Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Putins Chekist Cover Has Been Blown
I never expected to get two Watergates in one lifetime! What an embarrassment of riches. It couldn't happen to a more deserving band of brigands.
And now, some John Schindler:
Putin’s Chekist Cover Has Been Blown
Monday’s marathon Congressional session about Moscow’s clandestine machinations during our 2016 election was one for the books. The directors of the FBI and NSA hardly ever speak jointly in open session, so this was a truly special event, and what they had to say rocked American politics.
Nevertheless, the most interesting statement made by Director Comey on Monday concerned what exactly the Russians were up to in 2016. “They were unusually loud in their intervention,” Comey said when asked by Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen about novel Kremlin spy machinations last year during our election campaign: “It’s almost as if they didn’t care that we knew.”
It’s an important fact that, when Moscow dispatched hackers to pillage Democratic emails last June, they employed groups that were already well known to Western security services as fronts for Kremlin spy agencies. Subtle, this was not. Someone in Moscow—presumably Vladimir Putin—wanted us to know who was doing the dirty work.
Just as unsubtle was the Kremlin’s use of Wikileaks to disseminate those purloined emails to hurt Democrats. Since Wikileaks has served as a front for Russian intelligence since at least mid-2013—as was glaringly obvious to anyone acquainted with Kremlin espionage and propaganda techniques—here, too, someone at the top in Moscow wanted us to be aware of who was pulling the strings.
At every stage of their secret operation to influence our 2016 election, Russian spymasters could have used more subtle methods—for instance employing clean hackers who were unknown to Western counterspies or putting stolen emails online on a fresh new website—yet chose not to. This smacks of bravado and more than a little confidence that Washington would do little if anything to push back against Moscow—an assessment that proved sadly accurate.
Monday’s marathon Congressional session about Moscow’s clandestine machinations during our 2016 election was one for the books. The directors of the FBI and NSA hardly ever speak jointly in open session, so this was a truly special event, and what they had to say rocked American politics.
Nevertheless, the most interesting statement made by Director Comey on Monday concerned what exactly the Russians were up to in 2016. “They were unusually loud in their intervention,” Comey said when asked by Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen about novel Kremlin spy machinations last year during our election campaign: “It’s almost as if they didn’t care that we knew.”
It’s an important fact that, when Moscow dispatched hackers to pillage Democratic emails last June, they employed groups that were already well known to Western security services as fronts for Kremlin spy agencies. Subtle, this was not. Someone in Moscow—presumably Vladimir Putin—wanted us to know who was doing the dirty work.
Just as unsubtle was the Kremlin’s use of Wikileaks to disseminate those purloined emails to hurt Democrats. Since Wikileaks has served as a front for Russian intelligence since at least mid-2013—as was glaringly obvious to anyone acquainted with Kremlin espionage and propaganda techniques—here, too, someone at the top in Moscow wanted us to be aware of who was pulling the strings.
At every stage of their secret operation to influence our 2016 election, Russian spymasters could have used more subtle methods—for instance employing clean hackers who were unknown to Western counterspies or putting stolen emails online on a fresh new website—yet chose not to. This smacks of bravado and more than a little confidence that Washington would do little if anything to push back against Moscow—an assessment that proved sadly accurate.
6 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Moreover, the Kremlin managed to convince millions of gullible Americans that the thief and defector Edward Snowden, who has lived in Russia since mid-2013 under the protection of Putin’s thuggish FSB, is actually an American patriot and defender of civil liberties. People dumb enough to buy that Moscow lie might fall for anything Putin threw out there, no matter how absurd.
Guilty as charged.
