AOC gutted him 
RUSSIA/РОССИЯ THREAD—ASSANGE CHRGD W/ SPYING—DJT IMPEACHED TWICE-US TREASURY SANCTS KILIMNIK AS RUSSIAN AGNT
- Thread starter ☑︎#VoteDemocrat
- Start date
AOC gutted him
God damn no wonder the GOP hates her
She will def be future speaker of the house
nytimes.com
Italy Did Not Fuel U.S. Suspicion of Russian Meddling, Prime Minister Says
Anna Momigliano
5-6 minutes
Europe|Italy Did Not Fuel U.S. Suspicion of Russian Meddling, Prime Minister Says
Casting holes in a Trump conspiracy theory, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte revealed details of two visits to Rome by Attorney General William P. Barr.
“Our intelligence is completely unrelated to the so-called Russiagate and that has been made clear,” Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy said in a news conference in Rome on Wednesday.CreditAngelo Carconi/EPA, via Shutterstock
ROME — Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy said his country’s intelligence services had informed the American attorney general, William P. Barr, that they played no role in the events leading to the Russia investigation, taking the air out of an unsubstantiated theory promoted by President Trump and his allies in recent weeks.
“Our intelligence is completely unrelated to the so-called Russiagate and that has been made clear,” Mr. Conte said in a news conference in Rome on Wednesday evening after spending hours describing Italy’s discussions with Mr. Barr to the parliamentary committee on intelligence.
Mr. Conte publicly acknowledged for the first time that Mr. Barr had twice met with the leaders of Italy’s intelligence agencies after asking them to clarify their role in a 2016 meeting between a Maltese professor and a Trump campaign adviser on a small college campus in Rome, Link Campus University.
During a subsequent meeting, the professor, Joseph Mifsud, told the adviser, George Papadopolous, that Russia had obtained damaging information about Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands of emails,” according to the special counsel’s report into Russian meddling in the 2016 American election. Mr. Papadopolous later shared that information with foreign diplomats, which eventually set off alarms among American intelligence officials about Russian interference.
Mr. Trump and his associates have asserted, without evidence, that Mr. Mifsud is not a professor with links to Russia, as the special counsel’s report states, but a Western intelligence asset working as part of an Obama administration plot to spy on the Trump campaign. That theory, once relegated to the far-right margins, has become a frequent talking point of Mr. Trump’s as he seeks to undermine the special counsel’s report.
Mr. Barr at least twice visited Rome to investigate the allegations, on Aug. 15 and Sept. 27.
Mr. Conte said on Wednesday that Mr. Barr met on Aug. 15 with Gen. Gennaro Vecchione, who leads the agency coordinating Italy’s internal and external intelligence. That meeting, he said, “was meant to decide the extent of the collaboration,” adding, “I didn’t take part in it, but was informed.”
Mr. Barr and the Italian general met again on Sept. 27 and were joined by two other senior Italian agents, the heads of internal and external intelligence, Mr. Conte said. “The meeting clarified, after this was verified, that our intelligence is unrelated to the affair.”
“This extraneousness has been acknowledged,” he said, apparently referring to an acknowledgment by the Trump administration.
Mr. Barr also asked Italian authorities to “verify the operations of American agents,” Mr. Conte said. “That is, his question was to verify what the American intelligence did.”
The Italian inquiry is only one aspect of Mr. Barr’s review of the origins of the investigation into Russian meddling. American intelligence agencies unanimously concluded that the Kremlin had intervened in the presidential election to benefit Mr. Trump, and the special counsel’s report laid out those efforts in detail.
But Mr. Trump has questioned those conclusions and suggested, without evidence, that hostile American officials may have planted false information that led to the Russia inquiry.
Mr. Papadopolous, for his part, has insisted that Mr. Mifsud was actually a spy who was activated by the prime minister at the time, Matteo Renzi, at the behest of Mr. Obama to spread false information about Russian interference.
Mr. Renzi said he would sue Mr. Papadopolous for slander and has rejected the accusation, calling it ridiculous.
Mr. Mifsud has been described by his former bosses at Link Campus University as a “chatterbox” and a know-nothing who sought to leverage relationships to make money.
The revelations of Mr. Barr’s visits spurred controversy in Italy, where Mr. Conte’s critics argued he had inappropriately allocated the country’s intelligence resources to help Mr. Trump win domestic political advantage.
Italian officials have lamented that the unusual requests by the Trump administration complicated what has been a long-lasting collaboration between allies on issues of justice and national security.
On Wednesday, Mr. Conte insisted that “our national interest has not been compromised.”
Last edited:
She dropped FACTS on the history
theguardian.com
Trump-Russia dossier author gave evidence to UK intrusion inquiry
Dan Sabbagh
7-8 minutes
A report on Russian interference in British politics allegedly being sat on by Downing Street includes evidence from Christopher Steele, the former head of MI6’s Russia desk whose investigation into Donald Trump’s links with Moscow sparked a US political scandal.
Steele made submissions in writing to parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC), it is understood. A counter-intelligence specialist, Steele spent his career tracking Russian influence operations around the world and investigated Alexander Litvinenko’s 2006 murder.
The cross-party committee has been examining Russian interference in British politics for more than a year. It took evidence from both the UK’s spy agencies and experts on Kremlin intelligence and disinformation tactics such as Steele.
Members examined claims that the Kremlin tried to distort the result of the 2016 EU referendum, starting work after the former prime minister Theresa May had warned that Russia was sowing discord by “weaponising information” in the UK.
The report was due to be published on Monday. However on Thursday, Dominic Grieve, the MP who chairs the committee, accused Boris Johnson of sitting on the report – potentially preventing its publication before the general election.
Downing Street is normally given 10 working days to clear an ISC report, to ensure it contains no classified matters, according to ISC sources – although No 10 has disputed this, saying the process typically takes six weeks.
No 10 sources said that clearance was not expected to be given on Friday, leaving only Monday and Tuesday for the document to appear before parliament dissolves. It cannot be published when the Commons does not sit, meaning if approval is withheld it will not appear before next month’s general election, which has already prompted allegations by opposition politicians of a cover-up.
Speaking in the House of Commons on Thursday, Grieve said no explanation had been given for the “apparent delay”, with the report passed to Downing Street on 17 October. Sources said Britain’s spy agencies had already signed off the report before it was passed to No 10 for final sign off.
Two sources told BuzzFeed that British intelligence found no evidence of Russian meddling in either the 2016 referendum vote or the 2017 general election. However, Steele’s involvement in the committee’s unpublished dossier raises the stakes considerably. Before going into private business intelligence, Steele spent 22 years as an MI6 officer, including four years at the British embassy in Moscow, where he watched the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 2006 Steele led the MI6 investigation into the polonium killing of Litvinenko, a former FSB officer turned dissident. Steele swiftly concluded the Russian state was responsible. A 2015-16 public inquiry ruled that Vladimir Putin had “probably approved” the hit carried out by two Moscow assassins.
Steele’s privately commissioned dossier on Trump and Russia – leaked in January 2016 – said that the Kremlin had been cultivating the future US president for at least five years. In April the US special counsel Robert Mueller corroborated Steele’s central claim that the Russians ran a “sweeping and systematic” operation in 2016 to help Trump win.
Since then Steele’s firm Orbis has documented attempts by Russia to influence election outcomes in several European states. Unlike in Soviet times, when the Kremlin supported western communists, Moscow now uses covert and overt methods to boost populist far-right parties, including via social media.
The intelligence and security committee exists to provide cross-party oversight of the government’s security and intelligence activities. It meets weekly in secret at undisclosed locations, although its reports are made public.
The committee’s inquiry in Russian activity in the UK began in November 2017, and research was commissioned from the intelligence agencies, while submissions were sought from third-party experts.
Four months later, the novichok poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury intensified the committee’s programme of work. Written evidence was collected by the end of June 2018, and oral hearings were held in the second half of 2018.
The committee’s annual report said that members examined allegations about “Russia’s interference in the UK’s EU referendum and the possible interference with UK political parties’ data”.
Experts who gave evidence were informed on Wednesday evening that the report was due to be published imminently. The decision to stop it from coming out is being seen inside Whitehall as unusual.
Since we published our pledge...
... focused on the escalating climate crisis, Guardian readers from more than 100 countries across the world have supported us – thank you. Many of you have told us how much you value our commitment: to be truthful, resolute and undeterred in pursuing this important journalism. We are galvanised by your generous support as it makes our work possible.
You’ve read 14 Guardian articles in the last month – made possible by our choice to keep Guardian journalism open to all. We do not have a paywall because we believe everyone deserves access to factual information, regardless of where they live or what they can afford.
We will not stay quiet on the escalating climate crisis and we recognise it as the defining issue of our lifetimes. The Guardian will give global heating, wildlife extinction and pollution the urgent attention they demand. Our independence means we can interrogate inaction by those in power. It means Guardian reporting will always be driven by scientific facts, never by commercial or political interests.
We believe that the problems we face on the climate crisis are systemic and that fundamental societal change is needed. We will keep reporting on the efforts of individuals and communities around the world who are fearlessly taking a stand for future generations and the preservation of human life on earth. We want their stories to inspire hope. We will also report back on our own progress as an organisation, as we take important steps to address our impact on the environment.
Thank you again to everyone who supported our pledge. Every contribution from our readers, however big or small, is so valuable. Learn more about why support matters. You can contribute today from as little as $1 – it only takes a minute. Thank you.
Son. We got played
Michael Cohen "had to keep Trump out of the messaging related to Russia."
Manafort was advising the Trump campaign up until days before the election
Son. We got played
Michael Cohen "had to keep Trump out of the messaging related to Russia."
Manafort was advising the Trump campaign up until days before the election
Bill Barr is food out here
ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
Oh this should be fun
