RUSSIA/РОССИЯ THREAD—ASSANGE CHRGD W/ SPYING—DJT IMPEACHED TWICE-US TREASURY SANCTS KILIMNIK AS RUSSIAN AGNT
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washingtonpost.com
All over Europe, suspected Russian spies are getting busted
Rick Noack
5-6 minutes
Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov walk on Fisherton Road in Salisbury, England, on March 4, as seen in a still from surveillance video released by authorities on Sept. 5. (Metropolitan Police/AP)
Rick Noack
Foreign affairs reporter focusing on Europe and international security
September 24
BERLIN — When two men suspected of poisoning former Russian spy Sergei Skripal appeared on Russian television earlier this month, the bizarre interview set the stage for another round of Western-Russian accusations. Viewers around the world subsequently mocked the pair, who had quickly become the world’s most famous suspected Russian spying duo.
Their appearance came against a backdrop of what seems to be a string of defeats in Europe for Russia’s military spy agency, the GRU, and mass expulsions of Russian diplomats and spies earlier this year shortly after the Skripal poisoning.
On Friday, in the latest incident, Norwegian authorities arrested a 51-year-old Russian man on suspicion that he unlawfully gathered information during an inter-parliamentary seminar on digitization this month in Norway. After the detention was made public by authorities Sunday, the Russian Embassy in Norway rejected the accusation as “absurd."
Earlier this month, Estonia arrested a military officer and his father — both Russian-Estonian citizens — and accused the two of having spied for Russia for more than half a decade. About 300,000 of Estonia’s 1.3 million citizens belong to the country’s Russian-speaking minority, and officials have struggled to bridge the divide between the two groups ever since Estonia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Amid its proximity to Russia and its complicated history, tiny Estonia has charged at least 12 alleged spies over the last 10 years. But Estonian officials say the high detention numbers are also due to the less than hush-hush approach to dealings with accused spies. Whereas some other countries have hesitated to make cases public, Estonia says it has “chosen a path of transparency,” according to a government statement provided to the Moscow Times.
Recent public accusations in Norway and several other European countries may similarly indicate a more confrontational approach to counterespionage as well.
Swiss officials confirmed two weeks ago that Dutch authorities had arrested and expelled a pair of suspected Russian spies earlier in the year over accusations that they had been trying to hack a Swiss laboratory. The targeted Bern-based Spiez lab is associated with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which was involved in the investigation into the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter with a banned nerve agent.
The alleged hacking attempt prompted Switzerland to summon the Russian ambassador, although Moscow denied any involvement. Using similar language to that employed after last Friday’s arrest in Norway, the Russian Embassy in Switzerland subsequently called the allegations “absurd.”
In 1992, two Russian scientists approached The Post’s Will Englund, then the Moscow correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, with news of a secret nerve agent. (Joyce Lee, Will Englund/The Washington Post)
Skripal’s poisoning and the more or less obvious link to Russia triggered questions of whether the perpetrators behind the attack even wanted to escape without a trace or whether the inevitable exposure was always part of the plan, possibly to send a clear warning to potential traitors willing to abandon the GRU for Western agencies.
In any case, the subsequent investigation appears to have provided European agencies with a number of details. Investigative journalism sites Bellingcat and Russia Insider reported last week that the passport files of the two men accused of poisoning Skripal -- Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov -- shared similar features with a number of other files that are believed to be associated with Russian spies, including phone numbers tied to military facilities and a similar passport issuing authority and number.
Other individuals with passports sharing similar features allegedly had ties to a coup attempt in the country of Montenegro as well as other, prior expulsions, according to the two media outlets.
All this at the very least suggests that Russia’s spies in Europe, at least those with the GRU military agency, might be well advised to look for new passports.
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Whats wild is they're laughing because they all have classified intelligence on what this dude is really up to
And his Pee pee tape
Its related.
Same with this dude.
Russian billionaire sells 49% stake in Brooklyn Nets basketball team to Alibaba co-founder
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EXCLUSIVE: Rand Paul is introducing an amendment that would lift U.S. sanctions on Russian lawmakers https://thebea.st/2DvLgpG
12:58 PM - Sep 25, 2018
levitate
I love you, you know.
AZBeauty
Stop lyin' nicca.
theconversation.com
Pondering the mystery of why the Russians came to Washington
John Colarusso
9-11 minutes
Like a modern, dark inversion of the fable of the Three Wise Men from the east, the end of last January saw the three heads of Russian intelligence visit their counterparts in Washington.
These were Sergey Naryshkin of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service (under sanction but allowed in under a special dispensation from State Department), Igor Korobov of the GU (formerly GRU), Russia’s military intelligence agency, and Aleksandr Bortnikov of the FSB, the internal security and intelligence service.
Sergey Naryshkin is seen in this 2013 photo at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland, as it marked the 68th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
These visits, all simultaneous and all short, were unprecedented, their purpose mysterious, their outcome unknown.
Clearly the visit was important, sensitive and not particularly hostile, otherwise they would not have been allowed into the United States. One might imagine that they proffered some sort of co-operation with the Americans that could only be extended from the highest levels of the Russian government, one rank below Vladimir Putin himself.
But what and how? How could they be welcomed after Russia’s unprecedented and extensive meddling in the 2016 election? What they proffered must have been vital, and perhaps even pertinent to that meddling. As a former adviser on Russia to the Bill Clinton White House, I am following my instincts and offering a series of guesses.
Mueller indictments
In February, shortly after the visits, special investigator Robert Mueller’s probe into whether Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russia yielded indictments against 13 Russians at the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, along with three supporting companies, for meddling. The indictments listed names and other details.
In July, just as the U.S. president was preparing to meet with Putin for a summit in Helsinki, Mueller’s team issued 12 more indictments, this time against the GU, listing not merely names, but extensive information about the perpetrators, a sort of “we know who you are and where you live.”
The three American foreign intelligence agencies — the CIA, the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and the National Security Agency — have formidable reach and penetration. But the information put forward in these indictments, especially the one against GU military operatives, was exceptionally detailed.
I speculate that the information that formed these indictments was what the three Russian intelligence heads had shared with their American colleagues in late January.
Making amends for Trump?
Why would they have done this? To make some amends for the chaos they had helped to unleash in the form of President Donald Trump. But why? I suspect that they may have sought help with numerous bomb threats called in by internet services throughout Russia starting in September 2017. Those bomb hoaxes have largely escaped the notice of the U.S. media but were highly disruptive to life in numerous Russian cities.
Is there any other evidence to support my bold conjecture of Russian assistance?
There are two small items that stand out as odd, both stemming from the Helsinki summit.
Read more: How Vladimir Putin outfoxed Donald Trump at Helsinki before their meeting even began
First, Trump seems to have brought the GU indictment list with him to his talk with Putin, a two-hour private encounter. In turn, I suspect Putin presented his own list to Trump, a reciprocal itemization of people of interest, starting with the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul.
An exchange of wish lists? Trump and Putin are seen here at their controversial Helsinki summit in July. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
The White House then said it was a reasonable offer on Putin’s part to exchange miscreants, as it were, for local interrogation.
Trump’s assessments are rarely insightful, but this time he might have shone a spotlight on Putin’s state of mind.
From Putin’s viewpoint, if his men had handed over lists to assist Washington, then it was quite reasonable that Washington should reciprocate and assist the Kremlin in its own “wish list.”
Setting Trump up for ridicule?
Of course, if my speculation is accurate, Putin would have been setting Trump up. That’s because Putin knows full well that the United States would never turn over the people on the Kremlin’s wish list, just as the Russian operatives named in the Mueller indictments will never stand trial in the U.S., but remain safe in Russia.
Putin took advantage of the naive and gullible Trump, sending him back with a “reasonable” request, I believe, simply to make him look like a fool. It worked.
There was also the curious matter of the president’s tweeted suggestion, shortly after the summit, that Russia is unhappy with him. He suggests here that he’s has been tough on Russia, which is of course nonsense.
He might, however, have been telling the truth in one regard. Why should the Russians be pleased with his actions in the White House? Trump has been unable to roll back economic sanctions against Russia, though he has been soft in enforcing them. But more crucially, Trump exhibits his lost credibility over anything he says about Russia or Putin. For Putin, Trump is bad press.
Trump has helped fulfil Putin’s wish to create chaos in the U.S., but even in this regard, the president is failing, his days seemingly numbered with numerous legal actions looming all around him, his businesses, his associates and his family.
Putin sees Trump as his patsy, his creature. What else to do with him? How else might he be useful to Putin as the wagons circle? There remains one dramatic possibility.
That has to do with November’s mid-term elections. The media has suggested that the usual leaks from within the Kremlin have gone silent and that American intelligence is now blind about Russian intentions.
What does the Kremlin plan to do? The Russians have already launched phishing attacks on three candidates.
General meddling and chaos in mid-term voting, and perhaps in some of the campaigning, is likely to be part of Russia’s intent to continuing sowing tumult in the U.S. Russia might well even pit sides against one another, mucking around equally with both, since by betting on both Republican and Democratic contenders, Russia will think it cannot lose.
Trump’s role in this, however, would only be tangential, but there may be a more important Russian use for Trump alone.
Putin seeks to sow U.S. chaos
One Russian insider whom I cannot name has emphasized that Trump is merely a tool to Putin’s determination to cause chaos in America.
As long as America stays locked within its domestic political turmoil, its role on the world stage is diminished and, reciprocally, Russia’s is enhanced. This analyst suggests that, if Democrats win the House of Representatives in November, Putin will release such damning information on Trump that the new Democratic House will be forced to draw up articles of impeachment.
With a Senate that may still lack a two-thirds majority to convict given the Republicans are expected to hold onto more than a third of the seats, such a release would tie up the United States in domestic knots for at least a year and a half, perhaps two — right up until 2020.
This political immolation would be Trump’s last service as a stooge of Putin’s.
Read more: Is Trump Putin's 'stooge?'
Then in 2019 or 2020, Putin would seek a summit with Trump’s replacement or successor.
Financial corruption and more?
What information might Putin give to Republicans and to the American people, many of whom are now feverishly following the story?
We can likely expect some sort of major financial corruption centring around his dream of a Trump Tower in Moscow. Given all of Trump’s hush payments to women, there also could be some lurid sexual antics. We could also expect some promises proffered by Trump to Putin, all secretly recorded by the Russians, that are treasonous and could implicate some of his congressional supporters.
That last complication might be what finally convinces many in the GOP, especially if they lose big in November, to return to their original party principles and abandon Trump to his fate while sparing themselves from some similar end.
These are just guesses, of course — and if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that American politics is erratic and unpredictable. But based on my knowledge of how the Russians operate, this speculation has an air of plausibility. It explains some of this year to date, and might serve as a useful guide amid the chaos that likely looms ahead.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
It’s not much deeper than “opportunity, money, and vengeance” when it comes to Russians in Washington. I am convinced that nobody can write 10,000 that would shock me in regards to something the Russians did, or the reasons that they did it.
ft.com
Trump trade team draws heavily from one law firm: Skadden
James Politi in Washington 14 hours ago
6-8 minutes
When Robert Lighthizer was tapped by Donald Trump to be the US’s trade tsar last year, the veteran attorney from Skadden Arps, one of Wall Street’s oldest and most successful law firms, gathered up his troops.
He brought along Jeff Gerrish, a longtime partner at Skadden, to be deputy US trade representative, and called on Stephen Vaughn, a partner at King & Spalding who had worked at Skadden, as USTR general counsel.
For years, the trio had fought imports from China and elsewhere on behalf of clients in the US steel industry, but they were about to do so on a much bigger scale for the Trump administration.
The influence of the former Skadden lawyers — and their connections to the US steel industry — are drawing increasing attention as the US ratchets up its trade confrontation with China.
Many trade lobbyists and lawyers at rival firms say the administration is neglecting the broader concerns of US business— notably rising input prices and the risk of retaliation against exports — in favour of one sector’s priorities.
Just this year, the US has imposed national security-based tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, announced duties on $250bn of Chinese products and threatened new tariffs on cars.
It’s much bigger than steel . . . They are not done yet, there’s more to come
“It’s unusual to have so many people, not just from the same specific place, but from the same background,” says Bill Reinsch, chair in international business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank. “It produces a certain unanimity of point of view: you’re not getting the other side, you’re not getting divergent opinions, and you’d probably be a lot better off if you did.”
For three decades at Skadden, Mr Lighthizer helped the US steel industry — and US Steel in particular — win protection from the US government through anti-dumping and countervailing duties and special “safeguard” tariffs. The 70-year-old attorney pursued litigation to defend such measures against foreign exporters and domestic manufacturers who sought to prevent or overturn them.
“These guys have fought against the trade mercantilism of China and others so they know how the war is fought. They know what the tactics are,” says Dan DiMicco, chairman emeritus of Nucor , a North Carolina-based steel company that backed US Steel in many cases.
“I’m not here to push some narrow agenda,” Mr Vaughn said last year, stressing that USTR was keen to listen to all parts of US industry.
Others in Mr Trump’s economic team have similar ties. Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary, was a renowned investor in the steel sector, and Peter Navarro, Mr Trump’s White House adviser on trade and the author of the book Death by China, has attracted praise from steel producers.
Supporters of Mr Lighthizer — whose office did not reply to a request for comment — say the team is simply implementing Mr Trump’s campaign policies. They add that voters wanted a change from previous officials who pushed for open trade and new markets but forgot that trade policy also plays a role in defending industry. They also highlight widespread corporate support for a tougher stance on China, even if there is disagreement over using tariffs as a tool.
“Bob does understand the importance of agriculture, services and innovation. But the globalists — they had their 20 years, and it didn’t work,” says one sympathetic trade lawyer in Washington.
Supporters also say few people in Washington are as knowledgeable about the intricacies of US trade law as Mr Lighthizer’s team. Skadden has offices in Beijing and Shanghai, as well as Brussels, Paris and Moscow. “This is the most experienced team at USTR that I have seen in the 30 years that I’ve been involved in trade policy,” says Ivan Schlager, head of the national security practice at Skadden’s Washington’s office. “These guys have a terrific framework for understanding the US trade laws, and remedies. They are not wild-eyed protectionists; they are realists.”
Trump open to a deal with China to end trade war
But critics say it is rare for so many officials from one firm to be at any given agency, with the only parallel being the US Treasury’s reliance from time to time on alumni from top Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs.
Jamieson Greer, USTR chief of staff, and Pamela Marcus, deputy chief of staff, have also worked at Skadden, as did Dennis Shea, the ambassador to the World Trade Organization.
“We have people working in the Trump administration, too, but they are scattered all around,” says one lawyer at a rival New York-based corporate law firm. He said he was hearing growing “complaints” from clients, including large US and foreign companies, that US trade policy was being seen through a single lens. “It’s really all about steel.”
In recent weeks, the Steel Manufacturers Association, a lobbying group, pleaded for products such as zinc, molybdenum oxide and silicon to be knocked off the final list of Chinese imports targeted by US tariffs on Monday. It won a reprieve from USTR for about 40 per cent of the items it requested. “[It’s a] .400 ‘batting average’ [an excellent result] for the steelmakers while most other Americans struck out,” Washington-based trade law firm Mowry & Grimson wrote in a note to clients.
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The Trump administration has also repeatedly threatened to pull the US out of the WTO unless it is reformed. The US steel industry, which has sometimes been on the losing side of rulings by the Geneva-based global trade body, has been a leading critic of the WTO, as has Mr Lighthizer, but that view is not widely shared in American business. “Everyone else is saying the WTO has done its job, it should be left alone,” said the New York-based lawyer.
But Mr DiMicco and fans of Mr Trump’s trade revolution have long been waiting for the change in approach brought by the Skadden litigators at USTR. “It’s much bigger than steel — steel is a spit in the ocean compared to what is being addressed,” Mr DiMicco said. “They are not done yet, there’s more to come and we couldn’t be in more capable hands.”