TRUMP is seriously dangerous

[Iamwhomiam]

Mac, wrote, "If you were Trump, would you trust the CIA to protect you?"

Mac, the CIA is not responsible for providing protection to the president.

[MacCruiskeen]

Mac, wrote, "If you were Trump, would you trust the CIA to protect you?"

Mac, the CIA is not responsible for providing protection to the president.

I know, that's why I mentioned the Secret Service, asked how dependable they are, and posted a video of them being stood down in Dallas.

The CIA is capable of killing presidents, domestic or foreign, and has indeed been responsible for doing so.

[brekin]

He doesn't give a fuck.

Ahh, bullying sociopath billionaires and the men who adore them.
How awesome, the leader of the most powerful nation in the world doesn't give a fuck.
I'm sure that will work out well.

[justdrew]

the free world's getting more expensive by the minute

[seemslikeadream]

I think, therefore, that this may be the time to say one or two things to the person responsible for my present condition.

You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed.

You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilised value.

You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilised men and women.

You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life.

May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.

Alexander Litvinenko
21 November 2006

From Fruh's post in the Data Dump:
http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/ ... 91#p627091

https://www.yahoo.com/news/the-man-behi ... 21154.html

The British ex-spy behind the Trump dossier was an FBI asset
[Yahoo News]
Michael Isikoff
Chief Investigative Correspondent
Yahoo NewsJanuary 11, 2017



The man behind the sensational story concerning information the Russian government had supposedly collected about Donald Trump is a former British intelligence operative and was a longtime intelligence source for the U.S. government who had assisted the FBI during an investigation into corruption by FIFA, the world soccer association, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The operative — identified today by the Wall Street Journal as Christopher Steele, a former Russian operations officer for Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency — had worked as a consultant for the FBI’s Eurasian organized crime section, helping to develop information about ties between suspected Russian gangsters and FIFA, said one of the sources, who is directly familiar with Steele’s work.

Steele had been hired originally to investigate Trump by his political opponents, and he decided to share his information with the FBI last year. The preexisting relationship between Steele and U.S. officials is one reason the FBI took the operative’s allegations seriously when he first turned over a written dossier, filled with uncorroborated “raw intelligence” about Trump, to one of the bureau’s agents in Rome last summer, the sources said.

The credibility of some of those allegations is now in question after Trump, at a news conference, denounced the claims as completely false and attacked the news media for circulating them — and the intelligence community for including a two-page summary of the explosive charges in a classified briefing that was given to President Obama, to congressional leaders, and to Trump himself.

“It’s all fake news. It’s phony stuff. It didn’t happen,” Trump said at his Trump Tower press conference Wednesday. “It was gotten by opponents of ours. It was a group of opponents that got together. Sick people, and they got together and put that crap together.”

Steele, who now works for a London-based intelligence firm called Orbis Business Intelligence, was hired by a Washington political research firm working for Democrats looking for damaging material on Trump. After contacting old sources in Moscow, he passed along reports of sensational — and unverified — accounts of compromising material that the Russian intelligence service had supposedly obtained about Trump during his 2013 stay in Moscow, when he was overseeing the Miss Universe contest. “Former top Russian intelligence officer claims FSB [the Russian intelligence service] has compromised TRUMP thorough his activities in Moscow sufficiently to be able to blackmail him,” reads one of the operative’s reports, which was published Tuesday night by BuzzFeed.

The operative’s reports also included multiple other claims that are now in question: One of the operative’s reports alleges that Michael Cohen, a top lawyer in the Trump organization, had met with Russian officials in Prague involved in hacking the election. On Wednesday, Cohen denied he had ever been to Prague and produced his passport to prove it. Another of Steele’s reports, first reported by Yahoo News last September, involved alleged meetings last July between then-Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page and two high-level Russian operatives, including Igor Sechin — a longtime associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin who became the chief executive of Rosneft, the Russian energy giant. After initially declining to comment, Page wrote a letter to FBI Director James Comey after the story was published denying that he had ever met with Sechin; the Trump campaign, however, cut its ties to him.

Still, U.S. officials said the allegations were not easily dismissed, in part because Steele was a known quantity who had produced reliable information about Russia in the past. “He’s a meticulous professional, and there are no questions about his integrity,” said one U.S. official who has worked with Steele. “The information he provided me [about Russia] was valuable and useful.”

A senior law enforcement official declined to talk about the nature of Steele’s relationship with the FBI. But the official confirmed that he was known to the FBI and that the bureau had already obtained copies of his reports months before Sen. John McCain handed FBI Director James Comey a dossier of Steele’s material in December. Asked why a two-page summary of the uncorroborated reports was included as part of last week’s intelligence briefing on Russian hacking, the official said that “it was an intelligence community decision” to do so after officials learned that his reports had been widely circulating among members of Congress and journalists. “It seemed very clear that these were going to see the light of day in the next couple of weeks,” the official said. The conclusion was that “it might be a good idea to tell [Trump] about them before they were publicly released.”

The official declined to share U.S. officials’ current thinking about the reliability of the material, saying it is still being investigated. “It’s part of the larger look at the Russian influence campaign,” the official said.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said the decision to include the material in the briefing was justifiable in light of the expectation that it was likely to leak. “Are you going to tell the guy?” Hayden said, referring to Trump. “You almost owe it to him.” Besides the news media, other intelligence services were likely to get their hands on the material. “It’s awkward, but duty kind of dictates that you tell him.” Still, Hayden added, the rules about what intelligence to share — or not share — appear to be shifting in the Trump era. “We’re off the map here,” he said.

All that begs the question of what the public should make of Steele’s reports, in light of the “hall of mirrors” atmosphere that surrounds much intelligence reporting about the Kremlin. The format of the reports tracks the writings of professional intelligence reports, with each claim tied to a particular source, even if the sources (per standard procedure) are never identified. Steve Hall, a former top Russia operations officer for the CIA until 2015, said he found aspects of Steele’s reports to be credible, especially as they related to the Kremlin’s plans for hacking the U.S. election.

“I find some of it indeed has the ring of truth,” said Hall. But, he added, “other parts of it are problematic.”

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/ ... &start=255

[MacCruiskeen]

He doesn't give a fuck.

Thanks for that, especially for Jeb vs Trump. I had read about that exchange but that's the first time I've seen it. I would like to see one Democratic politician with the guts and the gumption to state the obvious, as he did. Every one of those weasels would have bitten their own tongue off rather than mention the unmentionable and suffer the boos. Trump thrives on it.

He planted a donkey's head on Jeb there. And his facial expressions are priceless. (Is there an Oscar for Most Effective Use Of A Split Screen? There should be. The cameraman deserves one.)

Trump is The Trickster. He's Puck, and Puck is also not a Nice Guy. He's a dangerous inhuman joker who can turn people into beasts before they've even noticed it. This works best when they are asleep.


Puck gives Bottom an ass's head.

But of course it's extremely unlikely that he will ever do anything about investigating 9/11. His alliance with Giuliani has made that doubly clear. Who knows, though, how desperate this gang war will get. If they have dirt on Trump, who knows what dirt he has on them?

Early days yet. Meanwhile, the US President is still called Obama. And as everyone knows, he's a Nice Guy.

Laurie Penny Verified Account ‏@PennyRed 18:34 - 3. Oct. 2012

Journalist, author, feminist, geek, genderpunk. Contributing Editor, @Newstatesman. Latest book: 'Unspeakable Things', Bloomsbury. London, England

That look in Obama's eyes? 'Fuck you, rich boy, I'm smart as hell and this is what I'm best at?' That. Is UNSPEAKABLY sexy. #denverdebate

https://twitter.com/PennyRed/status/253669402216652803

[justdrew]

I wonder what sorcha faal has to say about all this

does that 'thing' still exist?
---
speaking of which, how about some wild ass speculation...
---
If a body double is sworn in, does it count? If Trump himself were not sworn in would it matter?
---
My advice is to be as far from DC as possible around that day, because it seems to be just such a tempting target for terror, particularly the nuclear type. Who's the "designated survivor" and it must be an Obama cabinet member? or? Anyone able to guess the CoG rules if DC were nuked that day?
---

Hopefully nothing that bad happens.

but surely the paul craig roberts faction is thinking along these lines? It's a worst-case scenario that must occur to many people. What would happen?

---

Also, while I've to some extent agreed with the 'russian view' that the US has been needlessly provocative toward russia for a long time, that doesn't mean I think he's a 'real good guy' - just 'not as bad' as we're led to believe and anyway, he's not weakened by nato/us aggression.
if he's/they've decided they must disrupt the US, as a solution short of total war, and sooner rather than later, this may be it.

[MacCruiskeen]

Why bring up "sorcha faal", drew? Really.

[justdrew]

Why bring up "sorcha faal", drew? Really.

^ see edits above.

well, it's one of the first of the probably-Russian sourced ''voices" out there. It's mildly interesting to find out what they're putting out these days, or if that channel's been shut down.

My theory is they switched up their channels a few years or so ago and the targeting focus changed to a wider demographic.

[MacCruiskeen]

Yes. Trump is smarter than people give him credit for.

Yes. Much. You'd think people would have learned something from eight years of calling W stupid and rolling their eyes at the incompetence of US foreign policy. ("Good Lord, I know their intentions are good, but why are they such klutzes! They just ruined another nation!")

And, watching his press conference, I was struck at how different he is than any professional politician I've ever seen.

He's different from the Beltway drones, yes. But he's not very different from Berlusconi, who has been a fucking nightmare for Italy. Not to mention Mussolini. Or Reagan.

And considering what massive failures our professional politicians have been for, well, for fucking ever, I welcome something new.

No. Not everything new is good. "Out with the old monsters, in with the new monsters" is not a sentiment I can get behind.

[seemslikeadream]

Senate intelligence committee to question Trump team on Russia links
Chairman says panel will use ‘subpoenas if necessary’ to force testimony

Moscow accused of collusion with Trump team and of cyber-crimes

Friday 13 January 2017 19.01 EST Last modified on Friday 13 January 2017 20.39 EST

The Senate intelligence committee plans to interview senior figures in the incoming Trump administration as part of its inquiry into alleged Russian hacking during the US election, its chairman said on Friday.

The announcement, one week before Donald Trump assumes the presidency, comes amid a bitter row between him and the US intelligence agencies he will soon lead.


Angering Congress, James Comey won't address Trump-Russia inquiry privately

Only yesterday the committee chairman Richard Burr, a Republican, had told reporters that connections between the president-elect and Moscow would be outside the remit of his committee’s ongoing investigation into Russia’s alleged attempts to influence the election through hacking and other cyberattacks.

But Burr – in a statement issued jointly with the panel’s top Democrat, Mark Warner – said the committee would use “subpoenas if necessary” to force Trump’s team, as well as officials from the Obama administration, to testify.

“As part of the Senate select committee on intelligence’s oversight responsibilities, we believe that it is critical to have a full understanding of the scope of Russian intelligence activities impacting the United States,” the statement said.

Among other things, the inquiry will examine “counterintelligence concerns related to Russia and the 2016 US election, including any intelligence regarding links between Russia and individuals associated with political campaigns”.

The statement is the first formal announcement describing the scope of the committee’s investigation.

The inquiry falls short of a demand, backed by every House Democrat and many Senate Democrats, for an independent bipartisan commission. With congressional Republicans opposing that move, Democrats have been hoping to build pressure as intelligence briefings on the Russia hacking have accumulated in the past week.

Warner indicated in a statement, issued alongside his statement with Burr, that he did not necessarily view the intelligence panel’s inquiry as the final investigative option.

“This issue impacts the foundations of our democratic system – it’s that important,” he said. “This requires a full, deep and bipartisan examination. At this time, I believe that this committee is clearly best positioned to take on that responsibility ... If it turns out that SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] cannot properly conduct this investigation, I will support legislation to empower whoever can do it right.”

The announcement comes hours after the Guardian reported that FBI director James Comey frustrated lawmakers at a closed briefing on Friday when he refused to clarify whether his agency was conducting an inquiry into Trump’s ties to Russia. Comey had previously told the Senate intelligence committee that he would “never comment” on a potential FBI investigation “in an open forum like this”, raising expectations that he would put the issue to rest in a classified setting. But, according to sources attending the closed-door meeting, that was not the case.

The bulk of the intelligence committee’s hearings will be held behind closed doors, the statement from Burr and Warner said, although it would try to conduct public hearings when possible. The senators vowed to follow the intelligence “wherever it leads”.

The announcement is a reversal of Burr’s previous statement to reporters. On Thursday, he said an inquiry into the possible links between Trump and Russia would not involve investigating ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign, asserting that the committee doesn’t “have anything to do with political campaigns. We don’t have any authority to go to any campaign and request information that one would need to do an investigation.” When asked who should, he suggested the FBI.
The move comes in the aftermath of the publication of a set of unverified documents alleging covert links between the Trump campaign and Moscow and referring to personally comprising material about the president-elect, allegedly collected by Russian intelligence when he visited Russia. Trump has called the allegations “phony stuff”, adding: “It didn’t happen.”

The material was put together by Christopher Steele, a former British counter-intelligence official who was commissioned to do research on Trump on behalf of his political opponents. Steele was reportedly so alarmed by what he found that he forwarded a copy of the documents to the FBI over the summer.

David Corn, Washington editor of Mother Jones, who first broke the story about the existence of the documents, described his interview with their author in October. He said he had agreed to speak “under the condition that I not name him or reveal his nationality or the spy service where he had worked for nearly two decades, mostly on Russian matters.”

The former spy told Corn that he had decided the material he began receiving in June was “sufficiently serious” for him to send it to his contacts at the FBI. Steele did so without permission from the American firm that had hired him. “This was an extraordinary situation,” he told Corn.

The former counter-intelligence official said the reaction from the FBI was “shock and horror” and a few weeks later the Bureau asked him for information on his sources and their reliability and on how he had obtained his reports. The Bureau also asked him to carry on sending further reports to its investigators. He stressed that the reports were raw updates of what he was learning from his sources.

“This was something of huge significance, way above party politics,” the ex-spy told Corn. “I think [Trump’s] own party should be aware of this stuff as well.” He noted that the operations aimed at Trump were part of Vladimir Putin’s campaign to “disrupt and divide and discredit the system in western democracies”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ssia-links

[seemslikeadream]

Congressman John Lewis Says Donald Trump Is NOT A Legitimate President Because Of The Russians


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnxrpsQ9nVc

[Elvis]

I welcome something new.

[Iamwhomiam]

I wonder what sorcha faal has to say about all this

does that 'thing' still exist?

I think they got a grant from the Russian government and now televises as RT.

[seemslikeadream]

Why Does Donald Trump Continue to Defend Russia and Attack U.S. Intelligence?

If collusion doesn’t explain his behavior, what does?

By William Saletan


I don’t believe Donald Trump colluded with Russia to hack the Democratic National Committee. I don’t think anyone working on Trump’s behalf met with anyone working for Vladimir Putin. That allegation—which appeared in clearly erroneous form in the sketchy “dossier” published by BuzzFeed on Tuesday—could turn out to be true. But nothing I’ve seen so far, dossier included, has convinced me.


But that leaves all of us with a problem: How do we explain the overtly pro-Russian behavior of Trump and his surrogates? If they’re not Russian puppets, why do they work so hard to defend Putin and Russia against American investigators and reporters? Why do they divert blame to other countries and victims of the hack? Why, instead of targeting the Russian intelligence agencies that infiltrated us, do they attack the American intelligence agencies that exposed the Russians?

This behavior has been going on for months. In June, Trump openly invited Putin to hack more Democratic emails. Trump’s allies excused this as a joke, but Trump kept going. In July, he defended Russia’s invasion of Crimea. Even after the election, and after U.S. intelligence agencies had reported that senior Russian officials directed the hack “to interfere with the US election process,” Trump ridiculed the intelligence agencies and scoffed: “They have no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody.”


Last week’s intelligence briefing on the hack was supposed to bring Trump around. “If, after the briefing, he is still unsure,” said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, “that will shake me to my core about his judgment.” But the briefing has changed almost nothing. Trump continues to belittle the intelligence, question Russia’s guilt, divert scrutiny, and attack the intelligence community. This month, as evidence against Russia has mounted, here’s how Trump and his team have responded.

Tuesday, Jan. 3: Trump tweets, “The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case.” Trump’s claim was false: The briefing wasn’t delayed. But the scare quotes conveyed that he didn’t think the case against Russia was based on reliable intelligence and that he was willing to undercut that case publicly, even before the briefing.

Wednesday, Jan. 4: Trump accuses the press of a “double standard” for investigating Russia but not Hillary Clinton. He also tweets that Julian Assange, the fugitive from justice whose WikiLeaks site published the hacked material, “said Russians did not give him the info.” Vice President–elect Mike Pence, when asked about Trump’s citation of Assange as a credible witness, defends his boss:

The president-elect has expressed his very sincere and healthy American skepticism about intelligence conclusions. … Given some of the intelligence failures of recent years, the president-elect has made it clear to the American people that he’s skeptical about conclusions from the bureaucracy, and I think the American people hear him loud and clear.
Taken together, the statements from Trump and Pence implied that the public should place less faith in the intelligence agencies than in Assange.

Thursday, Jan. 5: At a Senate hearing, James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, testifies that new evidence—to be detailed in a classified setting the next day—has increased the already high confidence of the U.S. intelligence community that senior Russian officials directed the hack. The evidence begins to leak that evening. Around 7 p.m. Eastern, the Washington Post reports, “American intelligence agencies intercepted communications in the aftermath of the election in which Russian officials congratulated themselves on the outcome.” The Post also discloses two other lines of evidence: “the identification of ‘actors’ involved in delivering stolen Democratic emails to the WikiLeaks website, and disparities in the levels of effort Russian intelligence entities devoted to penetrating and exploiting sensitive information stored on Democratic and Republican campaign networks.”

Despite the Post article, Trump reaffirms his doubt that the DNC “was supposedly hacked by Russia.” He tweets: “So how and why are they so sure about hacking if they never even requested an examination of the computer servers? What is going on?”

Friday, Jan. 6: In morning TV interviews, Trump counselor and spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway says Trump “can’t agree with the rush to judgment.” She makes a firm prediction: It’s “unproven, and it will be unproven, that what Russia did or did not do affected the election results.” She accuses President Obama of expelling Russian diplomats prematurely. Shortly after Conway’s interviews, Trump tells the New York Times that inquiries into Russia’s role are “a political witch hunt.”

Around noon, as Trump is about to be briefed, NBC News confirms that the evidence outlined by the Post is in the 50-page classified report he will receive. According to NBC, the report “says that U.S. intelligence picked up senior Russian officials celebrating Donald Trump’s win.”

That afternoon, Trump is briefed on the classified report. A declassified version released to the public says Russia’s military intelligence directorate, GRU, used online fronts to release hacked material through WikiLeaks. The report lays out a timeline of Russian hacks into the DNC, along with “cyber operations aimed at the US election.” It also says, “Russian intelligence accessed elements of multiple state or local electoral boards.” Evidence for these charges, including the intercepts cited by the Post and NBC, is confined to the classified version.

Shortly after the briefing, Trump issues a statement. He says nothing about what Russia did specifically. “While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations,” he says, “there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election.” The Associated Press reports that, in an interview after the briefing, Trump “declined to say whether he accepted [intelligence officials’] assertion that Russia had meddled in the election on his behalf.”

Hours after the briefing, Conway appears on Fox News. She repeats Trump’s claim that the discussion of Russian hacking is “a political witch hunt.” Responding to a question about the intelligence officials who prepared the Russia report, she says Trump “will convene his own panel. … He wants to talk to his own intelligence community. He wants to talk to his own advisers about what makes sense moving forward.”

Conway also asserts that at Thursday’s hearing, Clapper said the hack “did not influence votes.” This was false. In his testimony, Clapper said that as a matter of jurisdiction, “The intelligence community can’t gauge the impact that it [the hack] had on choices the electorate made.”


Saturday, Jan. 7: Two days after the hearing and a day after receiving the classified report and the briefing, Trump tweets: “Intelligence stated very strongly there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results.” Again, this is false. Clapper made no such statement, and the unclassified version of the report said: “We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election.” The report did say, however, that Russia’s interference influenced the course of the campaign: “We assess the Russian intelligence services would have seen their election influence campaign as at least a qualified success because of their perceived ability to impact public discussion.”

In his Saturday tweets, Trump dismisses the whole inquiry and defends Russia. First he writes, “Only reason the hacking of the poorly defended DNC is discussed is that the loss by the Dems was so big that they are totally embarrassed!” Then he argues: “Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only ‘stupid’ people, or fools, would think that it is bad!”

Sunday, Jan. 8: Conway again goes on TV to accuse Obama of punishing Russia prematurely. Five times she insists that Russia’s interference is only “alleged.” She mocks the notion that “this is so important to our intelligence and our security.” Three times, she repeats her false claim about Clapper and the intelligence report.

Conway also adds a new claim. “I don’t want any of your viewers to be misled into thinking that somehow … the Kremlin was dealing with any of the hackers and bringing that information back to Moscow,” she says. How would Conway know whether any of the hackers talked to anyone in the Kremlin? How would she know what information was or wasn’t brought to Moscow? She didn’t explain.

Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman and Trump’s incoming chief of staff, echoes Conway’s charges. In Sunday morning TV interviews, he expresses dismay that Obama, while going easier on China, has imposed “the biggest sanctions that we’ve ever put out on Russia. … So there’s a political angle here … that is clearly politically motivated to discredit the victory of President-elect Trump.” Trump makes the same point, retweeting a line from Conway: “We certainly don’t want intelligence interfering with politics.”

Monday, Jan. 9: Conway escalates her attack. She claims that there’s “no smoking gun” in the intelligence report on Russia and that “there weren’t any fireworks” in “the intelligence briefing on Friday.” She accuses Trump’s critics of “selective outrage about Russia.” Conway and Trump’s incoming communications director, Sean Spicer, deflect questions about further investigation of the Russian hack, saying it has been investigated enough.

Tuesday, Jan. 10: In a taped appearance with Seth Meyers, Conway further describes and belittles the contents of the intelligence briefing. “I have to tell you, there wasn’t very compelling information in terms of the nexus that many people would like to make between the alleged hacking and the election results,” she says. She denies “that the Russians interfered in the election successfully, that they disrupted our democracy, which is really what we should all care about.”

That night, BuzzFeed publishes the uncorroborated dossier. In response, Trump returns to his theme that the whole controversy is bogus. He tweets: “FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!”

Wednesday, Jan. 11: As evidence that allegations of his collusion with Russia are false, Trump quotes the Russian government. He tweets: “Russia just said the unverified report paid for by political opponents is ‘A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE.’ Very unfair!”

In TV interviews, Conway attacks not just the dossier but the whole Russia controversy. On CBS This Morning, she says “the Russian hacking issue is fading out of view” because the “smoking gun that was promised” hasn’t been produced. On ABC’s Good Morning America, she repeatedly brushes aside questions about Russia’s guilt.

While shifting blame from Russia to other countries, Conway accuses the intelligence community of leaking about Trump and Russia for political reasons. She declares: “Just to smear the president-elect of the United States, we now have intelligence officials divulging information that they are sworn not to divulge.”

I’m at a loss to explain, in the absence of collusion, why Trump and his coterie would behave this way.
At a midday press conference, Trump contradicts findings in the intelligence report, and he repeatedly diverts questions about Russia to the broader problem of hacking by many countries. Initially, as part of this maneuver, he concedes Russian guilt in the DNC hack: “I think it was Russia. But I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people.” Later, he hedges. When a reporter describes Trump as having affirmed that “Russia indeed was responsible for the hacking of the DNC and John Podesta’s emails,” Trump interjects: “It could have been others also.”

Another reporter notes that according to the intelligence report, Putin ordered the hack “to help you in the election. Do you accept that part of the finding? And will you undo what President Obama did to punish the Russians for this, or will you keep it in place?” Trump replies: “Well, if Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability.”

In another round of TV interviews, Conway repeats her charge that Obama and the media are applying a double standard—treating Russia more harshly than China—and that they’re ascribing “outsized importance” to hacking because “the election results were not what they expected.”

Thursday, Jan. 12: On NBC’s Today show, Conway is asked several times whether Trump believes Clapper’s statement that the dossier was not leaked by the intelligence community. She refuses to say that Trump believes it or that she believes it. She repeats that “intelligence officials or other people are leaking to the media” for “political purposes.”

Friday, Jan. 13: Trump tweets: “Totally made up facts by sleazebag political operatives, both Democrats and Republicans - FAKE NEWS! Russia says nothing exists. Probably released by ‘Intelligence’ even knowing there is no proof, and never will be.” The tweets imply that he doesn’t accept Clapper’s statement, that the intelligence agencies leaked material to hurt Trump, and that they did so knowing that the material was false. Again, Trump invokes Russia’s denials as evidence. In addition, he repeats his objection that Clinton “should never have been allowed to run.”

Top Comment

I haven't had a chance to listen to the news today. Did Trump clear all this up by releasing his tax returns yet? More...

1.9k CommentsJoin In
That’s what Trump and his advisers have said in the days leading up to, and following, his intelligence briefing on Russia’s interference in the election. They have conceded as little as possible. They have belittled and lied about the contents of the intelligence report. They have attacked the credibility of U.S. intelligence officials and have accused them of leaking falsehoods “just to smear the president-elect.” They have denied any link between the hackers and the Kremlin. They have criticized the sanctions against Russia as unfair. They have disputed the need for further investigation. They have dismissed the whole controversy as political and fake.

I don’t attribute any of this to back-channel phone calls or an alleged secret meeting in Prague. But I’m at a loss to explain, in the absence of collusion, why Trump and his coterie would behave this way, and why Pence would go join in their attacks on the intelligence “bureaucracy.” Something is deeply wrong with the incoming president-elect and his White House team. They seem not to understand, or to care, that their job is to represent and protect the United States, not Russia. Their behavior in the past two weeks makes this problem indisputable. Until we know more, they cannot be trusted.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... gence.html