WASHINGTON — A united front of top intelligence officials and senators from both parties on Thursday forcefully reaffirmed the conclusion that the Russian government used hacking and leaks to try to influence the presidential election, directly rebuffing President-elect Donald J. Trump’s repeated questioning of Russia’s role.

They suggested that the doubts Mr. Trump has expressed on Twitter about the agencies’ competence and impartiality were undermining their morale.

“There’s a difference between skepticism and disparagement,” James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Russian hacks. He added that “our assessment now is even more resolute” that the Russians carried out the attack on the election.

The Senate hearing was the prelude to an extraordinary meeting scheduled for Friday, when Mr. Clapper and other intelligence chiefs will repeat for Mr. Trump the same detailed, highly classified briefing on the Russian attack that President Obama received on Thursday. In effect, they will be telling the president-elect that the spy agencies believe he won with an assist from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/us/politics/taking-aim-at-trump-leaders-strongly-affirm-findings-on-russian-hacking.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Young Russian denies she aided election hackers: ‘I never work with douchebags’

White House claims Alisa Shevchenko was involved in hacking the US election but in an interview she says authorities misinterpreted facts or were fooled

She suggested that the US authorities were guilty either of “a technically incompetent misinterpretation of the facts” or had been fooled by a “counterfeit in order to frame my company”. Those who could have had an interest in framing her could include competitors, US intelligence or Russian intelligence, with the goal of screening the real culprits, Shevchenko said.

“A young female hacker and her helpless company seems like a perfect pick for that goal. I don’t try to hide, I travel a lot, and am a friendly communicative person. And most importantly, I don’t have any big money, power or connections behind me to shrug off the blame. So really, it could be anyone.” 

US intelligence believes the Democratic party’s servers were hacked by a group known alternatively as Fancy Bear, APT 29 or Sofacy, which they say was working for the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence. In the private sector, attribution directly to the GRU comes most clearly from US firm CrowdStrike, which is influential in US security circles. The US government believes the hacked emails were then leaked – possibly through an intermediary – to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

Putin has denied all Russian interference in the election, suggesting the blame has fallen on Moscow due to sour grapes from the losing side. Putin has expressed hope that under Trump, who has repeatedly praised Russia and the president personally, relations between the two countries will improve.

Russian authorities are known to offer a mixture of carrot and stick to engage prominent hackers in work for the state, and third-party contracting of state information security tasks is common in most countries. A number of Russian security experts declined to comment, citing the sensitivity of the subject.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/06/russian-hacker-putin-elect...

 

Meanwhile Trunp says that even if there was hacking, it did not affect the result of the election...

A highly-anticipated declassified US intelligence report, aimed to prove that Russia supported Donald Trump, has turned out to be a huge embarrassment. The annex that contained factual material that was thought to provide evidence of RT influencing the American public was compiled in December 2012, right after the reelection of Barack Obama.

The report focuses on television shows and interviews that took place four years before Trump was elected, and well before he was even a politician. In Annex A of the report, intelligence agencies claim that “Kremlin's TV Seeks To Influence Politics, Fuel Discontent in US.” Buried at the bottom of that page is a note stating, “This annex was originally published on 11 December 2012 by the Open Source Center, now the Open Source Enterprise.”

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/us/201701071049343650-us-intelligence-report-obama-election/

Russian president Vladimir Putin interfered in the US presidential election to aid Donald Trump, according to a declassified assessment by the NSA, CIA and FBI.

“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump,” the agencies found in a long-awaited report that stands to hang over the head of the incoming Trump administration.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/06/vladimir-putin-us-election...

Translation:

The US administration believes in Santa Claus. The cad from the north pole ordered his little elves to release the TRUE secret information about Madame Secretary in order to promote her opponent in the race to the bottom (election of a bum — in this case a trump). In fact this had ZERO infuence on the result or if it had an influence it would have been a boost of honesty for Clinton. Meanwhile the Christians and their angels worked their butt off not to elect Trump until they had him only as a choice. The Christians helped by Rupert Murdoch (formerly of Australia) had far more influence than Julian Assange (Australian).

It is therefore the conclusion here that Australia played a far bigger role in the election of Trump than the pissy Russians. I rest my case of beer.

Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered an unprecedented cyber campaign to undermine Hillary Clinton and boost Donald Trump during the presidential election, an intelligence report claimed Friday.

 

The 25-page report prepared by the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency said Russia has consistently tried to disrupt “the US-led liberal democratic order” but the recent hacking “demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity and scope of effort compared to previous operations.”

No evidence was presented to back up that conclusion, with officials saying that information had to remain secret.

“This document’s conclusions are identical to the highly classified assessment, but this document does not include the full supporting information, including specific intelligence on key elements of the influence campaign,” the report said.

Among the findings was that Putin had harbored a years-long grudge against Clinton after she slammed his autocratic rule while secretary of state.

“Putin most likely wanted to discredit Secretary Clinton because he has publicly blamed her since 2011 for inciting mass protests against his regime . . . and because he holds a grudge for comments he almost certainly saw as disparaging him,” the report said.

Putin preferred Trump, it said, because he had spoken about improving relations with Russia and would be a partner in battling Islamic terrorism.

“Moscow also saw the election of President-elect Trump as a way to achieve an international counterterrorism coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant,” the report said, using another name for ISIS.

READ MORE:

http://nypost.com/2017/01/06/report-reveals-why-putin-wanted-to-undermin...

Russia carried out a comprehensive cyber campaign to sabotage the U.S. presidential election, an operation that was ordered by Russian President Vladi­mir Putin and ultimately sought to help elect Donald Trump, U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a remarkably blunt assessment released Friday.

The report depicts Russian interference as unprecedented in scale, saying that Moscow’s role represented “a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort” beyond previous election-related espionage.

Read more:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/intelligence-chie...

 

As some of the "reports" of Putin interference with the US elections go back to 2012, would you not think that the USA would be able to counter this annoying Russian interference — or are the CIA, the NAS and the FBI complicit in a massive deception with NO PROOF  of interference? Are we nuts to let our media get away with NO QUESTIONING  of such dodgy presentations that are akin to those of "Saddam's Weapons of Mass destructions"? Are we that stupid in our media pants?... I guess we are....

Meanwhile we know that Kerry did not care about death in Syria. He and the US Administration (Obama) wanted regime change despite having to realise the amount of refugees and great number of deaths this would cause. 

Kerry admits that the primary goal of the Obama’s administration in Syria was regime change and the removal of Syrian President Bahar al-Assad, as well as that Washington didn’t calculate that Assad would turn to Russia for help.

In order to achieve this goal, the White House allowed the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group to rise. The Obama’s administration hoped that growing power of the IS in Syria would force Assad to search for a diplomatic solution on US terms, forcing him to cede power. In its turn, in order to achieve these two goals, Washington intentionally armed members of the terrorist group and even attacked a Syrian government military convoy, trying to stop a strategic attack on the IS, killing 80 Syrian soldiers.

“And we know that this was growing, we were watching, we saw that DAESH [the IS] was growing in strength, and we thought Assad was threatened,” Kerry said during the meeting.

“(We) thought, however,” he continued to say, “We could probably manage that Assad might then negotiate, but instead of negotiating he got Putin to support him.”

“I lost the argument for use of force in Syria,” Kerry concluded.

According to Wikileaks, “the audio gives a glimpse into what goes on outside official meetings. Note that it represents the US narrative and not necessarily the entire true narrative.”

Earlier the audio was published by the New York Times and CNN, however, the both outlets chose only some its part, reporting on certain aspects, and omitted the most damning comments made by Kerry. In fact, they tried to hide the statements that would allow public to understand what has actually taken place in Syria.

The full audio has never been published by the New York Times; the outlet released only selected snippets. CNN deleted the audio at all, explaining this with the request of some of the participants out of concern for their personal safety.

read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2017/01/06/leaked-john-kerry-audio-white-house-...

US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper announced that he is resigning from his post during the House Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday.

"I submitted my letter of resignation last night which felt pretty good," Clapper said. "I've got 64 days left."

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/us/201611171047550306-clapper-national-intelligence-director-resigns/

Wikileaks is re-exposing a pirated mail already published in 2016 that demonstrates a Democrat targeted strategy to promote the Republican nomination of Donald Trump, with the goal, according to Democrat analysts, to give Hillary Clinton all the chances to win.

WikiLeaks squarely blames the Democratic Party for Trump ascendency and recalls that Hillary Clinton's campaign team bet on Donald Trump and encouraged his candidacy against other candidates such as Jeb Bush, then presented by the media as the favorite of Republican primaries.

The Democratic strategists considered it desirable that the Republican Party should choose a destructionist and divisive candidate so that Hillary Clinton easily prevails against an opponent that would not be to the "taste" of the voters, the moment of the presidential election come.

read more:

https://francais.rt.com/international/31882-wikileaks-accable-parti-demo...

 

The MMMM Liberal media indulged...

See also:

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/1120

 

Quite amusingly, NOT A SINGLE MEDIA NEWS on the Trump win has actually mentioned RUPERT MURDOCH and the Christians...

Read all about it:

jesus christ had far more influence on the american elections...

MOSCOW — Spies are usually thought of as bystanders who quietly steal secrets in the shadows. But the Russian version, schooled in techniques used during the Cold War against the United States, has a more ambitious goal — shaping, not just snooping on, the politics of a nation that the Soviet-era K.G.B. targeted as the “Main Adversary.”

That at least is the conclusion of a declassified report released on Friday that outlines what America’s top intelligence agencies view as an elaborate “influence campaign” ordered by President Vladimir V. Putinof Russia aimed at skewing the outcome of the 2016 presidential race.

But the absence of any concrete evidence in the report of meddling by the Kremlin was met with a storm of mockery on Saturday by Russian politicians and commentators, who took to social media to ridicule the report as a potpourri of baseless conjecture.

In a message posted on Twitter, Alexey Pushkov, a member of the defense and security committee of the Russian Parliament’s upper house, ridiculed the American report as akin to C.I.A. assertions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction: “Mountain gave birth to a mouse: all accusations against Russia are based on ‘confidence’ and assumptions. US was sure about Hussein possessing WMD in the same way.”

read more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/07/world/europe/russians-ridicule-us-charge-that-kremlin-meddled-to-help-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

 

There’s a war in Washington – Donald Trump is facing a conflict not just with the media, but also with his own intelligence community. Now that the military lobby is infiltrating positions of power, and as the CIA struggles to get its influence back, what kind of shift are we going to see in the corridors of power? Will the intelligence community keep leaking data, or will they rally behind the new leader? We ask former CIA intelligence officer, former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit – Michael Scheuer.

Follow @SophieCo_RT 

Sophie Shevardnadze: Michael Scheuer, veteran CIA officer, welcome to the show. It's great to have you with us. Sir, American spy agencies are withholding secret information from the president and his administration - and that's according to sources in Washington cited by The Wall Street Journal. An intelligence official also told the Observer paper that the ‘good stuff’ is kept from the White House. Are parts of the intelligence community engaged in a battle against the President? 

Michael Scheuer: The intelligence community in the U.S. of course, has been completely politicised under two people: first under George Bush by keeping a Democrat named George Tenet in charge of the CIA, and he staffed the agency with pro-Democratic people, and, certainly, Mr. Obama staffed it full of Democratic operatives,  people who are indebted to the Democratic party. Immigrants, hispanics, transgender people, homosexuals - people who have more affinity for Democrats than for America or for the Republican party. So, it is a problem, although, I think, probably it's a bit overblown.

SS: So, you think them being indebted to Bush and Obama because they gave them job at CIA, they would go into a battle against president?

MS: Not so much against Bush, but in favor of George Tenet who is a Democratic party operative. The glow of support for the Democratic party from the people they've put in there is very strong one, and the feel for the need their protection from the people who were sent into the agency and into different intelligence community organisations is very strong. But I think that, again, I think it's overblown, and I think the president will sort it out. He may well have to purge some people of the organisations for being too partisan.

SS: President Trump has accused the FBI and NSA of ‘illegally’ leaking information to the press, giving out sensitive information ‘like candy’  - are intelligence agencies deliberately trying to harm Trump’s Cabinet? 

MS: At least, in the case of General Flynn it seems to be the case, because the only place that information could've come from was from NSA collecting or the FBI collecting intelligence. Now, it's not per se illegal to collect against the American citizen, as long as it's done passively and what I mean is they were surely collecting against the Russian Ambassador, that's fair game. But, generally, if they collect what an American is saying, it's not released and it's redacted, so, clearly, they meant to do Flynn harm and, unfortunately they did.

SS: The NSA intercepted the calls between Trump officials, then the FBI ordered to collect as much information as possible  - according to the New York Times once again. Now are American intelligence agencies just spying on their own administration? 

MS: I think, it's probably a mistake to take anything the NYT says with any bid of faith in what they're saying. They're clearly out to destroy this presidency, it's only a month old, and I think the President can handle the press, simply by going over their head in news conferences and twitter and videos and things like that. The real problem, though, is cleaning out the government of Democratic apparatchiks and people who are more inclined to want to cooperate with the world rather than protecting America first.

SS:Trump is saying that the leakers are ’going to pay a big price’. The Justice Department is already looking into these leaks.  Is it possible to identify the leakers in this case - and what happens to them if they are uncovered? 

MS: The tenets of the espionage law certainly cover that, as they should've covered Mrs. Clinton and hopefully they still will. Can they find them? There's a good chance they can find them. The problem we usually have is that they don't prosecute. But if they prosecuted a few people, I think that will persuade others not to do this. Certainly, it's a crime, certainly it's a blow against U.S. security. A lot of these people don't seem to be able to tell the difference between their duty to their country and their duty to their political party.

SS:The New York Times, and the Washington Post, CNN have all reported on Trump’s campaign contacts with Russian officials - nevertheless there’s been no evidence, like we've said so far, so far of the Trump team colluding with Moscow. The FBI has been investigating a scandalous Russia dossier for months but hasn’t been able to confirm any of the explosive claims - why does this Russia issue continue to be pedaled, if the allegations are just not adding up?

MS: Russia is a big boogeyman for the U.S., always has been. You have to remember that people who run our foreign policy, the neoconservatives - not only they are extremely pro-Israel to the point where they should be members of Knesset, but they join the Israelis in many ways in their hatred for Russians, and so, it's just a matter of hate. I think, Mr. Trump won the day already with central part of the United States, where most working people live, when he said "I will try to get along with Russia and Mr. Putin. I see no reason for the first step to be animosity" - which seems to be fairly liberal approach to deal with superpower. I don't know what more to say than that. Russia, there's a gene in the American character, because of the Cold War that immediately, it's hackles up once the word "Russia" is mentioned. If Putin and Trump can smooth things over and work, if not closely, at least..

SS: Yeah, I mean, Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan warned Trump against ‘embracing Russia’, saying the President does not understand the threat Moscow poses - why is mending ties with Russia considered to be a threat among both the Republican and Democrat establishment? 

MS: The Republicans, because they're run by the neoconservatives and the Israeli first lobby in this country and they will always be excessively pro-Israeli and excessively anti-Russian, that's no way around that until people like Senator Graham and Senator McCain either pass away or retire. Mr. Brennan, of course, is a Democratic apparatchik, more and more you read that he's probably in the pay of the Saudis, which would not surprise me... I tend to think that he was just playing politics, there seems to be some kind of a plan to make the operation of the presidency under Mr. Trump impossible, by the Democrats, by the New York Times, by some members of the government, the intelligence community. Mr. Trump has a big hill to climb now.

SS: Trump’s top officials aren’t that much in favour of closer ties between Moscow and Washington - who’s going to have the final say in this regard, the president, or his cabinet? What's your take?

MS: Mr. Trump is going to have the final say, mam. I think, if we've heard anything in the past two years is that Mr. Trump has the way - he listens, he talks to very important and very respected, very knowledgeable people, and he makes his own decision. We've seen, if he falls out with someone, as in the case of General Flynn, who got fired not for what he did but for trying to cover it up or trying to lie about it - Trump will carry the day. I think, it's so important for foreigners to realise that the great bulk of the American public, notwithstanding what the New York Post and the Washington Times and CNN and all those other people say, the bulk of the American people actually enjoys seeing a president make a decision, actually, like he has a job to do, and not just pontificate about his own personal ideas.

SS: While it’s the Russians who are blamed for all US security breaches lately - Ex-Navy officer Hal Martin - the NSA contractor dubbed the second Snowden - has been arrested for major theft of govt data. Martin stole 50 thousand gigabytes of information which he openly stored in his home, he had classified papers lying around in his car.. How did the NSA miss this massive breach, once again?

MS: Well, again, after 9\11 the intelligence community in the U.S. expanded to the extremely large extent, and they subcontracted vetting processes, clearance processes to companies that actually didn't do a very good job about it. So, Snowden was able to do what he did, and he got away, he got to Russia and he helped the Russians. He should certainly be brought home and punished for that, but there certainly was the security breakdown on our side, also.

SS: Martin worked for the same NSA contractor Snowden did and obviously the NSA didn’t find about the security breach right away - does that mean the government may simply be unaware of other violations in its system?

MS: I think, without a doubt. When you choose not to use your military to win wars that you're involved in - as was the case in Afghanistan and Iraq, where we didn't a tenth... the world didn't see a tenth or a twentieth of American military power applied. The default position is to go to the intelligence agencies to do things that intelligence agencies are not equipped to do, whether it's military operations or law enforcement operation. The result of that default was to expand the intelligence community and bloat it, and they certainly were not prepared for the security side of that expansion.

SS: In his final days in office Obama has dramatically expanded the reach of American government surveillance - giving 17 agencies the right to spy on citizens. Why did he choose to leave this kind of power to the Trump administration last minute? Do you support the move? 

MS: I think he probably realises that because of his 8 years in power, the situation inside the U.S., the law enforcement situation and terrorism situation is out of control, as it is in Europe. He wanted to, I don't know, wanted to expand these capabilities... but Trump will get blamed for using them. I think you've seen that if Trump does something that Obama did, no one knows that Obama did it, like the immigration ban - he followed Obama's example. So Obama, here, in the U.S., is a useless man who accomplished nothing, and, indeed hurt the U.S., but he's treated in a some ways as a saint. Mr. Trump is going to have to just man up and shoulder that theme. Again, though, if you don't win your war with your military, with your conventional forces, you must rely on the intelligence community, and the more the intelligence community is relied on, the more tools it needs, and therefore, this kind of surveillance will become necessary, as someone has to defend the Republic.

SS: As he was taking office there were reports - once again, in the New York Times - that Trump was planning to restructure the intelligence community - because it’s become too ‘bloated and politicised’ - does it need this overhaul? 

MS: Yes, it does. It is way too big and there's too few qualified people from the intelligence community of this size in the U.S.. Our education system has so broken down that we don't train people to love their country anymore, we don't teach them American history. We teach them not to be the U.S. citizens but citizens of the world, and so, they lack, I think, in many cases a killer instinct which is key in the intelligence work and again, its especially key when your leaders are too cowardly to apply military force against enemies that threaten the country.

SS: Obama has loosened political oversight over the CIA - at the same time, with the government officials expecting the agency to support their political ideas - do you think the agency needs more control from the elected government or can it be trusted to be left alone? 

MS: The Agency, mam... one of the biggest things that I have been surprised by, is the idea that Agency is ever left alone. The Agency is palsied by lawyers, you can barely go down the hall to use men's room without permission from a lawyer. What you need most of all is for people to stop appointing party apparatchicks, like John Brennan, like Mike Morell, like George Tenet, to position where they can create a situation that's more like a social experiment - how much can we make this agency diverse and multicultural rather than how can we make this Agency an instrument for successfully promoting and supporting American foreign policy.

SS: An example of the way the CIA politicised intelligence is for example the false ‘evidence’ it presented to launch the Iraq war. If the intelligence is compiled according to policy, and not the other way around,  does this mean the White House acts on the intelligence it wants to hear, not on what is actually happening? 

MS:To be fair, mam, I think the entire world thought that there were some kind of WMDs in Iraq. The problem I had with the whole process is that most of the information about WMDs in Iraq came from people who wanted to overthrow Saddam but couldn't do it by themselves. I think the Agency has just come out of working in four different resistance situations - Nicaragua and Namibia, Cambodia and Afghanistan - and the one thing you learn very quickly was unless you could corroborate from other sources what the resistance was telling you, you would end up acting on false information, and I think, that's largely what's happened here. The information wasn't good and George Bush and Dick Cheney were dying to go to war with Iraq, event to extent of ignoring the main enemy, which was then Al-Qaeda and now it's the Islamic State.

SS:Yeah, but my question is - all of this, does this still mean that the White House acts on the intelligence it wants to hear, not what's really going on?

MS: I can't tell you, mam, under Mr. Trump how that will work out, but the one thing I did see, I went to work under Reagan administration, and ended up under Bush's' administration, the Junior Bush, the second Bush, and what I saw was the general politicisation of the American foreign policy-making, national security policy, to bend the information to fit the political needs of the President at the time. Not killing Osama Bin Laden, for example, was purely a political decision, so mr. Clinton wouldn't look bad if it went wrong... I think it's a process that needs to be undone. I'm not smart enough to know how to do that, but what you're looking at is not a concern in American foreign policy for the protection of the Republican, but for the protection of the President.

SS: The CIA conducts its own covert military operations, it operates a targeted killing programme - and sometimes its actions overlap with those of the Pentagon. In Syria the different  CIA-backed and Pentagon-backed rebels groups ended up fighting each other. Is there a competition between the military and the intelligence - or can the two operate as a united front?

MS: There's probably some competition to the extent that CIA is doing military activities, that they have been ordered to do, which normally would fall to the military. So, there's probably, some resentment on part of the military, but the military also, in a lot of cases, doesn't want to do these things. I doesn't want to go after people and capture them, it doesn't want to do the waterboarding, it doesn't want to do other kinds of activities, that unfortunately, are necessary in this day and age. The other point that I would make is that the American military is an extraordinarily slow and cumbersome organisation. When we had to invade Afghanistan after 9/11 for example, the CIA was on the ground, had built tents, had the coffee warmed, before any military got there.

SS: While the military lobbies for perpetual war, can Trump’s ideas of less American involvement and “making deals” with other powers will outweigh the hawkish opposition?

MS: I certainly hope so, mam. I think, Mr. Trump has a great opportunity to let Mr. Putin, if he'd like to, to have to deal with the Arabs for the next 50 years, I think that would be wonderful thing, for example. Whether he can pull it off or not - I don't know. The American Congress is really owned, more or less, by the Israelis, less by the Israelis than by Jewish American citizens here in the U.S. They say, you know, "jump", and the American Congress almost to a person says: "how high?". That's a very hard nut to crack. I think Mr. Trump needs to do that, or we will be engaged in endless and ultimately bankrupting wars in the Middle East for no purpose. It does not matter to the U.S. for example, who rules in Kabul. It does matter to Russia, I think, but it doesn't matter for us.

SS:You believe the conflict in Syria is one that US has no interest in - do you think the new administration will give up its ambitions in the Syrian campaign?

MS: Do I think or do I hope? I certainly hope they do, I certainly think any common sense review of what's going on in Syria - I think that war is going to be 6 years old next month? The only Americans who have been killed have been people who wanted to be on the ground, messing around on the battlefield, whether they were NGO people or journalists, and a few U.S. soldiers because Obama re-intervened there. It doesn't matter for us who rules in Damascus or in Baghdad. Let the parts fall where they may. Ultimately, that's heading towards a Sunni-Shia war which could do nothing but benefit the U.S.

SS: America is conducting anti-terror campaigns in Yemen, in Libya, it’s aiding troops in Iraq, it's still present in Afghanistan - you want the US to pull out, end its interventions, but is it that easy? I mean, can the US just leave Afghanistan and have the Taliban take over, doesn’t it have a responsibility to stay there now?

MS: No. We have no responsibility for anything. Our responsibility was to destroy the people that attacked us in 9/11 - Osama Bin Laden is dead, Al-Qaeda is at least dormant or semi-dormant for the moment. We always have the power to go back and do it again and do it the right way, which is overwhelming it with an indiscriminate military force. Right now, what we've tried to do is impose values, sordid Western values on Afghans, who are Muslims, and sincere Muslims, and want no part of it. It's a never-ending battle. We could stay there forever and we would never change a thing in Afghanistan. That's just the beginning of wisdom for one part of the country. I think it would apply to Yemen or any other Muslim country. We have nothing to offer that they want. The only way we can impose it is by a bayonet.

SS: The Washington-Tehran track is heating up right now. Trump’s team wants a review of the nuclear deal, it’s imposing new restrictions, while Tehran is growing more defiant. How far can these tensions spike? Is a US-Iran military conflict now in the cards once again?

MS: It certainly sounds like it does. I hope it isn't. The Iranians are no threat to the U.S., they are threat to Israel, they are a threat to the Saudis - let the regional powers settle their problem. There's 1.6 billion Muslims, a small portion of that are Shia - if the Sunnis can't defend themselves against the enemy that's infinitesimally smaller than they are, then they deserve to get defeated. But, who cares who rules in Tehran? Even if they have a nuclear weapon, which they will get, there's no reason why they shouldn't from their perspective - they are still not going to represent the power that Russia, Great Britain or the U.S. represents. They still get smashed in any attempt to take us on in any meaningful way.

SS: Now, I know that your book, your analysis has been quoted by Bin Laden himself, as well as ISIS - is this strange kind of acknowledgement flatter you or makes you uneasy?

MS: No, it flatters me in a sense that they see American who understands and listens to what they say. Osama Bin Laden would've been a great western politician in a sense that he stayed on message. He basically said "we don't give a damn how you treat your women, what your women wear, whether you drink whiskey, if you vote, if you have freedoms or liberties - we want you to stop intervening in our country", and that's what I wrote.  I wrote that in 1999, the Agency suppressed it for 2 years, 2,5 years, it was published in 2002, I think. It was right then, it is right now. As long as we intervene, we are the glue that holds together the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and the rest of them. I'm not sure they would stop fighting us entirely, but it would be much-much more manageable and also they would turn to their other enemies - the tyrannical Arab states, the Israelis, other people in the region. And it's better for those people to get killed than for Americans to be attacked and killed.

SS: Alright. Mr. Scheuer, thank you for this wonderful interview, we were talking to Michael Scheuer, veteran CIA officer, who used to head the Agency's Bin Laden unit, discussing the CIA's role in the American power balance and its influence on a country's politics. That's it for this edition of SophieCo, I will see you next time.

 

As the Old Lady, The New York Times, announces that "Obama told Trump not to employ Flynn"... Wikileaks reveals that: Clapper lied to Congress, DCLeaks published GOP documents in 2016...
Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism about alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

Some “two dozen or so” handpicked analysts from three agencies – the CIA, the FBI and the NSA – compiled the January 6 report that accused Russia of “influence campaign” during the US presidential election, Clapper said in prepared remarks before the committee, headed by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) on Monday.

There were nearly 2,000 requests to unmask the identity of surveillance targets in 2016, Clapper noted, adding that he had never requested unmasking for personal, political or voyeuristic purposes, nor was he “aware of any instance of such abuse by anyone else.”

"Russia’s influence activities in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election constituted the high-water mark of their long-running efforts since the 1960’s to disrupt and influence our elections," said Clapper. "They must be congratulating themselves for having exceeded their wildest expectations. They are now emboldened to continue such activities in the future, both here and around the world, and to do so even more intensely."

Clapper incorrectly claimed that no Republican data was released during the campaign, WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange said on Twitter, offering documents published in August 2016 as proof.

DNI Clapper just misled or perjured himself to Congress saying that there was no release of Republican data. Proof: https://t.co/A2u3YFHShM

— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) May 8, 2017

Clapper misleading Congress today. [US intel claims DCLeaks is a Russian front. Published GOP emails August 2016] https://t.co/iNkzSMOV25pic.twitter.com/U4HSnhPliQ

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 8, 2017

The highly anticipated hearing is expected to fill in key details in the chain of events that led to the ouster of Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's first national security adviser, during the administration’s first month in office.

Sally Yates reminded the committee of her 27-year career at the Department of Justice and praised their“impartial and thorough investigation” of the Russian threat.

 “The efforts by a foreign adversary to interfere with and undermine our democratic processes—and those of our allies—pose a serious threat to all Americans,” she said.

Yates and another DOJ official went to the White House counsel on January 26 because they believed the “vice-president was unknowingly making false statements to the public” and that “Flynn was compromised with regards to the Russians.”

White House spokesman Sean Spicer confirmed media reports that former president Barack Obama had spoken against Flynn in a transition meeting with Trump.

“This is a guy who was very outspoken in his criticism of President Obama’s policies,” Spicer said of Flynn during the White House press briefing on Monday, going on to question why the Obama administration allowed Flynn to travel to Russia and did not revoke his security clearance.

“If they were concerned, why didn’t they take any steps?” asked Spicer.

If #Obama was concerned about #Flynn's security clearance, 'then what did they do and, if nothing, then why not?' - #Spicerpic.twitter.com/qBmY5J43zq

— RT America (@RT_America) May 8, 2017

Yates was the acting attorney general at the time of Trump’s first travel ban, and was fired after refusing to enforce it.

Both Clapper and Yates denied leaking any stories about Trump and his associates to the press, whether directly or through someone else.

On Monday, Trump urged the committee to question her under oath about classified information she was privy to ended up in the media, implying that the former Obama appointee may have been behind the leaks.

Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel.

— President Trump (@POTUS) May 8, 2017

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/387614-clapper-yates-flynn-russia-hearing/

 

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Sally Yates, the former acting Attorney General of the Trump administration, and Deputy Attorney General under former President Barack Obama, testified on Wednesday at a hearing on alleged Russian meddling in the US presidential election -- accusations for which no US official has come up with concrete proof.

Also appearing before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism was Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

read more:

https://sputniknews.com/us/201705091053399602-clapper-yates-testify-russian-senate-hearing/

While testifying before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, ex-National Intelligence Director James Clapper said he doesn't have any evidence that Moscow influenced voter tallies on Election Day.

 

The Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. Clapper appeared with former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. The highly anticipated hearing was expected to fill in key details in the chain of events that led to the ouster of General Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's first national security adviser, during the administration’s first month in office.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/387614-clapper-yates-flynn-russia-hearing/

 

 

 

“The people who promote this witch hunt do not care about what [the former US presidential candidate] Hillary [Clinton] was doing and they are very biased against the Trump campaign,” Paul said, adding that he believes that the “real problem” lies precisely in this bias.

He also said that the Washington lawmakers involved in Russia-bashing close their eyes to repeated meddling by the US in the internal affairs and electoral processes in many other countries.

“I would like our government to talk about our involvement in campaigns, most recently in Ukraine, [where] we participated in a coup,” the former senator said.

“So far, they have not shown me the ad that was pro-Trump and was paid for by the Russian government,” the politician said, referring to the fact that, after 10 months of investigating, the US authorities still failed to find any solid evidence of collusion with Moscow by Donald Trump or his campaign team.

The anti-Russian hysteria was stirred up in the US to draw people’s attention away from real problems, Paul said, adding that he is more concerned about a crisis in US relations with Russia as well as US actions in Syria.

 

He also denounced the anti-Russian campaign as “fearmongering.”

The politician said the “hundreds of thousands of dollars”that Russia allegedly spent on social media ads to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election are just “a small amount of money in comparison to the billions that are usually spent on the campaigns." He added that control over the media eventually plays a more important role than money.

Trump infuriated US media outlets because he switched to Twitter, breaking their information monopoly in the process as well as the ability to portray anyone, who does not play into the hands of the establishment, as someone who has to be stopped, Paul said.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/405058-ron-paul-talks-to-rt-russia-us-election/

 

 

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Florida’s record as a vital swing state made it a target for meddling in the 2016 election when Russians breached two county voting systems and a software vendor and now concerns are being raised about voting security in the state for the 2020 ballot, say election and cyber security experts, federal reports and Democrats.

With FBI director Christopher Wray and other intelligence officials predicting more Russian and possibly other foreign interference in the next elections, experts say Florida is again a likely target for Russian hackers, or others bent on disrupting voting, which potentially could alter tallies and create other problems.

“Obviously, Florida will be a critical state in 2020 and Florida election officials should assume they will be targeted again,” said Larry Norden, who runs the election reform program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

 

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Russian "hacking" the voting machines?... Bullshit. There is more chances of a goldfish farting in an aquarium...

 

The Gerrymandering of the voting system, the laws about people who had been once in jail (even for a parking fine) not allowed to vote are one billion to one far more influential than a couple of nerds in Macedonia calling themselves "Russians" to impress the silly press...