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Agent: FBI is 'Trumplandia'
The Hill-4 hours ago
The FBI is “Trumplandia,” according to an agent who spoke ... But another FBI source disputed the level of support Trump has within the bureau ...
Report: FBI an Anti-Hillary 'Trumplandia'
Newsmax-3 hours ago
The recent leaks of the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton have been sparked by a feeling within the agency the Democratic presidential ...
Welcome to Trumplandia, where feelings trump facts
The Week Magazine-Oct 20, 2016
Confronted with the fact that the crime statistics cited come from the FBI — hardly a "liberal" organization — Gingrich makes it clear that he ...
Donald Trump: Hillary Clinton has 'no right to be running ...
The Guardian-7 hours ago
The currently serving FBI agent said Clinton is “the antichrist personified to ... The agent called the bureau “Trumplandia”, with some colleagues ...
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 The Guardian |
'The FBI is Trumpland': anti-Clinton atmosphere spurred leaks, sources say
The Guardian Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey's July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton's ... Politics|James Comey Role Recalls Hoover's FBI, Fairly or NotNew York Times FBI's Comey opposed naming Russians, citing election timing: SourceCNBC all 450 news articles » |
 Business Insider |
CLINTON CAMPAIGN: The FBI investigation is actually helping us, in a way
Business Insider The Hillary Clinton campaign tried on Thursday to put a positive spin on the FBI's renewed investigation into the Democratic nominee's use of a private email server. Jennifer Palmieri, the campaign's communications director, argued that the federal ... and more » |
Politico |
Kaine: Comey is not trying to influence the election
Politico Top Clinton officials have gone after Comey in a very personal manner since the director wrote to Congress last Friday that the bureau had found new evidence linked to Clinton's server. While Comey was vague in his letter, it was later reported that ... The Jim Comey Effect is overblownWashington Post James Comey Has Discredited Himself and the FBIThe Nation. Obama, leading Dems raise concerns about FBI's ComeyMSNBC New York Times -The Week Magazine -Fox News all 7,089 news articles » |
Huffington Post |
Petition Calling for Comey to Resign Says FBI 'Appears to Be Little More Than an Arm of the Republican Party'
The New Civil Rights Movement A petition created by two activists is calling on James Comey to resign after the veteran law enforcement official, now the Director of the FBI, sent an inappropriate letter to Congress Friday regarding Hillary Clinton's emails, and the Bureau later ... Nancy Pelosi Says FBI Director James Comey May Not Be 'In The Right Job'Huffington Post Obama Avoids FBI Mention in Ohio Campaign Stop for ClintonBloomberg Congressman calls for FBI director's resignationCosumnes Connection (subscription) Daily Beast -Townhall -Vox all 8,569 news articles » |
BillMoyers.com |
Morning Reads: President Goes After FBI's Comey
BillMoyers.com Obama criticizes FBI –> The president went after FBI head James Comey yesterday on Hillary Clinton's behalf. “We don't operate on incomplete information,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with Versha Sharma of NowThis News. “We don't operate on leaks. |
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What FBI Investigation? House Oversight and Senate Judiciary Committees Forge Ahead
Charisma News Regardless of how the reopened FBI investigation into Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state turns out—and the outcome of next Tuesday's election—Congress is proceeding with its own ... and more » |
Vox |
Putin, Assange, and Comey are doing Donald Trump's work for him
Vox In these final frenzied days before Election Day, Hillary Clinton finds herself in an unexpected and uncomfortable place: forced to campaign against not just Donald Trump, but also against WikiLeaks, the Russian government, and even the director of the ... and more » |
The Nation. |
James Comey Has Discredited Himself and the FBI
The Nation. FBI Director James Comey is sworn-in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, September 28, 2016, prior to testifying before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on 'Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.' (AP Photo / Pablo Martinez ... Obama, leading Dems raise concerns about FBI's ComeyMSNBC In defense of James ComeyThe Boston Globe Why James Comey should resignThe Week Magazine New York Times -Fox News -Wall Street Journal all 6,540 news articles » |
Comey Is Still Mr. Straight
Huffington Post Having earned his spurs as Mr. Straight in the famous hospital room scene in March 2004 with the convalescing Attorney General John Ashcroft, during which the Acting Attorney General, 6'8” James Comey, refused to certify the central aspects of the ... |
CNN International |
How Russia is trying to rig the US election
CNN International Ben Nimmo is a UK-based analyst of disinformation and information warfare. He is a former journalist for Deutsche Presse-Agentur, and worked from 2011 to 2014 as a press officer at NATO, specializing in relations with Russia and Ukraine. He is a senior ... and more » |
Washington Post |
The Jim Comey Effect is overblown
Washington Post First of all, it's important to note that national polling was tightening even before FBI Director James Comey's Friday announcement. The Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll conducted Monday through Thursday of last week already showed Trump's ... and more » |
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Politico |
Clinton won't say if she'd ask for Comey resignation if elected
Politico The Democratic nominee said Saturday it was “pretty strange” and “deeply troubling” for Comeyto have written a cryptic letter to congressional chairs Friday informing them that the bureau would be reviewing new emails that might be related to its ... Here's How Clinton Answered a Question About Whether She'd Ask Comey to ResignMediaite all 7 The Reason Clinton World Is Waging War with... By Jonah GoldbergNational Review Online all 15 news articles » |
The Indian Express |
FBI launches investigation into its own Twitter account allegedly over pro-Trump tweets
The Indian Express FBI, FBI trump tweets, FBI donald Trump, FBI pro trump tweets, FBI On October 30, @FBIRecordsVault tweeted out a flood of archive documents, describing Donald Trump's father Fred Trump as a “philanthropist” in one. Photo for representational purpose. FBI releases new Clinton, Trump documents days before electionDallas News FBI launches internal investigation into its own Twitter accountThinkProgress Someone at the FBI thought it was a good time to remind the public of a 15-year-old Clinton scandalVox Business Insider -The Independent -New York Post -T.co all 217 news articles » |
Washington Post |
Former CIA chief: Trump is Russia's useful fool
Washington Post And what about the money? Although Trump has said, “I have zero investments in Russia,” his son Donald Jr. conceded in 2008 that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets . . . we see a lot of money pouring in ... and more » |
Hillary Clinton's Dream Is America's Nightmare
Daily Caller The revelation that Hillary Clinton consigliere Huma Abedin's estranged husband Anthony Weinerwould be the reason why the FBI's criminal investigation would be re-opened will make a great movie plot twist someday. Now, Abedin has every reason to tell ... and more » |
GOPUSA |
Spy Scandals, Globalism and the Betrayal of America
GOPUSA The book, Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War, documents questionable contacts between Talbott and the Russian intelligenceservice. Mrs. Clinton spoke to the same World Federalist group in 1999 ... |
Washington Free Beacon |
Abedin New Focus of Clinton Email Investigation
Washington Free Beacon Documents made public from the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton's private server provide clues about the current review of more than half a million emails linked to Clinton presidential campaign vice chair Huma Abedin. Abedin was ... Abedin's ... Politics|Justice Department Obtains Warrant to Review Clinton Aide's EmailsNew York Times Yesterday We Introduced You To Peter Kadzik, And Today You Get To See Just How Connected He Is…The Hayride Hillary Clinton's emails: Democrats move to discredit FBI director James Comey after he announces controversial probeThe Independent Huffington Post -The Sydney Morning Herald -Observer -New York Times all 8,771 news articles » |
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CNBC |
FBI's Comey opposed naming Russians, citing election timing: Source
CNBC In the end, the Department of Homeland Security and The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued the statement on Oct. 7, saying: "The U.S. intelligence community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of ... and more » |
BillMoyers.com |
FBI investigations into Trump-Russia ties yield little
CNN Washington (CNN) The FBI has been conducting multiple investigations of alleged connections between Russia and Donald Trump, his presidential campaign or its backers. But none so far have yielded proof of criminal connections between the parties. FBI Investigations Into Alleged Ties Between Trump and Russia Yield LittleKTLA Politics|Investigating Donald Trump, FBI Sees No Clear Link to RussiaNew York Times FBI finds no clear ties between Donald Trump and Russia (report)Syracuse.com VICE -BillMoyers.com -Newsline -Slate Magazine all 458 news articles » |
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Right now, on the eve of our election, Democrats are engaging in public efforts to expose Kremlin espionage in America with a passion that official Washington hasn’t shown on this issue since the early years of the Cold War. Press reports are aflutter with rumors of Russian moles while members of Congress are hurling accusations of collusion with Moscow with reckless abandon. All that’s missing is Senator Joe McCarthy—and some Democrats are doing their best to channel him too.
As someone who’s long urged Americans to get serious about counterintelligence, particularly regarding the oversized spy threat we face from Russia, this is welcome news. Kremlin efforts to meddle in our election have concentrated minds which previously had paid zero attention to such dark arts. When you go after their presidential nominee, Democrats suddenly get very interested.
However, that excitement needs to be properly channeled into serious inquiries, not rumor-mongering and spy-mania. Let it be said that there certainly are counterintelligence concerns about Donald Trump which require resolution. His slavish public devotion to the Kremlin line on numerous issues is a concern I’ve raised more than once, as is his unwillingness to criticize Vladimir Putin.
Then there are the disturbing Russian linkages of key members of Team Trump, past and present, from Paul Manafort and Mike Flynn to Roger Stone and Carter Page. Longstanding rumors of Russian money bankrolling the Trump Organization—not necessarily from legitimate sources—should be resolved, but can’t be since Trump refuses to release his tax returns and insists on keeping his murky finances from public scrutiny.
That said, nobody acquainted with Russian intelligence and its spycraft is suggesting that Trump is anything like a mole. Someone as erratic as Trump, prone to public outbursts, would never be deemed suitable for long-term clandestine work by the Russians—or any competent intelligence service. However, there is reason to believe that Moscow considers him an agent of influence, to use Kremlin-speak. That special category of operative was defined by the KGB as:
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Donald Trump’s Border Wall Would Have Wild Victims
Donald Trump’s Border Wall Would Have Wild VictimsAn agent operating under intelligence instructions who uses his official or public position, and other means, to exert influence on policy, public opinion, the course of particular events, and the activities of political organizations and state agencies in target countries.
In other words, agents of influence are secret friends who help to embellish Russia’s image abroad while boosting the Kremlin politically. Some agents of influence are paid while others help Moscow gratis, out of conviction. During the Cold War their ranks included Western politicians, businessmen, journalists, even celebrities—and there’s no reason to think that practice ended when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and took the KGB with it.
For many decades, no country has been a bigger target for Moscow for recruiting its agents of influence than the United States, which during the Cold War the KGB called the Main Adversary—a loaded term which has been resurrected in recent years by Putin, that former KGB man.
One might think that KGB funding of Bill Clinton and two Al Gores would whet the appetite of young reporters in Washington seeking to make a name for themselves—but that was not the case.
Exactly what Trump’s relationship is with Russia constitutes an important question that should have been answered months ago. However, we must not stop with the Republican nominee. There are likewise important questions about Clinton, Inc. and its linkages to Moscow. Indeed, if Hillary Clinton were running against anybody but Donald Trump, with his overt Russophilia, she would look dangerously caught up in Russian influence and money.
The involvement of the Clinton Foundation in a shady lucrative deal to sell the Kremlin 20 percent of America’s uranium—the most militarily useful of all chemical elements, given its nuclear applications—was so outrageous even the mainstream media took notice. I’ve previously exposed how the Podesta Group, a Democratic lobbying firm which is closely tied to Team Clinton, has worked for the biggest bank in Russia, which is owned by the Kremlin—and linked to Russian intelligence. I’ve also brought to light how Hillary, as secretary of state, helped the Clinton Foundation and her close friends make millions of dollars off sweetheart deals with Russia’s “Silicon Valley”—which, yet again, is mostly owned by the Kremlin and has documented links to its spy agencies.
Yet the real “smoking gun” which may conclusively link Clinton, Inc. to Moscow and its intelligence services goes back to the Cold War and constitutes a remarkable case of mainstream media unwillingness to pursue juicy stories when they reflect badly on Democrats.
It involves Armand Hammer, who died back in 1990, but in his decades in the limelight was a famous industrialist who lived lavishly. There were similarities to Trump. Both men craved media publicity and had a propensity for flashy self-promotion—and making remarks about the Kremlin so sympathetic that many Americans found them distressing.
Hammer’s official biography was straightforward. Born in New York City in 1898 to immigrant parents, Jews from Russia, he trained as a physician but never worked as one. He left for Russia in 1921, not long after the Bolsheviks seized power, to escape from a scandal involving his father, an abortionist with left-wing political views who killed a woman during a botched abortion.
His son had little interest in politics but did enjoy cultivating powerful politicians. Hammer ingratiated himself with the Soviet leadership starting with Lenin—a habit he maintained for the rest of his life—and used these connections to get rich. He won trade concessions from the Kremlin in numerous areas—furs, pencils, pharmaceuticals, liquor—until winding up in the oil business by purchasing Occidental Petroleum, a major multinational conglomerate, in 1957.
Hammer hardly concealed his links to the Soviet elite and American counterintelligence had questions about them going back to the 1920s. The FBI considered Hammer a Kremlin agent, but hard evidence was lacking until after his death. In 1996, the journalist Edward Jay Epstein published a muckraking book which laid bare the whole ugly story.
Hammer was a KGB agent of influence for most of his life, using his Kremlin connections to get rich. In 1921, he accepted $75,000 to distribute to Communist secret agents abroad. Thereafter, Hammer acted as a financial conduit and influence channel for the KGB. At the start, Hammer served as a fence for jewels and artwork stolen by the Bolsheviks from their victims, including the murdered Romanovs, which the Kremlin couldn’t sell in the West without a lot of questions. Hammer could, and did, netting millions of dollars in the process. Moscow made him very wealthy.
One of the ways Hammer helped the Soviets was by cultivating American politicians, enticing them with money. The classic case was Al Gore, Sr., a longtime member of the House of Representatives and Senate from Tennessee. Hammer’s cash—meaning the KGB’s cash—funded the Gore political machine and gave the family an opulent lifestyle. In exchange, Al Gore, Sr. helped his friend and business partner on many occasions.
In the early 1960s, when the FBI was breathing down Hammer’s neck over his Kremlin links, Gore defended him on the Senate floor. When one of Hammer’s sons had trouble obtaining a security clearance over his father’s shady Soviet connections, Senator Gore called in favors with the FBI on his behalf. When Al Gore, Sr. lost his 1970 Senate reelection bid, his wealthy friend put him on the board of Occidental Petroleum for the princely sum of $500,000 per year.
It’s no surprise this cozy relationship transferred to Al Gore, Jr. when he followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the House of Representatives in 1977 and then the Senate in 1985. Not everyone in Washington was pleased. In January 1981, Hammer was a guest of Gore, Jr. at the inauguration of Ronald Reagan as president. Lingered in an area reserved for Congressmen, he tried to shake Reagan’s hand—which the new president pointedly spurned. He had been briefed on Hammer’s unsavory Soviet links and had no desire to been seen endorsing them.
Despite its political liability, the younger Gore was friendly with his family’s benefactor down to his death in 1990, and questions about the strange affair, with its whiff of espionage, briefly appeared when Al Gore, Jr. was nominated as Bill Clinton’s vice president in 1992. They popped up again eight years later, when Gore ran for the White House himself. The mainstream media fleetingly asked questions about the Democratic nominee’s strange ties with a man who, by 2000, was known to have been a Soviet agent of influence for almost seven decades. That story failed to gain traction, however, since it cast unfavorable light on the Democrats’ presidential nominee.
Then, on October 5, 2000, a month before our presidential election, the Russian press agency Ekho Moskvy, ran a sensational piece. Aleksei Mitrofanov, a member of the State Duma, Russia’s parliament, publicly asked the Federal Archive Service to provide him with any documentation they possessed regarding the secret relationship between Armand Hammer and Albert Gore, Sr., the father of that year’s Democratic presidential candidate. “I already have this information. My purpose is to get it officially,” Mitrofanov told Ekho Moskvy.
The Duma deputy wanted to illuminate “the mechanism of supporting Armand Hammer and Albert Gore, Sr. by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union…they were financing Gore’s coming out against the Vietnam war,” Mitrofanov said, “as well as his assistance in closing an FBI investigation against Hammer”. He continued: “All this is very interesting, especially in connection with the ongoing presidential campaign in the United States…the incumbent President [Clinton] also started his political career on money given by Hammer or, in fact, on Soviet money. Everybody knows that Hammer got his most profitable contracts in the Soviet Union from Politburo decisions.” Mitrofanov concluded by stating that Albert Gore, Jr. started his career on Hammer’s dirty money too.
While Aleksei Mitrofanov is a controversial character, prone to Trump-like outbursts, he has some sort of murky KGB past himself, while the notion that the Gores, Sr. and Jr., were a bit too cozy with the Kremlin, via Armand Hammer, was a reasonable question when Mitrofanov asked it. The case became more even interesting on October 25, when Mitrofanov made a quixotic statement to the Moscow news agency Interfax about his request to the archives in the matter of Hammer and his American politico friends, saying that he had received relevant information but he would not be disclosing what he had learned: “This document is classified and the deputies who would like to read it may do so in exchange for a written statement promising not to disclose its content.”
Although that story emerged on the eve of our election, and Mitrofanov’s follow-up comment didn’t even reach the level of what they call a “non-denial denial” in Washington, our mainstream media’s interest in the case was exactly zero. The BBC translated the initial October 5 story and the later Interfax report appeared in English too, yet no journalist in the United States deemed this bombshell sufficiently interesting to write about.
One might think that KGB funding of Bill Clinton and two Al Gores would whet the appetite of young reporters in Washington seeking to make a name for themselves—but that was not the case. The mainstream media decided to bury a story that the public plainly had a need to hear about. I was working for NSA counterintelligence at the time and awaited the inevitable media feeding frenzy. Alas, it never came.
Has Clinton, Inc., secretly been on Moscow’s payroll for decades? Sixteen years after Mitrofanov publicly asked that question, we still don’t know. In contrast, the media can’t get enough of allegations that Donald Trump is an agent of the Kremlin. Both are important questions. It’s too bad our mainstream media gatekeepers are only interested in one of them.
Disclosure: Donald Trump is the father-in-law of Jared Kushner, the publisher of Observer Media.
John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer. A specialist in espionage and terrorism, he’s also been a Navy officer and a War College professor. He’s published four books and is on Twitter at @20committee.
FBI Says No Link Between Russia and Trump
The FBI says there is no evidence that Trump and Russia aren't connected. The FBI had been probing the issue after recent allegations.
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· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
From Trump’s praise of Putin to his Russian-linked advisers to alleged hacking.
The questions have been a recurring undercurrent throughout the presidential campaign: What is Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia? Why does he keep praising its president, Vladimir Putin? Is Russia meddling in the U.S. election? And is the FBI investigating any of this?
As the race enters its final stretch, a look at the situation:
TRUMP’S WORDS
Trump has raised eyebrows for repeatedly praising Putin’s leadership and advocating a closer working relationship with Russia despite its record of human rights abuses and recent military incursions in Ukraine and Syria.
“At least he’s a leader,” Trump told MSNBC of Putin last December, “unlike what we have in this country.”
Trump often bemoans the state of U.S.-Russia relations and argues the U.S. would be better off if the two countries put aside their differences and worked together to take on Islamic State militants. That’s despite Russia’s backing of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom the U.S. opposes.
“I don’t know Putin but wouldn’t it be nice if we could get along actually with the other country?” Trump asked Sunday at a rally. “They want to get ISIS. We want to get ISIS. We’d put everything together, we knock the hell out of ISIS.”
In recent days Trump has also escalated his criticism of rival Hillary Clinton for being too tough on Putin.
“She speaks very badly of Putin, and I don’t think that’s smart,” Trump recently said at a rally in Ohio. “How do you speak so badly of someone?”
WHAT’S THE RELATIONSHIP?
Trump has been contradictory when describing his relationship with Putin. He told ABC in July that he had “no relationship with” with the Russian leader and had no recollection of ever meeting him. But several times in prior years, he’d stated the opposite.
“I do have a relationship with him,” Trump said in one 2013 interview in Moscow.
The ABC interview in which Trump said he’d “never met” Putin directly contradicted a 2015 interview Trump did with talk-radio host Michael Savage.
Asked point-blank by Savage whether he’d ever met Putin, Trump responded: “Yes. One time, yes. Long time ago.”
TRUMP’S HIRES
Throughout the campaign, Trump has repeatedly tapped top advisers with close ties to Russia. Among them: former campaign chair Paul Manafort.
Trump brought on Manafort in March. Manafort, a longtime Republican operative who’d spent recent years advising a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party before its ouster over alleged corruption, and his deputy Rick Gates took over functional control of managing the Trump campaign in June.
Given the Republican Party’s generally hawkish stance on Russia, Manafort’s past work repeatedly put him in the spotlight.
In August, The New York Times reported that a hand-written ledger of cash payments made by Ukraine’s ousted government listed Manafort as being paid $12.7 million. Ukrainian prosecutors said the payments detailed in the ledger were an effort to obscure bribes.
A few days later, The Associated Press reported that Manafort and Gates had orchestrated a secret Ukrainian lobbying campaign in Washington. Participants said the men had sought to obscure the true backer of the work — Ukraine’s pro-Russian ruling party — by routing lobbying funds through a nonprofit front group.
Manafort and Gates denied having been involved in the lobbying. But emails obtained by the AP explicitly showed Gates giving orders to the lobbyists.
Manafort departed the campaign the following day.
RUSSIAN HACKING
Democratic Party officials learned in late April that their systems were attacked after discovering malicious software on their computers. A cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike, found traces of at least two sophisticated hacking groups on the Democrats’ network — both with ties to the Russian government.
Those hackers took at least one year’s worth of detailed chats, emails and research about Trump, according to a person knowledgeable of the breach who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.
CrowdStrike said one of the hacking groups, dubbed Cozy Bear, had previously infiltrated unclassified networks at the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. Another group detected, called Fancy Bear, had targeted private- and public-sector networks since the mid-2000s.
In addition to the Democratic Party hack, other emails were made public in recent months that detailed tens of thousands of messages from Democratic operatives.
Among those were emails of Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta, which contained thousands of messages to and from Clinton campaign insiders. Clinton’s campaign has said it was notified by the U.S. government that it was investigating Russia for the Podesta hack.
The Podesta emails have been publicly released daily by WikiLeaks. They have provided a steady stream of questions about Clinton’s policy positions, personnel choices and ties with her husband’s charitable network.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Homeland Security Department have formally accused Russian state-sponsored hackers of the Democratic Party cyberattacks and accused them of trying to influence the presidential election.
Trump, meanwhile, has said there’s no proof of Russian involvement in any of the hacking. He’s taken a blase attitude toward a foreign power’s attempts to influence the election, at one pointing calling on Russia to find emails Clinton had deleted. His campaign later said he was joking.
THE FBI’S REACTION
As the election enters its final stretch, Democrats have been pressing for action.
But the FBI’s actions are unclear.
Sen. Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat, accused FBI Director James Comey of a double standard by publicly discussing the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s private email server without confirming whether it had opened a probe into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
The New York Times reported that the FBI this summer had looked into links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, but had so far found nothing conclusive or criminal. An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.
WHAT HAS RUSSIA SAID?
Russia, including Putin, has denied meddling in the U.S. election.
The AP learned that Russia’s government did lodge an angry complaint in September with the United Nations over a top U.N. official’s condemnations of Trump and several European leaders, an unusual intervention given that none of the criticized politicians were Russian.
Read the whole story
· · · · ·
Trump has parroted at least one allegation which began in the Kremlin media. He has benefited from Kremlin-linked hackers, and there are hints that his online support is being influenced by Russian-linked social media accounts.
Claims that Google's auto-complete feature is rigged to conceal bad news about Clinton had been reported by a number of conservative American media outlets in September, including
Breitbart
,
Infowars
and
Fox
. We cannot say for certain which outlet was the immediate source of Trump's claim.
But all three of those outlets attributed their reports to a single source:
an exclusive article written for Sputnik
by psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein on September 12. "It seems reasonable to conjecture that Google employees manually suppress negative search suggestions relating to Clinton," Epstein wrote.
That 2015 study, however,
was published in the journal PNAS
, which has, historically, had a reputation for a sometimes less-than-thorough peer review process. How did a piece of questionable academic merit get so much media coverage?
So, the trigger for Epstein's 2016 Sputnik article was a video; one trigger for the video was Epstein's 2015 research, published on PNAS. This does not, of itself, disprove Epstein's Google claim (
though Bloomberg later did so
); it does create the impression that he is rather a lone voice in academia.
Another odd thing here is the number of times that Sputnik and its sister TV outlet, RT (the former Russia Today), had already reported on Epstein's theories. Six months before he published his Sputnik piece,
RT ran a 10-minute interview with him
, at a time when Clinton's main rival was Democratic contender Bernie Sanders. The interview was a classic of the RT genre, with presenter Afshin Rattansi treating Epstein's controversial claims as if they had already been proven: "Given that Sanders scored a 35% swing, maybe, in Michigan, I mean, it hasn't worked so well for Clinton, has it?"
RT interviewed Epstein again
on April 8
, titling the interview "Google will steal this election and how." Sputnik then interviewed him on
May 13
,
August 12
and
September 3
, before running his article on September 12 -- not just in English, but in Spanish, Italian, German, Turkish, French, Japanese and Russian.
In short, the Kremlin's media have been pushing Epstein's message of Google bias for at least six months. On September 28, the effort paid off.
Ask Assange
Returning to the YouTube video, Epstein's paper was not the only source quoted. The second source
was an article in the Belfast Telegraph
dated June 7, just two days before the video came out. The article quoted WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as saying, "Google is directly engaged with Hillary Clinton's campaign... Google is heavily integrated with Washington power."
But again, the quote carried in the Belfast Telegraph came thanks to Sputnik. Assange was speaking via video link to a conference in Moscow, organized by Sputnik's parent company Rossiya Segodnya, and reported by both Sputnik and RT. RT (which employed Assange as a presenter for 11 shows in 2012) went on to run a
"Julian Assange special" on August
6, in which he defended Trump against charges of improper ties with Russia and accused Clinton of the same.
And of course, in July, WikiLeaks wrought political havoc in the Democratic Party by publishing hacked emails from the Democratic National Convention, while in October it targeted Clinton with a massive publication of hacked emails from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta. According to both
official
and
unofficial investigators
, the hackers behind those leaks were linked to the Russian government.
So, just as with Epstein, the Kremlin's propaganda outlets have given Assange a platform for his attacks on Google and Clinton -- even while hackers linked to the Russian government gave WikiLeaks ammunition against Clinton.
Send in the cyborgs
Russian President Vladimir Putin
This Kremlin claim appears not to have penetrated the electoral debate so effectively. It was widely mocked on social media; but mixed with the mockery
were comments of outrage from Trump supporters
, suggesting that RT's reports had had at least some impact.
Moreover, social media are themselves a battleground for influence in the election, and there are hints that the Kremlin may be attempting to shift the debate there with a network of fake, automated ("bot") and semi-automated ("cyborg") accounts.
The prime example is the now-notorious case in which
Trump read out a quote from a leaked email
, purportedly from Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal, saying that she was responsible for the death of four US diplomats in Benghazi in 2011.
The Russian origin of Trump's quote has not yet been confirmed by open sources; given the opaque nature of Twitter accounts in particular, there is no guarantee that it ever will be. However, research has identified the Twitter account which began circulating the quote online, and the network of accounts which sent it viral. Of those, one is clearly a bot; several appear to be cyborgs; and one, at least, was following a number of Russian government and Russian-language accounts in October, although it has since unfollowed them. This is not enough to prove Eichenwald's contention that the quote which Trump read out was publicized by a "coordinated Russian campaign," but it certainly does not disprove it, either.
Beyond the murky question of attributing bot and cyborg activity, though, the pattern is clear. The Kremlin's media and hacker networks are providing the Trump campaign with ammunition, and Trump and his supporters are using it. In that sense, the Kremlin is trying to rig America's election.
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In the 1800s an itinerant American evangelist named Lorenzo Dow made up a little ditty to describe ministers who preached that only a few elect souls go to heaven.
You can and you can’t,
You will and you won’t;
You’ll be damned if you do,
And damned if you don’t.
This is the same riddle facing FBI director James Comey, who has emerged as a central figure in the 2016 election. It goes without saying that no one voluntarily puts himself in the middle of a hotly contested race with a week to go unless there are compelling reasons.
When Comey closed the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server in July without charges, Democrats threw rose petals at his feet. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi called him “a great man.” The Clinton campaign released a video praising him. Not surprisingly, it has since been deleted from the website.
By renewing the case, and notifying the appropriate congressional committees, Comey chose the only legal and ethical course available to him upon the discovery of new evidence. To remain silent would have exposed Comey to charges of a cover-up. More importantly for the integrity of the election, it would have deprived voters of the right to know if the Democratic candidate is a suspected felon.
In 1972, as details of the Watergate break-in were beginning to spread, President Nixon was re-elected and the nation was plunged into chaos. Ultimately, Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment for his crimes. Does America really want to go through that again?
In Comey’s case, he is the only person in the Obama administration who is showing any independence at all. President Obama, his wife Michelle, and Vice President Biden are all busy campaigning for Clinton, an odd set of circumstances when you consider Clinton quite possibly broke federal law and jeopardized national security.
As for Attorney General Loretta Lynch, she compromised herself with a foolish decision to meet with former president Bill Clinton as the initial investigation was winding down. If anyone is guilty of meddling, it is Lynch, for reportedly urging Comey not to publicly notify Congress that potential new evidence had surfaced.
Comey’s critics claim that protocols and tradition were violated when he acted as he did so close to the election. But where was the concern for custom and practice in 1992, when Bill Clinton used the indictment of former defense secretary Casper Weinberger four days before the election to bash his opponent, President George H.W. Bush?
This leaves Hillary Clinton with the only option available to her, one that her family has honed to a deadly skill: shooting the messenger. Clinton’s attempts to undermine confidence in the FBI are as egregious as Donald Trump’s complaints of a “rigged” election.
But Clinton’s smoke-and-mirrors act is wearing thin. When the “vast right-wing conspiracy” grows to encompass Obama appointees, it begins to lose its effect. After Clinton charged Comey with sharing information only with Republicans, it was quickly pointed out that eight Democrats were addressed in the letter he sent to Congress.
What all this means for next Tuesday’s voting is hard to say, although the race has clearly tightened. The ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll has gone from a 12-point lead for Clinton a week ago to a virtual tie.
Clinton is closing out the race by returning to her greatest hits from the summer, when she was riding high. Alicia Machado is speaking at her rallies. A negative Trump ad featuring the Khans just launched. And, of course, she’s attacking Comey. If Clinton had wanted to campaign on a high note in the final days, those hopes have been dashed.
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Reuters |
Commentary: Does the FBI think Russia hacked Weiner's computer ...
Reuters By Peter Van Buren There are many reasons why Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey could be interested in the Hillary Clinton-Huma A. and more » |
Independent Journal Review |
The Rise and Fall of Huma Abedin: From Hillary's Most Trusted Adviser to Just 'One of My Staffers'
Independent Journal Review Regardless of the actual name of the folder, some believe Huma Abedin has cut a deal with the FBI or has otherwise agreed to talk with the feds. As reported by CNN, before it was “clarified” as not suggesting she was implicated in criminal wrongdoing:. Email Probe Leaves Future Role of Huma Abedin in QuestionWall Street Journal Who is Huma Abedin? Hillary Clinton's right-hand-womanUSA TODAY Who Is Huma Abedin? What You Need To KnowCBS Local Fox News -Daily Beast all 500 news articles » |
Voice of America |
Who is Huma Abedin?
Voice of America FILE - Huma Abedin, center, an aide to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, gets off a campaign bus for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., July 29, 2016. Share. Will Hillary Clinton Fire Huma Abedin? The Top Aide Is Caught In A Difficult PositionRomper all 6,513 news articles » |
Business Insider |
Meet Huma Abedin, the top Clinton aide now at the center of the email investigation
Business Insider Huma Abedin has been by Hillary Clinton's side for decades as one of her longest-serving aides, and now she's at the center of an FBI investigation that involves the Democratic presidential nominee's use of a private email server. Clinton's critics ... Huma's email testimony could haunt her as FBI renews probeFox News New email discovery raises question: What did Abedin know?The Seattle Times Lawyer: Huma Abedin didn't know emails were on Anthony Weiner's computerAOL News New York Times-Politico-Slate Magazine all 8,174 news articles » |
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CNN |
Huma Abedin lies low amid email probe
CNN (CNN) Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's longtime -- and arguably closest -- aide, has stepped off the campaign trail in the wake of the FBI's announcement last week that it was investigating thousands of emails found on a laptop shared by her and her ... Meet Huma Abedin, the top Clinton aide now at the center of the email investigationBusiness Insider Close Modal DialogPEOPLE.com Here's why Huma Abedin, not Hillary Clinton, may be the criminalNew York Daily News Voice of America -CBS News all 9,392 news articles » |
New York Daily News |
Here's why Huma Abedin, not Hillary Clinton, may be the criminal
New York Daily News Hillary Clinton's campaign has been seriously wounded by FBI Director James Comey's shoot-first-get-warrants-later approach, yet the only person who can clear Clinton has gone silent. Reporters have staked out Huma Abedin's apartment for days, but she ... New email discovery raises question: What did Abedin know?The Seattle Times Who is Huma Abedin? Hillary Clinton's right-hand-womanUSA TODAY all 866 news articles » |
McClatchy Washington Bureau |
Huma Abedin doesn't know how those emails ended up on her computer – but maybe we do
McClatchy Washington Bureau Such mundane quirks may explain how a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, finds herself in a pinch over a personal computer she shared with her disgraced husband that is clogged with emails, some from the State Department, and now the ... Lawyer: Huma Abedin didn't know emails were on Anthony Weiner's computerAOL News New email discovery raises question: Why didn't Abedin know?Chicago Daily Herald Is Huma Kicked Off The Plane? [VIDEO]Daily Caller all 563 news articles » |
Washington Times |
Huma Abedin often handled classified data on computer she shared with Anthony Weiner
Washington Times Emails released by the State Department over the past 18 months show that Huma Abedinfrequently handled classified information — suggesting a major reason why the FBI has been eager to get a full look at the personal computer she shared with her ... What Clintonworld Thinks About the Latest Abedin-Weiner ScandalVanity Fair Abedin New Focus of Clinton Email InvestigationWashington Free Beacon Who is Huma Abedin?Voice of America Fox News-PEOPLE.com all 10,703 news articles » |
Forward |
Huma Abedin Rebuked Haim Saban Over Tougher 'Scrutiny' of Muslims: Wikileaks
Forward The email exchanges between Saban and vice chairwoman of the Clinton campaign Huma Abedin were among the correspondence hacked from the account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta made public on Monday by WikiLeaks. Saban, who, in ... and more » |
WND.com |
Yahoo holds key to FBI probe of Hillary-Huma emails
WND.com NEW YORK – Yahoo.com holds the key to determining just how severely Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton may have violated national-security laws with emails that Huma forwarded to herself at humamabedin@yahoo.com, which ended up on a laptop ... On July 25 ... and more » |
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Newsmax |
Clinton Aide: 'We Don't F*ck Around When It Comes To Huma' Abedin
The Weekly Standard (blog) Michele Bachmann's statements linking Huma Abedin with the Muslim Brotherhood. (At the time, Finney was an independent political consultant and political analyst for MSNBC and Mills was Clinton's chief of staff at the state department. Abedin was ... CNN: Huma Abedin Negotiating With FBI Over EmailsNewsmax The Anthony Weiner, Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton connection: From sexting scandal to FBI email probeThe Independent Why Clinton is sticking with Huma AbedinChristian Science Monitor PJ Media -American Thinker (blog) -Hindustan Times all 9,574 news articles » |
Canada Free Press |
What's wrong with Hillary's Face? HUMA ABEDIN!
Canada Free Press “When (Huma) Abedin was two years old, the family moved to Jidda, Saudi Arabia, where, with the backing of Abdullah Omar Nasseef, then the president of King Abdulaziz University, her father founded the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, a think tank ... Saleha Mahmood Abedin: 5 Facts to Know About Huma Abedin's MotherEarn The Necklace all 43 news articles » |
Sonoran News |
Home Opinion Guest Editorials Huma Abedin whose mother and brother advocate for radical Islamists is a...
Sonoran News By watching this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKt2zaOrxD8&sns=em) you will be able to learn a great deal about the background of Huma Abedin and her strong affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Organization. The Muslim ... and more » |
WND.com |
Security officers warn of Huma Abedin's tie to Saudis
WND.com The Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi ties of Hillary Clinton's longtime aide and confidante Huma Abedin and her influence on U.S. foreign policy are spotlighted in a newly released documentary called “The Enemies Within.” In a six-minute trailer of the ... and more » |
WND.com |
Hillary's 'surrogate daughter' tied to terrorists, 9/11 funders
WND.com Hillary's ties to Huma Abedin go so deep, it's been said that the vice chairwoman of Hillary's campaign is one of few people who knows where the proverbial Clinton “bodies are buried.” In fact, Abedin, whom Hillary once called her “second daughter ... and more » |
Breitbart News |
Frank Gaffney: FBI Will Probably Find Huma Abedin 'Playing Fast and Loose' with Facts
Breitbart News “I made that contention on the grounds that Huma Abedin, at that time, was known to have essentially her entire family involved in what was a Muslim Brotherhood front group called the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs,” he explained. “And the ... “Who is Huma Abedin?” Anonymous Releases Bone-Chilling VideoEarn The Necklace Abedin Played Role in Clinton Moves Promoting Radical Islam - Ex-Senate AdviserSputnik International HUMA ABEDIN AND HILLARY CLINTON: TREASON AT HIGHEST LEVELSNewsWithViews.com Voltaire Network -TopYaps all 26 news articles » |
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The Hill (blog) |
Pro-Trump ad hits Clinton aide Huma Abedin's 'Pakistani origin'
The Hill (blog) Abedin's background and Muslim faith have long been subjects of scrutiny from some conservative Republicans. Then-Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) and four other GOP House lawmakers accused her of aiding the Muslim Brotherhood in 2012. and more » |
Frank Gaffney: FBI Will Probably Find Huma Abedin 'Playing Fast ...
Breitbart News-14 hours ago
And Hillary's right-hand woman, Huma Abedin, featured prominently in it ... was a Muslim Brotherhood front group called the Institute for Muslim ...
Abedin Played Role in Clinton Moves Promoting Radical Islam - Ex ...
Sputnik International-6 hours ago
Sputnik International-6 hours ago
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