The Crimson Cyclone wrote:LOCK HIM UP

JFLNYC wrote:Last September:

"When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during an interview with MSNBC commentator Chuck Todd.

JFLNYC wrote:I honestly can't decide whether I think Trump et al did something nefarious or they're simply the gang who couldn't shoot straight. Of course it could be both but I really think they're just making things look so bad by their amateur behavior and adamant refusal to even concede the possibility they ever make a mistake.

Josh Marshall at TPM talks about Trump's Razor which he defines as the fact that given any number of explanations for an action, where the Trump Administration is involved, the dumbest possibility is usually the right one.

During the first public Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about Russia’s meddling in the presidential election on Thursday, former FBI special agent Clint Watts explained how Russia and the Trump campaign team up to weaponize fake news.

Asked by Rep. James Lankford (R-OK) about why Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to make more of an effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election than in years past, Watts, who is now a a fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, said, “the answer is very simple and it’s what nobody is really saying in this room.”

“Which is, part of the reason active measures have worked in this U.S. election is because the Commander-in-Chief [Trump] has used Russian active measures at times, against his opponents,” Watts continued.

Watts cited two specific examples from the campaign — one that came from the mouth of Trump’s campaign chairman and one that came from Trump himself.

On August 16, Paul Manafort, who at that time was still Trump’s campaign chairman, was interviewed by CNN’s Jake Tapper and criticized the media’s coverage of the campaign.

Instead of focusing on stories like Trump’s veiled threat about “Second Amendment people” potentially stopping Hillary Clinton, Manafort suggested the media cover more important things.

“You had the NATO base in Turkey being under attack by terrorists,” Marafort said. “You had a number of things that were appropriate to this campaign, were part of what Mr. Trump has been talking about.”

That attack never happened — it was fake news. But as BuzzFeed reported at the time, “several Russian sites [were] quick to report on potential terrorist attacks on NATO bases in Turkey.” Manafort used false information spread by those sites to attack Clinton.

“In late July, Sputnik and RT — both Russian state-controlled media outlets — pointed to a fire near a NATO base in western Turkey as potential sabotage,” the BuzzFeed report continued. “And both sites helped spread the idea — which also was passed along on Twitter by accounts that are both pro-Trump and pro-Russian — that the protests [at the NATO base] in late July were a massive mob attempting to takeover the base.”

During his testimony, Watts noted that Manafort and Trump used the “debunked” Turkey story “as a talking point.” It was recently revealed that Manafort did secret propaganda work on behalf of Putin before working for Trump.

Watts’ second example was Trump using a fake news story to attack Clinton during an October 10 rally in Wilkes-Barre.

“This just came out a little while ago. I have to tell you this,” Trump told the audience, reading from a sheet of paper that he said contained the text of an email written by Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal.

“The attack was almost certainly preventable,” Trump read, alluding to Benghazi. “Clinton was in charge of the State Department… if the GOP wants to raise that as a talking point against her, it is legitimate.”

But Blumenthal never wrote that. An NPR report explains the context:

For Newsweek reporter Kurt Eichenwald, the words Trump read sounded familiar. It turns out they were taken from an article he wrote, which Blumenthal had included in an email. So they were not Blumenthal’s words, but Eichenwald’s.

The misconstrued “email” that Trump was reading had appeared in an article on a Russia-funded website called Sputnik, which has since taken it down…

It’s unclear how Trump obtained the same misinformation that appeared in Sputnik. Eichenwald asks: “Who in the Trump campaign was feeding him falsehoods straight from the Kremlin?”

During his testimony, Watts described the article Trump read as “a fake news story from Sputnik News that disappeared from the internet.”

“He denies the intel from the United States about Russia. He claims that the election could be rigged. That was the number one theme pushed by RT, Sputnik News… all the way up until the election,” Watts continued. “He’s made claims of voter fraud, that President Obama’s not a citizen… So, part of the reason active measures works, and it does today in terms of Trump Tower being wiretapped, is because they parrot the same line.”

Sean Hannity‏ @seanhannity
Today Vladimir Putin said he played no role in the US election… @IngrahamAngle has reaction next #Hannity

WASHINGTON — Vice President Pence cast a tie-breaking Senate vote Thursday to pass legislation that will allow states to withhold federal funds from Planned Parenthood and other health care providers that perform abortions.

The measure, which now goes to President Trump for his signature, dismisses an Obama-era rule banning states from denying federal funds to such organizations.

Pence's vote was needed to break a 50-50 tie. Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska broke with their party, voting against the measure.

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FBI National Press Office