Subject: Re: Attorney, Self-Defense Expert....

Manafort and Flynn were convicted of crimes involving contacts with Russia,

Oh, please. Flynn took a phone call from a Russkie on a beach or something and Mueller fried him for it. Flynn didn't help his case by lying about it.

This is HARDLY the "Trump is colluding with Russia" thing that the democrats insisted was true for years. Manafort's thing was fraud, not national security. And his indictment reeked of "Let's go indict a ham sandwich".

That is, of course, what they could prove. Intelligence (ours) ascertained that the Russians believed they had a source (Flynn) they would be able to use to influence the Felon and his team.

You understand that foreign government people call their counterparts from other countries *all the time* and that it's good they have some kind of relationship, right?

You also provide no links. Here, I will. You're referring to this:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/p....

Now here's where actual journalism comes into play. Somebody would read this and see the Trump photo - in the entire context of the 2016 election - and immediately jump to the conclusion that Russia wanted Trump to win!

The nearly 1,000-page report, the fifth and final one from the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee on the Russia investigation, details how Russia launched an aggressive effort to interfere in the election on Trump's behalf. It says the Trump campaign chairman had regular contact with a Russian intelligence officer and says other Trump associates were eager to exploit the Kremlin's aid, particularly by maximizing the impact of the disclosure of Democratic emails hacked by Russian intelligence officers.

The report is the culmination of a bipartisan probe that produced what the committee called "the most comprehensive description to date of Russia's activities and the threat they posed." The investigation spanned more than three years as the panel's leaders said they wanted to thoroughly document the unprecedented attack on U.S. elections.

The findings, including unflinching characterizations of furtive interactions between Trump associates and Russian operatives, echo to a large degree those of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and appear to repudiate the Republican president's claims that the FBI had no basis to investigate whether his campaign was conspiring with Russia. Trump has called the Russia investigations a "hoax."

That's strong wording.

Except:
https://thehill.com/policy/nat...

The Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday released its long-awaited final report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, marking the end to a sprawling investigation that began in January 2017.

The committee’s main findings run parallel to the conclusions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which found overwhelming evidence of Russia’s efforts to interfere in the election through disinformation and cyber campaigns but found a lack of sufficient evidence that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin to impact the outcome of the 2016 election.

Well, that's certainly different from what the PBS report says!

https://www.intelligence.senat...

Were the Russkies successful? The Committee has seen no evidence that any votes were
changed or that any voting machines were manipulated.^ So no.

Were they definitely trying to help Trump? While the Committee does not know with confidence what Moscow's intentions
were, Russia may have been probing vulnerabilities in voting systems to exploit later.
Alternatively, Moscow may have sought to undermine confidence in the 2016 U.S.
elections simply through the discovery of their activity.

So no.

Most of the rest of that is on the general vulnerability of the US election system both from a technology and an organizational view.

Do bad state actors act like bad state actors? Mr. Daniel told the Committee that by late August 2016, he had already personally
concluded that the Russians had attempted to intrude in all 50 states, based on the extent of the
activity and the apparent randomness of the attempts. "My professional judgment was we have
to work under the assumption that they've tried to go everywhere, because they're thorough,
they're competent, they're good."^^

Yes, they do. Hardly news.

Who did the Russkies think was going to win? Trump? The declassified, January 6, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment also
highlighted preparations related to voter fraud, noting that Russian diplomats "were prepared to
publicly call into question the validity of the results" and that "pro-Kremlin hloggers had
prepared a Twitter campaign, #Dcmoci acyRIP, on election night in anticipation of Secretary
Clinton's victory, judging from their social media activity."-''^

NOPE.

So that's volume 1. What does Volume 2 have for us?
https://www.intelligence.senat...

Oh, here we go: , The Committee found, that the IRA sought to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential
election by harming Hillary Clinton's chances of success and supporting Donald Trump
at the direction of the Kremlin.

But the Kremlim thought Hillary! was going to win. This Finding merely supports the notion that the Russians wanted chaos. Thanks to the democrats, they got it!

What else? What did the Russians want?
Analysis of the behavior of the IRA-associated social media accounts makes dear
that while the Russian information warfare campaign exploited the context of the election
and election-related issues in 2016, the preponderance of the operational focus, as
reflected repeatedly in content, account names, and audiences targeted, was on sociapy
divisive issues-such as race, immigration, and Second Amendment rights-in an
attempt to pit Americans against one another and against their government. The
Committee found that IRA influence operatives consistently used hot-button, societal
divisions in the United States as fodder for the content they published through social
media in order to stoke anger, provoke outrage and protest, push Americans further away
from one another, and foment distrust in government institutions.

One word. Chaos. They got it, didn't they?

What else? The Russkies were riling up anyone they could:
The IR.A's trolls monitored societal divisions and were poised to pounce when new
events provoked societal discord. For example, a former IRA troll interviewed by the Guardian
in 2015 descriued his focus on race-related issues: "When there were black people rioting in the
U.S. we had to write that U.S. policy on the black community had failed, Obama's
administration couldn't cope with the problem, the situation is getting tenser. The negroes are
rising up." 115

Again, chaos.
And now we get to the good stuff:
) The overwhelming majority of the content disseminated by the IRA did not express
· clear support for one presidential candidate or another. Instead, and often within the context of
the election or in reference to a candidate, most IRA content discreetly messaged. narratives of
disunity, discontent, hopelessness, and contempt of others, all aimed at sowing societal division.

And their plan worked to a T. The entire democrat party fell for it.

Volume 3 is about the government's preparedness.

Volume 4 is about answering Obama's request for intel.

Volume 5 is about Russia trying to influence Trump. Let's dive in.

First, Manafort:
Manafort hired and worked increasingly closely with a Russian national, Konstantin
Kilimnik. Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer. Kilimnik became an integral part of
Manafort's operations in Ukraine and Russia, serving as Manafort's primary liaison to Deripaska
and eventually managing Manafort's office in Kyiv. Kilimnik and Manafort formed a close and
lasting relationship that endured to the 2016 U.S. elections. and beyond.

So Manafort was doing work for some oligarch and offered to leak Trump's campaign polling. They don't know why he did that.
The Committee found that Manafort's presence on the Campaign at;td proximity to
Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and
acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign. Taken as a whole, Manafort's highlevel access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the
Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska,
represented a grave counterintelligence threat.

The committee thought that Manafort was willing to blab to the Russkies.

Who did the Russians think would win? Hillary!:
The Committee found that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian
effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak
information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president. Moscow's intent was
to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton presidential administration, help the
Trump Campaign after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the
U.S. democratic process.

So by "helping" Trump they were out to weaken the person they thought was going to win.

The Trump Tower meeting
The Committe~ found evidence suggesting that it was the 'i~tent of the Campaign
· participants in the June 9, 2016 meeting, particularly Dortald Trump Jr., to receive derogatory
information that would be of benefit to the Campaign from a soui:ce known, at least by Trump
Jr.,. to have connections to the Russian government. The Committee found no reliable evidence
that information of benefit to the Campaign was transmitted at the meeting, or that thencandidate Trump had foreknowledge of the meeting. Participants on both 0
sides of the meeting
were ultimately disappointed with how it transpired....was nothing.

Did the Trump team know who they were dealing with? The Committee found no evidence that the meeting participants from
the Campaign were aware of this Russian influence operation when accepting the meeting or
participating in it. No.

What about the hapless Papadopoulos?
The Committee further found that Papadopoulos' s efforts introduced him to several
individuals that raise counterintelligence concerns, due to their associations with individ4als
from hostile foreign governments as well as actions these individuals undertook. The Committee
assesses that Papadopoulos was not a witting cooptee of the Russian intelligence services, but
nonetheless presented a prime intelligence target and potential vector for malign Russian
influence. Nothing there.

Carter Page
The Committee found no evidence that Page made any substantive contribution to
the Campaign or ever met Trump

Nothing there. Glad the FBI violated the sh1t out of his 4th Amendment rights.

Here's where Flynn comes in:
Russia took advantage of members of the Transition Team's relative inexperience in
government, opposition to Obama Administration policies, arid Trump's desire to deepen ties
with Russia to pursue unofficial channels through which Russia could conduct
diplomacy. Russia was not alone in these efforts-U .S. allies and adversaries also sought

inroads with the Transition. The existence of a cadre of informal advisors to the Transition
Team with varying levels of access to the President-elect and varying awareness of foreign
affairs presented attractive targets for foreign influence, creating notable counterintelligence
vulnerabilities. The lack of vetting of foreign interactions by Transition officials left the
Transition open to influence and manipulation by foreign intelligence services, government
officials, and co-opted business executives.

Exactly as I said.

And lastly, on the Steele dossier:
Regarding the Steele Dossier, FBI gave Steele's allegations unjustified credence,
based on an incomplete understanding of Steele's past reporting record. FBI used the Dossier in
a FISA application and renewals and advocated for it to be included in the ICA before taking the
necessary steps to validate assumptions about Steele's credibility. Further, FBI did not
effectively adjust its approach to Steele's reporting once one of Steele's subsources provided
information that raised serious concerns about the source descriptions in the Steele Dossier. The
Corhinittee further found that Steele's reporting lacked rigor and transparency about the quality
of the sourcing.

There you go.

The finding of all 5 volumes summarized, with source links.

The PBS report and in particular this paragraph:
The nearly 1,000-page report, the fifth and final one from the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee on the Russia investigation, details how Russia launched an aggressive effort to interfere in the election on Trump's behalf. It says the Trump campaign chairman had regular contact with a Russian intelligence officer and says other Trump associates were eager to exploit the Kremlin's aid, particularly by maximizing the impact of the disclosure of Democratic emails hacked by Russian intelligence officers.

is extremely misleading, as we can see from the excerpt above.