THE ART OF PUPPETEERING
BY LUCY WARNER
MARCH 7, 2018


TRUMP IS THE PUPPET, TILLERSON PLAYS THE FLUTE, AND PUTIN PULLS THE STRINGS.

THIS IS NOT, TO MY PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE, FACT AS DETERMINED BY DOJ, CIA, ETC.; BUT MY OPINION BASED ON THE SET OF STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING REX TILLERSON, TRUMP, AND THE REST OF THE TRUMP GROUP. PERHAPS THEY ARE ALL BEWITCHED.

THE WILLFUL FAILURE OF TILLERSON AND TRUMP TO MAKE A SERIOUS EFFORT TO COUNTER CONTINUING RUSSIAN MANIPULATION OF THE AMERICAN MINDS THROUGH THE RUSSIAN TRULY FAKE NEWS OUTLETS -- PERHAPS EVEN CONGRESS AND THE SENATE AS WELL -- IS REALLY “PASSING STRANGE.” BOTH MEN ARE AFRAID OR GREEDY, OR BOTH. THE SITUATION REALLY REMINDS ME OF THE GREAT OLD OGDEN NASH LIMERICK --

“THERE ONCE WAS A LADY OF NIGER
WHO SMILED AS SHE RODE ON A TIGER.
THEY RETURNED FROM THE RIDE WITH THE LADY INSIDE,
AND THE SMILE ON THE FACE OF THE TIGER.”


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 3/5/18
Tillerson spends $0 to counter Russia despite millions set aside
Gardiner Harris, State Department correspondent for The New York Times, talks with Rachel Maddow about new reporting that Rex Tillerson has not utilized tens of millions of dollars allocated for countering Russian intrusion. Duration: 5:55


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 3/5/18
Report: Russia vetoed Romney, favored Tillerson for State Dept.
Rachel Maddow highlights new revelations in a lengthy New Yorker profile by Jane Mayer of Christopher Steele and his work on the Trump Russia dossier. Duration: 6:48



TRUMP’S EFFORTS TO PROTECT OUR SYSTEM OF ELECTIONS IS LIKE THE EMPERORS’ NEW CLOTHES, I THINK – APPARENT ONLY TO HIM.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
Trump wants 'credit' for non-existent efforts to shield elections
By Steve Benen 03/07/18 12:45PM

Photograph -- epa06573242 US President Donald J. Trump attends a meeting with leaders from the steel and aluminum manufacturing industries in the cabinet Room of the White... JIM LO SCALZO

At yesterday’s White House press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, a reporter asked Donald Trump about Russian efforts to influence American elections. His response rambled a bit and mainly focused on his belief that Republicans will do well in the 2018 midterms. Trump acted as if he didn’t understand the question.

And so, the reporter again asked whether the American president is “worried about Russia trying to meddle” in this year’s elections. Trump replied:

“No, because we’ll counteract whatever they do. We’ll counteract it very strongly. And we are having strong backup systems. And we’ve been working, actually – we haven’t been given credit for this, but we’ve actually been working very hard on the ‘18 election and the ‘20 election coming up.”

Note, in Trump’s mind, it’s important to always stress that he and his team be given “credit” for their efforts – because in this White House, effective public service is not its own reward.

But even putting that aside, the problem, whether the president understands this or not, is that he and his team haven’t been “working very hard” on this at all. In fact, by all appearances, the exact opposite is true.

It was just last week when Adm. Michael Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, conceded to lawmakers that U.S. officials are “probably not doing enough” on this issue, adding that the president still hasn’t authorized his office to disrupt Russian cyberattacks

Making matters worse, we learned soon after that the Trump administration’s Global Engagement Center has been allocated $120 million to counter foreign efforts to meddle in elections – and it hasn’t yet spent a dime.

The Washington Post also reported, “During his first year as president, Trump held no Cabinet or high-level National Security Council meetings about combating Russian interference. He and his administration have sought to roll back or simply have not enforced measures to hold Moscow accountable, such as sanctions passed overwhelmingly by Congress.”

It’s not exactly a mystery how Russian officials are likely to respond to these circumstances. They attacked the United States in 2016, successfully ended up with the results Putin’s government wanted, have faced limited repercussions, and will face limited resistance if they launch another intelligence operation against us this year.

U.S. intelligence agencies are currently ringing the alarm, making clear they expect an escalation in efforts from Moscow. The NSA’s Rogers told Congress last week that Putin “has clearly come to the conclusion that ‘there’s little price to pay here and therefore I can continue this activity.’”

It’s against this backdrop that Trump is not only doing very little, he also expects “credit” for his passivity against a foreign threat.



DONALD TRUMP AND TILLERSON’S DISCONCERTING PASSIVITY IN A TIME FOR ACTION. WHAT’S WRONG WITH $120,000,000?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/world/europe/state-department-russia-global-engagement-center.html
State Dept. Was Granted $120 Million to Fight Russian Meddling. It Has Spent $0.
By GARDINER HARRIS MARCH 4, 2018

Photograph -- Rex W. Tillerson, the secretary of state, has voiced skepticism that the United States is capable of doing anything to counter Russian meddling. Credit Pool photo by Lintao Zhang

WASHINGTON — As Russia’s virtual war against the United States continues unabated with the midterm elections approaching, the State Department has yet to spend any of the $120 million it has been allocated since late 2016 to counter foreign efforts to meddle in elections or sow distrust in democracy.

As a result, not one of the 23 analysts working in the department’s Global Engagement Center — which has been tasked with countering Moscow’s disinformation campaign — speaks Russian, and a department hiring freeze has hindered efforts to recruit the computer experts needed to track the Russian efforts.

The delay is just one symptom of the largely passive response to the Russian interference by President Trump, who has made little if any public effort to rally the nation to confront Moscow and defend democratic institutions. More broadly, the funding lag reflects a deep lack of confidence by Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson in his department’s ability to execute its historically wide-ranging mission and spend its money wisely.

Mr. Tillerson has voiced skepticism that the United States is even capable of doing anything to counter the Russian threat.

“If it’s their intention to interfere, they’re going to find ways to do that,” Mr. Tillerson said in an interview last month with Fox News. “And we can take steps we can take, but this is something that once they decide they are going to do it, it’s very difficult to pre-empt it.”

The United States spends billions of dollars on secret cybercapabilities, but these weapons have proved largely ineffective against Russian efforts on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere that simply amplify or distort divisive but genuine voices in the United States and elsewhere.

The role for the Global Engagement Center would be to assess Russian efforts and then set about amplifying a different set of voices to counter them, perhaps creating a network of anti-propaganda projects dispersed around the world, experts said.

“There are now thousands of former Russian journalists who have been exiled or fired who are doing counter-Russian stuff in exile who we could help,” said Richard Stengel, who as the under secretary for public diplomacy in the Obama administration had oversight of the Global Engagement Center.

Concerted campaigns to highlight the roles of Russian troll farms or Russian mercenaries in Ukraine and Syria could have a profound effect, Mr. Stengel said.

At the end of the Obama administration, Congress directed the Pentagon to send $60 million to the State Department so it could coordinate governmentwide efforts, including those by the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security, to counter anti-democratic propaganda by Russia and China. This messaging effort is separate from other potential government actions like cyberattacks.

Mr. Tillerson spent seven months trying to decide whether to spend any of the money. The State Department finally sent a request to the Defense Department on Sept. 18 to transfer the funds, but with just days left in the fiscal year, Pentagon officials decided that the State Department had lost its shot at the money.

With another $60 million available for the next fiscal year, the two departments dickered for another five months over how much the State Department could have.

After The New York Times, following a report on the issue by Politico in August, began asking about the delayed money, the State Department announced on Monday that the Pentagon had agreed to transfer $40 million for the effort, just a third of what was originally intended.

State Department officials say they expect to receive the money in April. Steve Goldstein, the under secretary for public diplomacy, said he would contribute $1 million from his own budget to “kick-start the initiative quickly.”

“This funding is critical to ensuring that we continue an aggressive response to malign influence and disinformation,” Mr. Goldstein said.

On Wednesday, Mark E. Mitchell, a top official in the Defense Department, said much wrangling remained before any of the promised $40 million is transferred to the State Department.

“We’re still a ways off,” Mr. Mitchell said.

The delays have infuriated some members of Congress, which approved the funding transfer with bipartisan support.

“It is well past time that the State Department’s Global Engagement Center gets the resources Congress intended for it to effectively fight Kremlin-sponsored disinformation and other foreign propaganda operations,” Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Wednesday.

Adele Ruppe, the center’s chief of staff, defended the administration’s broader efforts to counter Russian propaganda, pointing out that the State Department had provided $1.3 billion in assistance in 2017 to strengthen European resilience to Russian meddling. But that money was largely obligated during the Obama administration, and the Trump administration has proposed slashing that assistance by more than half for the coming year, to $527 million, and to $491 million for the next year.

While it waits for the funding transfer from the Pentagon, the center, which has a staff of around 60 people, including 23 contract analysts, will continue working on its original mission: countering jihadist and extremist propaganda.

Most of the center’s leaders are working in temporary assignments, a product of Mr. Tillerson’s halt in promotions. The analysts work in a warren of cubicles in the basement of a tired building that once housed the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II predecessor to the C.I.A.

The analysts are divided into five teams that largely work in four languages: Arabic, Urdu, French and Somali. The analysts said in interviews that they had notched some significant victories, including a video montage proving that the Islamic State had itself destroyed Al Nuri Grand Mosque in Mosul, Iraq, and a widely seen cartoon in French depicting the miserable life of an Islamic State fighter.

Still, these efforts are a small fraction of what Congress envisioned. A 2015 internal assessment found that the Islamic State had been far more nimble on social media than the United States had been. In May, Congress more than doubled the center’s budget, providing an additional $19 million over its earlier budget of $14 million. But by Jan. 1, the department had spent just $3.6 million of the additional $19 million, Mr. Goldstein said.

James K. Glassman, the under secretary for public diplomacy during the George W. Bush administration, said the center’s uncertain funding and temporary leadership reflected the administration’s lack of interest in countering either jihadist or Russian propaganda.

“They’ve got the vehicle to do this work in the center,” Mr. Glassman said. “What they don’t have is a secretary of state or a president who’s interested in doing this work.”

Mr. Tillerson is focusing his energies instead on drastically shrinking the department, leaving a significant part of its budget unused and hundreds of important decisions unmade.

Last year, the State Department spent just 79 percent of the money that Congress had authorized for the conduct of foreign affairs, the lowest such level in at least 15 years and well down from the 93 percent spent in the final year of the Obama administration, according to an analysis of data from the Office of Management and Budget.

Because of the hiring and promotion freezes that have left large sums unspent, as well as Mr. Tillerson’s refusal to delegate spending decisions, the department had a backlog of more than 1,400 official requests for Mr. Tillerson’s signoff at the end of last year, according to a former senior diplomat who left the department then.

Eric Schmitt, David E. Sanger and Adam Goldman contributed reporting.



IS IT POSSIBLE THAT BOTH TRUMP AND TILLERSON, IN REACHING OUT TO RUSSIA FOR SOME SHORT-TERM AID IN CLIMBING UP INTO THEIR IMAGINED PLACES IN THE SUN, HAVE MADE A CONTRACT WITH A DANGEROUS FOE INSTEAD? I SAW TRUMP AS A WOULD-BE DICTATOR, BUT I THINK NOW THAT HE’S A PAWN. SEVERAL TIMES HE HAS MADE AN IMPROMPTU DECREE ONLY TO REVERSE IT OVER NIGHT – OR HAVE HIS ASSISTANTS IN THE WHITE HOUSE CALL A PRESS CONFERENCE AND CONTRADICT HIS WORD. IF HE TRIES TO DO SOMETHING THAT IS GOOD, EITHER PUTIN OR THE NRA PULLS HIM BACK INTO LINE.

TILLERSON HAS TWICE BEEN QUOTED AS SAYING THAT WE, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, “CAN’T” STOP PUTIN. HE DOESN’T MEAN THAT IT’S IMPOSSIBLE, BUT THAT IT’S NOT TO HIS ADVANTAGE. IN ONE CASE HE SAID THAT IT MIGHT ANGER PUTIN IF WE PUT OUT A REAL EFFORT TO STOP THE ONGOING MEDDLING. WHAT DOES HE THINK PUTIN WILL DO TO US THAT IS DIFFERENT? HE CONSTANTLY ATTACKS US.

THIS ISN’T MY IDEA OF “AMERICA FIRST,” NOR OF “MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.” WE NEED TO CUT THE STRINGS TO THIS PUPPET AND PUT HIM BACK INTO HIS BOX – MAR A LAGO, PERHAPS. CONGRESS AND THE SENATE NEED TO ACT AND PERFORM THE NEEDED CHORE – GET TRUMP OUT OF OFFICE, AND ALL HIS HENCHMEN ALONG WITH HIM.

http://www.newsweek.com/rex-tillerson-rejects-80m-congress-fight-russian-propaganda-because-it-would-645554
REX TILLERSON REJECTS $80 MILLION FROM CONGRESS TO FIGHT RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA BECAUSE IT WOULD ANGER MOSCOW
BY GRAHAM LANKTREE ON 8/2/17 AT 12:34 PM

Congress has given $80 million to the State Department to fight Russian propaganda and misinformation, but Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly is reluctant to put it to use.

A former senior State Department official told Politico that Tillerson’s spokesman, R.C. Hammond, suggested using the money to counter Russian disinformation and propaganda would rile Moscow.

“Hammond said the secretary is in the process of working through disagreements with Russia, and this is not consistent with what we’re trying to do,” the official said.

Tillerson and President Donald Trump have been working to mend relations with Russia from their “all-time low point” (in Tillerson’s words) after U.S. intelligence agencies issued a report early this year concluding that the Kremlin worked to interfere in the 2016 election.

Key intelligence agencies found Moscow used a widespread misinformation campaign to achieve its ends. The Trump campaign is under investigation over whether it helped these efforts.

Trump has repeatedly called the report’s findings a “hoax” and a “ruse” for Democrats to explain why they lost the election.

Related: Trump administration weighs return of sanctioned Russian property

The money to combat Russian misinformation was set aside by Congress late last year for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. The unit was created in the spring of 2016 to combat propaganda from the Islamic State militant group (ISIS). But its mission was expanded, along with the fresh funding, at the end of last year in light of Russia’s election meddling and to counter messages from governments in such nations as China, Iran and North Korea.

“The sobering truth is, we’re still far where we ultimately need to be to operate in the modern information environment,” the unit’s former coordinator under the Obama administration, Michael Lumpkin, told a House Armed Services subcommittee early this year.

Since February, State Department officials have been urging Tillerson to unlock $60 million meant for the unit from the Pentagon and another $19.8 million allotted for the program in the department, according to the former senior State Department official. The money from the Defense Department will expire on September 30 unless it’s transferred by Tillerson.

“What we’re seeing is a small group of people with very thin knowledge making all the decisions in a very centralized and isolated process. It causes unnecessary delays and confusion,” Brett Bruen, a former U.S. diplomat in contact with State employees involved in the funding fight, told Politico.

Tillerson has not filled nearly 200 senior posts in the department, having resisted putting many people in place while he carries out a State Department restructuring so he can fulfill Trump’s request to slash $10 billion from its budget.

A State Department official told Newsweek’s that the money hasn't been unlocked because "there is a process underway to ensure any future funding or programs account for the most appropriate tactics and strategy—especially in countering propaganda from countries such as Russia that have minimal protections for free speech or the media."

The Global Engagement Center*, they said, "continues to execute its mission."

Hammond told Politico that State Department officials haven’t presented a plan for how to spend the money, a claim that was challenged by the former senior State Department official. Multiple officials said Tillerson is aware of funding requests from the unit to unlock the money.

Both Tillerson and Trump have worked to strike a deal with Russia that would allow relations between the two countries to improve and have avoided rocking the boat.

One of the key things Russia wants is for the U.S. to return two diplomatic properties that were seized late last year under Obama administration sanctions in retaliation for Russia’s interference in the election. The Trump administration has considered returning these properties.

In a briefing to reporters at the State Department Tuesday, Tillerson said that “neither the president nor I were very happy” about Congress’s recent decision to pass a bill to block the president from lifting those and other U.S. sanctions against Russia without congressional approval.

When Trump signed the bill on Wednesday, he said it was “seriously flawed” because “it encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate” and “strike good deals for the American people.”



SEE THE INFORMATION BELOW ABOUT STEELE’S CURIOSITY ABOUT RUSSIA’S INTERVENTIONISM IN FIVE WESTERN NATIONS, CALLED “PROJECT CHARLEMAGNE.” JUST AS WITH THE USA, IT INTERJECTED ITSELF IN DAMAGING WAYS INTO THEIR FREE ELECTIONS.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a19084719/christopher-steele-dossier-trump-russia/
A Blockbuster New Yorker Story Sheds Light on Christopher Steele, and, Yes, the 'Pee Tape'
Jane Mayer tackles the former M.I.6 operative in a must-read feature.
BY JACK HOLMES
MAR 5, 2018

Monday brought the news that President Trump's State Department has been granted $120 million to fight Russian election meddling—which intelligence officials are supremely confident will continue during the 2018 midterms—and the agency has used exactly none of it. With last week's revelation that Trump has not given NSA Director Mike Rogers "day-to-day" authorization to fight Russian cyber attacks, it's further evidence the Trump administration is reluctant to counter Russia. Viewed in the light that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to benefit Trump, and that members of Trump's campaign are under investigation for possibly colluding in that effort, the number of coincidences really start to pile up.

Which takes us back to the now-infamous Dossier, a collection of memos written by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele detailing Trumpworld's ties to Kremlin-connected figures. Monday also brought an exhaustive report from Jane Mayer in The New Yorker, examining Steele, his Dossier, and how its findings have been borne out in the subsequent Russia investigations from the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Here are some of the report's most telling details.

Graham, Grassley, and Trump; Getty Images

Steele was long concerned with Russian interference in Western elections before he got involved in Trump and 2016.

In April of 2016, not long before he took on the Fusion assignment, he finished a secret investigation, which he called Project Charlemagne, for a private client. It involved a survey of Russian interference in the politics of four members of the European Union—France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Germany—along with Turkey, a candidate for membership. The report chronicles persistent, aggressive political interference by the Kremlin: social-media warfare aimed at inflaming fear and prejudice, and “opaque financial support” given to favored politicians in the form of bank loans, gifts, and other kinds of support. ...The Kremlin’s long-term aim, the report concludes, was to boost extremist groups and politicians at the expense of Europe’s liberal democracies.

We know more about the sourcing of the so-called "Pee Tape."

The allegation was attributed to four sources, but their reports were secondhand—nobody had witnessed the event or tracked down a prostitute, and one spoke generally about “embarrassing material.” Two sources were unconnected to the others, but the remaining two could have spoken to each other. In the reports Steele had collected, the names of the sources were omitted, but they were described as “a former top-level Russian intelligence officer still active inside the Kremlin,” a “member of the staff at the hotel,” a “female staffer at the hotel when Trump had stayed there,” and “a close associate of Trump who had organized and managed his recent trips to Moscow.”

Christopher Steele; Getty Images

Trump campaign adviser Carter Page is in deep.

Page was an odd choice for Trump. In New York in 2013, two Russian intelligence operatives had attempted to recruit Page, an oil-industry consultant, although wiretaps revealed that one of the operatives had described him as an “idiot.” The F.B.I. later indicted the two Russian spies, and warned Page that the Kremlin was trying to recruit him, but he continued to pursue oil-and-gas deals in Russia...Page has denied any wrongdoing...But, according to the Democrats’ recent Intelligence Committee report, when Page was confronted with evidence he was “forced to admit” that he had met with a top Kremlin official, after all, as well as with a Rosneft executive.

The supposed "Deep State," and the Obama White House, knew plenty about Russian meddling before the election took place, but took little public action.

Robert Hannigan, then the head of the U.K.’s intelligence service the G.C.H.Q., had recently flown to Washington and briefed the C.I.A.’s director, John Brennan, on a stream of illicit communications between Trump’s team and Moscow that had been intercepted. (The content of these intercepts has not become public.)...But Obama and his top advisers did not want to take any action against Russia that might provoke a cyber war. And because it was so close to the election, they were wary about doing anything that could be construed as a ploy to help Clinton.

Getty Images

THE DOSSIER IS NOT A FINAL PRODUCT.

"THIS IS SOURCE MATERIAL, NOT EXPERT OPINION.” Sipher* has described the dossier as “generally credible,” although not correct in every detail. He said, “People have misunderstood that it’s a collection of dots, not a connecting of the dots. But it provided the first narrative saying what Russia might be up to.” ... “In intelligence, you evaluate your sources as best you can, but it’s not like journalism, where you try to get more than one source to confirm something. In the intelligence business, you don’t pretend you’re a hundred per cent accurate. If you’re seventy or eighty per cent accurate, that makes you one of the best.”

Russia may have interfered to block Mitt Romney as a potential Secretary of State.

The Kremlin had intervened to block Trump’s initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney. (During Romney’s run for the White House in 2012, he was notably hawkish on Russia, calling it the single greatest threat to the U.S.) The memo said that the Kremlin, through unspecified channels, had asked Trump to appoint someone who would be prepared to lift Ukraine-related sanctions, and who would coöperate on security issues of interest to Russia, such as the conflict in Syria. If what the source heard was true, then a foreign power was exercising pivotal influence over U.S. foreign policy—and an incoming President.

Getty Images

Key elements of The Dossier have been confirmed.

His allegation that the Kremlin favored Trump in 2016 and was offering his campaign dirt on Hillary has been borne out. So has his claim that the Kremlin and WikiLeaks were working together to release the D.N.C.’s e-mails. Key elements of Steele’s memos on Carter Page have held up, too, including the claim that Page had secret meetings in Moscow with Rosneft and Kremlin officials...And, just as the Kremlin allegedly feared, damaging financial details have surfaced about Manafort’s dealings with Ukraine officials. Further, his suggestion that Trump had “agreed to sideline Russian intervention in Ukraine as a campaign issue” seems to have been confirmed by the pro-Russia changes that Trump associates made to the Republican platform. Special Counsel Mueller’s various indictments of Manafort have also strengthened aspects of the dossier.

The report is worth reading in its entirety. . . . .”


WHO OR WHAT IS “SIPHER”?* ONE OF THINGS THAT IRRITATES ME MOST IN THESE ARTICLES IS WHEN A WRITER USES A WORD OR (IN THIS CASE) A NAME THAT IS PERFECTLY WELL-KNOWN TO THEM AND THEIR PROFESSIONAL OR SOCIAL CRONIES, BUT IT IS NEITHER “WELL-KNOWN” NOR EVEN DEFINED ANYWHERE ON THE INTERNET. I ALWAYS POKE AROUND UNTIL I FIND SOMETHING LIKELY, THOUGH. I’M NOTHING IF NOT STUBBORN.

I THINK THIS IS THE IDENTITY OF “SIPHER.” HE IS AN EX-CIA CLANDESTINE SERVICE MEMBER. GO TO THIS WEBSITE TO SEE WHAT HE DOES AND SAYS. MUCH OF IT IS ABOUT TRUMP AND RUSSIA, AND I THINK ALL TRUE CONSERVATIVES AND OTHER HONEST AMERICANS AS WELL, SHOULD LOOK AT THIS ARTICLE. IT TELLS, IN BETTER WORDS THAN I CAN, WHY I CARE SO MUCH ABOUT OUR RECENT LURCH TO THE ABSOLUTIST RIGHT.


https://www.thecipherbrief.com/experts/john-sipher

Two quick glimpses and a full report.

Network Take: Shocked, Not, Over Flynn’s Guilty Plea
December 1, 2017
The Cipher Brief asked former CIA Russia hand John Sipher to react to the news that Trump administration National Security Adviser Michael Flynn admitted to lying to the FBI, making him the first...

WikiLeaks and the Trump Campaign: Another Tree in the Forest
November 19, 2017
The revelation that Donald Trump Jr. was in contact with WikiLeaks throughout the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign is just the latest in a long catalog of leaks and discoveries about previously hidden...


THIS IS MY PICK OF THE THREE:

Russian Active Measures and the 2016 Election Hack
December 20, 2017

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Funny, that. The Soviet and Russian intelligence services have been doing exactly the same...

Two quick glimpses of other pieces there:


Network Take: Shocked, Not, Over Flynn’s Guilty Plea
December 1, 2017
The Cipher Brief asked former CIA Russia hand John Sipher to react to the news that Trump administration National Security Adviser Michael Flynn admitted to lying to the FBI, making him the first...


WikiLeaks and the Trump Campaign: Another Tree in the Forest
November 19, 2017
The revelation that Donald Trump Jr. was in contact with WikiLeaks throughout the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign is just the latest in a long catalog of leaks and discoveries about previously hidden...



“WHATABOUTISM” IS THE MOST CYNICAL TYPE OF MORAL RELATIVISM. WHEN I WAS YOUNG, IT WAS “EVERYBODY’SDOINGIT.” YOU CAN’T GO WRONG FOLLOWING THE CROWD. THIS CONCEPT IS DESCRIBED IN ALEX FINLEY’S COMMENTARY BELOW.

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column/expert-view/election-meddling-u-s-intelligence-2
Russian Active Measures and the 2016 Election Hack
December 20, 2017

In an otherwise forgettable February 2017 interview, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly asked Donald Trump how he could respect Russian President Vladimir Putin, who O’Reilly labeled as a “killer.” Trump shockingly defended Putin by commenting, “There are a lot of killers. We have killers. Well, you think our country is so innocent?” On a separate Fox program in 2015, Trump brushed off comments that Putin kills journalists who disagree with him, responding, “I think our country does plenty of killing too.” Trump’s tendency to attribute moral equivalence to otherwise non-comparable issues was again on display when he repeatedly blamed “both sides” for the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

This political tactic of deflecting answers is not unique to Trump. Indeed, it is long-favorite ploy of Soviet and Russian spokesmen. The Washington Post recently wrote an article about the issue entitled, “Whataboutism: The Cold War tactic, thawed by Putin, is brandished by Donald Trump.” Of the many practices and talking points that President Trump has seemed to borrow from Putin’s Russia, “whataboutism” is particularly insidious. As New York Times correspondent Anne O’Hare described this much-used trick, “it may not convince, but it adds to the confusion between truth and falsehood and fosters that darkness of the mind in which dictatorships operate.” When combined with Russia’s use of disinformation, bots, propaganda, espionage, cyber-attacks, Facebook advertisements, and espionage, it makes for a powerful intelligence operation.

Both authors of this piece served in the CIA and have become sensitive to a “whataboutism” charge often leveled by people across the political spectrum: “So what if Russia meddled in our election? It is exactly what the CIA does around the world.” Such suggestions—particularly from the president himself—are frustrating, to say the least. Rather than be compared to U.S. actions overseas, the Russian intelligence operation needs to be judged for what it is: a Russian attack on the United States.

At the risk of acting exactly as Russia would like, we’ll indulge the whataboutism crowd for a moment. We openly admit the CIA is an espionage enterprise, and a major component of that, as the CIA says in its mission statement, is to conduct “effective covert action as directed by the President.” A covert action—be it, for example, sabotage, the spreading of propaganda or a paramilitary operation—is designed to hide the hand of the country carrying out that action, or at least provide plausible deniability. The action itself is usually intended to have a political effect. Covert action is similar to what Russian intelligence services call “active measures.”

The president must approve every covert action through a “Presidential Finding,” and the intelligence oversight committees in Congress monitor the action.

We also openly admit the United States has participated in its share of excesses. In the early years of the Cold War, the United States overthrew governments, including democratically elected ones, and even attempted to assassinate leaders of other countries.

These are not the proudest moments of our history, which is why our democratic institutions have sought to curb such excesses and ensure our intelligence activities align with our values as a nation. Constitutional change in leadership has assured those values are constantly reassessed. The pendulum has swung over time. The 1975 Church Committee investigations of intelligence abuses put an end to U.S. government-sanctioned assassination and established the Senate oversight committee. However, the attacks of September 11 led to new excesses, the consequences of which we, as a country, are still dealing with today.

Indeed, due to increased oversight and lessons learned from earlier mistakes, the CIA has been out of the business of overthrowing governments for a long time. One can agree or disagree with the policy, but recent efforts aimed at regime change have come with a decidedly military flavor. Of course, there are consequences to any effort aimed at overthrowing a country’s leadership, but it seems the United States has come to the conclusion that it is better to do so overtly, and with allies if possible.

The key point, however, is that our society processes its blunders and takes the consequences seriously. Our covert action does not take place in a vacuum, but within a structured set of rules and laws. They are not perfect. When we see imperfections, we work to fix them. It’s not always pretty, and it doesn’t always work well (ask any field officer how many meetings with lawyers he or she had to have before undertaking even the slightest first step toward covert action). But generally speaking, we endeavor to create a better way of doing things, implementing checks and balances to control potential overreach. We keep aiming for better.

SO HOW IS RUSSIA’S INFLUENCE OPERATION AGAINST OUR ELECTION DIFFERENT?

Russia’s influence operation is an attempt by an authoritarian regime, led by a single individual with zero oversight and who is not accountable in any way, to influence and divide a democratic society through its open, democratic election process. It is the equivalent of Russia bombing the democratic institutions of the Western world.

Putin is in a weak position. With an economy smaller than that of New York state and no vision for the country except his own enrichment, Putin has very little to offer his people. Unable to raise his country up, he seeks parity by pulling other countries down. Underlying this is a desire to consolidate and maintain power in a single central authority: Putin himself. Indeed, Putin not only attacks the democratic institutions of other countries, he even stage manages his own elections.

The Russian influence operation against our election was part of this strategy, which was also applied across Europe as several countries held elections, including in the Netherlands, France and Germany. A key component of this operation is preventing people from having a say in their own government, by spreading lies about candidates or asking what’s the point in voting at all, and by exploiting societal fractures and dividing people. Putin has needed this at home—again, because he has little to offer in terms of a vision of the future of Russia—and he is attempting to implement the same elsewhere.

In a free society, citizens have the ability to learn about their government’s actions and to debate and criticize them. Journalists, too, are free to be critical of their leaders. They can – and do – uncover CIA covert activities and critique and criticize as they wish. In Russia, this gets you killed. Putin’s government is implicated in numerous assassinations of Russian journalists and opposition figures.

In a callback to Soviet times, Putin sees both the public and private sectors as his personal foreign policy tools. He directs private companies and individuals to carry out his active measures. Troll farms spread disinformation. Hackers steal information. He has enlisted Russian media to serve as his foreign policy tool. As the editor of RT America said in an interview with The Hill, “When Russia is at war, we are, of course, on Russia’s side.” U.S. covert action, on the other hand, is authorized directly by the President and restrained by Congressional oversight. We also transfer power every four or eight years. Putin faces no such restraints.

Despite President Trump’s rants against journalists, the United States government does not dictate the content of U.S. media outlets. Even ex-spooks are allowed to speak out. John recently publicly questioned if Trump colluded with Russia, and Alex wrote a series critical of the U.S. role in overthrowing Iran’s prime minister in 1953. Can you imagine an ex-KGB officer writing a public article criticizing Putin or a Russian active measures campaign? The polonium-laced tea would be delivered directly to her hotel room.

The fundamental difference between Putin’s Russia and the United States is the key to understanding why Russia’s influence operation is different. The assignment of moral equivalence between an open society, however imperfect, and Putin’s Russia that inhibits a free press, squashes any and all opposition, and invades its neighbors is wrong, and frankly offensive to those public servants upholding the Constitution.

At the end of the day, there is a reality of right and wrong in the world. The U.S., despite its mistakes, is about a world order that serves the U.S. by benefiting all. Putin, on the other hand, seeks to interrupt and weaken the credibility of the West worldwide, fueled by the singular ambition of maintaining personal power and wealth.

Yes, the U.S. takes action overseas, but it is fundamentally different than Russia and is supported by a legal process that is answerable to the electorate. As Joel Harding commented recently on his blog, To Inform is to Influence, “In the United States we count our blessings in terms of our freedoms. Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and so on. I often ask, what freedoms do Russians have?”


THE AUTHOR IS ALEX FINLEY
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. Before becoming a bureaucrat living large off the system, she chased puffy white men around Washington DC as a member of the wild dog pack better known as the Washington media elite. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, and other publications. She has spoken to C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CBC’s The National, Sirius XM’s Yahoo! Politics,... Read More

THE COAUTHOR IS JOHN SIPHER
John Sipher is a Director of Client Services at CrossLead, Inc*. John retired in 2014 after a 28-year career in the Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service. At the time of his retirement he was a member of the CIA's Senior Intelligence Service. John served multiple overseas tours as Chief of Station and Deputy Chief of Station in Europe, Asia, Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and South Asia. He is the recipient of the Agency's Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal.
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