Is it just me or has someone decided to go after Trump ?

By Patrick BAHZAD 

There are nine days left until Inauguration Day and it feels like each one of these days is going to count. A shit-storm of epic proportions is blowing over the US, coast to coast, and I cannot remember having witnessed anything of this magnitude since, well, since 9/11 and the case for WMDs. You might think that is a bad analogy. Maybe. But I can smell when something is not right from a mile away and, believe me, something is not right here. I will not engage in lengthy speculations about what is going to happen now, or whether or not someone colluded with someone else. What I am going to do though is present a brief reminder of the facts (the evidence if you like) and then throw in a couple of thoughts based on my personal experience and gut feeling.

To be honest, I don't like Trump. He is a successful businessman though and I respect that. He campaigned hard, said a lot of things (some of which I found disgusting), but he also – obviously – touched on something that is dear to a significant segment of the electorate. He won the election fair and square, in line with the provisions of the US Constitution, and I would challenge anyone to prove otherwise. As far as I'm concerned, that is the end of the story. Now of course, the issues that we have been dealing with since early December are not linked to the election as such. Remember ? The current debate started when the dust had settled on all the claims about "Hillary won the popular vote", "let's do a recount" and so on. I'm not sure this is a coincidence, but that is just me ...

The DHS/FBI "Joint Analysis Report"

Fact is however that the first official IC report to look into the matter of the DNC hack was the DHS/FBIS "Joint Analysis Report" of December 29th 2016. And what a strange report that was, starting with a disclaimer which read that the report was "provided for information purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within". Admittedly, you need to take a few basic precautions with Intel reports. But claiming as a matter of baseline, that you can't be held accountable to anything you're writing does sound a little weird.

There were weirder elements still in the report itself, which is basically a summary of findings made by private cybersecurity companies which dealt with the DNC hack, in particular "Crowdstrike". But those findings only make up for 3 pages out of the 13 contained in this JAR. The rest is related to barely relevant technical details or to mitigation strategies and practices any 5 year old should be aware of. There was also a list of suspicious IP adresses that organizations should be on the lookout for, because they could be linked potentially to the entities that attacked the DNC. Funny enough, some 40 % of these addresses were TOR exit nodes (you can make up your own mind about what this could mean) and some addresses were even attributed to the wrong country: IPs in Switzerland were identified as "Swaziland", Danish IPs as Germans (probably because ".dk" can be easily misread as ".de").

Typos and misunderstandings you might say. But that kind of error, in addition to the global layout of the report, definitely points to a very rushed approach, not to an intel report that is careful worded and thought through. Talking about intel, what did the JAR have to say in that regard ? Well, not much actually, at least not much more than the reports published weeks and months before by cybersecurity experts who had analyzed the DNC hack.

The only thing new or different in the December 29th report was actually that DHS and FBI came up with a new name for the hackers and that in itself is interesting: "Grizzly Steppe". Good title for a novel if you ask me, and definitely catchy. The thing is, up until then, everybody in the private sector who had been involved with the analysis of the hack basically had identified two different hacker groups, which had both hacked the DNC at various moments and for different periods of time.

In short, what DHS/FBI called "Grizzly Steppe" were actually known up until then as "Advanced Persistant Threat 28", aka "Fancy Bear", and "Advanced Persistant Threat 29", aka "Cosy Bear". Let's not burden ourselves with technical details here, there is plenty of literature out there about both groups, their methods and tools. Suffice to say that APT 28 is considered to be part of GRU (Russian Military Intelligence) and APT 29 of FSB (Russian domestic intelligence).

Questions arising from the JAR

Each of these two entities hacked the DNC at specific times that did not overlap and it seems that only material recovered by the GRU was subsequently leaked and damaged the democratic party in the election. The FSB hackers on the other hand seemed to stick more to intel work in the traditional and commonly accepted way, breaking into DNC servers, stealing information, but basically keeping it for further use, like any intelligence agency might do in similar circumstances.

Why then would the DHS/FBI bundle both these groups together into one big "Grizzly Steppe" hacking operation ? To be honest, I don't know, but it certainly makes things easier for anyone wishing to make an easy case about "Russia meddling in the US presidential election". After all, attribution of cyber-attacks is difficult enough when you got one attacker, let alone when you got two.

So maybe, just maybe, someone decided to cut corners a little for the sake of making the charges stick. To be honest, there is not much doubt in my mind that the first hacking, i.e. the "intelligence gathering" operation, was done by the Russians. There is ample evidence to back up such a claim. The second however, which is the one that really matters because it ended with the leaks, raises at least one question.

The "smoking gun" that was provided by "Crowdstrike" private cybersecurity to prove Russian GRU was behind this attack was a software tool known as "X-agent", of which Crowdstrike found traces in its forensic analysis of the DNC servers. That tool is closely associated with GRU hackers, so much so that it is considered by many experts as a kind of digital fingerprint or DNA of GRU involvement. The problem is that this tool is not used exclusively by GRU hackers anymore and the much hyped up analogy with a Russian cyber operation against Ukrainian artillery units in 2014, which allegedly also used "X-agent" to devastating effect against Kiev's forces, does not seem to provide the strength of evidence needed to be affirmative that "X-agent" is indeed solid proof of GRU involvement.

The CIA/FBI/NSA "Intelligence Community Assessment"

The JAR report however did not bother going into such details, as it just simply stated that two separate groups of Russian hackers were responsible for the hacks. Period. Overall, not really compelling evidence. This is where the "Intelligence Community Assessment" of January 7th 2017 comes into play. This unclassified/public version is the result of CIA, FBI and NSA analysis of evidence related to the the same substance as the JAR of December 29th 2016. Only seven days in between both documents. You have got to wonder why, if the first report felt already a bit rushed and unconvincing, did the IC feel compelled to produce a second one that quickly afterwards ?

Of course, some people did entertain the idea that the ICA report might contain stronger evidence or feature elements not mentioned in the first JAR report. And in truth, there was more detail in it. Only that it did amount to much, especially considering what various cybersecurity companies had argued already weeks or months earlier, just that it was now given the official seal of "approval" of the US intelligence community.

And oddly, the actual intelligence part in the ICA was only 5 pages long (out of a total 25) with the rest being barely relevant (and outdated) attachments relating mainly to Russian TV channel "Russia Today", dubbed as part of the Kremlin's media and propaganda machine. A case that could be made by any freshman studying journalism and certainly not the stuff intel reports should be made of. There were also a couple of minor mistakes in the assessment, but the main difference with the previous joint FBI/DHS report, was the strong wording attributing the hacks to the Kremlin and alleging Russia's very clearcut preference for a Trump, rather than an HRC presidency.

In other words, the evidence was still begging but this was definitely a step or two up in terms of the narrative that we were being fed. You might think that this should have been the end of it. At least, as far as the public was concerned. After all, the other (classified and compartmentalized) versions of the ICA were not intended for public disclosure and were discussed, as they should be, by those they were intended for. Therefore, yes, you might think this should have been the end of the exercise in public disclosure, but you would be mistaken.

Yesterday, on Tuesday 10th 2017, a mere three days after the release of the ICA which failed to make a big impression, a document was leaked by Buzzfeed and discussed – although not published – by CNN. This document makes some of the most extravagant accusations I have ever heard.

The Trump "dossier"

What CNN alluded to is actually a dossier containing 17 short "intelligence reports" drafted between June and December 2016 by a private intelligence company headed by a former (anonymous) MI6 officer with – allegedly – extensive sources networks in Russia and Eastern Europe. The various reports contain extremely serious allegations, based on anonymous HUMINT sources and – possibly – various SIGINT intercepts, although the reports do not state this clearly. In other words, this "dossier" is the work of an nameless former intelligence officer who quotes anonymous sources.

But the story doesn't end there. Turns out, the "dossier" itself was handed over to the FBI by no other than Sen. John McCain, sometime after December 13th, and was being analyzed carefully by the FBI because the MI6 person who had drafted those documents was considered credible to the intelligence community. Furthermore, it appears that this private intelligence work had been done as part of "opposition research" on Donald Trump. The ex-MI6 officer had been tasked with it first by Republican opponents of Mr. Trump, who quickly withdrew their request, which was then taken up by the Democratic Party.

Cherry on top, various parts of the "dossier" had been circulating among journalists in the US for weeks already, but had not been published, because basically the allegations in those reports could not by verified nor proven. And not only was it known to the media, but obviously also to politics who made suggestions in several instances as to potential wrongdoing by team Trump, prior, during and after the election campaign.

I am not going to discuss the content of those allegations. Anybody who is interested can find the document online and have a look at it. What strikes me is that this is either the most outrageous attempt at discrediting a President-elect or the most unheard of collusion between as US Presidential candidate and a foreign power aiming at disruption of democratic elections in the United States.

Trump gave a few pointers about what he thought of the "dossier" during his press conference this afternoon. Needless to say, he is not amused, as CNN's reporter found out. As was also to expect, the identity of the nameless former-MI6 person is about to be known, and probably commented nationwide. Meanwhile, the House Intelligence Committee voted to allow all members of the House to get access to Friday's classified briefing on the hacking report. Nine days to go. Nine long days ...

Comments

[Ishmael Zechariah]

PB,
Thanks for the summary and comments. Per Zero Hedge "the former MI-6 officer, now working for a private security-and-investigations firm "who produced the dossier of unverified allegations about President-elect Donald Trump’s activities and connections in Russia" is ..." now known. Link is attached. Were I him, I would take an indefinite trip to parts unknown.
This is one weird world.
Ishmael Zechariah
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-11/identity-former-intelligence-officer-who-prepared-trump-dossier-has-been-revealed

[Jack]

All

This is getting ominous. Trump is dogged IMO. He has withstood an intense attack during the election campaign. There are many sharp knives trying to finish him off before he even gets started. This tweet is serious, specially when considered with the tweet from Drudge that Sam Peralta posted on the previous thread.

"Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?"

Check out @realDonaldTrump's Tweet: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/819164172781060096?s=09

If this escalates further as Chuck Schumer alluded to then it would be unprecedented in recent times - an internal war between the IC and POTUS. Larry Johnson has a pointed viewpoint on this matter including a recommendation to dismantle the CIA.

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/79535/failed-cia-coup/

Our adversaries are no doubt gonna try and take advantage. I'm particularly interested to see what the Izzies and Chinese do.

[JohnH]

This reminds me of the media frenzy that is typically a prelude to a regime change or an invasion. Usually the task of preparing the public lasts years, if not decades, though more recent campaigns against Qaddafi and Assad were much shorter.

One thing for sure, it won't be an orange revolution. That was already done in Ukraine.

[J]

Seems that in addition to the CIA and FBI 'cooking' Intel in their BS report of Russian hacking, the FBI went and sought a FISA "broad surveillance powers" authorization for Trump advisors. The FISA bench TURNED DOWN THE FBI broad surveillance powers request on Trump's advisors, saying it wasn't narrow enough in scope.

[Jackrabbit]

>> This reminds me of the media frenzy that is typically a prelude to a regime change ...
IMO the only logical goal of this frenzy is to convince VP Pence (a longtime friend of John McCain) to invoke the 25th Amendment. Only missing ingredient is an 'incident' that raises US-Russian tensions to a fever pitch.

>> ... it won't be an orange revolution.
It might be PURPLE (uniting Red and Blue against Trump as democrats have recently proposed) if Pence were to name Hillary as his VP (as a move to unite the country).

Only weeks ago, many would have insisted that the above was nonsense. Other nonsense that we have seen in recent times: governments not fully investigating the downing of a jumbo jet; Western democracies supporting "allies" that use extremists as a weapon of State; No one going to jail after the world economy loses trillions of dollars due to financial fraud (2008 financial crisis); etc.

[The Twisted Genius]

Patrick,

No, it's not you. There are people in our government who have decided to go after Trump. This is supposed to be a honeymoon period, or at least a wait and see period. That's the only conclusion I can make after the unprecedented reaction to this Russian influence op and those two half-assed official reports. Those were embarrassing. I would have been more impressed if the IC issued a one or two page report listing the findings and saying no evidence will be forthcoming. It's classified and will remain classified. Actually just the diplomatic expulsions accompanied by a short, terse statement of warning by the POTUS would have been enough.

Marcy Wheeler over at Empty Wheel is doing a good job covering this whole affair.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/01/10/two-cautions-on-the-russian-hack-of-rnc-servers/

I'm glad to see she also touched on the Shadow Brokers and the NSA hacks. I find that a more interesting story than the DNC hacks by themselves. A researcher going by the name of the grugq has also covered this aspect well.

https://medium.com/@thegrugq/the-great-cyber-game-commentary-3f821f0db749#.qcex4rvvf
https://medium.com/@thegrugq/the-great-cyber-game-commentary-2-33c9b79ca8ac#.239wg53ot
https://medium.com/@thegrugq/the-great-cyber-game-commentary-3-a1ae9a70e399#.iwewmgxf3

[Augustin L]

Trump talked about rigged elections and incited the wounded lumpen to unrest while they were actively looking for ways to rig the vote. Brad Parsdale's Alamo big data team knew that if not for rigging the election was already, his team ran all types of projections with various models and always came out on the loosing end. I quote Brad Parsdale's the man running the command center: "we have three major voter suppression operations underway, aimed at white liberals, young women and African American voters.''. Again: ''the aim is to depress Clinton's vote total, we know because we've modeled this out''. In other words, the only path to any competitive outcome is massive voter suppression. The GOP is also looking to purge millions of minority voters to keep the senate and deliver the white house to Trump, but current high voter turnout mirror numbers from 2008 when Barack Obama was elected in a landslide... Here's another quote from the man leading Trump's Alamo Team underligning they are only selling a product to the deplorables (Cambridge analytica's data allows them to intimately know what deplorables want to hear) :'' You have to find out what people want and then convince them why your product is the right one.'' What financial firms own Cambridge Analytica ? I suspect they had another bunker with techies hacking into voter tabulation centers to outright change voting results in their favour. The pot calling the kettle black... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-27/inside-the-trump-bunker-with-12-days-to-go

Can U.S. elections be stolen ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxXKr2hKCz0&feature=youtu.be

[Castellio]

Chris Hedges comments on the "Intelligence Report" and "Clapper's actions" in... where else.... RT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XamSi1DJFUo

He reduces the intelligence report to four key intentions: discredit Trump, discredit independent journalists, justify hostilities with Russia, give Democrats an excuse for why they lost.

[Patrick Bahzad]

TTG,

Thx for the links... I've read all that is out there over the weekend. Quite exhausting ;-)

[Patrick Bahzad]

I guess "voter suppression" didn't exactly work out. Must have been the hacking that managed to change voting results... What a load of BS !

[Lemur]

The baseless nature of these allegations show how desperate the deep state is. They're all of tricks, and know Trump will be cleaning house in 9 days.

[Fred]

Augustin L,

Yeah, and the Russians were behind the Michigan Democratic Party's "rigged" primary in 2008?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Democratic_primary,_2008

[Lemur]

thanks for Correcting the Record

[Mark Logan]

All,

A Devil's Advocate question:

In the current climate, created and sustained in no small way by our "news" being 90% political gossip, s-house rumors present a damned if you do/don't. Either you air them out or be accused of covering them up.

[The Beaver]

Forbes has more information :

http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2017/01/11/could-this-be-the-british-mi6-agent-behind-the-trump-fbi-memos/#2c5077c937da

In 2010, Steele was one of four former British intelligence officers who spoke at a black tie gala dinner in central London (the exact location was kept confidential from the public) that celebrated the 100th anniversary of MI6. There were various sessions held at the event, including ones led by Andrew Rostov, a retired KGB counterintelligence colonel, and Brian Kelley, a retired CIA case officer.
Check the second commentator in that article
---

Now some more rats are coming out :
https://theweek.com/speedreads/672669/bbc-claims-second-source-backs-trump-dossier

[eakens]

Chuck Schumer's comments were to conveniently prescient for comfort

[bks]

Something is wrong alright. It's like Mussolini in 1923.

[Peter AU]

Russia is and has been under attack from the US for some time. Information, sanctions ect.
Their defence strategy is two pronged.
1) warnings against military attack. eg.. the calibre missile demo from the Caspian, and the shadow brokers NSA hack.
2) Internal collapse of their attacker through exposing to American citizens and the world what the US government has been up to. Syria - Erdogans oil convoys for a start, but in the period since Russia entered the Syrian war most of the average commenters on MSM now understand that the "moderate" rebels will bring in at best sharia law without democracy, at worst it will turn into another Libya.
If Russia hacked DNC and I am not yet convinced they did (as in sending information to wikileaks) as there have been a number of whistle blowers that have acted out of ethics over the years, then this would also be part of a defensive strategy.

No matter how the DNC information or Podesta's emails got out, the ruling cliche in the US is being brought out into the open. Something like an exorcism? Hence the desperate propaganda we see now.

[euclidcreek]

Getting the Israeli's and Bibi in his corner: good move by Trump. He's gonna need all the friends he can get.

[Valissa]

On a similar theme, this piece by Philip Giraldi…

Washington Invented Hacking and Interfering in Elections - Weaponized hacking all began with Stuxnet http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/washington-invented-hacking-and-interfering-in-elections/

[ann]

Iran, Iraq and Syria are not our problem. Our problem in inside the beltway of Washington D.C. So they must point elsewhere. Screaming, " Look, bear", he is dangerous.

Screaming "look terrorist" , we must destroy them.

Scream "the terrible Dragon, he has stolen from us ". .

When it is the U.S. tax code that is the root of all evil in the world.

[Sam Peralta]

TTG,

Let us assume that the Russians were the party that ran a successful phishing exploit that snared the DNC and Podesta's emails. For a moment let us disregard that the DNC had poor infosec by having the word "password" as their password. Everyone in the IC community knows that we, the Russians, the Chinese, the Israelis, the Brits, the French, etc all spy on each other and have been doing that for a very long time. Nothing new here. Our IC have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar many times, from intercepting our ally Merkel's phone to real coups in South America. The Israelis have been stealing our deepest national security secrets for a long time. The Chinese downloaded our entire federal government employee database. In this case what was disclosed was the truth. Not misinformation.

So, why this reaction, this time, to the purported Russian phishing exploit? Why this hysteria? Why are the CIA, NSA & FBI pushing this so hard? Why the amp up of vitriol against Russia now? Why the attempt by the IC to de-legitmize the election result? I can understand the Democrats and the MSM but not the IC.

[David Habakkuk]

‘The Beaver’, IZ,

Thanks for those links.

A story in the ‘MailOnline’ this morning is headlined:

‘Will you look after my cat?’ Ex-MI6 spy ‘who worked with murdered Alexander Litvinenko’ flees his £1.5m home ‘fearing for his life’ leaving his pet with neighbours after being outed as the man behind the dirty dossier on Donald Trump.’

(See http://tinyurl.com/go5gn2h .)

I particularly liked the comment with the second highest number of ratings – ‘Why is he scared for his life? He didn’t upset the Clinton.’

More seriously, some background.

It appears that Christopher Steele was posted to Moscow as Second Secretary in the British Embassy in 1990 – seemingly this was MI6 cover. So he would have been there when the ‘station chief’ was Sir John Scarlett, before that figure was expelled in a ‘tit for tat’ row in 1994.

Following his disastrous role, as chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, in propagating the ‘fake intelligence’ which made possible the disastrous invasion of Iraq, Scarlett was appointed to head MI6: a job he held in the period leading up to Litvinenko’s poisoning.

As to what Scarlett and Steele may have been up to in Moscow, key figures in the training of the future oligarchs, notably Khodorkovsky and Berezovsky, in ‘Western business methods’ were Christopher Samuelson and Christian Michel, then of a company called Valmet.

In May 2005, as Khodorkovsky was awaiting sentence, the pair – in an imprudent fit of garrulousness – spilled a lot of beans to Catherine Belton, then with the ‘Moscow Times’, later with the ‘Financial Times’.

In addition to the fact that at the critical time Samuelson and Michel’s company was majority controlled by Riggs Bank, Belton mentions in passing that ‘with the help of British government connections, Valmet had already built up a wealthy clientele that included the ruling family of Dubai.’

Moreover, it seems that the oligarchs’ training in Western ‘best practice’ on looting and money-laundering began very early – the first contacts between Valmet and Menatep were in late 1988.

(See http://mikhail_khodorkovsky_society_two.blogspot.co.uk/ . )

It seems that, with the general daffiness that seems to characterise the kind of people MI6 recruits, people like Scarlett and Steele continued to think it a bright idea to side with Berezovsky and Khodorkovsky against Putin’s determined campaign to wrest control back from them.

Likewise, in all the bitter fights within the post-Soviet space, MI6 has sided with the anti-Russian forces – notably, with the ‘Orange Revolution’ in Ukraine, and the insurgents in Chechnya and probably further into the Caucasus.

Much of this support – particularly as regards ‘information operations’ – has however been done at arm’s length, through ‘private security’ companies like Erinys International and Titon International, and RISC Management. This made it possible to sustain the pretence that Berezovsky-funded ‘information operations’ specialists, like Litvinenko and the Washington-based Yuri Shvets, were simply engaged in ‘due diligence’ operations.

It would appear eminently likely that Orbis Business Intelligence was, and is, performing similar functions.

It is clear from some of the material in the documents produced in evidence to Sir Robert Owen’s farce of an inquiry into Litvinenko’s death, in the course of 2005 it was decided to have another ‘bite at the cherry’ of the famous ‘Melnichenko tapes’, which had been instrumental in facilitating the original ‘Orange Revolution.’ (Much more material which was available to the inquiry was suppressed, and the most important points about the evidence which was produced not used in Owen's report.)

As with the material supposed to establish that the former Ukrainian President Kuchma had actually sold the Kolchuga aircraft detection to Iraq – as distinct from discussing a sale – this involved taking actually incriminating material and then having Shvets and his people doing some deft editing.

What Shvets and Litvinenko did was to take a genuine revelation, to the effect that the notorious Ukrainian mobster Semyon Mogilevich was working for Russian and Ukrainian, intelligence, and then edit other fragments in a bid to establish that he was personally close to the Russian President.

On the basis of this, it was then claimed that, while acting as an agent of the FSB and under Putin’s personal ‘krysha’, Mogilevich had been attempting to supply a ‘mini nuclear bomb’ to Al Qaeda.

(See https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/INQ015726wb.pdf ; https://www.litvinenkoinquiry.org/files/2015/04/INQ018922wb.pdf .)

It seems reasonably clear that parallel scaremongering operations were undertaken by elements in Russian intelligence, with the intention of suggesting that Berezovsk and Litvinenko might be supplying either a ‘mini nuclear bomb’ (aka ‘suitcase nuke’ or a ‘dirty bomb’) to the Chechens.

In a post on Owen’s inquiry on SST a year ago, I attempted to explain how these ‘information operations’ battles are likely to have led to Litvinenko’s death, and the reasons why there is a kind of covert collusion between Western and Russian intelligence to keep the actual truth of what happened under wraps.

(http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2016/01/david-hakkuk-on-sir-robert-owens-inquiry.html .)

As regards current events, it seems to me possible that Steele was actually engaged in producing a report. Equally, however, it is perfectly possible that this whole story is a diversion, designed to give a bogus appearance of credibility to its contends, and also obscure its actual history.

[Patrick Bahzad]

Richardstevenhack,

Thx for your input, I'm pretty familiar with most cyberexperts opinions on the DNC hack, including Carr and the The Grugg. What they disagree about is actually the hacking that took place in the spring of 2016, not so much the part that started in late 2015.

Also, Jeffrey Carr didn't debunk anything, he has a different (minority) opinion. Doesn't mean he's wrong, doesn't mean he's right either. I referred to the controvery abt use of "X-agent" in my piece anyway.

As far as information abt APT 28 and 29 is concerned, featuring it as based on "flimsy evidence" does make you look a bit foolish. Nobody is seriously challenging the fact that these groups are affiliated with Russian Intel. The question is more whether or not one or both of them were actively involved in the DNC hack.

Other than that, you can make up any assumptions and theories you like, that's your business. Present them as fact or established truth however is a different matter.

[Patrick Bahzad]

SP,

I think the IC is making a clear distinction between hacking as a way of gathering intelligence, which is pretty much common and accepted practice, and the use of hacked emails and other info to damage one part involved in the campaign, ie "meddling" or "interfering".

As for why the IC is so vocal about it now, I'm afraid there is no clear cut answer to it, but the timing and insistence raise legitimate questions.