 A memo written by the Democratic minority of the House Intelligence Committee, released Saturday with the approval of the FBI and Department of Justice, disputes the narrative put forth in the memo released February 2 by the supposedly-recused Republican chairman of the committee, Representative Devin Nunes. The rebuttal memo primarily deals with the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant and two extensions that the Department of Justice obtained on Carter Page, foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. The Nunes memo asserted that the FBI and Department of Justice improperly obtained the FISA warrant by using information contained in the report of a British citizen working for an American company hired by individuals politically aligned with Hillary Clinton. Page was already known to investigators before he joined the Trump campaign, due to several instances of Russian operatives attempting to recruit Page to spy for the Russian government. An important passage in the rebuttal memo explains that by September 2016, “... the FBI had already opened sub-inquiries into [redacted] individuals linked to the Trump campaign: [redacted] and former campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page. As Committee testimony bears out, the FBI would have continued its investigation, including against [redacted] individuals, even if it had never received information from Steele, never applied for a FISA warrant against Page, or if the FISC had rejected the application.” Footnote 7 in the memo reveals what is likely the list of Trump campaign officials who were, as of September 2016, under investigation by the FBI. mo makes clear that five members of the Trump campaign were under investigation by the FBI for being probable agents of the Russian government:
“FBI Dir just informed me, ‘The FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation.’ Case reopened” The Comey letter was released on Twitter 19 minutes later by Fox News analyst Brit Hume.
“It has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisers, and the Russian government — a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity. The public has a right to know this information.”
Clearly, there was evidence in October 2016 that the Trump campaign needed to be investigated, and was in fact under investigation.
I have some questions: Why did the FBI tell the American people about the Clinton investigation, but not about the investigation into high-level Trump campaign officials? Why did the FBI find Clinton emails, which turned out to be copies of emails the FBI had already seen, end up on Anthony Weiner’s laptop? Why did Jason Chaffetz announce on Twitter that the investigation into Clinton was reopened? Where did Brit Hume get the letter to Congressional members? The minority memo from the House Intelligence Committee can be read here. https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4387022/Democrats-memo-rebutting-Republican-claims-of.pdf The letter sent to Congressional committee heads announcing the reopening of the Clinton investigation can be seen here.  The New York Times article from October 31, 2016 can be found here. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-election-donald-trump.html The Mother Jones article from the same day can be found here. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/ The announcement of the FBI closing the Clinton investigation July 5, 2016 can be found here. https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system Note: Thanks to former CIA officer Ned Price for pointing out the information contained in Footnote 7.
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Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team on Friday released an indictment alleging that 13 Russians and three Russian organizations participated in a conspiracy to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
This list contains a combination of points from articles in The Hill and BBC. Links to the articles can be found below. 1. This was a broad, well-organized effort. Beginning as early as 2014, the defendants began to track and study U.S. social media sites related to politics and social issues. They used false personas to contact U.S. persons, and to pay them using accounts created through identity theft to conceal the origin of the payments. They controlled hundreds of social media accounts created under false pretenses. (One account impersonated the Tennessee GOP on Twitter.) 2. Defendants allegedly communicated with Trump campaign members. The indictment states that these campaign members were unwitting participants in the conspiracy. 3. Suppressing votes for Clinton was an important part of the operation. The indictment asserts that the aim of the conspiracy was to promote presidential candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, and to disparage Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz. 4. Defendants took steps to cover their tracks. Multiple false personas, fake accounts, and shell companies were created to conceal the origin of money and information. The creation of these accounts involved identity theft, mail fraud, and wire fraud. 5. The indictment describes serious crimes - visa fraud, identity theft, wire fraud, bank fraud. In addition to Friday’s indictment, an indictment against an American citizen, Richard Pinedo, was unsealed Friday. Pinedo has pleaded guilty to selling personal information stolen from U.S. persons to the defendants. 6. There were real people paid by the defendants to organize rallies, build props, and wear costumes at multiple events in multiple states. At least one person was paid to build a cage for use at a rally, and another was paid to dress up as Hillary Clinton in a prison uniform and stand in the cage. 7. This operation did not end on election day. After the election, persona accounts continued on social media to sow discord among U.S. persons regarding the election and presidency of Donald Trump. There is credible evidence that Russia-controlled personas were involved, this past weekend, in promoting discord among Americans regarding gun violence, in the wake of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. Rod Rosenstein, deputy director of the FBI, presented the indictment in a press conference Friday. The press conference can be seen here. https://www.c-span.org/video/?441317-1/deputy-attorney-general-rod-rosenstein-announces-indictment-russian-nationals The Hill article can be found here. http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/374305-five-things-to-know-about-the-russian-indictments MSNBC contributor Matt Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman, told Mike Allen of Axios: "Friday’s indictment established the legal architecture for possible future charges. Once you’ve established there was a conspiracy, you can charge anyone who was aware of the conspiracy and took an overt action to further it." The Axios article can be found here. https://www.axios.com/mueller-investigation-russia-facebook-future-7ab6695e-0012-4af5-99a3-d55c665b7796.html The BBC article can be found here. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43093260 The indictment can be found here. https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images  Top intelligence officials in the U.S. testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee today at the annual hearing on worldwide threats. They unanimously expressed confidence in the Intelligence Community report from January 2017. That report stated the following: “We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments.” Today, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned that the Russian government considers their interference in the 2016 election to have been well worth the trouble, and that Americans should expect interference in the 2018 elections as well. In his Statement for the Record, Director Coats stated: “Influence operations, especially through cyber means, will remain a significant threat to US interests as they are low-cost, relatively low-risk, and deniable ways to retaliate against adversaries, to shape foreign perceptions, and to influence populations. Russia probably will be the most capable and aggressive source of this threat in 2018, although many countries and some nonstate actors are exploring ways to use influence operations, both domestically and abroad. “We assess that the Russian intelligence services will continue their efforts to disseminate false information via Russian state-controlled media and covert online personas about US activities to encourage anti-US political views. Moscow seeks to create wedges that reduce trust and confidence in democratic processes, degrade democratization efforts, weaken US partnerships with European allies, undermine Western sanctions, encourage anti-US political views, and counter efforts to bring Ukraine and other former Soviet states into European institutions.
The hearing included CIA Director Mike Pompeo, FBI Director Christopher Wray, National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers, Defense Intelligence Agency head Lieutenant General Robert Ashley, and head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Robert Cardillo. An article from National Public Radio summarized the hearing. A link to the recording of the hearing can be found below. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-worldwide-threats-hearing-1 The opening Statement for the Record of Director Coats can be read below.  National Public Radio reported today: “A memo alleging the FBI abused its surveillance authority became public on Friday after a push by House Republicans. President Trump authorized the memo's release, even after the FBI expressed "grave concerns" about the ‘accuracy’ of the document, authored by House intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif.” NPR release the text of the memo with annotations from their Justice Department, national security, and White House reporters. The annotated text can be found here. https://www.npr.org/2018/02/02/582828461/fact-check-read-the-gop-memo-released-by-house-intelligence-committee Some Republicans have argued that the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign’s ties to Russian government operatives is based solely on the so-called “Steele dossier,” a set of field documents created by Christopher Steele, retired head of the Russia desk in Great Britain’s intelligence service, MI6. According to an NPR story from today’s “All Things Considered” program, the memo undercuts that argument. “Instead, it says, overtures by Russian operatives to a junior campaign adviser are what sparked the FBI's counterintelligence investigation. George Papadopoulos — who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about those contacts — ‘triggered’ the opening of the investigation, the memo says.” Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in October 2017 of lying to the FBI about his contacts with agents of the Russian government. The “All Things Considered” story can be found here. https://www.npr.org/2018/02/02/582713363/memo-russian-overtures-to-trump-aide-triggered-fbi-investigation While some GOP lawmakers have asserted that the FBI’s interest in Trump campaign aide Carter Page began with the Steele dossier, it is important to note the Page was a focus of FBI attention at least as far back as 2013, when Russian agents in the United States attempted to recruit him for their government. A federal Intelligence Surveillance Court granted the FBI a surveillance warrant on Page in October 2016. Three 90-day extensions were granted. Five senior Justice Department and FBI officials signed off on the three requests for extensions. The memo released today states that all the requests for extension were approved by a federal judge. This would not have occurred unless the warrant was yielding information useful to counterintelligence or a criminal investigation. A Washington Post article explains the issues surrounding the FBI surveillance of Carter Page. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/memo-points-to-fbis-ongoing-interest-in-trump-adviser-carter-page/2018/02/02/89bfdee2-077c-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2_story.html?utm_term=.eeb1adfeedba Photo source: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
 "Hackers from the Dutch intelligence service AIVD have provided the FBI with crucial information about Russian interference with the American elections. For years, AIVD had access to the infamous Russian hacker group Cozy Bear. That's what de Volkskrant and Nieuwsuur have uncovered in their investigation." A Dutch newspaper and television station published an important article on January 25, 2018 that has gotten scant attention in the American press. Huib Modderkolk reports that in 2014, Dutch intelligence agents penetrated the Russian hacker group Cozy Bear, also known as APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) 29, even taking control of their closed circuit television camera. Dutch agents captured video showing who entered and left the building in Moscow out of which Cozy bear operates, allowing them to match images with photos of known Russian spies. "... they were in the computer network of the infamous Russian hacker group Cozy Bear. And unbeknownst to the Russians, they could see everything." This story is vitally important to American investigations into Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election, and possible coordination between agents of the Russian government and members of the Trump campaign team. However, American news outlets have not covered the story as the bombshell it is, spending their airtime and print space on other things. Lisa Negrijn has translated the Vokskrant article into English for the newspaper. That article can be found here. https://www.volkskrant.nl/tech/dutch-agencies-provide-crucial-intel-about-russia-s-interference-in-us-elections~a4561913/ Since U.S. media was slow to pick up the story, business analyst Eric Garland translated the story and provided his translation through Creative Commons license. His translation of the article can be found here.  Twitter recently announced that they will let nearly 700,000 users that they interacted with accounts identified as part of a propaganda campaign financed by the Russian government in 2016. Unless you have seen the process taking place in real time, it is difficult to understand how bots (automated social media accounts), trolls (real individuals aggressively attempting to sow division or discredit experts), and sock puppets (persona accounts run by a real person who is not the person portrayed in the account profile) can spread divisive messages, silence debate, and use abuse and harassment to push political issues in a particular direction. Once you have seen it in real time, it is clear how influential Russian government-financed troll, bot, and sock puppet activity split American voters into angry, isolated camps with little inclination or ability to bridge divides and find consensus. A team of researchers at the University of Washington examined Twitter discourse related to #BlackLivesMatter and police-related shooting events in 2016, and their discoveries have broad and important implications for how Americans can combat the onslaught of divisive messaging and disinformation. One important discovery is that the groups on the two “sides” of the issue were quite separate, with almost no overlap in retweets or conversation. The researchers found that Russian accounts identified as originating at the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg - a Russian government-financed troll farm - were clearly working in both pro-Black Lives Matter and anti-Black Lives Matter groups.   The diagrams tell the story. The first shows the isolation of the two groups - people in each group interact primarily with others who express the same views. The second diagram shows Russian-Internet Research Agency identified accounts in orange. It is clear that Russian paid accounts were very active in the separate groups, amplifying divisive messages and increasing division and disagreement. The researchers conclude: “In this paper, we have located RU-IRA-affiliated troll accounts in the retweet network of a politically polarized conversation surrounding race and shootings in the United States. Our findings suggest that troll accounts contributed content to polarized information networks, likely serving to accentuate disagreement and foster division. Furthermore, our findings imply that the troll accounts gained a platform in a domestic conversation, suggesting a calculated form of media manipulation that exploits on the crowd-sourced nature of social media.” Two articles from the University of Washington research group can be found here. Thanks to Kate Starbird of the University of Washington for sharing this research on Twitter. http://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/Stewart_Starbird_Drawing_the_Lines_of_Contention-final.pdf http://faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/examining-trolls-polarization.pdf An article about the announcement by Twitter about notifying users that they interacted with Russian-financed propaganda accounts can be found here. http://nationalpost.com/news/world/twitter-tells-677000-users-they-were-conned-by-russias-u-s-election-propaganda Angry Twitter bird image by Roweig at Deviant Art
Bots(?) from the Campaign Season Remain Active on Social Media - Part I - @AmyMek and @LindaSuhler11/6/2017  Amy Mek is a prolific Tweeter. Her account was opened on the morning of November 17, 2012. She has tweeted 45,693 times as of this evening. That means she has Tweeted an average of 25 times per day for the past five years. Her Twitter profile says she is a vegan psychotherapist in New York City. She has more than 199,000 followers, including former national security advisor Michael Flynn, and lots of users with blank profile banners, no faces, and suspiciously bot-like activity. She is a staunch supporter of Donald Trump and the NRA, and an opponent of immigration. Some of the most common words in her recent Tweets, according to the Twitter tracking website foller.me, are “media,” “mulsims,” “terrorist,” “attack,” “slaughtered,” “islamic,” “nyc,” “muslim,” “mueller,” “mosque,” “jihad,” and “fbi.” But Amy Mek may not really exist. In March 2017 Maureen Erwin reported in The San Francisco Examiner that she had been searching for evidence that “Amy” exists. (She didn’t find any.) “Amy” had been quoted in The New York Times in May 2016, before the primary season was over, in an article titled “The Women Who Like Donald Trump.” the article mentions another Twitter star, Linda Suhler, PhD, a molecular biologist who interacts with Amy Mek. She has lots of followers, an averag of 26 tweets per day, grandchildren, and the article suggests that she has made real-life friendships with other Trump-supporting women she has met on Twitter who are on the #TrumpTrain. Neither of these women’s profile pics connect to any other images on Google Reverse Image Search. Neither seem to have a curriculum vitae or other professional identity on the Internet. They do, however, both appear as “experts” on a website, agilience.com, which originates from France, and seems to be a conduit for funneling Internet users toward Internet influencers. “Amy” is listed as an “top authority on Islamic terrorism,” and “Linda” is listed as a “top expert in American politics.” Are these women real? Maybe. Or, perhaps, they are personas created to boost Donald Trump’s popularity among women during the primary and general election seasons. Looking at Amy Mek’s" early Tweets, in the first half of 2013 (a few months after the opened the account was opened). They don’t look very personal. In her early Twitter life, “Amy” may have been a bot. “Linda” began a bit earlier on Twitter, but her activity in the first half of 2013 appears very similar. (No wonder they got to be friends over Trump.) Russian intelligence may have created these accounts long before the 2016 presidential season, used them as automated accounts (or accounts run by employees in a troll farm), and activated them to become content pushers as needed. Alternatively, there may be automated accounts formed by U.S. operatives, which were activated by U.S. Trump supporters when needed for the campaign. It is also possible that these two personas are real people, with professional careers, who have no online presence except as Twitter influencers and experts on a French website. I will update as this story develops. The San Francisco Examiner article can be found here. http://www.sfexaminer.com/searching-proof-amy/ The New York Times opinion article by Emma Roller from 2016 can be found here. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/10/opinion/campaign-stops/the-women-who-like-donald-trump.html?_r=0 Numerous clips from the Twitter accounts of “Amy Mek” and “Linda Suhler” are included below. (Source: Twitter)      Update: Maureen Erwin wrote another article for the San Francisco Examiner, published November 23, addressing the abusive bots on Twitter, particularly "Amy Mek."
http://www.sfexaminer.com/twitter-still-turning-blind-eye-abusive-bots/  There were three open Congressional hearings this week addressing Russian interference in U.S. social media. Google, Facebook, and Twitter sent lawyers to represent them. Congressional leaders expressed clear dissatisfaction with the lack of company Chief Executive Officers at the hearings, given the seriousness of the issue.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, at Wednesday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, told the representatives that she doesn’t think they get it. She said she went home disappointed from the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing the day before: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/extremist-content-and-russian-disinformation-online-working-with-tech-to-find-solutions While you might not ordinarily think Congressional hearings are riveting television, these three hearings present the information that shows how far the Russian information operation went in an effort to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. It is fascinating to see the scope of the effort to use divisive social issues to confuse, frighten and pit Americans against each other. Disinformation was used on both sides of social issues to create a wedge between fellow citizens. All voters should see what was done to us as a nation. The hearings are linked here. Tuesday, October 31: Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing “Extremist Content and Russian Disinformation Online: Working with Tech to Find Solutions” https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/extremist-content-and-russian-disinformation-online-working-with-tech-to-find-solutions Wednesday, November 1: Senate intelligence Committee Hearing “Social Media Influence in the 2016 U.S. Elections https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-social-media-influence-2016-us-elections House Intelligence Committee Hearing “Russia Investigative Task Force Open Hearing with Social Media Companies” Opening statements and prepared testimony can be found here. https://intelligence.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=814 The hearing can be found here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=42c9oMBggIk The many exhibits used in the Senate Intelligence hearing can be accessed at the Senate committee website. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/hearings/open-hearing-social-media-influence-2016-us-elections An article from Wired summarizes the three hearings. https://www.wired.com/story/six-revealing-moments-from-the-second-day-of-russia-hearings/ An article from Engadget contains examples of some of the propaganda released by the Internet Research Agency. https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/01/house-intel-committee-releases-russia-backed-facebook-election-a/ The Hamilton 68 dashboard for tracking social media topics on Twitter, created by Securing Democracy and referenced in the hearings, can be found here. http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/ Rebekah, Robert, and Diana Mercer Photo Source: Long Island Business News  Robert Mercer, secretive hedge fund billionaire and owner of Cambridge Analytica, the shadowy data company involved in Brexit and the Trump presidential campaign, is stepping down as CEO of Renaissance Technologies and selling his stake in Breitbart, extreme website that Steve Bannon described as "a platform for the alt-right." Mercer is stepping down for "personal reasons," according to his statement, released today. He is also cutting ties with Milo Yiannopoulos, the provocateur white supremacist and misogynist who served as technology editor of Breitbart for a time. Mercer wrote of Yiannopoulos that he had supported him in the hopes that he would promote free speech: "But in my opinion, actions of and statements by Mr. Yiannopoulos have caused pain and divisiveness undermining the open and productive discourse that I had hoped to facilitate. I was mistaken to have supported him, and for several weeks have been in the process of severing all ties with him." Mercer's actions may be related to the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence hearings, and the House Intelligence hearing, this week regarding social media and the 2016 election. Cambridge Analytica and Facebook worked together with the Trump campaign to target American voters based on data gathered in ways that have yet to be fully explained. Mercer's statement can be read below. A clip from a BBC program about the 2016 presidential election, called "Secrets of Silicon Valley," can be accessed below as well.  Photo source: BBC
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