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FBI probing cyber attack on congressional campaign in California - sources
August 18, 2018
FBI probing cyber attack on congressional campaign in California - sources
Reuters
December 18, 2018
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating a cyber attack on the congressional campaign of a Democratic candidate in California, according to three people close to the campaign.
The J. Edgar Hoover Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Building is seen in Washington, U.S., February 1, 2018. REUTERS/Jim Bourg The hackers successfully infiltrated the election campaign computer of David Min, a Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives who was later defeated in the June primary for California’s 45th Congressional district.
The incident, which has not been previously reported, follows an article in Rolling Stone earlier this week that the FBI has also been investigating a cyber attack against Hans Keirstead, a California Democrat. He was defeated in a primary in the 48th Congressional district, neighboring Min’s.
Paige Hutchinson, Min’s former campaign manager, declined to comment. An FBI spokeswoman said the bureau cannot confirm or deny an investigation.
While both Min and Keirstead later lost to other primary challengers from their own party, the two closely-watched races are considered critical, competitive battlegrounds as the Democrats seek to win back Congress from Republicans in November.
It is unclear who was behind the attack against Min’s campaign, why it was carried out, and what the hackers did with any information they obtained. But details of the hack, described to Reuters by people with direct knowledge of the case, highlight the concerns of national security experts who fear that campaigns are woefully unprotected as the November mid-term elections approach.
It also illustrates how small political campaigns do not have the resources to protect themselves from cyber attacks. Few can hire computer security personnel.
“Political campaigns only exist for such a short amount of time,” said Blake Darche, a cyber security researcher and former National Security Agency analyst. “It takes years to build an effective security program at most corporations. Most political campaigns are only a single phishing email away from being breached.”
While national political parties offer training and software tools to help candidates, they typically do not provide them with financial support to hire computer security experts, even after a campaign believes it has been hit. Corporations often pay security experts more than $100,000 to investigate an attack, security experts say.
UNUSUAL ACTIVITY
In late March, Min’s staff received a troubling notice from the facility manager where the campaign rented space in Irvine, California, said the people close to the campaign. The facility’s internet provider had identified unusual patterns of activity that could indicate a cyber attack on campaign computers.
The four-person campaign team had no in-house expertise to deal with the attack. Instead they enlisted the help of software developers with no ties to the campaign other than that they sat nearby in the same shared workspace that Min rented.
The software developers discovered that hackers had placed software into the computers of Min’s campaign manager and finance director that recorded and transmitted keystrokes. The hackers had also infected the computers with software that made it undiscoverable by the off-the-shelf anti-virus software used by the campaign staff.
The campaign immediately notified the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the organization that assists the party’s candidates. The DCCC notified the FBI and gave the campaign advice on improving its security. It also provided it with secure messaging software for future use. Federal agents interviewed Min’s staff and carried off the infected computers.
Min’s tiny staff considered hiring a security firm to investigate the attack, but decided the $50,000 minimum price was unaffordable. The DCCC did not cover the costs of such a hire.
“The DCCC’s mission is to elect Democrats to Congress, and we spend the vast majority of our limited resources to do that,” a DCCC aide, who declined to named, said. “Despite that, the DCCC has gone far outside the scope of its mission to protect the committee and help campaigns protect themselves when it comes to cybersecurity.”
Ultimately, the campaign’s defense was limited to replacing the infected machines and a future commitment to using encrypted messaging apps. “Even $4,000 to replace those laptops isn’t easy to get,” said a person close to the campaign.
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NSA Leaker Makes Espionage Distinction in Sentencing Memo
August 18, 2018
NSA Leaker Makes Espionage Distinction in Sentencing Memo
Eva Fedderly
Courthouse News Service
August 17, 2018
AUGUSTA, Ga. (CN) – Jailed for a over year since her leak of a classified intelligence report, Reality Winner faces sentencing next week for a crime that has led some to hail her bravery and others to brand her a traitor.
“At the time of the offense, Reality was an impetuous twenty-five year old, in her first full-time ‘real’ job since being honorably discharged from the military,” Winner’s Aug. 15 sentencing memorandum states. “She acknowledges responsibility for her singular and serious act, recognizes the severity of it, and is prepared to accept her punishment. But, Reality is not a terrorist. Despite the rhetoric that has flowed freely throughout this case, she is not a hater of her country or its people — she is quite the opposite.”
The first government contractor to be criminally charged under the Trump administration, Winner pleaded guilty in June and faces sentencing on Aug. 23 for a single count of transmitting national security information.
A year earlier, Winner was arrested within a month of her decision to send reporters at The Intercept a top-secret intelligence report that the National Security Agency had produced on Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
Winner’s sentencing memo offers some context to why she abused her security clearance: In December 2016, Winner was simultaneously mourning the death that month of her father, had ended her six-year career with the U.S. Air Force and “was swept up by the political fervor surrounding the 2016 presidential election.”
The Texas native had been with Pluribus International, working as a linguist assigned to an NSA facility in Augusta, Georgia, for just three months when she leaked to The Intercept.
“It was, as Reality has admitted, a naive attempt to ‘change things,’ in which she abused her security clearance and ran afoul of federal law — an act which she acknowledges was criminally wrong,” her memo states.
The government recommended in its own sentencing memo a day earlier that Winner face the 63-month sentence to which she stipulated in her plea agreement.
Winner’s attorneys — she is represented by the Georgia firms Baker Donelson and Bell & Brigham — noted in their brief that five-year penalty is more than fair.
“Indeed, the 63-month term of imprisonment agreed to by both parties is in excess of many prior Espionage Act prosecutions, including those with arguably worse conduct — providing the necessary deterrence,” the memo states.
Emphasizing Winner’s status as a first-time offender, the brief notes that “there is simply no need to protect the public from her.”
“Reality’s singular offense was an unfortunate act in an otherwise commendable life of service,” the memo continues.
Arguing that a sentence under the Espionage Act would be overly severe, the brief makes the point that this law’s sentencing guideline recommendations “were drafted with actual espionage — selling government secrets to foreign adversaries, usually for monetary gain — in mind.”
“While the charged conduct is no doubt serious, there is no allegation or evidence of actual spying or treason on the part of Reality Winner,” the memo continues.
Justice Department spokesperson Wyn Hornbuckle declined to comment beyond what attorneys put in the Tuesday sentencing memo. Winner’s attorneys did not return a request for comment.
U.S. District Judge Randal Hall will sentence Winner on Aug. 23 in Augusta.
As published by The Intercept, the NSA intelligence report Winner leaked detailed how Russia targeted U.S. companies and government officials by using “voter registration themed emails, spoor election-related products and services, [and] research absentee ballot email addresses.”
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EGYPTIAN INTELLIGENCE CHIEF IN ISRAEL TO FINALIZE GAZA TRUCE
August 18, 2018
EGYPTIAN INTELLIGENCE CHIEF IN ISRAEL TO FINALIZE GAZA TRUCE
Herb Keinon
Jerusalem Post
August 17, 2018
Egyptian efforts to broker a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip shifted into high gear over the last two days as Egyptian intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Abbas Kamel held talks on Wednesday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lock down the deal, though Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refused to meet him on Thursday.
Abbas is reportedly furious at the deal, fearing it will concertize and give international legitimacy to the split between the West Bank and Gaza, and make extending the Palestinian Authority’s control over the coastal enclave even more difficult.Reuters quoted an Egyptian security source as saying that Cairo was “putting the final touches to the terms of the truce that will be signed by all sides, and we expect to announce the terms next week if Fatah helps us to do so.”
According to the source, the cease-fire will include a period of calm for one year, “during which contacts will be held to extend it for another four years.” Negotiations over the return of the bodies of the IDF soldiers, and the two Israeli civilians held by Hamas, would be held during those talks.
In lieu of any of any authorized information on the arrangements coming out of Jerusalem, much of the information about the nature of the deal on Thursday came from the Arabic media.
For instance, Beirut’s Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen TV reported that the deal involves a Cyprus-Gaza sea corridor, which would be under Israeli supervision.
In addition, the report said Qatar would help pay both Hamas salaries and for the Gaza Strip’s electric bill, payments that were in the past borne by the Palestinian Authority, but which Abbas cut off in an effort to pry Gaza free of Hamas control.
The next 48 hours, according to the report, will be critical.
An earlier report in the London-based pan-Arabic Al-Hayat newspaper said that Kamel’s discussions in Israel centered on Israel’s approval of the truce, the approval of humanitarian projects in Gaza, and later indirect negotiations with Hamas over the return of the bodies of the soldiers and the release of the civilians.
The report also said Kamel’s visit comes as two high-level delegations from Hamas and Islamic Jihad were in Cairo, along with delegations from a number of smaller Palestinian factions.
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Pentagon: China Boosts Nuclear Readiness
August 18, 2018
Pentagon: China Boosts Nuclear Readiness
Bill Gertz
Washington Free Beacon
August 17, 2018
China added significant numbers of bombers to its military forces in the past year as part of a large-scale military buildup targeting the United States, a Pentagon’s report on the Chinese military says.
The annual report to Congress also reveals that China’s People’s Liberation Army increased long-range bomber flights further from Chinese coasts and conducted training for airstrikes against the U.S. bases in Asia.
“Over the last three years, the PLA has rapidly expanded its overwater bomber operating areas, gaining experience in critical maritime regions and likely training for strikes against U.S. and allied targets,” the report said.
This year’s report, made public Thursday night, is 30-pages longer than the 2017 version and highlights China’s growing asymmetric warfare capabilities. Those capabilities include space weapons, advanced cyber attack capabilities, information warfare tools, and electronic warfare systems designed for short, high-intensity conflicts.
“China is advancing a comprehensive military modernization program aimed at making the PLA into a ‘world-class’ military by 2049,” the report said. “This program includes improvements to military capabilities to conduct nuclear deterrence, anti-access/area denial (A2/AD), and power projection operations.”
One striking disclosure in the report is the buildup of Chinese bombers.
Over the past year, the number of Chinese bombers and strike aircraft increased by 130, from 400 bombers in 2016 year to 530 bombers last year.
Special mission aircraft, such as transport and refueling planes, also increased by 15.
China also expanded its coast guard forces adding 55 coast guard ships to its forces. The increase likely reflects China’s efforts to seek to control contested waters in the South China Sea and East China Sea.
The total number of active ground troops also increased over the past year with the addition of 65,000 combat troops.
The increase is unusual since China has been seeking to streamline its ground forces by retiring large military personnel.
The PLA reduced the number of group armies around the country from 18 to 13 over the past year.
Military reforms have led to large-scale protests in Beijing and several others cities by groups of former PLA soldiers seeking better treatment from the government.
China also added 400 tanks and 2,600 artillery pieces over the past year.
Strategic nuclear forces in China also are expanding and the report said the PLA is increasing the readiness of its nuclear forces.
“China is enhancing peacetime readiness levels for these nuclear forces to ensure responsiveness,” the report says.
Chinese military writings indicate the PLA Rocket Forces, the service in charge of nuclear systems, have discussed the use of “launch on warning"—a heightened readiness for attacks based on improved surveillance of foreign nuclear forces and streamlined military decision-making "to enable a more rapid response to enemy attack,” the report said.
The Chinese also are developing a space-based early warning system to support the launch on warning nuclear posture.
Launch on warning refers to nuclear posturing that calls for launching nuclear missiles from launchers and bombers before an enemy’s warheads or bombs reach targets in China.
Most of China’s nuclear strike forces are long- and medium-range missiles and all are being upgraded as part of the buildup.
“ICBMs debuting or under development represent a significant improvement in China’s nuclear-capable missile forces,” the report said.
The current force of up to 100 ICBMs includes six types of solo-based and road-mobile missiles including many equipped with multiple, independently targeted reentry vehicles or MIRVs.
Two additional missiles are in development, including the multiple-warhead DF-41—to be deployed on road-mobile, rail-mobile and silo launchers, and an additional road-mobile ICBM.
China also is expanding its submarine forces with new ballistic missile and attack submarines. Four nuclear missile submarines are deployed and at least one more is under construction.
A follow-on missile submarine will be built in the early 2020s and will be armed with a new submarine-launched ballistic missile.
Chinese bombers currently include the H-6 and plans are underway for an advanced stealth bomber similar to the U.S. B-2 that the Pentagon says will be designated the H-20.
The new stealth bomber will be deployed in the next decade with a range of at least 5,281 miles and a payload of 10 metric tons—for both nuclear and conventional missiles.
China also appears to be building a new refuelable bomber that could be deployed before the H-20 that will expand offensive bomber capabilities far into the western Pacific.
Two new air-launched ballistic missiles are being developed, one of which will be nuclear armed.
China claims to adhere to a “no-first-use” nuclear policy that states Beijing would not be the first to use nuclear arms in a war.
However, the Pentagon is questioning Beijing’s sincerity regarding the pledge. PLA officers have written that nuclear weapons might be used first if a conventional attack threatens China’s nuclear arsenal, much of which is hidden in deep underground bunkers, the report said.
“China’s lack of transparency regarding the scope and scale of its nuclear modernization program raises questions regarding its future intent,” the report said.
In addition to expanding nuclear missiles and bombers, China is upgrading its nuclear command and control systems to handle both expanded mobile missiles and missile submarine patrols.
The command and control networks are needed to “safeguard the integrity of nuclear release authority for a larger, more dispersed force,” the report said.
Regarding increased regional bomber capabilities, the report said the H-6K variant poses a threat to U.S. military bases in the western Pacific, including Guam.
The longer-range H-6K bomber is armed with long-range cruise missiles that provide the PLA air force with “an offensive strike capability against Guam” with land attack cruise missiles.
The strike capability has been improved by China’s use of airborne warning and control aircraft to support the bomber flights.
China in 2016 flew bombers around rival Taiwan in a show of force, and also flew the bombers in the South China Sea.
“H-6s could, if deployed to airfields in the Spratly Islands, extend their range through the Balabac Strait into the Celebes Sea or through the Sunda or Malacca Strait to fly into the Indian Ocean,” the report said.
China also recently flew six H-6 bombers for the first time through the Sea of Japan.
“These flights demonstrated a maturing capability for H-6K bombers to conduct off-axis strikes against U.S. and allied facilities,” the report said.
Rick Fisher, a China expert with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said the Pentagon’s disclosure on China’s nuclear forces is significant.
“There is overdue focus on the PLA air force’s nuclear mission, meaning the PLA now has a nuclear triad, and there is great analysis of China’s coercive use of its H-6K bombers in 2017 to coerce Taiwan and to threaten Guam,” Fisher said.
“In several areas this year’s PLA report makes clear that the PLA is building up to become a global military challenge to American interests,” he added.
The report mentions China’s development and testing of hypersonic glide vehicles that the Pentagon has said can be used for both nuclear and conventional attacks, but provides no details.
China, Russia, and the United States are all working to develop hypersonic missiles—those capable of maneuvering en route to targets while traveling at over 7,000 miles per hour.
The high-speed missiles are intended to defeat increasingly capable missile defenses.
China has develop an advance integrated air defense system of radar, sensors and missiles that include a variety of very capable anti-aircraft and anti-missile interceptors, including plans to purchase Russia’s S-400 system in the future.
In the South China Sea, China continued to build up military facilities on disputed islands.
“Outposts may be capable of supporting military operations, but no permanent large-scale air or naval presence has been observed in the Spratly Islands,” the report said.
On three of the Spratlys—Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs—China continued to build aviation facilities, port facilities, fixed-weapons positions, barracks, administration buildings, and communication facilities last year.
The report said China “could be attempting to bolster its de facto control by improving military and civilian infrastructure in the South China Sea.”
“The airfields, berthing areas, and resupply facilities will allow China to maintain a more flexible and persistent coast guard and military presence in the area,” the report said. “This would improve China’s ability to detect and challenge activities by rival claimants or third parties, widen the range of capabilities available to China, and reduce the time required to deploy them.”
In the East China Sea, China kept coast guard ships regularly near Japan’s Senkaku Islands that China is claiming as its territory.
The report said Beijing is using “low-intensity coercion” in the maritime disputes.
The Pentagon touted its ongoing military engagement with China that includes exchange visits by U.S. and Chinese officials in the report.
However, the report made no mention that the Pentagon disinvited the PLA from taking part in the large international naval exercise called Rim of the Pacific that ended earlier this month.
The Chinese were blocked over the Pentagon’s displeasure at continued militarization in the South China Sea.
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Austria’s far-right government ordered a raid on its own intelligence service. Now allies are freezing the country out because its pro-Russian government can’t be trusted.
August 18, 2018
Austria’s far-right government ordered a raid on its own intelligence service. Now allies are freezing the country out.
Souad Mekhennet, Griff Witte
Washington Post
August 17, 2018
VIENNA —The raids came without warning, surprising even the intelligence operatives whose job is to never be caught off guard.
On the morning of Feb. 28, police stormed offices of Austria’s main domestic intelligence agency and carted off some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets in open crates and plastic bags. Top spy service officials working from home that day were greeted by officers threatening to break down their doors.
The extraordinary decision to target the agency responsible for defending the country from a multitude of threats, including right-wing extremism, had been made by the service’s new bosses: members of the far-right Freedom Party.
The reason? Defending the totalitarian North Korean regime from an Austrian espionage operation, among others cited in the search warrant. Critics saw absurd pretext for a politically motivated stab at an independent institution that could threaten the party’s agenda.
Five months later, the impact continues to ripple across this central European nation of 9 million — and far beyond.
In a country whose geopolitical positioning between East and West has long made it a nest of spies — “a playground for all nations” in the words of one Austrian intelligence veteran — the hometown service has been left in disarray.
“It’s paralysis,” the veteran said. “How could you work in such an environment?”
Intelligence services across the West, meanwhile, have looked on in dismay — and have chosen to protect their own secrets by freezing Austria out.
“We used to have very deep and good cooperation,” said a top European intelligence official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly. “But since the raids, we have stopped sharing highly sensitive information. We’re worried it might get into the wrong hands.”
The raids and their aftermath reflect a messy emerging reality across Europe as parties once relegated to the fringes move to the center of power.
In Greece, Italy, Poland, Hungary and Austria, anti-establishment parties with positions on either the far left or far right have taken hold of governments, either in whole or in part. Many are closely linked to Russia, and some have ties to extremist groups that have been associated with violence.
A place in government gives these parties control of influential state institutions that are supposed to be above politics, including the courts, military and intelligence agencies.
But as Austria has shown, those theoretically independent institutions are vulnerable to political meddling — or at least the appearance of it. In the trust-is-everything realm of intelligence work, that raises tricky questions for allies, which must decide whether they can risk continued cooperation.
Russia ties
The Freedom Party came to power in Austria at the end of last year as the junior partner in a coalition with the center-right. The party was founded by former SS officers in the 1950s, and has ridden anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric to new heights of popularity in recent years. Some of its members have been revealed to share a nostalgia for Hitler’s Third Reich.
The party has a formal cooperation agreement with President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, and the close ties show. Austria was a notable holdout when European Union nations banded together in March to expel Russian diplomats to protest the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal. Top Austrian officials, meanwhile, have spoken out against the E.U.’s Russian sanctions. On Saturday, Putin is expected to be a guest of honor when Austria’s foreign minister, the Freedom Party-allied Karin Kneissl, gets married.
The Freedom Party had been in government before, in the early 2000s. But this is the first time it has been given control of the highly coveted Interior Ministry, which is responsible for law and order in Austria and is home to the country’s main domestic intelligence agency, known as the BVT.
Among the BVT’s work in recent years has been sniffing out Russian influence, notably attempts at election interference. The agency also has tracked Islamist extremists and investigated the activities of violent far-right groups, including Islamophobic and anti-Semitic hate crimes. Much of that work requires cross-border cooperation, especially with European allies.
Information from those investigations, among many others, was among the troves of intelligence seized by police in the February raid.
To critics, the raids were nothing less than an attempt to quash intelligence work that ran counter to the party’s interests.
“Your actions intimidated those officials who are supposed to fight the extremist right,” Christian Kern, a former center-left chancellor, told Interior Minister Herbert Kickl during a parliamentary debate. “It’s a signal that will embolden the rightist scene.”
The Interior Ministry declined an interview request. But Kickl and his allies have publicly defended the raids, noting that a state prosecutor had sought a warrant and that a judge signed off on it. Seized documents were turned over by the police directly to the prosecutor.
The raids, he said, were in line with the rule of law. “It’s time we turn to the facts and leave aside the conspiracy theories,” Kickl said.
The search warrant cites several prosaic reasons for the raids, including an alleged failure by the intelligence agencies to properly discard information that had been slated for deletion.
But it also includes more-fanciful justifications. Among them: Several top agency officials had worked with the South Korean government on an espionage operation to obtain blank North Korean passports, which were being printed in Austria.
The victim of the supposed crime? Kim Jong Un’s murderous regime.
The raids are now the subject of legal action, with a court scheduled to decide within days whether the operation was legal and proportionate. A parliamentary inquiry, meanwhile, is to begin next month.
Several people familiar with the matter said they don’t necessarily agree with the most sinister interpretation of the raid — that the Freedom Party was carrying out a grand plan to seize intelligence and scuttle investigations.
But they also said they believe the party was using flimsy pretexts in a clumsy attempt to put its stamp on the agency and install loyalists in top jobs. A number of senior intelligence officials were fired or suspended in the raid’s aftermath. Various reasons were given, including keeping sensitive documents at home.
“They tried to change the system with force, and they ended up destroying it,” one agency insider said. “Do you know of any other intelligence service where the prosecutor can go and seize all the communications data? Can seize the files of ongoing cases? Can seize data from foreign services?”
‘Alarms are going off’
Those foreign services have responded by pulling back. Although Austria is officially neutral and sits outside of NATO, it is a member of the European Union and has historically had close intelligence-sharing relationships with Western allies.
“The alarms are going off,” one senior European intelligence official said. “What happened in Austria reminds me of what autocrats would do.”
A senior Western intelligence official said it was not only allies who had stopped sharing with Austria but also the other way around.
“The Austrians no longer call or reach out as they used to before,” the official said. “Maybe because it’s chaos in their house or because they are ashamed about what happened.”
Both the Freedom Party and its partner, the center-right People’s Party of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, campaigned for office last year vowing to get tough on immigration and crack down on Islamists.
But the weakening of the BVT could compromise efforts to keep the country safe from extremist attacks, a core mission of the agency.
So far, however, the government is not paying a price for that possibility. Both parties remain broadly popular, and they have managed to keep the intelligence agency scandal out of the limelight by maintaining their focus on Islam. Deft at public relations, the parties have floated several largely symbolic initiatives, including burqa bans and prohibitions on halal meat.
On the day this past spring when opposition parties called a news conference to discuss the BVT raids, the government immediately countered with its own news conference to announce the closure of several allegedly extremist mosques. (The mosques have since reopened.)
“The government is trying to perform politics on the back of Muslim society, which leads to anger and fear and hate,” said Ramazan Demir, a leader of the Islamic Religious Community in Austria, an umbrella group for the country’s roughly 700,000 Muslims. “A big part of Austrian society already fears Islam. This way of doing politics doesn’t help.”
To some, the focus on Islamist extremism also distracts from other threats, including anti-Semitism among non-Muslims.
“I have never experienced an anti-Semitic threat from Muslims in Austria,” said Schlomo Hofmeister, a Vienna-based rabbi for the country’s small Jewish community. “But I receive every week threats from right-wing Austrians.”
Roman Haider, a veteran Freedom Party official who was made available by the party in response to interview requests, declined to discuss the raid on the BVT. But he was eager to talk about what he described as a real threat to Austria: the disappearance of pork from school lunchrooms, allegedly in deference to pious Muslims.
“This is our society. This is our culture,” he said. “In our schools, pork should be served.”
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Trump Has Attacked the Russia Inquiry Over 250 Times. Most of the attacks were lies or distortions
August 18, 2018
Trump Has Attacked the Russia Inquiry Over 250 Times. Here Is What’s True.
Linda Qiu
New York Times
August 18, 2018
The federal investigation into whether Russia actively sought to help Donald J. Trump win the White House in 2016 has been hanging over his head since even before the election. As president, he has repeatedly criticized the special counsel inquiry and has questioned whether it is the best use of time and taxpayer funds.
Some of the criticism has amounted to presidential opinion — like in calling James B. Comey “the worst F.B.I. director in history.” On Twitter alone, he has used the words “witch hunt” in over 100 posts.
“That whole situation is a rigged witch hunt,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday at the White House. “It’s a totally rigged deal. They should be looking at the other side.”
But hundreds of other statements, since Mr. Trump’s inauguration, included bold assertions about the Russia investigation that have demanded being fact checked.
He hasn’t always been wrong. Mr. Trump’s estimates of the inquiry’s price tag, and his accusations of political bias as demonstrated in texts between F.B.I. officials, are among presidential claims that have passed the truth test.
An analysis by The New York Times found more than 250 examples of exaggerated, misleading or flat-out false claims by Mr. Trump about the Russia investigation.
Here is a look at how those statements have evolved since the start of his presidency — and how they stand up against the facts.
Doubting Russian interference
Mr. Trump has consistently questioned the basic facts of the American intelligence community’s assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to aid his campaign.
“The Democrats made up and pushed the Russian story as an excuse for running a terrible campaign.”
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Mr. Trump has suggested at least 19 other times that Democrats fabricated concerns about Russian interference as an excuse for losing the election.
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Democrats sounded the alarm about Russian campaign interference months before the November 2016 election. So did Republicans.
(Repetitions in 2018: July 16 | June 23 | May 26 | Feb. 20 | Repetitions in 2017: Dec. 28 | Dec. 15| Nov. 26 | Oct. 25 | Oct. 16 | Oct. 11 | Sept. 22 | Aug. 3| May 30 | May 11 | May 11| April 12 | Feb. 26 | Feb. 17 | Feb. 16)
“Why did the DNC REFUSE to turn over its Server to the FBI, and still hasn’t? It’s all a big Dem scam and excuse for losing the election!”
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Based on the findings of the private security firm CrowdStrike, the Democratic National Committee said in the summer of 2016 that it was hacked by Russian operatives. A month later, nearly 20,000 of the Democratic Party’s internal emails were released. The American intelligence community, in an October 2016 report, said Russians were behind the attack — a finding that was backed up by indictments issued in July against 12 Russian intelligence officers.
Mr. Trump has pointed out at least 32 other times that the F.B.I. did not directly examine the D.N.C.’s servers. In doing so, he has suggested that the D.N.C. was not hacked during the 2016 campaign.Mr. Trump is right that the F.B.I. never physically seized the servers from the D.N.C. headquarters. However, CrowdStrike provided forensics to federal investigators — which James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, has called an “appropriate substitute.”
(Repetitions in 2018: July 17 | July 16 | July 14 | July 7 | July 1 | June 28 | June 7 | May 27 | May 20 | April 26 | April 21 | April 20 | April 18 | April 15 | Jan. 11 | Repetitions in 2017: Nov. 10 | Nov. 7 | Aug. 11 | Aug. 10 | July 25 | July 9 | July 7 | June 22 | June 22 | May 13 | May 7 | April 30 | April 28 | April 26 | April 21 | March 30 | March 3)
“And I heard that they were trying, or people were trying, to hack into the R.N.C., too. The Republican National Committee. But we had much better defenses.”
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Interview with CBS News, June 14, 2018
Mr. Trump has also blamed the D.N.C. for inadequately protecting itself from cyberattacks. He told “Face the Nation” that “the D.N.C. should be ashamed of themselves for allowing themselves to be hacked” and compared it to the Republican National Committee.
Largely true.
The Times reported in December 2016 that Russian operatives did hack the R.N.C.’s systems. In January 2017, Mr. Comey said in congressional testimony that the hackers had penetrated old computer systems that were no longer used by the committee. But Mr. Comey said there was no evidence that the R.N.C.’s newer computer systems — or ones used by the Trump campaign — were hacked successfully.
(Repetitions in 2017: April 28 | April 21 | Feb. 16)
“What happened to the servers of the Pakistani gentleman that worked on the D.N.C.? Where are those servers?”
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News conference in Helsinki, Finland, with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, July 16, 2018
Mr. Trump has referred five other times to Imran Awan, a Pakistani-American and former I.T. specialist who had worked part-time for several Democratic staffs in the House, including Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the D.N.C.’s former chairwoman. Mr. Awan was arrested last summer on unrelated charges of obtaining a fraudulent bank loan and pleaded guilty in July. Conservative media commentators have suggested that Mr. Awan may have stolen and leaked the Democratic National Committee’s emails, again implying that the Russian hacking never happened.
Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department has rejected this as a conspiracy theory.
(Repetitions in 2018: July 17 | July 7 | June 7 | April 20 | Repetitions in 2017: Dec. 28)
“If you don’t catch a hacker, O.K., in the act, it’s very hard to say who did the hacking. With that being said, I’ll go along with Russia. Could’ve been China, could’ve been a lot of different groups.”
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Interview on “Face the Nation,” April 30, 2017
On at least eight other occasions in his presidency, Mr. Trump suggested that Russia might not be the culprit. He has cited Moscow’s denial — or explicitly denied it himself — and offered other explanations for the hacking.
The American intelligence community, the investigators with the Senate and House intelligence committees and technology companies have all concluded that Russia interfered in the election.
(Repetitions in 2018: July 17 | July 16 | June 28 | March 6 | Repetitions in 2017: Nov. 11 | July 12 | July 6 | May 11)
“Russia was against Trump in the 2016 Election”
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Mr. Trump has repeatedly asserted that Mr. Putin’s government did not want him to win the American presidential election. He once claimed that Russia “spent a lot of money on fighting me” and another time asserted that Mr. Putin “wants Hillary.”
False.
Not only does this contradict various American intelligence reports, Mr. Putin himself said both before and after the November 2016 vote that he wanted Mr. Trump to win because of Mr. Trump’s desire to restore Russian-American relations.
(Repetitions in 2018: Aug. 2 | July 24 | July 13 | Repetitions in 2017: Nov. 15 | Aug. 10 | July 12)
Playing down contact with Russians
The president has confronted reports of contacts between his campaign and influential Russian by playing down his ties to political aides or by shifting the blame to Democrats.
“There’s nobody on the campaign that saw anybody from Russia.”
—
Interview with The Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2017
Mr. Trump has flat out denied, at least three times, that several people in the Trump campaign met with or spoke to people associated with Russia.
False.
Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, discussed lifting sanctions with the Russian ambassador in December 2016, and resigned for misleading White House officials about those conversations. Mr. Trump’s son, son-in-law and former campaign chairman — Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort — met with a Russian lawyer who had connections to the Kremlin during the 2016 campaign. And two foreign policy advisers to the Trump campaign, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, met with people linked to the Kremlin before the 2016 vote. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was the first senator to endorse Mr. Trump and advised him during the campaign, met with the Russian ambassador at least twice in 2016.
(Repetitions in 2018: July 16 | Repetitions in 2017: May 13)
“They weren’t even a part, really — I mean, they were such a minor part — I hadn’t spoken to them.”
—
News conference at the White House, Feb. 16, 2017
Mr. Trump has also played down the roles of campaign aides who had met with people linked to the Kremlin.
This is misleading.
It is not clear how high Mr. Papadopoulos or Mr. Page ranked in the Trump campaign hierarchy. But it is implausible to suggest that Mr. Flynn, Mr. Manafort, Mr. Kushner and the junior Mr. Trump played “minor” parts in the campaign.
(Repetitions: Oct. 31, 2017)
“Manafort has nothing to do with our campaign.”
—
News conference at the White House, June 15, 2018.
.
Mr. Manafort was the Trump campaign chairman during the last stretch of the Republican primary campaign. He worked for the campaign for 144 days — not 49 days or three and a half months, as Mr. Trump alternately has claimed.
(Repetitions in 2018: June 3 | Dec. 28 | Repetitions in 2017: Nov. 5 | Oct. 30).
“Now there has been collusion between Hillary Clinton, the D.N.C., and the Russians.”
—
Remarks to reporters at Camp David, Jan. 6, 2018
The Washington Post first reported in October that the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign paid for opposition research that led to a dossier about Mr. Trump compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British spy. Mr. Trump has repeatedly accused Democrats of “colluding” with Russia. But it was a conservative website, The Washington Free Beacon, that first paid a research firm for the opposition research. It stopped when Mr. Trump won the nomination. The firm, Fusion GPS, was then paid by the Democrats for the research that became the dossier.
This is misleading.
Collusion, which is generally understood as secretive and often illicit collaboration, has no defined legal meaning. Mr. Steele did use Russian sources to compile his dossier, and reported his findings to the F.B.I. But there is no evidence anyone from the Clinton campaign met with Russian officials directly and conspired to manipulate the American election.
(Repetitions in 2018: Aug. 14 | Aug. 9 | Aug. 6 | Aug. 6 | Aug. 3 | Aug. 1 | July 31 | July 29 | July 27 | July 7 | June 8 | June 2 | May 17 | April 28 | April 26 | March 25 | March 11 | Feb. 17 | Jan. 11 | Jan. 5 | Repetitions in 2017: Oct. 25)
“Nobody asks John Podesta about the company that he has with his brother in Russia.”
—
Interview with The Washington Examiner, April 26, 2017
As evidence of Democratic collusion, Mr. Trump has said John D. Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, owned a company in Russia.
False.
Mr. Podesta does not own a company in Russia. The consulting firm that he and his brother, Tony Podesta, co-founded is based in Washington, not Russia. (The firm did, however, lobby on behalf of a Russian bank.)
(Repetitions in 2018: April 28 | Feb. 17 | Repetitions in 2017: Aug. 3 | July 25 | July 22 | May 13 | April 30 | April 28 | April 26 | March 27)
“We had Hillary Clinton give Russia 20 percent of the uranium in our country.”
—
News conference at the White House, Feb. 16, 2017
Mr. Trump has accused Mrs. Clinton of selling American uranium to Russia at least 16 other times, sometimes briefly referring to the issue simply as “Uranium One.”
This is misleading.
Uranium One is a uranium production company with holdings in the United States. Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state when the Obama administration allowed Russia’s nuclear agency to purchase the company. The State Department was one of nine agencies — as well as federal nuclear regulator and a state regulator — that had to sign off on the sale. There is no evidence that Mrs. Clinton was personally involved.
(Repetitions in 2018: July 7 | July 1 | June 7 | Feb. 17 | Repetitions in 2017: Nov. 1 | Oct. 29 | Oct. 25 | Oct. 19 | Aug. 3 | July 25 | July 22 | July 19 | April 30 | March 28 | March 27 | Feb. 16)
“Collusion is not a crime”
—
This is Mr. Trump’s latest defense.
Mr. Trump is playing a semantics game. “Collusion” is not a crime in the federal code of criminal procedure, but a potential conspiracy between a campaign and a foreign government that violates American election laws is indeed illegal.
Claiming a political setup
Mr. Trump has asserted that he and his campaign are the victims in the Russia investigation.
“The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?”
—
Mr. Trump has repeatedly claimed that President Barack Obama did not act — sometimes by adding: “because he thought Crooked Hillary Clinton would win” — to sow doubts about the independence of those who accuse Russia of election interference.
.
The Obama administration warned Russian officials against interfering before the election in August, September and October, and imposed sanctions in December 2016.
(Repetitions in 2018: July 17 | July 17 | July 15 | July 14 | June 15 | May 27 | March 5 | Feb. 24 | Feb. 21 | Feb. 19 | Repetitions in 2017: July 19 | July 6 | June 26 | June 26 | June 25 | June 22)
“Just found out that Obama had my “wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before the victory.”
—
.
In four subsequent interviews between March and April 2017, Mr. Trump corrected himself to say he had been under surveillance, generally, by the Obama administration — but not by a telephone wiretap.
He also claimed to have learned of the surveillance from The New York Times and accused The Times of removing the word “wiretap” from the article’s headline.
.
The Times did not report that Mr. Obama ordered surveillance of Mr. Trump’s phone conversations, nor did the headline ever change.
(Repetitions in 2018: June 25 | Repetitions in 2017: April 17 | April 12 | April 2 | March 23 | March 17 | March 15 | March 4 | March 4 | March 4)
“Wow, @FoxNews just reporting big news. Source: ‘Official behind unmasking is high up. Known Intel official is responsible. Some unmasked … not associated with Russia. Trump team spied on before he was nominated.’”
—
Mr. Trump repeatedly claimed that the Obama administration “spied on” the Trump campaign in referring to the process of “unmasking.” When Americans’ communications are swept up in surveillance of foreigners, their names are normally obscured to protect their privacy. Only authorized national security officials can ask to have the identities of Americans “unmasked.”
This requires context.
Mr. Trump is correct that Trump campaign officials were caught up in surveillance of foreign targets and their identities were unmasked — a request made by Susan E. Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser. Mr. Trump then accused Ms. Rice of committing a crime.
But that was not unlawful or unusual. The National Security Agency revealed almost 2,000 American identities in 2016, and more than 2,200 in 2015, according to a statistical report. Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the agency’s former director, said in congressional testimony last June that the N.S.A. approves requests only if revealing the names of Americans will help the official understand intelligence better, “not so you can use that knowledge indiscriminately.”
(Repetitions in 2017: Sept. 14 | June 23 | June 22 | June 1 | May 11 | May 4 | April 5 | April 3)
“Disproven and paid for by Democrats ‘Dossier used to spy on Trump Campaign. Did FBI use Intel tool to influence the Election?’ ”
—
Mr. Trump first made this claim in January and has repeated it at least 11 other times. It refers to accusations that the Justice Department used unverified information from Mr. Steele’s dossier in its court application to put Mr. Page under surveillance.
.
The F.B.I. cited information from Mr. Steele’s dossier, but also other information in its application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The initial application was filed in October 2016, after Mr. Page had left the Trump campaign.
(Repetitions: Aug. 14 | Aug. 12 | Aug. 9 | Aug. 1 | July 23 | July 22 | May 20 | March 26 | Feb. 3 | Feb. 2 | Jan. 11)
The Mueller investigation “was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC.”
—
Mr. Trump has claimed repeatedly that the special counsel investigation led by Robert S. Mueller III was opened because of the information in Mr. Steele’s dossier.
.
Republicans who hold the majority vote on the House Intelligence Committee have confirmed that the investigation was the result of Mr. Papadopoulos telling an Australian ambassador in May 2016 that the Russians had political dirt on Mrs. Clinton.
(Repetitions: Aug. 9 | Aug. 1 | July 29 | July 29 | July 23 | May 21 | May 1 | April 28)
“So you have all these investigators; they’re Democrats. In all fairness, Bob Mueller worked for Obama for eight years.”
—
Remarks to reporters at the White House, May 4, 2018
Mr. Trump has described the special counsel investigation as “rigged,” given the political affiliations of the people on the team. He’s referred to them as “13 Angry Democrats” since May, and increased the count to 17 in late July.
This needs context.
A spokesman for the special counsel’s office confirmed the names of 17 investigators on Mr. Mueller’s legal team in May. An additional prosecutor, Uzo Asonye, was later brought on to help in the case against Mr. Manafort, raising the number on the team to 18.
Fourteen of the 18 have donated to Democratic candidates in the past or self-identify as Democrats — including Mr. Asonye, who donated to Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
But Mr. Trump ignores the fact that the political affiliations of the other four are unknown. Mr. Mueller himself is a registered Republican, and he was appointed as F.B.I. director by President George W. Bush in 2001.
It is worth noting that four other prosecutors have been named in notices of appearances in certain cases initially brought by the special counsel. The Washington Post has reported that they have not joined Mr. Mueller’s team, but may take on those cases after the special counsel investigation ends.
(Repetitions: Aug. 14 | Aug. 9 | Aug. 5 | Aug 1 | Jul 29 | July 27 | July 21 | July 21 | July 16 | July 10 | July 7 | June 28 | June 28 | June 25 | June 20 | June 17 | June 15 | June 15 | June 7 | June 7| June 7 | June 4 | May 29 | May 29 | May 27 | May 26 | May 26 | May 20 | May 7 | May 5 | April 26 | April 11 | April 9 | March 18)
“Problem is that the acting head of the FBI & the person in charge of the Hillary investigation, Andrew McCabe, got $700,000 from H for wife!”
—
As evidence of the “scam” against his campaign, Mr. Trump has cited the links between Andrew G. McCabe, the former F.B.I. deputy director, and Mrs. Clinton at least seven other times.
This needs context.
Mr. McCabe’s wife ran for a seat in the Virginia State Senate in 2015, and accepted nearly $500,000 in contributions from Common Good VA. That political action committee is run by Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, a longtime fund-raiser and friend of Mrs. Clinton. Mrs. Clinton did not donate to the campaign.
Mr. McCabe became the F.B.I.’s deputy director in February 2016 — and began overseeing the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email server — nearly three months after his wife lost her race.
(Repetitions in 2018: May 20 | April 28 | April 15 | Jan. 24 | Repetitions in 2017: Dec. 25 | July 25)
Mr. Trump also has noted several times, accurately, that it was a Clinton ally — not Mrs. Clinton herself — who donated to Ms. McCabe’s campaign.
“SPYGATE could be one of the biggest political scandals in history!”
—
The claim that the Obama administration planted a spy inside the Trump campaign first emerged in Mr. Trump’s Twitter posts in mid-May; he repeated it at least 13 times by early June. It refers to reports that an F.B.I. informant had contacted Trump campaign aides.
This requires context.
In fact, F.B.I. agents sent an informant to talk to two campaign advisers only after they received evidence that the pair had suspicious contacts linked to Russia during the campaign.
Mr. Trump also falsely claimed that James R. Clapper Jr., the Obama administration’s director of national intelligence, “admitted” to spying on his campaign. Mr. Clapper said the exact opposite.
(Repetitions: June 5 | June 5 | May 28 | May 26 | May 24 | May 23 | May 23 | May 23 | May 23 | May 22 | May 20 | May 17)
“Take a look at the horrible statements that Peter Strzok, the chief investigator, said.”
—
Remarks to reporters at the White House, June 15, 2018
True.
In August 2016, Peter Strzok, a senior F.B.I. counterintelligence agent, made disparaging remarks about Mr. Trump in texts sent to Lisa Page, a former F.B.I. lawyer. The Justice Department’s inspector general said in a June report that the texts “cast a cloud” over the F.B.I.’s handling of the investigation and its credibility. But the report did not find political bias that directly affected the investigation.
Mr. Strzok was fired on Aug. 13 for violating bureau policies.
(Repetitions: Aug. 14 | Aug. 1 | July 18 | July 11 | June 17 | June 16 | June 15 | June 15 | April 28 | April 26 |
“The Russian Hoax Investigation has now cost our government over $17 million, and going up fast.”
—
True, but …
The special counsel’s investigation reported expenditures of about $16.7 million from May 17, 2017, to March 31, 2018 — so Mr. Trump’s estimate is reasonable. But there is an important caveat: About $9 million was in indirect costs that the Justice Department would have spent regardless of the investigation.
(Repetitions: June 28 | June 2 | May 20)
Declaring vindication
According to Mr. Trump, officials and even certain developments in the Russia investigation have absolved his campaign of wrongdoing.
“James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus colluded with Russia. This story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!”
—
Mr. Trump has repeatedly said the following people have cleared his campaign of wrongdoing: Mr. Clapper, Mr. Comey, Jeh Johnson, the former Department of Homeland Security secretary, and Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, a leading Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
This is misleading.
These officials have said they personally had not seen evidence or proof of collusion, but did not rule it out.
(Repetitions in 2018: Jan. 10 | Repetitions in 2017: Dec. 28 | Nov. 11 | June 22 | May 8 | March 20)
“This memo totally vindicates ‘Trump’ in probe.”
—
Republicans on House Intelligence Committee released a memo accusing the Justice Department of monitoring Mr. Page without disclosing who paid for Mr. Steele’s dossier. Mr. Trump claimed that the memo proved his campaign did not collude with Russia. He also later said his innocence was verified by a Democratic memo that responded to some of the Republican claims.
.
Neither memo explicitly clears Mr. Trump of collusion.
“We’re very happy with the decision by the House Intelligence Committee, saying there’s absolutely no collusion with respect to Russia.”
—
Remarks to reporters at the White House, March 13, 2018
True, but …
Republicans on the committee said in March that they had found no evidence of collusion between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia; a report they released in April concluded the same. But in their own report, Democrats disputed the Republicans’ findings, saying that Republicans absolved the Trump campaign without doing due diligence.
(Repetitions: July 5 | April 28 | April 27 | April 27 | April 26 | April 18 | April 9)
“James Comey Memos just out and show clearly that there was NO COLLUSION and NO OBSTRUCTION.”
—
False.
Memos written by Mr. Comey, and released in April, do not mention collusion. That is not the same as clearing anyone of collusion, nor obstruction of justice, which is one of the issues being examined by the special counsel investigation.
“It is a very unfair situation, but the I.G. report totally exonerates me.”
—
Interview with Fox & Friends, June 15, 2018
.
The Justice Department’s inspector general released an internal report in June that criticized Mr. Comey and other F.B.I. agents for their handling of the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s emails. But the report did not examine or issue conclusions about the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
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Trump warns he’ll revoke clearance of Justice Dept official
August 18, 2018
Trump warns he’ll revoke clearance of Justice Dept official
Associated Press
August 17, 2018
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he suspects he’ll “very quickly” revoke the security clearance for a Justice Department official whose wife worked for the firm involved in producing a dossier on Trump’s ties to Russia.
Signaling that his efforts to target clearances over his frustration with the Russia investigation were not over, Trump tweeted that it was a “disgrace” for Bruce Ohr to be in the Justice Department.
His comments came two days after he yanked the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan, saying he had to do “something” about the “rigged” federal probe of Russian election interference. Critics have cast it as an act of political vengeance.
Ohr has come under Republican scrutiny for his contacts to Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS. The opposition research firm hired former British spy Christopher Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign to compile the dossier on Trump and his Russia ties.
Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS during the campaign — something Trump has tweeted about to highlight his assertions of political bias behind the Russia investigation.
Former U.S. security officials on Thursday issued scathing rebukes to Trump for moving against Brennan. Trump’s admission that he acted out of frustration with the Russia probe underscored his willingness to use his executive power to fight back against an investigation he sees as a threat to his presidency. Legal experts said the dispute may add to the evidence being reviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller.
In an opinion piece in The New York Times, Brennan said Trump’s decision, announced Wednesday, to deny him access to classified information was a desperate attempt to end Mueller’s investigation. Brennan, who served under President Barack Obama and has become a vocal Trump critic, called Trump’s claims that he did not collude with Russia “hogwash.”
The only question remaining is whether the collusion amounts to a “constituted criminally liable conspiracy,” Brennan wrote.
Later Thursday, the retired Navy admiral who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden called Trump’s moves “McCarthy-era tactics.” Writing in The Washington Post, William H. McRaven said he would “consider it an honor” if Trump would revoke his clearance, as well.
“Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation,” McRaven wrote.
That was followed late Thursday by a joint letter from 15 former senior intelligence officials calling Trump’s action “ill-considered and unprecedented.” They said it “has nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances — and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech.”
The signees included seven former CIA directors, six former CIA deputy directors and two former national intelligence directors, James Clapper and retired Navy Adm. Denny Blair. Clapper and former CIA Director Michael Hayden have appeared on a White House list of people who may also have their security clearances revoked.
Then on Friday, 60 former CIA officials issued their own statement, joining a chorus of opposition from the intelligence community to Trump’s decisions to threaten to or actually pull clearances. They said former government officials have a right to express unclassified views on national security issues without fear of being punished for doing so.
They said they did not necessarily concur with all the opinions expressed by Brennan, or the way in which he expressed them. But they said they believe the “country will be weakened if there is a political litmus test applied before seasoned experts are allowed to share their views.”
Trump on Wednesday openly tied his decision to strip Brennan of his clearance — and threaten nearly a dozen other former and current officials — to the ongoing investigation into Russian election meddling and possible collusion with his campaign. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump again called the probe a “rigged witch hunt” and said “these people led it!”
“So I think it’s something that had to be done,” he said.
The president’s comments were a swift departure from the official explanation given by the White House earlier Wednesday that cited the “the risks” posed by Brennan’s supposed “erratic conduct and behavior.” It marked the latest example of the president contradicting a story his aides had put forward to explain his motivations.
Attorneys said the revocation appeared to be within the president’s authority. But they noted the power play also could be used to reinforce a case alleging obstruction of justice, following the president’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey and his repeated tweets calling for the investigation to end.
Patrick Cotter, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York and a longtime white-collar defense attorney, said that while a prosecutor could argue that Trump’s targeting of clearances was intended as a warning that “if you contribute to, participate in, support the Russia probe and I find out about it, I’m going to punish you,” it is likely not obstruction in itself.
But, he said the move would be a “powerful piece of evidence” for prosecutors as part of a pattern to demonstrate an intent to use presidential power in connection with the probe.
Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor agreed.
“What it shows is that the president is fixated on the Russia investigation, he’s angry about it, and he wants to do everything he can to discourage or slow down the investigation,” he said.
Mueller and his team have been looking at Trump’s public statements and tweets as they investigate whether the president could be guilty of obstruction.
“I don’t think it advances the criminal obstruction case, but I think it’s factually relevant,” said Mark Zaid, a national security attorney. “I think it shows the state of mind and intent to interfere or impede any unfavorable discussion of his potential connection to Russia.”
Former CIA directors and other top national security officials are typically allowed to keep their clearances, at least for some period.
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Chairman of Senate intel committee says two reports coming on Russian investigation before the end of September
August 18, 2018
AP Interview: Top Republican opens up about Russia probe
Associated Press
August 17, 2018
WASHINGTON (AP) — For much of the last two years, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr has been the Russia investigator who is seen but rarely heard on Capitol Hill.
In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, the North Carolina Republican opened up about the investigation that has now consumed 19 months of his life. He says it has been “frustrating as hell” and much more difficult than he originally envisioned. But he says the integrity of the investigation — and its importance to the institution of the Senate — is something he has labored to protect.
“Nothing in this town stays classified or secret forever,” Burr said. “And at some point somebody’s going to go back and do a review. And I’d love not to be the one that chaired the committee when somebody says, ‘well, boy, you missed this.’ So we’ve tried to be pretty thorough in how we’ve done it.”
Burr said there is “no factual evidence today that we’ve received” on collusion or conspiracy between Russia and President Donald Trump’s campaign. But he said he’s still open on the issue and hasn’t personally come to any final conclusions, since the investigation isn’t finished.
The Senate investigation is the last bipartisan congressional probe of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and connections to Trump’s campaign. Working with the panel’s top Democrat, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, Burr has so far managed to keep the investigation free from the extraordinary acrimony that has plagued work on the House side of the Capitol. The House Intelligence Committee bitterly fought through its entire Russia investigation, which ended earlier this year despite the objections of Democrats.
“From an institution standpoint I want the American people to understand that the Senate can function, even on the most serious things,” Burr said.
Normally a self-described creature of habit, Burr says his schedule has been upended. He says he has had “no life” since January 2017, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell asked him to start the investigation, and as the panel has chased leads — and leads that came from those leads — in the United States and abroad. He says the international aspect of the probe, the sheer number of players connected to one another and the many lawyers that they have to deal with have made the work more challenging than originally expected.
Still, he says he doesn’t think the committee should rush to wrap up the work, saying “the worst thing we can do is to prematurely try to end” the probe. He says the panel still has a handful of people to interview behind closed doors and some who they may want to interview again, though he isn’t making any commitments on bringing witnesses forward publicly.
“If the intent is to have a show trial, I’m not a participant,” Burr says on public hearings. He says “I don’t see a reason today” to bring back Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son, who participated in a meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower during the election. That meeting has been a focus of the committee probe and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Trump Jr. spoke to committee staff at the end of 2017.
The committee is also still talking to lawyers for former British spy Christopher Steele, who compiled a dossier containing allegations of ties between Trump, his associates and Russia during the election, and lawyers for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in hopes of gaining closed-door interviews, Burr said. WikiLeaks released hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.
Burr won’t give a timeline for the end of the investigation or a final report, which could create fissures in the panel’s so-far bipartisan unity. Many Democrats are likely to disagree that there is no evidence of collusion, if that is the committee’s final conclusion.
“I am sure there will be people at the end of this who feel that we came to a conclusion that they vehemently disagree with,” Burr said. “I know that from a committee’s integrity standpoint we’ve got to prove what we find. And if you can’t prove it then we can’t make the claim.”
By putting off the final report, Burr and Warner have so far been able to maintain the bipartisan tenor.
“I have confidence in Richard Burr that we together, with the members of our committee, are going to get to the bottom of this,” Warner said last year. “And if you get nothing else from today, take that statement to the bank.”
Unlike many of his Intelligence Committee colleagues, Burr has eschewed cable television appearances and refrained from visiting the White House and interacting with Trump. Republican Sen. Jim Lankford of Oklahoma, who sits on the intelligence panel and is close to Burr, says Burr started every meeting at the beginning of the probe by asking senators not to talk to the media “until we get additional facts and we put things out together.”
Lankford says it’s possible the final report will split the committee.
“The hardest part is when staff starts going through all of the details and writes the last report,” Lankford says. “And then we start having people say, I won’t say that. That’s the threat.”
For now, Burr says, the committee is preparing to put out two reports by the end of September: one on the Obama administration’s response to Russia’s election interference, and a second on Russia’s election meddling on social media. The committee is also expected to hold a hearing with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in the first week of September.
Burr says the investigation has yielded information outside the boundaries of the probe that the committee will likely look into for years to come, including the social media manipulation.
“I don’t think any of us when we started understood just how coordinated the disinformation and societal chaos campaign was. I think what probably will be shocking is how early it started — much earlier than the parameters that people have put on the 2016 election,” Burr says, teasing information that will come out in one of the future reports. He wouldn’t give any additional details.
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Memo to the U.S. Intelligence Community: Continue to speak truth to power, even if the President is a petty tyrant who does not want to hear the truth
August 17, 2018
Donald Trump, the Payback President
New York Times Editorial Board
New York Times
August 16, 2018
President Trump’s decision to strip the security clearance of John Brennan, a former director of the C.I.A., qualifies as one of the least surprising moves from the White House this year. Mr. Brennan has been an outspoken critic of Mr. Trump, and the president’s skin is as thin as his regard for democratic norms. And despite the laughable rationalizations now being peddled by administration apologists, Mr. Brennan’s spanking is just the latest display of what has become standard operating procedure for this president: using the official levers of government to punish critics and to encourage other detractors to sit down and shut up.
Mr. Trump’s act of spite against Mr. Brennan is less ambitious and, frankly, less imaginative, than some of the other avenues of retribution he has explored. Aggrieved over what he considers insufficiently obsequious coverage by The Washington Post, Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened to punish the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, by raising the postal rates paid by the online retail giant Amazon, of which Mr. Bezos is the founder and chief executive. Similarly, in the midst of his snit over the protests by National Football League players who have taken a knee during the national anthem, Mr. Trump instructed aides to brainstorm ideas for going after the league in last year’s tax-reform package.
Then there was the president’s failed attempt to block the merger between AT&T and Time Warner, which pretty much everyone recognized as part of his long-simmering animus toward the news media in general and CNN in particular. (The network is owned by Time Warner.) When the Department of Justice filed suit last November on antitrust grounds, the administration insisted that Mr. Trump had no part in the decision — a claim that would have been more credible if Mr. Trump had not vowed to block the merger more than a year earlier, when he was still a candidate. It also didn’t help Mr. Trump’s case that his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani said that the president had “denied the merger.”
On a more intimate scale, the Trump White House has delighted in selectively barring journalists from official events. Just last month, Kaitlan Collins, a White House reporter for CNN, was called into the West Wing, scolded for having asked the president “inappropriate” questions earlier that day and then informed that she would not be attending Mr. Trump’s Rose Garden appearance with the head of the European Commission — an event open to the news media. Then again, at least Ms. Collins wasn’t shoved around and physically ejected from the premises, as happened in May to Ellen Knickmeyer, a reporter for The Associated Press who was trying to cover a speech by Scott Pruitt, at that time the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Faced with blowback, the administration insisted that the room had reached capacity.
After such episodes, Mr. Trump and his lackeys often feel moved to offer some type of official cover story for his petty thuggery. For instance, the president’s statement on Mr. Brennan, conveyed to reporters on Wednesday by the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, claimed that the former director’s clearance had been revoked because his “erratic conduct and behavior” and “increasingly frenzied commentary” posed a risk to national security. This excuse not only fails the laugh test, it differs from the rationale Ms. Sanders floated a couple of weeks ago, when she first announced that Mr. Trump was considering this action. At that time, she said that Mr. Brennan and other critics had “politicized, and in some cases monetized, their public service and security clearances.”
At other times, Mr. Trump is vastly more forthright, as when explaining in an interview later Wednesday that he took away Mr. Brennan’s security clearance in part because of the latter’s early role in the Russia inquiry. Raging about how “these people” had led the “rigged witch hunt,” Mr. Trump reasoned, “So I think it’s something that had to be done.” The revelation was a remarkable echo of the president’s admission to NBC’s Lester Holt last year that he had fired the F.B.I. director, James Comey, in part over “this Russia thing” rather than the ludicrous official line that he had done so because of Mr. Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
At this point, one might ask why the White House even bothers to invent cover stories that the president himself will inevitably contradict. Mr. Trump obviously cherishes — and actively cultivates — his reputation as someone who will work to crush those who dare defy him.
Following the Group of 7 summit in June, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada held a news conference in which he said that his country would respond in kind to any steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the United States and he promised that Canadians “will not be pushed around.” Outraged, Mr. Trump vowed to make Mr. Trudeau and his entire country pay for such impudence. “That’s going to cost a lot of money for the people of Canada,” said Mr. Trump. “He learned. You can’t do that. You can’t do that.”
Politically palatable excuses aside, the president wants everyone to know that this is how he operates. It fuels his image as a tough guy. Where is the fun in punishing your enemies if you can’t rub their noses in it? More strategically, scaring one’s critics into submission won’t work if those critics don’t understand what’s happening.
In the president’s statement on Mr. Brennan, he reminded the public that nine other individuals are currently having their access to classified information reviewed. Some of the names on the list have been fierce critics of the president. Others have ties to the continuing Russia investigation that Mr. Trump has been working so tirelessly to discredit. Whatever the particulars, all have drawn the displeasure of the president and must be taught a lesson. Mr. Trump ominously warned, “Security clearances for those who still have them may be revoked, and those who have already lost their security clearance may not be able to have it reinstated.”
There’s a word for an approach to leadership that features treating the tax code, postal rates, antitrust laws and the First Amendment as weapons to settle one’s personal grudges. And that word is not “democratic.”
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Russia Has Four Potential “Killer Satellites” In Orbit
August 17, 2018
Russia Has Four Potential “Killer Satellites” In Orbit, At Least That We Know About
Joseph Trevithick
The Drive/The War Zone
August 16, 2018
A senior U.S. diplomat has accused Russia of deploying another small, specialized satellite into orbit that it could use as an anti-satellite weapon. This is at least the fourth such system the Kremlin has launched since 2013 and highlights a continued lack of internationally accepted ground rulesfor hostile activities in space, even as the United States seeks to increase its military capabilities above the Earth’s atmosphere.
Yleem Poblete, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, raised the concerns about the Russian “space apparatus inspector” at a meeting of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland on Aug. 14, 2018. Russia publicly announced the launch of this satellite in June 2017, but insists that its only function is to inspect the country’s own space-based systems for damage or other possible issues and potentially service and repair them.
The Russian satellite’s “behavior on-orbit was inconsistent with anything seen before from on-orbit inspection or space situational awareness capabilities, including other Russian inspection satellite activities,” Poblete said at the gathering. “We are concerned with what appears to be very abnormal behavior by a declared ‘space apparatus inspector.’ We don’t know for certain what it is and there is no way to verify it.”
When Poblete mentioned “other” activities, she was likely referring to three additional inspector satellites that the Russians launched between 2013 and 2015. These space-based systems, also known as Kosmos-2491, Kosmos-2499, and Kosmos-2504, conducted a number of apparent tests, getting relatively close to various pieces of space debris, before going dormant in 2016. The next year, Russia turned one of them back on and sent it near to a portion of a Chinese weather satellite, which that country had destroyed in a ground-based anti-satellite test in 2007.
The video below, from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, shows one concept for using a small repair satellite to service other space-based systems.
Now it’s important to note that the concept of a small inspector satellite isn’t new and makes good sense. Sending manned missions to examine satellites and other space objects and potentially make repairs or modifications has historically been costly and complicated.
At the same time, fixing or making modifications to a satellite in space saves the trouble of building a replacement and paying to launch it into orbit. Famously, the United States sent astronauts to fix the Hubble Space Telescopein 1993 after NASA discovered a fault in the system’s main mirror.
Having a semi-autonomous, space-based repair crew of sorts on call could simplify the arrangement significantly. If nothing else, these robotic inspectors could assess the issue quickly so personnel on the ground could make an informed decision about how to proceed.
The problem is that any satellite that can maneuver itself very close to another one, and may have small arms or probes to physically interact with its target, is inherently capable of being a weapon. Any such repair system could easily smash sensitive optics and other components, or simply slam into the target, acting as a kinetic weapon. Their small size means that their terrestrial operators might be able to instruct them to try to hide near other objects, especially among the ever-expanding field of “space junk” floating around the earth, as well.
A notional Robotic Servicing Vehicle that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been working on. This kind of space-based system could also function as a weapon.
They might also be able to carry electronic warfare jammers or directed energy weapons that could blind optics or prevent a satellite from communicating information, including warnings about incoming missiles or vital intelligence data, to facilities down below. The “inspectors” could act as small intelligence agents, intercepting transmissions aimed at space-based communications systems. In that case, they might potentially send out spoofed signals with confusing messages or false navigational coordinates, as well.
Russia has since denounced Assistant Secretary of State Poblete’s comments as “unfounded, slanderous accusations based on suspicions.” However, statements from the country’s own Ministry of Defense regarding their newest inspector’s rendezvous with Kosmos-2519, another military satellite that itself has an unknown mission, strongly indicate that this satellite has a robust set of capabilities that could have a secondary military application.
“In trials involving controlling the maneuvering defense satellite, ground, and orbital communication systems were tested, and methods involving ballistic estimates and new software were employed,” Russia’s Izvestia newspaper reported based on information from the Ministry of Defense. “The space forces proved their ability to ensure the satellite’s automatic undocking from the platform, the remote control of its flight, and the activation of the satellite payload, including surveillance hardware, data transfer to Earth, and data processing.”
For years, experts and others, including us at The War Zone, have pointed out the clear threat that these dual-use satellites might pose. The United States and China have and still are both actively exploring advanced space-based inspector-type systems, as well, which might set the stage for an even more complex situation that could involve groups of small satellites attacking and defending against each other. The U.S. military is also working on cost-effective, reusable hypersonic space planes, including the U.S. Air Force’s secretive X-37B, that could rapidly deploy small satellites for various functions or otherwise perform their own offensive missions in space.
“The potential for a serious incident in outer space is being driven by advances in technology that challenge the existing rules and norms governing space activity,” Jeffery Lewis, now in charge of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, wrote all the way back in 2004. “Micro-satellite proximity operations would be best regulated with confidence-building measures in outer space.”
More than a decade on, international rules and regulations have yet to catch up with these continued developments. Assistant Secretary of State Poblete made her comments earlier in August 2014 specifically to underscore the U.S. government’s continued opposition to a Russian-Chinese proposal for a Treaty on Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and of the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects, conveniently abbreviated PWTT.
“How do we verify what countries say their spacecraft are doing?” she asked rhetorically. “What would be enough information to prove what the purpose of an object is?”
US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance Yleem Poblete.
The U.S. government’s position is that the PWTT is not sufficient because it does not explicitly prohibit the development or test of space-based systems, such as the inspectors, with a potential anti-satellite role. This could let countries stockpile a “breakout capability” if they ever decided to abandon the agreement.
The proposed agreement also does not ban ground-based or air-launched anti-satellite systems, which Russia and China have been developing, as well. In February 2018, the Chinese military tested what they described as an anti-ballistic missile defense interceptor, but which might be a cover for an anti-satellite weapon. Russia has publicly said that it is working on anti-satellite interceptors and directed energy weapons.
Russia and China, as well as other critics of the American position, counter by noting that the U.S. government is actively looking to militarize space and put actual weapons into orbit, ostensibly for anti-ballistic missile defense. The two countries have already responded negatively to the U.S. military’s plans for a possible space-focused military branch.
A Russian Beriev A-60 aircraft, which carries a laser weapon in its nose and that Russia has said may be able to blind or otherwise disable enemy satellites.
Without any such agreement, what constitutes an attack on a nation’s interest in space has remained up for debate. It’s a gray area made more complicated by the likelihood that the United States and its potential opponents have satellites in orbit that they don’t acknowledge are vital to national security or are up there at all.
“Is jamming an attack? Is a laser an attack? Does it have to be a kinetic hit on a satellite to be an attack?” Douglas Loverro, then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, asked during a talk in 2016. “It’s really difficult to go ahead and justify how you might attack somebody’s homeland if they’ve taken out a satellite that you don’t even admit exists.”
Unfortunately, it is clear that basic definitions of what constitutes conflict in space, if nothing else, are necessary now, more than ever. Without them, there is only an increasing possibility for dangerous miscalculations.
The activities of Russia’s latest inspector satellite, China’s own anti-satellite developments, and the United States’ plans for space-based ballistic missile defense weapons all show that these issues will only continue to become more pronounced in the future, whether there is any sort of international treaty that seeks to govern military activity in space or not.