The Trump Putin Axis is a national security threat

[Onlooker]

Last edited Fri Jul 29, 2016, 12:04 AM - Edit history (12)

FYI, I kick this thread every time I add substantive content.

This is potentially dangerous. What game are Putin and Trump playing? Do we have to have worry about Russian intelligence aiding the Trump campaign? What other ways will they try to influence the election? Will they try to manipulate electronic voting machines? Will they work to embarrass US in the ME before the election? Will they funnel money to Trump SuperPACs? Could they attempt to support Trump's paranoid convention speech by sowing fear, even creating terrorist incidents?

The links between Trump and Putin are very strong, so for the sake of US security, there needs to be a thorough investigation of the Trump -Putin relationship. This is a matter of national security.

A. The evidence shows that Russian intelligence hacked DNC servers, first to release DNC research on Trump and now to embarrass the Democratic Party right before its national convention.

The evidence of Russian intelligence hacking:

7/25 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-emails.html?_r=0

"But researchers have concluded that the national committee was breached by two Russian intelligence agencies, which were the same attackers beind previous Russian cyberoperations at the White House, the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year. And metadata from the released emails suggests that the documents passed through Russian computers."

7/25 http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/07/how-putin-weaponized-wikileaks-influence-election-american-president/130163/

"Cybersecurity company FireEye first discovered APT 29 in 2014 and was quick to point out a clear Kremlin connection. “We suspect the Russian government sponsors the group because of the organizations it targets and the data it steals. Additionally, APT 29 appeared to cease operations on Russian holidays, and their work hours seem to align with the UTC +3 time zone, which contains cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg,” they wrote in their report on the group."

Further evidence of Putin's agents working for Trump:

7/27 https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160726/1010 (details at link)

That Putin's trolls have extended these tactics to the US election is more than likely. In fact, in an accompanying podcast discussing his story, Chen notes that he also discovered that a number of Putin's disinformation pugilists have been posing as Trump supporters for some time.

B. Trump has worked hard to turn the Republican Party into a pro-Putin Party:

The evidence:

(1) For months, Trump has been praising Putin.

(2) Recently Trump said that the US might not honor NATO treaties unless changes were made:

7/22 http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/22/opinions/trump-nato-position-hertling/

(3) The Trump campaign was not involved in the Republican platform ("the most conservative in history" according to the right wing Liberty Counsel), except on the matter of the Ukraine:

7/18 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-campaign-guts-gops-anti-russia-stance-on-ukraine/2016/07/18/98adb3b0-4cf3-11e6-a7d8-13d06b37f256_story.html

The Trump campaign worked behind the scenes last week to make sure the new Republican platform won’t call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces, contradicting the view of almost all Republican foreign policy leaders in Washington.

Throughout the campaign, Trump has been dismissive of calls for supporting the Ukraine government as it fights an ongoing Russian-led intervention. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, worked as a lobbyist for the Russian-backed former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych for more than a decade.

Still, Republican delegates at last week’s national security committee platform meeting in Cleveland were surprised when the Trump campaign orchestrated a set of events to make sure that the GOP would not pledge to give Ukraine the weapons it has been asking for from the United States.

C. Trump and some of his senior staff have personal economic ties to Putin and Russia:

7/25 http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-putin-yes-it-s-really-a-thing (Follow the link; there are many more details than I can post here.)

1. All the other discussions of Trump's finances aside, his debt load has grown dramatically over the last year, from $350 million to $630 million.... Trump has been blackballed by all major US banks.

2. Post-bankruptcy Trump has been highly reliant on money from Russia, most of which has over the years become increasingly concentrated among oligarchs and sub-garchs close to Vladimir Putin.

...

3. One example of this is the Trump Soho development in Manhattan, one of Trump's largest recent endeavors. The project was the hit with a series of lawsuits in response to some typically Trumpian efforts to defraud investors by making fraudulent claims about the financial health of the project. Emerging out of that litigation however was news about secret financing for the project from Russia and Kazakhstan.

...

4. Then there's Paul Manafort, Trump's nominal 'campaign chair' who now functions as campaign manager and top advisor. Manafort spent most of the last decade as top campaign and communications advisor for Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian Ukrainian Prime Minister and then President whose ouster in 2014 led to the on-going crisis and proxy war in Ukraine. Yanukovych was and remains a close Putin ally. ...

5. Trump's foreign policy advisor on Russia and Europe is Carter Page, a man whose entire professional career has revolved around investments in Russia and who has deep and continuing financial and employment ties to Gazprom.

...

6. Over the course of the last year, Putin has aligned all Russian state controlled media behind Trump....

D. There is growing concern about the Trump-Putin axis:

7/26 http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/new-questions-surround-putins-interest-trumps-election

* The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, reporting last week from the Republican convention, said he’d spoken to a GOP congressman who believes the “most under-covered story of convention” is Team Trump’s efforts to change the party platform “to be more pro-Putin.”

* Noting Trump’s anti-NATO posture – another break with decades of Republican thought on foreign policy – The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, a center-right observer, noted last week, “Trump is making it clear that, as president, he would allow Russia to advance its hegemonic interests across Europe and the Middle East.”

* If Congress won't investigate this, then shouldn't the FBI/CIA? It might be seen as politics, but that's no different than the investigations of Hillary's emails or Benghazi, which were certainly not the threat to the integrity of the US that Russian manipulation of our elections would be.

* The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, an anti-Trump Republican, wrote, “If Trump and Manafort don’t act to allay these concerns by releasing their tax returns (or in other ways), wouldn’t it be advisable for a Republican member of Congress to lead an urgent investigation into whether Putin is interfering in the current American election? Trump and Manafort may be Putin’s chumps. Will other Republicans sit by as the whole Republican party becomes Putin’s party?”

7/25 http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/deeply-troubling-ex-ambassador-intelligence-officials-blast-trump-russia-comments-n618276

"If he is talking about the State Department e-mails on her server, he is inviting a foreign intelligence service to steal sensitive American government information," Hayden said. "If he is talking about the allegedly private e-mails that she destroyed, he is inviting a foreign intelligence service to violate the privacy of an individual protected by the Fourth Amendment to the American Constitution."

Also see: 7/25 http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/these-conservatives-are-freaking-out-about-trump-calling-for-russian-cyber-warfare-against-the-us/

7/29 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republican-security-experts-request-congressional-investigation-of-dnc-hack/2016/07/28/81fa5cb8-550e-11e6-bbf5-957ad17b4385_story.html

Two dozen Republican national security experts signed a letter to congressional leaders Thursday asking for an immediate investigation into the cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee, writing that “this is not a partisan issue” but rather “an assault on the integrity of the entire American political process.”

The letter, signed by conservative luminaries of the Reagan and Bush administrations, urges political leaders to reject any effort to seek partisan advantage from the hack and its fallout.

E. Trump is encouraging foreign superpowers to engage in intelligence operations against the United States. Is this treason?

7/27 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-putin-no-relationship-226282#ixzz4Fcu5ZrPD

Donald Trump invited Russia to hack Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, asking them to find “the 30,000 emails that are missing” from her time as secretary of state. “It would be interesting to see, I will tell you this, Russia, if you're listening I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” the Republican nominee said at a news conference in Florida. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

While some Republicans tried to spin Trump's comments and Trump today is claiming he was being sarcastic, the fact is he double downed on his comments, to the point of being criticized by many conservatives:

7/28 http://www.ajc.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/trump-encourages-russia-hack-clintons-emails/nr53L/

"They probably have them (Clinton's missing emails). I'd like to have them released. It gives me no pause, if they have them, they have them," Trump said in response to a question over whether his statement was appropriate. "If Russia or China or any other country has those emails, I mean, to be honest with you, I'd love to see them."

F. A good summary (posted originally by BlueStateLib):

7/27

It's good the FBI is starting to investigate this, but I think it's important that those of us who love our country do all we can to make sure the full Trump-Putin connection is fully understood.

[Hekate]

1. KnR

[L. Coyote]

24. But, is it a Trump-Putin Scandal? Or a Trump scandal? or a Republican scandal? We don't know yet.

But, I have my suspects, or I should say we've been watching these suspects since Nixon was President.

[center]

Some History of Trump Operatives

Deja DU excerpts, many more at link: Bush vs. Gore, the 'Arkansas Project,' the USA firings, and the Swiftboat Admiral

L. Coyote Jun-09-07
44. Donald Trump, Roger Stone, Jack Abramoff, Gaming Gaming and Scalping the Tribes.

How is it that two consumate Republican insiders, both purported specialists in illegal
funding of campaigns, one a political dirty trickster who stays behind the scenes and
the other a felonious convict linked to the White House political office, each manage
to garner tens of millions of dollars from Indian tribes in the gaming rackets? By
working both sides at once, of course. And, how is it that one gets convicted and goes
to jail while the other keeps getting paid? Who is scalping whom for how much, who has
lost their scalp, who still has theirs, and will Donald Trump's hair survive the scandals?

With all the attention to Abramoff defrauding the Tribes, why isn't there more attention on
who else is involved in all of gaming's political machinations and influence peddling?

Who has lucrative contracts to receive a percentage of the gross from Indian casinos, and
how did they obtain it? Where is all that money going? How much ends up in the coffers of
politicos like Sen. John McCain, and why? Who else is scalping the Tribes?

And how much of the scalping goes to legal and illegal campaign contributions?

Questions to be answered.

36. Who is Roger Stone, Jr.? Buckley, Nixon, Reagan, Bush operative.

"Roger J. Stone, Jr. is a long-time Republican dirty-tricks operative who led the mob that shut down the Miami-Dade County recount and helped make George W. Bush president in 2000. He was also a campaign strategist during the presidential campaigns of Presidents Nixon, Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush. .............


........ Roger Stone and the Jack Abramoff mould. Making $$millions$$ gaming gaming.

A Dirty Trickster's Bush Bonanza
The man who stopped Miami recount makes gaming millions
by Wayne Barrett
April 19th, 2004 9:30 AM
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/...........

Roger Stone, the dirty-tricks hobgoblin of Republican politics, has exploited his Bush connections to become an influence-peddling force in the $13 billion Indian gaming industry. Stone's booming business in such a federally regulated enterprise makes his recent pro bono orchestration of Al Sharpton's double-edged presidential campaign an even stranger covert caper.

The longtime GOP consultant's reward for fomenting the "Brooks Brothers mob" that shut down the Miami-Dade recount in 2000 was an invitation within days of Bush's election to serve on the Department of Interior transition working group—helping, in his own words, to staff its Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Stone has since used this unannounced perch to market himself to tribes and developers from Louisiana to California, earning fat fees and contingent percentages of future casino revenue. Just two of the five deals examined by the Voice are projected to pay him at least $8 million, and perhaps as much as $13 million.

Time, The Washington Post and The New York Times have published exposés about Bush's BIA, with a February story highlighting $45 million in payments to two GOP lobbyists from four tribes since 2001. But no one has focused on Stone's profiteering, which, unlike the payments to registered lobbyists, is not reported on any public filings. ..............

40. Roger Stone, Iran-Contra, NCPAC, Blackwell, Buchanan, Rove, Sex & Trump's Money ...

What role did Stone play in financing the Contras? .............

41. Roger Stone - "slash-and-burn Republican black-bag election tamperer"

A Prayer for Reverend Al
Let Him Buy His Soul Back from the Republicans
by Doug Ireland
www.dissidentvoice.org
February 21, 2004 - First Published in LA Weekly
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb04/Ireland0221.htm

Who is Roger Stone? A slash-and-burn Republican black-bag election tamperer and consultant whose mentor was the repulsive Roy Cohn — the redbaiting hatchet man for Senator Joe McCarthy. Stone first made news in the Nixon Watergate scandal, when it was revealed that the 19-year-old apprentice McCarthyite had infiltrated George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign as part of CREEP’s sabotage plan. ... Stone helped Ollie North raise money for the Nicaraguan contras, and was a close associate of the notorious Lee Atwater ...

This one, my favorite, exemplifes the lengths to which these unscrupulous operatives will go just to malign a Dem candidate. This is not democracy, it is criminal conduct.

48. Swiftboating Al Gore from Argentina, SIDE, Israeli wire transfers, spy files, forgery, Bush & Menem

un-10-07 04:44 PM by L. Coyote
There just is no way to make this stuff up!! This is a court pleading. Unbelievable.

First get some spy files from Israel, alter them to look like Argentine spy files, make them implicate Bush and Menem in corruption, blame Gore for the forged documents. Sound familiar. Did I mention blackmailing bribed journalists and, of course, the perennial covert Republican dirty tricksters. This genre of dirty trick came to be known as "swiftboating" when done to Kerry four years later by the same players!!

==========================
http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/041901.P.pdf
Olavar (Triumph Communications International Group, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v.
Santibañes, Defendant-Appellee, and Ikon Holdings, Inc., t/a Ikon Public Affairs, Dick Morris, Roger Stone, Eileen McGann, John Does, Defendants.

Appeal from the United States District Court Decided: December 1, 2005

Triumph Communications International Group, Incorporated is a corporation that provides political consulting and public relations services and is owned and operated solely by Mattie Lolavar.

In early 2000, Miss Lolavar began discussions with defendant Dick Morris about the possibility of her working with Craig Snyder and defendant Roger Stone, who are partners in defendant IKON Holdings, Inc., another political consulting firm ... about the possibility of Triumph Communications’ assistance with work that IKON was doing for the government of Argentina.
These discussions lead to two contracts ... and provided that Triumph would act as a public relations consultant to "the Secretary of Intelligence of Argentina" as well as arrange various media events...

Miss Lolavar went to Argentina in August 2000 to assist de Santibañes with preparations for his testimony in Argentine congressional hearings inquiring into allegations that he and the Argentine intelligence agency, known as SIDE, were responsible for bribing various Argentine senators in exchange for political support. Morris and Stone assigned other tasks to Miss Lolavar while she was in Argentina. Among other acts, they instructed her to contact SIDE and obtain a list of journalists who accepted bribes from that organization in order to harm the credibility of those same journalists in reporting on a bribery scandal surrounding de Santibañes and President de la Rua, as well as requiring her to spread false information to the press concerning de la Rua’s political opponent, Dr. Carlos Menem. The charges and counter-charges related here are from the papers in the court file, as are the other facts.

A request that occasioned controversy between Miss Lolavar and the defendants was Morris and Stone’s request that she serve as an intermediary in an anonymous wire transfer of funds to an official in Israel. These funds were to be paid to secure intelligence files from the Israeli government to assist de la Rua’s political domestic disputes with Menem, and to imply a corrupt relationship between Menem and George W. Bush, who was then running against Albert Gore for the United States presidency. These files were to be altered by Miss Lolavar to appear to be SIDE documents.

When the defendants became concerned that this plot would be discovered and traced back to them, they ordered Miss Lolavar to orchestrate a press response to blame Vice President Gore for the dissemination of the documents, since it was known to them that the Gore campaign had been attempting to connect Menem with the Bush campaign.

[Cha]

2. Thank you for this research, Onlooker.. I just posted this on another thread...

Putin praises 'bright and talented' Trump

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/17/politics/russia-putin-trump/

Trump campaign gutted GOP’s anti-Russia stance on Ukraine

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2288472

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=2288481

Joy Reid is getting warned by wikileaks..

Joy Reid
✔ ?@JoyAnnReid
Tomorrow on #AMJoy we'll explore the unprecedented affinity between an American presidential candidate - Trump - Russia and Wilileaks.

WikiLeaks
✔ ?@wikileaks
@JoyAnnReid You are pushing a discredited conspiracy theory. There is no affinity, whatsoever. Our lawyers will monitor your program.
7:57 PM - 23 Jul 2016
1,569 1,569 Retweets 2,609 2,609 likes

Kim Ghattas
✔ ?@BBCKimGhattas
Wow. Wiki leaks is now into intimidating journalists @JoyAnnReid https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/757092238400913408 …
3:09 AM - 24 Jul 2016
580 580 Retweets 442 442 likes

Joy Reid ?@JoyAnnReid · 4h4 hours ago
This isn't getting as much attention, but Russian meddling in the U.S. election IS the biggest bombshell out there.
https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://theobamadiary.com/2016/07/24/president-obama-on-face-the-nation/

Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump

The DNC said that no financial, donor or personal information appears to have been accessed or taken, suggesting that the breach was traditional espionage, not the work of criminal hackers.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-government-hackers-penetrated-dnc-stole-opposition-research-on-trump/2016/06/14/cf006cb4-316e-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html

Ronald Brownstein
?@RonBrownstein
More @SangerNYT "metadata from the released emails suggests that the documents passed through Russian computers"

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-emails.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

[Mc Mike]

12. So Wikileaks is fighting against uncovering and spreading info?

That's flabbergasting, to me. It strongly indicates that they were always black-hat intel. Maybe not Manning, but the people higher up. I really don't have the words to express my thoughts here.

[Onlooker]

19. That's pretty intense ...

.. that Wikileaks would try to intimidate her. Seems so strange that Wikileaks would be in collusion with the likes of Russian inteligence, as if they are for a free and open internet. Let's hope more journalists back her by investigating this story.

[Cha]

20. I know, right! This is Rachel's Tweet @wikileaks..

Rachel Maddow MSNBC Verified account 
?@maddow
Rachel Maddow MSNBC Retweeted WikiLeaks
"our lawyers will monitor your program"? seriously? and will you lurk in the alley, too?

[joshcryer]

3. This is going to be the news tomorrow.

Now that we've seen that the DNC emails are extremely clean as far as bad stuff is concerned.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Trump starts getting security briefing today.

Will he share any of it with his staff, trying to use it in the election? If he does, it will probably leak to Putin.

Trump is doing such a good job of emulating incipient creeping dementia that he might blab something in public, too.

[Mc Mike]

11. Time for intel to disinform.

Flush some fabricated intel down the dRumpf and see what happens on the Russian end.

[workinclasszero]

26. What if Trump is actively working with Putin??

And he starts getting the security briefings today!?

Yikes!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

33. I think he is Putin's Useful Idiot. I don't think Trump is trusted even by Putin to be a spy. . nt

[RapSoDee]

5. Republicans get into bed with the Godless Commie Red Ruski Mob

This Republican Surrender Monkey stuff is so blatantly anti-American. It's revolting. Are the Republicans going to meekly and submissively follow Trump-Manafort down the Iron Road to Perdition? It sure looks that way.

[TheBlackAdder]

6. The transmogrification is complete when Sarah Palin says she wants to have dinner with him.

[RapSoDee]

7. Comrade Manafort (aka Bugsy Manafort) has sold his soul to the Ruskis

Now he and Trump & Republican Cronies are plotting to sell America's soul to the godless red commie Rooski Menace.

Why does this shreik BETRAYAL so loudly.

[cynzke]

9. HITLER AND STALIN....TOGETHER AGAIN!

Job well done, GOP!

[workinclasszero]

28. Brought to us by the fuckin republican

anti-american party of course!!

[cynzke]

8. AND THE RUBES THINK HILLARY IS THE TRAITOR?

[Mc Mike]

10. Great post. Thanks. nt.

[jaxind]

13. Hypocrisy Again!

And, the republicans were worried about Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright??! And, they're worried about Hilary and whoever she has alliances with??!! WTF!

[Hortensis]

14. Today's NY Times has a cautious article about

"Russia Accused of Playing in U.S. Politics" about the hacking and release of DNC documents.

Proving the source of a cyberattack is notoriously difficult. But researchers have concluded that the national committee was breached by two Russian intelligence agencies, which were the same attackers behind previous Russian cyberoperations at the White House, the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff last year. And metadata from the released emails suggests that the documents passed through Russian computers. Though a hacker claimed responsibility for giving the emails to WikiLeaks, the same agencies are the prime suspects.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/us/politics/donald-trump-russia-emails.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

[Demsrule86]

15. I am extremely concerned about this.

What information from security briefings is Trump passing along to Putin for campaign cash? Seriously, he needs to be investigated and soon.

[Fast Walker 52]

16. I can't think of a bigger story right now than this bombshell

[AwakeAtLast]

17. How long before we can call it treason?

Damn, just like Tricky Dick, why am I surprised?

[RonniePudding]

22. I think it's okay to call it that now

[workinclasszero]

29. Right now?

Herr Trump getting help from his pal Putin.

That's a national security threat right there.

[tallahasseedem]

18. +1

If I could, I'd recommend it a lot more!

Thank you for spelling it out...we must be vigilant in defeating this guy.

[randome]

21. "National security threat" is an overly used phrase.

But it applies to this.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Aspire to inspire.[/center][/font][hr]

[Onlooker]

23. Kick

I don't usually kick my own threads, but decided to do so when I update this. I added a couple links and the last section (D).

[wishstar]

25. ABC News covered the Trump/Russia story in depth this morning

ABC showed clips of Putin and Trump's friendly talk about each other, Trump's opposition to Nato, Trump changing Repub platform to remove aid to Ukraine, with ABC Brian Ross stating that the FBI has expanded their investigation with evidence of Russian involvement in the hack.

Only issue i did not hear ABC News mention was the sizable financial investments by Russians with Trump. This aspect definitely needs investigation. I just sent a hotline request to ABC/Brian Ross to look into Trump's money connections to Putin's buddies, Trump possibly owing money to Russian investors and Paul Manafort's financial involvement since he was on payroll of pro-Putin Ukrainians

[OnDoutside]

32. +1

[liberal N proud]

27. All while the republicans are investigating Hillary for this and that, Trump and Putin are pulling

the biggest scam on the American people since Benedict Arnold.

[workinclasszero]

30. Damn traitors

The whole party is a treasonous snakepit!

[OnDoutside]

31. Sarah Palin was able to watch Russia from Alaska, Trump is inviting them in the front door.

[Onlooker]

34. Kick

Added some new content

[Peacetrain]

35. Thank you for doing this.. I am bookmarking this thread

The information is coming out at a wild fire pace now.. where there is smoke..and I am seeing a LOT of smoke.. I really appreciate a place where all these infor bits are together..

[Botany]

36. This should be enough to sink Trump 4-ever

n/t

[Onlooker]

37. Make Russia great again