in communication with Russian intermediaries during the campaign, he did not deny those allegations.

At the end of the nearly hour-long press conference, Trump ignored a question from a reporter about contacts between people associated with him and Russians. The reporter asked, “Can you stand here today, once and for all, and say that no one connected to you or your campaign had any contact with Russia leading up to or during the presidential campaign? And if you do indeed believe that Russia was behind the hacking, what is your message to Vladimir Putin right now?”

But Trump chose only to answer the second part of the journalist’s query. “Russia will have much greater respect for our country when I’m leading it than when other people have led it,” he said. “You will see that. Russia will respect our country. He shouldn’t have done it, I don’t believe he’ll be doing it more now, we have to work something out. But it’s not just Russia.”

The press conference comes one day after CNN reported that the heads of the major US intelligence agencies had briefed Trump and President Barack Obama about claims that Moscow had mounted a secret operation to co-opt or cultivate Trump, that there were extensive communications between people close to Trump and Russians during the presidential campaign, and that Russia had collected compromising material on Trump during his travels to the country. After CNN’s story went live, BuzzFeed published a raw “dossier” of information used for that briefing, prompting a furious response from Trump during his press conference.

Both stories came months after Mother Jones first reported that a former spy working for a Western country had sent the FBI memos containing the Russian allegations.

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Trump Doesn’t Deny Contact Between His Team and Russia During Campaign

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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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