Louise Mensch: the former British MP who scooped the US media on DT/Russia ties

[pnwmom]

This is her blog:

https://patribotics.wordpress.com


This is the article about her in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/17/louise-mensch-trump-russia-ties-media-scoop?CMP=twt_gu

On the eve of the November election, Mensch published a sensational story reporting that a special intelligence court in Washington had granted a warrant to allow the FBI to conduct surveillance of “US persons” in an investigation of possible contacts between Russian banks and the Trump organisation.

At the time, the story did not cause much of a ripple. It was published on Heat Street, a libertarian-leaning website run by News Corp, and an unknown quantity in journalism. So was Mensch, whose recent public profile consisted mainly of a string of angry Twitter spats.

Meanwhile, the combined investigative forces of the US media had spent months seeking to prove a secret connection between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin and had come up with very little.

SNIP


However, it seems increasingly clear that Mensch landed an extraordinary scoop that had eluded the best investigative journalists in the US. Her explanation is that her vocal advocacy on behalf of UK and US intelligence agencies since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations about mass surveillance led her sources to trust her.

“They gave me one of the most closely guarded secrets in intelligence,” she said in a telephone interview. “People are speculating why someone trusted me with that. Nobody met me in a darkened alley in a fedora, but they saw me as someone who has political experience and is their friend. I am a pro-national security partisan. I don’t have divided loyalties.”

SNIP

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Very interesting woman. thanks for posting. . . nt

[CousinIT]

2. Hmmm...

Link to tweet

[Denzil_DC]

4. Indeed.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[melman]

11. Yeah

Louise Mensch, the Tory MP turned rightwing editor of Rupert Murdoch's Heat Street is supposed to be some big hero now?

I don't think so.

[pnwmom]

12. She's not a hero. But she scooped the NYTimes, the BBC, the WA Post, and others.

And she was a strong Hillary supporter in 2016, whatever her British politics were.

[triron]

13. knr

[Denzil_DC]

14. She's worth paying attention to on the issues around Trump/Russia at the moment

because she's #nevertrump and is part of a long UK tradition of antagonism toward Russia that goes back to the Cold War.

She attributes her ability to ferret out information to ADHD, and she's built up some contacts who've served her well recently.

Inasmuch as her agenda overlaps with ours at the moment, she may be a temporary ally.

But she's volatile and often flakey, sometimes given to conspiracy theories that, unlike the current ones, have little basis in reality - and also extremely rightwing and at times has been an absolutely vile social media bully, so it's as well to beware.

We know her of old in the UK.

[pnwmom]

15. In the spirit of "the enemy of my enemy . . . "

She may be an ally, as you say, for the time being.

[Denzil_DC]

16. Yup. But as I said, beware.

Here's Mensch on Twitter in a more ... er ... lively phase not so long ago:

I want precision bombing raids. Bank hacks. Massive cyber war. Russia is a paper bear cub let @Potus show Putin what alpha means https://t.co/gLXbjHxKvi

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) December 10, 2016

Putin should, in my view, be completely removed by the USA, by any means necessary. Regime change in Russia. Flex American muscle. https://t.co/YDlflTEeZX

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) January 5, 2017

She's since deleted those tweets for some reason, but they live on in Google's cache.

ETA: DOH! DU messes up any URL that includes a tweet URL nowadays, even if it's embedded. Just Google any phrases from those two tweets and the cached version comes up in the top four or five results.

And then there was the time ...

Louise Mensch blames Corbyn supporters for anti-Semitism - turns out it's her own offensive search history

Former Conservative MP Louise Mensch has faced widespread ridicule after accusing Jeremy Corbyn supporters of anti-Semitism - over Twitter searches that turned out be her own.

Ms Mensch posted a series of screenshots showing what she said were autocompleted twitter searches alongside the name of Mr Corbyn’s fellow Labour leadership contender, Liz Kendall.

The supposedly autocompleted phrases alongside the @lizforleader handle included “nazi” and “Zionist”, which Mensch implied was the work to Corbyn’s supporters.

However, twitter users were quick to point out that Twitter doesn’t quite work that way and that, in fact, Mensch must have searched the phrases herself.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/louise-mensch-blames-corbyn-supporters-for-anti-semitism-turns-out-its-her-own-offensive-search-10466928.html

I could go on.

She's built up a decent reputation recently on the back of one particular scoop thanks to informants. But she could go off the rails again at any point, and nobody here should go with her.

[pnwmom]

17. Thanks!

[herding cats]

20. Oh, dear, that Corbin article.

That's actually quite funny! How embarrassing for her, and I hope she's learned how cache works since then.

[herding cats]

18. I agree.

I've been keeping up with her writings for a bit now. She's interesting due to her scoop, but she's also someone I read with a critical eye. Her previous scoop was due to a leak which lead her to the correct conclusion. With the current volume of leaks, she may no longer be relevant in the big picture. Time will tell, but there's no harm keeping an eye on her for the moment.

I'm fine with her attempts to fill in the blanks, and she does appear to despise Trump and Putin's connections. We just need to remember she's also conservative, and at times at least a bit of a reactionary who goes off the rails on occasion.

[DURHAM D]

3. She also tracks flights of private jets i.e. Russian oligarchs, etc.

She has reported some suspicious flights to airports near Trump events.

[Cha]

5. She sounds like a mensch

[Amaryllis]

6. She;s got Jason Chaffetz involved in the plot, too. No wonder he doesnt want to investigate

This from the link to her blog you provided:
From start to finish, Russia manipulated the Director of the FBI into sending his letter – which Jason Chaffetz leaked, by arrangement with the Trump camp, I believe, in order directly to swing the election to Donald Trump, Putin’s puppet.

[nikibatts]

7. Now that is what I have been saying since January.

[triron]

8. The plot between Trump et al, the Russians, and the FBI

seems like Alice in Wonderland nightmare

[Amaryllis]

9. I was just thinking I have woken up in a John LeCarre novel.

[anneboleyn]

19. Seriously-"there's a mole at the top of the circus...he's been there for years..."

[triron]

10. kick for visibility

[Tommy_Carcetti]

21. I remember the story at the time. But with the timing (the day before the election).....

....and the fact I had not heard of the source where the story was published, I honestly wrote it off as the left wing version of fake news. (By that I mean real "fake news" as in the random stuff that crazy friend on Facebook always shares on his feed, not "fake news" like what Trump refers to any legitimate news that's not favorable to him)

Turns out the story appears to be legit. Looks like I was wrong.

Kudos to Ms. Mensch.