US Punishes Russia for Election Hacking Ejecting Operatives

[Morty]

MONDAY, JAN 16, 2017 10:00 AM CST
We must know the truth: Investigations of the Russia hack and its consequences are crucial
Begrudgingly, some Republicans are coming around: If we are to save our democracy, we have to know what happened
GARY LEGUM
http://www.salon.com/2017/01/16/we-must ... e-crucial/

Salon aren't the only ones who want answers, but instead of more politicised inquiries, retired intelligence, military and diplomatic veterans just want Obama to show them the evidence:

A Demand for Russian ‘Hacking’ Proof
January 17, 2017

More than 20 U.S. intelligence, military and diplomatic veterans are calling on President Obama to release the evidence backing up allegations that Russia aided the Trump campaign – or admit that the proof is lacking.

MEMORANDUM FOR: President Barack Obama

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: A Key Issue That Still Needs to be Resolved

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take the oath of office Friday, a pall hangs over his upcoming presidency amid an unprecedentedly concerted campaign to delegitimize it. Unconfirmed accusations continue to swirl alleging that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized “Russian hacking” that helped put Mr. Trump in the White House.

President Obama in the Oval Office.

As President for a few more days, you have the power to demand concrete evidence of a link between the Russians and WikiLeaks, which published the bulk of the information in question. Lacking that evidence, the American people should be told that there is no fire under the smoke and mirrors of recent weeks.

We urge you to authorize public release of any tangible evidence that takes us beyond the unsubstantiated, “we-assess” judgments by the intelligence agencies. Otherwise, we – as well as other skeptical Americans – will be left with the corrosive suspicion that the intense campaign of accusations is part of a wider attempt to discredit the Russians and those – like Mr. Trump – who wish to deal constructively with them.

Remember the Maine?

Alleged Russian interference has been labeled “an act of war” and Mr. Trump a “traitor.” But the “intelligence” served up to support those charges does not pass the smell test. Your press conference on Wednesday will give you a chance to respond more persuasively to NBC’s Peter Alexander’s challenge at the last one (on Dec. 16) “to show the proof [and], as they say, put your money where your mouth is and declassify some of the intelligence. …”

Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at the Prescott Valley Event Center in Prescott Valley, Arizona. October 4, 2016. (Flickr Gage Skidmore)

You told Alexander you were reluctant to “compromise sources and methods.” We can understand that concern better than most Americans. We would remind you, though, that at critical junctures in the past, your predecessors made judicious decisions to give higher priority to buttressing the credibility of U.S. intelligence-based policy than to protecting sources and methods. With the Kremlin widely accused by politicians and pundits of “an act of war,” this is the kind of textbook case in which you might seriously consider taking special pains to substantiate serious allegations with hard intelligence – if there is any.

During the Cuban missile crisis, for instance, President Kennedy ordered us to show highly classified photos of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba and on ships en route, even though this blew sensitive detail regarding the imagery intelligence capabilities of the cameras on our U-2 aircraft.

President Ronald Reagan’s reaction to the Libyan terrorist bombing of La Belle Disco in Berlin on April 5, 1986, that killed two and injured 79 other U.S. servicemen is another case in point. We had intercepted a Libyan message that morning: “At 1:30 in the morning one of the acts was carried out with success, without leaving a trace behind.” (We should add here that NSA’s dragnet SIGINT capability 30 years later renders it virtually impossible to avoid “leaving a trace behind” once a message is put on the network.)

President Reagan ordered the U.S. Air Force to bomb Col. Muammar Qaddafi’s palace compound to smithereens, killing several civilians. Amid widespread international consternation and demands for proof that Libya was responsible for the Berlin attack, President Reagan ordered us to make public the encrypted Libyan message, thereby sacrificing a collection/decryption capability unknown to the Libyans – until then.

As senior CIA veteran Milton Bearden has put it, there are occasions when more damage is done by “protecting” sources and methods than by revealing them.

Where’s the Beef?

We find the New York Times- and Washington Post-led media Blitz against Trump and Putin truly extraordinary, despite our long experience with intelligence/media related issues. On Jan. 6, the day after your top intelligence officials published what we found to be an embarrassingly shoddy report purporting to prove Russian hacking in support of Trump’s candidacy, the Times banner headline across all six columns on page 1 read: “PUTIN LED SCHEME TO AID TRUMP, REPORT SAYS.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin answering questions from Russian citizens at his annual Q&A event on April 14, 2016. (Russian government photo)

The lead article began: “President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia directed a vast cyberattack aimed at denying Hillary Clinton the presidency and installing Donald J. Trump in the Oval Office, the nation’s top intelligence agencies said in an extraordinary report they delivered on Friday to Mr. Trump.” Eschewing all subtlety, the Times added that the revelations in “this damning report … undermined the legitimacy” of the President-elect, and “made the case that Mr. Trump was the favored candidate of Mr. Putin.”

On page A10, however, Times investigative reporter Scott Shane pointed out: “What is missing from the public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies’ claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. That is a significant omission.”

Shane continued, “Instead, the message from the agencies essentially amounts to ‘trust us.’ There is no discussion of the forensics used to recognize the handiwork of known hacking groups, no mention of intercepted communications between the Kremlin and the hackers, no hint of spies reporting from inside Moscow’s propaganda machinery.”

Shane added that the intelligence report “offers an obvious reason for leaving out the details, declaring that including ‘the precise bases for its assessments’ would ‘reveal sensitive sources and methods and imperil the ability to collect critical foreign intelligence in the future.’”

Shane added a quote from former National Security Agency lawyer Susan Hennessey: “The unclassified report is underwhelming at best. There is essentially no new information for those who have been paying attention.” Ms. Hennessey served as an attorney in NSA’s Office of General Counsel and is now a Brookings Fellow in National Security Law.

Everyone Hacks

There is a lot of ambiguity – whether calculated or not – about “Russian hacking.” “Everyone knows that everyone hacks,” says everyone: Russia hacks; China hacks; every nation that can hacks. So do individuals of various nationalities. This is not the question.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at a media conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. (Photo credit: New Media Days / Peter Erichsen)

You said at your press conference on Dec. 16 “the intelligence that I have seen gives me great confidence in their [U.S. intelligence agencies’] assessment that the Russians carried out this hack.” “Which hack?” you were asked. “The hack of the DNC and the hack of John Podesta,” you answered.

Earlier during the press conference you alluded to the fact that “the information was in the hands of WikiLeaks.” The key question is how the material from “Russian hacking” got to WikiLeaks, because it was WikiLeaks that published the DNC and Podesta emails.

Our VIPS colleague William Binney, who was Technical Director of NSA and created many of the collection systems still in use, assures us that NSA’s “cast-iron” coverage – particularly surrounding Julian Assange and other people associated with WikiLeaks – would almost certainly have yielded a record of any electronic transfer from Russia to WikiLeaks. Binney has used some of the highly classified slides released by Edward Snowden to demonstrate precisely how NSA accomplishes this using trace mechanisms embedded throughout the network. [See: “U.S. Intel Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims,” Dec. 12, 2016.]

NSA Must Come Clean

We strongly suggest that you ask NSA for any evidence it may have indicating that the results of Russian hacking were given to WikiLeaks. If NSA can produce such evidence, you may wish to order whatever declassification may be needed and then release the evidence. This would go a long way toward allaying suspicions that no evidence exists. If NSA cannot give you that information – and quickly – this would probably mean it does not have any.

James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence.

In all candor, the checkered record of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for trustworthiness makes us much less confident that anyone should take it on faith that he is more “trustworthy than the Russians,” as you suggested on Dec. 16. You will probably recall that Clapper lied under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 12, 2013, about NSA dragnet activities; later apologizing for testimony he admitted had been “clearly erroneous.” In our Memorandum for you on Dec. 11, 2013, we cited chapter and verse as to why Clapper should have been fired for saying things he knew to be “clearly erroneous.”

In that Memorandum, we endorsed the demand by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner that Clapper be removed. “Lying to Congress is a federal offense, and Clapper ought to be fired and prosecuted for it,” said Sensenbrenner in an interview with The Hill. “The only way laws are effective is if they’re enforced.”

Actually, we have had trouble understanding why, almost four years after he deliberately misled the Senate, Clapper remains Director of National Intelligence – overseeing the entire intelligence community.

Hacks or Leaks?

Not mentioned until now is our conclusion that leaks are the source of the WikiLeaks disclosures in question – not hacking. Leaks normally leave no electronic trace. William Binney has been emphasizing this for several months and suggesting strongly that the disclosures were from a leaker with physical access to the information – not a hacker with only remote access.

Former National Security Agency official William Binney sitting in the offices of Democracy Now! in New York City. (Photo credit: Jacob Appelbaum)

This, of course, makes it even harder to pin the blame on President Putin, or anyone else. And we suspect that this explains why NSA demurred when asked to join the CIA and FBI in expressing “high confidence” in this key judgment of the report put out under Clapper’s auspices on Jan. 6, yielding this curious formulation:

“We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him. All three agencies agree with this judgment. CIA and FBI have high confidence in this judgment; NSA has moderate confidence.” (Emphasis, and lack of emphasis, in original)

In addition, former U.K. Ambassador Craig Murray has said publicly he has first-hand information on the provenance of the leaks, and has expressed surprise that no one from the New York Times or the Washington Post has tried to get in touch with him. We would be interested in knowing whether anyone from your administration, including the intelligence community, has made any effort to contact Ambassador Murray.

What to Do

President-elect Trump said a few days ago that his team will have a “full report on hacking within 90 days.” Whatever the findings of the Trump team turn out to be, they will no doubt be greeted with due skepticism, since Mr. Trump is in no way a disinterested party.

A wintery scene in Moscow, near Red Square. (Photo by Robert Parry)

You, on the other hand, enjoy far more credibility – AND power – for the next few days. And we assume you would not wish to hobble your successor with charges that cannot withstand close scrutiny. We suggest you order the chiefs of the NSA, FBI and CIA to the White House and ask them to lay all their cards on the table. They need to show you why you should continue to place credence in what, a month ago, you described as “uniform intelligence assessments” about Russian hacking.

At that point, if the intelligence heads have credible evidence, you have the option of ordering it released – even at the risk of damage to sources and methods. For what it may be worth, we will not be shocked if it turns out that they can do no better than the evidence-deprived assessments they have served up in recent weeks. In that case, we would urge you, in all fairness, to let the American people in on the dearth of convincing evidence before you leave office.

As you will have gathered by now, we strongly suspect that the evidence your intelligence chiefs have of a joint Russian-hacking-WikiLeaks-publishing operation is no better than the “intelligence” evidence in 2002-2003 – expressed then with comparable flat-fact “certitude” – of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Obama’s Legacy

Mr. President, there is much talk in your final days in office about your legacy. Will part of that legacy be that you stood by while flames of illegitimacy rose willy-nilly around your successor? Or will you use your power to reveal the information – or the fact that there are merely unsupported allegations – that would enable us to deal with them responsibly?

In the immediate wake of the holiday on which we mark the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it seems appropriate to make reference to his legacy, calling to mind the graphic words in his “Letter From the Birmingham City Jail,” with which he reminds us of our common duty to expose lies and injustice:

“Like a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up, but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)

Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret) and former Office Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research

Thomas Drake, former Senior Executive, NSA

Bogdan Dzakovic, Former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)

Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)

Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator

Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)

Larry Johnson, former CIA Intelligence Officer & former State Department Counter-Terrorism Official, ret.

Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (Ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)

Brady Kiesling, former U.S. Foreign Service Officer, ret. (Associate VIPS),

John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior Investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003

Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.)

David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)

Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East, CIA (ret.)

Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq

Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)

Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)

Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA (ret.)

Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)

Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat

[seemslikeadream]

yes that will be great to know once the Intel hearings start we are going to find out quite a lot of stuff

thanks for that cut and paste I wish I could do that without Mac chastising me for it..what's your secret?

[seemslikeadream]

C2YjUSBWgAUpseg.jpg-large.jpg

just a friendly message from his buddy Putin

Trump has a slavish devotion to Putin

Russian company minting "In Trump we trust" coins

A commemorative coin featuring President-elect Donald Trump is seen on display at the “Art-Grani” metal works company in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia. APTN

A Russian metal working company has minted a sterling silver coin to commemorate President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, featuring Mr. Trump’s face and the slogan “In Trump we trust.”

The Associated Press Television News interviewed the man in charge of the company, who said the limited edition of 45 coins were designed to express his and other Russian business leaders’ “hopes associated with Trump.”

Vladimir Vasyukhin, director of the “Art-Grani” company about 650 miles east of Moscow, in south-central Russia’s Chelyabinsk region, told APTN, “there are more hopes associated with Trump with regards to the lifting of sanctions; maybe the environment (between the U.S. and Russia) will change.”

That hope that Mr. Trump might usher in an era of improved U.S.-Russian relations is one that both the incoming American leader and Russian President Vladimir Putin have expressed themselves.

Mr. Trump even suggested in an interview with the Times of London several days ago that he might be willing to drop some of the sanctions against Moscow in exchange for an agreement on nuclear arms reduction. Moscow’s reaction to the proposal was muted, and on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he didn’t actually see it as a proposalfrom the incoming president.

All but five of the commemorative coins will be cast in silver, with the others in gold. They measure almost five inches in diameter and weigh about two pounds each, similar to coins made by the company featuring Putin and other notable Russians.


A commemorative coin featuring President-elect Donald Trump and the Statue of Liberty is seen at the “Art-Grani” metal works company in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia. APTN
One side of the coins feature an image of Mr. Trump’s face, while the other shows the Statue of Liberty and has an inscription of the “In Trump we trust” slogan.

APTN reports that Art-Grani is keen to present the first of the coins to Mr. Trump, and they’ve reached out to Russian diplomats and business partners in the U.S. to help arrange the presentation.

Vasyukhin said the silver coins would cost a “few thousand dollars,” but the specific price has yet to be decided.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-comp ... -we-trust/

[seemslikeadream]

FBI, 5 other agencies probe possible covert Kremlin aid to Trump

FBI Director James Comey has refused to confirm an investigation into the Russian hacking of emails. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during the presidential inaugural Chairman's Global Dinner, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017, in Washington. FBI Director James Comey has refused to confirm an investigation into the Russian hacking of emails. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during the presidential inaugural Chairman's Global Dinner, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017, in Washington.

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during the presidential inaugural Chairman's Global Dinner, Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017, in Washington. Evan Vucci AP
BY PETER STONE AND GREG GORDON
McClatchy Washington Bureau

The FBI and five other law enforcement and intelligence agencies have collaborated for months in an investigation into Russian attempts to influence the November election, including whether money from the Kremlin covertly aided President-elect Donald Trump, two people familiar with the matter said.

The agencies involved in the inquiry are the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Justice Department, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and representatives of the director of national intelligence, the sources said.

Investigators are examining how money may have moved from the Kremlin to covertly help Trump win, the two sources said. One of the allegations involves whether a system for routinely paying thousands of Russian-American pensioners may have been used to pay some email hackers in the United States or to supply money to intermediaries who would then pay the hackers, the two sources said.

Trump addresses Russia accusations, business dealings in post-election press conference
President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday delivered his first press conference since the November presidential election. Trump addressed his relationship with Russia and how he will handle his business once taking office.
C-SPAN
The informal, inter-agency working group began to explore possible Russian interference last spring, long before the FBI received information from a former British spy hired to develop politically damaging and unverified research about Trump, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the inquiry.

A KEY MISSION OF THE SIX-AGENCY GROUP HAS BEEN TO EXAMINE WHO FINANCED THE EMAIL HACKS OF THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE AND CLINTON CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN JOHN PODESTA.

On Jan. 6, the director of national intelligence released a declassified report that concluded Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered an influence campaign to “undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process,” damage Hillary Clinton’s election prospects and bolster Trump’s. The campaign included the hacking of top Democrats’ emails and fake news distributed by Russian sources.

The president-elect, who will be inaugurated Friday, has said he believes Russia was involved with the hacking, and he has called allegations that he or his associates were involved a “political witch hunt” and a “complete and total fabrication.”

Trump has yet to say whether FBI Director James Comey will be retained. The rest of Trump’s newly appointed intelligence and law enforcement chiefs will inherit the investigation, whose outcome could create national and international fallout.

Trump's presidential transition team did not respond to a request for comment about the inquiry.


A key mission of the six-agency group has been to examine who financed the email hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The London-based transparency group WikiLeaks released the emails last summer and in October.

The working group is scrutinizing the activities of a few Americans who were affiliated with Trump’s campaign or his business empire and of multiple individuals from Russia and other former Soviet nations who had similar connections, the sources said.

U.S. intelligence agencies not only have been unanimous in blaming Russia for the hacking of Democrats’ computers but also have concluded that the leaking and dissemination of thousands of emails of top Democrats, some of which caused headaches for the Clinton campaign, were done to help Trump win.

Trump and Republican members of Congress have said they believe Russia meddled in the U.S. election but that those actions didn’t change the outcome. However, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she believes that Russia’s tactics did alter the election result.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has opened its own investigation into Russia’s involvement in the campaign. That panel will have subpoena power.

ONE OF THE ALLEGATIONS INVOLVES WHETHER A SYSTEM FOR ROUTINELY PAYING THOUSANDS OF RUSSIAN-AMERICAN PENSIONERS MAY HAVE BEEN USED TO PAY SOME EMAIL HACKERS IN THE UNITED STATES OR TO INTERMEDIARIES WHO WOULD THEN PAY THE HACKERS, THE TWO SOURCES SAID.

FBI Director Comey refused at a recent Senate hearing to comment on whether the bureau was investigating Russia’s hacking campaign for possible criminal prosecutions. Spokespeople for the FBI, the Justice Department and the national intelligence director declined to comment.

The BBC reported last week that the joint inquiry was launched when the CIA learned last spring, through a Baltic ally, of a recording indicating the Russian government was planning to funnel funds aimed at influencing the U.S. election.

Another source of information was the former longtime British intelligence agent, Christopher Steele, who was hired to gather opposition research about Trump for a Republican client and later a Democrat. Early last summer, Steele became alarmed about information he was receiving from a network of Russian sources describing a web of Trump’s business relationships with wealthy Russians and alleged political ties to the Kremlin, according to two people who know him. These sources also declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Steele’s reports also alleged that Russian consulates in New York, Washington and Miami were used to deliver “tens of thousands of dollars” to Kremlin-hired operatives using fictitious names as if they were legitimate Russian-American pensioners. That “ruse” was designed to give Russia “plausible deniability,” Steele’s reports suggested. However, Russia does not operate a consulate in Miami.

Steele, who had worked previously with the FBI and was well regarded, fed the bureau information in July and September suggesting collusion between Trump associates and Moscow in the hacking of Democratic computers, they said. Eventually, he met in Italy with an FBI official to share more information alleging that a top Trump campaign official had known about the hacking as early as last June, the sources said. About a month after the election, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona gave FBI Director Comey a copy of a 35-page compilation of Steele’s reports.

BuzzFeed posted the 35 pages of allegations online, acknowledging the report had obvious errors and had not been corroborated. Several news organizations, including McClatchy, had the document earlier but had resisted publishing any of the allegations because of the lack of verification.

Trump and Putin have branded Steele’s dossier as “fake news.” On Jan. 11, at his only news conference as president-elect, Trump dismissed it as “nonsense” and “crap.” On Tuesday, Putin accused soon-to-depart Obama administration officials of trying to undermine Trump’s “legitimacy,” suggesting that the White House had released Steele’s dossier. The Russian leader said those who had prepared the dossier were “worse than prostitutes.”

Steele’s information has been treated as unverified intelligence by the working group because most of it came from purported Kremlin leaks and virtually all of it is extremely difficult to corroborate, the people familiar with the investigation said.

The BBC reported that the FBI had obtained a warrant on Oct. 15 from the highly secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court allowing investigators access to bank records and other documents about potential payments and money transfers related to Russia. One of McClatchy’s sources confirmed the report.

Susan Hennessey, a former attorney for the National Security Agency who is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said she had no knowledge that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant had been issued. However, she stressed that such warrants are issued only if investigators can demonstrate “probable cause” that a crime has been committed and the information in Steele’s dossier couldn’t have met that test.

“If, in fact, law enforcement has obtained a FISA warrant, that is an indication that additional evidence exists outside of the dossier,” she said.

One episode that Steele’s reports described from multiple sources referred to a late-summer meeting in Prague between Russian government representatives and Michael Cohen, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, the president-elect’s vast business operation. But the FBI has been unable to establish that Cohen was in Prague during that period, the two sources familiar with the working group said.

Cohen has denied ever traveling to the Czech Republic, although he told The Wall Street Journal that he did so in 2001.


For months, Trump has voiced positive sentiments toward Putin. In early January, he tweeted that “only ‘stupid’ people, or fools” would think it’s bad to have good relations with Russia.

“When I am President, Russia will respect us far more than they do now and both countries will, perhaps, work together to solve some of the many great and pressing problems and issues of the WORLD!” he tweeted last week.

During the campaign in July, he displayed ignorance that Russian-backed separatists had invaded Crimea in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and he called on Russia to hack away to uncover thousands of emails that Clinton had never made public after using a private server while secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

At the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last July, Trump’s campaign associates successfully changed the Republican Party’s platform to weaken a provision advocating more military support for the Ukrainian government in its fight to defend itself against the Russian-backed incursion in Crimea.

Greg Gordon: 202-383-6152, @greggordon2


Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politic ... rylink=cpy

[seemslikeadream]

Investigators on the Trump-Russia Beat Should Talk to This Man

Sergei Millian, the head of a Russian-American business group, claimed he helped Trump "study the Moscow market."

DAVID CORN

JAN. 19, 2017 10:15 AM


Sergei Millian, left, pictured with Donald Trump and Jorge Perez Millian's Facebook page
Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee announced it was commencing an investigation of Russian hacking during the 2016 campaign that would include an examination of connections between Russia and the Trump camp. And a veiled but public exchange between Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the committee, and FBI Director James Comey during a hearing on January 10 suggested the FBI has collected information on possible ties between Trump associates and Russians and may still be probing this matter. So with subpoena-wielding investigators on this beat, here's a suggestion: The gumshoes ought to talk to an American from Belarus named Sergei Millian, who has boasted of close ties to Trump and who has worked with an outfit the FBI suspected of being a Russian intelligence front. If they haven't already.

Millian, who is in his late 30s and won't say when he came to the United States or how he obtained US citizenship, is an intriguing and mysterious figure with a curious connection to Trump. He is president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in the USA (RACC) and the owner of a translation service. The RACC, a nonprofit that Millian started in Atlanta in 2006 and that has survived on shoestring budgets, advocates closer commercial ties between Russia and the United States and assists US firms looking to do business in Russia. In 2009, the group called for the US Congress "to foster necessary political changes to produce a healthier economic environment" and grant permanent normal trade relations status to Russia. Its website notes that it "facilitates cooperation for U.S. members with the Russian Government, Russian Regional Administrations, U.S. Consulates in Russia, Chambers of Commerce in Russia, and corporate leaders from CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries."

The Russian-American Chamber of Commerce's 2011 tax return reported the group was based in an apartment in Astoria, Queens, where Millian lived—though the group's letterhead that year listed a Wall Street address—and that year it brought in only $23,300 in contributions and grants and $14,748 in program revenue. The tax return noted that the chamber "successfully hosted four universities from Russia in New York City" and hosted a trade mission from Belarus. In 2015, Millian received a Russian award for fostering cooperation between US and Russian businesses.

On his LinkedIn page, Millian notes he is also the vice president of an outfit called the World Chinese Merchants Union Association, a group that has only a slight presence on the internet and that seems to have an address in Beijing. According to a LinkedIn post published by Millian in April 2016, he met that month in Beijing with a Chinese official and the Russian ambassador to the Republic of San Marino to discuss industrial and commercial cooperation between China and Russia.

Millian's online bio notes he graduated from the Minsk State Linguistic University with the equivalent of a master's degree in 2000. His bio says he is a real estate broker who works in residential and commercial properties in the United States and abroad. He used to go by the name Siarhei Kukuts—that's how he's listed on tax returns for the RACC—and it is unclear why he changed his name. Millian also has repeatedly claimed he had a significant business association with Trump.

In an April 2016 interview with RIA Novosti, a Russian media outlet, Millian described his history with Trump. He said he met the celebrity real estate developer in 2007 when Trump visited Moscow for a "Millionaire's Fair," where he was promoting Trump Vodka. Millian noted that Trump subsequently invited him to a horse race in Miami. "Later," Millian said, "we met at his office in New York, where he introduced me to his right-hand man—Michael Cohen. He is Trump's main lawyer, all contracts go through him. Subsequently, a contract was signed with me to promote one of their real estate projects in Russia and the CIS. You can say I was their exclusive broker."

Millian said he had helped Trump "study the Moscow market" for potential real estate investments. In the April 2009 issue of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce newsletter, Millian reported that he was working with Russian investors looking to buy property in the United States, and he said, "We have signed formal agreements with the Richard Bowers and Co., the Trump Organization and The Related Group to jointly service the Russian clients' commercial, residential and industrial real estate needs." Millian's claim did jibe with what Donald Trump Jr. said at a 2008 real estate conference in New York. Trump's son noted, "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets." He added, "We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."

In the 2016 interview, Millian asserted that Trump would be good for Russia if elected president. Trump, he noted, would improve US relations with Russia and lift economic sanctions imposed by Washington on Russia. He said Trump was interested in doing business in Russia: "I don't want to reveal [Trump's] position, but he is keeping Moscow in his sights and is waiting for an appropriate time." Millian added, "In general Trump has a very positive attitude to Russians, because he sees them as clients for his business. Incidentally, he has done many projects with people from the Russian-language diaspora. For example, Trump SoHo in New York with billionaire Tamir Sapir." (Sapir, who died in 2014, was an American billionaire real estate developer from the former Soviet republic of Georgia.)

Millian apparently was proud of his association with Trump. In 2014, he posted on Facebook a photograph of him with Trump and Jorge Perez, the billionaire real estate developer in Miami who owns the Related Group.

Millian seemed delighted to spin for Trump and push the impression he was a Trump insider. During the Republican convention, he told the Daily Beast that Trump was a "powerful, charismatic, and highly intelligent leader with a realistic approach toward Russia." He added, "I, personally, wholeheartedly support his presidential aspirations. It's been a great pleasure representing Mr. Trump's projects in Russia." But weeks later, as the Russia hacking controversy was heating up, Millian, in another exchange with the Daily Beast, downplayed his connection to Trump. And the website reported that after its reporter spoke him, Millian removed mentions of his Trump association from an online biography. It also appears that references to the Trump Organization working with the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in the USA were at some point scraped from its website.

Millian's activities and ties to Trump have raised questions. In October, the Financial Times mounted an investigation of him and the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. It reported:

Most of the board members are obscure entities and nearly half of their telephone numbers went unanswered when called by the Financial Times. An FT reporter found no trace of the Chamber of Commerce at the Wall Street address listed on its website. At the same time, the chamber appears to have close official ties, arranging trips for visiting Russian regional governors to the US.

As part of its inquiry into Millian, the newspaper pointed to Millian's connection to Rossotrudnichestvo, a Russian government organization that promotes Russian culture abroad. In 2013, Mother Jones reported that Rossotrudnichestvo was under investigation by the FBI for using junkets to recruit American assets for Russian intelligence. Through cultural exchanges, Rossotrudnichestvo, which operates under the jurisdiction of the Russian Foreign Ministry, was bringing young Americans—including political aides, nonprofit advocates, and business executives—on trips to Russia. The program was run by Yury Zaytsev, a Russian diplomat who headed the Russian Cultural Center in Washington, DC.

Americans who participated in the exchange trips and were later questioned by FBI agents told Mother Jones that the agents' questions indicated the FBI suspected Zaytsev and Rossotrudnichestvo had been using the all-expenses-paid trips to Russia to cultivate Americans as intelligence assets. (An asset could be a person who directly works with an intelligence service to gather information, or merely a contact who provides information, opinions, or gossip, not realizing it is being collected by an intelligence officer.) After Mother Jones published a story on the FBI investigation, the Russian embassy in Washington issued a statement: "All such 'scaring information' very much resembles Cold War era. A blunt tentative is made to distort and to blacken activities of the Russian Cultural Center in DC, which are aimed at developing mutual trust and cooperation between our peoples and countries." (A year later, in November 2014, Zaytsev spoke at a Moscow press conference and said, in reference to the upcoming US presidential elections, "It seems to me that the Russian 'card' will certainly be played out." He added, "I think that this presidential election first of all will very clearly show a trend of further development" in US-Russia relations.)

Millian has collaborated with Rossotrudnichestvo. In 2011, he and the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce worked with Zaytsev and the Russian group to mount a 10-day exchange that brought 50 entrepreneurs to the first "Russian-American Business Forum" in Moscow and the Vladimir region, according to a letter Millian sent to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev after the initiative. In that letter, Millian praised Rossotrudnichestvo, and he added, "My entire staff, fellow participants, and I, here at the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in the USA, very much look forward to assisting Rossotrudnichestvo with the preparations for next year's trip." (Millian now says, "We are not affiliated with [Rossotrudnichestvo] in any way.")

Toward the end of the presidential campaign Michael Cohen, the Trump lawyer, told the Financial Times that Millian's claims of working with Trump were "nothing more than a weak attempt to align himself with Mr. Trump's overwhelmingly successful brand." But the newspaper reported that Cohen "did not respond to questions about whether he interacted with Mr. Millian or why Mr. Millian is one of only 100 people he follows on Twitter." (Cohen no longer follows Millian on Twitter.) Hope Hicks, Trump's campaign spokeswoman, told the paper that Trump had "met and spoke" with Millian only "on one occasion almost a decade ago at a hotel opening."

Cohen, Hicks, Sean Spicer, Trump's designated White House press secretary, and the Trump presidential transition team did not respond to a request for information regarding Millian's interactions with Trump and his associates.

Reached by telephone this week, Millian said he would not discuss his relationship with Trump and requested he be sent questions via email. Mother Jones subsequently sent him a list. Millian responded in an email with answers to a different set of questions, and he noted he would not answer any queries about his personal background or provide any details beyond what was in this reply. He said in the email, "I have a solid reputation with businesses around the world. It's a common practice for immigrants to change name upon immigrating to the USA. I am US citizen and do not have and never had Russian citizenship. I live and work in NYC."

In the email, Millian asserted, "I have never said that I worked personally for Trump. I said I was a broker for one of his many real estate projects. There are several brokers who work on such real estate projects. I never represented Mr Trump personally and I am not working with Mr Trump." He added, "I have signed an official contract with talks of exclusivity that authorized me to represent Trump name project in Russia and CIS." But he said he had never been paid by Trump for any work. He maintained that the last time he spoke to Trump was in 2008.

Millian insisted he had "never worked for Russian Government or Russian military as a translator or in any other capacity." He said, "We never got any business with Rossotrudnichestvo." And he made this point: "I'm a member of the Presidential Trust of NRC-GOP and supporter of Mr Trump who contributed to his campaign just the same way as many millions of Americans. I'm proud that Mr Trump became our president. I'm sure he will rebuild our great nation to the highest standards just as he did with his distinguished buildings. We desperately need better infrastructure, airports, railways in this country. Also, high time starting paying off national debts. I feel upset that press tries to distracts him from making our country great again by distributing fake news." (A search of campaign finance records revealed no contribution from Millian to the Trump campaign or the Republican National Committee; a contribution of $200 does not have to be itemized.)

Millian's response ignored several questions Mother Jones sent him. He would not say when he left Belarus or explain how he became an American citizen. He would not discuss the details of the deal he previously claimed to have struck with the Trump Organization. He would not say how many times he worked on projects or exchanges with Rossotrudnichestvo. (His response seemed to suggest he had nothing to do with the Russian organization, yet the 2011 letter he wrote indicated his Russian-American Chamber of Commerce had collaborated with Rossotrudnichestvo.) He did not explain why references to the Trump organization had been scraped from the RACC's website and his bio. And he did not answer this question: "In the last year and a half, have you had any contacts with Donald Trump or any of his political or business associates?"

Various media outlets that have examined links between Trump and Russia have focused on Carter Page, a Moscow-connected foreign policy adviser for Trump 's presidential campaign (whom Trump spokesman Sean Spicer recently falsely claimed Trump did not know) and Paul Manafort, Trump's onetime presidential campaign manager who had business ties to Russians and Putin-allied Ukrainians. Any official investigators would likely be interested in these two men. They also should schedule a sit down with Millian.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... ei-millian

Carter Page and Paul Manafort names to remember

[seemslikeadream]

Spain arrests Russian wanted by US for alleged hacking
Spain has arrested computer programmer Stanislov Lisov on an FBI warrant issued through Interpol on hacking allegations.

Spanish authorities have detained a Russian programmer ostensibly on behalf of the US [File: Santi Donaire/EPA]
Spanish officials have announced the arrest of a Russian computer programmer wanted by the United States on hacking allegations while a decision is made on whether to extradite him.

The National Court said on Thursday that Stanislav Lisov, 31, was jailed on January 13 after Civil Guard police arrested him at Barcelona airport on an FBI warrant issued though Interpol.


Donald Trump blasts US intel for 'fake' Russia dossier
The court said a Madrid judge questioned him by videoconference over charges of criminal conspiracy in connection with electronic and computer fraud for which he is wanted by the US.

It said he was ordered jailed because of the seriousness of the offenses and the risk of him fleeing justice as he had done previously in the United States.

Lisov was arrested as he prepared to take a flight out of Spain with his wife.

Darya Lisova, wife of the arrested programmer, told the state-controlled Russia Today television station: "We were detained at the airport in Barcelona when we came to return a rented car before flying out to Lyon to continue our trip and visit friends."

She added: "We've already had two lawyers. The first could not cope with the responsibilities, so we hired a second. He is now familiarizing himself with the case. So far, we have not been able to figure out what exactly they suspect him of doing."

Russia hacking allegations

The arrest comes at a time when tensions between the US and Russia have skyrocketed after accusations that Russia carried out a cyber-attack campaign against Democratic Party groups before the November 8 presidential election.

A declassified report released in early January by US intelligence officials said Russian president Vladimir Putin "ordered" a campaign to influence the 2016 US presidential election.

OPINION: The Kremlin and the US election

The 25-page public version of the report was released on Friday after the officials briefed President-elect Donald Trump and top lawmakers on Capitol Hill on a longer, classified version.

The report said Russian efforts to meddle in vote represent the most recent expression of Moscow's long-standing desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order.

It also noted that the scope of Russia's activities was significantly larger compared with previous operations.

US president-elect Donald Trump subsequently said that hacking by foreign powers did not affect the final outcome of the November presidential election, after being briefed on the intelligence report.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/s ... 09905.html

[seemslikeadream]

We Need the Truth About Trump's Relationship with Putin Now

For the sake of our democracy, we must independently investigate possible Russian influence.

By Bill Moyers, Michael Winship / BillMoyers.com January 19, 2017


Over the holidays, John Farrell, author of an upcoming biography of Richard Nixon, wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times confirming what many of us have known for nearly 50 years: In the fall of 1968, Nixon, the Republican candidate for president, deliberately torpedoed President Lyndon Johnson’s efforts to cease the bombing of North Vietnam and begin peace talks to end the Vietnam war.

Johnson was not running for re-election, but his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, was the Democratic candidate for the White House — and Nixon was determined to keep Humphrey from reaping the benefits of good news from Southeast Asia. In the course of researching his Nixon book, Farrell found a cache of notes from Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman showing “that Nixon directed his campaign’s efforts to scuttle the peace talks… On Oct. 22, 1968, he ordered Haldeman to ‘monkey wrench’ the initiative.”

Nixon won the election and until the end of his life denied he had interfered. But, Farrell notes, “Nixon had cause to lie. His actions appear to violate federal law, which prohibits private citizens from trying to ‘defeat the measures of the United States.’”

Johnson believed Nixon had committed treason, but at the time he and his aides decided they lacked sufficient proof. History has since provided the evidence.

Now we face another electoral crisis of perhaps even greater significance. As the former diplomat James Bruno sums it up in Washington Monthly, “The United States has just endured a carefully planned, well-orchestrated assault against its democratic form of government in the form of a grand cyber-theft of information and targeted release of that information.” More specifically, Bruno quotes from the report in which 17 US intelligence agencies unanimously concluded, “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.”

Read that again slowly and carefully: The intelligence community is saying that a foreign country, Russia, deliberately interfered with and corrupted our electoral process to favor the election of Donald Trump. Further, aides to Trump are said to have been in contact with Russian officials throughout the campaign and the presidential transition. (In the Jan. 12 Washington Post, columnist David Ignatius reported, “According to a senior US government official, [national security adviser Michael] Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking. What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the US sanctions?”)

Of course, Trump and his allies say the intelligence community not only is wrong but should not be trusted. Nevertheless, the die is cast: Either Trump and friends have engaged in treasonous acts or America’s intelligence officials are guilty of a colossal lapse in judgment — or worse, a conspiracy against Trump. Either way — whether any of these allegations are true or false — the entire matter must be investigated thoroughly and immediately. The dark clouds hovering over American politics must be cleared up. Left unresolved, the allegations present a clear and present danger, a ticking time bomb that could explode and bring an end to America’s nearly 250-year experiment in self-government.

While there have been plans announced for Senate and House hearings into this constitutional crisis, these easily can be stalled and manipulated for partisan purposes. Given the Republican Party’s hardcore will to power and that it will soon exercise monopoly control over all three branches of government — not to mention their track record over the past eight years — it is hard to identify which GOP members of Congress are likely to put country ahead of party and let an investigation go where the facts lead. In addition, with some notable exceptions, the minority Democratic Party appears dispirited and disorganized, if not feckless, and unable to thwart Republicans determined to bulldoze a serious investigation.

No, this crisis requires a more thorough, bipartisan and select committee or commission — not unlike the 9/11 Commission — that has adequate staff, funding and subpoena power to conduct as thorough a probe as possible.

Perhaps even better, before Friday’s inauguration, there is still time for Attorney General Loretta Lynch to appoint a special prosecutor. Fordham legal historian Jed Shugerman notes, “A special prosecutor’s term does not end with an administration. It is open-ended, so the special prosecutor would continue to serve during the Trump administration… unless the new Attorney General fired him or her, [but] only for ‘good cause.’”

In whatever form it takes, said investigation also must include a careful examination of action — or inaction — by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Justice Department’s inspector general has begun a probe but it also should be within the purview of a select committee, commission or special prosecutor.

Why did the FBI seem to favor pursuing Hillary Clinton’s emails over tracking down whatever could be learned about Russia’s involvement in our election? Why did it drag its feet when it had evidence that the Democratic National Committee was being hacked — was it the agency’s fault or the DNC’s? How the FBI notified the DNC in the first place — with a phone call to an outside tech vendor — is right out of a Marx Brothers comedy. And why did FBI Director Comey fail to take action when he had in his hands the dossier ex-MI6 intelligence operative Christopher Steele had assembled on rumors that Russia possessed incriminating evidence on Trump’s business dealings and private life?

If real, they could be used to pressure — blackmail — Trump into obeisance. If not real, was Russia deliberately feeding Steele false information – “a carefully constructed attempt,” in the words of conservative journalist and Russia expert David Satter in National Review, “to disrupt American political life for years to come.”

Trump’s tax returns should be included in the investigation as well. He can no longer use the flimsy excuse of an audit. They must be subpoenaed and released, for within them may be evidence of whether or not the president-elect’s company has sizable debt with Russian banks and investors that could be used as leverage against him. Trump denies Russian investments but as his son, Donald Jr., famously told a 2008 real estate conference, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets… We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”

What’s more, Megan Twohey and Steve Eder at The New York Times reported late Monday, “Mr. Trump repeatedly sought business in Russia as far back as 1987, when he traveled there to explore building a hotel. He applied for his trademark in the country as early as 1996. And his children and associates have appeared in Moscow over and over in search of joint ventures, meeting with developers and government officials.” Trump told biographer Michael D’Antonio, “I know the Russians better than anybody.”

Common sense suggests one reason Trump has so doggedly and furiously attacked the intelligence community — and persisted in flattering Vladimir Putin — is that he doesn’t want known the extent to which he is financially embroiled with Russian oligarchs. Or perhaps he really is serious about wanting to draw the Russians into a closer embrace so that they cease and desist from efforts to disrupt the Western alliance.

Yet how are we ever going to know without an independent investigation? We may never learn the complete truth, but if allegations are proven false, the inquiry may help clear Trump and his associates of the taint that has marked his election and transition and which certainly will be the elephant in the Oval Office once Trump occupies it.

Then it will need to be determined who set out to smear his record and why. Someone — perhaps among his Republican opponents in the primaries, or among Democrats eager to cripple him once he got the nomination — went to great lengths to tie Trump to some nasty stuff.

This is deadly serious business. It is a heinous threat not only to America’s future but to other Western democracies, fragile as they are just now. Putin and his kleptocrat cronies aren’t limiting their cyberwarfare and other meddling to the United States but encouraging right-wing populism that actively undermines member nations of the European Union and the NATO alliance as well. So far, Trump seems to be acquiescing to this and to other Russian encroachments around the world. And several people around him — close aides such as Gen. Mike Flynn, his national security adviser; and “The King of K Street,” Paul Manafort, his onetime campaign manager — are reported to have had business ties to Putin’s world.But what if much that has been claimed is true? Then we will have in the White House a president who has betrayed the American people and whose every motive and action must be challenged. Impeachment is not out of the question.

The truth must be known. Left to fester in the dark, lingering suspicions will hang over our politics like a poisonous smog. We will become a society marked by permanent and penetrating distrust, by whispered allegations and rumors, by ill will and a lust for unbridled power. We do not exaggerate when we say this is the most critical moment for the United States since politics failed in the 1850s and the thunderclouds of civil war spread north and south until the nation was engulfed and split asunder.

We cannot wait for history’s judgment. We must find out now. Who in Washington today are the men and women of courage who will rise above partisanship and join as patriots in calling for a thorough and honorable public scrutiny of these disturbing events?
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politi ... -putin-now

[seemslikeadream]

Key Claims in Trump Dossier Said to Come From Head of Russian-American Business Group
Belarus-born head of a Russian-American business group is said to have passed along unverified allegations of Donald Trump’s ties to Russia

Sergei Millian against a backdrop for inauguration celebrations. PHOTO: SERGEI MILLIAN
By MARK MAREMONT
Jan. 24, 2017 5:30 a.m. ET


Some of the most explosive parts of a dossier containing unverified allegations that President Donald Trump had secret ties to Russian leaders originated from the Belarus-born head of a Russian-American business group, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Sergei Millian, a 38-year-old American citizen who has claimed he helped market Trump properties to Russian buyers, wasn’t a direct source for the 35-page dossier, this person said. Rather, his statements about the Trump-Russia relationship were relayed by at least one third party to the British ex-spy who prepared the dossier, the person said.

Among the unverified allegations of Mr. Millian’s that an intermediary passed along, the person said: The claim that the Russians had compromising video of Mr. Trump that could be used to blackmail him, and a claim that there was a “conspiracy of cooperation” between the Trump camp and Russian leadership that involved hacking the computers of Mr. Trump’s Democratic opponents.

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The emergence of Mr. Millian as a key but indirect source highlights the messy nature of intelligence gathering and the uncertainties behind the dossier, which was funded by Mr. Trump’s political opponents.

Both Mr. Trump and Russian officials have dismissed the dossier’s claims as false. Then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said earlier this month that “the [intelligence community] has not made any judgment that the information in this document is reliable.” The Wall Street Journal hasn’t been able to verify any of its contents.

Mr. Millian, who posted photos of himself at several VIP events at the Trump inauguration last week, said in an email that the information in the dossier was “fake news (created by sick minds),” and was “an attempt to distract the future president from real work.”

Mr. Millian didn’t respond to a long list of other questions, including whether he was a source for the dossier.

Michael Cohen, a Trump Organization executive vice president who is resigning to become Mr. Trump’s personal attorney, said he was baffled by the idea that Mr. Millian could have been a source for claims in the dossier about events, such as a 2013 Moscow hotel stay, that he had nothing to do with.

Mr. Cohen said “there is not an ounce of truth” to Mr. Millian’s claims to have had a relationship with Mr. Trump or the Trump Organization. Mr. Millian had met Mr. Trump once, at a photo op, Mr. Cohen said.


Mr. Millian may not have realized he was feeding information to anyone acting on behalf of the ex-spy. In the dossier, the source believed to be Mr. Millian is referred to at various times as both Source D and Source E and is cited as somebody “speaking in confidence to a compatriot” or “speaking in confidence to a trusted associate.”

This is a common technique among spies, according to a former CIA case officer, who said “it makes it a lot easier to get your target to open up if they think they are talking to somebody of the same background.”

Secondhand intelligence like that typically would need to be corroborated, said John Sipher, another former CIA official. “You would use that information as a lead, to find other sources who could prove that or not prove that.” Another concern: the target and the intermediary could be colluding to provide false information.

The dossier states that some of the key assertions Mr. Millian made were backed up by other sources, also unnamed.

Mr. Millian, who uses the name Siarhei Kukuts in legal documents, came to the U.S. about 15 years ago, and speaks six languages, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before moving to New York he lived in Atlanta, where he worked for a local law firm and had a translation business on the side. He also became a licensed real-estate broker, state records show.

Among the clients for whom Mr. Millian provided translation or interpreting work, according to an online resume: The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a Belarus-based arms exporter. Mr. Millian didn’t respond to questions about those clients.

In 2006, Mr. Millian founded the Russian American Chamber of Commerce in the USA Inc. Despite the grand-sounding name, the nonprofit had less than $50,000 in annual donations and program revenue, according to its tax filings.

But the Chamber provided a bigger stage for Mr. Millian, who was interviewed by news media and posted photos of his frequent travels to Russia and beyond. The Chamber helped arrange U.S. meetings for visiting Russian government officials and companies, according to its website.

As for his relationship with Mr. Trump, Mr. Millian early last year told a Russian news agency that he had first met the future president in 2007, at the Moscow Millionaire Fair, after “common acquaintances of ours” arranged Mr. Trump’s trip. Mr. Millian said Mr. Trump then invited him to meet at a Florida racetrack and, later, at Mr. Trump’s New York office “where he introduced me to his right-hand man, Michael Cohen.”

Later, in a 2009 newsletter, Mr. Millian claimed that he had “formal agreements” with the Trump Organization to service the real estate needs of Russian clients.

Mr. Cohen said Mr. Trump didn’t go to Moscow in 2007, and that the Trump Organization never had any agreement with Mr. Millian. He also said he had never met Mr. Millian in person, but instead had exchanged a few emails after Mr. Millian got in touch with him via LinkedIn.

After media reports focused on Mr. Millian last summer as a link between Mr. Trump and Russia, Mr. Millian began distancing himself. There had been “quite negative press related to Russia so I don’t want to be involved,” Mr. Millian told The Daily Beast in September, adding that “I didn’t represent him personally ever” but merely worked on some Trump projects.

Mike Costache, a friend of Mr. Millian who attended inaugural events with him last week, said “there’s a confidentiality clause there. When all this happened, he wasn’t allowed to speak, because he was going to get sued by Trump’s lawyers.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/key-claims- ... 1485253804

Investigators on the Trump-Russia Beat Should Talk to This Man

Sergei Millian, the head of a Russian-American business group, claimed he helped Trump "study the Moscow market."

DAVID CORN

JAN. 19, 2017 10:15 AM


Sergei Millian, left, pictured with Donald Trump and Jorge Perez Millian's Facebook page
Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee announced it was commencing an investigation of Russian hacking during the 2016 campaign that would include an examination of connections between Russia and the Trump camp. And a veiled but public exchange between Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the committee, and FBI Director James Comey during a hearing on January 10 suggested the FBI has collected information on possible ties between Trump associates and Russians and may still be probing this matter. So with subpoena-wielding investigators on this beat, here's a suggestion: The gumshoes ought to talk to an American from Belarus named Sergei Millian, who has boasted of close ties to Trump and who has worked with an outfit the FBI suspected of being a Russian intelligence front. If they haven't already.

Millian, who is in his late 30s and won't say when he came to the United States or how he obtained US citizenship, is an intriguing and mysterious figure with a curious connection to Trump. He is president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in the USA (RACC) and the owner of a translation service. The RACC, a nonprofit that Millian started in Atlanta in 2006 and that has survived on shoestring budgets, advocates closer commercial ties between Russia and the United States and assists US firms looking to do business in Russia. In 2009, the group called for the US Congress "to foster necessary political changes to produce a healthier economic environment" and grant permanent normal trade relations status to Russia. Its website notes that it "facilitates cooperation for U.S. members with the Russian Government, Russian Regional Administrations, U.S. Consulates in Russia, Chambers of Commerce in Russia, and corporate leaders from CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] countries."

The Russian-American Chamber of Commerce's 2011 tax return reported the group was based in an apartment in Astoria, Queens, where Millian lived—though the group's letterhead that year listed a Wall Street address—and that year it brought in only $23,300 in contributions and grants and $14,748 in program revenue. The tax return noted that the chamber "successfully hosted four universities from Russia in New York City" and hosted a trade mission from Belarus. In 2015, Millian received a Russian award for fostering cooperation between US and Russian businesses.

On his LinkedIn page, Millian notes he is also the vice president of an outfit called the World Chinese Merchants Union Association, a group that has only a slight presence on the internet and that seems to have an address in Beijing. According to a LinkedIn post published by Millian in April 2016, he met that month in Beijing with a Chinese official and the Russian ambassador to the Republic of San Marino to discuss industrial and commercial cooperation between China and Russia.

Millian's online bio notes he graduated from the Minsk State Linguistic University with the equivalent of a master's degree in 2000. His bio says he is a real estate broker who works in residential and commercial properties in the United States and abroad. He used to go by the name Siarhei Kukuts—that's how he's listed on tax returns for the RACC—and it is unclear why he changed his name. Millian also has repeatedly claimed he had a significant business association with Trump.

In an April 2016 interview with RIA Novosti, a Russian media outlet, Millian described his history with Trump. He said he met the celebrity real estate developer in 2007 when Trump visited Moscow for a "Millionaire's Fair," where he was promoting Trump Vodka. Millian noted that Trump subsequently invited him to a horse race in Miami. "Later," Millian said, "we met at his office in New York, where he introduced me to his right-hand man—Michael Cohen. He is Trump's main lawyer, all contracts go through him. Subsequently, a contract was signed with me to promote one of their real estate projects in Russia and the CIS. You can say I was their exclusive broker."

Millian said he had helped Trump "study the Moscow market" for potential real estate investments. In the April 2009 issue of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce newsletter, Millian reported that he was working with Russian investors looking to buy property in the United States, and he said, "We have signed formal agreements with the Richard Bowers and Co., the Trump Organization and The Related Group to jointly service the Russian clients' commercial, residential and industrial real estate needs." Millian's claim did jibe with what Donald Trump Jr. said at a 2008 real estate conference in New York. Trump's son noted, "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets." He added, "We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."

In the 2016 interview, Millian asserted that Trump would be good for Russia if elected president. Trump, he noted, would improve US relations with Russia and lift economic sanctions imposed by Washington on Russia. He said Trump was interested in doing business in Russia: "I don't want to reveal [Trump's] position, but he is keeping Moscow in his sights and is waiting for an appropriate time." Millian added, "In general Trump has a very positive attitude to Russians, because he sees them as clients for his business. Incidentally, he has done many projects with people from the Russian-language diaspora. For example, Trump SoHo in New York with billionaire Tamir Sapir." (Sapir, who died in 2014, was an American billionaire real estate developer from the former Soviet republic of Georgia.)

Millian apparently was proud of his association with Trump. In 2014, he posted on Facebook a photograph of him with Trump and Jorge Perez, the billionaire real estate developer in Miami who owns the Related Group.

Millian seemed delighted to spin for Trump and push the impression he was a Trump insider. During the Republican convention, he told the Daily Beast that Trump was a "powerful, charismatic, and highly intelligent leader with a realistic approach toward Russia." He added, "I, personally, wholeheartedly support his presidential aspirations. It's been a great pleasure representing Mr. Trump's projects in Russia." But weeks later, as the Russia hacking controversy was heating up, Millian, in another exchange with the Daily Beast, downplayed his connection to Trump. And the website reported that after its reporter spoke him, Millian removed mentions of his Trump association from an online biography. It also appears that references to the Trump Organization working with the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in the USA were at some point scraped from its website.

Millian's activities and ties to Trump have raised questions. In October, the Financial Times mounted an investigation of him and the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. It reported:

Most of the board members are obscure entities and nearly half of their telephone numbers went unanswered when called by the Financial Times. An FT reporter found no trace of the Chamber of Commerce at the Wall Street address listed on its website. At the same time, the chamber appears to have close official ties, arranging trips for visiting Russian regional governors to the US.

As part of its inquiry into Millian, the newspaper pointed to Millian's connection to Rossotrudnichestvo, a Russian government organization that promotes Russian culture abroad. In 2013, Mother Jones reported that Rossotrudnichestvo was under investigation by the FBI for using junkets to recruit American assets for Russian intelligence. Through cultural exchanges, Rossotrudnichestvo, which operates under the jurisdiction of the Russian Foreign Ministry, was bringing young Americans—including political aides, nonprofit advocates, and business executives—on trips to Russia. The program was run by Yury Zaytsev, a Russian diplomat who headed the Russian Cultural Center in Washington, DC.

Americans who participated in the exchange trips and were later questioned by FBI agents told Mother Jones that the agents' questions indicated the FBI suspected Zaytsev and Rossotrudnichestvo had been using the all-expenses-paid trips to Russia to cultivate Americans as intelligence assets. (An asset could be a person who directly works with an intelligence service to gather information, or merely a contact who provides information, opinions, or gossip, not realizing it is being collected by an intelligence officer.) After Mother Jones published a story on the FBI investigation, the Russian embassy in Washington issued a statement: "All such 'scaring information' very much resembles Cold War era. A blunt tentative is made to distort and to blacken activities of the Russian Cultural Center in DC, which are aimed at developing mutual trust and cooperation between our peoples and countries." (A year later, in November 2014, Zaytsev spoke at a Moscow press conference and said, in reference to the upcoming US presidential elections, "It seems to me that the Russian 'card' will certainly be played out." He added, "I think that this presidential election first of all will very clearly show a trend of further development" in US-Russia relations.)

Millian has collaborated with Rossotrudnichestvo. In 2011, he and the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce worked with Zaytsev and the Russian group to mount a 10-day exchange that brought 50 entrepreneurs to the first "Russian-American Business Forum" in Moscow and the Vladimir region, according to a letter Millian sent to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev after the initiative. In that letter, Millian praised Rossotrudnichestvo, and he added, "My entire staff, fellow participants, and I, here at the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in the USA, very much look forward to assisting Rossotrudnichestvo with the preparations for next year's trip." (Millian now says, "We are not affiliated with [Rossotrudnichestvo] in any way.")

Toward the end of the presidential campaign Michael Cohen, the Trump lawyer, told the Financial Times that Millian's claims of working with Trump were "nothing more than a weak attempt to align himself with Mr. Trump's overwhelmingly successful brand." But the newspaper reported that Cohen "did not respond to questions about whether he interacted with Mr. Millian or why Mr. Millian is one of only 100 people he follows on Twitter." (Cohen no longer follows Millian on Twitter.) Hope Hicks, Trump's campaign spokeswoman, told the paper that Trump had "met and spoke" with Millian only "on one occasion almost a decade ago at a hotel opening."

Cohen, Hicks, Sean Spicer, Trump's designated White House press secretary, and the Trump presidential transition team did not respond to a request for information regarding Millian's interactions with Trump and his associates.

Reached by telephone this week, Millian said he would not discuss his relationship with Trump and requested he be sent questions via email. Mother Jones subsequently sent him a list. Millian responded in an email with answers to a different set of questions, and he noted he would not answer any queries about his personal background or provide any details beyond what was in this reply. He said in the email, "I have a solid reputation with businesses around the world. It's a common practice for immigrants to change name upon immigrating to the USA. I am US citizen and do not have and never had Russian citizenship. I live and work in NYC."

In the email, Millian asserted, "I have never said that I worked personally for Trump. I said I was a broker for one of his many real estate projects. There are several brokers who work on such real estate projects. I never represented Mr Trump personally and I am not working with Mr Trump." He added, "I have signed an official contract with talks of exclusivity that authorized me to represent Trump name project in Russia and CIS." But he said he had never been paid by Trump for any work. He maintained that the last time he spoke to Trump was in 2008.

Millian insisted he had "never worked for Russian Government or Russian military as a translator or in any other capacity." He said, "We never got any business with Rossotrudnichestvo." And he made this point: "I'm a member of the Presidential Trust of NRC-GOP and supporter of Mr Trump who contributed to his campaign just the same way as many millions of Americans. I'm proud that Mr Trump became our president. I'm sure he will rebuild our great nation to the highest standards just as he did with his distinguished buildings. We desperately need better infrastructure, airports, railways in this country. Also, high time starting paying off national debts. I feel upset that press tries to distracts him from making our country great again by distributing fake news." (A search of campaign finance records revealed no contribution from Millian to the Trump campaign or the Republican National Committee; a contribution of $200 does not have to be itemized.)

Millian's response ignored several questions Mother Jones sent him. He would not say when he left Belarus or explain how he became an American citizen. He would not discuss the details of the deal he previously claimed to have struck with the Trump Organization. He would not say how many times he worked on projects or exchanges with Rossotrudnichestvo. (His response seemed to suggest he had nothing to do with the Russian organization, yet the 2011 letter he wrote indicated his Russian-American Chamber of Commerce had collaborated with Rossotrudnichestvo.) He did not explain why references to the Trump organization had been scraped from the RACC's website and his bio. And he did not answer this question: "In the last year and a half, have you had any contacts with Donald Trump or any of his political or business associates?"

Various media outlets that have examined links between Trump and Russia have focused on Carter Page, a Moscow-connected foreign policy adviser for Trump 's presidential campaign (whom Trump spokesman Sean Spicer recently falsely claimed Trump did not know) and Paul Manafort, Trump's onetime presidential campaign manager who had business ties to Russians and Putin-allied Ukrainians. Any official investigators would likely be interested in these two men. They also should schedule a sit down with Millian.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/201 ... ei-millian

Carter Page and Paul Manafort names to remember

ELECTION 2016
Donald Trump Was Bailed Out of Bankruptcy by Russia Crime Bosses
The facts read like a B-grade spy novel.
By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos January 10, 2017

In 2008, Donald Trump Jr. attended a real estate conference, where he stated that

Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.

As it turns out, that may have been an understatement. Human rights lawyer Scott Horton, whose work in the region goes back to defending Andrei Sakharov and other Soviet dissidents, has gone through a series of studies by the Financial Times to show how funds from Russian crime lords bailed Trump out after yet another bankruptcy. The conclusions are stark.

Among the powerful facts that DNI missed were a series of very deep studies published in the [Financial Times] that examined the structure and history of several major Trump real estate projects from the last decade—the period after his seventh bankruptcy and the cancellation of all his bank lines of credit. ...

The money to build these projects flowed almost entirely from Russian sources. In other words, after his business crashed, Trump was floated and made to appear to operate a successful business enterprise through the infusion of hundreds in millions of cash from dark Russian sources.

He was their man.

Yes, even that much seems fantastic, and the details include business agencies acting as a front for the GRU, billionaire mobsters, a vast network of propaganda sources, and an American candidate completely under the thumb of the Kremlin.

It reads like the a B-grade spy novel, a plot both too convoluted—and too bluntly obvious—for John le Carré. The problem is it may not be a conspiracy theory. It may be a conspiracy.

Horton’s analysis comes from piecing together information in three Financial Times “deep reports.” One of these focused on Sergei Millian, the head of the Russian American Chamber of Commerce in the US at the time of Trump Jr.’s “money pouring in from Russia” claim.

Mr Millian insists his Russian American Chamber of Commerce (RACC) has nothing to do with the Russian government. He says it is funded by payments from its commercial members alone.

Most of the board members are obscure entities and nearly half of their telephone numbers went unanswered when called by the Financial Times. An FT reporter found no trace of the Chamber of Commerce at the Wall Street address listed on its website.

Why was RACC’s background filled with so many holes? The Financial Times quotes former Russian MP Konstantin Borovoi in tagging the chamber as a front for intelligence operations that dates back to Soviet times.

“The chamber of commerce institutions are the visible part of the agent network . . . Russia has spent huge amounts of money on this.”


Millian helped arrange for Trump to visit Moscow in 2007, and had other outings with Trump in the states, including a visit to horse races in Miami. Millian claims that he had the right to market Trump properties in Russia.

“You could say I was their exclusive broker,” he told Ria. “Then, in 2007-2008, dozens of Russians bought apartments in Trump properties in the US.” He later told ABC television that the Trump Organisation had received “hundreds of millions of dollars” through deals with Russian businessmen.

Despite documents and photos showing Trump with Millian, Trump denied their association during the campaign.

Hope Hicks, Mr Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, said Mr Trump had “met and spoke” with Mr Millian only “on one occasion almost a decade ago at a hotel opening”.

The second Financial Times article puts Trump at the middle of a money laundering scheme, in which his real estate deals were used to hide not just an infusion of capital from Russia and former Soviet states, but to launder hundreds of millions looted by oligarchs. All Trump had to do was close his eyes to the source of the money, and suddenly empty apartments were going for top dollar.

Among the dozens of companies the Almaty lawyers say the Khrapunov laundering network used were three called Soho 3310, Soho 3311 and Soho 3203. Each was a limited liability company, meaning their ownership could easily be concealed.

The companies were created in April 2013 in New York. A week later, property records show, they paid a total of $3.1m to buy the apartments that corresponded with their names in the Trump Soho, a 46-storey luxury hotel-condominium completed in 2010 in a chic corner of Manhattan.

Why would Trump’s organization make such a good means of laundering funds? Because real estate has an arbitrary value. Is that apartment worth $1 million? Two million? Why not $3 million for a buyer who really wants it? When the whole transaction is just one LLC with undisclosed ownership paying another LLC with undisclosed ownership, it’s even neater than hiding the money in an offshore account. And while some businesses require due diligence in looking at the source of funds, real estate is a bit more … flexible.

The laws regulating US real estate deals are scant, experts say. Provisions against terrorism financing in the Patriot Act, passed in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 attacks, obliged mortgage lenders to conduct “know your customer” research. But money launderers pay in cash. Sales such as those of the Trump Soho apartments have passed through this loophole, which was partially closed only this year.

Converting funds stolen overseas into property in the US and cash in the account of an LLC represented a win for both the oligarchs and Trump. Best of all, Trump’s sole requirement was that he pay scant attention to the deal—something at which he was already a proven master. For example, the actual owners of the Trump Soho were another limited liability company, Bayrock. Trump was a partner in the LLC and Bayrock cut the checks Trump received when those apartments were sold. And yet ...


In a 2011 deposition, given in a dispute over the Fort Lauderdale project, Mr Trump said he had “never really understood who owned Bayrock”. Jody Kriss, a former Bayrock finance director, has claimed in racketeering lawsuits against his former employer that Bayrock’s backers included “hidden interests in Russia and Kazakhstan”. Bayrock has denied Mr Kriss’s allegations but declined to answer questions about the source of its funds and its relationship with the Khrapunovs.

The third article digs more deeply into the origins of Bayrock and its connection with Trump. That connection … was very close.

The Republican presidential nominee and Bayrock were both based in Trump Tower and they joined forces to pursue deals around the world — from New York, Florida, Arizona and Colorado in the US to Turkey, Poland, Russia and Ukraine. Their best-known collaboration — Trump SoHo, a 46-storey hotel-condominium completed in 2010 — was featured in Mr Trump’s NBC television show The Apprentice.

This is the same group about which Trump said he “never really understood” the ownership.

“I don’t know who owns Bayrock,” Mr Trump said. “I never really understood who owned Bayrock. I know they’re a developer that’s done quite a bit of work. But I don’t know how they have their ownership broken down.”

At the very least, Trump confessed to partnering with, taking money from, and acting as a representative for a corporation whose ownership he didn’t know, in deals that totaled hundreds of millions in countries around the world. However, it seems far more likely that Trump knowingly worked with oligarchs, groups associated with the Russian government, and plain old mobsters. Why? Because he was desperate.

By the 2000s, the property developer and casino owner with ready access to the capital markets and the biggest New York banks was no more. A series of corporate bankruptcies had limited his financing options. Mr Trump had become an entertainer who portrayed a tycoon on television and licensed his name to businesses looking for a brand, leading to fee-making opportunities as disparate as Trump University and Trump Vodka.

The Trump Organization was a hollow shell and Trump was bankrupt, but Donald Trump the public figure was a “successful businessman,” a screen behind which criminal activity could be carried out on a massive scale. Throwing his name at every scheme in existence wasn’t a strategy, it was a fire sale on Trump’s respectability. Steaks? Water? Vodka? Fake real estate school? You pony up the cash, and Trump will slap his name on it. Because by the early 2000s, Trump wasn’t just broke, he had nothing left to pawn. He wasn’t a successful businessman, but he still played one on TV. His image had more value than his real estate portfolio.

But the apartments and buildings where Trump held some degree of ownership could be turned into value again. All it took was partnering with foreign crime bosses looking for a place to stash their cash. To inflate the value of his portfolio, Trump had to do nothing other than look away as the dirty money poured in from one LLC to the next. Citizens in Russia, Kazakhstan, and other former Soviet states lost hundreds of millions, but Trump got a cut as looted funds flowed through offices and apartments in buildings that carried those critical gold letters.

Horton’s evaluation of this material in coordination with the declassified DNI report is that Trump actively worked with and for Russian interests.


What these exposes showed, is that Trump pursued the projects hand in glove with Russian mobsters who worked closely with Putin’s Kremlin ...

But based on the information in the Financial Times report, it appears that there are actually two possible answers. Trump may have been actively involved with and working for Russian sources. He might also have simply played the role of useful idiot, displaying his readiness to feign ignorance about any deal … so long as it generated some funds to float his sinking boat.

In the end, there’s not a lot of difference in the outcome. Trump got money. Oligarchs cleaned their cash. Russia got their man.
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/d ... ime-bosses

[Karmamatterz]

Does anybody else find it highly ironic and comical that the U.S. had manipulated many elections in other nations but when it "might" have happened to us there is a shrieking howl of indignation?

As far as I'm concerned the whole election hack thing gets filed away with "fake news." I mean come on, aren't we supposed to believe that there is a lot of fake news out there and that until facts and sources are presented it remains fake?

Or do we suddenly for no damn good f*king reason all the sudden start believing what the oval office and main stream media is shoveling? Come on people!

[seemslikeadream]

so we are only to believe FoxNews and Breitbart?

trump is just fab

he is already on the record for committing war crimes and torture ...what more do you want?

can I want to have him impeached just for that?......and he's bombing Syria with Putin ...now bombing Syria is the in thing to do?

[Karmamatterz]

SLAD, come on. Really?

What chess pieces and players were already in place prior to Drumpf getting elected? Sworn in?

As much as a ding dong dip shit he is the drones, spy apparatus etc....was ALREADY in place. He is part of the continuum.

I don't think most folks on RI are stupid enough to believe that the previous anointed one wasn't ordering the bombing and killing innocent children. The kids were just collateral damage of course. Shit happens. Right?

All the president will commit these acts. I'm not more excited or fearful about Trump as I was Dubya, Obama or Sir Slick Willy. They are ALL part of the machine and not a one of them gives a rats ass about you or me.

[seemslikeadream]

just making sure trump isn't becoming a saint here

[Iamwhomiam]

They are ALL part of the machine and not a one of them gives a rats ass about you or me.

Oh, but they do. They need us to know our place to assure many will never realize the American Dream of home ownership, the minimum requirement for admission to the game, but at this level access to the higher orders is usually gained through personal letter or petition. They control our wages, our neighborhoods, our police - shall I go on? Most of all, they want your money and your vote. That they call loyalty. We are the parts of one machine that by design take the most wear.

[seemslikeadream]

POLITICS | Wed Jan 25, 2017 | 3:25pm EST
U.S. lawmakers want documents on Russia election probe

The House of Representatives Intelligence Committee called on the Trump administration on Wednesday to provide them with what they expect will be thousands of documents related to the investigation of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election.

The request may be an effort to avoid a repeat of an unusual document access arrangement made between the Senate Intelligence Committee and CIA to review information related to enhanced interrogation techniques at secret overseas "black site" prisons during the George W. Bush administration.

Under that arrangement, Senate investigators were limited to reviewing documents on a shared computer network set up at a Central Intelligence Agency facility, which later led to accusations the agency had spied on the work of congressional staffers.

"It will not be adequate to review these documents, expected to be in the thousands of pages, at the agencies. They should be delivered to the House Intelligence Committee to provide members adequate time to examine their content," Representatives Devin Nunes, the committee's Republican chairman, and Adam Schiff, its top Democrat, said in a joint statement.

They said they expect "prompt" responses to requests for documents.

U.S. intelligence agencies contend that Moscow waged a multifaceted campaign of hacking and other actions to boost Republican President Donald Trump's election chances against Democrat Hillary Clinton last year.

Trump has worried lawmakers, mostly Democrats but also some Republicans, by dismissing such claims and criticizing intelligence agencies for raising them. They have demanded special committees to investigate, but Republican congressional leaders said they would leave that work to existing committees.

Trump's fellow Republicans control majorities in both the Senate and House.

The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Richard Burr and Democrat Mark Warner, issued a statement late on Tuesday saying their committee was also moving forward with its investigation.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-t ... um=partner.

Second Hill panel to probe possible ties between Russia, Trump campaign
By AUSTIN WRIGHT 01/25/17 12:44 PM EST Updated 01/25/17 02:28 PM EST

The House Intelligence Committee is now looking into alleged ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, the panel’s leaders said Wednesday, making it the second congressional investigation into the sensitive issue.

Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said in a joint statement with his Democratic counterpart, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the committee is conducting a broad probe of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Among other topics, the investigation is looking into “any intelligence regarding links between Russia and individuals associated with political campaigns,” the two congressmen said.

Across the Capitol, the Senate Intelligence Committee is also investigating the issue as part of a larger probe into Russia’s election interference.

Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who allied himself with Donald Trump during his close reelection battle last year, initially sought to keep allegations that the Trump campaign was in contact with Russia outside the scope of his panel’s investigation. He relented, though, after the committee’s Democrats made clear they would not support the investigation unless possible Trump-Russia ties could be explored.

In their statement Wednesday, Nunes and Schiff said the House investigation would also look into "Russian cyber activity ... directed against the U.S. and its allies," the U.S. response to these activities and "possible leaks of classified information related to the intelligence community's assessments of these matters.”

Earlier this month, Trump called for the intelligence committees to investigate how classified information about Russia’s election meddling ended up in an NBC News report.

Nunes and Schiff called on the intelligence community to turn over documents related to their investigation, saying “it will not be adequate to review these documents, expected to be in the thousands of pages, at the agencies.”

“They should be delivered to the House Intelligence Committee to provide members adequate time to examine their content,” they said. “While the committee has already begun to receive important documents, we trust that the incoming leadership of the intelligence community will fully and promptly support our requests for information related to the inquiry.”

The intelligence community has made public its conclusion that Russia sought to influence the presidential election — first with a goal of undermining faith in democratic institutions and later with the goal of helping elect Trump.

There are also unsubstantiated allegations, contained in a 35-page “dossier” published by BuzzFeed News, that Trump campaign aides coordinated these efforts with Russian officials.

Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has also been investigated by the FBI for his contacts with Russian diplomats, as The Washington Post reported, but there has been no evidence of wrongdoing.

A number of Democrats — plus Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — have called for a select committee to investigate Russia’s role in the 2016 election.

Republican congressional leaders have so far rejected these calls, instead ordering the intelligence committees and other congressional panels to conduct separate probes.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/h ... ump-234168

[seemslikeadream]

Russian Spy Tied to DNC Hacking Arrested for Treason

Emrah Gurel
ByJOSH MARSHALL
PublishedJANUARY 25, 2017, 8:07 PM EDT

I had seen references to this over the last two days. But those references were in publications I was not familiar with or, so I was told, in Russian language publications which I couldn't read. But now The New York Times is reporting that the number two man in the department which purportedly oversaw the hacking campaign against the Democratic party in the United States, Sergei Mikhailov, has been arrested for treason.

Putin-era Russia is rather limited when it comes to the rule of law. It is not uncommon for those who fall from grace to find themselves targeted with prosecution. This was the method by which Putin brought the oligarchs to heel early in his reign. But treason is of course the most serious of charges.

From the Times ....
A senior official in the Russian cyberintelligence department that American officials say oversaw last year’s election hacking has been arrested in Moscow on charges of treason, a Russian newspaper reported Wednesday.
The arrest of Sergei Mikhailov, a senior officer of the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., the main successor agency to the K.G.B., is a rare instance of turmoil in the country’s usually shadowy cybersecurity apparatus slipping into public view.

Mr. Mikhailov served in the F.S.B.’s Center for Information Security, the agency’s cyberintelligence branch, which has been implicated in the American election hacking. But it is not clear whether the arrest was related to those intrusions.

It may not be clear or known. But given the crisis touched off by the hacking campaign, US accusations about it and sanctions tied to it, it rather beggars credulity that they are not connected. Meanwhile, the AP reports that a cybersecurity expert at a firm which works closely with the FSB (the successor to the KGB) has also been arrested.
A manager in charge of investigating hacking attacks at Russia's biggest cybersecurity firm has been arrested, the company said Wednesday.
Kaspersky Lab on Wednesday confirmed reports in Russia's respected Kommersant newspaper that Ruslan Stoyanov, head of its computer incidents investigations unit, was arrested in December. Kommersant said that Stoyanov was arrested along with a senior Russian FSB intelligence officer and that they both face charges of treason.

These two arrests are being reported as coming right upon one another and presumably related. But a week and a half ago there was another development. Andrei Gerasimov, the head of the FSB’s Information Security Center since 2009 was fired. There was speculation in the press that the dismissal was corruption related. A reporter for Agence France-Presse speculated on twitter whether the dismissal might have been tied to the revelation of the Trump 'dossier' published by Buzzfeed.

Could this be an olive branch to Trump? Could this person have been accused of being an asset of US intelligence? Russian politics are notoriously opaque, their espionage and legal system even more so. Knowing very little about any of them, I have little basis to speculate. But someone fairly consequential seems to be up.

[ed.note: The original version of this post said that Mikhailov was the man US intelligence believes oversaw the hacking campaign against the Democratic party as opposed to the number two official in the FSB department which US intelligence believes oversaw the campaign. The original version was based on my misreading of the Times lede. I regret the error.]
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/rus ... or-treason

SECURITY PROS FEAR CHILLING EFFECT AS RUSSIA CHARGES INVESTIGATOR WITH TREASON
By Mark Coppock — January 25, 2017 6:18 PM

Our data privacy and security could be impacted by the political ramifications of information security investigations.
Safe computing requires the involvement of people in all industries, locations, and fields of expertise. Normally, that’s not a problem, as most people are willing and able to provide whatever input is necessary to help alleviate security risks in the technology we all use.

Some regions of the world are not as free and open as others, however, and so not all professionals as able to participate without concern for their own safety. Such could be the case with a Kaspersky Lab investigator who was arrested for treason in Russia, as Ars Technica reports.

More: Russia tried to help Trump win, CIA says … but the FBI isn’t so sure

Kaspersky Labs was quick to disassociate itself from the incident, saying, “The case against this employee does not involve Kaspersky Lab. The employee, who is Head of the Computer Incidents Investigation Team, is under investigation for a period predating his employment at Kaspersky Lab. We do not possess details of the investigation. The work of Kaspersky Lab’s Computer Incidents Investigation Team is unaffected by these developments.”

Details are sketchy as to why the investigator, Ruslan Stoyanov, was arrested. Stoyanov was in charge of Kaspersky Lab’s investigations unit, in addition to serving in Russia’s Ministry of Interior in charge of cybercrime. As Forbes reports, Stoyanov’s arrest might be related to an investigation involving Sergei Mikhailov, deputy head of the information security department of the FSB, involving monies paid by foreign companies.

However, Stoyanov recently contributed to the Kaspersky Lab Securelist blog, posting on cybercrime in Russia, and the Lawfare Blog has speculated — perhaps erroneously — that Stoyanov might have been a source of information leading to the conclusion that Russia sponsored hacking efforts aimed at interfering with the 2016 presidential election in the U.S. While nobody can be certain of the reasons for Stoyanov’s arrest, one general concern is that anyone who participates in efforts to fight cybercrime can come under political fire.

As Jake Williams of security firm Rendition Software put it, “For those living and working under oppressive regimes, keep up the good fight. But also remember that no incident response report or conference talk is worth jail time (or worse). I think that these charges will cause security researchers, particularly those in states with oppressive governments, to carefully consider the weight of reporting details of security incidents.”

Stoyanov’s arrest was filed under Article 275 of the Russian criminal code, which can impose treason charges on anyone who provides financial, technical, advisory, or other assistance to foreign states or organizations that are not friendly to Russia. This means that, as Forbes indicated in its coverage, merely providing the U.S. FBI with insights on malware such as botnets could run someone afoul of government agencies.

Nevertheless, the chilling effect on cybercrime research and mitigation could be significant if Stoyanov’s arrest indicates a trend of penalizing researchers and others for international cooperation. Even if Stoyanov’s arrest was for unrelated reasons, anyone involved with researching security in countries with oppressive governments might now think twice before working with foreign entities on resolving information security concerns.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/ ... z4Wq0ZhRBy

Zero Hedge take

Head Of Investigations At Russia's Biggest Cybersecurity Firm Arrested For Treason

by Tyler Durden
Jan 25, 2017 12:13 PM

In what may be the latest fallout from the cold cyberwar taking place between the US and Russia, the head of the investigation unit, and one of the most important cybercrime experts at Kaspersky Lab, Russia's biggest cybersecurity firm, was been arrested on charges of treason. Stoyanov was involved in every big anti-cybercrime operation in Russia in past years, including the one against the components of the Lurk cybercrime gang.

Kaspersky Lab confirmed to AP reports in Russia's Kommersant newspaper that Ruslan Stoyanov, head of its computer incidents investigations unit, was arrested in December.


Ruslan Stoyanov

According to the “Kommersant” the arrest may be linked to the investigation on into Sergei Mikhailov, deputy head of the information security department of the FSB, Russia national security service. Stoyanov and Mikhailov were both arrested in December, according to the Kommersant the investigation was exploring the receipt of money from foreign companies by Stoyanov and his links to Mikhailov. Mikhailov is also facing treason charges alongside Stoyanov.

Kaspersky spokeswoman Maria Shirokova, said in a statement that Stoyanov's arrest "has nothing to do with Kaspersky Lab and its operations."

She said the company has no details of the charges Stoyanov faces, but added that the investigation dates back to the time before Stoyanov was hired by Kaspersky.

According to Forbes, the arrest may be a matter of national security: "A Russia-based information security source told FORBES the details of the case were likely to remain private. The case has been filed under article 275 of Russia’s criminal code, the source said, meaning it should result in a secret military tribunal. Article 275 allows the government to prosecute when an individual provides assistance to a foreign state or organization regarding “hostile activities to the detriment of the external security of the Russian Federation” (translation from source). According to the source, this can be applied broadly. For instance, furnishing the FBI with information on a botnet may amount to treason."

Before Stoyanov joined Kaspersky in 2012, he served six years as a major in the Ministry of Interior’s cybercrime unit between 2000 and 2006, then he moved into the private sector. While Ruslan Stoyanov was working for the Russian government, he was the lead investigator into a hacker crew that extorted $4 million to U.K. betting shops under the DDoS threat.

U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Russia of meddling in the U.S. presidential election through hacking, to help Donald Trump win the vote, claims that Russia has rejected. U.S. and EU officials also have accused Russia of hacking other Western institutions and voiced concern that Russia may try to influence this year's elections in Germany, France and the Netherlands. It wasn't immediately clear if the arrests are somehow linked to these allegations.

The FSB's press office did not comment on the arrest.

Meanwhile Andrei Soldatov, who has studied the internet and Russian security services for more than a decade, called the arrest of the Kaspersky manager "unprecedented."

"It destroys a system that has been 20 years in the making, the system of relations between intelligence agencies and companies like Kaspersky," he told The Associated Press. "Intelligence agencies used to ask for Kaspersky's advice, and this is how informal ties were built. This romance is clearly over."

While Kaspersky has published research damaging to Russian hacking operations, Eugene Kaspersky is known to have held a friendly relationship with the Russian government. The company has a strong international presence, including antivirus research facilities inside the United States.

It remains unclear if today's arrest has any connection to the "Russian election hacking" scandal that brought US-Russian relations to a halt in the last days of the Obama administration.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-2 ... ed-treason

Does Trump Have Ties To The Mob?
Alex Shnaider, Trump's partner for Trump Tower Toronto, has ties to Sergei Mikhailov, leader of the SoInsteva Gang, a ruthless "Russian crime syndicate."
http://www.dailywire.com/news/3936/does ... on-bandler

from Breitbart

British Billionaire Explains How Trump Will Negotiate With Putin — ‘Trump Is The Sort Of Guy…’

CHRISTIAN DATOC

Donald Trump is the only presidential candidate who can handle Russia’s Vladimir Putin, says Formula One CEO Bernie Ecclestone.

In an interview with Top Gear’s Eddie Jordan and Charlie Turner, the British billionaire explained why he “hopes” Trump will win the 2016 election.

“It’d be good for the world if he won,” he answered when asked if he thought the Republican nominee “has a chance” in November.

Ecclestone noted Trump would “want to cosy up to [Putin] for sure, and he’d be right to do that. Which would be good for the world.”

“Trump, I think, is the sort of guy that if he maybe thought he’d made a little bit of a mistake, would find a way out,” he explained. “[Trump] wouldn’t want to say, ‘well, that’s what I’ve done and I’m sticking to it, and I don’t give a damn.’ Which is what the other people in America would be like.”

Bernie Ecclestone walks down the paddock after the first practice session at the Autodromo Nazionale circuit in Monza on September 2, 2016 (Getty Images)

“With Putin, he says he’s going to do something, he gets on it, does it.”

Ecclestone also believes the UK’s decision to leave the European Union was “absolutely” the right choice.

“I think we don’t need some people in Brussels trying to run countries that are some distance apart, who don’t speak the same language, don’t eat the same food,” he explained. “There’s a bit of difference between, Holland, if you like, and Italy.”
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