C.I.A. Had Evidence of Russian Effort to Help Trump Earlier Than Believed - NYT | Russia Collusion Investigations Struggle to Find Evidence - THE SNAKE PIT: Trump News and Investigations Review - 4.6.17 - Page 2
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4.6.17 - Page 2 - Trump News Review
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4.6.17 - Trump Investigations Updates
- Russia Collusion Investigations Struggle to Find Evidence
- Several Investigations Underway on Trump-Russia Connections
- The Trump-Russia allegations sound incriminating. But would any of them be illegal? - Vox
- House Russia investigators stumble into 'new phase' - CNNPolitics.com
- House Intelligence Republicans Boycott Briefing From FBI’s Russian Double Agent - The Daily Beast
"When the “highly classified assessment,” as the government report called it, was made public by BuzzFeed, even BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith wrote, “There is serious reason to doubt the allegations.”
The narrative has since unraveled, as was revealed by James Clapper, who led the investigations as director of national intelligence under Obama, during a March 5 segment of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Clapper said, “We did not include any evidence in our report (and I say, ‘our,’ that’s NSA, FBI, and CIA, with my office, the director of National Intelligence) that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. We had no evidence of such collusion.”"
There are multiple investigations into whether a foreign power interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. They began with allegations of Russian meddling, yet have taken a new turn with the revelation that the Obama administration was monitoring the communications of the Trump team, possibly for political reasons.
Former national security adviser Susan Rice, responding to a question about whether she had sought to unmask the names of members of the Trump campaign or the Trump transition team, told on MSNBC she had not done so “for political purposes.” Rice claimed later in the interview that any unmasking that she ordered was done for national security reasons.
Members of the House and Senate intelligence committees are now calling on Rice to testify on whether the gathered intelligence was used improperly.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said on Twitter that Rice “needs to testify under oath.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that there is still no conclusive evidence showing the Trump campaign collaborated with Russia, saying, “I don’t think we can say anything definitively at this point.”
The investigations into Russian interference pull from a legitimate concern that a foreign power may have interfered with the U.S. presidential elections. This was initially based on suspicions that WikiLeaks, an information-leaking website, had released emails that may have been stolen from Hillary Clinton’s aides by Russian hackers.
It carried an additional component, however, that is now beginning to unravel—the idea that the Trump campaign may have had a hand in the leaks.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told ABC News on March 6, that in his investigations into Russian interference in the elections, conducted under the Obama administration, “There was no evidence whatsoever, at the time, of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.”
Former Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell arrives for testimony before the House Select Intelligence Committee in Washington on April 2, 2014. The committee heard testimony on the topic of “The Benghazi Talking Points and Michael J. Morell’s Role in Shaping the Administration’s Narrative.” (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Obama’s acting CIA chief Michael Morell also stepped back on his initial hardline that the Trump team may have colluded with Russia, and said at a March 16 event, according to NBC News, “On the question of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians here, there is smoke but there is no fire, at all.
“There’s no little campfire, there’s no little candle, there’s no spark. And there’s a lot of people looking for it.”
Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is currently investigating whether Russia interfered in the election, are starting to quell expectations. BuzzFeed News said it spoke with more than six individuals involved in the investigation, both Republicans and Democrats, and noted that “there’s a tangible frustration over what one official called ‘wildly inflated’ expectations surrounding the panel’s fledgling investigation.”
An official told Buzzfeed, “I don’t think the conclusions are going to meet people’s expectations.”
Emotions on Overdrive
The 2016 elections were hard on most Americans, to say the least, but they were especially difficult for Democrats, who were told up to Election Day that Trump stood no chance against Clinton—only to watch this fade away on election night. And they were told again that the electoral college could flip its vote and Clinton would still have a shot, only to again be disappointed.
There is a huge disparity between the amount of evidence that is cited in news stories and the charges—they’re overcharging, if there is any evidence at all.
— William McGowan, , author, 'Gray Lady Down'
Many major news outlets, meanwhile, have hunkered down on the idea that the Trump presidency is not legitimate, and the Russia probe has become their last bastion against Trump.
This has led to a style of reporting that has blown many findings out of proportion, and that has failed to put information into its accurate context. At the same time, many of the ongoing controversies are based not on new evidence, but instead on new comments about old evidence.
President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on, Jan. 28, 2017. Also pictured, from left, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Vice President Mike Pence, and White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“There is a huge disparity between the amount of evidence that is cited in news stories and the charges—they’re overcharging, if there is any evidence at all,” said William McGowan, author of the books “Coloring the News” and “Gray Lady Down” and a former editor at Washington Monthly who has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and other national news organizations.
William McGowan, author, ‘Gray Lady Down’
McGowan said that while he’s not a fan of Trump’s antagonistic style, he has found the coverage and commentary on Trump to be “strikingly biased, and much more successful at expressing fear and loathing than in encouraging an understanding of the man and his movement.”
He noted that in their coverage, many news outlets take the road of misquoting Trump, then using the misquotes to denounce him. As an example, McGowan cited a video in which Trump allegedly—as The New York Times put it in their headline—”calls on Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails.”
The press conference video is widely cited by major news outlets as evidence that Trump was tied to WikiLeaks’ releasing of stolen emails from the Clinton campaign.
Taken in context, however, Trump’s statement was very different from how it has been framed. At the time of the press conference on July 27, 2016, WikiLeaks had already started releasing the stolen emails, and news outlets were already trying to accuse Trump of being tied to the leaks. Trump condemned Russia’s actions, saying, “Russia has no respect for our country,” and said that if a foreign government was behind the leaks, it was a “total sign of disrespect for our country.”
Reporters continued to press Trump about the leaks, however, and continued to accuse him of being involved—without evidence. Trump then responded, “What do I have to get involved with Putin for?”, and then accused the reporters of bias and double standards, asking them why they weren’t similarly holding Clinton accountable for her missing emails. He then stated, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
News outlets then began widely circulating clips of Trump’s ending statement to allege he called on Russia to hack Clinton.
McGowan said, “What you have is a shred of a statement or utterance, and the media takes a huge leap from that.”
According to Ronald J. Rychlak, a lawyer and staunch critic of Russia, people tend to draw incorrect conclusions when they start looking at issues from an existing assumption. Rychlak co-authored the book “Disinformation” with Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking Soviet bloc intelligence official who ever defected to the West.
In legal cases, Rychlak said, there are checks and balances on burden of proof and on cross examination. With accusations spread in the news, “reporters get to set their own standards.”
“Some evidence is inconclusive,” he said, noting that if you approach an investigation while already assuming that one party is guilty, then “your starting assumption is going to determine your ultimate conclusion.”
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Carter Page
In addition, Congress has five standing committees and one sub-committee investigating Russian interference in the election as well as contacts between Trump’s team and Russian officials.
Rep. Schiff said during a March 20 testimony to the House Select Intelligence Committee that at least four people involved in the Trump campaign are being investigated: Carter Page, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone.
Page was allegedly named a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, although Trump’s campaign staffers deny this. He was accused by Schiff of doing business in Russia—specifically with Russian oil companies Gazprom and Rosneft. As with most major companies in Russia, the oil industry is largely controlled by Russian oligarchs, and company CEOs typically have relations with the Russian government.
Page, an oil industry consultant, is the founder and managing partner of Global Energy Capital, a New York investment fund and consulting firm that specializes in the oil and gas industries in Central Asia and Russia.
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Michael Flynn
Flynn is arguably the most controversial figure in the investigations. He allegedly wants to testify to the House and Senate committees to explain his case, but has also requested immunity.
While his request looks bad—suggesting he broke the law somewhere along the line—it likely ties to legal issues that are already known.
Flynn is a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama from July 24, 2012, until Aug. 7, 2014. He later served as an adviser to the Trump campaign and started as Trump’s national security adviser on Jan. 20.
Flynn served as adviser for just 24 days, before he was removed from the position on Feb. 13. Flynn said he resigned, and Trump said he was fired.
Flynn was accused of lying to Vice President Mike Pence, claiming he did not discuss Russian sanctions during a call he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislya before Trump took office. It was revealed in intercepted transcripts from the Obama administration that Flynn did discuss sanctions.
In his resignation letter, Flynn apologized and said it was not intentional. He said in his resignation letter that “in the course of my duties as the incoming national security adviser, I held numerous phone calls with foreign counterparts, ministers, and ambassadors.” He said the calls were to ensure a smooth transition for the Trump presidency and that “because of the fast pace of events,” he had unintentionally provided Pence with “incomplete information.”
Schiff also accused Flynn of receiving $33,750 from Russian television network RT, which receives part of its funding from the Russian government, for a speech he made in Moscow in 2015. The Trump administration said Flynn did not disclose his payments from RT.
In March, Flynn registered as a foreign agent lobbying for Turkey. His firm, Flynn Intel Group, was paid $530,000 by Netherlands-based firm Inovo BV, which is owned by Ekim Alptekin, a Turkish businessman close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Most of this was already known. Online news portal The Intercept reported in Nov. 2016 that Flynn Intel Group registered as a lobbying entity in September 2016, and in that same month, Robert Kelley, the company’s general counsel, registered as a lobbyist for Inovo BV.
Flynn may be in hot water over both of these issues—mainly on the grounds that he failed to disclose his RT payment to the Trump team and that he did not register himself as a foreign-agent lobbyist in the Turkey deal.
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Paul Manafort
As for Manafort, he and Stone both worked for the Trump campaign—Manafort as campaign manager and Stone as an adviser. Both are professional lobbyists with the Washington-based lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly.
In August 2015 Trump fired Stone, while Manafort resigned in August 2016. Stone claimed he quit, but the Trump campaign said he was fired because, according to CNN, “We have a tremendously successful campaign and Roger wanted to use the campaign for his own personal publicity.”
Schiff has accused Manafort of long being “on the payroll of pro-Russian Ukrainian interests.”
According to The Associated Press, Manafort worked with a Russian billionaire to “greatly benefit the Putin government,” which took the form of a $10 million annual contract with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, chairman of Basic Element Co.
Put into context, however, Manafort’s deal with Deripaska started more than 10 years ago in 2006 and ended by 2009 at the latest, according to AP. It notes that by 2016, the relationship between Manafort and Deripaska had gone sour, and during the 2016 presidential campaign, “Deripaska’s representatives openly accused Manafort of fraud” and were trying to recover money from him.
Manafort is also accused of working with the Russian government through Ukraine. This accusation concerns his having worked with Viktor Yanukovych, the former president of Ukraine, who was pro-Russia.
Manafort’s lobbying firm, Prime Policy Group, lobbies U.S. Congress on behalf of foreign governments. It was formed in a 2010 merger between Timmons & Co. and BKSH & Associates, and its members have many political connections—both Republican and Democrat. Charles Black Jr. was a senior adviser to Ronald Reagan in his 1980 and 1984 presidential campaigns, and later to George H.W. Bush. Peter Kelly, also in the firm, was an adviser to Al Gore and Bill Clinton.
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Roger Stone
The case against Stone was also outlined by Schiff on March 20. He claimed that Stone communicated with Julian Assange, head of WikiLeaks, which would later publish emails of Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, and that Stone also communicated with the hacker behind the leaks, Guccifer 2.0, who has been inconclusively accused of working for Russian intelligence.
Stone did communicate with Guccifer 2.0 over Twitter—but it was close to a year after he was fired from the Trump campaign and at a time when the leaks were well underway.
In August 2016, Twitter had reinstated Guccifer 2.0’s account after suspending it for leaking private information on Democrats when the scandal over Clinton’s missing emails was running hot. Stone told Politico on March 27 his message was just to send him a “high-five saying, ‘Glad you’re reinstated,’ because I’m against censorship.”
Stone made his full Twitter discussion with Guccifer 2.0 public on March 10, showing he sent three short messages. The first two were in August 2016, and said he was glad his account was reinstated, then asked him to retweet an article on how the election could be rigged against Trump. His third message in September 2016 was in response to a story Guccifer sent to him via Twitter direct message, to which Stone replied, “Pretty standard.”
Stone claimed he communicated with Assange on Aug. 8, 2016, again close to a year after he left the Trump campaign. According to FactCheck.org, “Stone later clarified that he never spoke directly with Assange, but that the two have a mutual journalist friend,” and that the journalist told Stone that Assange was going to release emails on Hillary Clinton in October.
Schiff also alleged that Stone predicted Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta would fall victim to a cyberattack and have his emails published, before it happened. Schiff’s statement was based on a tweet Stone published on Aug. 21 that said, “Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary”
He sent the tweet after WikiLeaks had already begun publishing documents on the Clinton campaign, close to a year after he was fired by Trump.
Stone later clarified his tweet in an interview with Breitbart News, saying it was in response to political attacks about Manafort’s business deals with former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
He said the tweet was meant to predict that Podesta’s own business deals with Russia would be exposed. This was related to information leaked in the Panama Papers, which unveiled, according to The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the “rogue industry” that hides money for politicians and criminals.
The Clinton Campaign
Stone’s reference to Podesta was also pointed to by Trump, who alleged other connections between Russia and Clinton’s team.
Trump tweeted on March 27, “Why isn’t the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech … money to Bill, the Hillary Russian ‘reset,’ praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company.”
According to the Observer, the Panama Papers showed The Podesta Group, co-founded by Podesta and his brother, company chairman Tony Podesta, has lobbied Washington on behalf of Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank. Tony Podesta is a registered lobbyist for Sberbank and was a top campaign bundler and contributor for Clinton’s presidential campaign.
The Observer states Tony Podesta worked for Sberbank to “help lift some of the pain of sanctions placed on Russia in the aftermath of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine, which has caused real pain to the country’s hard-hit financial sector.”
Fox News reported that in 2011, Podesta joined the board of Massachusetts-based energy company Joule Energy, and two months later, a Russian company invested close to $35 million into it. The Russian company was Rusnano, a joint-stock company owned by the Russian government.
Podesta claims he disclosed his 75,000 stock shares in the company and transferred them in January 2014, before he became counselor to Obama that same month.
In another case, Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 by Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital, owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, for a speech in 2010, according to Hillary Clinton’s financial disclosures.
According to PolitiFact, some critics of the Clintons suggest the speaking fee “might have been an attempt by Renaissance Capital to curry favor with the State Department,” since Renaissance Capital was involved in a deal to obtain Uranium One, an international mining company headquartered in Canada but with operations in the United States, that supplied close to 11 percent of U.S. uranium in 2014.
Around the time of Bill Clinton’s speech, the State Department—under Hillary Clinton as secretary of state—had to sign off on Renaissance Capital’s bid to gain a controlling stake in Uranium One. The New York Times reported in April 2015 that as the bids were approved from 2009 to 2013, “a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation” that totaled $2.35 million.”
Falsified Cyber Reports
During the presidential transition in December 2016, former president Barack Obama ordered an investigation into the possibility that Russia helped Trump win the election. This produced two reports, which Obama rushed to the public before Trump was sworn into office on Jan. 20.
The first report, from Dec. 29, 2016, from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), began with a disclaimer that it “does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.”
The report dedicates less than three pages to the allegations that two hacker groups breached the DNC’s networks, and breaks up these pages with large infographics showing how basic cyberattacks work. It then shows a list of nicknames given to alleged Russian hacker groups by the cybersecurity community, and then dedicates the remaining pages to tips on how companies can guard against cyberattacks.
The 13-page report alleges that Guccifer 2.0 is actually two hacker groups, and at least one breached “a political party.” The report fails, however, to show any conclusive evidence to support this claim.
It also turned out that much of the work in the FBI report came from investigations of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which recently revised and retracted some of its initial conclusions that Russia was behind the cyberattacks.
Part of the Russia connection was from a CrowdStrike claim that it found evidence the Russian government hacked a Ukrainian artillery app, which shut down Ukraine’s howitzers in its war against pro-Russia separatists. This proved to be false, however. Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said the hacking never happened, according to Voice of America, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies disavowed the CrowdStrike report, noting that contrary to claims, CrowdStrike never contacted them.
Malicious actors can easily position their breach to be attributed to Russia, and that even hackers with the most basic skills can do this.
— Report from the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology
CrowdStrike was hired by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to investigate who hacked its accounts. After one day of analysis, it concluded the attacks were from “Fancy Bear” and “Cozy Bear,” nicknames cybersecurity researchers have given to alleged Russia hacker groups.
The problem with CrowdStrike’s findings is they were based solely by the tools the hackers used, the traits of the targets, and similar information.
Guccifer 2.0, the hacker behind the leaked emails, issued a statement on Jan. 12 stating the accusations of him being tied to Russian intelligence are “unfounded” and noted that “any IT professional can see that a malware sample mentioned in the Joint Analysis Report was taken from the web and was commonly available. A lot of hackers use it.”
“It’s obvious that the intelligence agencies are deliberately falsifying evidence,” he stated.
Many cybersecurity experts have pointed out similar issues, noting none of the information in the reports is conclusive, since any hacker can spoof such attacks by simply using the same tools and methodology of a known hacker group.
A report from the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology (ICIT) says, “Malicious actors can easily position their breach to be attributed to Russia,” and that even hackers with the most basic skills can do this.
It adds, “It would be easy to baselessly declare that all of the attacks were launched by Russia based on the malware employed.”
To make things still more complicated, the method that CrowdStrike used to identify the alleged Russian hackers looks at the same information that the CIA can allegedly spoof. Under the CIA’s UMBRAGE group, revealed by WikiLeaks on March 7. The CIA maintains a digital library of attacks and techniques from various hacker groups, so that it can use these methods to launch attacks while framing known hacker groups.
WikiLeaks noted in a press release that the CIA’s UMBRAGE files included attack profiles of Russian hacker groups, which could be used to leave falsified “fingerprints” for cyberforensics investigators.
No Evidence of Collusion
The next report was released on Jan. 6 through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which collected analysis from the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency (NSA).
It alleged that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election.” The keywords here are “influence campaign.”
The evidence presented by the 25-page report consists almost entirely of news articles from Russian news outlet RT. Its says the Russian government favored a Trump victory, and the state-funded RT reported favorably on Trump and negatively on Clinton.
The report’s core claim to foreign interference is on the grounds that RT news articles received traction in U.S. news outlets and social media networks.
Of course, similar analyses could be applied to any foreign official who openly supported or decried a U.S. presidential candidate, and whose comments received broad media coverage. Most foreign leaders, including in Canada and Europe, took an opposite stance from Russia and openly supported Clinton and decried Trump.
The report also made broad allegations based on classified evidence that was not made public. The nature of the classified information was later released by BuzzFeed on Jan. 10, and was shown to have come from a 35-page dossier collected by a former British MI6 agent who now runs a private security business.
When the “highly classified assessment,” as the government report called it, was made public by BuzzFeed, even BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith wrote, “There is serious reason to doubt the allegations.”
The narrative has since unraveled, as was revealed by James Clapper, who led the investigations as director of national intelligence under Obama, during a March 5 segment of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Clapper said, “We did not include any evidence in our report (and I say, ‘our,’ that’s NSA, FBI, and CIA, with my office, the director of National Intelligence) that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. We had no evidence of such collusion.”
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated when Paul Manafort was hired for and resigned from the Donald Trump presidential campaign. Manafort was hired in March 2016 and resigned in August 2016.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated Paul Manafort’s role in the Trump campaign. Manafort served as campaign manager to the Trump campaign.
Epoch Times regrets the errors.
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The incident was the latest example of the dysfunction, partisanship, and paralysis that’s gripped the panel since Chairman Devin Nunes blew up its Russia investigation.
Republicans boycotted a Wednesday briefing on Russian intelligence methods organized by Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, who had hoped the committee’s members could gather in a bipartisan manner to hear non-controversial testimony from an expert.
Weeks ago, House Intelligence Committee staff and Swalwell reached out to a national-security specialist, Naveed Jamali. In the 2000s, Jamali was a double agent in the service of the FBI after the Russian government tried to recruit him as an asset.
Every single Republican lawmaker on the House Intelligence Committee was invited to the members-only briefing on Wednesday. Not one showed.
“I want [the Republicans on the committee] to know that they had an opportunity to go, and I hope we can show the bipartisan cooperation that a lot of us have experienced before the investigation began,” Swalwell told The Daily Beast. “This was an effort to do that, and I will continue to reach out.”
The idea was for Jamali to brief House Intelligence Committee on Russian methods for targeting and recruiting intelligence assets. The briefing was held in a private setting, and rather than discussing Russia-Trump ties, looked only at the Russian government’s tactics. It was billed as an unclassified meeting that took place outside of the committee’s secure briefing area, and was not formally organized by the committee.
“It was an informal opportunity for all members of the committee to meet someone who had a real-life, Russian recruiting experience,” Swalwell said. “So he shared with members how Russia used business entanglements to approach a U.S. person and to seek influence.”
Jamali briefed the lawmakers on his personal experience as an FBI double agent who interacted with the Russian government, noting that Russian intelligence often didn’t have a specific purpose for recruitment—they found assets and looked for a use for them later.
“When I look at what is out in the public domain… about Michael Flynn and others, my concern is that there are echoes of what the Russians did with me, in what happened in [the presidential elections of] 2016,” Jamali told The Daily Beast. “It takes years to recruit an asset… ‘they say someone is of interest, let’s recruit them’ and then it could be years after they’ve been recruited when they’re put into play.”
Swalwell said after Jamali’s briefing that he had expected Republicans would attend, and had been assured by some that they would try to make it. A spokesman for Nunes had no comment Wednesday about the decision by Republicans on the committee to skip it.
The committee met for regular business Monday evening to pursue normal intelligence oversight duties, but did not discuss in detail how to restart their investigation into Russian inference in the U.S. presidential election. The committee will meet again for an all-hands briefing Thursday morning.
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Two weeks ago, Nunes held a press conference with a shocking assessment: Information about Trump transition officials had been “incidentally collected” during legal foreign surveillance by the United States government. The chairman then rushed to brief the president—a subject of the committee’s investigation—without telling the rest of his committee what had happened.
In the intervening days, it was reported that Nunes had visited the White House privately the night before his press conference, and that his sources were White House staff. Nunes then cancelled a planned open hearing for the committee, where it had expected to receive testimony about Russia from senior national security officials who had served in the Obama administration.
The committee remains fractious and relationships are frayed. There is no word on if or when the panel’s hearings on Russia might resume.
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Devin Nunes to Step Aside From House Investigation on Russia
New York Times - 38 minutes ago
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, was pursued by reporters as he left the Capitol on Thursday. Credit Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press. WASHINGTON — Representative Devin Nunes, the embattled California ...
Rep. Devin Nunes steps aside from Russia probe amid ethics investigation
Los Angeles Times - 1 hour ago
Devin Nunes steps aside from Russia probe amid ethics investigation; Gorsuch set to be confirmed for the Supreme Court, but will the fight break the Senate? President Trump removes controversial advisor Stephen K. Bannon from the National Security ...
Nunes Recusal Gives House Russia Inquiry Chance for Fresh Start
Bloomberg - 3 hours ago
The decision by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes to step aside from its investigation into Russian interference in last year's U.S. election gives the panel a chance to rescue a probe that has been paralyzed by partisan disputes.
Nunes steps aside from Russia probe
Politico - 3 hours ago
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) will temporarily step aside from an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, including interactions between Moscow and the Trump campaign. The move comes as the House ...
House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes Temporarily Steps aside from Russia Probe
Fortune - 2 hours ago
The chairman of the House intelligence committee announced Thursday he is temporarily stepping aside from the panel's probe into Russian meddling in last year's presidential election. The decision by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., comes amid partisan ...
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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes today said he's temporarily stepping aside from the Russia probe amid ethics accusations that he may have disclosed classified information.
Nunes (R-Tulare) said he was stepping down temporarily as head of the House probe into whether Trump associates colluded with Russia during last year’s election.
In a statement, Nunes said he was taking the action because “several leftwing activist groups have filed accusations against me with the Office of Congressional Ethics.”
“Despite the baselessness of the charges, I believe it is in the best interests of the House Intelligence Committee and the Congress for me to” step aside from the Russia probe “while the House Ethics Committee looks into this matter,” Nunes said.
Nunes said “the charges are entirely false and politically motivated, and are being leveled just as the American people are beginning to learn the truth about the improper unmasking of the identities of U.S. citizens and other abuses of power.”
Nunes said he had asked to speak to the ethics committee "at the earliest possible opportunity in order to expedite the dismissal of these false claims.”
Nunes has come under fierce criticism from Democrats for making public information provided him to him last month by White House aides about classified intelligence reports that referred to Trump associates, and that Nunes did not provide to members of his committee.
Nunes said that Rep. Mike Conaway, (R-Texas), with assistance from Representatives Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and Tom Rooney, (R-Fla.) would temporarily take charge of the GOP-led committee's Russia investigation
He said he would remain as chairman of the committee.
The leaders of the House Ethics Committee said it is investigating whether Nunes improperly disclosed classified information, apparently when he held a press conference last month to claim that Trump associates names had been revealed in intelligence reports.
“The Committee is aware of public allegations that Representative Devin Nunes may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information, in violation of House Rules, law, regulations, or other standards of conduct," Rep. Susan Brooks, (R-Ind.), the committee chairwoman, and Rep. Theodore Deutch, (D-Fla.), the top Democrat on the panel. said in a statement.
The ethics committee "is investigating and gathering more information regarding these allegations,” they said.
Democrats applauded Nunes' decision to step aside.
“Good for him,” said Sen. Kamala Harris, (D-Calif.), a member of the Senate intelligence committee, which is conducting a separate probe of Russian meddling in the election.
“He stopped being objective,” she added, referring to Nunes’ failure to share the intelligence he received from the White House with the House committee before he made it public.
Speaker Paul Ryan also appeared to support Nunes' decision to step aside.
In a statement, Ryan said Nunes "is eager to demonstrate to the Ethics Committee that he has followed all proper guidelines and laws. In the meantime, it is clear that this process would be a distraction for the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian interference in our election.”
7:02 a.m.: This post has been updated with information on the ethics accusations that Nunes says have been filed against him.
This post originally published at 6:51 a.m.
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MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it his mission to reestablish his country as a dominant, indispensable player in the Middle East, one that can rival the influence of the United States. And, by some measures, he is succeeding.
Not only has Russia’s 15-month airstrike campaign probably saved the regime of Bashar al-Assad, but it also has spawned this week’s negotiations sponsored by Russia, Iran and Turkey to agree on a mechanism to support a delicate cease-fire in the Syrian conflict. It was a Russian-led diplomatic effort testing Moscow’s improbable role as peacemaker, with a twist that must draw smiles in the Kremlin: no formal role for the United States.
“Russia is seeking to show it has national interests not only in Crimea, Donbas and Georgia but everywhere, throughout the Middle East,” said Alexei Malashenko, a Middle East expert at the Carnegie Moscow Center. “It is a very important symbol.” (Donbas is a disputed section of eastern Ukraine.)
According to Putin, those interests have been threatened by the United States, which he has accused of fomenting the current instability in the Middle East through a flawed foreign policy of intervention and democracy promotion. Decisions such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as well as the Arab uprisings beginning in 2011 (which he accused the United States of paying to foment), have encouraged the spread of radicalism, he says.
The nadir for Putin came in March 2011, when he was prime minister. The president at the time, Dmitry Medvedev, declined to veto a U.N. no-fly resolution in Libya that paved the way for NATO airstrikes there. The decision seemed to confirm Russia’s role as a second-rate power in the Middle East. A deeply angry Putin publicly broke with Medvedev, his protege, and declared the U.N. resolution “reminiscent of a medieval call for a crusade.”
(Reuters)
Russia, Turkey and Iran, which back warring parties in Syria, end two days of talks in Astana, Kazakhstan with a promise to enforce the country's fragile cease-fire. Russia, Turkey and Iran pledge to enforce Syria cease-fire (Reuters)
Now in his third term as president and amid a growing rift with the United States over the annexation of Crimea, Putin has dug in his heels.
Russia “can no longer tolerate the current state of affairs in the world,” he told the U.N. General Assembly in a 2015 speech, days before announcing his intervention in Syria.
“Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster,” Putin said in the speech. “I cannot help asking those who have caused the situation, do you realize now what you’ve done? But I am afraid no one is going to answer that.”
Putin likes to portray himself as part of the solution, forging an anti-terrorist alliance he compares to the coalition against Nazi Germany. But for a world leader who has so often embraced the role of spoiler and antagonist to the liberal West, converting military force into diplomatic sway will prove complex.
Putin has had diplomatic triumphs, among them the 2013 deal he struck with the United States to seize Syria’s chemical weapons (and ward off military strikes against Assad for using them). But mediating the Syrian conflict, with its fractious and shifting politics, is far more difficult than taking part in it.
“Yes, everyone is at this point forced to listen to Russia’s concerns,” said Leonid Isayev, a Middle East researcher at the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics. “But influence is not always positive. You can be a destructive force or you can try to resolve conflicts. The first is simpler and Russia has the military potential for that. The question is whether their military influence can now be translated into political influence.”
As a result, the goal of the negotiations in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, was modest: shoring up a cease-fire, rather than seeking a political solution to the conflict that has eluded negotiators in Geneva for years. But in bringing together the warring sides for the first time, the Kremlin has already achieved some success.
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The negotiations are “a stress test for Russian capacity,” said Nikolay Kozhanov, an expert in Middle East Affairs at St. Petersburg University. “Now after the regime victory in Aleppo, the Astana meeting is a serious claim to prove that Russia has become an influential realm in the region.”
Headlines recently have been dominated by Putin’s growing influence abroad but mostly in the West: Russia’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and expectations of the same in forthcoming European elections that could determine the fate of the European Union. A Kremlin connection is suspected but unproven, and Putin is unlikely to claim responsibility.
But in the Middle East, he may seek to establish a legacy for himself, by taking on a growing diplomatic and political role in a conflict that has outlasted the Obama administration.
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PARIS -- An apparent suicide bombing on a metro train killed at least 14 people and wounded dozens of others this week in St. Petersburg, Russia. The attack took place during Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to St. Petersburg, his hometown.
Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump have expressed interest in cooperating to eradicate radical Islamic terrorism. Such cooperation with Russia would be a shift from the Obama administration's strategy of sponsoring "Syrian rebels" and maintaining close ties with terrorism-sponsoring allies in the Persian Gulf.
But here's the problem for the establishment: If Russia and the U.S. cooperate to eliminate terrorism and other security threats, the prospect of peace would be a jolt to the military-industrial complex, making it more difficult to scare up taxpayer cash.
Developed nations are now well into an era of belt-tightening, and many voters specifically elected Trump because of his proven experience as a businessman with an eye for the bottom line. Trump promised to reel in the freewheeling spending of tax dollars. But to keep the government cash flowing into the deep pockets of the military-industrial complex, there always has to be a threat. It's not hard to see the motivation to portray Trump as some sort of Manchurian candidate.
When the terrorism threat temporarily subsided in the wake of the 2007 George W. Bush-ordered troop surge in Iraq, and prior to the Obama-facilitated rise of the Islamic State, we started being told about -- and being sold on -- the cybersecurity threat. Of course, this threat could only be vanquished by burying it under a pile of taxpayer money. And hey, why not revive the Cold War while we're at it? After all, the Russian bad guy has always stoked the public's imagination better than the Islamic-terrorist villain. One need only look at their respective frequencies in Hollywood films.
Here in Europe, we've been witnessing a parallel hysteria on the part of the European Union, as its popularity continues to plummet among citizens of its member states due to its perceived ineptitude. To stay relevant, the EU has been desperate to create a purpose for itself, so it has attempted to convince citizens that the EU's new role is to protect them from the mean Russians.
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has warned us that "the Russians are actively involved in the French elections" -- but declined to offer any details, of course. This warning was subsequently pushed by the heavily state-subsidized French establishment media, whose benefactors were recently prodded by a European parliamentary resolution to actively counter media that didn't fit the anti-Russia narrative.
But Trump is standing in the way of all the threat-peddling. Last week, America's new ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, suggested that Trump was interested in winding down the war in Syria without securing the regime change sought by Obama and those with an interest in pursuing conflict and chaos for profit. "And when we're looking at this, it's about changing up priorities, and our priority is no longer to sit and focus on getting (Syrian President Bashar) Assad out," Haley said.
Oh no, what if terrorism is eradicated, and Trump is getting along with Putin, and there are no more dangers that can be used to drain billions of dollars out of people's pockets?
Trump has proposed increasing the defense budget to $603 billion, but congressional Republicans are nonetheless criticizing Trump's defense-spending increase as insufficient.
"President Trump intends to submit a defense budget that is a mere 3 percent above President (Barack) Obama's defense budget, which has left our military underfunded, undersized and unready to confront threats to our national security," Republican Sen. John McCain said in a statement.
McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has long been an outspoken critic of Russia. Without McCain promoting Russia as a threat, how could he possibly justify the kind of taxpayer largesse that he's demanding?
The Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing last week on alleged Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election, but the committee has yet to uncover any evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump. If there's one thing on which Trump and Putin can be accused of colluding, it's recognizing the establishment's insistence on using the threat of fear for self-justification and profit at the average citizen's expense.
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