KremlinGate

Yes, but the friend of my friend is my friend.

Members of Congress don’t have the authority to make criminal referrals.  Only law enforcement may do that.  That is what just happened with. McCabe.  So it’s a total misnomer.  But that won’t stop the Russian-Republican alliance from incorrectly describing what those 11 far right Republicans did.

The trots wrote:

In fact, she lost because she ran a right-wing campaign as the candidate of the political and military/intelligence establishment and masses of workers were disgusted with the Democrats after 8 years of Obama.

So, then why didn't those masses of disgusted workers vote Green, if they were so put off by the right-wing policies of Obama/Clinton?

I agree that you can't blame the alleged Russian interference for the overall Democratic loss(whether it's legally actionable is another story), because people still had to make the decision to believe the crap being spewed by the Russian spammers, and most of those people were probably inclined that way to begin with.

But for the trots to pretend that the vast majority of Republican or stay-at-home animosity toward Clinton was motivated by the same beliefs that motivate the WSWS' hatred of Clinton is just fantasyland. You're seriosualy not living in the real world, if that's what you think.

This is far closer to the popular critique of the Democratic Party than anything on the WSWS...

https://tinyurl.com/yawbvncc

(Possibly NSFW)

Green Party's Jill Stein: Russiagate Being Exploited to Repress Leftist Opposition

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has completed turning her campaign materials to the Senate Intelligence Committee, and warns Russiagate is being used to silent dissent.

The Double Russia Conspiracy Trap

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/04/27/the-double-russia-conspiracy-trap/

"The RussiaGate conspiracy drama is a double-edged damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don't trap for people on the portside. The perils of signing on to the storyline are clear as day to any self-respecting leftist. Five come to mind off the top of my head..."

"Jill Stein is on New Day right now repeating Russian talking points on its interference in the 2016 election and on US foreign policy." - CNN

https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/991292250184470531

Jill Stein is Putin's slave too! CNN says so!

Mobo2000 wrote:

Josh:   Have there been leaks directly from the Mueller investigation before?   Is this a new thing?   Seems to me it's a new thing but I have not been following closely.

The leak didn't come from Mueller.  The questions were provided to Trump's attorneys.

The Times received the information.  A likely effort by Trump's side to leak the information and then try to blame it on Mueller.  That strategy doesn't seemed to have worked.  Meanwhile,

In a tense meeting in early March with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, President Trump’s lawyers insisted he had no obligation to talk with federal investigators probing Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

But Mueller responded that he had another option if Trump declined: He could issue a subpoena for the president to appear before a grand jury, according to four people familiar with the encounter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mueller-raised-possibility-of-presidential-subpoena-in-meeting-with-trumps-legal-team/2018/05/01/2bdec08e-4d51-11e8-af46-b1d6dc0d9bfe_story.html?utm_term=.c376611b96c8

Hmm that's curious, if Trump's team leaked they would do so thinking it would help their position in the public's opinion.   Here's the latest poll I could find on American opinion about the investigation:

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/17/603039236/npr-marist-poll-gop-dems-divide...
 

"Overall, the former FBI director's favorability ratings have dropped over the past month as Trump and other Republicans have ratcheted up their attacks on Mueller and his ongoing probe. There's been a net-negative swing of 11 points over the past month, with 32 percent of all Americans holding a favorable view toward Mueller, 30 percent viewing him unfavorably, and a 38 percent plurality still not knowing enough to have an opinion."

"Democratic views of the FBI have remained about the same in the past few months, but there's been a major uptick among independents, too, who think the FBI is biased against Trump. Today, 62 percent of those polled say the FBI is just doing its job while 30 percent say it's biased against the president. That's a 22-point swing from February, when almost three-quarters of independents said the FBI was just doing their job and only 20 percent thought it was biased against the Trump administration."

NDPP wrote:

"Jill Stein is on New Day right now repeating Russian talking points on its interference in the 2016 election and on US foreign policy." - CNN

https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/991292250184470531

Jill Stein is Putin's slave too! CNN says so!

Well, more precisely, a reporter who works for CNN says so as a personal opinion on his twitter account.

 How the 'Trump-Russia Collusion' Sausage Gets Made

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/261158/trump-russia-co...

"...The story is now coming into focus with the recent release of seven government documents that together detail a working partnership between spy agencies and the press that helped a political attack meme go viral, even though the evidence on which it was based was demonstrably false. While this type of relationship - let's call it collusion - may be routine in Third World countries, it does not bode well for the health of the American press or our democratic institutions..."

Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators have questioned a Russian oligarch about hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments his company's US affiliate made to President Donald Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, after the election, according to a source familiar with the matter.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/08/politics/robert-mueller-russian-oligarch-payments-michael-cohen/index.html

“Columbus Nova, a company whose U.S. chief executive, Andrew Intrater, and Russian investment partner Viktor Vekselberg have both reportedly been interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, is listed as the registrant behind a handful of domains for websites named after the alt-right that were created during the /2016 election.”

https://politicalwire.com/2018/05/10/company-that-hired-cohen-behind-alt-right-websites

BIG trouble in little China. Deripaska is no ordinary Russian oligarch. VERY well connected including to Putin AND the Clintons. Watch Mueller steer away from this one FAST.

Mueller May Have A Conflict - And it Leads Directly To A Russian Oligarch

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/387625-mueller-may-have-a-conflic...

"...The State Department declined comment and a spokesman for Clinton did not offer comment. Mueller's spokesman, Peter Carr, declined to answer questions. As did McCabe. 

The FBI rewarded Deripaska  for his help. And since 2011, he has been granted entry at least eight times on a diplomatic passport, even though he doesn't work for the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Deripaska once hired Manafort as a political adviser and invested money with him in a business venture that went bad. Deripaska sued Manafort, alleging he stole money. Mueller's indictment of Manafort makes no mention of Deripaska, even though prosecutors have evidence..."

Why not wiki Louise Mensch? Doesn't matter, right?  Anyway, here's more on Deripaska. And Hillary, from her own emails  -  thanks, Julian Assange, thanks WikiLeaks! No wonder they've been cast into the outer darkness eh...?

John Helmer: Did Hillary Clinton Take Money From Russia Oligarch Oleg Deripaska for a Favor in the General Motors - Opel Deal?

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/09/john-helmer-did-hillary-clinton-...

"There are significant disclosures on Clinton's involvement in Deripaska's bid to buy the Opel car works. Russian involvement as the prime mover and beneficiary of the deal was a secret in the secret Clinton emails..."

Who Framed President Putin? CIA Veteran Hints at Culprit, Slams Senate-Backed 'Collusion'

https://on.rt.com/95hc

"...Based on his 55-year experience of analysis of Russian politicians, McGovern ridiculed the nation that Putin somehow helped place Trump in office. McGovern blamed the US media and politicians for continuing to focus on the issue just to score points and boost results in the upcoming mid-term elections.

'When you look at the particulars, no one hacked into the Democratic National Committee on July 5th, for which we have metadata. That was not a hack. It was a download on a little thumb drive,' McGovern said.

'It seems to me, and more importantly to my colleagues of more technical bent - two former technical directors of the National Security Agency, that if you look for somebody interfering in the US election, it's not Russia, it is people who wanted Hillary Clinton to win.'

The one side that definitely benefits from the situation is the military industrial complex..."

Agreed.

Yes. Or Israel. 

BREAKING: Hillary's little Halper?

Long-Time CIA Asset Named as FBI's Spy on Trump Campaign

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/21/poli-m21.html

"The revelations of the role played by Halper point to an intervention in the 2016 elections by the US intelligence agencies that far eclipsed anything that one could even imagine the Kremlin attempting."

I see the phrase 'improper use'.  Given that there was significant evidence that Trump was running a criminal enterprise, it only makes sense for the law enforcement agencies to look for a source in the campaign.  It would be an issue if the source was undercutting the campaign, but the FBI was very much pro Trump during the election.

Quote:

When Tom Friedman penned a column suggesting that the SoD and the SoS sit Trump down and have a little chat with him about basic governance, WSWS spun it as "NYT calls for a military coup against Trump", or some such.

Leading, surely, to WWIII, another of their favourite canards.

"Is this the last straw, inevitably leading to World War Three???" -- No. 

FBI Informant Stefan Halper Paid Over  $1 Million By Obama Admin...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49478.htm

"Less than a week after Stefan Helper was outed as the FBI informant who infiltrated the Trump campaign, public records reveal that the 73-year-old Oxford University professor and former US government official was paid handsomely by the Obama administration starting in 2012..."