Yes, Obama's People Were Spreading Classified Intel on Trump by Publius Tacitus

 

A fascinating and disturbing time in Washington. An anti-Russian propaganda campaign is running at full tilt and we find Democrats, most of the media and some Republicans spreading innuendo and outright lies about Donald Trump and his alleged ties to Vladimir Putin. I thought Sean Spicer's quip from yesterday's (Tuesday) press conference captured the absurdity:

"If the President puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that's a Russia connection,"

That's a joke. At least one would think. But the insanity of the anti-Trumpers knows no boundaries. You need only take a look at a diatribe at the Huffington Post put up by Carly Ledbetter , who attacks Spicer for being so cavalier about such a serious matter. Here are a couple of examples from that she cites to reinforce her point that Spicer's sinned against the nation:

Sean Spicer equating #RussiaGate to dressing is beyond ludicrous. Trump is under FBI investigation! @PressSec#RussianDressing

Spicer: If Pres used Russian Dressing that's a Russian connection.  Yet I'm pretty sure WH wouldn't obstruct justice to prove he used ranch 1:46 PM - 28 Mar 2017

Spicer also apparently forgot to research the origins of Russian dressing, as it was actually invented in Nashua, New Hampshire by a man named James E. Colburn, according to the Portland Press Herald: 

But the facts about Russian influence over Trump are non-existent. Not my opinion. That's a fact that even the truth challenged Jim Clapper acknowledged in early March:

In an exclusive interview with Meet the Press, Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says that there wasn't evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump earlier this year.

But the real news is the emerging evidence that Obama Administration did obtain classified intelligence reports that mentioned Donald Trump and members of his campaign and distributed that information.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes already has confirmed in writing and in interviews that the Obama Administration conducted the following activities against President-Elect Trump and his team between November 2016 and January 2017: 

• On numerous occasions, the Intelligence Community “incidentally” collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.  
• Details about U.S. persons associated with the incoming Trump administration -- details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value—were widely disseminated throughout the government, and apparently leaked to Obama administration allies in the media.  Those leaks are felonies. 
• Names of Trump transition team members were “unmasked” – their identities revealed and circulated – again, more felonies.   
• None of this surveillance was related to Russia or any investigation of Russian activities or of the Trump team. 

But we do not have to rely solely on the word of Devin Nunes, we also have former Obama Department of Defense official, Evelyn Farkas going on the record that the Obama Administration was spying on Trump:

I was urging my former colleagues, and, and frankly speaking the people on the Hill [Democrat politicians], it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much information as you can – get as much intelligence as you can – before President Obama leaves the administration.

Because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior [Obama] people who left; so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy, um, that the Trump folks – if they found out HOW we knew what we knew about their, the Trump staff, dealing with Russians – that they would try to compromise those sources and methods; meaning we no longer have access to that intelligence.

So I became very worried because not enough was coming out into the open and I knew that there was more. We have very good intelligence on Russia; so then I had talked to some of my former colleagues and I knew that they were also trying to help get information to [Democrat politicians].

 

Sundance (who posts at The Conservative Tree House) provided some additional key points and linked to analysis originally provided by Colonel Lang:

♦ Evelyn Farkas has stated freely on TV that she and a group of associates from the Obama Administration went to congressional staffers who did not have access to these COMINT products and urged them to seek to gain access to them. At some point in the recent past Farkas was de-briefed (cut off) from access to the various kinds of compartmented information she had been given as a requirement of her prior job.  When that occurred she signed some papers in which she accepted the responsibility to protect the secrecy of that information. (link)

♦ Evelyn Farkas is also a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council –SEE HERE– the Atlantic Council is funded in part by the US State Department, NATO, the governments of Latvia and Lithuania, the Ukrainian World Congress, and the Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. The Atlantic Council has been among the loudest voices calling for a new Cold War with Russia. And guess who else is a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council? Dimitri Alperovitch – the founder and CTO of CrowdStrike! Alperovitch is head honcho of the Atlantic Council’s “Cyber Statecraft Initiative”.

♦ CrowdStrike, aka Dimitri Alperovitch was the organization that initially claimed they had evidence the Russians were connected to the Trump organization.  A claim they have subsequently walked back – SEE HERE

If we are to believe Ms. Farkas then it is pretty clear that the information that the Obama Administration was circulating was obtained through intelligence methods and was not the product of a FISA warrant. FISA material is not put into intelligence reports that can be disseminated. So, we are left with only two possibilities. One--the intelligence information came from collection efforts carried out by the CIA or the NSA, or Two--the intelligence information came from a foreign collector (I believe it was the Brits) and that information was passed to the U.S. intelligence community and distributed as liaison reporting.

The revelations about Farkas, Pinchuk and Alperovitch provide strong circumstantial evidence that the effort to take out Donald Trump is part of a broader anti-Russian propaganda campaign. 

Comments

[MRW]

Trivago ads! Thx for the laff.

[MRW]

Valissa!

Thomas Friedman is the Thomas Jefferson of Israel. Doncha’ know? DC is his Paree.

[MRW]

Neocon rage at losing. But they’ve got Mika and Joe, et al, in the tank. Three hours every morning. They’re hepped up and hoping.

[Bill H]

CBS News has said repeatedly that Trump's staff was spied on, but claims that it was legal. Their assertion was that "intelligence agencies" were engaged in "routine monitoring of foreign powers, which they are legally entitled to do," and in the process recorded Michael Flynn talking with the Russian ambassador and reported that conversation and provided that recording to the Obama administration.

They brought on a visiting expert, "formerly the number two man at the CIA," to tell us that it was all perfectly proper because the recording of Trump staff was merely an "incidental interception." Many here have maintained that revealing such incidental interceptions constitutes a serious felony, but CBS News claims otherwise.

Whether proper or not, their story certainly confirms that the Obama administration was listening to and recording members of the Trump staff.

[wisedupearly]

More correctly
"-- their story certainly confirms that the Obama administration was listening to and recording members of the Trump staff when they were communicating with Russian persons of interest."

[TonyL]

I agreed with TTG.

So the Borgs are coming out in full force against Trump? Perhaps at the end of the day, it's not too bad that some important facts will be learned about Trump associates.

[John_Frank]

A couple of related items:

1. The US Senate Select Intelligence Committee will have an open hearing on Russian Intelligence Activities later today:

Advisory: Senate Intel Committee Announces Open Hearing on Russian Intelligence Activities https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/advisory-senate-intel-committee-announces-open-hearing-russian-intelligence-activities

The hearing is divided into two panels, with the first scheduled to start at 10;00 am and the second at 2:00 pm.

Senate hearing to focus on Russian disinformation tactics
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-4363390/Senate-hearing-focus-Russian-disinformation-tactics.html#ixzz4cnOmL3mf

They might as well title the hearing, "OMG, the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!"

2. A report published yesterday on Circa.com, written by John Solomon and Sara Carter:

Obama's rule changes opened door for NSA intercepts of Americans to reach political hands http://circa.com/politics/barack-obama-changed-how-nsa-intercepts-of-americans-like-donald-trump-could-be-shared

3. An interview by National Interest of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavarov on the topic of relations between the USA and Russia, published on March 29, 2017 http://bit.ly/2ob97m2

The key quote as highlighted by the MFA Russia twitter feed?

"Normal relations is to treat your partners with respect, not to try to impose your ideas on others, always try to listen and hear, and hopefully not to rely on a superiority complex."

4. An analysis published on March 27 on Forbes.com, written by Paul Gregory:

Do Russia hackers in epaulets challenge the intelligence consensus of Russian Interference in the 2016 Election? https://t.co/sHNOIWna7i

The US House and Senate Intelligence Committees are holding hearings into Russian interference.

Will these Committees request any assistance from the Russian Government in an effort to sort out what may have transpired, or will our esteemed elected officials trundle along blowing up any chance in the near term of working with Russia to solve some of the key problems we are jointly facing?

(As an aside, both China and Russia are now pushing back against the United States installing an anti-missile defense system in South Korea.)

[Peter Reichard]

Democrats are walking into a trap of their own creation. In the end I suspect Russiagate will reveal some embarrassing contacts between Trump people and Russia but nothing approaching treasonous activity and Russian influence on our election will prove to be less than meets the eye. Meanwhile it will be revealed that if not The Donald himself Trump's organization at least was being spied on, vindicating Trump and making him appear more a victim than a villain. An investigation needs to occur but these often lead to unpredicted and unintended truths.

[Cee]

All,

HRC has come out of the Woods to attack Trump again to support WOMEN? LOLOLOLOL!!

Other than ISIS terrorists being used to bring about regime change, what else would they want to distract from with this Russia nonsense? That ISIS does traffick women and children?

Ivanka plans to devote attention to this.

President Trump has announced a federal investigation into the elite pedophile scandal involving human trafficking earlier this month and promised to help put an end to the “horrific, really horrific crimes

http://yournewswire.com/hillary-clinton-pedophile-ring-state-department/

Old articles and NBC news clips are surfacing again.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10114694/US-state-department-accused-of-covering-up-prostitution-investigation.HTML

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lZLiQEiZlco

Timing. Plus this from Dr.Phil. I want names.

http://www.drphil.com/videos/woman-claims-parents-sold-her-to-an-international-sex-trafficking-organization-at-birth/

[WarrenPeese]

This sort of reminds me of when Democrats complained about Wikileaks publishing DNC emails, in which they were really loud about being hacked and really quiet about the actual content of the emails, which pretty well proved that they were in the bag for Hillary.
Meantime, Comey was willing to go public about Putin's attempts to influence an American election before election day, but he was shot down by Susan Rice, Tarmac Lynch and Obama's other incompetents.

[ex-PFC Chuck]

Re: "The 9/11 commission was run altogether by neocons. pl"

And perhaps even the event itself. http://www.ae911truth.org/

[Babak Makkinejad]

All:

Interview with Foreign Minister Lavrov

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/sergey-lavrov-the-interview-19940

[Seamus Padraig]

"One of the first rules of propaganda is that cognitive dissonance is not to be feared, hence the glaring contradictions in their claims."

If memory serves, I believe that's what George Orwell called 'doublethink' in 1984: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/doublethink

[Jack]

Fred

It is about the current campaign of innuendo, planted stories and media hysteria around Russia - hacking, influencing the election, and turning Trump & his associates to be an agent - that is undermining the Trump presidency. What do you think is the best way to end this?

[Edward Amame]

valissa

So by all means leave it up to the GOP and run by a guy from Trump's transition team, right?

[Edward Amame]

Col Lang

Then let's have a special congressional committee, like during Watergate. What's to fear? You guys are all so sure that this is some kind of super-deep conspiracy run by Obama, by all means let's get to the bottom of it.

[Edward Amame]

Mikee

I don't watch CNN or any cable news -- I'm just old enough to remember Watergate.

I think "Russia hacked the election" is nonsense, but I suspect that they tried to influence it, and also suspect that they hacked HRC's emails. BTW, Marco Rubio now claims that that his campaign was also targeted by hackers seemingly based in Russia. Why wouldn't you want to find out if that actually happened? Or if Obama did what Trump claimed he did? Seems like a big deal to me.

https://www.wired.com/2017/03/marco-rubio-says-hack-attempts-russia-targeted/

[Publius Tacitus]

Not the event Chuck. Just the explanation after the fact.

[Publius Tacitus]

Questioning our integrity is not a smart play on your part. The Colonel and I are strictly non-partisan. We call it as we see it and, by virtue of our previous positions, have access to knowledgeable sources. We are offering more than just our opinion. I'm curious why you think a "special" congressional committee would get the job done? Unlike 1974, we live in an age where even black and white facts are denied as being facts.

[Fred]

Jack,

The president has political enemies in both parties who would like nothing more than the power to hamstring him and enact their own agenda. That's what the radical Republicans tried to do to Andrew Johnson.

[MRW]

Publius,

This was an excellent report.

[Valissa]

Edward, what does your response have to do with the question I asked?

[Edward Amame]

Publius Tacitus

Cut it out, I'm not questioning anyone's integrity. I have no clue who you are, but trying to turn Devin Nunes into a hero suggests that you are indeed partisan. I've been around long enough to know that people commenting in threads on this site were/are mostly (very very) anti-HRC and (very very) pro-Trump.

True, we live in a time of deep spin, which is what it appears to me you are doing.

[Edward Amame]

Valissa

Do you think that Nunes is "neutral or impartial?" From hereon/henceforth I will be ignoring anything that comes out of his mouth and will instead be paying attention to what the Senate Intel Committee is up to.

The WSJ says that Flynn's willing to be interviewed by the FBI and House and Senate Intel Committees. For immunity.

[Valissa]

Edward, I did not bring up Nunes or any member of either political party. Of course it was really a rhetorical question since no member of either party is going to be able to be truly impartial and objective.

Why do you keep looking for "the truth" from politicians? Why do you think an investigation will actually resolve anything? Do you not recognize a witch hunt when you see one, or is it OK when it's your party looking for witches to burn?

Reminder... I am NOT a member of any political party.