Russia engaging in 'information warfare' ahead of 2020 election, FBI chief warns

The FBI director, Christopher Wray, has warned that Russia is engaged in “information warfare” heading into the 2020 presidential election, though he said law enforcement has not seen ongoing efforts by Russia to target America’s election infrastructure.

Wray told the House judiciary committee that Russia, just as it did in 2016, is relying on a covert social media campaign aimed at dividing American public opinion and sowing discord.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-election-2020

Putin and his oligarchs were quite successful with their political coup, and Moscow Mitch led the way.

Um, yeah. What else is new?
Wray forgot to add that the US is doing same to other countries.

...and have been for years.

The FBI director, Christopher Wray, has warned that Russia is engaged in “information warfare” heading into the 2020 presidential election, though he said law enforcement has not seen ongoing efforts by Russia to target America’s election infrastructure.

Wray told the House judiciary committee that Russia, just as it did in 2016, is relying on a covert social media campaign aimed at dividing American public opinion and sowing discord.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-election-2020

Putin and his oligarchs were quite successful with their political coup, and Moscow Mitch led the way. Originally Posted by Jaxson66

where is your blame for the Obama Admin? they knew of potential interference as far back as 2014 and did little to nothing about it. now of course they are pointing fingers at each other over it. here us a real gem of a quote from John Brennan no less i..


“People have criticized us ... for not coming out more forcefully and saying it,” former CIA Director John Brennan said at the Aspen National Forum in July. “There was no playbook for this.”

no playbook? what would a top football coach do when someone comes up with a scheme they haven't seen before? write a new playbook! bahhaa



if this doesn't prove Brennan is an incompetent partisan hack nothing does!


butt .. he knows Trump is a russkie agent! right!!


this article is nothing short of damning for Obama as the actual russkie puppet! he was flat out afraid to confront Putin.


because he needed Putin to back him on his Iran deal. so he was willing to allow election interference to broker a deal (not a treaty, a UN sponsored deal, Obama didn't have the ball hairs to try to hold a Senate vote to make it a real treaty) with a long time US enemy, Iran.


there's a word for that .. traitor! sorry .. two words .. pussy traitor!



https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...ference-241547


Obama team was warned in 2014 about Russian interference


The Obama administration received multiple warnings from national security officials between 2014 and 2016 that the Kremlin was ramping up its intelligence operations and building disinformation networks it could use to disrupt the U.S. political system, according to more than half a dozen current and former officials.


As early as 2014, the administration received a report that quoted a well-connected Russian source as saying that the Kremlin was building a disinformation arm that could be used to interfere in Western democracies. The report, according to an official familiar with it, included a quote from theRussian source telling U.S. officials in Moscow, "You have no idea how extensive these networks are in Europe ... and in the U.S., Russia has penetrated media organizations, lobbying firms, political parties, governments and militaries in all of these places."


That report was circulated among the National Security Council, intelligence agencies and the State Department via secure email and cable in the spring of 2014 as part of a larger assessment of Russian intentions in Ukraine, the official said.


There was no explicit warning of a threat to U.S. elections, but the official said some diplomats and national security officials in Moscow felt the administration was too quick to dismiss the possibility that the Kremlin incursions could reach the United States.


“Even if the Russians and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin had these ambitions, they were doubtful of their capacity to execute them,” the official said of the Obama administration.


Former White House officials, requesting anonymity to discuss intelligence reporting, confirmed that the administration began receiving increased trafficin 2014 about Russian disinformation and covert influence in campaigns, but said they did not recall receiving that specific warning about Russian inroads in the United States.


Ned Price, a former spokesperson for the National Security Council, rejected the idea that the administration failed to heed warnings about Russian interference in the U.S. political systemor Russian cyberespionage in general.


“The Obama administration was nothing but proactive in responding to Russian aggression in all of its forms, especially as Moscow became more brazen with and following its military moves against Ukraine beginning in 2014,” Price said, citing sanctions and increased American support to NATO as evidence of the former administration’s seriousness.


But subsequent events — including Russia’s interference in the American election through hacks of the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta, among other intrusions identified by U.S. intelligence — have left many in the former administration wondering whether they could have done more.


“People have criticized us ... for not coming out more forcefully and saying it,” former CIA Director John Brennan said at the Aspen National Forum in July. “There was no playbook for this.”


On Oct. 7, 2016, about a month before the election, the administration revealed, through a statement from the director of national intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security, that the U.S. government believed Russia was behind the hacks and was seeking to interfere with the election. The revelation, which many in the White House expected to be bombshell news, was largely overshadowed by the revelation that same day of an “Access Hollywood” tape in which Donald Trump made crude and sexist comments to anchor Billy Bush.


But others in the national security community say an overly cautious Obama White House could have done more both during the campaign and in the previous months and years to alert Russia that it was aware of its intentions to subvert the U.S. democracy — along with those of some other Western countries — and would retaliate forcefully at the first sign of Russian interference.


POLITICO spoke with more than a dozen current and former officials from across the national security spectrum, including intelligence agencies, the State Department and the Pentagon. Almost all said they were aware of Russia’s aggressive cyberespionage and disinformation campaigns — especially after the dramatic Russian attempt to hack Ukrainian elections in 2014 — but felt that either the White House or key agencies were unwilling to act forcefully to counter the Russian actions.


Intelligence officials "had a list of things they could never get the signoffs on,” one intelligence official said. “The truth is, nobody wanted to piss off the Russians.”


Among the strategies put forward prior to the 2016 election were closing two Russian dachas in Maryland and New York, which were long suspectedof being Russian intelligence sites, expelling diplomats and engaging in counterintelligence operations that would alert Putin to the United States’ determination to strike back against any attempts at interference in the U.S. political system.


Officials outside the White House blamed micromanagement by the National Security Council for the lack of a more forceful response, while a former NSC official says any failure to act forcefully against Russia was because of concerns by the State Department and, less frequently, the Defense Department about potential retaliation by Moscow.


“The frustrations [about lack of forceful action] are justified and, frankly, were shared by the White House,” said the former official, who requested anonymity due to this person's continuing work in Russia.


“The options were being discussed. They weren’t being implemented,” the former official added.


The State Department and Pentagon often objected to harsher measures endorsed by the intelligence community, one official said, a difference in perspective that some attributed to the fact thatdiplomatic staff and defense attaches were obvious targets of retaliation, rather than intelligence officers who usually work undercover.


Concerns about Russian cyberespionage and election meddling largely grew out of the events following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, followed by an aggressive Russian effort to influence the Ukrainian presidential election that May.


A Russia-backed cyberattack against Ukraine’s voting infrastructure during the May election was thwarted at the 11th hour. The cyberintrusions — which in some cases could have changed voter tallies — were discovered just hours before what could have been catastrophic outcomes.


“The reports from sources deep inside the Russian government were alarming,” one current U.S. official who served under the Obama administration said. “We started getting stuff in April, May [of 2014] that was extraordinary about the extent of the threat and the capacities the Russians were building.”


“We were worried [Putin] would try to test us,” recalled a former Obama administration official.


The Ukraine crisis — coupled with the Kremlin’s embrace of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, who continues to be granted asylum by Moscow — was a sobering moment for the White House, one recently departed intelligence officer and the current administration official said.


Yet the administration still was reluctant to engage in more forceful counterintelligence strategies against the Kremlin, including more aggressively tracking and tailing Russian operatives within the United States, according to five of the officials who spoke to POLITICO.


Those outside the White House said they received frustrating mixed messages: The White House would subsequently dismiss Moscow’s capabilities while also citing fear of an escalation with Putin.


Price, the former NSC spokesman, denied those claims.


“We responded with the same clarity of purpose following Moscow’s aggression against U.S. officials in Russia and, of course, in the face of the Kremlin’s attempt to undermine the integrity of our electoral process,” he said.


But several senior intelligence and administration officials recall it differently.


“It just seemed like it was difficult, especially after the Crimea and the Ukraine ... there still wasn’t a willingness to more heartily engage in the effort,” the former intelligence officer said.


In one particularly frustrating instance, officials said, they reiterated a longstanding desire to shut down thetwo Russian dachas in Maryland and New York. Amid escalating tensions, it was often presented as a way to send a message to Moscow.


“For quite some time, it was an active option. Secretary Kerry refused to consider it,” the former NSC official said. “We were getting pushback from the head of the agency being harassed. That was a constant frustration.”


Former Secretary of State John Kerry was overseas and unavailable for comment. But a former senior State Department official, speaking as a representative of Kerry, saw it differently. “Kerry agreed to shut down the dachas, but had not settled on the timing,” the official said.


Tensions finally reached a fever pitch in the summer of 2016. Just days before Russian operatives began releasing troves of stolen DNC emails, a CIA officer under official diplomatic cover was brutally beaten outside the U.S. embassy in Moscow. The officer managed to slip to safety inside the door of the U.S. compound but was immediately evacuated for medical care.


U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials worked frantically to compile retaliatory options for the Obama White House. Despite being presented with several strategies — including more aggressively tailing Russian diplomats in the U.S. — it opted to do nothing immediately.


“There was some real anger,” the formerintelligence officer said. “We weren’t going to mug anybody, but we could at least be more overt in our coverages. We could expel some people, we could do more overt surveillance on people.”


Another former intelligence official put it this way: “The longer we don’t push back, the harder they push.”


Even after the release of emails designed to damage Clinton’s campaign, the White House was reluctant to respond, something that several recently departed Obama-era officials have lamented.


After compiling a list of potential retaliatory options in the summer of 2016 — including kicking out more than 100 Russian diplomats, one official told POLITICO — the pushback from national security agencies was so great and varied, the NSC official said, that for months nothing was done.


“Any of these actions risked a Russian reciprocation,” the former NSC official said. “We were kind of caught in a catch-22.”


After the election, in December, the White House finally announced the expulsion of 35 diplomats and ordered the Kremlin officials out of the two Russian-owned dachas.


But in a further indication of the tensions within the Obama team, Kerry rejected suggestions that he personally break the news of the expulsions and closing of the dachas to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, the former NSC official said. Instead, the job was left to Pat Kennedy, one of Kerry’s undersecretaries.


The former State Department official, speaking for Kerry, said the option of having Kerry communicate the expulsions and closing of the dachas to Lavrov was never discussed. But the former NSC official was unmoved.


“The idea of having Kerry doing it with Lavrov was raised several times and he didn’t want to do it,” the NSC official said.


The expulsions and closing of the dachas were symbolic moves that stung the Kremlin, but for many intelligence officers, it was too little, too late.


While some Obama White House officials privately concede that they, too, wish there had been a more forceful response, others stand by the decisions that were made.


“People at the working level don’t necessarily understand” the full scope of policy implications, one former White House official said.


Now, to the further frustration of some intelligence officers, there is little indication that, for all Trump’s bluster, he’ll be tougher on the Kremlin. In his first months in office, the president has signaled a willingness to work with Moscow on several fronts, and has pushed back hard against his own intelligence community’s assessment that Russia actively worked to elect him to the presidency.


It’s a bitter pill for many who see Trump’s election as the avoidable outcome of years’ worth of counterintelligence failings against Russia.


“They were warned. They underestimated it until it was too late,” the current administration official said of the Obama White House and Russia, with a tinge of bitterness. “They just didn’t know how to deal with the bad guys.”

let's see if any of the usual leftist suspects always jabbering about "defending" everything Trump does can do the same for Obama?


i bet not!

The amusing thing about folks getting excited over this is that the 1st amendment allows free speech. Courts have ruled that it covers more than vocal. Thus, will continue, and unstoppable, unless the US reverts to censorship.

Putin's Puppets are already hard at work casting doubts on our election process; Pelosi, Schumer, Clinton, Schiff, Nadler, Sanders, Cuomo, Maddow, Ocasio-Cortez, and Warren have all said things about the unfairness of our system.

I didn’t see those people on tv this morning ranting and raving about how unfair the Constitution was to him and his enablers. One hour display of madness.

That fat lying bastard made a comment that the Democratic Party was trying to over throw his government, and I suspect there’s enough fucking idiots to believe him. Am I right?

Putin and his oligarchs were quite successful with their political coup, and Moscow Mitch led the way. Originally Posted by Jaxson66

Against my better judgement for asking, what the fuck are you talking about?

Poor j666 - still believes Russian collusion put Trump in the White House an defeated his darlinig H....
There is no getting the fascist DPST narrative out of the head and mind of poor j666


TWK - thanks for an interesting article.

Poor little oeb, has to defend a fat lying bastard who had a Senate trial Whitewashed by the racist pig fuckers in the freedom caucus.

Enjoy the party, the election is soon and no conspiracy theory will stop the facts from being exposed throughout the 2020 election.

Poor little oeb, has to defend a fat lying bastard who had a Senate trial Whitewashed by the racist pig fuckers in the freedom caucus.

Enjoy the party, the election is soon and no conspiracy theory will stop the facts from being exposed throughout the 2020 election. Originally Posted by Jaxson66

poor little jax. brainwashed by the socialists butt benefiting from the bull market padding his retirement by His Regal Majesty the Lord Emperor Donald, Supreme Ruler of the Multiverse.



such ingratitude!

The amusing thing about folks getting excited over this is that the 1st amendment allows free speech. Courts have ruled that it covers more than vocal. Thus, will continue, and unstoppable, unless the US reverts to censorship. Originally Posted by Unique_Carpenter

Which many in the Democrat party are calling for.



While it is tempting to call for censorship of CNN and MSNBC, I would never support such an idea but here is a letter to the editor I found interesting and will give you an idea of what a steady diet of MSNBC and CNN will do to your brain. Writers comments are in blue.



As one who has been closely watching the Senate sham, this is officially the end of our democracy.


And yet here we are watching the nominating process of the Democrat party. One would think that if democracy was over, Trump would have cancelled the event.


We have had a nice run for 244 years, but all good things must come to an end. Our country is now officially a dictatorship.


Funny, I didn't know that dictators allowed themselves to be put on trial.


headed by Donald Trump and abetted by U.S. Senators.


So forget about elections, free speech, free press and all the things that will gradually be taken away as we move forward under our dictator-in-chief's leadership.



What we thought was a near perfect system of checks and balances has been destroyed, and all we can do now is watch and weep.



Did this person not watch the checks and balances we have been under going the past few months?



Our only saving grace could be in the Nov. elections-if Trump still lets them happen. We shall see.


Now I'm asking myself if this is one of those persons who was convinced that Trump was a Manchurian candidate, a puppet of Putin, a Russian asset. I've heard people on MSNBC wondering out loud if Trump will give Alaska to Putin if Putin will help him win AGAIN! But why would he have to give Putin anything if he can just call off the elections? Another idiot suggested that Trump will find a way to shut down the election in California. Why just California? Hell, if he has that kind of power, just shut down the whole damn thing. I think some of you just squirmed a little in your chair, right?


I'm seriously worried for this country with idiots like this and those I see on this board everyday.

You want to know what is worse than Russian Spr adding false info n social media?

The morons who are so stupid as to believe it.

Those fucking pesky Russians.

Putin's Puppets are already hard at work casting doubts on our election process; Pelosi, Schumer, Clinton, Schiff, Nadler, Sanders, Cuomo, Maddow, Ocasio-Cortez, and Warren have all said things about the unfairness of our system. Originally Posted by the_real_Barleycorn

I would have thought they were the real russian agents.