choc_cardigan
Squad
I believe ww3 will pop off from a mistake or a gross mishandling of an international incident
RUSSIA/РОССИЯ THREAD—ASSANGE CHRGD W/ SPYING—DJT IMPEACHED TWICE-US TREASURY SANCTS KILIMNIK AS RUSSIAN AGNT
- Thread starter ☑︎#VoteDemocrat
- Start date
Please, if you do anything today, make sure you click on this tweet and read the replies. Cacs are the most evil people on the planet.
Carter Page Now Says Sanctions ‘May Have Come Up’ During Russia Trip (VIDEO)
@DonKnock @LHilla @ReignAsKing @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @lotuseater80 @Cali_livin @Menelik II @AZBeauty @Hogan in the Wolfpac @iceberg_is_on_fire @wire28 @Atlrocafella @Ss4gogeta0 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Call Me James @Blessed Is the Man @GnauzBookOfRhymes @THE MACHINE @OneManGang
ExodusNirvana
Change is inevitable...
There will never be a World War 3
Only small proxy wars in lesser states
The High Rollers all have nukes...all of this is just theater for the most part
British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia
British spies were first to spot Trump team's links with Russia
Exclusive: GCHQ is said to have alerted US agencies after becoming aware of contacts in 2015
It is understood that GCHQ was not carrying out a targeted operation against Trump or his team, but picked up the alleged conversations by chance. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
Shares
2726
Luke Harding, Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Nick Hopkins
Thursday 13 April 2017 09.39 EDTLast modified on Thursday 13 April 2017 10.57 EDT
Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, the Guardian has been told.
GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added.
Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians, sources said.
The European countries that passed on electronic intelligence – known as sigint – included Germany, Estonia and Poland. Australia, a member of the “Five Eyes” spying alliance that also includes the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand, also relayed material, one source said.
Another source suggested the Dutch and the French spy agency, the General Directorate for External Security or DGSE, were contributors.
It is understood that GCHQ was at no point carrying out a targeted operation against Trump or his team or proactively seeking information. The alleged conversations were picked up by chance as part of routine surveillance of Russian intelligence assets. Over several months, different agencies targeting the same people began to see a pattern of connections that were flagged to intelligence officials in the US.
The issue of GCHQ’s role in the FBI’s ongoing investigation into possible cooperation between the Trump campaign and Moscow is highly sensitive. In March Trump tweeted that Barack Obama had illegally “wiretapped” him in Trump Tower.
The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, falsely claimed the “British spying agency” GCHQ had carried out the bugging. Spicer cited an unsubstantiated report on Fox News. Fox later distanced itself from the report.
The erroneous claims prompted an extremely unusual rebuke from GCHQ, which generally refrains from commenting on all intelligence matters. The agency described the allegations first made by a former judge turned media commentator, Andrew Napolitano, as “nonsense”.
“They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored,” a spokesperson for GCHQ said.
Instead both US and UK intelligence sources acknowledge that GCHQ played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, which began in late July 2016.
One source called the British eavesdropping agency the “principal whistleblower”.
The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow ahead of the US election. This was in part due to US law that prohibits US agencies from examining the private communications of American citizens without warrants. “They are trained not to do this,” the source stressed.
“It looks like the [US] agencies were asleep,” the source added. “They [the European agencies] were saying: ‘There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.’
“The message was: ‘Watch out. There’s something not right here.’”
According to one account, GCHQ’s then head, Robert Hannigan, passed material in summer 2016 to the CIA chief, John Brennan. The matter was deemed so sensitive it was handled at “director level”. After an initially slow start, Brennan used GCHQ information and intelligence from other partners to launch a major inter-agency investigation.
In late August and September Brennan gave a series of classified briefings to the Gang of Eight, the top-ranking Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate. He told them the agency had evidence the Kremlin might be trying to help Trump to win the presidency, the New York Times reported.
One person familiar with the matter said Brennan did not reveal sources but made reference to the fact that America’s intelligence allies had provided information. Trump subsequently learned of GCHQ’s role, the person said.
The person described US intelligence as being “very late to the game”. The FBI’s director, James Comey, altered his position after the election and Trump’s victory, becoming “more affirmative” and with a “higher level of concern”.
Comey’s apparent shift may have followed a mid-October decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) court to approve a secret surveillance order. The order gave permission for the justice department to investigate two banks suspected of being part of the Kremlin’s undercover influence operation.
According to the BBC, the justice department’s request came after a tipoff from an intelligence agency in one of the Baltic states. This is believed to be Estonia.
The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the same order covered Carter Page, one of Trump’s associates. It allowed the FBI and the justice department to monitor Page’s communications. Page, a former foreign policy aide, was suspected of being an agent of influence working for Russia, the paper said, citing US officials.
The application covered contacts Page allegedly had in 2013 with a Russian foreign intelligence agent, and other undisclosed meetings with Russian operatives, the Post said. Page denies wrongdoing and complained of “unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance”.
Late last year Comey threw more FBI resources into what became a far-reaching counter-intelligence investigation. In March he confirmed before the House intelligence committee that the agency was examining possible cooperation between Moscow and members of the Trump campaign to sway the US election.
Comey and the NSA director, Admiral Michael Rogers, said there was no basis for the president’s claim that he was a victim of Obama “wiretapping”. Trump had likened the unproven allegation to “McCarthyism”.
Britain’s MI6 spy agency played a part in intelligence sharing with the US, one source said. MI6 declined to comment. Its former chief Sir Richard Dearlove described Trump’s wiretapping claim on Thursday as “simply deeply embarrassing for Trump and the administration”.
“The only possible explanation is that Trump started tweeting without understanding how the NSA-GCHQ relationship actually works,” Dearlove told Prospect magazine.
A GCHQ spokesperson said: “It is longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters”.
It is unclear which individuals were picked up by British surveillance.
In a report last month the New York Times, citing three US intelligence officials, said warning signs had been building throughout last summer but were far from clear. As WikiLeaks published emails stolen from the Democratic national committee, US agencies began picking up conversations in which Russians were discussing contacts with Trump associates, the paper said.
European allies were supplying information about people close to Trump meeting with Russians in Britain, the Netherlands and in other countries, the Times said.
There are now multiple investigations going on in Washington into Trump campaign officials and Russia. They include the FBI-led counter-espionage investigation and probes by both the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House committee, has expressed an interest in hearing from Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer whose dossieraccuses the president of long-term cooperation with Vladimir Putin’s Moscow. Trump and Putin have both dismissed the dossier as fake.
One source suggested the official investigation was making progress. “They now have specific concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion,” the source said. “This is between people in the Trump campaign and agents of [Russian] influence relating to the use of hacked material.”
@DonKnock @LHilla @ReignAsKing @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @lotuseater80 @Cali_livin @Menelik II @AZBeauty @Hogan in the Wolfpac @iceberg_is_on_fire @wire28 @Atlrocafella @Ss4gogeta0 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Call Me James @Blessed Is the Man @GnauzBookOfRhymes @THE MACHINE @OneManGang
Last edited:
@DonKnock @LHilla @ReignAsKing @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @lotuseater80 @Cali_livin @Menelik II @AZBeauty @Hogan in the Wolfpac @iceberg_is_on_fire @wire28 @Atlrocafella @Ss4gogeta0 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Call Me James @Blessed Is the Man @GnauzBookOfRhymes @THE MACHINE @OneManGang
Court Approved Wiretap on Trump Campaign Aide Over Russia Ties
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG and MATT APUZZOAPRIL 12, 2017
Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser, during an appearance in Moscow in December. Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department obtained a secret court-approved wiretap last summer on Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign, based on evidence that he was operating as a Russian agent, a government official said Wednesday.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court issued the warrant, the official said, after investigators determined that Mr. Page was no longer part of the Trump campaign, which began distancing itself from him in early August. Mr. Page is one of several Trump associates under scrutiny in a federal investigation.
The Justice Department considered direct surveillance of anyone tied to a political campaign as a line it did not want to cross, the official added. But its decision to seek a wiretap once it was clear that Mr. Page had left the campaign was the latest indication that, as Mr. Trump built his insurgent run for the White House, the F.B.I.was deeply concerned about whether any of his associates were colluding with Russia.
To obtain the warrant, the government needed to show probable cause that Mr. Page was acting as an agent of Russia. Investigators must first get approval from one of three senior officials at the Justice Department. Then, prosecutors take it to a surveillance court judge.
And though the Trump administration has said Mr. Page was a bit player who had no access to the candidate, the wiretap shows the F.B.I. had strong evidence that a campaign adviser was operating on behalf of Moscow.
Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Page have called the investigation a “witch hunt” and said it was cooked up by their political rivals for speaking out against President Barack Obama’s policies. On Tuesday, Mr. Page said in an email that it “will be interesting to see what comes out when the unjustified basis for those FISA requests are more fully disclosed over time,” using shorthand for the court.
The F.B.I. declined to comment. James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, has described the hurdles to obtaining an intelligence wiretap as a “rigorous, rigorous process.”
The wiretap of Mr. Page was reported by The Washington Post. The revelation followed months of speculation about such warrants against associates of Mr. Trump, an idea that was broached in November by Heat Street, a news and entertainment website that cited a pair of unnamed sources with “links to the counterintelligence community” in its report. Heat Street was founded by Louise Mensch, a former Conservative member of the British Parliament who emerged as a fierce critic of Mr. Trump, and it is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which publishes The Wall Street Journal and The Times of London.
The official who confirmed the warrant against Mr. Page did so on the condition of anonymity because intelligence wiretaps are classified.
The official was not aware of any instances in which an active member of Mr. Trump’s campaign was directly surveilled by American law-enforcement or spy agencies, though some Trump associates were swept up in surveillance of foreign officials.
That assertion was in line with previous statements by Obama administration officials, including James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence, who said during a March 5 appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the surveillance court issued no warrants either for the president or his campaign staff.
“For the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as D.N.I., there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign,” Mr. Clapper said.
As part of the investigation, American intelligence agencies have examinedwiretapped communications and phone records. Among those intercepts were conversations among Kremlin officials about contacts with people close to Mr. Trump, including Mr. Page, according to current and former American security officials.
A spokesman for Mr. Clapper did not respond for requests for comment. A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.
Mr. Page, a former Moscow-based investment banker for Merrill Lynch who later founded an investment company in New York called Global Energy Capital, has been on the F.B.I.’s radar screen for years.
In early 2013, he met with a Russian intelligence officer posing as a banker in New York. The Russian agent was part of an espionage ring the F.B.I. had been investigating, and court records indicate that the spy tried to recruit Mr. Page.
That year, the F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Page, who said he did not know he had met with a Russian intelligence officer.
Last July, while working as an adviser to Mr. Trump, who accepted the Republican nomination for president later that month, Mr. Page traveled to Moscow and criticized American foreign policy toward Russia in a speech at the New Economic School, a university.
The address in Moscow and Mr. Page’s contacts with Russians raised alarm bells anew within the F.B.I.
Later that month, the agency opened its counterintelligence investigation into whether any of Mr. Trump’s associates had colluded with Russians to influence the election.
Late last year after the election, Mr. Page traveled to Moscow again and said he was there to meet with “business leaders and thought leaders.” Former and current federal investigators say he would most likely have remained of interest to Russian intelligence because of his links to the Trump administration.
Mr. Page said on CNN on Wednesday that he was not a foreign agent. “Until there’s full evidence and a full investigation has been done, we just don’t know,” Mr. Page said. He repeatedly declined to answer questions about whether he had been interviewed by the F.B.I., adding that he had “nothing to say about any ongoing investigations.”
The probe has been a political distraction for the Trump administration since before Inauguration Day. After denying that any of his associates had Russian contacts, Mr. Trump saw a steady string of news accounts revealing such encounters. His national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, was forced to resign over misleading comments he made about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey I. Kislyak. And Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who also advised Mr. Trump’s campaign, recused himself from the Justice Department investigation in response to questions about his own contacts with Mr. Kislyak.
According to court records, Mr. Page had been looking to make money in Russia, and Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service singled him out. The F.B.I. secretly recorded Russian spies talking about Mr. Page, describing him as an enthusiastic “idiot.”
The F.B.I. has also been investigating Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, who is accused of taking millions of dollars in secret payments from a pro-Russian party in Ukraine. He has denied wrongdoing.
@DonKnock @LHilla @ReignAsKing @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @lotuseater80 @Cali_livin @Menelik II @AZBeauty @Hogan in the Wolfpac @wire28 @Atlrocafella @Ss4gogeta0 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Call Me James @Blessed Is the Man @GnauzBookOfRhymes @THE MACHINE @OneManGang
choc_cardigan
Squad
Never underestimate the predictably of stupidity
And we are talking about the trump administration
Carter Page Now Says Sanctions ‘May Have Come Up’ During Russia Trip (VIDEO)
@DonKnock @LHilla @ReignAsKing @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @lotuseater80 @Cali_livin @Menelik II @AZBeauty @Hogan in the Wolfpac @iceberg_is_on_fire @wire28 @Atlrocafella @Ss4gogeta0 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Call Me James @Blessed Is the Man @GnauzBookOfRhymes @THE MACHINE @OneManGang
Lmao this dude is an idiot.
I feel like we're reaching a finale here.
I feel how trump is kind of "mellowing " lately and with the removal effectively of Bannon that this shut is related.
AZBeauty
Stop lyin' nicca.
He JUST told Jake Tapper yesterday that he didnt.
ExodusNirvana
Change is inevitable...
There will be more shyt leaking soon.
The bomb they just dropped in AFG is them trying to provide a distraction.
The bomb they just dropped in AFG is them trying to provide a distraction.
MrFantastic
Pro
Page about to have an "accident"