Archives for October 2018

Day 632 Wednesday October 10, 2018    949 Days to Go

Two Events made me start writing these screeds: one was the loss of Hillary Clinton and the other was an article published on Halloween 2016 in Slate. The article was entitled “Was a Trump Server Communicating with Russia?”

You don’t have to be any kind of techie genius to conclude that there was a server communicating with a server in Russia. It passes “the reasonable person” test. That is to say “A reasonable person would conclude …”

In fact, there is no other explanation. All others have been eliminated as implausible. As implausible as, “Yeah, well, it could have been aliens from Mars or Pluto, but that’s highly unlikely.” 

This article led me to believe that Trump (and by that I mean someone and mostly likely several people including Trump himself) were communicating with Russians.

Now there are those who will say, “there is no proof.” There is proof. That it was faked is not likely to impossible. That it was a conspiracy to make it appear that way is also near impossible. Besides, why would a conspiracy be doing something to make it look like something nefarious in such a way that they would not be caught? That it was really scanning of old archival data that sent out data pings. Really? Well then two organizations had the exact same type of archival data scan problems at the exact same time, and were communicating with the Trump server: one was the Russian server and the other was a server owned and operated by a Betsy DeVos company, Spectrum Health.

Additionally, the kind of traffic and the timestamps eliminate it as an automatic email blast type program. It had the footprint of human communication. It happened in bursts of pings, then quieted down, then flared up again. This was likened to a criminal enterprise that needed some top level direction and didn’t want to get caught.

A new article in The New Yorker picks up the trail – two years later. There are a few other things that point to human interaction and collusion between Trump, the Russians, and The Betsy DeVos company. Also, there is some odd behavior by The New York Times (the failing New York Times!) that Mr. Trump should thank them for, because had it not been for that, and the FBI in yet another case of interference in the election, it is unlikely that Trump would have won the narrow victory that he did.

Where to begin?

Let’s start with the evidence of human interaction. The Russian bank, Alfa-Bank, is tied tightly to Putin. The two running it are not in Putin’s inner circle, but have steered their enterprise in such a way that they have not been thrown in jail and had their assets seized like other oligarchs. This says something about their ability to function within Russia, because it is conceded that no enterprise in Russia functions without Putin’s blessing. 

“Banks” in Russia aren’t like banks anywhere else. They are extensions of the government and the oligarchs that run the country. There purpose is to help the oligarchs get ill gotten gains out of the country and into the west where their money is safer. One such avenue is via The Bank of Cyprus where Wilbur Ross was on the board of directors until it became known and he gave up the title. But not before transferring the stock to others in his family so he could claim he didn’t own any of it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Don McGahn, White House Counsel, came from a white shoe DC law firm that has as a client Alfa Bank. There are half a dozen lawyers that McGahn brought over from that firm to work in the White House, and another half dozen are sprinkled throughout the government. Additionally, the lawyer in charge of the criminal division of the FBI was the lawyer that defended Alfa Bank when these suspicions were originally raised.

There’s more. The Dutch lawyer who served time for lying to the FBI in relation to the Russia collusion probe that Mueller is conducting is married to the daughter of one of the founders of Alfa Bank.

By the way the rise of Alfa Bank is a rags to riches story that would make Donald seem handed everything, which he was, and managed to screw it up. The founder started out with a window washing service, bought a bakery, and now is the second richest man in Russia. (I skipped a few intermediate steps.)

Does any of this prove that Trump et al colluded? No.

But I’ve only laid out some of the background.

The reporter for the NYT approached Alfa Bank’s lawyers with their evidence; two days later the Trump server stopped working. The only way that could happen was via communication, human communication. 

The reporter also was approached by the FBI and they said they were already looking into the connection between Russians and Trump and asked the paper not to publish as it could upset their investigation. The reporter felt he had a duty to report this to the public. His boss disagreed.  Harry Reid implored the FBI to say what they knew – before the 2016 election. Everyone kept silent and Trump got elected. Well, that’s not exactly true, The New York Times did run an article about it, but the headline suggested that Trump had been investigated and there was no evidence of collusion. You would have had to read the article carefully to see that the real story was there was some questionable stuff. 

Trump has the FBI, Jim Comey, and The New York Times to thank for his being elected.

The New Yorker article gives some more details about what might have been going on with those servers. Three organizations were involved: Alfa-Bank, The Trump Organization, and Spectrum Health, which is the DeVos company. The activity is human communication. It is not machine. It is not spam, or some old archive being rescanned and sending out an errant email. It is not email because that would have left more digital timestamps. It appears to be the use of existing software from a previously used system. 

The reporter on the New Yorker story called it “foldering.” The idea being that you could write an email for someone, save it in a draft folder and never send it. Then another person who knew the login id and password could go into the same system and look at the draft email and leave another draft email as a response. This would leave fewer timestamps and fingerprints. This is exactly what Paul Manafort got put in jail for. He was using this method to communicate with witnesses in his upcoming trial. He ended up incarcerated because of it.

The other possibility is some kind of instant messaging system built within existing software. The software that Trump organization used when they were using the server for email marketing blasts had such a feature.

Regardless of what system they were actually using to communicate Alfa Bank, the Trump organization, and the DeVos’ Spectrum Health were talking to each other.

Oh yes, there was collusion. There is no doubt about that.

Was it illegal?

This brings us back to “the reasonable person test.”

If it wasn’t illegal why did they go to such lengths to hide it? To then cover it up? And then to make excuses that don’t stand up? Why did they and their lawyers lie?

The conclusion is obvious. It was illegal and they knew it. These are crimes. They should all be in jail.

 949 Days to Go

PS The handoff

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/15/was-there-a-connection-between-a-russian-bank-and-the-trump-campaign

Day 631 Tuesday October 9, 2018    950 Days to Go

Another day another bunch of evidence that the president of the United States, his family members, other members of his team and the Republicans colluded with the Russian and obstructed justice. I know. You’re shocked and surprised. Make America Great Again by Colluding with the Enemy and Taking Money from Foreign Powers. MAGACETMFP!

There is apparently more evidence forthcoming from new accusers of Brett Kavanaugh, but that’s getting ahead of things a bit – maybe. Currently, we can witness the Republican victory lap about shoving a lying drunk and abuser of women onto the Supreme Court. Hey, wait, I’m being unfair. He’s a nice guy. He’s a nice guy like Hobby Lobby has nice people working there. So what if they can’t get certain health benefits? So what if the head of the firm has been on the forefront of many a lawsuit to discriminate against women? So what if he backs a museum that pushes fantasies as fact?

In the wake of the Kavanaugh confirmation there has been commentary about the Republican party, by recovering Republicans. The party they used to support and no longer can. The comments in that regard are sad and disturbing, but reflect a sense of where that party is now. These people say they left the Republican party because it was bereft of ideas; that it was all negative thoughts and attacks set on destroying. That the party had no ideas, no respect for facts, and that they had abandoned the principles and ideas that had originally drawn them to the party. Not only that but there is a meanness, and a lack of civility and empathy that they could not abide.

Oh well. So yesterday we learned that Devin Nunes, unofficial lapdog of the White House, is releasing some of the testimony that his short lived Russia investigation held. You remember they didn’t find any collusion so they shut down the investigation. They also didn’t look for any collusion and we now know that if there was any lead or whiff of collusion Nunes made sure not to follow up on it and went out of his way to block those efforts.

To semi-quote Jennifer Aniston’s restaurant boss in the movie Office Space where he is talking to her about how much bling she is wearing on her suspenders, “I’m not saying you were colluding with the Russians. I’m just saying you’re doing the minimum.” Hell, Devin you ain’t even doing the minimum. 

Nunes isn’t releasing the testimony of Comey, and two intel guys, which probably makes sense in that their stuff could be damaging to national security, but he isn’t releasing the testimony of two Congress people either. “As a professional courtesy,” he claims. One is Debbie Wasserman Shultz who  says she’s fine with releasing her testimony. The other is Dana Rohrabacher. A Republican who has been called Putin’s favorite Congressman and whom Republican whip Kevin McCarthy said the Congressman was being paid by the Russians. He was joking, but it does illustrate how deeply Mr. Rohrabacher appears to be in league with the Russians. 

If we got to see Rohrabacher’s testimony we would apparently learn that when he went on trips he just happened to run into highly placed Russians. Pure coincidence! No Collusion! Really? What are the odds? Like what are the odds the Eric Prince went to the Seychelles for some business reason yet to be stated and ran into a Russian at a bar and they just happened to discuss how the Russians could help Trump get elected and how the Trump folks could set up a back channel to Russia? Now, of course, Trump doesn’t need much of a back channel he just meets with Putin with no other American in the room for hours at a time. It probably takes Putin that long to explain to Donald what he wants him to do next.

Ho hum, then there’s Rick Gates. He’s back in the news. Turns out the Trump election team is an equal opportunity colluder. Not only were they trying to work with the Russians; they were working with the Israelis. It was an Israeli company filled with ex-MOSAD agents that offered their services to  the Trump election team. Nothing much, just setting up false accounts to influence Republican delegates to vote for Trump. Not only would they set up phony accounts and personas. They’d have people call the delegates. They realized it probably wouldn’t look good if it was Israelis making the calls so they proposed hiring U.S. citizens to do the dirty work. Gates let three RFPs for such services.

Oh yeah then there’s a little tidbit that I have to say it’s amazing how Trump can make it all about himself. He’s making the claim that his mocking Dr. Ford turned the nomination for Kavanaugh around and “he sailed through” after that. Republicans are now jumping up and down claiming that the Democrats treated Kavanaugh so unfairly. They were so mean! They made Brett cry. Aw, why would they do that? Let’s see. Kavanaugh lied under oath – repeatedly. He insulted Senators. He said he would exact retribution when he got confirmed. He claimed there was a partisan conspiracy out to get him and offered nothing to back up such a claim. Yet, the Republicans claim the Dems were unfair. Kavanaugh and the Republicans ought to know; they’ve done the heavy lifting when it comes to unfair, demeaning, baseless accusation and investigation. 

Let’s not forget that it was Kavanaugh while on the Starr Whitewater investigation that wanted the most salacious details of the Clinton/Lewinsky affair, that had nothing to do with a bust land deal fourteen years before. It was Orrin Hatch that asked for the details on that business yet now has the temerity to say the Dems acted unfairly toward weepy BK.

I hope that after the election a proper investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh will be carried out, if for no other reason then to clear the name of the FBI from being a tool of the Republicans in their whitewash of Kavanaugh’s behavior. I also hope that we’ll be able to see the thousands of pages of documents that Chuck Grassely forbade the Senators from seeing about Kavanaugh’s time in the White House when he said he had nothing to do with the White House torture campaign under W, but those in the room at the time said he had plenty to do with it. I want it just to clear his name mind you; I mean I’m sure Ted Cruz and Orrin Hatch wouldn’t want such terrible allegations hanging over Kavanaugh’s head for the next forty years that he’ll sit on the bench.

I got to wonder what Roberts is thinking. How is he going to handle this guy? Kavanaugh has no courtroom experience as a lawyer. Will Ginsberg and Kagan have to explain to him how judicial proceedings work? Or will that fall to Alito? 

Oh yes, the district court where Kavanaugh sat for the last twelve years, the guy in charge there is forwarding the complaints, of which there were many about Kavanaugh, to Justice Roberts. I’d like to know why none of that came out in Kavanaugh’s hearing!

There is so much that is wrong in our country now. I no longer have the sense that “We are all in this together.” How can we be? We can’t agree on the basic facts. There is a culture of hate and belittlement, of falsehood and blame. It is tearing us apart.

 950 Days to Go

PS Bleah!