Posted on 01/11/2017 9:20:52 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
In his first press conference since being elected president, Donald Trump thanked the media. He praised news outfits that didn't publish a story about a document that describes alleged Russian efforts to compromise him, even though many of those news organizations had the story for months and held on to it. The two press outfits that did publish the story, CNN and BuzzFeed, got whipped by the president-elect. Trump called them "fake news" and refused to take questions from reporters representing their organizations.
You almost have to wonder, though, if he shouldn't be going easy on them, especially BuzzFeed, which posted the original document in its entirety "so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government." The report is so bizarre and incoherent that it has the effect of undermining the accusations that Trump has unsavory ties with Russia.
For instance, the document starts with a "summary" section paragraph laying out the very premise of the report: that Trump is a Russian stooge. Here's how the summary opens:
Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions within the Western alliance.
"For at least five years"—in other words, starting no later than 2011, Vladimir Putin believed that the host of "The Apprentice" was the linchpin holding together NATO. You see, Putin has special insight not only into Trump but also the American electorate. Unlike most every other expert who handicapped the 2016 elections, and gave Trump zero chance of victory, Putin knew Trump would win—and he knew it five years ago.
The Russians have denied the Trump story. No wonder they have! It makes the Moscow government look buffoonish. For instance, the document reports that the head of the Russian presidential administration, Sergei Ivanov, was eager to target American audiences for influence operations—in particular "educated American youth." This makes current-day Kremlin operatives sound exactly like TV movie versions of 1960s Kremlin operatives. Time-tested way to influence 'educated American youth,' Comrade Ivanov, is through Beach Boys and Hoola-Hoop...
Who does the report really damage? British intelligence. The author of the document is reportedly a former MI6 officer who now draws a paycheck from the private sector. The report claims that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen went to Prague to talk to Putin operatives—but it now appears that it was a different Michael Cohen who visited Prague. The U.S. intelligence community, CNN reported, has found the U.K. source to be credible in the past—credible except, it seems, when it comes to niggling details like identities.
What about the real dirty stuff, the compromising material the Russians are supposed to be hanging over Trump's head? A really corrupt business deal with the Russians, tied to Putin himself or one of his many circles might spell trouble for the next commander-in-chief, but the report confirms Trump's contention that he has no business deals in Russia.
Well, it does say he hired some prostitutes from the FSB stable to urinate on a hotel bed where Barack Obama once slept. Trump says no way. "I'm also very much of a germophobe," the president-elect said today at the press conference. "Believe me."
But do the Russians actually have some nasty stuff on Trump? Probably. Is it worse than what the New York Post has been digging up for more than three decades on a Manhattan celebrity billionaire once referred to as The Donald? Probably not. Is it worse than what, say, Israeli or Turkish intelligence or a handful of other clandestine services almost surely has on half of the Kremlin, likely including Putin himself? Doubtful.
That's one of the things intelligence services are supposed to do—dig up dirt on foreign big-wigs to deter their governments from publishing dirt their intelligence services have on your grandees. Is it also the job of intelligence services to leak material regarding their own officials in order to compromise the integrity of its own political process? Only if you're a third-world backwater or a hard security regime like Putin's Russia, which uses torture and political assassination as a matter of policy. It's not supposed to happen in liberal democracies.
No one can say with confidence where the dossier BuzzFeed published originated, and through which hands it has passed before it shamefully saw the light of day. Trump suspects the American intelligence community. Let's hope he's wrong about that.
LOL!! Good point!! They are infatuated with the word “dossier”!! The new shiny object for the stupid media to follow!!
It made our intell people look idiotic and media totally unprofessional! It sucked all the attention off of the Obama farewell and the cabinet hearings.
President Elect Trump shined.
I like winning and I am not tired of it yet!
It so 60s 007!
I think willful blindness is the term you are looking for. They haven’t put on blinders, which while wearing you just can’t see the whole picture. They have put on complete light blocking sleep aid eye masks to wear while moving into the future.
The Weekly Standard is fake globalist traitor news.
Intel chief calls Trump to disavow leaks
The nation’s top intel chief called President-elect Donald Trump Wednesday to personally deny leaking to the media a dubious dossier of allegations about sensitive information the Russians supposedly had about him.
Trump confirmed Thursday that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper spoke to him by phone, apparently sometime after a press conference in which Trump lashed out at media outlets, including Buzzfeed and CNN, that ran with the story and speculated it was leaked by federal officials.
“James Clapper called me yesterday to denounce the false and fictitious report that was illegally circulated,” Trump tweeted. “Made up, phony facts.Too bad!”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/12/intel-chief-calls-trump-to-disavow-leaks.html
“Although my job entailed going to the DMZ every now and then I had never taken the formal tour of the Joint Security Area run out of the recreation center until I’d been there for awhile. Being in military intelligence I could not wear my M.I. brass or nametag and borrowed “unassigned” brass from a sergeant major. When I got there a North Korean guard called to me by my name.”
One can only imagine the files other countries have on present and past MI guys and gals.
I know of a few freepers, who were exposed/caught whatever with the hacking of government personnel files a couple of years ago.
A know a guy who graduated a military school in the 1950’s. His name was published in a Russian newspaper. The school was classified.
Anyone who thinks there is no spying, or spying that is very good, is delusional.
Only good thing about that OPM hack Dave ..... I retired. Screw em .
“Only good thing about that OPM hack Dave ..... I retired. Screw em.”
Our life, sometimes needs a wakeup call like the OPM or the Liberty, Pueblo and Gulf of Tonkin events to wake us up.
If we don’t listen to that wakeup call sent by God, our life might take a really bad turn.
Glad you listened like I did in 1967/68!
“Only good thing about that OPM hack Dave ..... I retired. Screw em.”
Our life, sometimes needs a wakeup call like the OPM or the Liberty, Pueblo and Gulf of Tonkin events to wake us up.
If we don’t listen to that wakeup call sent by God, our life might take a really bad turn.
Glad you listened like I did in 1967/68!
That was an ongoing discussion, especially when messing with nugs.
Who has the larger dossier on each of us? The Soviets, the PRC, or our own government.
I still have a set of those somewhere.
“Who has the larger dossier on each of us? The Soviets, the PRC, or our own government.”
Makes one wonder if their files are as redacted as some of our so called official files.
I have ever since the first time I heard it, which was during my first "reading on" for SI in June 1966.
It was also used in every SAEDA briefing I endured for the next three decades.
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