He said that Obama had his 'wires tapped'. That was a lie. He said everyone would be covered under his healthcare plan, that was a lie. He said he would drain the swamp, that was a lie.
I could literally go on all day but in your current brainwashed state you will deny all facts presented, so why bother.
"Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"
"Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!"
"I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!"
"How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"
So where in all of this did he lie? He "Just found out" is not lying. He heard it somewhere that brought him to this conclusion. He requested an investigation and they found no evidence to support what he believed to be true.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
40, Trump repeated the allegation, that is the same as stating it. It was a lie.
No, it was not a lie. His having heard something and requesting it be investigated is not lying. His tweets on the subject contain zero lies. You twist what he says, you say he lied, you repeat it until you all accept it as true and I call you on it.
You guys owe Trump an apology for accusing him of something he did not do. He obviously did not lie.
40, Trump repeated the allegation, that is the same as stating it. It was a lie.
No, it was not a lie. His having heard something and requesting it be investigated is not lying. His tweets on the subject contain zero lies. You twist what he says, you say he lied, you repeat it until you all accept it as true and I call you on it.
You guys owe Trump an apology for accusing him of something he did not do. He obviously did not lie.
Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen or we'll have to start calling you Blue.
40, I understand Trump is breaking your heart and letting you down at every turn and I feel for you. I can see how passionately you want this guy to succeed and do all that evil stuff like take Meals on Wheels away, end after school meals, nuke N. Korea, make America white again... But hey, it's terrible seeing your heart be broken like this.
If it makes you feel better I'll scoot over and give you a seat on the "Dump Trump" bandwagon. lol
Seriously though, he lies a lot dude. He lies about little things, always has, always will. Even his best friends say he does it. So I just don't see how you can possibly believe your own argument unless you really are delusional or blind to Trump's faults.
40, I understand Trump is breaking your heart and letting you down at every turn and I feel for you.
Au contraire. I mentioned in other posts weeks ago that I understand what Trump is doing here and it has to do with eating you Liberals for lunch.
I wouldn't say how back then because I wasn't going to be the leaker but others have finally picked up on it so here it is...
TRUMP MAKES DEMS CHASE TAILS ON OBAMA TAPPING Say what you will about President Trump’s claims that his predecessor was spying on him during the 2016 campaign, they have been a remarkably effective distraction.
Given the chance to publicly interrogate FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers about Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential campaign – a topic that should be an absolute field day for the blue team – Democrats instead devoted much of their questioning to disproving Trump’s apparently baseless claim.
Yes, Democrats coaxed Comey into revealing some potent conclusions, especially the unambiguous declaration that Russian interference was aimed at harming Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and that the Kremlin had a distinct preference for Trump in the election.
But still, the foamy froth over Trump’s tweeted allegations took up an enormous amount of time.
As one senior Republican aide on Capitol Hill put it about Trump and his distractions: “You never know if the guy is crazy or an absolute genius.”
And, to be fair, it was pretty crazy for Trump as a sitting president to throw out an unsupported accusation against Barack Obama of such magnitude. Reckless, even.
But the genius part was revealed today as Democrats continued to chase the red herring through much of Comey’s and Roger’s testimonies.
Democrats may think it a victory to get Comey to say publicly what everyone already knew: that there was no evidence of illegal Obama-ordered wiretaps of Trump, but that’s pretty small beer.
The bigger takeaway for the day’s work ought to have been Comey’s public confirmation of an ongoing investigation into whether or not anyone associated with Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russian entities during the election. We knew, or at least had reason to suspect as much, before.
But because Comey has publicly declared the existence of an investigation, that means that in the probably near future there will be findings released. Either Trump and his associates will be given a clean bill of health, or criminal charges will be laid. And finally we can have some resolution.
Until that moment, however, it’s all about shaping the precious narrative. And in that game Trump’s either intentional or accidental misinformation about Obama turns out to be very useful to the new president.
Many of Trump’s supporters no doubt readily believe Trump’s claims, despite debunking. Trump’s critics, meanwhile, have been busy chasing their tails trying to disprove the disprovable.
40, I understand Trump is breaking your heart and letting you down at every turn and I feel for you.
Au contraire. I mentioned in other posts weeks ago that I understand what Trump is doing here and it has to do with eating you Liberals for lunch.
I wouldn't say how back then because I wasn't going to be the leaker but others have finally picked up on it so here it is...
TRUMP MAKES DEMS CHASE TAILS ON OBAMA TAPPING Say what you will about President Trump’s claims that his predecessor was spying on him during the 2016 campaign, they have been a remarkably effective distraction.
Given the chance to publicly interrogate FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers about Russian efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential campaign – a topic that should be an absolute field day for the blue team – Democrats instead devoted much of their questioning to disproving Trump’s apparently baseless claim.
Yes, Democrats coaxed Comey into revealing some potent conclusions, especially the unambiguous declaration that Russian interference was aimed at harming Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and that the Kremlin had a distinct preference for Trump in the election.
But still, the foamy froth over Trump’s tweeted allegations took up an enormous amount of time.
As one senior Republican aide on Capitol Hill put it about Trump and his distractions: “You never know if the guy is crazy or an absolute genius.”
And, to be fair, it was pretty crazy for Trump as a sitting president to throw out an unsupported accusation against Barack Obama of such magnitude. Reckless, even.
But the genius part was revealed today as Democrats continued to chase the red herring through much of Comey’s and Roger’s testimonies.
Democrats may think it a victory to get Comey to say publicly what everyone already knew: that there was no evidence of illegal Obama-ordered wiretaps of Trump, but that’s pretty small beer.
The bigger takeaway for the day’s work ought to have been Comey’s public confirmation of an ongoing investigation into whether or not anyone associated with Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russian entities during the election. We knew, or at least had reason to suspect as much, before.
But because Comey has publicly declared the existence of an investigation, that means that in the probably near future there will be findings released. Either Trump and his associates will be given a clean bill of health, or criminal charges will be laid. And finally we can have some resolution.
Until that moment, however, it’s all about shaping the precious narrative. And in that game Trump’s either intentional or accidental misinformation about Obama turns out to be very useful to the new president.
Many of Trump’s supporters no doubt readily believe Trump’s claims, despite debunking. Trump’s critics, meanwhile, have been busy chasing their tails trying to disprove the disprovable.
Link or links? And what part did you write vs. quote?
Looks like spin trying to damage control to me. But if it makes you feel better, you can have it for your snowflake moment today.
Looks like spin trying to damage control to me. But if it makes you feel better, you can have it for your snowflake moment today.
It also looks like Trump lied...
There is no level of sucking we haven't seen; in fact, I'm pretty sure we hold the patents on a few levels of sucking NOBODY had seen until the past few years.
I'm watching fox right now. Trying to spin their asses off with the wire tap claim and the Russian investigation. They don't even look like they believe the crap coming out of their mouths.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
Personally I would like to hear the results of the investigation. Hopefully this will not take another eight months. I'm sure the FBI is doing a fine job and if it indeed takes another eight months, so be it. I don't see the fact that there is an ongoing investigation as being necessarily damning. It's that darn innocent until proven guilty concept.
Shameless bump.
Lost in all this talk about Trump's ill-advised tweet, was there anything in the hearing today about any evidence of collusion with Russia? Or was it more along the lines of, 'we are looking into it'? It would be such a shame if liberals spent all these months harping about this, and in the end, it was nothing.
Personally I would like to hear the results of the investigation. Hopefully this will not take another eight months. I'm sure the FBI is doing a fine job and if it indeed takes another eight months, so be it. I don't see the fact that there is an ongoing investigation as being necessarily damning. It's that darn innocent until proven guilty concept.
Shameless bump.
Lost in all this talk about Trump's ill-advised tweet, was there anything in the hearing today about any evidence of collusion with Russia? Or was it more along the lines of, 'we are looking into it'? It would be such a shame if liberals spent all these months harping about this, and in the end, it was nothing.
You mean like Benghazi? I mean I know people died under Clinton's watch and that was awful, but I'm talking about all the time and money wasted on multiple investigations even after she was declared cleared.
Personally I would like to hear the results of the investigation. Hopefully this will not take another eight months. I'm sure the FBI is doing a fine job and if it indeed takes another eight months, so be it. I don't see the fact that there is an ongoing investigation as being necessarily damning. It's that darn innocent until proven guilty concept.
Shameless bump.
Lost in all this talk about Trump's ill-advised tweet, was there anything in the hearing today about any evidence of collusion with Russia? Or was it more along the lines of, 'we are looking into it'? It would be such a shame if liberals spent all these months harping about this, and in the end, it was nothing.
You mean like Benghazi? I mean I know people died under Clinton's watch and that was awful, but I'm talking about all the time and money wasted on multiple investigations even after she was declared cleared.
I didn't keep up on the Benghazi situation as much as I should have. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment on it.
Thanks for posting that. It saved me a lot of digging around time.
The long-winded question was about investigating possible ties between Trump and Russia and at the end, "is it fair to say that you're still relatively early in your investigation?"
Comey's response: "It's hard to say, because I don't know how much longer it will take. But we've been doing this...... this investigation began in late July, so for a counterintelligence investigation, that's a fairly short period of time."
Haus I am so disgusted and upset they have been investigating since July and have found so much evidence that the Executive Branch is a bunch of Russians and they let them run this Nation all this time!!! In control of our Nukes too!
They can't comment on the investigation so they silently watch Putin take over Murica!
Personally I would like to hear the results of the investigation. Hopefully this will not take another eight months. I'm sure the FBI is doing a fine job and if it indeed takes another eight months, so be it. I don't see the fact that there is an ongoing investigation as being necessarily damning. It's that darn innocent until proven guilty concept.
Shameless bump.
Lost in all this talk about Trump's ill-advised tweet, was there anything in the hearing today about any evidence of collusion with Russia? Or was it more along the lines of, 'we are looking into it'? It would be such a shame if liberals spent all these months harping about this, and in the end, it was nothing.
You mean like Benghazi? I mean I know people died under Clinton's watch and that was awful, but I'm talking about all the time and money wasted on multiple investigations even after she was declared cleared.
I didn't keep up on the Benghazi situation as much as I should have. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment on it.
Why? Are you saying you don't know anything about the Banghazi investigations and the following two year witch hunt to make a comment? Come now... That has to be BS. And if you really don't know enough about it to comment you shouldn't be here debating politics.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.
Personally I would like to hear the results of the investigation. Hopefully this will not take another eight months. I'm sure the FBI is doing a fine job and if it indeed takes another eight months, so be it. I don't see the fact that there is an ongoing investigation as being necessarily damning. It's that darn innocent until proven guilty concept.
Shameless bump.
Lost in all this talk about Trump's ill-advised tweet, was there anything in the hearing today about any evidence of collusion with Russia? Or was it more along the lines of, 'we are looking into it'? It would be such a shame if liberals spent all these months harping about this, and in the end, it was nothing.
You mean like Benghazi? I mean I know people died under Clinton's watch and that was awful, but I'm talking about all the time and money wasted on multiple investigations even after she was declared cleared.
I didn't keep up on the Benghazi situation as much as I should have. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment on it.
Why? Are you saying you don't know anything about the Banghazi investigations and the following two year witch hunt to make a comment? Come now... That has to be BS. And if you really don't know enough about it to comment you shouldn't be here debating politics.
Why do you think that is BS?
I have posted about politics on a few different boards over the years. There have been lengthy gaps. I did not start regularly posting about politics on this board until about a year ago. It may have went back to late 2015. I'm not sure. Before that, I posted about politics very irregularly. I don't think I posted about politics on any board during that time period. I can't say the topic of Benghazi came up very often in real life, either.
Until recently, I had been very turned off by politics. I still am mind you, but I think Donald Trump is a big improvement over the Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas of the world. Yes, I realize that comes with the occasional ill-advised rant or tweet or whatever. So be it. That's a lot better than starting needless wars, or toppling the regimes of sovereign nations leading to inevitable civil war, destruction, etc.
Does it really surprise you that I am not intimately familiar with an attack that happened five years ago, that liberals claim was no big deal? Do people have to be an expert on every single topic in order to post about politics?
I mean, I know the basic facts of the case, I've read a couple news articles about it and I'm sure I read the wiki article at one time but I don't really think that is sufficient to chime in on such a controversial topic all these years later.
I had plenty of reasons to dislike Clinton in this election and I don't believe I ever brought up her handling of Benghazi. I did bring up the other Libyan scandal a number of times (Gaddafi.)
Also just to point out, this is the Trump-Russia thread. I have asked very simple questions about exactly what 'collusion' he is being accused of and what is the evidence. After *months* of hearing about this topic, the best I can get is that there is an open investigation into the matter. Instead of just admitting that, I got this silly deflection about how Hillary Clinton was grilled about Benghazi.
The source. And this. "liberals claim (Benghazi) was no big deal?" more BS. I will call out BS when I hear it. Stop posting BS statements like that and I won't call you out.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.
The source. And this. "liberals claim (Benghazi) was no big deal?" more BS. I will call out BS when I hear it. Stop posting BS statements like that and I won't call you out.
That's what you got out of that post? Give me a break.
This is all kind of funny. I believe this is the first time you've ever 'called me out'. I've made my fair share of controversial posts, and occasionally I come to regret a post after I've had a chance to reflect on it for a little bit. Yet you choose to call me out for not responding to a topic that I have admitted to not being knowledgeable enough about. Strange!
Personally I would like to hear the results of the investigation. Hopefully this will not take another eight months. I'm sure the FBI is doing a fine job and if it indeed takes another eight months, so be it. I don't see the fact that there is an ongoing investigation as being necessarily damning. It's that darn innocent until proven guilty concept.
Shameless bump.
Lost in all this talk about Trump's ill-advised tweet, was there anything in the hearing today about any evidence of collusion with Russia? Or was it more along the lines of, 'we are looking into it'? It would be such a shame if liberals spent all these months harping about this, and in the end, it was nothing.
You mean like Benghazi? I mean I know people died under Clinton's watch and that was awful, but I'm talking about all the time and money wasted on multiple investigations even after she was declared cleared.
I didn't keep up on the Benghazi situation as much as I should have. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment on it.
Why? Are you saying you don't know anything about the Banghazi investigations and the following two year witch hunt to make a comment? Come now... That has to be BS. And if you really don't know enough about it to comment you shouldn't be here debating politics.
If u think Benghazi was a witch hunt ... u shouldn't be here ... u need to go back to math class ... what grade do they teach addition in? ...
That's what you got out of that post? Give me a break.
Haus, I've seen this statement from you a couple of times now and I would like to offer a little advice. If your message keeps getting over looked, maybe it's not so much the readers but the way you present it or the actual depth of the message itself.
Since this board is so diverse in mindsets, worldviews (interpretations), backgrounds, and experiences that you often have to defend the ridiculously obvious, explain the miniscule, and wade through the minutia to get your point across; maybe making a little extra effort is the best resolution.
I often find myself having to dumb it down for 40.
That is a good point about the board being diverse in mindsets, worldviews, and backgrounds. We should all be aware of that and make it a point to explain our thoughts accordingly. I will make an effort to improve upon that myself. If you ever find one of my posts confusing, please do not hesitate to ask for clarification.
That is a good point about the board being diverse in mindsets, worldviews, and backgrounds. We should all be aware of that and make it a point to explain our thoughts accordingly. I will make an effort to improve upon that myself. If you ever find one of my posts confusing, please do not hesitate to ask for clarification.
As long as you use proper english and complete thoughts I should be ok Haus.
That is a good point about the board being diverse in mindsets, worldviews, and backgrounds. We should all be aware of that and make it a point to explain our thoughts accordingly. I will make an effort to improve upon that myself. If you ever find one of my posts confusing, please do not hesitate to ask for clarification.
As long as you use proper english and complete thoughts I should be ok Haus.
That is a good point about the board being diverse in mindsets, worldviews, and backgrounds. We should all be aware of that and make it a point to explain our thoughts accordingly. I will make an effort to improve upon that myself. If you ever find one of my posts confusing, please do not hesitate to ask for clarification.
As long as you use proper english and complete thoughts I should be ok Haus.
FBI’s Russian-influence probe includes a look at Breitbart, InfoWars news sites
MARCH 20, 2017 5:05 PM BY PETER STONE AND GREG GORDON McClatchy Washington Bureau link
WASHINGTON Federal investigators are examining whether far-right news sites played any role last year in a Russian cyber operation that dramatically widened the reach of news stories — some fictional — that favored Donald Trump’s presidential bid, two people familiar with the inquiry say.
Operatives for Russia appear to have strategically timed the computer commands, known as “bots,” to blitz social media with links to the pro-Trump stories at times when the billionaire businessman was on the defensive in his race against Democrat Hillary Clinton, these sources said.
The bots’ end products were largely millions of Twitter and Facebook posts carrying links to stories on conservative internet sites such as Breitbart News and InfoWars, as well as on the Kremlin-backed RT News and Sputnik News, the sources said. Some of the stories were false or mixed fact and fiction, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the bot attacks are part of an FBI-led investigation into a multifaceted Russian operation to influence last year’s elections.
Investigators examining the bot attacks are exploring whether the far-right news operations took any actions to assist Russia’s operatives. Their participation, however, wasn’t necessary for the bots to amplify their news through Twitter and Facebook.
The investigation of the bot-engineered traffic, which appears to be in its early stages, is being driven by the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, whose inquiries rarely result in criminal charges and whose main task has been to reconstruct the nature of the Kremlin’s cyber attack and determine ways to prevent another.
An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the inquiry into the use of bots.
Russia-generated bots are one piece of a cyber puzzle that counterintelligence agents have sought to solve for nearly a year to determine the extent of the Moscow government’s electronic broadside.
“This may be one of the most highly impactful information operations in the history of intelligence,” said one former U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Bureau director James Comey confirmed Monday at a House Intelligence Committee hearing what long has been reported: t`hat the FBI is investigating possible links between individuals in the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian campaign to influence the election and whether there was any coordination between the two.
The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, one of multiple congressional panels examining Russia’s intervention, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that there was “circumstantial evidence of collusion.” There also is “direct evidence . . . of deception, and that’s where we begin the investigation,” said Rep. Adam Schiff of California.
U.S. intelligence agencies charged in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the offensive, in which cyber operatives also hacked tens of thousands of emails from Democratic National Committee staff, Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta and other Democrats.
A top priority of investigators is to determine who delivered those hacked emails to WikiLeaks, a London-based transparency site that published them online, the sources said. News stories about the emails embarrassed Clinton at key points in the campaign. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has denied that the Russian government was the source of the email dump.
As for the bots, they carried links not only to news stories but also to Democratic emails posted on WikiLeaks, especially those hacked from Podesta and made public in October, said Philip Howard, a professor at the Oxford University Internet Institute who has researched the bot attacks.
Howard said that, as an example, bots had spread links to fictional stories that accused Clinton of involvement in running a child-sex ring in the basement of a Washington pizza parlor. The posts inspired a North Carolina man to drive to Washington and fire an assault weapon in the restaurant, according to police reports.
Howard’s study of bot-generated Twitter traffic during last fall’s Trump-Clinton campaign debates showed that bot messages favorable to Trump significantly outnumbered those sympathetic to Clinton.
He said his research showed that Americans who call themselves “patriotic programmers” also activated bots to aid Trump. In interviews, they described coding the computer commands in their spare time, Howard said.
Unlike counterintelligence investigators with more cyber-sleuthing capabilities, Howard has not established that Russia was the source of the bot attacks he studied.
Russia also used “trolls,” hundreds of computer operatives who pretended to be Trump supporters and posted stories or comments on the internet complimentary to Trump or disparaging to Clinton. Sources close to the inquiry said those operatives likely worked from a facility in St. Petersburg, Russia, dedicated to that tactic.
“Russian bots and internet trolls sought to propagate stories underground,” said Mike Carpenter, a former senior Pentagon official during the Obama administration whose job focused on Russia. “Those stories got amplified by fringe elements of our media like Breitbart.”
“They very carefully timed release of information to shift the news cycle away from stories that clearly hurt Mr. Trump, such as his inappropriate conduct over the years,” he said, referring to the October release of a video in which Trump bragged about grabbing women’s genitals. That event corresponded with a surge in bot-related traffic spreading anti-Clinton stories.
An additional Russian tool was the news from its prime propaganda machine, Russia Today, with a global television and digital media operation and a U.S. arm, RT America.
Last Nov. 19, Breitbart announced that its website traffic had set a record the previous 31 days with 300 million page views, driven substantially by social media.
Breitbart, which has drawn criticism for pursuing a white nationalist agenda, was formerly led by Stephen Bannon, who became chief executive officer of Trump’s election campaign last August and now serves as Trump’s strategic adviser in the White House. The news site’s former national security editor, Sebastian Gorka, was a national security adviser to Trump’s campaign and presidential transition team. He now works as a key Trump counterterrorism adviser.
Breitbart’s chief executive officer, Larry Solov, did not respond to phone and email requests seeking comment.
Bannon and Gorka have controversial profiles. Bannon has been accused of taking anti-immigrant and racist positions. Last week, the Jewish newspaper Forward reported that Gorka had taken a lifelong loyalty oath to a Hungarian far-right group that for decades was allied with the Nazi Party.
The White House declined to respond to questions about Gorka.
Breitbart is partially owned by Robert Mercer, the wealthy co-chief executive of a New York hedge fund and a co-owner of Cambridge Analytica, a small, London-based firm credited with giving Trump a significant advantage in gauging voter priorities last year by providing his campaign with at least 5,000 data points on each of 220 million Americans.
InfoWars is published by Alex Jones, a Texas-based conservative talk show host known for embracing conspiracy theories such as one asserting that the U.S. government was involved in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. During the 2016 campaign, InfoWars.com was a loyal Trump public relations tool. Trump was on Jones’ show and praised his reporting.
“It’s the major source of everything,” Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant and campaign adviser, said last fall. Stone, who has regularly appeared on Jones’ show and was on Monday, has said he invites an FBI investigation into his campaign role. The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked Stone to preserve documents in connection with the Russian election inquiry.
Jones responded to questions from McClatchy on his talk show.
“I’m not gonna sit here and say, ‘I’m not a Russian stooge,’ because it’s a (expletive) lie,” he said, denying any contact with the Kremlin operatives about bots. He said this issue stemmed from “this whole ridiculous narrative of the bitching left.”
“It’s as if we didn’t build InfoWars,” he said. “It’s as if we don’t have a huge audience.”
Noting he had appeared on RT “probably 100 times or more,” he said sarcastically, “There’s my Russian connection.”
Boosted by bots, the surge in readership for such websites amplified Clinton’s negatives. Some stories falsely described her health problems as dire. Jones said Monday that people gravitated to his website “because we were the first to report Hillary Clinton falling down.” He referred to Clinton appearing to collapse last Sept. 11 after visiting the World Trade Center memorial. She was diagnosed with pneumonia.
“The full impact of the bots was subterranean and corrosive,” Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, told McClatchy in an interview. “The distribution channels were being flooded with this information. . . . We perhaps underestimated the strategy of pushing fake news out through social media and how it impacted the race.”
Donna Brazile, the former interim director of the DNC, said that neither the party committee nor the Clinton campaign had used bots to widen the reach of their anti-Trump messages.
At least one of the congressional committees investigating the Russian meddling is looking into the bots.
The Senate Intelligence Committee “intends to look actively at ‘fake’ news and the ways that Russian bots and trolls were used to influence the election,” said Rachel Cohen, a spokeswoman for Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the panel’s ranking Democrat.
Russia’s offensive might have been anticipated from a speech a top Kremlin official made in February 2016.
In the speech in Moscow, Andrey Krutskikh told a conference of Russian computer security officials that the Putin government would be unleashing a cyber nuclear attack reminiscent of Russia’s 1949 development of the atom bomb. Krutskikh, whose speech was first reported by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius and independently confirmed by McClatchy, also reportedly said the offensive would cause U.S. officials to gain respect for Russia’s cyber capabilities.
“Russia has again figured out from its old Soviet playbook that its greatest weapon in the world is information,” said Lauren Goodrich, senior Eurasia analyst at the Stratfor Corp., a global intelligence firm based in Austin, Texas. “Its information and disinformation campaigns have skyrocketed.”
She said the Kremlin’s budget for “public information” had quadrupled this year as it mounted similar cyber attacks on behalf of right-wing candidates in France, Germany and other European countries.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin a decade ago and proposed an ambitious political strategy to undermine anti-Russian opposition across former Soviet republics, The Associated Press has learned. The work appears to contradict assertions by the Trump administration and Manafort himself that he never worked for Russian interests.
Manafort proposed in a confidential strategy plan as early as June 2005 that he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and the former Soviet republics to benefit the Putin government, even as U.S.-Russia relations under Republican President George W. Bush grew worse. Manafort pitched the plans to Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a close Putin ally with whom Manafort eventually signed a $10 million annual contract beginning in 2006, according to interviews with several people familiar with payments to Manafort and business records obtained by the AP. Manafort and Deripaska maintained a business relationship until at least 2009, according to one person familiar with the work.
"We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success," Manafort wrote in the 2005 memo to Deripaska. The effort, Manafort wrote, "will be offering a great service that can re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin government."
Manafort's plans were laid out in documents obtained by the AP that included strategy memoranda and records showing international wire transfers for millions of dollars. How much work Manafort performed under the contract was unclear.
The disclosure comes as Trump campaign advisers are the subject of an FBI probe and two congressional investigations. Investigators are reviewing whether the Trump campaign and its associates coordinated with Moscow to meddle in the 2016 campaign. Manafort has dismissed the investigations as politically motivated and misguided, and said he never worked for Russian interests. The documents obtained by AP show Manafort's ties to Russia were closer than previously revealed.
In a statement to the AP, Manafort confirmed that he worked for Deripaska in various countries but said the work was being unfairly cast as "inappropriate or nefarious" as part of a "smear campaign."
"I worked with Oleg Deripaska almost a decade ago representing him on business and personal matters in countries where he had investments," Manafort said. "My work for Mr. Deripaska did not involve representing Russian political interests."
Deripaska became one of Russia's wealthiest men under Putin, buying assets abroad in ways widely perceived to benefit the Kremlin's interests. U.S. diplomatic cables from 2006 described Deripaska as "among the 2-3 oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis" and "a more-or-less permanent fixture on Putin's trips abroad." In response to questions about Manafort's consulting firm, a spokesman for Deripaska in 2008 — at least three years after they began working together — said Deripaska had never hired the firm. Another Deripaska spokesman in Moscow last week declined to answer AP's questions.
Manafort worked as Trump's unpaid campaign chairman last year from March until August. Trump asked Manafort to resign after AP revealed that Manafort had orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation until 2014 on behalf of Ukraine's ruling pro-Russian political party .
The newly obtained business records link Manafort more directly to Putin's interests in the region. According to those records and people with direct knowledge of Manafort's work for Deripaska, Manafort made plans to open an office in Moscow, and at least some of Manafort's work in Ukraine was directed by Deripaska, not local political interests there. The Moscow office never opened.
Manafort has been a leading focus of the U.S. intelligence investigation of Trump's associates and Russia, according to a U.S. official. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the investigation were confidential. Meanwhile, federal criminal prosecutors became interested in Manafort's activities years ago as part of a broad investigation to recover stolen Ukraine assets after the ouster of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych there in early 2014. No U.S. criminal charges have ever been filed in the case.
FBI Director James Comey, in confirming to Congress the federal intelligence investigation this week, declined to say whether Manafort was a target. Manafort's name was mentioned 28 times during the hearing of the House Intelligence Committee, mostly about his work in Ukraine. No one mentioned Deripaska.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Monday that Manafort "played a very limited role for a very limited amount of time" in the campaign, even though as Trump's presidential campaign chairman he led it during the crucial run-up to the Republican National Convention.
Manafort and his associates remain in Trump's orbit. Manafort told a colleague this year that he continues to speak with Trump by telephone. Manafort's former business partner in eastern Europe, Rick Gates, has been seen inside the White House on a number of occasions. Gates has since helped plan Trump's inauguration and now runs a nonprofit organization, America First Policies, to back the White House agenda.
Gates, whose name does not appear in the documents, told the AP that he joined Manafort's firm in 2006 and was aware Manafort had a relationship with Deripaska, but he was not aware of the work described in the memos. Gates said his work was focused on domestic U.S. lobbying and political consulting in Ukraine at the time. He said he stopped working for Manafort's firm in March 2016 when he joined Trump's presidential campaign.
Manafort told Deripaska in 2005 that he was pushing policies as part of his work in Ukraine "at the highest levels of the U.S. government — the White House, Capitol Hill and the State Department," according to the documents. He also said he had hired a "leading international law firm with close ties to President Bush to support our client's interests," but he did not identify the firm. Manafort also said he was employing unidentified legal experts for the effort at leading universities and think tanks, including Duke University, New York University and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Manafort did not disclose details about the lobbying work to the Justice Department during the period the contract was in place.
Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, people who lobby in the U.S. on behalf of foreign political leaders or political parties must provide detailed reports about their actions to the department. Willfully failing to register is a felony and can result in up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, though the government rarely files criminal charges.
Deripaska owns Basic Element Co., which employs 200,000 people worldwide in the agriculture, aviation, construction, energy, financial services, insurance and manufacturing industries, and he runs one of the world's largest aluminum companies. Forbes estimated his net worth at $5.2 billion. How much Deripaska paid Manafort in total is not clear, but people familiar with the relationship said money transfers to Manafort amounted to tens of millions of dollars and continued through at least 2009. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the secret payments publicly.
In strategy memos, Manafort proposed that Deripaska and Putin would benefit from lobbying Western governments, especially the U.S., to allow oligarchs to keep possession of formerly state-owned assets in Ukraine. He proposed building "long term relationships" with Western journalists and a variety of measures to improve recruitment, communications and financial planning by pro-Russian parties in the region.
Manafort proposed extending his existing work in eastern Europe to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Georgia, where he pledged to bolster the legitimacy of governments friendly to Putin and undercut anti-Russian figures through political campaigns, nonprofit front groups and media operations.
For the $10 million contract, Manafort did not use his public-facing consulting firm, Davis Manafort. Instead, he used a company, LOAV Ltd., that he had registered in Delaware in 1992. He listed LOAV as having the same address of his lobbying and consulting firms in Alexandria, Virginia. In other records, LOAV's address was listed as Manafort's home, also in Alexandria. Manafort sold the home in July 2015 for $1.4 million. He now owns an apartment in Trump Tower in New York, as well as other properties in Florida and New York.
One strategy memo to Deripaska was written by Manafort and Rick Davis, his business partner at the time. In written responses to the AP, Davis said he did not know that his firm had proposed a plan to covertly promote the interests of the Russian government.
Davis said he believes Manafort used his name without his permission on the strategy memo. "My name was on every piece of stationery used by the company and in every memo prior to 2006. It does not mean I had anything to do with the memo described," Davis said. He took a leave of absence from the firm in late 2006 to work on John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.
Manafort's work with Deripaska continued for years, though they had a falling out laid bare in 2014 in a Cayman Islands bankruptcy court. The billionaire gave Manafort nearly $19 million to invest in a Ukrainian TV company called Black Sea Cable, according to legal filings by Deripaska's representatives. It said that after taking the money, Manafort and his associates stopped responding to Deripaska's queries about how the funds had been used.
Early in the 2016 presidential campaign, Deripaska's representatives openly accused Manafort of fraud and pledged to recover the money from him. After Trump earned the nomination, Deripaska's representatives said they would no longer discuss the case.
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Associated Press writers Jack Gillum, Eric Tucker, Julie Pace, Ted Bridis, Stephen Braun and Julie Bykowicz contributed to this report in Washington; Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed from Moscow and Kiev, Ukraine; and Jake Pearson contributed from New York.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
More fake news from CNN. You should know better already.
The FBI has found nothing except that the NYTimes lied in a recent story.
The White House simply requested they make the truth be known.
Everyone is reporting this... Put your tin foil hat back on. Your guy is a bad buy with ties to a bad guy in Russia.. In fact, a ton of bad guys in Russia.
Deal with it
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe." Damanshot
You guys just keep hoping and dreaming that Trump got elected because Hillary didn't suck.
You keep on dreaming that those at the top, including Trump are Russian spies while the FBI and CIA allow them to continue to run our Nation and control our Nukes.
