Trump Is Covering For Russia. A Homeland Security Whistleblower Adds To The Evidence.
Sep 12, 2020 22:04:36 #
An explosive whistleblower complaint filed by a senior Department of Homeland Security aide this week has shed new light on efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to deceive Congress and suppress and manipulate intelligence about Russian political interference and the related threat of w***e s*******y in advance of the 2020 e******n.
In the complaint, Brian Murphy, the former head of DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, laid out a damning pattern of behavior by top Trump appointees ― most notably Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and his second-in-command, Ken Cuccinelli ― to distort or block intelligence reports that could undermine Trump’s political objectives or reflect poorly on a president who has openly courted both the Kremlin and far-right extremists in America.
Murphy’s complaint is a shocking document that would upend any other administration in recent memory. But it’s also just another data point in an incendiary emerging story: Russia is clearly trying to influence the p**********l e******n, and the Trump administration has doggedly tried to keep both Congress and the public in the dark about those efforts. Democratic lawmakers have also tried to sound the alarm but have been handcuffed by what they say is the Trump administration’s unnecessary classification of e******n security intelligence, particularly with regard to the Russian threat.
Last month, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) issued a dire warning in a Washington Post op-ed after reviewing classified material that he described as “more chilling” than anything special counsel Robert S. Mueller III turned up in his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 e******n.
“The warning lights are flashing red. America’s e******ns are under attack,” Blumenthal wrote. “[T]the Trump administration is keeping the t***h about a grave, looming threat to democracy hidden from the American people.”
Murphy, a Marine veteran and former FBI special agent who said he was responsible for all intelligence activities at the Department of Homeland Security from March 2018 until being reassigned last month, has produced some of the strongest evidence to date that Trump has politicized elements of the intelligence community in ways that security experts and members of Congress say put the country at great risk.
In his whistleblower complaint, Murphy stated that he filed two Office of the Inspector General reports that seemingly went nowhere about “attempted censorship of intelligence analysis.” He also made numerous other internal complaints. In March and April, for example, he said he submitted six internal complaints to Kash Patel, the acting deputy director for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, about the “improper administration of an intelligence program with respect to Russian disinformation efforts within the United States.”
Patel, a former staffer for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), played a key role in a Republican effort to discredit Mueller’s Russia probe and the FBI’s and Justice Department’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s Russia ties. It’s unclear if Patel responded to Murphy’s concerns.
In May, however, Wolf told Murphy to “cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States,” according to the whistleblower complaint. Wolf told Murphy those instructions came directly from White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien, according to Murphy, who said he refused to comply because “doing so would put the country in substantial and specific danger.”
Hiding The T***h
Even before Murphy’s complaint, it was clear that DHS was suppressing intelligence about Russian e******n i**********e. In July, the agency withheld publication of a bulletin warning law enforcement agencies about a Russian disinformation plot to “denigrate” the mental health of Democratic p**********l nominee Joe Biden, according to a recent ABC News report.
Trump and his propagandists were already belittling Biden’s health, and an hour after the bulletin was submitted to the agency’s legislative and public affairs office for review, DHS chief of staff John Gountanis intervened to stop publication. The bulletin never circulated.
That incident is almost certainly the one described in Murphy’s complaint where he alleges that Gountanis directed him not to disseminate an “intelligence notification regarding Russian disinformation efforts” until clearing it with Wolf. On July 8, Murphy said, he met with Wolf, who told him that the intelligence notification should be “held” because it “made the President look bad.” After Murphy protested, according to his complaint, Wolf excluded him from meetings about the notification, a draft of which was ultimately produced that Murphy felt minimized the actions of Russia.
In early August, intelligence officials presented classified information to Congress and p**********l campaigns ― the material that “shocked” Blumenthal ― about Russia’s efforts to undermine the e******n and American democracy. Russia, the information indicated, had targeted Biden in a scheme the U.S. government’s chief counterintelligence official, William Evanina, hinted at in an “e******n threat update” he released Aug. 7.
William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, has warned of a Russian disinformation campaign to
William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, has warned of a Russian disinformation campaign to
“We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment,’” Evanina said.
Three weeks later, however, Trump’s newly appointed director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, announced that the intelligence community would halt in-person e******n security briefings to Congress and instead provide only written reports. Ratcliffe justified this decision by saying it would be easier to avoid leaks and prevent information from being “politicized.”
The move was met with outrage by congressional Democrats. In a joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif) called it a “betrayal of the public’s right to know how foreign powers are trying to subvert our democracy. This intelligence belongs to the American people, not the agencies which are its custodian. And the American people have both the right and the need to know that another nation, Russia, is trying to help decide who their president should be.”
John Cohen, a former undersecretary for intelligence at DHS, told ABC News that “by refusing to brief Congress on a significant threat facing this country, administration officials are placing this country at grave risk.″
Given Murphy’s allegations that Wolf and Cuccinelli ― whom the Government Accountability Office determined were illegally installed in their positions ― told him to manipulate written intelligence reports, the danger is likely worse than imagined. With less than two months to go until the Nov. 3 e******n, Russia continues to target Biden and undermine U.S. democracy, sometimes with Trump’s assistance.
Evidence In The Open
Beyond the warnings from Murphy and Blumenthal, several Russian efforts to disrupt the e******n have entered public view on their own. Facebook recently took down accounts and pages associated with a Russian influence operation posing as an independent news outlet. The operation published content that investigators at Graphika, a social media analytics firm, described as “an attempt to build a left-wing audience and steer it away from Biden’s campaign, in the same way that the original IRA [Internet Research Agency] tried to depress progressive and minority support for Hillary Clinton in 2016.” The Daily Beast broke news this week that the same Russian operation, patterned after the Russian-based IRA, an organization of professional trolls active in the 2016 e******n, tried and failed to infiltrate left-wing media outlets such as Jacobin, T***hout and In These Times.
CNN reported Wednesday that journalist Bob Woodward revealed in his new book that “the NSA and CIA have classified evidence the Russians had placed malware in the e******n registration systems of at least two Florida counties, St. Lucie and Washington. While there was no evidence the malware had been activated, Woodward writes, it was sophisticated and could erase v**ers in specific districts.”
On Thursday, Reuters reported that Microsoft recently alerted SKDKnickerbocker, one of Biden’s main e******n campaign advisory firms, that suspected Russian state-backed hackers had gone after the company with a failed phishing attack to obtain staff passwords and made other attempts at infiltration. The Washington-based firm has close ties with many prominent Democrats.
Meanwhile, Trump and his associates are knowingly and openly participating in a Kremlin influence campaign to tarnish Biden and his son H****r as being involved in corrupt dealings in Ukraine. Trump’s attempt last year to strong-arm Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky into announcing an investigation into the unfounded allegations against Biden led to Trump’s impeachment. In his Aug. 7 statement about e******n threats, Evanina, the intelligence community’s top e******n security official, issued a clear warning about the ongoing influence campaign against Biden.
“[P]ro-Russia Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach is spreading claims about corruption ― including through publicizing leaked phone calls ― to undermine former Vice President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party,” Evanina wrote.
A week later, Trump retweeted edited audio from one of the leaked tapes that U.S. intelligence officials had f**gged as part of Derkach and the Russian government’s disinformation campaign. It was of a purported 2016 call between then-Vice President Biden and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The tapes contain edited fragments of unauthenticated conversations. Poroshenko has rejected them as a fabrication by pro-Russian forces in Ukraine.
Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, walks with his aide Christianne Allen (right) and One America News Network's Chanel Rion on July 1 after speaking at the White House. (Photo: JIM WATSON via Getty Images)
Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, walks with his aide Christianne Allen (right) and One America News Network's Chanel Rion on July 1 after speaking at the White House. (Photo: JIM WATSON via Getty Images)
Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who directed efforts to get Zelensky to announce an investigation into Biden, has met at least three times with Derkach, an enigmatic political figure who graduated from a spy academy in Moscow in 1993 and whose father was a longtime KGB officer. On his podcast, Giuliani promoted Derkach’s claims about Biden, which seek to tie the p**********l rival to George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist whose support for anti-corruption and pro-democracy initiatives in former Eastern Bloc countries has made him an enemy of the Kremlin.
Republicans also consider Soros, who has spent millions of dollars on liberal causes, a political foe — so much so that in 2017, right-wing congressional Republicans such as Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Ted Cruz (Texas) joined forces with Russia-backed politicians in Eastern Europe to oppose Soros.
Giuliani also worked closely with One America News, a pro-Trump propaganda network, to amplify the Derkach disinformation campaign. OAN conducted interviews with Giuliani and Derkach. And OAN propagandists, such as Jack Posobiec, a far-right protégé of Trump aide and convicted felon Roger Stone, generated additional material in an attempt to link Democrats to corruption in Ukraine and to Soros.
The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday designated Derkach “an active Russian agent for over a decade” who has “close connections with Russian intelligence services” and placed sanctions on him for running an “influence campaign” against Biden.
“Derkach waged a covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials in the upcoming 2020 P**********l E******n,” according to a Treasury Department statement. “Derkach’s unsubstantiated narratives were pushed in Western media through coverage of press conferences and other news events, including interviews and statements.”
A Confluence Of Bad
It can sometimes be hard to separate a Russian propaganda operation from Trump
In the complaint, Brian Murphy, the former head of DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, laid out a damning pattern of behavior by top Trump appointees ― most notably Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and his second-in-command, Ken Cuccinelli ― to distort or block intelligence reports that could undermine Trump’s political objectives or reflect poorly on a president who has openly courted both the Kremlin and far-right extremists in America.
Murphy’s complaint is a shocking document that would upend any other administration in recent memory. But it’s also just another data point in an incendiary emerging story: Russia is clearly trying to influence the p**********l e******n, and the Trump administration has doggedly tried to keep both Congress and the public in the dark about those efforts. Democratic lawmakers have also tried to sound the alarm but have been handcuffed by what they say is the Trump administration’s unnecessary classification of e******n security intelligence, particularly with regard to the Russian threat.
Last month, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) issued a dire warning in a Washington Post op-ed after reviewing classified material that he described as “more chilling” than anything special counsel Robert S. Mueller III turned up in his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 e******n.
“The warning lights are flashing red. America’s e******ns are under attack,” Blumenthal wrote. “[T]the Trump administration is keeping the t***h about a grave, looming threat to democracy hidden from the American people.”
Murphy, a Marine veteran and former FBI special agent who said he was responsible for all intelligence activities at the Department of Homeland Security from March 2018 until being reassigned last month, has produced some of the strongest evidence to date that Trump has politicized elements of the intelligence community in ways that security experts and members of Congress say put the country at great risk.
In his whistleblower complaint, Murphy stated that he filed two Office of the Inspector General reports that seemingly went nowhere about “attempted censorship of intelligence analysis.” He also made numerous other internal complaints. In March and April, for example, he said he submitted six internal complaints to Kash Patel, the acting deputy director for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, about the “improper administration of an intelligence program with respect to Russian disinformation efforts within the United States.”
Patel, a former staffer for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), played a key role in a Republican effort to discredit Mueller’s Russia probe and the FBI’s and Justice Department’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s Russia ties. It’s unclear if Patel responded to Murphy’s concerns.
In May, however, Wolf told Murphy to “cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States,” according to the whistleblower complaint. Wolf told Murphy those instructions came directly from White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien, according to Murphy, who said he refused to comply because “doing so would put the country in substantial and specific danger.”
Hiding The T***h
Even before Murphy’s complaint, it was clear that DHS was suppressing intelligence about Russian e******n i**********e. In July, the agency withheld publication of a bulletin warning law enforcement agencies about a Russian disinformation plot to “denigrate” the mental health of Democratic p**********l nominee Joe Biden, according to a recent ABC News report.
Trump and his propagandists were already belittling Biden’s health, and an hour after the bulletin was submitted to the agency’s legislative and public affairs office for review, DHS chief of staff John Gountanis intervened to stop publication. The bulletin never circulated.
That incident is almost certainly the one described in Murphy’s complaint where he alleges that Gountanis directed him not to disseminate an “intelligence notification regarding Russian disinformation efforts” until clearing it with Wolf. On July 8, Murphy said, he met with Wolf, who told him that the intelligence notification should be “held” because it “made the President look bad.” After Murphy protested, according to his complaint, Wolf excluded him from meetings about the notification, a draft of which was ultimately produced that Murphy felt minimized the actions of Russia.
In early August, intelligence officials presented classified information to Congress and p**********l campaigns ― the material that “shocked” Blumenthal ― about Russia’s efforts to undermine the e******n and American democracy. Russia, the information indicated, had targeted Biden in a scheme the U.S. government’s chief counterintelligence official, William Evanina, hinted at in an “e******n threat update” he released Aug. 7.
William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, has warned of a Russian disinformation campaign to
William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, has warned of a Russian disinformation campaign to
“We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former Vice President Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment,’” Evanina said.
Three weeks later, however, Trump’s newly appointed director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, announced that the intelligence community would halt in-person e******n security briefings to Congress and instead provide only written reports. Ratcliffe justified this decision by saying it would be easier to avoid leaks and prevent information from being “politicized.”
The move was met with outrage by congressional Democrats. In a joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif) called it a “betrayal of the public’s right to know how foreign powers are trying to subvert our democracy. This intelligence belongs to the American people, not the agencies which are its custodian. And the American people have both the right and the need to know that another nation, Russia, is trying to help decide who their president should be.”
John Cohen, a former undersecretary for intelligence at DHS, told ABC News that “by refusing to brief Congress on a significant threat facing this country, administration officials are placing this country at grave risk.″
Given Murphy’s allegations that Wolf and Cuccinelli ― whom the Government Accountability Office determined were illegally installed in their positions ― told him to manipulate written intelligence reports, the danger is likely worse than imagined. With less than two months to go until the Nov. 3 e******n, Russia continues to target Biden and undermine U.S. democracy, sometimes with Trump’s assistance.
Evidence In The Open
Beyond the warnings from Murphy and Blumenthal, several Russian efforts to disrupt the e******n have entered public view on their own. Facebook recently took down accounts and pages associated with a Russian influence operation posing as an independent news outlet. The operation published content that investigators at Graphika, a social media analytics firm, described as “an attempt to build a left-wing audience and steer it away from Biden’s campaign, in the same way that the original IRA [Internet Research Agency] tried to depress progressive and minority support for Hillary Clinton in 2016.” The Daily Beast broke news this week that the same Russian operation, patterned after the Russian-based IRA, an organization of professional trolls active in the 2016 e******n, tried and failed to infiltrate left-wing media outlets such as Jacobin, T***hout and In These Times.
CNN reported Wednesday that journalist Bob Woodward revealed in his new book that “the NSA and CIA have classified evidence the Russians had placed malware in the e******n registration systems of at least two Florida counties, St. Lucie and Washington. While there was no evidence the malware had been activated, Woodward writes, it was sophisticated and could erase v**ers in specific districts.”
On Thursday, Reuters reported that Microsoft recently alerted SKDKnickerbocker, one of Biden’s main e******n campaign advisory firms, that suspected Russian state-backed hackers had gone after the company with a failed phishing attack to obtain staff passwords and made other attempts at infiltration. The Washington-based firm has close ties with many prominent Democrats.
Meanwhile, Trump and his associates are knowingly and openly participating in a Kremlin influence campaign to tarnish Biden and his son H****r as being involved in corrupt dealings in Ukraine. Trump’s attempt last year to strong-arm Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky into announcing an investigation into the unfounded allegations against Biden led to Trump’s impeachment. In his Aug. 7 statement about e******n threats, Evanina, the intelligence community’s top e******n security official, issued a clear warning about the ongoing influence campaign against Biden.
“[P]ro-Russia Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach is spreading claims about corruption ― including through publicizing leaked phone calls ― to undermine former Vice President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party,” Evanina wrote.
A week later, Trump retweeted edited audio from one of the leaked tapes that U.S. intelligence officials had f**gged as part of Derkach and the Russian government’s disinformation campaign. It was of a purported 2016 call between then-Vice President Biden and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The tapes contain edited fragments of unauthenticated conversations. Poroshenko has rejected them as a fabrication by pro-Russian forces in Ukraine.
Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, walks with his aide Christianne Allen (right) and One America News Network's Chanel Rion on July 1 after speaking at the White House. (Photo: JIM WATSON via Getty Images)
Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, walks with his aide Christianne Allen (right) and One America News Network's Chanel Rion on July 1 after speaking at the White House. (Photo: JIM WATSON via Getty Images)
Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who directed efforts to get Zelensky to announce an investigation into Biden, has met at least three times with Derkach, an enigmatic political figure who graduated from a spy academy in Moscow in 1993 and whose father was a longtime KGB officer. On his podcast, Giuliani promoted Derkach’s claims about Biden, which seek to tie the p**********l rival to George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist whose support for anti-corruption and pro-democracy initiatives in former Eastern Bloc countries has made him an enemy of the Kremlin.
Republicans also consider Soros, who has spent millions of dollars on liberal causes, a political foe — so much so that in 2017, right-wing congressional Republicans such as Sens. Mike Lee (Utah) and Ted Cruz (Texas) joined forces with Russia-backed politicians in Eastern Europe to oppose Soros.
Giuliani also worked closely with One America News, a pro-Trump propaganda network, to amplify the Derkach disinformation campaign. OAN conducted interviews with Giuliani and Derkach. And OAN propagandists, such as Jack Posobiec, a far-right protégé of Trump aide and convicted felon Roger Stone, generated additional material in an attempt to link Democrats to corruption in Ukraine and to Soros.
The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday designated Derkach “an active Russian agent for over a decade” who has “close connections with Russian intelligence services” and placed sanctions on him for running an “influence campaign” against Biden.
“Derkach waged a covert influence campaign centered on cultivating false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials in the upcoming 2020 P**********l E******n,” according to a Treasury Department statement. “Derkach’s unsubstantiated narratives were pushed in Western media through coverage of press conferences and other news events, including interviews and statements.”
A Confluence Of Bad
It can sometimes be hard to separate a Russian propaganda operation from Trump
Sep 12, 2020 22:09:26 #
Sep 12, 2020 22:51:59 #
Michael10 wrote:
An explosive whistleblower complaint filed by a se... (show quote)
No matter how much information like this is revealed it will not move the needle with his core base. It is, however, moving a lot more fence sitting Independents into Biden’s corner and that why Poll numbers are showing Biden pulling further ahead into double digit territory. The “suckers and losers” debacle plus the Woodward revelations are taking their toll and that's just in one week. Add to that the growing number of decent Republicans (Tom Ridge the latest) calling for Trumps dismissal. Soon the GOP will run out of National figures to desert the sinking Trumptannic.
Attacks on everything from the Post office to the Pentagon Generals...too bad Trump doesn’t understand that desperation is not a winning e******n strategy because that’s all we hearing from him now.
Sep 13, 2020 05:45:27 #
Sep 13, 2020 15:03:51 #
Sep 13, 2020 16:03:33 #
Sep 15, 2020 06:58:56 #
Rose42 wrote:
You already posted this rumitoid. You will change no one’s mind with your spam.
Just a rerun of the Russia h**x....
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