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All things Trump + Russia Part 4

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Not sure if this means anything, but:

AP (via an ABC affiliate)
In his final full day in office, President Donald Trump says he has declassified information related to the FBI’s investigation into ties between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign.
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Trump says he has accepted redactions proposed by the FBI, which had objected to the declassification.

Not sure what his game is here... is it an attempt to scuttle any remaining investigations?
 
I can't get over Putin's "alleged" billion dollar palace. Not that he has it. That apparently it's only got 11 bedrooms. You can get a 4 bedroom house here for under 300k. A billion dollars and he only gets 11 bedrooms? He got ripped off. Or "whoever the real owner is" did.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I can't get over Putin's "alleged" billion dollar palace. Not that he has it. That apparently it's only got 11 bedrooms. You can get a 4 bedroom house here for under 300k. A billion dollars and he only gets 11 bedrooms? He got ripped off. Or "whoever the real owner is" did.
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ah, but Putin's Pad has 11 Golden Showers.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I can't get over Putin's "alleged" billion dollar palace. Not that he has it. That apparently it's only got 11 bedrooms. You can get a 4 bedroom house here for under 300k. A billion dollars and he only gets 11 bedrooms? He got ripped off. Or "whoever the real owner is" did.
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I am sure it did not cost that much. Difference goes straight to Putin's pocket.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
as the article mentions, it is hard to understand why Mueller didn't investigate the hundreds of contacts between Trump and Russia.
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Perhaps. There's a few considerations in play, though, likely. First, Mueller was sticking fairly well to campaign matters. He apparently referred a whole bunch of things to the FBI, who supposedly should have been handling the more general stuff and counter-intelligence stuff. Also of particular note, though - Rosenstein, who controlled what he could investigate, apparently killed his ability to investigate into Trump-Russia connections... without informing the FBI of his decision to do so. So, we pretty much had a situation where Mueller and the FBI both thought that the other was handling that, because of Rosenstein, the guy who helped Trump come up with an excuse to fire Comey.
 
Thread bump...

From: CTV News
Russian President Vladimir Putin likely directed efforts to try to swing the 2020 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump, according to an American intelligence report...The 15-page report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, added heft to longstanding allegations that some of Trump's top lieutenants were playing into Moscow's hands by amplifying claims made against then-candidate Joe Biden by Russian-linked Ukrainian figures... It also added new findings that Putin either oversaw or at least approved of the election meddling to benefit Trump.
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The report also punctured a counter-narrative pushed by Trump's allies that China was interfering on Biden's behalf, concluding that Beijing "did not deploy interference efforts."...U.S. officials said they also saw efforts by Cuba, Venezuela and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to influence the election, although "in general, we assess that they were smaller in scale than those conducted by Russia and Iran."

I have to admit, I am a little surprised... Even if Russia preferred a Trump victory, the poor polling and approval ratings suggested Biden would be the likely winner even if Russia did help, so by trying to interfere on Trump's behalf in 2020 they will ruin any sort of plausible deniability.
 
Segnosaur said:
I have to admit, I am a little surprised... Even if Russia preferred a Trump victory, the poor polling and approval ratings suggested Biden would be the likely winner even if Russia did help, so by trying to interfere on Trump's behalf in 2020 they will ruin any sort of plausible deniability.
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Yeah, but do we need plausible deniability anymore? For the True Believers, there's no such thing as implausible deniability.
 
Segnosaur said:
Thread bump...

From: CTV News
Russian President Vladimir Putin likely directed efforts to try to swing the 2020 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump, according to an American intelligence report...The 15-page report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, added heft to longstanding allegations that some of Trump's top lieutenants were playing into Moscow's hands by amplifying claims made against then-candidate Joe Biden by Russian-linked Ukrainian figures... It also added new findings that Putin either oversaw or at least approved of the election meddling to benefit Trump.
...
The report also punctured a counter-narrative pushed by Trump's allies that China was interfering on Biden's behalf, concluding that Beijing "did not deploy interference efforts."...U.S. officials said they also saw efforts by Cuba, Venezuela and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to influence the election, although "in general, we assess that they were smaller in scale than those conducted by Russia and Iran."

I have to admit, I am a little surprised... Even if Russia preferred a Trump victory, the poor polling and approval ratings suggested Biden would be the likely winner even if Russia did help, so by trying to interfere on Trump's behalf in 2020 they will ruin any sort of plausible deniability.
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And here is that report

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/16/politics/read-odni-foreign-threats-2020/index.html

It is damning. Here are some of the highlights


1. In February, the FBI's DC Field Office posted a US$250,000 reward for any information leading to the capture of Konstantin Kilimnik. He is assessed by the FBI to have close ties to Russian intelligence. While an arrest warrant was issued for him in 2018, the FBI appear to be stepping up their effort to get him. ​

For those who haven't been paying attention, Kilimnik is the guy with whom Paul Manafort shared opposition research on the Clinton campaign, research which the FSB (Russian Intelligence) almost certainly used to help direct their pro-Trump influence and misinformation campaigns. His name featured prominently in the Mueller Report, as well as in the bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee report on interference in the 2016 election.


2. Kilimnik is assessed by the FBI and the Intel Community to have carried out operations inside the US on behalf of the FSB in both the 2016 and 2020 Presidential elections, to get Trump into the WH in 2016 and to keep him there in 2020.​
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3. The FSB's strategy in their 2020 election meddling was to use people linked to Russian intelligence to launder "influence narratives" including misleading and unsubstantiated allegations against candidate Biden through US media organizations, US Officials and prominent US individuals, some of whom were close to Trump and his administration.​

For "US media organizations" read Fox News, OANN and Newsmax among others. The Russians fed disinformation to those news organisations. Their confirmation bias led them to eagerly and unquestioningly lap it all up. It seems almost certain now that Hunter Biden's alleged laptop was a plant by Russian agents working for the FSB or Kilimnik.


4. The Intelligence community also uncovered narratives that Russian actors began spreading as early as 2014 alleging corrupt ties between the Biden family and officials in Ukraine and well as a network of individuals linked to Ukraine.​

....yes, that is not a typo, I did mean 2014!! This early, the Russians identified Biden as a potential threat for the 2020 election were they able to get their man in in 2016.


5. Throughout the 2020 election cycle, the Russians took steps to damage the relationship between the US and Ukraine in order to undermine candidate Biden, and to benefit Trump.​

6. The Intelligence report also assesses that this Russian intelligence network also tried to discredit the Obama administration by emphasizing accusations of corruption by US officials and falsely blame Ukraine for interfering in the 2016 US Presidential election​

This is the exact assessment that was testified to before the Senate Intelligence Committee... that the attempt to lay the blame on Ukraine for the 2016 election interference was an obvious Russian disinformation campaign. A whole bunch of dumb as toast Republican Congress-critters (and a good number this forum's equally dumb Trump sycophants) fell for that disinformation hook, like and sinker, and parroted it to anyone who would listen.


7. The Russian proxies and associates met with and provided materials to Trump administration linked US individuals to advocate for formal investigations of the Bidens. They hired a US firm to petition officials and made attempts to make contact with several Senior US officials. They also made contact with prominent US media figures and helped produce a documentary that was aired on a US TV network January 2020.​

For "Trump administration linked US individuals" read Rudi Giuliani. He was Trump's back channel to corrupt former Ukraine officials, Yuriy Lutsenko and Andrii Derkach, who between them, with the assistance of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were instrumental to the ouster of Amb Marie Yovanovitch, the key roadblock to Trump getting Ukraine investigation of the Bidens that he desperately wanted. Giuliani met repeatedly with Derkach throughout 2019 and 2020. He fed Giuliani load of disinformation that was used in the latter's various media appearances. Giuliani continued to defend Derkach even after he was sanctioned by the US Government as a Russian agent

Its worth noting that SDNY sought a search warrant for Giuliani's electronic devices as part of their criminal investigation into his actions. Bill Barr put a stop to that, and then fired the SDNY official who was heading the investigation - US Attorney Geoff Berman.
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smartcooky said:
This early, the Russians identified Biden as a potential threat for the 2020 election were they able to get their man in in 2016.
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Evidence for this part? It's not unthinkable, but... trying to create divisions between Ukraine and the US during the Obama Administration (as was also specifically said in 6) would seem to be far more indicated, with that work simply then being more emphasized and taken advantage of when Biden became candidate.
 
Aridas said:
Evidence for this part? It's not unthinkable, but... trying to create divisions between Ukraine and the US during the Obama Administration (as was also specifically said in 6) would seem to be far more indicated, with that work simply then being more emphasized and taken advantage of when Biden became candidate.
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I think that back in 2014, Biden was seen as the most probable Dem candidate in 2016. This was before his son died and caused him to step back from politics in 2015, after all.
 
timhau said:
Re: Russia interfering in the 2020 election...
I have to admit, I am a little surprised... Even if Russia preferred a Trump victory, the poor polling and approval ratings suggested Biden would be the likely winner even if Russia did help, so by trying to interfere on Trump's behalf in 2020 they will ruin any sort of plausible deniability.
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Yeah, but do we need plausible deniability anymore? For the True Believers, there's no such thing as implausible deniability.
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I was thinking more in terms of how an incoming Democratic president would deal with Russia.

While I don't think the Democrats would every be "Friendly" with Putin/Russia, there are of course different levels of hostility. Had Russia kept quiet in the 2020 election, eventually Biden might have been able to decide "OK, these are rivals but we still have to deal with them." Now, there's a good chance that (for example) new sanctions will be imposed.
 
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