House Democrats Investigate Whether Trump Lied To Mueller

A new aspect of the House impeachment inquiry is an investigation into whether President Trump lied in a written, sworn statement prepared for the Mueller investigation earlier this year. The Washington Post reports that the House general counsel revealed the investigation into Trump’s statement during proceedings in which the House is asking for the release of secret grand jury information from the Mueller investigation.

The House request for grand jury information comes in the wake of Trump crony Roger Stone’s conviction last week. Stone’s conviction stemmed from attempting to cover up his contacts with WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign. Stone passed along information from WikiLeaks to the Trump campaign and then lied about these communications to investigators.

House investigators say that testimony and evidence at Stone’s trial cast doubt on President Trump’s claims that he was not aware of the contacts between his and WikiLeaks regarding the release of the stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee.

In one particular instance during Stone’s trial, Rick Gates, a longtime partner of Paul Manafort, who was a former Trump campaign manager, testified that Donald Trump took a phone call from Roger Stone in July 2016. Immediately after hanging up, Trump told those in attendance that “more information would be coming” from Wikileaks. Gates’ testimony contradicts Trump’s written statement, which said, “I do not recall discussing WikiLeaks with” Stone, “nor do I recall Mr. Stone having discussed WikiLeaks with my campaign.”

Gates pled guilty to charges of conspiracy and making false statements as part of a deal with prosecutors. He was the star witness in the trial of both Paul Manafort in addition to testifying against Roger Stone. He is also scheduled to testify against former Obama White House counsel and Manafort associate, Geoffrey Craig, who was also indicted for lying to investigators about Manafort’s work in Ukraine. Gates has not yet been sentenced.

“Did the president lie? Was the president not truthful in his responses to the Mueller investigation?” General Counsel Douglas N. Letter asked rhetorically in the court appearance.

“The House is now trying to determine whether the current president should remain in office,” Letter told the court. “This is something that is unbelievably serious and it’s happening right now, very fast.”

Last month, a federal judge ordered the Department of Justice to turn over grand jury material referenced in redacted portions of the Mueller report to House investigators. In the ruling, Beryl Howell, chief district judge for the DC district court, wrote, “The Department of Justice claims that existing law bars disclosure to the Congress of grand jury information. DOJ is wrong.”

There were hints earlier this year that Mueller suspected that the president’s answers to his team’s questions were not completely honest. The Mueller report called Mr. Trump’s responses “inadequate" and "incomplete or imprecise." The report noted that investigators had considered subpoenaing the president but ultimately decided against it.

President Trump’s statement to Mueller was written, but it was also given under oath. If prosecutors can demonstrate that the president lied under oath to investigators, it would not only be a crime, but there is precedent for impeaching a president for a similar act of perjury. If perjury is added to the Articles of Impeachment against President Trump, it would represent the parties coming full circle in the space of 20 short years.

Originally published on The Resurgent

The Roger Stone Indictment Examined

Former Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone was arrested by the FBI last night on charges stemming from Stone’s contact with WikiLeaks about the release of stolen DNC data during the 2016 election. Stone is being charged with obstructing the investigation into Russian interference in the election through making false statements and attempting to convince another witness to make false statements. Stone’s arrest by armed FBI agents in a pre-dawn raid was filmed by CNN.

The indictment does not directly mention President Trump but it does provide firm links between Stone, WikiLeaks and the Trump Campaign. That is bad news for a president who has claimed for years that there was no collusion, and it may explain why Rudy Giuliani, the president’s lawyer, has shifted from denying collusion to saying that the president was not involved in illegal conspiracies.

Stone’s indictment is not sealed and is available online here. Per the indictment, Stone left his official position at the Trump campaign in August 2015 but remained in contact with Trump staffers throughout the election. In June or July 2016, Stone informed the Trump campaign that he had information that WikiLeaks had access to the stolen DNC data that would be damaging to the Clinton campaign.

After WikiLeaks dumped a cache of stolen emails on July 22, 2016, “a senior Trump campaign official was directed,” the indictment does not say by whom, to contact Stone about future releases. Afterward, Stone stayed in contact with the Trump campaign and informed them about upcoming dumps of DNC data.

The Washington Post reported in March 2018 that Stone had been in contact with Sam Nunberg, a Trump campaign advisor, about Assange. Nunberg may be the senior Trump campaign official, but it could also be Steve Bannon. The New York Times obtained emails between Stone and Bannon that match the dates the question.

The indictment also indicates that the FBI has access to Stone’s personal emails. It cites Stone’s correspondence with Person 1, an unnamed web media figure and political commentator, in which the two discussed WikiLeaks and coordination of attacks on the Clinton campaign. In numerous emails and in a radio interview with Person 2, a radio host, Stone claimed to be in contact with Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks, through a “mutual friend.” Person 1 is conspiracy author Jerome Corsi and Person 2 is Randy Credico, a right-wing talk show host.

In one email dated August 2, 2016, Person 1 told Stone, “Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps. One shortly after I’m back [from a trip in Europe]. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging…” The email continued, “Would not hurt to start suggesting HRC old, memory bad, has stroke — neither he nor she well. I expect that much of next dump focus, setting stage for [Clinton] Foundation debacle.”

Stone and Person 2 were in email contact in early October and discussed the WikiLeaks “October surprise.” Stone seemed to know that something big was coming but not the precise information that would be released. When Stone sent an email titled “WTF” to Person 2 on Oct. 2 after WikiLeaks canceled a big data dump, Person 2 responded that the move was a “head fake” and said, “Hillary and her people are doing a full-court press” to stop the next dump. Afterward, Stone passed this information along to Trump supporters in the campaign and the conservative media.

A few days later on Oct. 7, WikiLeaks released the first of the emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. Afterward, an associate of the Trump campaign official sent Stone a text message that said, “Well done.” Stone claimed credit for the Podesta release in subsequent conversations with Trump campaign officials.

In testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Sept. 26, 2017, Stone denied any foreknowledge of the WikiLeaks releases. The indictment charges him with making deliberately false and misleading statements to Congress about the matter as well as lying about having documents pertinent to the Russia investigation. In truth, the indictment says, Stone possessed numerous emails and text messages about the WikiLeaks dumps including an email to a “high-ranking member of the Trump Campaign on Oct. 4 that promised “a load every week going forward.”

Stone lied under oath about his contacts with Assange. Stone said that his contacts with Assange were all through Person 2, Credico, when, in reality, he had communicated with WikiLeaks through Person 1, Corsi, before making contact with Person 2. Stone never admitted to being in contact with Person 1 in his testimony.

Stone claimed that he never asked for information about the stolen DNC documents from either Person 1 or 2. The indictment shows that Stone directed both of the intermediaries to inquire about information damaging to the Clinton Campaign. Stone also denied having written communications with the intermediaries, but the FBI seems to have been able to recover both email and text messages.

Most damaging to President Trump, Stone also lied about his contacts with the Trump campaign. The indictment says that Stone told “senior Trump Campaign officials” about the WikiLeaks materials and timing of the releases “on multiple occasions.” It specifically cites three emails in early October just ahead of the Podesta dump.

In October 2017, Stone tried to cover his tracks. He sent an email to Credico, Person 2, and asked him to confirm his testimony to the House Intelligence Committee. Credico responded that Stone’s testimony was false and that he should correct it.

In November 2017, Credico was called to testify before the House Committee. His initial response was to contact Stone, who again asked Credico to lie for him. Stone also suggested that Credico say that he could remember what he told Stone or to invoke the Fifth Amendment.

“Stonewall it. Plead the fifth. Anything to save the plan. . . Richard Nixon,” Stone texted.

Credico declined to testify voluntarily before the House committee and was subpoenaed. He continued to contact Stone, who attempted to direct his testimony and instructed him not to talk to the FBI. At one point, Stone told Credico to “do a ‘Frank Pentangeli,’” a reference to a member of the mafia in Godfather II who played dumb before Congress.

Roger Stone’s indictment does not provide a smoking gun that Donald Trump was involved in illegal collusion with the Russians through WikiLeaks. However, it is a major setback for the Trump Administration because of the years of claims that no one in the Trump campaign had worked with the Russians against Hillary. Those claims are now proven false through Roger Stone’s email and text contacts with members of the Trump campaign.

The indictment almost certainly does not tell everything that Mueller knows about the Trump campaign’s involvement with WikiLeaks and the Russians. There will no doubt be more to come in future indictments.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Kim Dotcom Claims He Knew Seth Rich

Accused software pirate and internet entrepreneur, Kim Dotcom, has released a statement claiming that he communicated with murdered DNC staffer, Seth Rich. Dotcom posted the statement on his website.  

According to Dotcom’s account, he met Rich online, when a person with the handle, “Panda,” contacted him about starting a US branch of Dotcom’s Internet Party in 2014. Dotcom claims that Panda was actually Seth Rich, but does not explain how he learned Panda’s identity. Dotcom does not say if he ever met Panda or Rich in person.

Dotcom said that the referred to what he had learned from Panda when discussed WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, in a 2015 interview with Bloomberg (shorter clip here). When asked about a tweet in which he said that he would be “Hillary’s worst nightmare in 2016,” Dotcom answered, “Well, I have to say it’s probably more Julian. But I’m aware of some of the things that are going to be roadblocks for her.” When pressed, Dotcom denied that he knew specifically what Assange had planned.

In the statement, Dotcom declined to give further details, saying “my full statement should be provided to the authorities and I am prepared to do that so that there can be a full investigation.” Dotcom asked for “a guarantee from Special Counsel Mueller, on behalf of the United States, of safe passage from New Zealand to the United States and back” if he is required to come to the US to present his evidence. Dotcom is currently fighting extradition from New Zealand to the US, where he faces charges of money laundering, racketeering and wire fraud.

The family of Seth Rich rejected Dotcom’s claims and pointed out that he had provided no evidence to substantiate his claims. “The Rich family is tired of having to respond to accusations,” a spokesman for the family said in a statement. “The burden of proof is on Mr. Dotcom to either prove he has evidence or face the consequences of damaging Seth’s good name and creating more emotional hardship on a grieving family. The family is not going to entertain his ridiculous, manipulative and completely non-credible statements.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

True facts about Seth Rich

http://www.thebluediamondgallery.com

It has been less than a year since the murder of Seth Rich. In that short time, the story of his murder has taken on a life of its own. Like the murder of John F. Kennedy, it has already difficult to separate fact from fiction in the tragic case of Seth Rich.

Seth Conrad Rich was a 27-year-old native of Omaha, Nebraska who worked for the Democratic National Committee as the Voter Expansion Data Director. His job there entailed working on a computer applicationto help voters find their local polling place.

On the morning of Sunday, July 10, 2016, Rich was walking home in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C. At 4:19 a.m., police patrolling the area heard gunshots and used Sharp Spotter, a system that uses acoustics to determine to direction of shots, to locate the scene of the attack.

Multiple sources say that Rich was still alive when police arrived at the scene, which was only a block from his house. He had multiple gunshot wounds and there were signs of a struggle. Early reports, such as this one from a local CBS affiliate, state that Rich was alive and conscious when he was taken to the hospital where he died a few hours later. Police have never revealed whether he was able to provide information about his killer.

Other early reports do support the claim that none of Rich’s personal items seemed to be missing. The local NBC affiliate quoted Rich’s mother, Mary, who said, “There had been a struggle. His hands were bruised, his knees are bruised, his face is bruised, and yet he had two shots to his back, and yet they never took anything. They took his life for literally no reason. They didn't finish robbing him, they just took his life.” Rich’s father, Joel, also confirmed to the Washington Post that nothing was taken.

The New York Daily News reported on July 11 that police had said that there was no indication of robbery, but that attempted robbery had not been ruled out as a motive for the attack. Joel Rich said that he believed that Seth had attempted to fight off his attacker before he was killed.

Many of the sources also point out the high crime rate in the neighborhood where Rich was killed. NBC’s Channel Four pointed out that robberies using guns were up 12 percent in the Metro Police Fifth District and that seven people had already been killed there in addition to Rich that year. The New York Daily News noted that armed robberies had doubled in Bloomingdale over the previous year.

Almost two weeks after Rich’s murder, on July 22, the first dump of Democrat emails from WikiLeaks was posted. Even as the emails were posted, there was immediate speculation that the source of the emails was of Russian origin. The date range of the first DNC hack was from January 2015 through May 2016, about two months before Rich’s murder. A second trove emails stolen from John Podesta was dumped by WikiLeaks beginning on October 7, 2016, three months after Rich’s death.

The conspiracy theories seemed to have started within days of the murder. On July 13, a conspiracy site called Whatdoesitmean.com cited a Kremlin intelligence report that said that Rich was preparing to meet with FBI agents in order to testify against Hillary Clinton. The story reports that the FBI agents were really a “hit team” that was then “captured yesterday after a running gun battle with US federal police forces just blocks from the White House.” There were no reports of captured hit men or “running gun battles” in other sources.

The WikiLeaks angle to the story came several weeks later. WikiLeaks founder and accused rapist, Julian Assange, appeared on Dutch television on August 9, almost a month after the murder, and hinted that Rich was the source of the pilfered emails, although he never expressly stated any connection with Rich.

The same day, WikiLeaks offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of Rich’s murderer. The District of Columbia Metropolitan Police had previously offered a $25,000 reward. Other individuals, including Rich’s brother, have offered additional rewards.

On May 15, 2017, a private detective named Rod Wheeler told a local television news reporter that he had evidence that Rich had contacted WikiLeaks before his death. Two days later, Wheeler retracted his claims. NBC News reported that Ed Butowsky, a Dallas businessman and Breitbart contributor, hired Wheeler to investigate the murder on behalf of the Rich family. Butowsky initially denied being connected to Wheeler, but eventually admitted his involvement to CNN. A spokesman for the family said that Wheeler had showed them no evidence to support the allegations that Seth had contacted WikiLeaks.

Police also told the Washington Post that Rich’s computer and email had been examined and that there was no evidence that he was connected to WikiLeaks. A former law enforcement official with knowledge of Rich’s laptop told NBC News, “It never contained any e-mails related to WikiLeaks, and the FBI never had it.”

Still, the rumors keep coming. The Russian embassy tweeted on May 19 that Rich was the “WikiLeaks informer” and accused the US media of ignoring the truth about his murder. At about the same time, Kim Dotcom, a European hacker fighting extradition to the US from New Zealand on money laundering, racketeering and wire fraud charges, claimed to have known Seth Rich as the WikiLeaks source.

District of Columbia Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kevin Donohue recently told NBC’s local affiliate that Rich’s murder was still under investigation, but that there was no truth the WikiLeaks rumors. “This is a robbery that ended tragically. That’s bad enough for our city, and I think it is irresponsible to conflate this into something that doesn’t connect to anything that the detectives have found," Donahue said. "No WikiLeaks connection.”

If Rich’s murder is still unsolved, the mystery of the DNC hacking is not. In January 2017, the Director of National Intelligence released an unclassified version of a report detailing the unanimous assessment of the American intelligence community that the Russian government was behind the cyberattack. The assessment echoed the findings of CrowdStrike, a private cybersecurity firm retained by the DNC.

In the case of John Podesta’s emails, investigators have identified a fraudulent email that urged Podesta to click a link and change his password. Podesta did so and compromised his email password as a result. This sort of breach is known as “phishing.”

Time reported in January that the CIA had even identified the individual Russian officials who had passed the stolen emails to WikiLeaks. The report said that the information followed a “circuitous route” to WikiLeaks so that Assange could plausibly deny Russian involvement.

At this point, there are a few basic problems with the conspiracy theory that Seth Rich was the source for the stolen Democratic Party emails. First, Rich was murdered before WikiLeaks published the emails. Second, the DNC’s internal investigation pointed to the Russians, not an internal leaker, as the source of the breach. Third, US counterintelligence has identified the real perpetrators of the theft, the Russian government. Most importantly, there is not a shred of evidence that ties Rich to WikiLeaks other than unsubstantiated innuendo. There is not even evidence that Rich had access to the emails that ended up the hands of WikiLeaks.

Conversely, it would be logical for the Russians and WikiLeaks to implicate the conveniently dead Rich in the leak to distract attention from the real culprits. Intelligence agencies agreed that the Russian covert operation that interfered with the election seemed to be partly to sow chaos and partly to help Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton. Even with Trump in the White House, Vladimir Putin seems to relish causing chaos and doubt about the US government.

Rich’s family, who have the most to gain in seeing their son’s killers brought to justice, reject the conspiracy claims. Rather than embracing the conspiracy, the family released a statement that called upon the conspiracy theorists to stop defaming their son’s reputation and distracting attention from the real killers. “We are a family who is committed to facts, not fake evidence that surfaces every few months to fill the void and distract law enforcement and the general public from finding Seth's murderers,” the statement said.

“It's sad but unsurprising that a group of media outlets who have repeatedly lied to the American people would try and manipulate the legacy of a murder victim in order to forward their own political agenda,” a spokesman for the family told Business Insider. “I think there is a special place in hell for people like that.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Assange reportedly ready to surrender

There are reports that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is willing to face extradition to the United States. WikiLeaks has published classified information stolen from the US government on numerous occasions, but there is currently no indictment against the group’s Australian founder.

On Jan. 12, WikiLeaks tweeted that “If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ case.” Yesterday, President Obama announced that he would commute the sentence of Bradley “Chelsea” Manning, the US Army soldier convicted of stealing 750,000 pages of army documents and videos and giving them to WikiLeaks.

Among the documents that PFC Manning gave to WikiLeaks were incident reports from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that mentioned the names of civilians working with coalition military forces. WikiLeaks published these documents without redacting the names. The Taliban subsequently announced that it was using the WikiLeaks documents to track down Afghans aiding the US military. “If they are US spies, then we know how to punish them,” said Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman quoted in The Telegraph.

A second tweet on Jan. 17 said, “Assange lawyer @themtchair on Assange-Manning extradition 'deal': ‘Everything that he has said he's standing by.’” It is not clear if Assange considers Obama’s commutation of Manning’s sentence, which fell short of a full pardon, to be sufficient to trigger his promise to surrender to authorities.

Assange has been protected from extradition by his residence in the Ecuadorean embassy in London since 2012, but it isn’t the US that has been trying to bring him to justice. Sweden has been seeking Assange’s extradition so that he can stand trial on charges of the rape and sexual assault of two women in 2010. Assange could also face charges in Britain for violating bail.

Even though there is no formal indictment of Assange in the US, the WikiLeaks founder has maintained that he was fearful of extradition to the US if he left the Ecuadorean embassy. WikiLeaks tweeted a link that purports to show documents indicating that there are current “pending proceedings” against Assange by the US Department of Justice.

An additional tweet on Jan. 17 said, “Assange is confident of winning any fair trial in the US. Obama's DoJ prevented public interest defense & fair jury.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump must fire intelligence chiefs if he doesn't believe them

In the 18 months since Donald Trump entered the presidential campaign, there have been many times when it has been appropriate to ask, “Is he serious?” President-elect Trump’s criticism of the US intelligence community’s assessment on Russian interference in the election is such an occasion.

Since the hacking of the Democratic National Committee was revealed last June, Trump has been one of the few prominent national politicians to deny that Russia was involved. At times, his denials included ridiculing and questioning the motives and integrity of American intelligence professionals.

Is Donald Trump serious? Does Trump really believe that the CIA, the FBI and the entire US intelligence community are either faking the evidence that Russia interfered with the election or that they are too incompetent to know the difference between Russian hackers and “14-year-old” as suggested by Julian Assange and tweeted by Donald Trump?

Does Donald Trump, who will be the commander-in-chief of the US military and all its associated intelligence apparatus in two weeks, really trust Assange, an accused rapist and spy, and Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB agent, more than the total combined opinion of the 17 agencies that comprise the US intelligence community?

If Trump really believes that the US intelligence community is wrong about Russia’s involvement in the hacking and interference with the election, then he has no choice but to clean house within the intelligence community. It would constitute negligence and carelessness for the commander-in-chief to continue to employ and rely on intelligence advisors that he does not trust.

President Trump will have to work with many of the same people who are currently serving under Obama. Trump has already appointed Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) to succeed John Brennan as CIA director, but James Comey, the director of the FBI, is serving a 10-year term that began in 2013. If Donald Trump has no confidence in Director Comey and his agency to correctly and honestly present an assessment on the DNC hacking, how can he consider him reliable on any other issue?

Either Comey and the other members of the intelligence community are honest and competent or they are not. If they fail either test, then it is the president’s duty to replace them with someone who can be trusted to do the job.

My prediction is that no heads in the intelligence community will roll after Jan. 20. The problem is not with the assessment of Russia’s complicity. The problem is with Mr. Trump’s ability to accept bad news.

“Wired” compiled a list of Mr. Trump’s contradictory statements on Russia and the DNC hacking. The list ranges from Trump blaming the DNC for hacking itself to saying the Russians “probably have her 33,000 emails. I hope they do” in June. Last week, Trump claimed to “know things that other people don’t know” and promised to reveal his information. He never did.

Now, after a briefing by intelligence analysts, Trump has issued a statement that neither questions nor confirms the conclusions of the intelligence community. Trump said, “There was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines.” This is an assumption tied to a straw man. There has been no assessment on the effect of the interference and no allegation that voting machines were tampered with.

“I have tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this [intelligence] community to our great nation,” Trump says in the statement.

I have to wonder if that respect is mutual.

Originally published on The Resurgent

President Obama knew about Hillary's private server

New revelations from Wikileaks seem to prove that the White House knew about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server. President Obama previously denied that he had any prior knowledge of Clinton’s “homebrew” server, but Wikileaks documents suggest that the president used a pseudonym to correspond directly with Clinton’s private email address and then lied about it.

Back in March 2015, as the email scandal was breaking, President Obama said, in essence, that he did not have textual relations with Hillary’s private server. Obama told CBS News that he learned of the server at “the same time everybody else learned it through news reports.”

Obama’s denial seems to have triggered a crisis in the Clinton campaign. Andrew McCarthy at National Review points out that the same day that Obama made his comments, Josh Scherwin, the Clinton campaign secretary, emailed an alert to several Clinton staffers including Jennifer Palmieri: “Jen, you probably have more on this but it looks like POTUS just said he found out HRC was using her personal email when he saw it in the news.”

McCarthy then traced the email from one of the original recipients, Nick Merrill, to Clinton attorney and aide, Cheryl Mills. Mills then emailed John Podesta, chairman of Hillary’s campaign. Mills told Podesta, “We need to clean this up — he has emails from her — they do not say state.gov.”

The Mills email is damning evidence that President Obama received emails from Hillary’s private email account. It would have been impossible for the White House to not be aware that Clinton was using a private server if she had used the private email account to conduct state business with the president.

Eventually, 18 emails between Clinton and Obama were identified. On January 29, 2016 at the daily press briefing, Josh Kirby announced that the emails were “being withheld to remain confidential, to protect the President’s ability to receive unvarnished advice and counsel. And they ultimately will be released in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.” Kirby didn’t cite executive privilege, but it amounted to the same thing.

The 18 emails not only prove that Obama lied about his ignorance of Hillary’s private server, they also provide a motive for his administration to interfere with the FBI investigation of Hillary’s handling of classified information. If Hillary was guilty of mishandling classified information and had engaged in email exchanges with the president, then the president would be guilty as well.

McCarthy noted that executive privilege could not shield the president if Hillary was indicted or was the target of a grand jury investigation. “In its famous Watergate ruling, United States v. Nixon,” McCarthy wrote, “the Supreme Court held that an invocation of executive privilege to secure the confidentiality of presidential communications will not shield those communications from disclosure if they are relevant evidence in a grand-jury investigation or a criminal trial.

With President Obama linked to the private server and complicit in the cover up, Rep. Trey Gowdy’s (R-S.C.) grilling of FBI Director James Comey comes to mind. On CNBC, Gowdy said, “In your old job you would prove intent as you referenced by showing the jury evidence of a complex scheme that was designed for the very purpose of concealing the public record and you would be arguing in addition to concealment the destruction that you and i just talked about or certainly the failure to preserve.”

Now there is evidence that the president was involved in the same scheme to conceal Clinton’s purposeful mishandling of classified information. That means that President Obama is as guilty as Hillary Clinton. Not indicting Hillary was not for the benefit of the Clintons. It was to protect Barack Obama.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Hillary Clinton promoted Donald Trump as way to damage GOP

Among the documents in the leaked John Podesta emails recently posted by Wikileaks was a strategy memo that suggested that the Clinton campaign may have colluded with the Democratic National Committee and the media to promote certain Republican primary candidates that the Democrats considered extreme. If genuine, the memo indicates that the Clinton campaign interfered with the Republican primary with the help of the media.

The memo was an attachment to an email with the Wikileaks ID number 1120. It was sent to numerous staff members on April 23, 2015 with the subject line “[AGENDA & MEMO] Friday Strategy at 8:00 AM ET.” The email was sent by “MASTOR,” probably a reference to Marissa Astor, who is listed as a surrogate on the Hillary for America organizational chart. The attachment file name is “150407 Strategy on GOP.”

The memo is addressed to “The Democratic National Committee” and is dated April 7, 2015. The introduction says that its purpose is to “outline the strategy and goals that a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign would have regarding the 2016 Republican presidential field.” The introduction notes that, even though Hillary Clinton was not yet the Democratic nominee, “most of what is contained in this memo is work the DNC is already doing.”

The memo lays out three strategies to “make whomever the Republicans nominate unpalatable to the majority of the electorate.” First, the Clinton campaign planned to “force all [emphasis theirs] Republican candidates to lock themselves into extreme conservative positions that will hurt them in a general election.” Second, they wanted to “undermine any credibility/trust Republican presidential candidates have” among independent voters. Finally, they planned to “muddy the waters on any potential attack launched against HRC.”

In “operationalizing the strategy,” the memo described a plan to “use the [Republican] field to inflict damage on itself.” The Clinton campaign wanted to use “more extreme candidates” as “’Pied Piper’ candidates” who would seem to “represent the mainstream of the Republican Party.”

The memo identified three “Pied Piper” candidates by name. They were Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Ben Carson. At the time the memo was written, Donald Trump was still two months away from declaring his candidacy. It is not clear if the Clintons directly influenced Trump to enter the race.

“We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them [sic] seriously,” the memo says. This indicates coordination between the Clinton campaign, the DNC and members of the media.

The memo goes on to identify several “more established” candidates who needed special attention to
“undermine their credibility among our coalition (communities of color, millennials, women) and independent voters.” The candidates identified as bigger threats to the Clinton campaign were Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Rand Paul, Bobby Jindal and Chris Christie.

To “muddy the waters,” the memo suggested building a dossier on each Republican candidate in the areas of “transparency & disclosure, donors & associations, and management & business dealings.” In a statement that presaged this week’s attacks on Donald Trump, the memo says, “any information on scandals or ethical lapses on the GOP candidates would serve well. We won’t be picky.”

 While the email does not contain a “smoking gun” that indicates that Clinton enticed Donald Trump to enter the Republican primary, it is apparent that Trump was considered a weak and extreme candidate who could hurt the rest of the Republican field. The reference to the press may help explain the large amounts of friendly press coverage that Trump received during the primary. There is also no indication that the Clinton campaign thought that Donald Trump could actually win the Republican primary and become the party’s nominee.

In the end, Hillary Clinton’s plan to sabotage the Republican primary must have exceeded her wildest expectations.  One of her “Pied Pipers” actually won the nomination and became the Republican candidate for the presidency. Hillary was ready when he did.

Read the full story on The Resurgent

Hillary promoted Trump two months before he started campaign

Lost amid the furor over Donald Trump’s sexually charged hot mic recording was another email dump by Wikileaks. The new document dump contains emails purportedly hacked from John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

One of the documents leaked and subsequently tweeted by Wikileaks allegedly shows that the Clinton campaign worked with the media in “elevating” Republican primary candidates that were more extreme. The Clinton strategy was to make these “Pied Piper” candidates seem to “represent the mainstream of the Republican Party.” The document mentions three candidates by name: Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

“We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to them [sic] seriously,” the document says.

The Wikileaks tweet does not present the entire document. The portion available is not dated although Wikileaks says that it was “two months before he [Trump] declared his candidacy.” The tweet does not provide a way to identify or find the document within the trove of emails posted on the Wikileaks website.

If genuine, the document indicates that Hillary Clinton not only interfered with the Republican primary, but also conspired with the media to do so. There were numerous reports that Donald Trump spoke with Bill Clinton prior to declaring his candidacy last year. It is possible that the Clintons set up Donald Trump to run as a Republican, knowing that they could destroy his reputation if he won the nomination.

At present, the authenticity of the document and Wikileaks claims have not been independently verified.

Read the full story on The Resurgent

Did the Russians just throw the election to Trump?

 

(Kremlin.ru)

The hack of the Democratic National Committee emails two days before the opening of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia has rocked the political world. The emails contain damaging exchanges that show that Democrat staffers, supposedly neutral in the primary, actively undermined the Bernie Sanders campaign. The bigger story, however, is that the Democratic email hack may have been intended to throw the U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump.

CNN reports that several cyber security firms have verified that the two groups of hackers that targeted the DNC were of Russian origin. One group monitored DNC communications for about a year and another specifically targeted Democratic opposition research on Donald Trump.

Defense One quotes the cyber security report that notes that the hackers “appeared to cease operations on Russian holidays, and their work hours seem to align with the UTC +3 time zone, which contains cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg.” The report continues, “It’s the same group that hit the State Department, the White House, and the civilian email of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”  

Adding to the evidence is the fact that Wikileaks is not a hacker group like Anonymous. Wikileaks gets the documents that it publishes from other sources. Two of the most famous Wikileaks sources were Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning. Manning was convicted of espionage and Snowden fled to Russia to escape prosecution. He remains there today.

While the news of Russian involvement doesn’t absolve the Democrats of the duplicity revealed in their emails, the fact that Vladimir Putin’s Russia would interfere with internal American politics is a serious problem. A future document dump could come just before the election when a candidate would not have time to respond. If Russia could hack and post sensitive emails, they could just as easily manufacture incriminating emails to dump at the right time.

Russia and the U.S. have recently been at odds over Syria policy, but Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have long been chummy. Last year, the two men were so complimentary of each other that their relationship was referred to as a “bromance.” This is in contrast to Mitt Romney who called Russia America’s “number one geopolitical foe” in a 2012 presidential debate. Nevertheless, it seems doubtful that their mutual admiration would be enough of a reason for Putin to risk an international incident by interfering with internal U.S. politics.

As it turns out, Trump’s affinity for Russia goes beyond Putin to the 1980s. The Washington Post reported that Trump has had business relationships in Russia for decades and has sold many properties to Russian investors. The Hill reports on Trump’s extensive links to Russia including  

“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Donald Trump Jr., said in 2008. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

One of the highest level connections is through Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who spent years as a consultant for the pro-Putin dictator of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych was ousted in 2014 prior to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. According to Politifact, Manafort spent about 10 years in Ukraine working for Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and only left after the Ukrainian revolution.

There is are other reasons for Russia and Putin to try to make sure that Donald Trump wins the election. Trump’s foreign policy would be even better for Vladimir Putin than that of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, who tried to reset Russian-American diplomacy in 2009. The Obama Administration and the European Union imposed sanctions on Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine. If a pro-Russia candidate like Trump became president, it is likely that those sanctions would be removed.

Trump has shocked allies in recent days by stating that his administration might not honor American treaty commitments to defend NATO allies. Trump also floated the idea of withdrawing U.S. troops from foreign countries such as Japan and South Korea.

A chief beneficiary of Trump’s isolationist foreign policy would be Vladimir Putin. Putin’s Russia is already invading Europe through its proxy army of Ukrainian separatists and has its eye on restoring the former Soviet sphere of influence. Russia has also expanded its presence in the Middle East for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union.

In fact, Trump has already given his approval to a more aggressive Russian foreign policy. Last year, Trump applauded Russian intervention in Syria on behalf of dictator Bashar Assad. “Let Russia fight ISIS, if they want to fight ‘em … in Syria,” Mr. Trump said at the time.

At about the same time that Wikileaks dumped its trove of documents online, Russia was bombing a base in Syria used by the U.S. and Britain. Trump did not comment on the attack.

It appears likely that the email scandal will continue to dog Ms. Clinton for the remainder of the campaign. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has boasted that the group will post more documents in the future. Assange claims on ITV that there will be enough evidence to indict Clinton. It seems likely at this point that Ms. Clinton’s “homebrew” email server was compromised by the Russians as well.

The hacked emails showcase the corruption of the DNC, but they may show even more about Donald Trump. If the hackers were really acting on behalf of the Russian government, it raises serious questions about Trump’s foreign policy proposals as well as his connections to Vladimir Putin. 

Read it on Conservative Firing Line

Wikiterror

Julian Assange, cyber terrorist (Espen Moe)

It is time to call Julian Assange and his hacker cohorts what they are:  cyber terrorists.  Assange used his website, Wikileaks, to post thousands of stolen classified documents online for the world to see.

Assange may not be a member of al Qaeda, but his goals are similar to those of Osama bin Laden.  Assange is anti-American and anti-business.  He wants to hurt the United States, specifically our efforts in the War on Terror, and anyone who gets in his way.

Why do people like Assange focus on the US and not the many other nations of the world that would be more credible targets for someone concerned about human rights?  In part, they have succumbed to leftist rhetoric about “illegal wars” as well as disproportionate coverage of problems like Abu Graibh.  In reality, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are justified and legal.  The majority of US and Coalition troops behave honorably.  Those did not have faced justice.  On the contrary, our enemy’s central tactic is killing and maiming innocent people.  

Second, Assange and those like him realize that if they went after the real human rights abusers in the world, countries like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, they might become targets themselves.  Like Osama bin Laden before 9/11, they view the US as a “paper tiger.”  They can make a name for themselves by attacking us without fear of reprisal.  On the other hand, people who criticize true dictatorial governments tend to end up dead, often in horrible ways.

Australians rally in support of Wikileaks (Noodle Snacks)

After Assange was arrested on rape charges this week, his cohorts launched a wave of cyber attacks on companies and governments.  Many of the companies attacked, such as MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, and Amazon, have ended their dealings with Wikileaks over concerns about the legality of posting classified documents.  Other targets of “Operation Payback” include Swedish prosecutors involved in Assange’s rape cases, a Swiss bank, and Sarah Palin.

Cyber attacks on companies and the US government are nothing new.  Earlier this year, China was involved in cyber attacks against Google amid a dispute with the company over censorship of internet search results.  Over the past few years, the US military, as well as oil companies, have come under repeated cyber attack.  China is a prime suspect in many of the attacks.  Ironically, documents on Wikileaks include details on Chinese cyber attack plans.

A massive cyber attack could be viewed as a poor man’s EMP attack.  Cyber warfare could shut down large segments of the economy and government, or, as with Operation Payback, it could be narrowly targeted at certain companies, government agencies, or military bases.  Cyber warfare could most likely be repaired more quickly than an EMP attack, but if it were timed to coincide with other attacks, the damage could be multiplied.  In 2008, the Russian invasion of Georgia was preceded by a cyber attack on Georgian websites.

A sailor monitors network activity on the USS Reagan (DOD)

The US government, as well as corporations, should take cyber warfare seriously.  Cyber attacks should be given the same importance as conventional terror attacks.  Even though they do not rack up the body count of a car bomb or crashing airplane, they have the capability to inflict much more widespread damage on the country as a whole. 

It might be time to establish an interservice Cyber Warfare Command to coordinate computer defense.  Patriotic hackers could be recruited and trained by the military to defend the nation’s computer networks from attack.  Websites that are damaging to national security, such as Wikileaks, could be attacked if necessary.  In certain cases, Special Forces or CIA agents might be used to attack cyber attackers physically.

Computers and the internet are a vital part of the US economy.  We cannot stand idly by while they are attacked by other nations or cyberterrorist groups.  Neither should we stand idly by while classified documents that can endanger our soldiers and our allies are released to the world.

“[T]here is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops.”- Luke 12:2-3

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