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by seemslikeadream » Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:48 pm
by seemslikeadream » Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:49 pm
......gotta keep an eye on ManafortMueller Charges Lawyer With Lying in Russia Probe
February 20, 2018, 8:38 AM CST
By
David Voreacos
February 20, 2018, 8:21 AM CST
Van Der Zwaan helped prepare Ukraine report for Manafort
False statements case comes days after Russians charged
An attorney who worked for a prominent law firm was charged with making false statements to federal authorities as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election.
Alex Van Der Zwaan was charged Feb. 16 in federal court in Washington with lying to investigators about conversations related to a report he helped prepare on the trial of a Ukrainian politician, Yulia Tymoshenko. Van Der Zwaan was charged with a criminal information, which typically precedes a guilty plea.
Van Der Zwaan, identified on his LinkedIn page as an associate in the London office of Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom, was questioned regarding the firm’s work in 2012 on behalf of the Ukraine Ministry of Justice. He allegedly lied to investigators about his last communications with Richard Gates, who was indicted in October with ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort over their consulting work in Ukraine.
The lawyer also allegedly lied about his talks with someone else, referred to by the government as "Person A.” Van Der Zwaan deleted and failed to produce emails sought by the special counsel and a law firm, prosecutors said.
Calls to the lawyer and the law firm weren’t immediately returned.
Document Request
The Justice Department had asked Skadden for information and documents related to its work for the Yanukovych government, the New York Times reported in September.
The firm produced a report earlier in the decade for the pro-Russian government in Ukraine that largely defended the prosecution and conviction of Tymoshenko. The report defied the view held by the U.S. and the European Union that the case against her was politically motivated. The firm’s $12,000 fee was modest, just below the amount that required public bidding.
The following year, however, with no further work done, Ukraine sent Skadden $1 million. After the pro-Russian government was run out of town in 2014, the new authorities began investigating.
Paul Manafort was involved in recruiting Skadden to prepare the report on behalf of Ukraine, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. The Skadden team was headed by Gregory Craig, a partner who had worked as President Barack Obama’s White House counsel from 2009 to 2010 and for President Bill Clinton during his impeachment.
Mueller’s indictment of Manafort alleges that offshore accounts associated with Manafort and his partner, Rick Gates, paid more than $2 million between 2012 and 2014 to two companies that lobbied members of Congress and their staffs about Ukraine sanctions and “the propriety of imprisoning his presidential rival.”
The charges come four days after Mueller accused 13 Russians of a sophisticated disinformation campaign using a troll army that targeted the 2016 campaign and sought to sow discord in the U.S.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ssia-probe
Justice Ministry investigation nets unexpected $567,000 windfall for state budget
By Josh Kovensky. Published Nov. 17, 2017 at 5:19 pm
Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko looks out from behind bars in November 2011. In 2012, a team from US law firm Skadden came to Ukraine for a report that legitimized Tymoshenko’s prosecution. (UNIAN)
In the long battle to recover the more than $40 billion stolen by the regime of runaway former President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine has notched a small victory.
The country received $567,000 in June as part of its investigation into former Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych, who allegedly rigged a state tender and embezzled $1.1 million to hire and pay U.S. law firm Skadden, Arps, Meagher, & Flom LLP and Associates.
The law firm appears to have refunded $567,000 to the Ukrainian government in June under pressure from Ukrainian and U.S. prosecutors, according to interviews with Ukrainian law enforcement officials.
The money transfer was first reported by the New York Times in September. A spokesman for the U.S. special counsel investigating Russian meddling into the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which includes the Skadden case, declined to comment.
Skadden did not reply to repeated requests for comment.
$567,000 QUESTION
On wiring the $567,000 to Ukraine, Skadden has claimed that the money had been held in “escrow for future work” that had never been done.
But the transfer only came after the Ukrainian government sent the U.S. Justice Department a letter requesting the repayment, and after Ukrainian prosecutors under Serhiy Gorbatyuk, head of the Special Investigations Department at Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office, filed several Mutual Legal Assistance Requests through the PGO’s international legal assistance department.
Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko himself thanked the U.S. Justice Department for its “close cooperation” in returning more than $500,000 from an “American firm” in a June Facebook post.
“These are funds that were squandered by the former leadership of the Ministry of Justice under Yanukovych and removed from Ukraine by signing a fictitious agreement about services,” Lutsenko wrote, before referencing the criminal statute under which Lavrynovych is being prosecuted.
INVESTIGATION SLOWDOWN?
The investigation into whether the Yanukovych-era Ministry of Justice subverted procurement procedures to hire Skadden and then embezzled money to pay the firm was opened before Yanukovych fled the country, but heated up after the 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.
Skadden was hired to produce a report justifying to the U.S. government the jailing of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko by Yanukovych for her signing in 2009 of a controversial gas supply deal with Russia. The case against Tymoshenko was widely seen, both in Ukraine and internationally, as being politically motivated.
Gorbatyuk’s office sent its first Mutual Legal Assistance Request to the United States in December 2014, and followed it up with two additional requests and four “reminders.”
Ukrainian representatives from the PGO’s international legal assistance office visited Washington in December 2016.
March 2017 saw the probe speed up, as CNN published an article saying that Ukrainian prosecutors wanted to question Paul Manafort, a former advisor of President Yanukovych. In the same month, then-FBI Director James Comey was asked about the Ukrainian requests during a congressional hearing.
Gorbatyuk’s office got a response in April, with correspondence and documents showing “how the events took place, before the agreement was signed, as it was being fulfilled, and after its fulfillment,” the prosecutor said.
“Our requests for depositions were not fulfilled,” Gorbatyuk added.
Prosecutors on the case want to question members of the Skadden team who came to Ukraine to work on the report, including former Obama Administration officials Gregory Craig and Clifford Sloan, as well as the London-based associate Alex Van der Zwaan, the Russian-speaking son-in-law of Russian oligarch German Khan, who prosecutors say acted as an intermediary for the team on much of the trip.
Court orders show that Gorbatyuk’s team has received access to phone records from the team’s time in Kyiv, showing their communications with Yanukovych government and Party of Regions officials.
“Law firms and lawyers are often professional enablers,” said Daria Kaleniuk, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center. “Lawyers are able to enable money laundering because they are protected by attorney-client privilege, meaning that they can say they are just representing their client’s interests, and not helping them commit any wrongdoing.”
“But in fact lawyers have to also verify their clients and have to see who is behind the legal entities to whom they are providing services,” she added.
https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politi ... udget.html
Lawyer At Firm Behind Ukraine Report Charged With Lying To Mueller
Tierney Sneed
In a surprise development, a lawyer who worked at the firm that produced a report for Paul Manafort’s Ukrainian lobbying campaign has been charged with lying to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team. The charges were revealed in court documents filed on Friday that became public on Tuesday.
The lawyer, Alex Van Der Zwaan “willfully and knowingly” made “materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and representations” to the investigators about his conversations with Manafort deputy Rick Gates and an unnamed third person, prosecutors alleged in the new court filings
Zwaan —who according to the Kyiv Post is based in London and is the son-in-law of Russian oligarch German Khan — spoke to investigators on Nov. 3, just a few days after Mueller’s indictments against Manafort and Gates became public, the court documents said. Before Tuesday’s revelation, Zwaan’s name has come up only peripherally in connection with the Manafort-Gates case.
Gates and Manafort have both been charged by Mueller for failure to disclose the Ukrainian lobbying work, among other things. They have both pleaded not guilty.
Zwaan’s firm’s Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLC was behind a 2012 report that sought to justify the Ukrainian government’s prosecution and conviction of Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister of Ukraine. Manafort, who went on to serve as President Trump’s campaign chairman, recruited the firm to produce the report while he was advising Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician.
It was reported in September that Mueller was interested in Skadden’s involvement in the report.
Zwaan allegedly told investigators he last spoke to Gates in August 2016, when he in fact spoke to Gates a month later, prosecutors said in the filings. The September conversations also involved a person dubbed by Mueller as “Person A,” according to the court documents. Zwaan “surreptitiously recorded” the phone calls, the prosecutors alleged.
Zwaan allegedly also misled investigators about a September 2016 email between him and “Person A,” according to the court documents. He allegedly told investigators he did not know why the email was not produced for Mueller’s team, the court document said. Prosecutors alleged that Zwaan deleted and otherwise did not produce that and other emails.
An arraignment hearing is scheduled for 2:30 Tuesday.
Read the filing below:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker ... ller-lying
Malcolm Nance
33m33 minutes ago
My BEST assessment on this NEW Muller indictment? They think Manafort is a paid Russian agent. They are scrubbing all of his past relationships with proMoscow persons & indicting everyone who lies. Manafort is in SERIOUS trouble! Maybe even Espionage act trouble?
Mueller is going for every dollar which Moscow may have originally funded through Manafort from the beginning. He's not starting w 2016 election. He's scrubbing this man's past.
Counterchekist
Some seem to miss the significance here; Alex van der Zwaan is the son of Oligarch German Khan, owner of the Alfa Group (aka Alfa Bank). Alfa Bank servers were among those making inexplicable Idoine DNS tunneling comms with Spectrum Health servers... Just sayin’.
See?
Investigation was conducted by Dutch journalists Eelco Bosch van Rosenthal of Nieuwsuur and Huib Modderkolk of De VolkskrantNew Report Says Dutch Have Absolute Proof Russia Was Behind 2016 Election Hacking
KEVIN DRUM
JAN. 26, 2018 1:25 AM
The Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant (“The People’s Paper”) has quite the intriguing story today. Apparently AIVD, the Dutch equivalent of the CIA, broke into the computer systems of a nondescript building in Moscow a few years ago. They had no idea what was there, but eventually they figured it out. It was the workplace of Cozy Bear, Russia’s most infamous hacking group:
That’s how the AIVD becomes witness to the Russian hackers harassing and penetrating the leaders of the Democratic Party, transferring thousands of emails and documents. It won’t be the last time they alert their American counterparts. And yet, it will be months before the United States realize what this warning means: that with these hacks the Russians have interfered with the American elections. And the AIVD hackers have seen it happening before their very eyes.
….The Cozy Bear hackers are in a space in a university building near the Red Square. The group’s composition varies, usually about ten people are active. The entrance is in a curved hallway. A security camera records who enters and who exits the room. The AIVD hackers manage to gain access to that camera. Not only can the intelligence service now see what the Russians are doing, they can also see who’s doing it. Pictures are taken of every visitor. In Zoetermeer, these pictures are analyzed and compared to known Russian spies.
….Access to Cozy Bear turns out to be a goldmine for the Dutch hackers. For years, it supplies them with valuable intelligence about targets, methods and the interests of the highest ranking officials of the Russian security service [which they share with the United States]….In return, the Dutch are given knowledge, technology and intelligence. According to one American source, in late 2015, the NSA hackers manage to penetrate the mobile devices of several high ranking Russian intelligence officers. They learn that right before a hacking attack, the Russians search the internet for any news about the oncoming attack.
de Volkskrant says the Dutch are pretty pissed off that our intelligence services, in an effort to prove that Russia really did interfere with the US election, have repeatedly bragged about the remarkable efforts of a “Western ally.” However, the details in this story come from both American and Dutch sources, so apparently there are at least a few folks in the Netherlands who figure they might as well brag about it themselves now that the operation is over.
If all this is true, the primary sources for our knowledge of the 2016 election hacking are the Dutch operation and the NSA penetration of Russian mobile devices. Those are some pretty good sources, and it accounts for why the US intelligence community is so certain that Russia was behind all the various hacks. And there are other Russian attacks, too, which are described in some detail in the story. I wonder if they have similar intelligence about Wikileaks?https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/01/new-report-says-dutch-have-absolute-proof-russia-was-behind-2016-election-hacking/Dutch subsidiary of Russia's Alfa Bank raided in money laundering investigation
Reuters Staff
AMSTERDAM, Dec 12 (Reuters) - The Dutch subsidiary of Russia’s Alfa Bank, owned by billionaire Mikhail Fridman, was searched last week as part of an investigation into possible money laundering, the Dutch financial crimes prosecutor said on Tuesday.
https://www.reuters.com/article/netherl ... SL8N1OC4SMSources: FBI investigation continues into 'odd' computer link between Russian bank and Trump Organization
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/09/politics/ ... index.html
Alfa Bank..the one that was accused of having a server in the basement of Trump Tower?Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?
This spring, a group of computer scientists set out to determine whether hackers were interfering with the Trump campaign. They found something they weren’t expecting
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... ussia.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bEdMuKq30I
by Rory » Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:51 pm
by seemslikeadream » Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:53 pm
seemslikeadream » Wed Sep 06, 2017 10:02 pm wrote:From their digital headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, the Trump campaign placed between 70,000-175,000 different pieces of content on Facebook every day specifically targeting profiles provided from Cambridge Analytica.
Cambridge Analytica’s parent company was until recently owned by a British-Iranian businessman with ties to Putin-linked Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash who is wanted for bribery by the U.S. and was allegedly involved in a racketeering scheme with Paul Manafort.
More importantly, the way Cambridge Analytica gained access to some 30 million Facebook accounts without users’ consent, along with private voting records, raises serious privacy concerns.“What were Facebook and Google and YouTube people actually doing here? Why were they here?” She responds by saying “They were helping us, you know. They were basically our hands-on partners as far as being able to utilize the platform as effectively as possible.”
...it surely does now with the news about FACEBOOK today
PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE
Posted on September 5, 2017 by Zev Shalev and Tracie McElroy
THE SECRET STORY OF HOW AMERICAN MINDS WERE MANIPULATED DURING THE 2016 ELECTION CAMPAIGN AND HOW DONALD TRUMP’S BACKERS ARE MAKING MONEY OFF IT.
Psychologist Michal Kosinski switched on the TV in his Zurich hotel room on the morning of November ninth. The headlines were all about Donald Trump’s against-all-odds win in the U.S. presidential election. The news filled the Polish-born academic with dread, Kosinski told Das Magazine. The 34-year-old psychologist was sure of one thing: the scientific model he had created helped elect Trump.
Kosinski is a pioneer in the field of psychometry. It’s the science of predicting behavior using a psychological profile gleamed from social media activity. There are five criteria which analysts use to define your personality called the OCEAN model.
Openness to new ideas and learning.
Conscientiousness is a measure of your reliability, promptness and organization.
Extraversion measures openness and sociability.
Agreeableness refers to your kindness, empathy and warmth.
Neuroticism measures your emotional stability and rate of negative emotions.
In a 2012 study, Kosinski and two colleagues at Cambridge University were able to predict any person’s race, political affiliations and sexual orientation by analyzing someone’s social media activity.
While at Cambridge, Kosinski met fellow researcher Aleksandr Kogan. Russian-born Kogan asked about using Kosinski’s method for election manipulation. “The whole thing began to stink,” Kosinski told German Das Magazine.
Kosinski wanted nothing to do with using his research for malevolent means and broke off contact with Kogan. Since then, Kosinski has travelled the world lecturing about the dangers of ‘big data’ manipulation warning it can “threaten the welfare, freedom, or even the lives of men.”
Kogan, who has since changed his name to Alexandr Specter, had very different plans for his colleagues’ research.
The secret story of how American minds were manipulated during the 2016 election and how Donald Trump’s backers are making money off it.
Dr. Michal Kosinski (left) met Dr. Aleksandr Spectre (middle) at Cambridge University where they both studied Psychometry. Spectre launched a research study of American voters using Facebook for the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, whose CEO is Alexander Nix (right).
After the invasion of the Ukraine, a Russian born researcher at Cambridge University began harvesting private data of 30 million U.S. Facebook users for Cambridge Analytica.
In 2014, Kogan founded “Global Science Research”, which was funded by London-based Scientific Communications Laboratory (SCL) and its subsidiary Cambridge Analytica. Kogan’s company hired 185,000 Americans to take an online survey and download a Facebook app. Once downloaded, the app gave Kogan information on 30 million unsuspecting Facebook users who were Facebook friends with the original survey-takers, according to The Intercept. Kogan has used Kosinski’s model to build an an algorithm to profile American voters.
In 2015, Kogan’s app was shut down because of complaints about privacy concerns. By then Kogan had gathered data on millions of Americans. “No one in this larger group of 30 million knew that “likes” and demographic data from their Facebook profiles were being harvested by political operatives hired to influence American voters,” according to The Intercept.
SCL has since distanced itself from the use of this data and Kogan’s GSR. “We do not do any work with Facebook likes,” Cambridge Analytica spokesman Lindsey Platts, said in a statement. The company “has no relationship with GSR,” Platts said.
The secret story of how American minds were manipulated during the 2016 election and how Donald Trump’s backers are making money off it.
Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix explains how his company can profile and target any voter in the U.S.
The Trump Campaign paid Cambridge Analytica $6 million for a database of 220 million U.S. voters including private details of their personality and activities.
In 2016, Cambridge Analytica, under the leadership of CEO Alexander Nix and vice-president Stephen Bannon helped manipulate the British electorate to vote for Brexit. The previously unknown company had achieved the unthinkable in breaking up the E.U. and then began to turn its attention to U.S. politics.
Donald Trump even tweeted on Aug 18: The secret story of how American minds were manipulated during the 2016 election and how Donald Trump’s backers are making money off it.
Every time you take one of those Facebook quizzes, you know the ones, which celebrity are you most like? Which Game of Thrones character are you? What country are you really from? You may think you’re taking an innocuous quiz, but what you’re really doing is giving a data mining firm like Cambridge Analytica, “express consent” to profile you. The company then cross-references that information with other data and creates an OCEAN profile of you which is even more accurate than a partner or family member could provide.
Donald Trump paid Cambridge Analytica $6 million for work on his 2016 campaign. The company’s data scientists were able to figure out Trump voters who were “very low in neuroticism, quite low in openness and slightly conscientious.” Once profiled, Cambridge Analytica could target their specific interests with tailor-made election messages and specific news content (real or fake) to work on their emotions, interests and regional location.
Think of it as a digital soapbox where the speaker is digitally crafted to appeal to your every fear and desire and pinpoint exactly where you live. Take for example, Donald Trump’s focus on the Opioid crisis and immigration during the 2016 election campaign. All of the messages were designed to surgically target voters with these seemingly “local” concerns in important swing states.
As Russian hackers targeted state voters rolls, Cambridge Analytica provided the Trump campaign with private voting history.
Cambridge Analytica assembled a database for the Trump campaign of 220 million voters known as Project Alamo. The data set included voter registration records, gun ownership records, credit card purchase histories, internet viewing history, car purchases and information from data-mining companies like Experian PLC, Datalogix, Epsilon and Acxiom Corporation.
Theresa Hong was a key digital officer for the Trump campaign. Hong told the BBC the data-set also included information about voting history. “Some of the attributes would be when was the last time they voted, who did they vote for.” In response to a question on how Cambridge Analytica would know all that information, Hong replied, “that’s their secret sauce.” (video above).
You’ll recall Russian hackers were able to infiltrate voters rolls in almost every state before the election. “We had to assume that they actually tried to at least rattle the doorknobs on all 50, and we just happened to find them in a few of them.” Michael Daniel, who led the Obama White House effort to secure the vote against Russian intrusions, told Time Magazine.
Add to this, a mysterious server in Trump Tower which is suspected of compiling a massive database of hacked voter information with Russia’s Alfa Bank and the DeVos family-owned Spectrum Health, and you begin to see a clearer picture of how Cambridge Analytica may have gotten all this data. Cambridge Analytica’s parent company was until recently owned by a British-Iranian businessman with ties to Putin-linked Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash who is wanted for bribery by the U.S. and was allegedly involved in a racketeering scheme with Paul Manafort.
From their digital headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, the Trump campaign placed between 70,000-175,000 different pieces of content on Facebook every day specifically targeting profiles provided from Cambridge Analytica. Trump’s digital advertising chief, Gary Coby, likened the effort to “high-frequency trading” and says Trump used Facebook “like no one else in politics has ever done.” In fact, all of Trump’s $85 million digital budget went into Facebook coffers.
Much of the targeted content that was delivered to voters was news created by Cambridge Analytica’s sister company Breitbart and Russian sponsored sites like Wikileaks, Sputnik and Russia Today. The FBI is investigating the role these news organizations played in Russia’s interference in the U.S. elections, according to McClatchy.
The secret story of how American minds were manipulated during the 2016 election campaign and how Donald Trump’s backers are making money off it.
Donald Trump’s key donor owns Cambridge Analytica, Stephen Bannon, Trump’s Former Senior Strategist was VP of CA and Michael Flynn former National Security Adviser was an advisor to the company.
Trump Administration inked a $496,000 deal with Cambridge Analytica while Michael Flynn and Stephen Bannon were still in office which presents a possible conflict of interest.
Cambridge Analytica is partly owned by New York hedge fund manager and major Trump donor Robert Mercer, according to Politico. Donald Trump’s former senior adviser Stephen Bannon was until recently the company’s vice-president and owned a stake in the company which could be worth as much as $5 Million. Trump’s former National Security Adviser Lt-Gen Michael Flynn, a compromised Russian asset, also disclosed he played an advisory role for Cambridge Analytica.
On February 17, the Trump Administration paid $496,000 upfront to Cambridge Analytica’s parent company SCL in a contract with the U.S. State Department. SCL’s role at the State Department is to “assess the impact of foreign propaganda campaigns and provide intelligence agencies with predictions and insight on emerging threats,” according to the Washington Post.
SCL is also working a deal with the Pentagon to teach them “how to conduct effective psychological operations,” says the Post. SCL has hired new staffers and opened a new office just up the street from the White House. SCL’s effort is being driven by a “former aide to now-departed national security adviser Michael Flynn, who served as an adviser to the company in the past,” says the Post.
Considering the senior roles Mercer, Bannon and Flynn held within Cambridge Analytica, the new Washington operation of SLC and the State Department deal could well indicate a conflict of interest.
More importantly, the way Cambridge Analytica gained access to some 30 million Facebook accounts without users’ consent, along with private voting records, raises serious privacy concerns.
The office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating all aspects of a possible conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign to sway the election. “That includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts,” Former FBI Director James Comey testified before a congressional committee in March.Facebook sent its employees to Donald Trump’s campaign office to help with online marketing
By Bill Palmer
Updated: 2:55 am EDT Thu Sep 7, 2017
Home » Politics
Facebook is finally admitting that it allowed fake Russian accounts to run paid political ads during the election (link). Although Facebook says it’s now cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the revelation is bringing new attention to the relationship between Facebook Incorporated and the Donald Trump campaign. That relationship involved Facebook sending its employees to help out at the Trump campaign office in charge of digital marketing. The source of this information: one of Trump’s own people.
In an online BBC video, Theresa Hong, the Donald Trump campaign’s Digital Content Director, has made a number of startling confessions that she seems to think were bragging points. She’s revealed that Cambridge Analytica, the company suspected of having used voter data stolen by the Russian government to plot its online marketing strategy on Trump’s behalf, ran its operations out of the same offices where the Trump campaign itself was plotting its paid Facebook ad strategy. But the truly shocking revelation is who else she admits was in the building, which Trump’s people called “Project Alamo.”
The BBC interviewer asks Hong, “What were Facebook and Google and YouTube people actually doing here? Why were they here?” She responds by saying “They were helping us, you know. They were basically our hands-on partners as far as being able to utilize the platform as effectively as possible.” Shen then bragged “When you’re pumping in millions and millions of dollars to these social platforms, you’re going to get white glove treatment. So they would send people, you know, representatives to the Project Alamo to ensure that all our needs were being met.” Watch the shocking BBC video below (link):
This raises a number of questions. First, why did Facebook think it was appropriate to send employees to “help” a presidential campaign so thoroughly that the campaign ended up describing them as partners? What “needs” were being met, and how far did Facebook go to help the Trump campaign plot its strategy? Was Facebook aware of what Cambridge Analytica was doing in the next room? How does this connect to Facebook’s decision to allow fake Russian accounts to run paid ads? We suspect Robert Mueller will be targeting these Facebook employees soon, if he hasn’t already.
http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/fa ... fice/4784/
by Rory » Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:56 pm
by seemslikeadream » Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:59 pm
seemslikeadream » Mon Jul 24, 2017 8:20 pm wrote:
Justice Dept. Nominee Says He Once Represented Russian Bank
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and ADAM GOLDMANJULY 24, 2017
An Alfa Bank branch in Moscow. President Trump’s nominee to run the Justice Department’s criminal division, Brian A. Benczkowski, has disclosed that he did work for the bank, whose owners have ties to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. Credit Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s criminal division, Brian A. Benczkowski, has disclosed to Congress that he previously represented Alfa Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions, whose owners have ties to President Vladimir V. Putin.
Mr. Trump nominated Mr. Benczkowski, a partner at the Kirkland & Ellis law firm and a former Bush administration Justice Department official, in June, and he is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a confirmation hearing on Tuesday.
Alfa Bank was at the center of scrutiny last year over potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia after computer experts discovered data suggesting a stream of communications between a server linked to the Trump Organization and a server linked to the bank. Reports about the mysterious data transmissions fueled speculation about a back channel.
The F.B.I. investigated the matter, however, and concluded that the servers’ interactions were not surreptitious exchanges between the campaign and Russia, according to current and former law enforcement officials. Experts have argued that the server linked to the Trump Organization appeared to be controlled by a marketing firm, Cendyn, that was sending emails promoting Trump hotel properties.
DOCUMENT
Benczkowksi Discloses He Represented Alfa Bank
In a letter obtained by The New York Times, President Trump's nominee to run the Justice Department criminal division, Brian A. Benczkowski, disclosed to Congress that he previously represented Alfa Bank, one of Russia’s largest financial institutions.
OPEN DOCUMENT
Ahead of the Judiciary Committee hearing, Mr. Benczkowski told the panel that he had previously been forbidden by his firm’s confidentiality agreement from disclosing his work for Alfa Bank, but had obtained a waiver.
“Your staff has indicated that the committee may wish to question me at my hearing regarding the fact and scope of my work for Alfa Bank,” Mr. Benczkowski wrote, saying his waiver would permit him “to discuss the fact and scope of the representation at the hearing. As I am sure you understand, ethical considerations prohibit me from disclosing confidential legal advice or any other information protected by the attorney-client privilege under any circumstances.”
Mr. Benczkowski’s law firm has offices around the world, and it represents many foreign clients. But his association with Alfa Bank in particular could be awkward in this period of heightened scrutiny on ties between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.
Mr. Benczkowski’s disclosure comes at a time of tremendous political and legal scrutiny over those ties, including a special counsel investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded in that effort.
Photo
Brian A. Benczkowski sat behind Senator Jeff Sessions during a hearing on Capitol Hill in 2009. Credit Harry Hamburg/Associated Press
On Monday, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, spoke to congressional investigators about his own contacts with Russian officials throughout the campaign, even as bipartisan majorities in Congress were poised to enact a bill that would strip Mr. Trump of the ability to unilaterally lift sanctions against Russia.
Mr. Benczkowski and his associates portrayed his representation of Alfa Bank as benign.
Along with Mr. Benczkowski’s letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kirkland & Ellis submitted to lawmakers a letter on Friday by Viet Dinh, a partner at the firm and another former Bush administration Justice Department veteran, denouncing rumors that Alfa Bank had been a conduit for illicit communications between Mr. Trump’s associates and the Russian government.
Mr. Dinh attached two reports by independent cybersecurity experts — one by Mandiant, which looked at data transmissions in 2016, and another by Stroz Friedberg, which looked at another set in 2017 — and concluded that the data were not evidence of substantive contact between the bank and the Trump organization. The Mandiant report was spurred in part by records submitted to Alfa Bank by The Times last year as it investigated the data transmissions.
“As the victim of an apparent malicious hoax, Alfa Bank remains eager to get to the bottom of the false allegations against it, and stands ready to assist the committee and all other government authorities as needed,” Mr. Dinh wrote.
But Mandiant’s investigation of Alfa Bank was, at best, cursory. According to people familiar with Mandiant’s review, its experts were shown largely metadata, the information that travels along with a message, for the communications that took place. The contents of the messages — if there were any — were not available.
Without a much deeper forensic examination, the company could not determine the purpose of the communications. Its resulting report was carefully hedged, noting that without more study, it could not give the bank a clean bill of health. But the bank used that report, however limited, to make the case that it had been exonerated.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/us/p ... -bank.htmlChristie's Hiring of FBI Nominee as Bridgegate Attorney Raises Questions
FBI director nominee Christopher Wray's retention agreement was signed 11 months after he actually started working for Gov. Christie.
Jul 24, 2017 · by Matt Katz
President Trump's nominee for FBI director, Christopher Wray, represented Gov. Chris Christie as his personal, publicly-funded Bridgegate attorney for 11 months before signing a mandatory retainer agreement, according to new documents provided to WNYC through a public records request.
Wray began working for Christie as his personal, publicly-funded attorney, according to bills submitted to the state, in September 2014. But it wasn't until August 2015, 11 months later, that Wray and Christie formally agreed to the arrangement.
Several lawyers who work with the government said the extended delay was extraordinarily unusual, possibly unethical, and could indicate that Christie, who was preparing to run for president at the time, was keeping it hidden from the public that he had a taxpayer-funded criminal attorney. Indeed it wasn't until the summer of 2016 that it was revealed that Wray was holding onto a piece of potential evidence — one of Christie's cell phones that his former aides, charged in the Bridgegate affair, unsuccessfully sought to subpoena.
Wray and his colleagues would ultimately bill taxpayers more than $2 million in fees and expenses, including meals, hotel rooms, cab fare and flights. They continued working — and being paid — even after the Bridgegate trial ended and those convicted were sentenced to prison. It is unclear what work was done, since the governor was neither charged nor called to testify.
Shortly thereafter Christie recommended Wray to his friend, President Trump, for the job of FBI director.
Emails and legal bills obtained through a public records request show that Wray first started billing the New Jersey treasury for representing Christie on Sept. 25, 2014, nine months after the federal Bridgegate investigation began. Wray and his associates got to work immediately, billing the state daily, including weekends, on all but three days through Christmas 2014.
The following March, Wray reviewed a draft retention agreement for his role as outside counsel, emails show. Over the course of the next few months an employee from Wray's firm, King & Spalding, had questions about the state rules restricting the hiring of political donors as government contractors. Wray was not a political contributor in New Jersey, according to state records.
The following August 5, 2015, documents were finally exchanged to affirm the deal. A rate of $340-an-hour for Wray and his colleagues was agreed upon. Christie himself signed a document designating King & Spalding as special counsel. This was 11 months after work had actually begun.
"Eleven months is a little on the long side — and in the very least, it's kind of sloppy," said Jim Eisenhower, a Philadelphia attorney and former federal prosecutor who has previously been retained by the governor's office in Pennsylvania. He said some lag time is expected due to bureaucracy, or because attorneys may be needed immediately before paperwork can be signed. But in 30 years of practicing law he said he had never heard of such a significant length of time before the signing of a retention agreement.
American Bar Association guidelines on client-lawyer relationships and New Jersey Supreme Court rules say that the terms of an attorney's retention should be communicated in writing "before or within a reasonable time after commencing the representation."
WNYC sought an explanation from a spokeswoman for Attorney General Chris Porrino, the Christie appointee in charge of retaining outside attorneys for employees, nearly two weeks ago. Last week she left a voicemail requesting a call back and saying she could offer little explanation. But she did not return two subsequent messages.
Christie's spokesman, Brian Murray, also did not return an email for comment.
Wray's nomination as FBI director has been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. He awaits conformation from the full Senate.
http://www.wnyc.org/story/ethics-questi ... -attorney/MEET TRUMP’S PICK FOR FBI DIRECTOR, CHRIS WRAY
Republicans and Democrats found something they could agree on this week: Chris Wray, President Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI director. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously on Thursday to advance Wray’s confirmation to the full Senate.
Sweeping bipartisan approval is expected, although only 51 votes are needed to confirm his appointment. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has said he intends to hold the vote before senators leave for August recess.
Wray’s nomination is of heightened interest in the wake of former FBI director James Comey’s abrupt dismissal while overseeing the Russia investigation. If confirmed, Wray would have no involvement in the ongoing investigation, which has since been handed over to a special counsel.
During Wray’s confirmation hearing last week, the nominee was quick to reassure senators of his independence from Trump, saying he “will never allow the FBI’s work to be driven by anything other than facts, the law, and the impartial pursuit of justice.” Later, he added, “No one asked me for any kind of loyalty oath at any point during this process and I sure as heck didn’t offer one.”
Wray is currently a partner at King & Spalding, where he has practiced law for over a decade. Before joining the firm, he worked for the Justice Department under Comey, who was deputy attorney general at the time.
Learn more about Wray’s background and see his testimony for yourself in the videos below.
seemslikeadream » Wed Aug 23, 2017 11:48 am wrote:Fusion GPS guy that hired Steele to do the dossier ...
40,000 documents handed over to Senate
10 hour meeting with Senate Intel Committee today
"Fusion GPS is proud of the work it has conducted and stands by it," Levy, Simpson's lawyer, said in a statement.
He said the "investigation into Mr. Simpson began as a desperate attempt by the Trump campaign and its allies to smear Fusion GPS because of its reported connection to the Trump dossier."Committee Hears From Founder of Firm Tied to Trump Dossier
The co-founder of a Washington opposition research firm that produced a dossier of salacious allegations involving President Donald Trump met for hours with congressional investigators Tuesday in a closed-door appearance that spanned into the evening.
Aug. 22, 2017, at 8:47 p.m.
Committee Hears From Founder of Firm Tied to Trump Dossier
By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The co-founder of a Washington opposition research firm that produced a dossier of salacious allegations involving President Donald Trump met for hours with congressional investigators Tuesday in a closed-door appearance that spanned into the evening.
Glenn Simpson's lawyer emerged from the daylong private appearance and said his client had "told Congress the truth and cleared the record on many matters of interest."
The lawyer, Josh Levy, noted that Simpson appeared voluntarily and has so far been the only witness to be interviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee as it looks into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The sheer length of Simpson's appearance — far longer, for instance, than Trump's son-in-law spent earlier this summer with Senate and House intelligence committees — reflected the intrigue on Capitol Hill surrounding the dossier and the origins of the document.
Simpson's firm, Fusion GPS, hired a British intelligence officer who produced a dossier containing allegations of ties between Trump and his associates and Russia. Simpson kept the identities of the firm's clients confidential during his appearance before Congress, his lawyer said.
The document attracted public attention in January when it was revealed that FBI Director James Comey had briefed Trump about its existence soon before he was inaugurated as president. It's unclear to what extent the allegations in the dossier have been corroborated or verified by the FBI since the bureau has not publicly discussed it.
"Fusion GPS is proud of the work it has conducted and stands by it," Levy, Simpson's lawyer, said in a statement.
He said the "investigation into Mr. Simpson began as a desperate attempt by the Trump campaign and its allies to smear Fusion GPS because of its reported connection to the Trump dossier."
Leaders of the Judiciary Committee said last month that they were negotiating private appearances for Donald Trump Jr., who has attracted scrutiny for accepting a June 2016 meeting with Russians at which he expected to receive damaging information about Hillary Clinton, and for Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman. Yet no dates have been announced for their appearances.
"Following up on comments from certain Senate Judiciary Committee members who have noted Mr. Simpson's cooperation with this investigation," Levy said, I would like to add that he is the first and only witness to participate in an interview with the Committee as it probes Russian interference in the 2016 election."
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/ar ... mp-dossier
................................
Trump Dossier Analysis:
Corroborating Evidence in the Trump/Russia Dossier
Scott J. Dworkin
Co-Founder & Senior Advisor
The Democratic Coalition
February 20, 2017
Page 1
Item to note:
Dossier claims Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov had a file on Hillary Clinton
Photos: Dmitry Peskov is the spokesman for the Kremlin as described in the dossier (middle) with Aras Agalarov-the Russian billionaire who paid Trump to have Miss Universe in Moscow.
Items to note:
Dossier claims Paul Manafort & Carter Page were colluding w/Russians
Dossier claims Wikileaks is a front for the Kremlin
Dossier claims Russia had moles within the Dem Party
Former Trump Adviser Carter Page was in Russia multiple times during & after the campaign
Carter Page did an interview with ABC News in February 2017 during which he denies he's the middleman in Russia
Photo: Carter Page on the Russia Today network-Russia’s propaganda network
Items to note:
Dossier claims Carter Page met with CEO of Russian oil company Rosneft Igor Sechin & with Igor Diveykin-a Russian intelligence officer
Yahoo News confirms Carter Page met with Russian oil CEO of Rosneft, Igor Sechin-as described in the dossier
Carter Page wrote a blog post defending Russian oil company Rosneft’s CEO Igor Sechin-the same person as in dossier
Items to note:
Dossier claims Kremlin funded trips for Michael Flynn, Dr. Jill Stein & Carter Page
Dossier claims Kremlin underestimated liberal reaction to DNC Hack
Video: General Flynn was paid by Russia Today, the propaganda network-he confirms and defends the payment in this video:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-suppor ... 11942.html
Video: Gen Flynn gave Putin standing ovation-Flynn was paid by Putin to be there-as in dossier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CGh1b_tmj0
Photos: Michael Flynn, Dr. Jill Stein & Putin at an event in Moscow that they were paid by Russia Today Network to be at. Exactly how it’s described in the dossier.
Item to note:
Dossier claims ex-Ukrainian President Yanukovych told Putin he paid Manafort money
Paul Manafort was paid $12.7 million in cash by pro-Russian, Ukrainian leaders-as alleged in the dossier-below is a ledger presented by the country of Ukraine as evidence against Manafort
Item to note:
Dossier claims Russian diplomat was sent back to Russia because of his links to the US election hack by Russia
Russian diplomat in dossier-Mikhail Kulagin-was sent back to Russia in August of 2016
Items to note:
Dossier claims Alpha Group/Bank is close w/Putin
Dossier claims Mikhail Fridman & Petr Aven advise Putin on US
Dossier claims Putin traveled with Oleg Govorun to Uzbekistan
Dossier claims Alpha Group hasn’t given Russia the money it was supposed to after their TNK oil sale to Rosneft
Alpha Group/Bank is VERY close with Putin-just as described in dossier
The Alpha/Alfa Bank in the dossier-is the same bank with an alleged Russian server communicating with Trump Towers
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... ussia.html
Photos: Mikhail Fridman & Putin; Petr Aven of the Alpha Group & Putin-mentioned in dossier as advisors on US issues to Putin. They are indeed advisors to Putin
Putin went to Uzbekistan in the same timeframe as described in the dossier
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uzbek ... SKCN11C0ZA
Alfa Group ran TNK Oil sale as described in dossier & sold it to Rosneft-the Russian oil company
tem to note:
Dossier claims Russian Aras Agalarov is close to Trump
Trump is close to Aras Agalarov just as described in the dossier.
Trump was paid $20,000,000 by Russian Aras Agalarov- in the dossier it said Agalarov was close to Trump.
Item to note
Dossier claims Rosneft CEO offered Carter Page 19% of Rosneft sale if sanctions lifted
Rosneft sold 19.5% of the company & the dossier stated it would be sold for 19% if Trump lifted Russian sanctions
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... 11-billion
One of the companies Rosneft sold to is the Qatar Investment Authority which via Qatar Airways had offices in Trump Towers for years
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-makes-a ... .dhyuts5d7
Photos: Trump/Ivanka/Melania w/CEO of Qatar Airways-owned by Qatar Investment Authority which bought part of Rosneft months ago
https://www.swfinstitute.org/swf-news/q ... investors/
Item to note:
Dossier claims Oleg Solodukhin runs Russian NGO in Prague
Oleg Solodukhin does indeed run the NGO in the dossier out of Prague, Czech Rep.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rbp ... Xs/preview
by Rory » Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:05 pm
by seemslikeadream » Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:08 pm
Mueller Charges Lawyer With Lying in Russia Probe
February 20, 2018, 8:38 AM CST
By
David Voreacos
February 20, 2018, 8:21 AM CST
Van Der Zwaan helped prepare Ukraine report for Manafort
False statements case comes days after Russians charged
An attorney who worked for a prominent law firm was charged with making false statements to federal authorities as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian collusion in the 2016 presidential election.
Alex Van Der Zwaan was charged Feb. 16 in federal court in Washington with lying to investigators about conversations related to a report he helped prepare on the trial of a Ukrainian politician, Yulia Tymoshenko. Van Der Zwaan was charged with a criminal information, which typically precedes a guilty plea.
Van Der Zwaan, identified on his LinkedIn page as an associate in the London office of Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom, was questioned regarding the firm’s work in 2012 on behalf of the Ukraine Ministry of Justice. He allegedly lied to investigators about his last communications with Richard Gates, who was indicted in October with ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort over their consulting work in Ukraine.
The lawyer also allegedly lied about his talks with someone else, referred to by the government as "Person A.” Van Der Zwaan deleted and failed to produce emails sought by the special counsel and a law firm, prosecutors said.
Calls to the lawyer and the law firm weren’t immediately returned.
Document Request
The Justice Department had asked Skadden for information and documents related to its work for the Yanukovych government, the New York Times reported in September.
The firm produced a report earlier in the decade for the pro-Russian government in Ukraine that largely defended the prosecution and conviction of Tymoshenko. The report defied the view held by the U.S. and the European Union that the case against her was politically motivated. The firm’s $12,000 fee was modest, just below the amount that required public bidding.
The following year, however, with no further work done, Ukraine sent Skadden $1 million. After the pro-Russian government was run out of town in 2014, the new authorities began investigating.
Paul Manafort was involved in recruiting Skadden to prepare the report on behalf of Ukraine, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. The Skadden team was headed by Gregory Craig, a partner who had worked as President Barack Obama’s White House counsel from 2009 to 2010 and for President Bill Clinton during his impeachment.
Mueller’s indictment of Manafort alleges that offshore accounts associated with Manafort and his partner, Rick Gates, paid more than $2 million between 2012 and 2014 to two companies that lobbied members of Congress and their staffs about Ukraine sanctions and “the propriety of imprisoning his presidential rival.”
The charges come four days after Mueller accused 13 Russians of a sophisticated disinformation campaign using a troll army that targeted the 2016 campaign and sought to sow discord in the U.S.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ssia-probe
seemslikeadream » Tue Apr 11, 2017 6:12 am wrote:Data Patterns Reveal Trump Tower/Spectrum Health Ran a “Stealth Data Machine” With Russia
We pull back the curtain on Jared Kushner’s “Stealth Data Machine.”
Stealth Data Machine
Jared Kushner is currently taking a victory lap, crowin’ about his “Stealth Data Machine” that put Donald Trump over the top in the 2016 race. Let’s pry off the lid and peer into the inner-workings of this “Data Machine.”
The Signal in the Noise
Building on the work of @LouiseMensch and data analysis by @Conspirator0 on Twitter, Tea Pain has stumbled onto a possible “signal in the noise” that opens a window into the data-swappin’ shenanigans going on between Trump Tower, Spectrum Health and Russia’s Alfa Bank during the election.
Spectrum Health, owned by Michigan’s powerful Devos family, attempted to explain the IP activity as “Voice over IP traffic”, whereas Alfa Bank offered an even more exotic explanation that “hackers attempted to make it look like we contacted Trump Tower.”
The data traffic, when analyzed, tells a very different story, a story of automated, orchestrated data sharing among multiple sites for a strategic end.
Tea Pain originally dismissed this story as a possible red-herring. With the Russia craze at a fever pitch, this activity could be explained by what Tea’s daddy used to say, “When you got a new hammer, everything looks like a nail.” But when Tea Pain saw the data patterns analyzed by Conspiritor0, he knew he’d spotted something mighty familiar: Database Replication. Put a pin in that, more on that later.
Ping Duration
At first, data analysts were puzzled by what appeared to be random activity with no apparent pattern. Perhaps it was email activity? Maybe money transfers? But there were literally thousands of these IP “pings.”
Once the activity was charted, a pattern emerged. For example, a connection is made from Alfa Bank to Trump Tower, which may last anywhere from 1 minute to 15 minutes or more, followed by a longer “sleep” period. When averaged over months, these events charted an average time between connections to be 3660 seconds, or 1 hour and 1 minute. Whatever was running, it would hook up, transfer data for a few minutes, then go to sleep for an hour.
This was the clue that led Tea Pain to formulate a much clearer working model to explain what we were all seeing: SQL Server Database Replication between multiple sites.
Database Replication
What Is Database Replication?
Database Replication is a rather simple concept. When you have a database with millions of records representing hundreds of gigabytes of data, and you would like to keep a copy of that database housed in 2 or more locations, it makes no sense to continually copy the entire database from point A to point B every time a change is made, so you “replicate” it.
This allows only the changes made to be sent from one database to another. This is accomplished by a process that runs on timely intervals, usually an hour, that wakes up and checks the changes made since the last hour and broadcasts those changes to the other database. The other database, in turn, check for its changes and broadcasts them in the other direction. Voila! Both databases are identical!
So what does the data traffic patterns suggest? Check out the chart below. Behold, Kushner’s “Stealth Data Machine.”
Russia Data Traffic
The white box illustrates the scope of data we can now observe. The bulk of the replication took place between Trump Tower and Alfa Bank, while smaller amounts of data were transferred between Trump Tower and Spectrum Health. If, for example, Trump Tower talked to Alfa Bank for 10 minutes, the next Spectrum-Trump Tower connection might last only one minute, indicating data replicated from Trump Tower to the Devos health care empire was being filtered, perhaps by “WHERE StateCode=’MI'” for example. But when changes were made at Spectrum, things looked very different.
IP Packetts
Conspiritor0 noted that when Spectrum connected to Trump Tower, Trump Tower’s next connect time was significantly longer, indicating Spectrum had modified a large chunk of records that had to be synced to Trump Tower, then pushed on to Alfa Bank. This detail was important in identifying that replication was in use. In this scenario, Trump Tower was functioning as a center-point, a data distribution center if you will.
We don’t know what was in these data packets; that info is beyond our purview at this time, but ask yourself a simple question and you find your answer: “What do Trump Tower, the Devos Family and the Russians all have in common? A desire for Donald Trump to be President of the United States.
Tea Pain’s working theory is that Russia created a voter targeting database with information gleaned from hacked DNC data rolls and other data rolls “acquired” from other states to feed this growing contact database. That database originated at Russian Intelligence which was in turn replicated to Russia’s Alfa Bank. This is where the “data laundering” takes place, Alfa Bank is the pivot point where the FSB’s data fingerprints are wiped clean. Ironically Russia launders its data at the same place it launders its money.
At Trump Tower, more data could merged into this system using various legal sources as well. Spectrum Health could also add value to the data by matching names and addresses in their extensive healthcare databases to harvest email addresses and phone numbers to flesh out this list. All these changes would be promptly replicated back to Russia in a matter of hours.
Once back in the hands of Russian Intelligence, this massaged data could be programmatically matched up with social media handles to create a micro-targeted “hit list” for the thousand Russian trolls employed by Putin.
The Payoff
How is this a breakthrough? Now that we have identified the likely means of how this data was transferred, data analysts now have more precise points to search for to arrive at a complete reveal of the massive data collusion between Team Trump and America’s foremost adversary.
The “beauty” of this system is its simplicity. Here’s some bullet-points to sum up.
No special software needed. SQL Server is used in most every major enterprise. Replication is a built-in tool. No mysterious hidden processes, viruses, malware, etc.
Virtually undetectable. No one would blink an eye at data replication, a standard business practice.
Could all be set up remotely with only VPN credentials and remote desktop access, information that is often shared via routine third-party data audits. No one inside Trump Tower or Spectrum’s IT department need be involved. One Russian Intelligence data operative could set this up in less than an hour at each location. No low-level “conspirators” needed.
Value could be added to the data anywhere in the chain and it would promote back to Russian Intelligence within 2-3 hours.
All data-transmission would be out in the open, mixed in with the daily flow of business.
Even if found, the data would look benign, just names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, social media handles, etc. No financial information. It would look just like a contact lead database purchased from any data-mining merchant.
Trump/Spectrum operatives and employees in the United States could interact with this list and have no clue the origins of the data were nefarious. This plain-sight approach was the key to its success.
https://teapainusa.wordpress.com/2017/0 ... th-russia/
by Rory » Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:34 pm
by seemslikeadream » Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:37 pm
by Rory » Tue Feb 20, 2018 4:01 pm
seemslikeadream » Tue Feb 20, 2018 11:37 am wrote:I have a doctor's appointment can you keep this thread bumped for me till I get back Rory? I would really appreciate it....you know I do not answer stupid made up shit don't you? It would be better if you stop making shit up...but I'll take the bump either way
by seemslikeadream » Tue Feb 20, 2018 5:01 pm
by Belligerent Savant » Tue Feb 20, 2018 5:08 pm
by seemslikeadream » Tue Feb 20, 2018 5:09 pm
by Rory » Tue Feb 20, 2018 5:17 pm
seemslikeadream » Tue Feb 20, 2018 1:01 pm wrote:your delusional rantings are just like trump's tweeter feed when bad news about indictments hit the air waves...why is that Rory?
Such a coincidence!
oh and thanks for the bump
yes I asked you a question....I am so amused by your trump impression I just can't get enough
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