Another felonious disclosure.

"Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s accounts of two conversations with Sessions — then a top foreign policy adviser to Republican candidate Donald Trump — were intercepted by U.S. spy agencies, which monitor the communications of senior Russian officials both in the United States and in Russia. "  Washpost

******

"A former U.S. official who read the Kislyak reports said that the Russian ambassador reported speaking with Sessions about issues that were central to the campaign, including Trump’s positions on key policy matters of significance to Moscow."  Washpost

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The present or former official (or officials) who read these intercepts because of his or her clearance for hyper-sensitive compartmented information and have discussed them with the Washington Post have in IMO committed a felony for which they should be prosecuted.  

I know a lot of you are uninterested in protection of US SIGINT products but IMO that is an altogether irresponsible position.  pl  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sessions-discussed-trump-campaign-related-matters-with-russian-ambassador-us-intelligence-intercepts-show/2017/07/21/3e704692-6e44-11e7-9c15-177740635e83_story.html?utm_term=.dc6f6599dac1

Comments

[PeterHug]

Joel,
If that's where things end up (and I rather expect them to these days, although I certainly will do everything I can to prevent it) arable land, guns, and ammo are all well and good - but what you really need and what has no substitute, is a strong, resilient, and deep network of people around you who care about your welfare, and who you care about in turn.

Find yourself somewhere you're happy being, and become part of that community. The rest is a bunch of details. (OK, that's what you should be doing anyway, if you want to have a happy and fulfilling life.)

[turcopolier]

TTG

Most Republican member is not good enough from Trump's POV. Trump needs to use the de-classification powers of his office to crush his enemies. pl

[ISL]

Not sure which comment your response is to, as I am in complete agreement with you.

I am a firm believer that decision makers, analysts, etc., should have the best information to make the most informed decisions. And that the politicians/generals/etc. should take responsibility for their decision - not blame it on the IC.

NSA should, and also develop the best technology to do so. That said, I believe that there is too much emphasis on collect it all, and thereby missing the needles in the haystack, SIGINT over HUMINT.

We entered a brave new world without privacy, 4th amendment or not, and I do not see any way to put the genie back in the bottle (though I see some potential in advances in cryptography). In my earlier comment, I note, that not only the US and other govt's have big data on American citizens that can be used against legitimate political discourse, companies like Amazon also have this information.

Where I get very annoyed is where back doors are put in systems, and then stolen or discovered by criminals, appear for sale on the dark web, and our govt doesnt warn US companies of the breach until its on CNN.

[Cortes]

Sir,
Are the machinations of the Borg so opaque to the Administration that no easy targets are available for beginning to set some examples "pour encourager les autres" to behave professionally and properly? If this is an excessively naive or stupid question please ignore.

[The Twisted Genius]

pl,

A lot depends on what the classified intelligence says. Trump would not want to release any information that doesn't support his contention that all this Russian election interference stuff is fake news. From my experience, admittedly aging quickly, the intelligence is not going to say what Trump wants it to say.

[VietnamVet]

Colonel,

Yes.

Donald Trump has no Harry L. Hopkins or George C. Marshall on staff. His Consiglieri, Michael D. Cohen, is a NY attorney in a corrupt business. Steve Bannon is sidelined. Chief Enforcer Jefferson Sessions is recused, disrespected and maybe fired. Mike Pence is prepping for an elevation. He and his family are alone, facing a coup. They don’t have a chance to come out unscathed unless he can find a way to get the American people to support him. He needs Gettysburg Address level of Tweets or Fireside Chats to connect and actually help the Deplorables or he will be gone.

[Lefty]

Col, Is Trump's arrogance why we have not had leakers figuratively strung up from trees on the White House lawn? It seems curious we are half a year in and there have been no leak indictments, nothing much publicly beyond angry tweets. Is that perhaps part of Trump's frustration with Sessions?

Learning the foreign contacts of all the candidates would be enlightening, especially if they included the Clinton Global Initiative bribes. Expect Kislyak talked to most of, if not all of, the candidates and their staffs. It was his job, and theirs. Hope we've got some at State who are as good at their jobs as he was at his.

My understanding from news reports is that Rice ordered the unmasking of the Trumpie names. Then Obama lowered the classification level of the reports they were included in. That guaranteed a wide enough distribution they would leak. Pretty neat little trick and within both his and Rice's authorities.

[J]

TTG,

Those members of Congress like the two Dems who came up with the Impeachment Resolution, if they spent their energies on shoring up our nation's infrastructures (roads, bridges, hospitals, electric grid) instead of wasting time and taxpayer money like they too frequently do with their empty Resolutions, we as a nation would sure be better off.

IMO every minute they waste, constitutes fraud against our taxpayer dollar which is paying for their shiny Congressional shoes and suits.

[Kooshy]

Colonel Lang- do you think it’s possible that some in IC community, truly believe that Russians have deeply influenced and changed the course of this last election in favor of DT, and now they want to correct that by forcing DT out of office? In your opinion Is that a possibility? Or they know better?

[Kooshy]

"war room" exists, probably within the former Clinton apparat"

Absolutely, the very effective time bomb news leaks is to keep feed the press on daily bases, like you said if DT don't deal with this head on, eventually they will forced him to resign.

[robt willmann]

Haralambos,

Here are three resources to read about impeachment.

The first is the 64-page research report from the staff of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on impeachment, dated 22 February 1974, entitled "Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment" (a large, scanned in, computer file)--

https://lofgren.house.gov/uploadedfiles/constitutional_grounds_for_presidential_impeachment_-_house_judiciary_comm_staff_report_february_1974.pdf

Then there is "Impeachment: An Overview of Constitutional Provisions, Procedure, and Practice", from the Congressional Research Service, 9 December 2010--

https://www.senate.gov/CRSpubs/1bac2836-073b-454f-993f-79a1de47b49a.pdf

And, "Impeachment and Removal", also from the Congressional Research Service, 29 October 2015--

https://ia801301.us.archive.org/7/items/R44260ImpeachmentandRemoval-crs/R44260%20Impeachment%20and%20Removal.pdf

With these three papers, you will know more about the impeachment process than the talking heads on television and radio, and will probably know more than many, if not most, of the members of Congress.

[Eric Newhill]

TTG,
Negative. Trump will hurl weaponized truth at the Borg. How many congress critters were supporting al Qaeda elements in Syria? You know the guys that attacked us on 9/11/01. Maybe 9/11 will be a good time to release declassified info about that support; complete with pictures of people jumping from windows rather than burn, Syrian Christians having their heads lopped off.

Yeah, your howler monkeys in the MSM have poo. How does poo measure up to that?

[Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg]

Seems to me a sign of rot at the top that top officers consider it worth the risk to national security to use their access to intelligence info to promote deep state intrigue. I also wonder how much of this so called leaked intelligence is pure fabrication projected onto the media as part of an ongoing psychological op. Wisner's Wurlitzer didn't just close up shop after the Church Committee hearings, or the Judith Miller affair. The WaPo has always happily functioned at the highest level as a conduit for such "leaks"

[Fred]

Iowa Steve,

"The publishing entity cannot actively participate in the theft of the information". That would be a nice defense to pull off. I believe Judith Miller spent spent 3 months in jail protecting Scooter Libbey.

[Fred]

Robt,

Very well reasoned comment. This will set a precedent to be used against other senators appointed to cabinet posts. I wonder what the Senate would do if Trump nominated Sessions for the next opening on the Supreme Court?

[turcopolier]

Hindenburg

With one exception we are talking about officials rather than "officers." pl

[Babak Makkinejad]

No, it is the civilizational; a claim to universality that is imbibed from childhood and defining what is normative - in their minds.
I have seen the analogue of this in Muslim countries; the same claim to universality, the belief in the obsolescence of others, and faith in the eventual triumph of Islam.

[turcopolier]

TTG
You judge him guilty of criminal conspiracy? pl

[iowa steve]

You are comparing apples and oranges. Judith Miller was held in contempt for refusing to reveal a source not for publishing documents. What I stated is valid and settled law regarding the freedom of the press to publish those documents, not some "nice defense to pull off" gimmick.

You don't have to take my word for it (from wiki):

"New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on the First Amendment. The ruling made it possible for The New York Times and The Washington Post newspapers to publish the then-classified Pentagon Papers without risk of government censorship or punishment."

However, in recent decades the government has attempted to narrow the scope of what constitutes "the press", arguing that online bloggers and such are not covered.

[turcopolier]

lefty

I don't think he understands the mechanisms of the government well enough to take effective action, or as TTG implied perhaps the contents of the intercepts taken as a whole may be incriminating and he fears further illegal releases and therefore does not take effective action. pl

[The Twisted Genius]

pl,

I am almost certain there was a Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 national election. I don't know if that effort was effective. I am suspicious that a few in the Trump campaign may have assisted in that effort wittingly or unwittingly. I have no reason to believe Trump had any part in it.

I want the Mueller investigation to answer all these questions definitively and release those answers to the public. What the Schneiderman investigation in NY does is Trump's problem.

[turcopolier]

TTG

"there was a Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 national election. I don't know if that effort was effective." Interfere in the sense of influence how people would vote or interfere in the sense of intervening in the voting and tabulating process? I know of no evidence of the latter. pl

[Mark Logan]

All,

Just spitballing, but it strikes me as plausible the Russians may participate clandestinely in efforts to remove Trump at some point. While he is currently invaluable due to his allowing Mattis and McMaster to peel away the support of the Unicorns and while those two hate Russia in general they are conducting a more coherent policy in the region than the Borg. Pence appear to me to be fully assimilated, but may listen to reason from those two as well. Or so they may risk after they believe the war is won.

The Russian connections to Trump Inc and Trump have become, ultimately, horribly counter productive. His presence in office is causing the D's to train themselves to mindlessly hate Russia...and sooner or later he will be gone. It could be said he is the Borg's greatest weapon. Or so I might believe were I in Putin's shoes. The recent NYT interview is stunningly naive and in many places incoherent. He still, after months, hasn't realized he can not run the US government like he ran Trump Inc.. It can be awful when a buffoon is right about anything.

If this is judged too far off topic or abjectly silly please don't post. I do not think it at all likely this most recent "leak" came from them.

[The Twisted Genius]

pl,

I think it was a pure influence op with no serious effort to change the vote tally. I thought it was quite an elegant operation and used methodologies that will become part of every major election from this day forward. Criminality doesn't enter into this except for data theft and possible data sharing of voter personal information.

[turcopolier]

TTG

As we both know what you describe has been done many times by the US without any idea that it was a bad thing to do. But then, the angels were on our side. pl