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Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

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Re: Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

#151

Post by krapp »

merpnderp wrote: post #106
krapp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Isn't the larger issue that the DNC, Podesta, and Clinton did and said things that weren't aligned with their public statements? No, the larger issue would still be a foreign power attempting to influence an American election by illegal means. That doesn't actually stop becoming illegal or an issue of national security because one doesn't like the party being targeted.

It is mind boggling to me that people are shocked at this. It has been going on for decades, going back to at least the time the USSR tried to help Kennedy win the election. What happened was expected at every election, it's on the DNC and FBI for not protecting their servers. Never mind the joke being on the Russians as Trump is turning out to be several times tougher on them than Hillary would likely have been, eve…

>Never mind the joke being on the Russians as Trump is turning out to be several times tougher on them than Hillary would likely have been, even going so far as to start threatening their European gas pipelines.

That's odd. During the campaign, I distinctly remember Hillary being described as an insane bloodthirsty war hawk who was going to plunge us into World War 3 against Russia at the first opportunity, and Trump as the reasonable man who understood Russia and just wanted to do business.

Re: Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

#152

Post by tw04 »

mkempe wrote: post #142
tw04 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? And you know this how? Just because the Chinese or Russian government's don't make a public spectacle, doesn't mean they haven't indicted US citizens for espionage. I'm willing to bet there's more than one US government employee who would be arrested the second they cleared customs in one or both of those countries.

Your argument might have at least some weight if it didn't rely on super-secret, invisible gremlins.

Based on your post history, I can't tell if you're a troll or actually believe what you're saying, but 30 seconds on google would alleviate you of your ignorance.

This has ALREADY HAPPENED. Russia has enticed people they secretly indicted on spy charges back to Russia, and then stuck them in prison.

https://abcnews.go.com/WN/russian-spies-swap-cold-home/story...

Re: Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

#153

Post by myko »

anfedorov wrote: post #144
myko wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it overboard to consider Paul Manafort a Russian asset? He seems to have influenced Trump and his governing style pretty drastically. I don't think anything in my comment was particularly inflammatory.

I haven't read all the indictments and so might be wrong, but at this point I think it would be speculation. Time will almost certainly tell for sure. The wikipedia definition of the term seems easy to agree on — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_(intelligence)

Manafort's actions in Ukraine paint him as a Russian asset in my mind (http://time.com/5003623/paul-manafort-mueller-indictment-ukr...). You're correct that this doesn't prove he was acting on behalf of Russia when he offered to work on Trump's campaign for free though. That is speculation on my part, but seems fairly likely.

Re: Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

#154

Post by cmurf »

Rod Rosenstein said he briefed the president that this indictment was coming today. The president chose today to attack, from Buckinghamshire, Mueller and the probe as a rigged witch hunt yet again. The White House statement amounts to "it proves we did nothing, Americans weren't involved" but no statement pushing back on Russia at all. No condemnation at all.

But this is from a president who has said about Putin:

"He said he didn't meddle. He said he didn't meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times"

"Every time he sees me, he says, 'I didn't do that"

"And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it."

"I think he is very insulted by it."

The timing of this indictment is obvious to probably most people, but in particular to people who have studied or are professionals in international relations - it is to give the president the option to cancel the meeting in Helsinki. To give him the option to recalibrate and criticize Putin.

But instead what we've got so far is more "witch hunt" paranoid conspiratorial nonsense which is identical to the single public contribution of significance Trump produced before becoming president: five years of the racist lie of birtherism, followed by an admission otherwise while simultaneously lying again by blaming Clinton for having started the conspiracy. This is a man who will make up anything, do anything, lie about anything, and blame anyone for all of it without any reluctance whatsoever.

And it will continue that way.

Re: Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

#155

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

18pfsmt wrote: post #146
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good example of unethical can be seen by reading Clinton's leaked Wall Street speeches where her private options is wildly different than her public. Unethical that while the DNC is well within their right to push the candidate most likely to win, their public impression of fair voting was not at all that to Bernie supporters. Nor did the DNC disclose just how much the Clinton campaign was funding operations before…

>unethical would be the private email server set up to push unecrypted backups Running one's own email server is not unethical, in fact, many on HN do just that. I can't say I've ever seen the allegation about "unecrypted backups," but I'm not sure of the relevance in any case. Care to elaborate (and cite)? >Not to mention sending classified materials to Anthont Wiener's laptop, and generally mishandling classified i…

Wow. Dude, how many of the HN people are running their own servers in order to bypass FOIA compliance at the State Department?

Yes, I do know how IMAP works. Why were classified files being forwarded to Wiener's laptop? He didn't have clearance for that information to be on his computer. Do you know how security clearance and handing of classified documents work?

I'm trying not to be aggressive with you, but man, that was some flimsy argument there.

Re: Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

#156

Post by dragonwriter »

he0001 wrote: post #136
update wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." It seems like a no-brainer that an enemy force (Russia in this instance) would want to disarm the people they plan to attack/control. The OP asked what I'd expect from a Russian Agent as President, and that's what I'd expect one of the first steps to be. I _wouldn't_ expect a russian agent who became president of the U…

You don't need to invade a country to conquer it.

And, moreover, you don't need to conquer it (with out without invasion) to destabilize it and reduce it's influence as a geopolitical rival.

Re: Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

#157

Post by cmurf »

jdoliner wrote: post #85
dragonwriter wrote: post #66

Replying to an unfortunately killed comment which raised common, potentially legitimate (given the success of various spin efforts) though naive and poorly informed questions: > Just checking... But in the Russian Hacking Scandal... Was any of the information released to the public wrong or fake? It's the Russian election meddling scandal, the hacking was just one piece of it, and, yes, much of the information fed to…

> It's not; the issue is that a US Presidential campaign actively collaborated in an influence operation by a hostile foreign power directed against the US That's a bold claim given that this indictment is exclusively of Russian agents and the special counsel has explicitly stated that said President is not a target of the probe [0]. When you say "active collaboration" what does that actually mean? And could you pres…

The president is a subject of the probe, which is the ambiguous position of possibly being a witness or eventually becoming a target.

As for active collaboration? The DAG Rod Rosenstein told Trump these indictments were coming and their nature. And today Trump decides not to push back on Putin/Russia for these actions, but he impugned Robert Mueller with "rigged witch hunt" claims. Again. That is giving aid and comfort to Putin/Russia by papering over, giving them cover for, attacks/crimes on the United States, its people, its institutions, and at least two candidates.

He has been doing a variation on this for two years: maybe they did it, maybe they didn't, Putin denies it so we should believe that because Putin is a good guy and we should just get along, and maybe it was China and maybe it was a 400 pound fat man in a bed.

And what he is doing is two fold: Demanding Americans believe Trump over Mueller, which is hilarious, insane, and ridiculous. But that's just what this presidency has mostly given us in spades. And then demanding that American believe Putin over Mueller and U.S. intelligence agencies!

Trump says he will "ask the question" again to Putin. The false premise is that there is even a question but that too is active collaboration with Russia by accepting that Putin has a more reliable answer to give than Trump's own intelligence service, and his own DOJ, and the special counsel.

Active collaboration is happening in broad daylight.

Re: Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

#158

Post by dragonwriter »

cmurf wrote: post #157
jdoliner wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not; the issue is that a US Presidential campaign actively collaborated in an influence operation by a hostile foreign power directed against the US That's a bold claim given that this indictment is exclusively of Russian agents and the special counsel has explicitly stated that said President is not a target of the probe [0]. When you say "active collaboration" what does that actually mean? And could you pres…

The president is a subject of the probe, which is the ambiguous position of possibly being a witness or eventually becoming a target. As for active collaboration? The DAG Rod Rosenstein told Trump these indictments were coming and their nature. And today Trump decides not to push back on Putin/Russia for these actions, but he impugned Robert Mueller with "rigged witch hunt" claims. Again. That is giving aid and comfo…

> On what moral grounds does Socialism justify confiscating property and sacrificing lives? We can certainly disagree about what is or is not Capitalism but this is what Socialism does and you know it.

In a federal grand jury investigation, a “subject” is very close to what is understood in the common vernacular as a “suspect” (but not a “prime suspect”) in a criminal investigation; someone whose conduct is being examined because of the distance of illegal activity, but against whom prosecutors do not have enough evidence of guilt that charges (or, socially, an attempt to indict) is imminent.

Re: Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

#159

Post by mkempe »

tw04 wrote: post #152
mkempe wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument might have at least some weight if it didn't rely on super-secret, invisible gremlins.

Based on your post history, I can't tell if you're a troll or actually believe what you're saying, but 30 seconds on google would alleviate you of your ignorance. This has ALREADY HAPPENED. Russia has enticed people they secretly indicted on spy charges back to Russia, and then stuck them in prison. https://abcnews.go.com/WN/russian-spies-swap-cold-home/story...

Come on. I'll ignore, for now, your attempt at insults.

These Russian spies in the US were not US IC agents.

Re: Grand Jury Indicts Russian Officers for Hacking Related to the 2016 Election

#160

Post by dragonwriter »

mkempe wrote: post #159
tw04 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on your post history, I can't tell if you're a troll or actually believe what you're saying, but 30 seconds on google would alleviate you of your ignorance. This has ALREADY HAPPENED. Russia has enticed people they secretly indicted on spy charges back to Russia, and then stuck them in prison. https://abcnews.go.com/WN/russian-spies-swap-cold-home/story...

Come on. I'll ignore, for now, your attempt at insults. These Russian spies in the US were not US IC agents.

They were in fact charged as US IC agents; they weren't US IC officers, though.
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