Russian election interference 2020

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Cuddles, Sep 9, 2020.

  1. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/01/us/politics/mcmaster-trump-russia-election.html

    McMaster, Mostly Silent Until Now, Says Trump Is ‘Aiding and Abetting Putin’s Efforts’
    “This sustained campaign of disruption, disinformation, and denial, is aided by any leader who doesn’t acknowledge it,” President Trump’s former national security adviser said.

    The retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster became the latest of President Trump’s former aides on Thursday to declare that the president was aiding Russia’s disinformation campaign by failing to acknowledge how President Vladimir V. Putin was trying to manipulate American voters.

    “He is aiding and abetting Putin’s efforts by not being direct about this,” Mr. McMaster, a former national security adviser who is now a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said in an interview on MSNBC. “This sustained campaign of disruption, disinformation and denial is aided by any leader who doesn’t acknowledge it.”
     
    #11     Oct 1, 2020
  2. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    https://www.axios.com/russia-disinf...ion-00a632f8-a283-4bf2-81c1-9f1701d45060.html

    DHS report identifies Russia as main culprit of disinformation in the U.S.

    Russia is the "primary covert influence actor and purveyor of disinformation and misinformation" in the U.S., a Department of Homeland Security report out Tuesday has concluded.

    The big picture: The findings echo previous statements from various U.S. intelligence officials about the Kremlin's activities in the U.S. The efforts have focused on U.S. foreign and domestic policy, the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election, among other issues.

    • The efforts aim to "sow discord, distract, shape public sentiment, and undermine trust in Western democratic institutions," per the report.
    What else they're saying: "We assess that Moscow’s primary objective is to increase its global standing and influence by weakening America — domestically and abroad —through efforts to sow discord, distract, shape public sentiment, and undermine trust in Western democratic institutions and processes," the report states.

    The big picture: FBI Director Chris Wray told Congress last month the Bureau has seen "very active efforts" by Russia to influence the 2020 election.
     
    #12     Oct 6, 2020
  3. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    https://www.vox.com/2020/10/14/21515776/hunter-biden-emails-giuliani'
    Trump team makes a suspicious effort to swing the election with purported Hunter Biden emails
    Rudy Giuliani is again trying to drum up a scandal about the Bidens and Ukraine.

    It’s October in a year when President Donald Trump is running for reelection — and, as if on cue, the mysteriously obtained private emails of someone close to his opponent have been leaked.

    The leaker in this case is President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who provided a copy of a hard drive that contains photos and purported emails of Joe Biden’s son Hunter to the New York Post.

    It’s not clear whether the supposed emails, which involve Hunter and the Ukrainian gas company he worked for, Burisma, are authentic. What’s even less clear is how they ended up making their way to Giuliani — and whether illegality or foreign interference might have been involved.
    During the 2016 campaign, Russian intelligence officers hacked Democrats’ emails and provided them to WikiLeaks, and the release of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s emails occurred in the final weeks before Election Day.
     
    #13     Oct 14, 2020
  4. WeToddDid2

    WeToddDid2

    This thread should be titled The Spin or The Ministry of Truth.
     
    #14     Oct 14, 2020
  5. elderado

    elderado

    Hillary Clinton Asked To Leave Costco After Repeatedly Accusing Sample Lady Of Being A Russian Asset

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    WASHINGTON, D.C.—According to sources at a DC-area Costco, failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was asked to leave Costco again after repeatedly accusing a lady handing out food samples of being a Russian asset.

    It wasn't clear how Clinton had ended up in the Costco, as she usually has her servants' servants go to the market for her. Some suggested she wanted to disguise herself and go be among her subjects to see how the other 99% lives.

    Whatever the case, the sample lady had apparently offered the failed presidential candidate a small paper cup of orange juice and told her the packs were on sale for $9.49 when the incident occurred.

    "Orange... orange like Trump!" Clinton screamed suddenly, frightening the poor food demonstration worker. "You're in league with him, aren't you!?" The failed presidential candidate lunged across the cart and attempted to pull off her face mask, certain the lady was actually Vladimir Putin in a skin suit.

    When that failed and the woman shooed her off with a plastic glove, Clinton turned for help and began screaming, "Security! Margaret in the frozen foods aisle is a Russian asset! Help, help, our elections are being meddled with!"

    Guards arrived but relaxed when they saw it was just Hillary Clinton. "OK, lady, let's go," they said, grabbing her by each arm.

    "Thank goodness you're here!" Clinton cried. "Arrest that woman! Can't someone help me out!?"

    "Oh yeah, sure, lady, we'll help you out," the guards said, snickering as they dragged her toward the front door.

    According to sources at the Costco, this is the third time this has happened this week.

    https://babylonbee.com/news/hillary...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
     
    #15     Oct 19, 2020
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  6. exGOPer

    exGOPer

    Hunter Biden, who lives in Los Angeles, decides to fly 3000 miles across country, to drop off 3 MacBook Pros at a repair shop run by a blind guy who charges the insanely low price of $85.

    He gets off the plane and drunk drives to the repair shop (because there aren't repair shops in LA).

    He drops them off, signs a contract for repair and then disappears. The repair shop owner recovers and reads Hunter's *private* emails, a few of which mention a possible meeting with his dad and is so alarmed, he contacts the FBI.

    The FBI arranges to pick up the hard drives, but the computer repair shop owner takes a totally normal step of copying them. Once he realizes the FBI isn't doing anything with them, he calls up the most credible ex-Mayor on Earth and hands them the contents of these drives.

    That totally credible ex-Mayor sits on them for months, then chooses to release them 3 weeks before the election. The mainstream media asks to independently verify their validity but said ex-Mayor does what all people trying to prove facts do and ignores these requests.

    Is this how stupid we are now?

    —@dantoujours
     
    #16     Oct 19, 2020
    gwb-trading likes this.
  7. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...158900-0ef5-11eb-b1e8-16b59b92b36d_story.html
    White House was warned Giuliani was target of Russian intelligence operation to feed misinformation to Trump

    U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence, according to four former officials familiar with the matter.

    The warnings were based on multiple sources, including intercepted communications, that showed Giuliani was interacting with people tied to Russian intelligence during a December 2019 trip to Ukraine, where he was gathering information that he thought would expose corrupt acts by former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

    The intelligence raised concerns that Giuliani was being used to feed Russian misinformation to the president, the former officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and conversations.

    The warnings to the White House, which have not previously been reported, led national security adviser Robert O’Brien to caution Trump in a private conversation that any information Giuliani brought back from Ukraine should be considered contaminated by Russia, one of the former officials said.

    The message was, “Do what you want to do, but your friend Rudy has been worked by Russian assets in Ukraine,” this person said. Officials wanted “to protect the president from coming out and saying something stupid,” particularly since he was facing impeachment over his own efforts to strong-arm Ukraine’s president into investigating the Bidens.

    But O’Brien emerged from the meeting uncertain whether he had gotten through to the president. Trump had “shrugged his shoulders” at O’Brien’s warning, the former official said, and dismissed concern about his lawyer’s activities by saying, “That’s Rudy.”

    Giuliani visited the White House on Dec. 13, shortly after the House Judiciary Committee voted to proceed with articles of impeachment, and he met with Trump at the president’s resort in Florida eight days later.

    Officials’ warnings about Giuliani underscore the concern in the U.S. intelligence community that Russia not only is seeking to reprise the disinformation campaign it waged in 2016, but also may now be aided, unwittingly or otherwise, by individuals close to the president. Those warnings have gained fresh urgency in recent days. The information that Giuliani sought in Ukraine is similar to what is contained in emails and other correspondence published this week by the New York Post, which the paper said came from the laptop of Hunter Biden and were provided by Giuliani and Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s former top political adviser at the White House.

    The Washington Post was unable to verify the authenticity of the alleged communications, which concern Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China.

    The former officials said Giuliani was not a target of U.S. surveillance while in Ukraine but was dealing with suspected Russian assets who were, leading to the capture of some of his communications.

    Giuliani was interested in acquiring information from his foreign contacts about Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden held a board seat, as well as Biden’s activities in Ukraine, China and Romania, two former officials said. Giuliani’s eagerness was so pronounced “that everybody [in the intelligence community who knew about it] was talking about how hard it was going to be to try to get him to stop, to take seriously the idea that he was being used as a conduit for misinformation,” one former official said.

    Earlier in 2019, U.S. intelligence also had warned in written materials sent to the White House that Giuliani, in his drive for information about the Bidens, was communicating with Russian assets.

    Several senior administration officials “all had a common understanding” that Giuliani was being targeted by the Russians, said the former official who recounted O’Brien’s intervention. That group included Attorney General William P. Barr, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone.

    Spokespersons for the FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence referred inquiries to the White House.

    “National Security Advisor O’Brien and White House Counsel Cipollone meet with the President frequently on a variety of matters. Ambassador O’Brien does not comment on sensitive intelligence topics, or on the advice he provides President Trump,” National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot said in a written statement. The national security adviser “can say that the President always treats such briefings with the utmost seriousness. The characterization of the meeting as described in this article is not accurate.”

    In a text message on Thursday, Giuliani said that he was never informed that Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russian lawmaker in Ukraine whom he met on Dec. 5 in Kyiv, was a Russian intelligence asset. Giuliani said he “only had secondary information and I was not considering him a witness.” But Giuliani met again with Derkach in New York two months later, hosting him on his podcast, and he has promoted Derkach’s unsubstantiated claims about the Bidens, describing Derkach as “very helpful.”

    In September, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Derkach for allegedly running an “influence campaign” against Joe Biden, calling the Ukrainian “an active Russian agent for over a decade” who has maintained “close connections with Russian intelligence services.”

    In August, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence publicly described Derkach as part of a Russian effort to interfere with the 2020 election by smearing Biden. The office of the DNI accused Derkach of “spreading claims about corruption — including through publicizing leaked phone calls — to undermine” Biden and the Democrats.

    For some officials, Trump’s willingness to meet with Giuliani despite warnings about Russian influence smacked of the collusion allegations that dogged the president after the 2016 election. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III said he did not find evidence to substantiate a criminal charge of conspiracy against anyone in the Trump campaign. But his investigation documented numerous instances in which Trump associates knowingly sought damaging information from Russian individuals and their proxies about Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate.

    Giuliani was not shy about his pursuit of information that might damage Biden, taking a documentary film crew from the right-wing One America News to Ukraine in December when he met with Derkach. At the time, Giuliani claimed that Trump had directed him to share his findings with the Justice Department and Senate Republicans.

    Officials’ fears about what Giuliani might tell the president were compounded by Trump’s generally furious reaction to negative intelligence about Russia and its efforts to influence U.S. politics.

    “Whenever you talk to the president, no matter what your facts are, if you mention Russia, that’s it — you’ve hit the third rail,” one of the former officials said. Trump has called Russia’s documented campaign of election interference a “hoax” that was drummed up to challenge the legitimacy of his election and undermine his administration.

    Trump has relied for years on Giuliani’s counsel. But in recent months, as the president has found himself behind in the polls, the former New York mayor has become an even closer confidant, aides and officials said. Giuliani has visited the White House for debate preparations, given the president tips on his response to the coronavirus pandemic, promoted the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for covid-19 and discussed what political events and rallies he thinks the president should hold.

    Giuliani also was a major source of information during the impeachment, when Trump tried to rebut allegations of abuse of power by airing false allegations that Biden, while serving as vice president, had pressed for the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor to spare his son from being investigated.

    During his impeachment trial in the Senate, Trump denied sending Giuliani to Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden, who was then a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. But after his acquittal, Trump reversed himself, acknowledging in a podcast interview with Geraldo Rivera that he had directed Giuliani to go to Ukraine.

    “So when you tell me, why did I use Rudy, and one of the things about Rudy, number one, he was the best prosecutor, you know, one of the best prosecutors, and the best mayor,” Trump said. “But also, other presidents had them. FDR had a lawyer who was practically, you know, was totally involved with government. Eisenhower had a lawyer. They all had lawyers.”

    Months earlier, Trump also had told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he should meet with Giuliani.

    “Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you,” Trump told Zelensky in a phone call on July 25, 2019, according to a partial transcript released by the White House. “I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great.”

    That phone call was the centerpiece of the impeachment case against the president.


    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/na...-linked-foreign-n1243620?cid=eml_nbn_20201015
    Feds examining whether alleged Hunter Biden emails are linked to a foreign intel operation
    One email, which has not been confirmed to be authentic, suggested a meeting between Joe Biden and a rep from a Ukraine firm that once paid his son Hunter.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/19/hunter-biden-story-russian-disinfo-430276
    Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say
    More than 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter casting doubt on the provenance of a New York Post story on the former vice president's son.
     
    #17     Oct 21, 2020