GrumpyCatFace wrote:Can't have the general public hearing this stuff, now can we? No business of theirs, after all..
Especially if just two government officials, Comey and Rogers, that do work for the POTUS and obviously treated the subject as diplomatically as possible, created a shitstorm. A shitstorm that Trump had to put Nunes out there as an distractions (as his tweets start to be irrelevant). Imagine then an official like Sally Yates, that sent a warning to Trump team that was ignored, then fired. Or the now retired people that aren't anymore serving the President?
Anyway, interesting article from the BBC. One of the Russian spies mentioned (by written incorrectly as Kulagin) in the "dodgy dossier" made by retired M16 agent Steele seems truly to have been a Russian spy, hence at least part of seems to be OK. And that the FBI & CIA have shown an interest to it naturally says there's something to it. Of course some part can be rumours too. Estimate, 80% true?
Christopher Steele, ex-MI6:
the US government identified Kalugin as a spy while he was still at the embassy. It is not clear if the American intelligence agencies already believed this when they got Steele's report on the "diplomat", as early as May 2016. But it is a judgment they made using their own methods, outside the dossier. A retired member of a US intelligence agency told me that Kalugin was being kept under surveillance before he left the US.
In addition, State Department staff who dealt with Russia did not come across Kalugin, as would have been expected with a simple diplomat.
"Nobody had met him," one former official said. "It's classic. Just classic [of Russian intelligence]."
Mikhail Kula..., no, make that Kalugin:
SVR or GRU?
The article by Paul Wood sheds light also to the topic of thread and and discusses the actual FISA warrants that were given. Now make mistake, as Comey directly has said that Trump team people are under investigation, Trump team people are then under investigation. Period. But you won't naturally seek a FISA court warrant to tapp Trump, because then you would have to show probable cause. Which basically shows that you would go for the jugular like uh... with the Hillary e-mails. So better just to seek FISA court orders on some Russian banks... and look at what Russian spies are up to.
Wood explains, what might have been confusing for some:
I wrote then that the secret US intelligence court had granted an order, a so-called Fisa warrant, to intercept the electronic records of two Russian banks. The White House cited this report several times as evidence for President Trump's tweets that "Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower… This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"
It isn't.
Since Watergate, no president can simply order the CIA or FBI to tap someone's phone. I wrote that: "Neither Trump nor his associates are named in the Fisa order." If they were, the court would have to see "probable cause" that they were agents of a foreign power.
See
Trump Russia dossier key claim 'verified'
Furthermore, the article talks also about the approach that the Russians had here, not only the hackings, but a broad information campaign. Might have helped as the Trump campaign itself was a bit of a mess. I'm starting to lean there that Trump simply thought that Russian help would be a great idea. Hence his love for Putin during the campaign.
In the end of course, no slick infocampaign/active measures of the Russians did it, the real reason of course is that Hillary was an awful candidate. But resorting foreign help is something is a risky move.
