General Trump Administration F**kery Thread
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invincible1914
G.O.M.A.B.
This guy is one step away from claiming victory for US having the most deaths.
Poetical Poltergeist
Precise and cold hearted
Actually he is just a few away from calling the death count a hoax. Fox news is already spreading it so only a matter of time b4 Trump latches on to it.
invincible1914
G.O.M.A.B.
We lost.
apnews.com
FBI documents reveal communication between Stone, Assange
By ERIC TUCKER, COLLEEN LONG and MICHAEL BALSAMO
4-6 minutes
WASHINGTON (AP) — Weeks after Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel in the Russia investigation, Roger Stone, a confidant of President Donald Trump, reassured WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a Twitter message that if prosecutors came after him, “I will bring down the entire house of cards,” according to FBI documents made public Tuesday.
The records reveal the extent of communications between Stone and Assange, whose anti-secrecy website published Democratic emails hacked by Russians during the 2016 presidential election, and underscore efforts by Trump allies to gain insight about the release of information they expected would embarrass Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
The documents — FBI affidavits submitted to obtain search warrants in the criminal investigation into Stone — were released following a court case brought by The Associated Press and other media organizations.
They were made public as Stone, convicted last year in Mueller’s investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, awaits a date to surrender to a federal prison system that has grappled with outbreaks of the coronavirus.
In a June 2017 Twitter direct message cited in the records, Stone reassured Assange that the issue was “still nonsense” and said “as a journalist it doesn’t matter where you get information only that it is accurate and authentic.”
He cited as an example the 1971 Supreme Court ruling that facilitated the publishing by newspapers of the Pentagon Papers, classified government documents about the Vietnam War.
“If the US government moves on you I will bring down the entire house of cards,” Stone wrote, according to a transcript of the message cited in the search warrant affidavit. “With the trumped-up sexual assault charges dropped I don’t know of any crime you need to be pardoned for — best regards. R.”
Stone was likely referring to a sexual assault investigation dropped by Swedish authorities. Assange, who at the time was holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, was charged last year with a series of crimes by the U.S. Justice Department, including Espionage Act violations for allegedly directing former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history.
According to the documents, Assange, who is imprisoned in London and is fighting his extradition to the United States, responded to Stone’s 2017 Twitter message by saying: “Between CIA and DoJ they’re doing quite a lot. On the DoJ side that’s coming most strongly from those obsessed with taking down Trump trying to squeeze us into a deal.”
Stone replied that he was doing everything possible to “address the issues at the highest level of Government.”
The records illustrate the Trump campaign’s curiosity about what information WikiLeaks was going to make public. Former White House adviser Steve Bannon told Mueller’s team under questioning that he had asked Stone about WikiLeaks because he had heard that Stone had a channel to Assange, and he was hoping for more releases of damaging information.
Full Coverage: Roger Stone
Mueller’s investigation identified significant contact during the 2016 campaign between Trump associates and Russians, but did not allege a criminal conspiracy to tip the outcome of the presidential election.
In a statement Tuesday, Stone acknowledged that the search warrant affidavits contain private communication, but insisted that they “prove no crimes.”
“I have no trepidation about their release as they confirm there was no illegal activity and certainly no Russian collusion by me during the 2016 Election,” Stone said. “There is, to this day, no evidence that I had or knew about the source or content of the Wikileaks disclosures prior to their public release.”
Stone was among six associates of Trump charged in Mueller’s investigation. He was convicted last year of lying to House lawmakers, tampering with a witness and obstructing Congress’ own Russia probe.
A judge in February sentenced Stone to 40 months in prison in a case that exposed fissures inside the Justice Department — the entire trial team quit the case amid a dispute over the recommended punishment — and between Trump and Attorney General William Barr, who said the president’s tweets about ongoing cases made his job “impossible.”
____
Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in Washington contributed to this report.
@88m3 @ADevilYouKhow @wire28 @dtownreppin214
@dza @wire28 @BigMoneyGrip @Dameon Farrow @re'up @Blackfyre @NY's #1 Draft Pick @Skyfall @2Quik4UHoes
Louise Mensch baited the Russian government on twitter. DAMN.
Last night, the government released a slew of warrants associated with but not limited to Roger Stone. I’ll have much more to say about them going forward. But I’d like to focus on what they say about discussions of a pardon for Julian Assange.
I have previously noted that there was an effort — including but not limited to Stone — to get Assange a pardon from 2017 through early 2018. Randy Credico’s sworn testimony at Stone’s trial made it clear this effort started in 2016 (which is one reason WikiLeaks’ efforts to pretend pardon discussions only occurred later in 2017 are so cynical). Indeed, Credico’s hope of getting a pardon for Assange is one of the reasons Stone’s threats against him worked as long as they did.
As a number of people have observed, the affidavits against Stone incorporate a paragraph explaining that, on June 10, 2017, Stone DMed Assange about a pardon.
On Saturday, June 10, 2017, @RogerJStoneJr sent a direct message to @JulianAssange, reading: “I am doing everything possible to address the issues at the highest level of Government. Fed treatment of you and WikiLeaks is an outrage. Must be circumspect as experience demonstrates it is monitored. Best regards R.”
But this effort started much earlier than that.
When Credico testified about introducing Stone to Kunstler in 2016 at trial (Stone would have known Kunstler was close to Credico because Credico bcc’ed Stone on an email he sent to the lawyer), he was vague about when that happened.
Q. What did you write to Mr. Stone on May 21st, 2018?
A. “Go right ahead. She’s not Assange’s lawyer.”
Q. I’m sorry. Below that. Let’s start at the first message, “You should have.” All the way at the bottom.
A. Where? Where am I? Here, “You should have.”
“You should have just been honest with the House Intel Committee. You’ve opened yourself up to perjury charges like an idiot. You have different versions. Maybe you need to get into rehab and get that memory straight.”
Q. What did Mr. Stone respond?
A. I don’t see it here.
Q. Just above that, do you see —
A. Oh, yes. “You are so full of S-H-I-T. You got nothing. Keep running your mouth and I’ll file a bar complaint against your friend Margaret.”
Q. And when he says “your friend Margaret,” who is he referring to?
A. Margaret Ratner Kunstler.
Q. Had you put Mr. Stone directly in touch with Ms. Kunstler after the election?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And why had you done that?
A. Well, sometime after the election, he wanted me to contact Mrs. Kunstler. He called me up and said that he had spoken to Judge Napolitano about getting Julian Assange a pardon and needed to talk to Mrs. Kunstler about it. So I said, Okay. And I sat on it. And I told her–I told her–she didn’t act on it. And then, eventually, she did, and they had a conversation.
A. “Go right ahead. She’s not Assange’s lawyer.”
Q. I’m sorry. Below that. Let’s start at the first message, “You should have.” All the way at the bottom.
A. Where? Where am I? Here, “You should have.”
“You should have just been honest with the House Intel Committee. You’ve opened yourself up to perjury charges like an idiot. You have different versions. Maybe you need to get into rehab and get that memory straight.”
Q. What did Mr. Stone respond?
A. I don’t see it here.
Q. Just above that, do you see —
A. Oh, yes. “You are so full of S-H-I-T. You got nothing. Keep running your mouth and I’ll file a bar complaint against your friend Margaret.”
Q. And when he says “your friend Margaret,” who is he referring to?
A. Margaret Ratner Kunstler.
Q. Had you put Mr. Stone directly in touch with Ms. Kunstler after the election?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And why had you done that?
A. Well, sometime after the election, he wanted me to contact Mrs. Kunstler. He called me up and said that he had spoken to Judge Napolitano about getting Julian Assange a pardon and needed to talk to Mrs. Kunstler about it. So I said, Okay. And I sat on it. And I told her–I told her–she didn’t act on it. And then, eventually, she did, and they had a conversation.
Credico didn’t even admit, at trial, that this happened before the end of 2016. But it appears to have started immediately after the election.
A warrant the government obtained to search the devices they seized when they searched Stone’s home reveals that on November 14, 2016, Stone switched from using an iPhone 5s to an iPhone 7.
The next day, Stone started communicating using Signal with Margaret Kunstler.
According to records from Stone’s iCloud account, a copy of the Signal application was downloaded to an iPhone registered to Stone on or about August 18, 2016. Additionally, text messages recovered from Stone’s iCloud account revealed that on or about November 15, 2016, Stone sent an attorney with the ability to contact Julian Assange a link to download the Signal application. 15 Approximately fifteen minutes after sending the link, Stone texted the attorney, “I’m on signal just dial my number.” The attorney responded, “I’ll call you.”
15 This attorney was a close friend of Credico’s and was the same friend Credico emailed on or about September 20, 2016 to pass along Stone’s request to Assange for emails connected to the allegations against then-candidate Clinton related to her service as Secretary of State.
15 This attorney was a close friend of Credico’s and was the same friend Credico emailed on or about September 20, 2016 to pass along Stone’s request to Assange for emails connected to the allegations against then-candidate Clinton related to her service as Secretary of State.
Stone deleted a year of texts from this phone.
Finally, one more detail that’s in the generic affidavit. The investigation into Stone focused closely on whether, after getting a heads up from WaPo about the imminent Access Hollywood video story, Stone got WikiLeaks to drop the Podesta emails (Mueller’s team appears to have gotten an understanding of whether and how this happened in September 2018, which I’ll return to). Certainly, Steve Bannon gave Stone credit; his executive assistant, Alexandra Preate, commended Stone’s “well done” hours later.
What these warrants reveal, however, are that Stone had an unexpected lunch meeting with Trump the next day, October 8, 2016, that forced him to reschedule a meeting with Jerome Corsi.
On or about October 8, 2016, STONE, using Target Account 3, messaged CORSI, “Lunch postponed-have to go see T.” CORSI responded to STONE, “Ok. I understand.”
One of the things that Bill Barr’s DOJ has withheld thus far in the the release of Mueller-related 302s are the ones in which Mike Flynn explained that, in the wake of the Podesta release, the campaign considered reaching out to WikiLeaks.
The defendant also provided useful information concerning discussions within the campaign about WikiLeaks’ release of emails. WikiLeaks is an important subject of the SCO’s investigation because a Russian intelligence service used WikiLeaks to release emails the intelligence service stole during the 2016 presidential campaign. On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks released emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee. Beginning on October 7, 2016, WikiLeaks released emails stolen from John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. The defendant relayed to the government statements made in 2016 by senior campaign officials about WikiLeaks to which only a select few people were privy. For example, the defendant recalled conversations with senior campaign officials after the release of the Podesta emails, during which the prospect of reaching out to WikiLeaks was discussed.
Around the same time the campaign was having this discussion, then, Stone met personally with Trump.
So, yes, in June 2017 Stone DMed Assange about a pardon.
But more interesting is that the day after the Podesta releases, Stone met with Trump. And then, just days after Assange helped Trump win, Stone reached out to one of Assange’s lawyers.
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On June 24, 2016, WikiLeaks DMed Guccifer 2.0 about Celebrating Brexit
April 29, 2020/0 Comments/in 2016 Presidential Election, emptywheel, WikiLeaks /by emptywheel
Among the Roger Stone-related warrants released last night is one, dated November 6, 2017, that obtained the WikiLeaks and Julian Assange Twitter accounts.
On or about June 24, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 wrote to Target Account 1, “How can we chat? Do u have jabber or something like that?” I know from my training and experience that “Jabber” is an instant messaging service. Target Account 1 wrote back, “Yes, we have everything. We’ ve been busy celebrating Brexit. You can also email an encrypted message to office@wikileaks.org. They key is here.” 1 A web link was attached to the message. I know from my training and experience that an encryption “key” is a string of information created for scrambling and unscrambling data.
On July 6 — the day when WikiLeaks asked for Hillary materials — Guccifer 2.0 bytched about WikiLeaks’ slow submission process and claimed to have sent Brexit-related documents days earlier.
On or about July 6, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 wrote to Target Account 1, “have u received my parcel?” Target Account 1 responded, “Not unless it was very recent. [we haven’t checked in 24h].”2 Guccifer 2.0 replied, “I sent it yesterday, an archive of about 1 gb. via [website link]. [A]nd check your email.” Target Account 1 wrote back, “Wil[l] check, thanks.” Guccifer 2.0 responded, ” let me know the results.” Target Account 1 wrote back, “Please don’t make anything you send to us public. It’s a lot of work to go through it and the impact is severely reduced if we are not the first to publish.” Guccifer 2.0 replied, “agreed. How much time will it take?” Target Account 1 responded, ” likely sometime today.” Guccifer 2.0 wrote back, “will u announce a publication? and what about 3 docs sent u earlier?” Target Account 1 responded, ” I don’t believe we received them. Nothing on ‘Brexit’ for example.” Guccifer 2.0 wrote back, “wow. have you checked ur mail?” Target Account 1 replied, “At least not as of 4 days ago . . . . For security reasons mail cannot be checked for some hours.” Guccifer 2.0 wrote back, “fukk, sent 4 docs on brexit on jun 29, an archive in gpg[.] ur submission form is too fukking slow, spent the whole day uploading 1 gb.”
Later that day, amid an ongoing discussion about how to best target Clinton, including WikiLeaks’ request for Clinton Foundation documents, Guccifer 2.0 wrote back and claimed to have sent Brexit documents successfully.
On or about that same day, Guccifer 2.0 sent Target Account 1 a message reading, “sent brexit docs successfully.”
The affidavit, as whole, provides more details about how WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 communicated. But it also suggests that, in addition to playing to their mutual loathing for Hillary Clinton, Guccifer 2.0 also tried to appeal to WikiLeaks’ claimed support for Brexit.
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