The Russia Investigation Will Continue
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The inability to establish that the Trump campaign conspired in a “tacit or express” agreement with the Russian government is not surprising. Most espionage investigations come up empty unless and until they get a lucky break. That does not mean there was no espionage activity in relation to the 2016 election. Every previous Russian political-warfare campaign was built on human spies. Russian “active measures”—propaganda, information warfare, cyberattacks, disinformation, use of forgeries, spreading conspiracies and rumors, funding extremist groups and deception operations—rely on human actors to support and inform their success. Counterintelligence professionals must doubt that Russia could have pulled off its election-interference effort without the support of spies burrowed into U.S. society or institutions.
Indeed, troubling patterns, unanswered questions, and tantalizing leads suggest that Russia relied on human sources to interfere in the 2016 election. Both the Mueller report and Intelligence Community assessments have identified a variety of Russian actors involved in the attack. They uncovered the activities of the Russian GRU, cyberhackers, and the Russian troll factory. However, one key player is missing: Russia’s premier espionage service, the SVR. Is it possible that the Russian espionage service played no role in Russia’s operation, and had no spies helping support what the Mueller report characterized as a “sweeping and systematic” attack of American institutions? The FBI would be professionally negligent if it assumed so.
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Democrat's hair-on-fire political nonsense is intentionally distracting the public from the most important and scariest conclusion reached by the Mueller investigation. Russia engaged in an intelligence operation within the United States to directly change the political landscape of the United States for Russia's benefit. News reporting on the Mueller investigation has also revealed that US agencies have been engaged in counter intelligence activities within the US political arena. US politics has become a battleground for foreign and domestic intelligence activities. And Russia is not the only foreign country with intelligence capabilities that is interested in changing US foreign policy.
Democrats are not going to impeach Trump. Period. The party leadership has made that explicitly clear. Self serving Democrats are only using the Mueller investigation to attack Trump and score political points. Some are using the Mueller investigation as nothing more than a forum for advancing their Presidential ambitions. The Democrat's political focus on Trump solely for political gain is distracting the public from the full import of Mueller's investigation. Not only foreign countries are involving themselves in US politics; domestic intelligence agencies are also involved in US politics.
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Who is watching the watchers? Are we going to need another Church committee ?
The investigation should continue - absolutely! - but it should actually be aimed at the Russians and defeating their efforts instead of using the issue as an end-run around an election. The focus should be on defending ourselves against outside interference. We should be seeing recommendations for action.
Circumstances have created a catch-22 situation. Who does the investigation? The intelligence community now has justification to be directly involved in US politics.
If we could just focus on the enemy instead of constantly trying to hang each other, I think the people we have in place could do the job.
Trump is doing that for you, focusing on Putin, our biggest adversary. Then he bends over. Trump has ceded our power to Russia, just did it the other day, again. No way in hell we let that happen without a fight.
What are you talking about?
Wow, don't know who our adversaries/enemies are? Trump is the one having the Putin lovefest. He says worse things about Americans than he does about Putin and Kim Jong Un. I am focused on the enemy who hacked and is meddling in our country. Keep the fuck up. Trying to stop Russia from doing it again, and Trump and conservatives want to pretend they don't know jack and allow it to continue, as long as its helping them.
[Let's stay on topic. The people making comments are not the subject of discussion.]
After what has happened to the intelligence agencies, CIA, DOJ, and FBI under the Obama administration, can any of them be trusted to insure national security, or simply continue to be used as political tools?
IMO that's a valid question that must be answered. In my opinion Trump was elected because the public has lost trust in the political system; Trump was elected to tear down the status quo political system. Trump's appeal is fighting dirty against dirty politicians.
The episode has created a perception that the intelligence community has been protecting a corrupt political system by trying to remove Trump on any pretext. The intelligence community has been fighting on the side of corrupt, self serving politicians who only use government for the benefit of themselves and their cronies.
[This comment was flagged. The comment may use provocative language but does address the topic and makes a valid argument. I have allowed the comment to stand.]
Still waiting for an explanation.
If we can't even get the President to acknowledge it how do you expect to get Congress to focus on it?
If Trump acknowledges Russian meddling, the obvious next question would be 'what is being done about it?' The President acknowledging foreign intelligence activities in US politics would naturally progress to questions about domestic intelligence activities in US politics. Is the NSA monitoring political speech? Is the CIA actively introducing counter-propaganda into the political arena? Is the FBI proactively scrutinizing political candidates?
Trump was under suspicion before the election and remains under suspicion. It is quite possible that Trump has not been provided any details. Intelligence agencies are not in the habit of providing operational details to suspected foreign agents. Is there any executive oversight of intelligence activities at this point?
Have US intelligence agencies gone rogue?
Nerm - they, first of all, have to get Obama to admit - to the people - that there had been errors that he capitalized on.
But, ain't gonna happen.
Was Obama provided details? Were the intelligence agencies manipulating Obama? Who provides oversight for intelligence agencies when the President can be selectively informed or easily excluded?
I think its very clear to the entire world who has gone rogue, and its NOT our intelligence agencies. Its Trump and the gop. If you were to substitute the name Clinton or Obama for Trump in everything that's happened since Trumps been in office, impeachment would have started on day 1.
They would be lined up with pitchforks.
Obama is no longer President so he don't have to do jack. Can we move on to the current Idiot-In-Charge?
Not unless you count those times they have publicly contradicted Trump.
I think Trump's denials have all been about him, his people, and the legitimacy of his election. To that extent, I think his hostility to the investigation was understandable. In the end, the investigation found that neither he nor his people cooperated with those who were trying to mess with our election. We also have had studies that in spite of their shenanigans, they didn't manage to actually change the outcome of the election.
That's good news all around, but while we point fingers at each other, we seem to be ignoring the ongoing efforts to interfere. If we keep this up, they may well succeed next time.
The whole time Obama was president people on the right were saying he was an illegitimate president. trump himself continually pushed the birth certificate narrative for years.
The Mueller report actually documents the trump team trying to get information from Russian sources, even down to meetings on offshore islands.
We have Giuliani saying that it is ok to get information from foreign sources.
trump talks to Putin on a recent phone call and basically says they talked about how the report exonerated them both and he wouldn't even mention any meddling in the election process.
After one meeting, he outright said that he believes Putin's word over his own intel people.
Nerm is basically pushing the 'coup' narrative and saying that our own intel people are out to get us.
[Let's stay on topic. The people making comments are not the subject of discussion.]
Have US intelligence agencies gone rogue?
They were out to get Trump under Obama's direction
Prove it.
Nah. The only 'inability' is the inability of the Trumpers to prove that the Trump didn't.