The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins - New York Observer

[herding cats]

Read what a Jared Kushner owned publication put out today.

The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins

Intelligence Community pushes back against a White House it considers leaky, untruthful and penetrated by the Kremlin

In a recent column, I explained how the still-forming Trump administration is already doing serious harm to America’s longstanding global intelligence partnerships. In particular, fears that the White House is too friendly to Moscow are causing close allies to curtail some of their espionage relationships with Washington—a development with grave implications for international security, particularly in the all-important realm of counterterrorism.

Now those concerns are causing problems much closer to home—in fact, inside the Beltway itself. Our Intelligence Community is so worried by the unprecedented problems of the Trump administration—not only do senior officials possess troubling ties to the Kremlin, there are nagging questions about basic competence regarding Team Trump—that it is beginning to withhold intelligence from a White House which our spies do not trust.

That the IC has ample grounds for concern is demonstrated by almost daily revelations of major problems inside the White House, a mere three weeks after the inauguration. The president has repeatedly gone out of his way to antagonize our spies, mocking them and demeaning their work, and Trump’s personal national security guru can’t seem to keep his story straight on vital issues.

That’s Mike Flynn, the retired Army three-star general who now heads the National Security Council. Widely disliked in Washington for his brash personality and preference for conspiracy-theorizing over intelligence facts, Flynn was fired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for managerial incompetence and poor judgment—flaws he has brought to the far more powerful and political NSC.

http://observer.com/2017/02/donald-trump-administration-mike-flynn-russian-embassy/

I edited the headline for accuracy.

[tblue37]

1. K&R for visibility. nt

[herding cats]

4. I edited the headline so maybe more people might open it.

It's one hell of an article, and I suspect the author is going to be fired soon.

[bucolic_frolic]

18. You never know

His perspective might be supported by some of his sources. Nothing
goes to press without tacit IC approval and a compliant editor???
Dunno.

[avebury]

2. K&R nt

[Achilleaze]

35. K & R

nt

[Stinky The Clown]

3. About the guy who wrote the column:

Remember John Schindler, the conservative talking head, retired NSA spook, and Naval War College professor who briefly went incognito after screenshots of (what appear to be) his penis leaked onto the Internet? While he has since reappeared on Twitter—where he first drew attention for defending domestic spying and criticizing Edward Snowden—he has refused to comment on the mysterious emails, sent to the Naval War College by an unnamed blogger, that prompted the school to place him on leave, and his penis under official investigation.

http://blackbag.gawker.com/the-crazy-emails-that-took-down-nsa-spook-john-schindle-1610203101

This guy indulges in the wish-it-were-so cyberstrongmanbullshit so rampant by right wing assholes we have all encountered on the intertubez. He'd be the perfect freeper or habitué of those other well known (here) but far less important sites.

I'll file this in the "stopped clock correctness" folder's PENDING subfolder.

Or something . . . .

edit to add his mug shot (sorry about the image size):

[herding cats]

7. Yep, but he's been spouting off the about Trump for some time.

It's fun to watch him be attacked on twitter for criticizing this admin and praising/re tweeting the NYT and WaPo. People call him a "libtard" often.

[KittyWampus]

22. To be honest, there's a sizable contingent on the Left who hate all Intelligence gathering

and love traitors like Snowden.

I am not one of them.

And Schindler has been right quite a bit lately. So not a stopped clock.

He's posted that Putin will begin/has begun moving in the Balkans.

I suggest you google "Balkans" and hit the News tab and go down the list.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

38. Snowden is not a traitor.

Not sure what he has to do with the conversation, though.

[truebluegreen]

39. Thank you.

[truebluegreen]

40. ...

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/life-size-bronze-statues-snowden-assange-manning-unveiled-berlin-heroes-lost-freedom-speaking-truth/

I find it telling that Germans--who understand propaganda and police states far better than we do--regard Snowden as a hero, along with Manning and Assange.

[ginnyinWI]

5. Incompetent people running the executive branch.

Let this be a lesson: when the arc swings back to the left, don't just elect people who believe as you do. Elect people who know how to govern!

[WhiteTara]

8. Or at least have the ability to learn

at least how to follow rules.

[ginnyinWI]

10. I think people on the left are more likely

to a) respect the Constitution and the rule of law, and b) believe in good government and the cooperation it takes. Not burn bridges and bully their way to make things happen.

[WhiteTara]

12. Yeah. Concensus takes time

and bullies don't have the patience to work toward the agreement.

I'm going to a meeting of newly fired up people and I am going to suggest that they all buy a copy of Robert's Rules. Most of them are swimming around in the dark and I think that will give them a good boost. I'm also taking VR cards and having Independents register as Democrats. We need to increase our numbers and we need to state our Party with pride. We'll see how it goes.

[genxlib]

32. And c)

Respect the use of facts, science and logic in decision making

[WhiteTara]

6. I wonder why Kushner published

that article. A dig at 45? Seems like there needs to be an ulterior motive in this piece.

[herding cats]

9. The author is a far RWer with a beef against Trump.

I keep waiting for him to get fired from NYO, but so far he's still there.

[WhiteTara]

11. Thanks. It just didn't feel very trumpy family affections.

I would also think the writer is going to be gone soon.

[dae]

14. He may have had enough of Trump hitting on his wife.

[DinahMoeHum]

24. Because Observer-dot-com is NOT Kushner's rag. . .

Kushner's rag on the web ends with "dot-nyc", NOT "dot-com"

[herding cats]

36. I verified it was Kushner's publication with author before posting here.

And, as I pointed out below, Kushner owns all the entities under the Observer Media umbrella.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=8636387

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_Media

[NewJeffCT]

44. when I first saw the article on Facebook

I also checked to see if it was the UK version of the Observer or the NY one related to Kushner and it was the NY one.

[uponit7771]

43. To get pence off the hook... It's full of Pence didn't know-ism's

[Raster]

13. Revenge of the Spooks!

[iluvtennis]

21. yeah, and I love it nt

[Rustynaerduwell]

15. It's a lose-lose situation

The more real information Mr. Trump has, the less safe we are.The less information he has, the less safe we are.

[Duppers]

30. Exactly!

[More_Cowbell]

16. "Since January 20, we've assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the SITROOM"

From a Pentagon official. That's terrifying.

[Duppers]

31. Omd! This is significant.

[ProudProgressiveNow]

17. K&R nt

[Native]

19. Didn't know that the Townley security clearance denial was endorsed by Pompeo

How things are heating up between the White House and the spooks is evidenced by a new report that the CIA has denied a security clearance to one of Flynn’s acolytes. Rob Townley, a former Marine intelligence officer selected to head up the NSC’s Africa desk, was denied a clearance to see Sensitive Compartmented Information (which is required to have access to SIGINT in particular). Why Townley’s SCI was turned down isn’t clear—it could be over personal problems or foreign ties—but the CIA’s stand has been privately denounced by the White House, which views this as a vendetta against Flynn. That the Townley SCI denial was reportedly endorsed by Mike Pompeo, the new CIA director selected by Trump himself, only adds to the pain.

[Native]

20. Obama gave new powers to the spy community Jan 12, 2017 - just saw this on Reddit

Thought it was worth posting here:

–]Ks_resistance [score hidden] 27 minutes ago
Obama gave new powers to the spy community Jan 12, 2017.
He must have had a heads up what was REALLY going on. He was trying to cover us on his way out and we didn't pay attention.
It's almost as if he was giving the spy community a way to legally obtain irrefutable proof via wiretaps, etc that certain people are working against America.
Those that did pay attention put it under the header of taking more of our private rights away.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/01/14/nsas-j14.html

Agencies may be granted access if they intend to use the raw bulk data for foreign intelligence or counterintelligence investigations, and if an American citizen is found to be an agent working for a foreign country. In other words, agencies will use the raw data to spy on foreign individuals across the globe and American citizens in the United States.>

The NYT ran a similar article, but didn't include this information.
As a matter of fact, I've tried to corroborate www.wsws.org take on the whole thing, but there is very little information about it on the internet.
It's almost like even mainstream media didn't want to tip off the incoming administration.
It also may be why Congress has been dragging their feet to do cabinet appointments, as once those appointments are in, Congress has to rely on them to do the right thing.
New CIA director Pompeo blocked one of Sessions people from getting clearance for information.
If you ask me, this is all signs that it's about to really hit the fan.
and geez, it's about time. cuz, like he's been in office like 3 years already, right. No? just feels like it.
TLDR; Obama gave NSA & ALL of spy agencies new rights 1-12-17 to spy on Americans that might be working with Russia. Get the popcorn. edit: update, upon looking it up, it was the very next day 1-13-17 that Congress had the closed door session with FBI director Comey. The one where every Democrat came out of the meeting spitting fire, because of something that was said in the last few minutes of the meeting.
I'm going to speculate that the question might have been "and how long have you been tracking these communists trying to take over our country?"

[herding cats]

34. I'd missed that, thanks for sharing it here.

It's definitely relevant to this conversation.

[DinahMoeHum]

23. People: Observer-dot-com is NOT, repeat, NOT Kushner's rag. . .

On the websites, Kushner's outfit ends with "dot-NYC" NOT "dot-com"

Kushner's NY Observer and the Observer are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ENTITIES.
See for yourself:

Jared Kushner's outfit:
http://www.observer.nyc/

The Observer this thread is about:
http://observer.com/

And here's their masthead. No Jared Kushner here.
http://observer.com/about/

[herding cats]

25. Actually, they're all his.

Observer Media is an American print and online media company.[1][2][3] The company was formed through several acquisitions, including acquisition of the New York Observer in 2007.[4][5][6] Observer Media is based in lower Manhattan, New York City, and is owned by businessman Jared Kushner.[7][8][9] It currently publishes the New York Observer and the Commercial Observer, observer.com and Commercialobserver.com.[10][11] The observer.com site is a consolidation of several notable online properties including The Gallerist, BetaBeat, NY Politicker, and PolitickerNJ.[12][13]

In 2007 Jared Kushner began acquiring and merging several print and online media publications into the Observer brand, including New York Observer, BetaBeat, Gallerist, NY Politicker, SCENE Magazine and PolitickerNJ.[15][16] These acquisitions became integrated into the website observer.com (Gallerist was integrated in September 2014, PolitickerNY in March 2014, BetaBeat in January 2015, and PolitickerNJ in August 2016).[17]

In March 2012 Observer Media launched Commercial Observer, a commercial real estate publication.[18] The organization has since received various awards, including "NAREE's 65th Annual Real Estate Journalism” award,[19] "Best Team Report Silver” award (2013),[20] and "Best Weekly Newspaper Report Silver” award (2014).[21] The Commercial Observer publishes at commercialobserver.com and also publishes weekly print edition.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_Media

[snort]

26. The spooks have my full support.

Get the motherfuckers.

[Grins]

27. Worse than that...

"...questions about basic competence regarding Team Trump—that it is beginning to withhold intelligence from a White House which our spies do not trust..."

It left out friendly foreign intelligence services (MI-6, Mossad, etc.) who are now concerned that any intelligence they share with our FBI/CIA will wind up in the wrong places. One story was the Mossad concerned that information they share with us will wind up in Russian hands, that will, in turn, be given to Iran. They have good cause for such concern.

[herding cats]

33. Yes, that's another factor.

I previously warned the Trump administration not to go to war with the nation’s spies, and here’s why. This is a risky situation, particularly since President Trump is prone to creating crises foreign and domestic with his incautious tweets. In the event of a serious international crisis of the sort which eventually befalls almost every administration, the White House will need the best intelligence possible to prevent war, possibly even nuclear war. It may not get the information it needs in that hour of crisis, and for that it has nobody to blame but itself.

This scenario he mentions above is a very real possibility now.

[Alice11111]

41. I'm not sure which is scarier...given what we know about the FBI and CIA...Trump without IC or with?

He is so stupid that he started bragging about what he knew after his first mini briefing as a candidate. He favored Flynn who Obama got rid of. He was bragging as a candidate that he had his own sources who knew more, presumably Gulianni's NYC FBI connections and Flynn's. He or his incompetent staff will misuse any info he gets or feed it to Putin. As much as I despise Ryan and Turtleman, who are evil, I suppose it's better to have pence or one of them than DT. Pence may go down with Flynn. Otherwise, he will pick his VP. I think DT will sacrifice Flynn fast to try and stop the investigation, just as he has others. Anyway, right now, Bannon is the brain.
My guess is it is probably better to withhold info from the administration as there are too many crazies and leak sources. Plus, a shakeup is surely coming. DT is so dangerously crazy though, we really need this guy out. Like the Feds used to take out Mafia figures on tax evasion, that could be the way to go. I think that everyone knows something on everyone else, and it's keeping the rats quiet, for a while. When the dam breaks though....

[DippyDem]

28. I very much doubt that the Repigs will get the point of the story

and that Jared Kushner owns the paper.

[vlyons]

29. Well you have to know that the IC has their own spies INSIDE the WH

From long-term non-political admin staff to housekeeping staff. There has to be at least a few that talk to IC operatives.

[Turn CO Blue]

37. Theres not much the Russians dont know at this point, the official added in wry frustration.

Wow!

[Bucky]

42. let's just stop and think about how dangerous this all is.

I'm sympathetic to anyone who has to deal with Trump and his idiot minions as their supervisors. On the other hand, a country's spy services getting into a beef with its elected leaders is a dangerous precedent