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Donald Fires FBI Director who's investigating Russian Election Hacking

A look at the team Special Council Mueller is putting together provides hints as to the directions his investigation will take:

https://www.wired.com/story/robert-mueller-special-counsel-investigation-team/

Including his most recent hire:

"Also, while the Special Counsel’s office has yet to make any formal announcements about Mueller’s team, it appears he has recruited an experienced Justice Department trial attorney, Lisa Page, a little-known figure outside the halls of Main Justice but one whose résumé boasts intriguing hints about where Mueller’s Russia investigation might lead. Page has deep experience with money laundering and organized crime cases, including investigations where she’s partnered with an FBI task force in Budapest, Hungary, that focuses on eastern European organized crime. That Budapest task force helped put together the still-unfolding money laundering case against Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash, a one-time business partner of Manafort."

Also of some interest, my own US senator, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, has been suggesting since last month that Michael Flynn has already been cooperating with the FBI. He repeated that conclusion a couple of days ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ltzkhQId7c
 
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/homeland-security-official-russian-government-actors-potentially-tried-to-hack-election-systems-in-21-states/ar-BBCZGYC?ocid=spartanntp

People connected to the Russian government tried to hack election-related computer systems in 21 states, a Department of Homeland Security official testified Wednesday.

Samuel Liles, the Department of Homeland Security’s acting director of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis Cyber Division, said vote tallying mechanisms were unaffected, and the hackers appeared to be scanning for vulnerabilities — which Liles likened to walking down the street and looking at homes to see who might be inside.

But hackers successfully exploited a “small number” of networks, Liles said, likening the act to making it through a home’s front door.

Liles was testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russia’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election, and his remarks add some clarity to the breadth of the Kremlin’s cyber mischief. Officials in Arizona and Illinois had previously confirmed that hackers targeted their voter registration system, though news reports suggested the Russian effort was much broader.*

Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Russian hackers “hit” systems in 39 states, and The Intercept, citing a classified intelligence document, reported that Russian military intelligence “executed a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before last November’s presidential election.”

In a separate hearing before the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson testified that Russia’s meddling was “unprecedented, the scale and the scope of what we saw them doing.” The testimony came a day after White House press secretary Sean Spicer said at a briefing he did not know whether President Trump believes Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

In addition to scanning voting systems for vulnerabilities, U.S. intelligence committees have said Russian hackers hacked and engineered the release of emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
“In retrospect, it would have been easy for me to say I should have brought a sleeping bag and camped out in front of the DNC in the late summer,” Johnson testified. He said the severity of Russia’s efforts convinced him to sign onto an Oct. 7 statement publicly blaming the Kremlin for what had happened, even though doing so might be perceived as “taking sides” or “challenging the integrity of the election itself.”

“My view is that we needed to do it and we needed to do it well before the election to inform American voters of what we saw,” Johnson said. He added: “I think the larger issue is it did not get the public attention that it should have, because the same day the press was focused on the release of the Access Hollywood video.” That video showed Trump bragging about kissing and groping women.

Officials declined to say which 21 states were targeted, or identify those which actually had data — such as voter registration lists — removed from their systems. Jeanette Manfra, the acting deputy undersecretary for cybersecurity and communications, said she could not do so because it was important to protect the confidentiality of those victimized.
FBI Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap testified Wednesday that Russians also pushed false news reports and propaganda online, using amplifiers to spread their message. He said Russia has for years tried to influence U.S. elections, but the “scale” and “aggressiveness” of its efforts in 2016 made the attempts more significant.

“The Internet has allowed Russia to do so much more today than they’ve ever been able to do in the past,” Priestap said. He said Russia’s goal was to “sow discord” in the United States and to “denigrate” Clinton and help Trump.

Johnson suggested that in the aftermath of the hacking, the federal government should “encourage a uniform set of minimum standards for cybersecurity when it comes to state elections system and voter registration databases.”
But he acknowledged doing so might be a heavy lift, given that state election officials are naturally suspicious of what he called a “federal takeover” of their election practices.

“State election officials are very sensitive about what they perceive to be federal intrusion into their process,” Johnson said, noting that he often encountered officials pushing back and arguing that “it’s our process, our responsibility.”
Click to expand...
 
So I heard earlier on the radio that they traced some of these shenanigans to the Netherlands - I need to see if I can find a link with that info. Perhaps our buddy Dutch has been busier than we realize.


edit: here we go

...The FBI has not ruled out the possibility that Russian hackers may have been involved in the intrusion. According to an August 2016 FBI document, the FBI found seven suspicious IP addresses during its early investigation, some of which traced back to the Netherlands.

The Netherlands IP addresses in turn traced back to a server called King Servers, which Hastings said often has been used by two Russian hacking groups, Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear. Hastings added that King Servers also has IP addresses in Bulgaria and Russia, and the two Russian hacking groups operate on all three servers....
Click to expand...

http://www.govtech.com/security/Illinois-Voter-Registration-Database-Hackers-Hone-in-on-Galesburg-Residents.html
 
moevillini said:
So I heard earlier on the radio that they traced some of these shenanigans to the Netherlands - I need to see if I can find a link with that info. Perhaps our buddy Dutch has been busier than we realize.


edit: here we go



http://www.govtech.com/security/Illinois-Voter-Registration-Database-Hackers-Hone-in-on-Galesburg-Residents.html
Click to expand...

at least being called a russian is better than being called: racist, bigot, homophobe and sexist!

problem is it might land me in jail!
 
I love how people alwayys rbing up polls and aproval ratings, but fail to see donald filling up STADIUMS.

he just filled a stadium in Iowa!
 
DutchJazzer said:
I love how people alwayys rbing up polls and aproval ratings, but fail to see donald filling up STADIUMS.

he just filled a stadium in Iowa!
Click to expand...

Those are not mutually exclusive dutch.

Donald has roughly a 36% approval rating. In a country with 330,000,000 million people that is still over 110,000,000 million people.

Doesn't make it a majority lol.
 
DutchJazzer said:
I love how people alwayys rbing up polls and aproval ratings, but fail to see donald filling up STADIUMS.

he just filled a stadium in Iowa!
Click to expand...

I'll admit...


That the red media did a fantastic job of making you think they filled a stadium. But reality always seeps out.

https://s3.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20170622&t=2&i=1190028382&w=640&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&sq=&r=LYNXMPED5L03M

r
 
In other news, Trump says he did not make tapes of the Comey conversations. Big surprise.
 
Dutch brought up an interesting point. Demos are 0-5 in special elections this year. Two thoughts:

#1 All of these districts were deep deep red districts. In fact, Price won the Georgia 6th in November by 20+ pts. Just 7 months later, Handel won it by 5? This has been true in all the other district races too. So clearly, Trump's unpopularity is taking its toll on these races. This leads one to theorize that in purple districts where the races are historically more competitive that Republicans will take it on the chin.

#2 0-5 for Demos does give Republicans a more reassuring feel that they might be able to prevent Demos from retaking the House in 2018. What these special elections have proven is that gerrymandering is a real problem. Despite the races becoming closer, being 5-0 means despite a 35 percent Republican president's approval rating leads to the question that "maybe policy and person just doesn't matter anymore?" Perhaps all that matters is your party's identity? Districts are appearing to become less competitive and despite some voters switching sides, there's already a strong enough Republican base that it really doesn't matter what happens, they'll always show up and vote Republican.

Karl Rove saw this in 2004. Traditionally candidates would start out extreme to gain the base of each party's support then pivot the opposite way in the generals to appeal to moderates. In 2004, Karl Rove predicted that Americans had become so polarized and so identified one way or another, that George W Bush didn't need to pivot left to attract moderates in the general. Instead, he kept pandering to high far right base.

Now what this means today? Less moderation and a continuing slippery slope to extremes.

For those of you looking to read up more on this:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/georgia-6-is-all-about-the-voters-who-reluctantly-backed-trump/
 
Keep in mind that Handel won that district by more than Trump did.

The Ds are flirting with the same trap the Rs got snared by. They risk anti-trump being their platform. They need to be smarter than that.
 
Stoked said:
Keep in mind that Handel won that district by more than Trump did.

The Ds are flirting with the same trap the Rs got snared by. They risk anti-trump being their platform. They need to be smarter than that.
Click to expand...

doesn't that support my thesis?

We have over 20 years of data from Newt to Handel. This district typically goes red by 20+ pts. So we can either assume (1) Ossoff was a kick *** candidate (despite losing by a greater margin than trump), (2) Handel was a historically bad candidate, or that (3) Trump's lack of popularity has even weighed down house representatives who typically win in blowouts. Ossoff clearly wasn't overwhelming popular, as you demonstrated.

So If you had to bet your next 3 paychecks, which one would you bet on?

And if you're still skeptical, look at the aggregate data from all 5 elections. All of them were much more competitive than they typically are. These districts are typically blood red, not purple. So are (1) democrats rolling kick *** candidates? (2) republicans providing historically bad ones? (3) Trump's unpopularity weighing down house republicans?

If you had to bet on it, which would you pick?
 
I think there was also a small dislike of the amount of "outside" money for a candidate that doesn't live in their zone who is backed by an unpopular Dem leadership.

I think Ossof lost to a combo of all that.

Trump is clearly unpopular. As he should be imo. But the Ds are running a losing strategy. They've proven that.

They need to step. Ack and rethink their brand. There are signs that some Ds are starting to realize this.

Either way it will be interesting.
 
Stoked said:
I think there was also a small dislike of the amount of "outside" money for a candidate that doesn't live in their zone who is backed by an unpopular Dem leadership.

I think Ossof lost to a combo of all that.

Trump is clearly unpopular. As he should be imo. But the Ds are running a losing strategy. They've proven that.

They need to step. Ack and rethink their brand. There are signs that some Ds are starting to realize this.

Either way it will be interesting.
Click to expand...

How are they running a losing strategy when they're gaining significant ground in even the reddest districts? They went from -23 to -5 percent in 7 months. Other special elections are showing similar gains.

If they're making big gains in red dominant districts, what do you theorize will happen in purple districts? I'm trying to follow the logic here
 
And btw, let's not pretend that changing up DNC leadership will prevent the GOP from the demonization of the DNC's leadership.

Whoever eventually replaces pelosi will be libeled and smeared by hannity and am radio too. Jesus Christ would be blamed for raising the dead and healing the sick on Fox News if he had a D by his name. Am radio would bitch that he turned water into whine instead of beer. What a wussy snowflake hippie!
 
They have made 0 gains that matter. 0. They are 0-5, moral victories are worth zip.

Will they outperform in purple areas? Maybe. We will see

But they just struck out. Again.

Also lol at your comments about being smeared. Welcome to politics. Both sides do it endlessly. Pathetically
 
It'll be easy for Dems to come across as idealess obstructionists if they are forced to spend all their time trying to put out the myriad fires started by the Trump administration.

Sent from my SM-T377V using JazzFanz mobile app
 
The Thriller said:
Dutch brought up an interesting point. Demos are 0-5 in special elections this year. Two thoughts:

#1 All of these districts were deep deep red districts. In fact, Price won the Georgia 6th in November by 20+ pts. Just 7 months later, Handel won it by 5? This has been true in all the other district races too. So clearly, Trump's unpopularity is taking its toll on these races. This leads one to theorize that in purple districts where the races are historically more competitive that Republicans will take it on the chin.

#2 0-5 for Demos does give Republicans a more reassuring feel that they might be able to prevent Demos from retaking the House in 2018. What these special elections have proven is that gerrymandering is a real problem. Despite the races becoming closer, being 5-0 means despite a 35 percent Republican president's approval rating leads to the question that "maybe policy and person just doesn't matter anymore?" Perhaps all that matters is your party's identity? Districts are appearing to become less competitive and despite some voters switching sides, there's already a strong enough Republican base that it really doesn't matter what happens, they'll always show up and vote Republican.

Karl Rove saw this in 2004. Traditionally candidates would start out extreme to gain the base of each party's support then pivot the opposite way in the generals to appeal to moderates. In 2004, Karl Rove predicted that Americans had become so polarized and so identified one way or another, that George W Bush didn't need to pivot left to attract moderates in the general. Instead, he kept pandering to high far right base.

Now what this means today? Less moderation and a continuing slippery slope to extremes.

For those of you looking to read up more on this:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/georgia-6-is-all-about-the-voters-who-reluctantly-backed-trump/
Click to expand...


also note they break every record on spending every new record!

they outspend the republicans. the ossof election was most expensive special election ever for the democrats
 
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