Understanding US thread-III

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GShankar
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by GShankar »

Did someone ask why we call him Bomber?

Image
saip
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gRe: Understanding US thread-III

Post by saip »

Nixon resigned. He might have been impeached and removed from office if he did not. Clinton and Jackson were impeached but NOT removed from office. Jackson lucked out by a single vote (35-19, when 36 were required on ALL charges), Clinton handily beat it by over 20 votes (only 45 voted guilty against 67 required) on one and by 17 on the other (50-50)
UlanBatori
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by UlanBatori »

Hmm! One learns something every din.
The U.S. House of Representatives votes 11 articles of impeachment against President Andrew Johnson, nine of which cite Johnson's removal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, a violation of the Tenure of Office Act. The House vote made President Johnson the first president to be impeached in U.S. history...
The culmination of a lengthy political battle between Johnson and the Republican majority in Congress over how best to deal with the defeated Southern states following the conclusion of the American Civil War, the impeachment and the subsequent trial were among the most dramatic events in the political life of the nation during the Reconstruction Era. Together, they have gained a historical reputation as an act of political expedience, rather than necessity, based on Johnson's defiance of an unconstitutional piece of legislation, and with little regard for the will of a general public which, despite the unpopularity of Johnson, opposed the impeachment.
I doubt if this "Tenure Act" protects any Secretary today. In the Reagan era it was like a Revolving Door. Otherwise DT is toast: he's going to hire and fire Generals and Secretaries frequently, I would think.
GShankar
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by GShankar »

Is DT and Dog playing Good Cop - Bad Cop with Russia?

Either that or if Russia really has something, everybody is bad cop only.
ramana
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by ramana »

Folks don't make me lock the thread again.
UlanBatori
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by UlanBatori »

New: US Govt accuses Fiat-Chrysler of cheating on emissions
failing to disclose software in some of its pickups and SUVs with diesel engines that allows them to emit more pollution than allowed under the Clean Air Act.
The (EPA) said ..that it issued a "notice of violation" to the company that covers about 104,000 vehicles including the 2014 through 2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ram pickups, all with 3-liter diesel engines. The California Air Resources Board took similar action.
"Failing to disclose software that affects emissions in a vehicle's engine is a serious violation of the law, which can result in harmful pollution in the air we breathe," said Cynthia Giles, EPA assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance.
The agency said it will continue to investigate the "nature and impact" of the devices. The agency said FCA may be liable for civil penalties for the alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. The EPA is investigating whether the auxiliary emission control devices constitute "defeat devices," which are illegal because they turn off pollution controls.
Fiat Chrysler's shares fell more than 16 percent after the news was announced to $9.29.
So they were all 'benchmarking'? :rotfl: All diesel cars have software that provides hard-coded emission test results?

The govt waxes pompous here, but I wonder about their arrogance when the much-worse scandal in aerospace 'predictions' using massive govt-developed so-called "computational fluid dynamics" software breaks. Correction, I am hoping I am long retired when that happens.When the Europeans catch on to that fine ITAR-protected scam.... :shock:
Last edited by UlanBatori on 13 Jan 2017 06:37, edited 2 times in total.
shyam
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by shyam »

Looks like there are guys who believe CNN is truth and only the truth.

But...

UlanBatori
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by UlanBatori »

US Judge orders Volkswagen Executive held without bail until trial

Somehow the sheen just went off that glamor job aspiration. :eek: :shock:
Oliver Schmidt was arrested Saturday at Miami's International Airport as he planned to fly home after a vacation. {Darwin Award clinched this early in the year?} He was one of six current and former VW executives charged this week in U.S. District Court in Detroit. The other five are in Germany and are unlikely to be extradited.
U.S. Magistrate Judge William Turnoff ruled Schmidt was a flight risk. His lawyers said they planned to appeal the decision.
The Justice Department also said Schmidt "faces what would be an effective life sentence" if convicted. Schmidt is charged with eleven felony counts, which could be punished by up to 169 years in prison, the government said.
Volkswagen AG agreed to plead guilty and pay $4.3 billion in civil and criminal fines.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by UlanBatori »

More on the Darwin Award Nominee:
When F.B.I. agents learned that a prime suspect in the Volkswagen emissions scandal was traveling to the United States, investigators knew they were on the cusp of a rare feat: the arrest of an overseas corporate executive accused of wrongdoing.
On Saturday night, agents swooped in to arrest the Volkswagen executive, Oliver Schmidt, as he prepared to depart Miami International Airport for Germany, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the case, one of whom described the circumstances of the arrest. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
Mr. Schmidt, formerly Volkswagen’s top emissions compliance executive in the United States, has been charged with defrauding the government and violating the Clean Air Act. He made an initial appearance on Monday in federal court in Miami. He will be moved to Detroit, where he was originally charged and where court documents suggest that he might be valuable in the government’s investigation into other Volkswagen officials.
Mr. Schmidt, 48, played a central role in Volkswagen’s cover-up of its diesel emissions cheating, according to an affidavit from an F.B.I. agent that was unsealed on Monday. Even as the company obfuscated details of its cheating program from regulators, Mr. Schmidt warned executives in Germany that the company could face criminal charges for its actions, the affidavit says.
More on the event
FBI arrested Oliver Schmidt, a former emissions compliance executive for Volkswagen Group, as he waited to catch a plane back to Germany at Miami International Airport in Florida. The arrest is a major setback for VW Group, which has thus far been able to shelter most of its high-level executives from individual prosecution by US authorities.
In a Monday appearance in US District Court in Miami, a Justice Department lawyer said that an attorney for Schmidt “had alerted government lawyers that the executive would be in Florida for vacation,:eek: :shock: according to the Wall Street Journal.
UlanBatori
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by UlanBatori »

More...
Dangerously for VW bosses, the FBI’s writ officially implicates other Volkswagen managers in the cover-up, which should impact their travel plans.
Schmidt was general manager of Volkswagen’s U.S. Engineering and Environmental Office since 2013 until he was transferred back to Germany in 2015. In that job, he was responsible for managing relations with the EPA and the California Air Resources Board (CARB).
In March 2014, the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) published a study noting what the FBI calls “substantial discrepancies” between the Nitrous Oxide (NOx) emissions of Volkswagen diesel vehicles when tested on the road and official tests in the lab. This study was roundly ignored in the media, but at Volkswagen, it set off a red alert.
“On or about May 20, 2014,” says the FBI, “SCHMIDT emailed the then-Chief Executive Officer of VW GOA and another employee a document analyzing “Possible Consequences/Risks: of the ICCT study. The analysis noted possible monetary penalties per vehicle of up to $37,500 from the EPA, with 500,000 to 600,000 affected vehicles.”
Gee! Knowing what he did, wonder why he risked going through US territory.
habal
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by habal »

In USA, meaning of journalism is a bunch of millionaire journalists echoing propaganda channeled by the establishment.

"you don't always need truth to blackmail" .. and that's it. Interview done. tata. bye bye.

Journalism in USA is an oxymoron. American is someone who chases money/wealth, jounalist is someone who chases truth. tadaa. So how can an American be a journalist.

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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by UlanBatori »

habalji clearly missed the definitive Paki article on "lifafa" journalism. :mrgreen:
habal
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by habal »

UBji in msnbc and cnn, it's not called lifafa it's called a container aka cash truck aka fund transfer. No small lifafas here. That is so old school and so hush hush.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by UlanBatori »

US/UK media are doing to themselves/ their own countries what they did to Iraq, Libya, Syria and many others. A great tradition. Dossiers. Fixed interviews. Planted questions. Applause on the sides of a press conference. Fawning "opinion" pieces and paid/flexible "expert opinions". CFD codes that give the pre-determined results to 4 decimal places.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Yagnasri »

http://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2 ... 59053.html

From what DT was saying, there will be something which replaces it. GOK what it is.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Singha »

>> CFD codes that give the pre-determined results to 4 decimal places

:rotfl:

in other news VW has announced a recall of some 3 million vehicles in india for emission problem. why doesnt the GOI levy a fine for violating laws and cheating here ?
habal
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by habal »

VW was busy saving some $100/car for installing some gadget that absorbs monoxide called adblue, a tube like thing filled with some ionic stuff that worked in their testing labs to reduce emissions. They omitted that in prduction varients to save like $100/car.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Philip »

Chrysler/Fiat now accused of similar software manipulation!

Back to the "Dirty Dossier"

It is now increasingly likely that the entire dossier was a combined effort by the British and US govts/intel agencies (O'Bomber and May) to discredit Trump with such a salacious "expose".Now that the MI-6 officer who was responsible for the same has been "outed",and the sh*t has hit the fan,rats are deserting the sinking ship.
Britain dragged into Donald Trump 'dirty dossier' row amid claims Whitehall knew of the file
Christoper Steele, the former MI6 officer who compiled the dossier

Gordon Rayner, chief reporter Claire Newell Ruth Sherlock
13 JANUARY 2017 • 6:22AM
Britain has been dragged into the frantic row over the “dirty dossier” on Donald Trump after it was claimed that the Government gave the FBI permission to speak to the former MI6 officer who compiled it.

Sources in the US have told The Telegraph that Christopher Steele, a former spy, spoke to officials in London before he handed the document to the FBI and met one of its agents.

The dossier contained allegations about President-elect Trump
The document, which contained allegations of lurid sexual behaviour by Mr Trump in Russian hotels, was leaked earlier this week, and Britain now finds itself caught in the crossfire of accusations between Russia and the US.

On Thursday Russia publicly accused MI6 of “briefing both ways” against Russia and Mr Trump and suggested Mr Steele was still working for the Secret Intelligence Service.

The Russian embassy in London used its official Twitter account to say: “Christopher Steele story: MI6 officers are never ex: briefing both ways – against Russia and US President.”

Christopher Steele story: MI6 officers are never ex: briefing both ways - against Russia and US President
6:15 PM - 12 Jan 2017

Mr Trump has angrily rejected the information in the dossier as “fake” and the involvement of a former MI6 officer is unlikely to help Britain’s intelligence-sharing relationship with the US when he becomes president later this month.

Mr Steele, who friends say fears for his safety, has gone into hiding while the veracity of the claims made in his dossier, and his own reputation, continue to be fiercely debated.

Sir Tony Brenton, a former British ambassador to Russia, described the dossier as looking "pretty shaky". He told Sky News: "For example, it claims that the Russians began to cultivate Donald Trump five years ago.
"If they did that they showed remarkable prescience because at the time he had nothing to do with American politics." :rotfl:
It emerged that he was the MI6 case officer assigned to Alexander Litvinenko, the former FSB agent murdered in London with a radioactive substance.

Alexander Litvinenko
Mr Steele was the MI6 case officer in the Litvinenko poisoning CREDIT: PA
*(This is the biggest giveaway that the dossier is fake,because the Litvinenko poisoning was a western/Russian oligacrh plot to defame Putin.Litvinenko worked for MI-6 and other western agencies and was such a low ranking and insignificant officer of the former KGB,that none in the Kremlin would want wasted.)

Mr Steele was hired to find information on Mr Trump by a Washington-based consultancy that was being paid by Republican opponents of the president-elect – the BBC claimed they were acting on behalf of fellow nominee Jeb Bush – and, later, by Democrats.
However, he decided the information was so sensitive that it should also be passed on to the FBI and to his old colleagues at MI6.

The Daily Telegraph was told during a meeting with a highly-placed source in Washington DC last October that the FBI had contacted Mr Steele asking if they could discuss his findings with him. The source said that Mr Steele spoke to officials in London to ask for permission to speak to the FBI, which was duly granted, and that Downing Street was informed.

MI6
Mr Steele was an MI6 officer CREDIT: ANNE-MARIE PALMER /ALAMY
Downing Street and the Foreign Office refused to comment, while security sources said that it would have been a “professional courtesy”, though not an absolute requirement, for Mr Steele to seek permission for a meeting with the FBI.

Once he had been given the all-clear, he met an FBI agent in another European country, where he discussed the background to the file he had compiled. His contact with the FBI reportedly began in July last year and ended in October, after he became frustrated by the bureau’s slow progress.

Dominic Grieve, chairman of the Commons intelligence and security committee, said he expected the committee to discuss the fallout from the dossier and the question of whether British intelligence agencies had been involved in handling it.

The FBI declined to comment, and the US embassy in London did not respond to requests for comment.

As the row over the dossier continued, the US vice-president Joe Biden said the FBI had felt obliged to tell President Barack Obama about the information it contained because of concerns it would go public and catch the president off guard.

Mr Biden said neither he nor Mr Obama asked US intelligence agencies to try to corroborate the unverified claims that Russia had obtained compromising sexual and financial allegations about Mr Trump.

Members of the US intelligence community have said it would have been a “dereliction” of duty not to mention allegations that the Russians had material with which they might try to blackmail Mr Trump.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01 ... er-steele/
Lurid Donald Trump dossier casts a shadow over MI6 and Christopher Steele, the man it trusted in Moscow
The building housing the Orbis offices
The building may look nondescript from the outside, but within lies ground zero for the most explosive dirty tricks row to engulf a US president-elect for a generation
Gordon Rayner, chief reporter Patrick Sawer, senior reporter
12 JANUARY 2017 • 10:00PM
To the passengers on London buses passing it at a crawl, 9-11 Grosvenor Gardens did not merit a second glance on Thursday.

The Georgian office building near Victoria railway station is like thousands of others around the capital, so few would bother to wonder what goes on inside.

They might just have turned their heads, though, if they had been aware that this is ground zero for the most explosive dirty tricks row to engulf a US president-elect for a generation.


For the past eight years it has been the headquarters of Orbis Business Intelligence, where one of the desks is occupied by Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer who compiled a toxic dossier on Donald Trump that now threatens Mr Trump’s relationship with Britain, Russia, and the US intelligence services.

For more than a year, Mr Steele, a Cambridge-educated father-of-four, has worked in the shadows, building up intelligence from sources in Russia on Mr Trump’s dealings with the country after being hired by anti-Trump Republicans and then Democrats to find mud and make it stick.

Watch | Defiant President-elect slams fake news
01:23
Anonymity is a spy’s best friend, and Mr Steele managed to pass his findings on to journalists, the FBI and MI6 without his name entering the public domain – until now. With his cover blown, he faces a personal fight to salvage his reputation after Mr Trump loudly decried his dossier as “fake”.

The Orbis offices

More worryingly, he has also dragged MI6 into the growing row, with Russia claiming he is still working for his former employer. The attention has switched from Donald Trump to the man who compiled the report, and the question of whether he, or the information he supplied, can be trusted.

Murkiness is the hallmark of all spy stories, and Mr Steele’s is no different in that respect. His route to MI6 was straightforward enough; after growing up in solidly middle-class Wokingham, Berkshire, he went to Cambridge where, in 1986, he served a term as president of the Cambridge Union debating society.
Coincidentally, his opposite number at the Oxford Union in the same term was Boris Johnson, now Foreign Secretary and the minister responsible for MI6.

Cambridge
Mr Steele studied at Cambridge University CREDIT: NICK ANSELL /PA
Mr Steele, 52, was soon recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service, and by 1990 he was in Moscow as a spy working out of the British Embassy. His contemporaries included another young recruit, Alex Younger, who rose through the ranks to become the current head of MI6.

While Mr Younger was marked for greatness, Mr Steele was described by one source as a medium-ranked officer of middling ability, who spent most of his 20-year MI6 career on the Russia desk.

Watch | Business partner of ex-spy Christopher Steele speaks outside his home
00:45
At one point he ran MI6’s Intelligence Officers New Entry Course at its training establishment in Hampshire, and he was appointed as case officer to the FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko. It was in 2006, shortly after Mr Steele’s retirement, that Mr Litvinenko was assassinated in London with a lethal dose of radioactive polonium-210 added to his tea.

Nigel West, European Editor of the World Intelligence Review, suggests Litvinenko’s death inevitably coloured Mr Steele’s view of Russia, and turned him into a “man with a mission”.

Orbis keypad
Mr Steele founded Orbis nearly a decade ago CREDIT: DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS /AFP
By 2009 he had founded Orbis with Christopher Burrows, another MI6 retiree, offering clients access to a “high–level source network with a sophisticated investigative capability”.

Watch | Outside the office of former MI6 officer Christopher Steele
01:21
So it was to Orbis that Jeb Bush, one of Mr Trump’s opponents in the Republican presidential primaries, reportedly turned when he wanted to find material that would damage the billionaire businessman.
Associates of Mr Bush hired FusionGPS, a Washington DC-based political research firm, which in turn hired Orbis in December 2015.
When Mr Trump became the presumptive nominee, the Republicans ended the deal with FusionGPS, but Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton stepped in and continued funding Mr Steele’s research.

By May last year journalists in Washington were already beginning to hear rumours about the dossier, and by October its existence, and the role of a “former spy” were being written about in US publications.

Donald Trump
The dossier contained allegations about President-elect Trump CREDIT: REX / SHUTTERSTOCK
The 35-page dossier, however, did not see the light of day because of questions over its veracity. Journalists from numerous media companies spent months trying to find evidence to back up the claims made in the dossier, without success.

Meanwhile, Mr Steele, believing its contents to be too important to be restricted only to Mr Trump’s political enemies, is understood to have passed copies of his findings to both the FBI, via its Rome office, and to his old colleagues at MI6.

The Daily Telegraph has been told that the FBI arranged a meeting with Mr Steele in Europe where they discussed his findings with him. Sources have told the Telegraph that the FBI’s approach was approved by the British Government.

Then, earlier this week, the existence of the dossier became public knowledge when the CNN news network reported that Mr Trump and President Obama had been given a two-page summary of its contents, suggesting the FBI regarded it as sufficiently credible to be put in front of the two men. The news website Buzzfeed then decided to publish the dossier in full.

As all hell broke loose in America, Mr Trump used a news conference in New York to attack the dossier as “phoney” and accuse US intelligence of deliberately leaking it to the media.

Mr Steele packed his bags and fled his Surrey home, leaving others to debate the questions that still remain over his reliability, and that of his report.

Intelligence experts are divided. Some have dismissed it as gossip peddled by Russian expats, while others have suggested that it is well-sourced.

Opinion is divided on Mr Steele, too. One former colleague described him as “very credible” and “an experienced and highly-regarded professional... not the sort of person who will simply pass on gossip”. Another said he was “not top-drawer”.

Former MI6 officer Harry Ferguson told the BBC: "Chris was a strong, middle-ranking SIS (MI6) officer and I don't quite agree that this was a sub-par report.

"It seems to me that Chris was careful, as to try and find as many sources as possible to back these stories up, but also to make it clear that these are stories, and that what this intelligence report has at the moment is that it lacks that killer evidence."

MI6 buildings
Opinion among Mr Steele's former MI6 colleagues is divided CREDIT: ANNE-MARIE PALMER /ALAMY
Meanwhile Mr Steele remains in hiding, possibly in an MI6 safe house with his wife and four children. His immediate concern is not for his reputation, but for his safety.

His father-in-law, David Hunt, said from his home near Newbury: “Of course I know what he does, some sort of consultancy, but only the broad outlines.

“Christopher never went into the details.
It’s all very unfortunate because the last thing he’d want is for his name to be out there, associated with this kind of thing.”

His mother-in-law Jane Reveley said: “I didn’t know anything about this. The first I knew was when I heard it on the Today programme this morning.”

Mr Steele's business partner Christopher Burrows would not comment CREDIT: ZACHARAY CULPIN /SOLENT
At his home in Hampshire, Mr Steele’s business partner Mr Burrows said: “I think in the light of what has happened it would not be appropriate for me to make a comment on whether Orbis was involved or not.

“This is something we will review in the next couple of days. I am not going to make any comment on the dossier.”

As Mr Steele contemplates his next move, MI6 will also be conducting a damage assessment of just how badly its reputation, and its relationship with the Trump presidency, has been dented. The fact that its boss, Mr Younger, is a former colleague and reportedly a friend of Mr Steele is unlikely to help.
s
Yagnasri
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Yagnasri »

From what is reported so far:

1. MI6 is now holding their (ex)agent in their safe house.
2. He may be involved in conducting dirty operations for MI6 which can not be taken on record for various reasons.
3. Killing of Russian oligarch may be one of the things he is involved.
4. Belongs to Cambridge University a hot bed of left-leaning traitors in MI6.
5. Jeb Bush initially engaged his services. We do not know how both came into touch with each other. It will be fascinating to know that point.
6. DNC hired him later on. Role Jeb Bush played in this transfer of resources is also interesting information we may never know.
7. FBI tried to make something out of this and MacCain involved in personally into this by sending the so-called dossier to FBI head.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Singha »

going after trump at this stage by the duo of american-uk deep state is a high risk gamble.
if he comes through , he will punish both his intel agencies, their ecosystem and also UK politically and economically.
they must know he is readying a cleanup of the stables, hence taking a double-down-and-go-all-in kind of gamble to tar and feather him before the coronation itself

interesting times to see a superpawa at war with itself. sections of unaccountable elites who hold themselves as the sole deciders of state policy, not the peoples chosen candidate.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Singha »

The Int'l Spectator
‏@spectatorindex
BREAKING: Israeli agencies advised by US officials to not share intelligence with Trump's team, because it might get to Russia and then Iran
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Austin »

Singha wrote:The Int'l Spectator
‏@spectatorindex
BREAKING: Israeli agencies advised by US officials to not share intelligence with Trump's team, because it might get to Russia and then Iran
Israel would just laugh off at any thing Obama says and would just do exactly opposite to what his officials say such is the hatred Netan has for Obama/Kerry duo :rotfl:
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Lalmohan »

Yagnasri wrote:From what is reported so far:

1. MI6 is now holding their (ex)agent in their safe house.
possibly and probably
2. He may be involved in conducting dirty operations for MI6 which can not be taken on record for various reasons.
and the Russians have already tweeted this allegation, although interestingly the feeds he received have come from 'high up' in the Russian establishment - so that could be due to good digging or indeed good planting!
3. Killing of Russian oligarch may be one of the things he is involved.
he was tasked with the investigation into the litvinenko murder (in London) investigation, as a result he WILL have enemies in moscow
4. Belongs to Cambridge University a hot bed of left-leaning traitors in MI6.
so does everybody else in the UK of any real importance
5. Jeb Bush initially engaged his services. We do not know how both came into touch with each other. It will be fascinating to know that point.
looked him up on the internet? tip from buddies in the CIA? he is trading openly and has been hired by lots of people, including FIFA to investigate the Russian bid for the football world cup
6. DNC hired him later on. Role Jeb Bush played in this transfer of resources is also interesting information we may never know.
the law firm that engaged him was initially engaged by 'a republican candidate' doing intel work on the opposition - this is routine these days. when the candidate pulled out, the law firm must have sold the work in progress to the democrats
7. FBI tried to make something out of this and MacCain involved in personally into this by sending the so-called dossier to FBI head.
FBI did it later only when McCain passed it to them. McCain was nervous about this because it makes him look bad and rattled by Trumps attacks against him - so he did the right thing and handed it off to law enforcement
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by sooraj »

Gen. ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis Shuts Down NY Senator On LGBT In The Military With One Sentence :lol:

Singha
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Singha »

let us see how much clout the germans really have . will they fold or will they fight. part of being a big boy is you look after your flock - whether they do good or bad, because failure to do so reflects on your power.

Reuters
By Jörn Poltz and Andreas Cremer | MUNICH/BERLIN
Senior Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) managers have been warned not to travel to the United States, legal and company sources told Reuters, after six current and former managers were indicted for their role in the German carmaker's diesel test-cheating scheme.

One of the six charged, Oliver Schmidt, was arrested at Miami International Airport on Saturday as he was about to fly home from holiday in Cuba.

Schmidt, who is caught up in the "Dieselgate" investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ), was ordered to be charged and held without bail on Thursday pending trial.

Under the constitution, German citizens can be extradited only to other European Union countries or to an international court. But leaving Germany at all could pose a risk of being extradited to the United States from a third country.


"Several Volkswagen managers have been advised not to travel to the United States," one legal adviser to Volkswagen said on condition of anonymity because the matter is confidential.

A second legal adviser said this also applied to managers who had not yet been charged with any offense in the United States. "One doesn't need to test the limits," the adviser said.

Schmidt was among those who had been warned by lawyers working for the company not to travel to the United States, one of the legal sources said.


Volkswagen declined to comment.

The company agreed to pay $4.3 billion in civil and criminal fines in a settlement with the DoJ on Wednesday, the largest ever U.S. penalty levied on an automaker. However, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the DoJ would continue to pursue "the individuals responsible for orchestrating this damaging conspiracy".

The German Federal Criminal Police Office said it was not aware of any request to extradite the other five indicted VW managers, while the Justice Ministry said it could not comment on individual cases.

Given the risk of extradition from a third country, a reluctance to let senior managers leave Germany at all could pose considerable difficulties for Europe's biggest carmaker, which employs more than 600,000 people worldwide and sells 88 percent of its vehicles outside its home country.

Only one board member traveled to this week's auto show in Detroit: VW passenger car brand chief Herbert Diess, who joined Volkswagen in July 2015, just two-and-a-half months before the VW's decade-long deception of U.S. authorities became public.

A senior manager at the VW brand who asked not to be named called Diess's decision to travel to Detroit "bold" and said his peers had been given guidance not to leave Germany as the risk of impending U.S. charges rose - although he would not go so far as to call it a "travel warning".

He said colleagues knew after being questioned by Jones Day lawyers, who are carrying out an independent internal investigation into the emissions affair, whether they had something to fear in the United States, and may have used this to determine travel plans.

Charles Kuhn, a partner at criminal law firm Hickman & Rose, said people in such a position faced "a harsh choice - voluntarily hand themselves in, or never leave Germany without fear that an international arrest warrant will land them in US custody anyway".

"It's the kind of impossible decision that leaves people holed up in embassies for years," he said. "It depends on the alleged offense, but it is sometimes better to face the music than to live in the shadow of the DoJ."

(Additional reporting by Edward Taylor and Georgina Prodhan in Frankfurt and Zachary Fagenson in Miami; editing by David Stamp)
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by panduranghari »

Hitesh wrote: I have accepted that Trump is the president but I am not going to stand by and allow Trump to get free passes when you have refused to give Obama and HRC free passes. So get over the fact that I do not support Trump and that I will continue to question Trump and his motives in the same manner you have consistently question Obama HRC and any other individual that you dislike.
The belief you hold that Trump will get free pass on BRF means you believe some how BRF is pro trump. That is not correct. No one is pro trump. But we WERE anti-Billary. WERE. She is a no body at the moment and so we really dont care if she jumps off San Fransisco bridge. The dislike is based purely on how Billary have behaved going back to 1992. Obama had a great opportunity to bring about 'change'. That he squandered it is an understatement. I am not going to bother wasting bandwidth on this.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Dipanker »

Singha wrote:going after trump at this stage by the duo of american-uk deep state is a high risk gamble.
if he comes through , he will punish both his intel agencies, their ecosystem and also UK politically and economically.
they must know he is readying a cleanup of the stables, hence taking a double-down-and-go-all-in kind of gamble to tar and feather him before the coronation itself

interesting times to see a superpawa at war with itself. sections of unaccountable elites who hold themselves as the sole deciders of state policy, not the peoples chosen candidate.
Minor nitpick, US president is not elected by people choice. Instead some convoluted relic of the slavery era otherwise known as electoral college is used to nominate the president.

People choice actually went against Trump by nearly 3 million votes.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by habal »

If not for electoral college, CA & NY fob immigrants will keep electing democrat presidents based on mass hysteria. Isn't it.
Dipanker
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Dipanker »

^ And what is wrong with that? A naturalized citizen has same right as anybody else.
Beside only people native to the land are the native Americans, all else are immigrants.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Falijee »

The Deep State Goes to War With President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer
Glenn Greenwald
POSTED IN FULL
In January 1961, Dwight Eisenhower delivered his farewell address after serving two terms as U.S. president; the five-star general chose to warn Americans of this specific threat to democracy: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” That warning was issued prior to the decadelong escalation of the Vietnam War, three more decades of Cold War mania, and the post-9/11 era, all of which radically expanded that unelected faction’s power even further.This is the faction that is now engaged in open warfare against the duly elected and already widely disliked president-elect, Donald Trump. They are using classic Cold War dirty tactics and the defining ingredients of what has until recently been denounced as “Fake News.” DT's "promise" to "drain the swamp" may not be that easy to implement !
Their most valuable instrument is the U.S. media, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials. And Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss, as well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing — eager — to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry, and damaging those behaviors might be.HRC staying in the background !
The serious dangers posed by a Trump presidency are numerous and manifest. There is a wide array of legitimate and effective tactics for combating those threats: from bipartisan congressional coalitions and constitutional legal challenges to citizen uprisings and sustained and aggressive civil disobedience. All of those strategies have periodically proven themselves effective in times of political crisis or authoritarian overreach.
But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive. Empowering the very entities that have produced the most shameful atrocities and systemic deceit over the last six decades is desperation of the worst kind. Demanding that evidence-free, anonymous assertions be instantly venerated as Truth — despite emanating from the very precincts designed to propagandize and lie — is an assault on journalism, democracy, and basic human rationality. And casually branding domestic adversaries who refuse to go along as traitors and disloyal foreign operatives is morally bankrupt and certain to backfire on those doing it. The proverbial short public memory !
Beyond all that, there is no bigger favor that Trump opponents can do for him than attacking him with such lowly, shabby, obvious shams, recruiting large media outlets to lead the way. When it comes time to expose actual Trump corruption and criminality, who is going to believe the people and institutions who have demonstrated they are willing to endorse any assertions no matter how factually baseless, who deploy any journalistic tactic no matter how unreliable and removed from basic means of ensuring accuracy? Trump is far from "corruption free"
All of these toxic ingredients were on full display yesterday as the Deep State unleashed its tawdriest and most aggressive assault yet on Trump: vesting credibility in and then causing the public disclosure of a completely unvetted and unverified document, compiled by a paid, anonymous operative while he was working for both GOP and Democratic opponents of Trump, accusing Trump of a wide range of crimes, corrupt acts, and salacious private conduct. The reaction to all of this illustrates that while the Trump presidency poses grave dangers, so, too, do those who are increasingly unhinged in their flailing, slapdash, and destructive attempts to undermine it.
For months, the CIA, with unprecedented clarity, overtly threw its weight behind Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and sought to defeat Donald Trump. In August, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell announced his endorsement of Clinton in the New York Times and claimed that “Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” The CIA and NSA director under George W. Bush, Gen. Michael Hayden, also endorsed Clinton and went to the Washington Post to warn, in the week before the election, that “Donald Trump really does sound a lot like Vladimir Putin,” adding that Trump is “the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited.”
Certain sections of The Washington Establishment and the Arms Industry needs a "permanent enemy " for their survival !
It is not hard to understand why the CIA preferred Clinton over Trump. Clinton was critical of Obama for restraining the CIA’s proxy war in Syria and was eager to expand that war, while Trump denounced it. Clinton clearly wanted a harder line than Obama took against the CIA’s long-standing foes in Moscow, while Trump wanted improved relations and greater cooperation. In general, Clinton defended and intended to extend the decadeslong international military order on which the CIA and Pentagon’s preeminence depends, while Trump — through a still-uncertain mix of instability and extremist conviction — posed a threat to it. Billions of dollars of budget allocations are at stake here !
Whatever one’s views are on those debates, it is the democratic framework — the presidential election, the confirmation process, congressional leaders, judicial proceedings, citizen activism and protest, civil disobedience — that should determine how they are resolved. All of those policy disputes were debated out in the open; the public heard them; and Trump won. Nobody should crave the rule of Deep State overlords.Yet craving Deep State rule is exactly what prominent Democratic operatives and media figures are doing. Any doubt about that is now dispelled. Just last week, Chuck Schumer issued a warning to Trump, telling Rachel Maddow that Trump was being “really dumb” by challenging the unelected intelligence community because of all the ways they possess to destroy those who dare to stand up to them: Trump should be careful !
And last night, many Democrats openly embraced and celebrated what was, so plainly, an attempt by the Deep State to sabotage an elected official who had defied it: ironically, its own form of blackmail.
Back in October, a political operative and former employee of the British intelligence agency MI6 was being paid by Democrats to dig up dirt on Trump (before that, he was paid by anti-Trump Republicans). He tried to convince countless media outlets to publish a long memo he had written filled with explosive accusations about Trump’s treason, business corruption, and sexual escapades, with the overarching theme that Trump was in servitude to Moscow because they were blackmailing and bribing him.Despite how many had it, no media outlets published it. That was because these were anonymous claims unaccompanied by any evidence at all, and even in this more permissive new media environment, nobody was willing to be journalistically associated with it. As the New York Times’ Executive Editor Dean Baquet put it last night, he would not publish these “totally unsubstantiated” allegations because “we, like others, investigated the allegations and haven’t corroborated them, and we felt we’re not in the business of publishing things we can’t stand by.”
The closest this operative got to success was convincing Mother Jones’s David Corn to publish an October 31 article reporting that “a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country” claims that “he provided the [FBI] with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump.”
But because this was just an anonymous claim unaccompanied by any evidence or any specifics (which Corn withheld), it made very little impact. All of that changed yesterday. Why?What changed was the intelligence community’s resolution to cause this all to become public and to be viewed as credible. In December, John McCain ( one of the "pillars" of the war party and one of the supporters of the Deep State !) provided a copy of this report to the FBI and demanded they take it seriously.
At some point last week, the chiefs of the intelligence agencies decided to declare that this ex-British intelligence operative was “credible” enough that his allegations warranted briefing both Trump and Obama about them, thus stamping some sort of vague, indirect, and deniable official approval on these accusations. Someone — by all appearances, numerous officials — then went to CNN to tell the network they had done this, causing CNN to go on air and, in the gravest of tones, announce the “Breaking News” that “the nation’s top intelligence officials” briefed Obama and Trump that Russia had compiled information that “compromised President-elect Trump.”
CNN refused to specify what these allegations were on the ground that it could not “verify” them. But with this document in the hands of multiple media outlets, it was only a matter of time — a small amount of time — before someone would step up and publish the whole thing. BuzzFeed quickly obliged, airing all of the unvetted, anonymous claims about Trump.Its editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, published a memo explaining that decision, saying that — although there was “serious reason to doubt the allegations” — BuzzFeed in general “errs on the side of publication” and “Americans can make up their own minds about the allegations.” Publishing this document predictably produced massive traffic (and thus profit) for the site, with millions of people viewing the article and presumably reading the “dossier.”
One can certainly object to BuzzFeed’s decision and, as the New York Times noted this morning, many journalists are doing so. It’s almost impossible to imagine a scenario where it’s justifiable for a news outlet to publish a totally anonymous, unverified, unvetted document filled with scurrilous and inflammatory allegations about which its own editor-in-chief says there “is serious reason to doubt the allegations,” on the ground that they want to leave it to the public to decide whether to believe it.But even if one believes there is no such case where that is justified, yesterday’s circumstances presented the most compelling scenario possible for doing this. Once CNN strongly hinted at these allegations, it left it to the public imagination to conjure up the dirt Russia allegedly had to blackmail and control Trump. By publishing these accusations, BuzzFeed ended that speculation. More importantly, it allowed everyone to see how dubious this document is, one the CIA and CNN had elevated into some sort of grave national security threat. Even if the allegations are ultimately PROVEN false, the damage to DT's reputation, IMO, has been achieved !
Almost immediately after it was published, the farcical nature of the “dossier” manifested. Not only was its author anonymous, but he was paid by Democrats (and, before that, by Trump’s GOP adversaries) to dig up dirt on Trump. Worse, he himself cited no evidence of any kind but instead relied on a string of other anonymous people in Russia he claims told him these things. Worse still, the document was filled with amateur errors.
While many of the claims are inherently unverified, some can be confirmed. One such claim — that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen secretly traveled to Prague in August to meet with Russian officials — was strongly denied by Cohen, who insisted he had never been to Prague in his life (Prague is the same place that foreign intelligence officials claimed, in 2001, was the site of a nonexistent meeting between Iraqi officials and 9/11 hijackers, which contributed to 70 percent of Americans believing, as late as the fall of 2003, that Saddam personally planned the 9/11 attack). This morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that “the FBI has found no evidence that [Cohen] traveled to the Czech Republic.”None of this stopped Democratic operatives and prominent media figures from treating these totally unverified and unvetted allegations as grave revelations. From Vox’s Zack Beauchamp:
BuzzFeed’s Borzou Daragahi posted a long series of tweets discussing the profound consequences of these revelations, only occasionally remembering to insert the rather important journalistic caveat “if true” in his meditations:
While some Democrats sounded notes of caution — party loyalist Josh Marshall commendably urged: “I would say in reviewing raw, extremely raw ‘intel,’ people shld retain their skepticism even if they rightly think Trump is the worst” — the overwhelming reaction was the same as all the other instances where the CIA and its allies released unverified claims about Trump and Russia: instant embrace of the evidence-free assertions as Truth, combined with proclamations that they demonstrated Trump’s status as a traitor (with anyone expressing skepticism designated a Kremlin agent or stooge).
here is a real danger here that this maneuver could harshly backfire, to the great benefit of Trump and to the great detriment of those who want to oppose him. If any of the significant claims in this “dossier” turn out to be provably false — such as Cohen’s trip to Prague — many people will conclude, with Trump’s encouragement, that large media outlets (CNN and BuzzFeed) and anti-Trump factions inside the government (CIA) are deploying “Fake News” to destroy him. In the eyes of many people, that will forever discredit — render impotent — future journalistic exposés that are based on actual, corroborated wrongdoing.
Beyond that, the threat posed by submitting ourselves to the CIA and empowering it to reign supreme outside of the democratic process is — as Eisenhower warned — an even more severe danger. The threat of being ruled by unaccountable and unelected entities is self-evident and grave. That’s especially true when the entity behind which so many are rallying is one with a long and deliberate history of lying, propaganda, war crimes, torture, and the worst atrocities imaginable.
So,the fear that future stories, even if true , will be dismissed by the general public !
All of the claims about Russia’s interference in U.S. elections and ties to Trump should be fully investigated by a credible body, and the evidence publicly disclosed to the fullest extent possible. As my colleague Sam Biddle argued last week after disclosure of the farcical intelligence community report on Russian hacking — one that even Putin’s foes mocked as a bad joke — the utter lack of evidence for these allegations means “we need an independent, resolute inquiry.” But until then, assertions that are unaccompanied by evidence and disseminated anonymously should be treated with the utmost skepticism — not lavished with convenience-driven gullibility.
Most important of all, the legitimate and effective tactics for opposing Trump are being utterly drowned by these irrational, desperate, ad hoc crusades that have no cogent strategy and make his opponents appear increasingly devoid of reason and gravity. Right now, Trump’s opponents are behaving as media critic Adam Johnson described: as ideological jellyfish, floating around aimlessly and lost, desperately latching on to whatever barge randomly passes by.
There are solutions to Trump. They involve reasoned strategizing and patient focus on issues people actually care about. Whatever those solutions are, venerating the intelligence community, begging for its intervention, and equating its dark and dirty assertions as Truth are most certainly not among them. Doing that cannot possibly achieve any good and is already doing much harm.
Trump tells his side of the story via Twitter ; maybe, this could be his ultimate saviour , in case , if it gets "too dangerous" for him !
Greenwald is a respected journalist, therefore, 100% of the above cannot be dismissed !
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Lalmohan »

panduranghari wrote:The belief you hold that Trump will get free pass on BRF means you believe some how BRF is pro trump. That is not correct.
definitely the opposite impression is given in my opinion, I support Hitesh's right to express his opinion without people giving him grief
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Dipanker »

Comey Letter on Clinton Email Is Subject of Justice Dept. Inquiry
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s inspector general said Thursday that he would open a broad investigation into how the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, handled the case over Hillary Clinton’s emails, including his decision to discuss it at a news conference and to disclose 11 days before the election that he had new information that could lead him to reopen it.

The inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, will not look into the decision not to prosecute Mrs. Clinton or her aides. But he will review actions Mr. Comey took that Mrs. Clinton and many of her supporters believe cost her the election.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Lalmohan »

wonder if there is any kompromat on comey?
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Mort Walker »

panduranghari wrote:
Hitesh wrote: I have accepted that Trump is the president but I am not going to stand by and allow Trump to get free passes when you have refused to give Obama and HRC free passes. So get over the fact that I do not support Trump and that I will continue to question Trump and his motives in the same manner you have consistently question Obama HRC and any other individual that you dislike.
The belief you hold that Trump will get free pass on BRF means you believe some how BRF is pro trump. That is not correct. No one is pro trump. But we WERE anti-Billary. WERE. She is a no body at the moment and so we really dont care if she jumps off San Fransisco bridge. The dislike is based purely on how Billary have behaved going back to 1992. Obama had a great opportunity to bring about 'change'. That he squandered it is an understatement. I am not going to bother wasting bandwidth on this.
Well said sir.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by saip »

habal wrote:If not for electoral college, CA & NY fob immigrants will keep electing democrat presidents based on mass hysteria. Isn't it.
Not so fast. Only recently BOTH the states had Republican Governors.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Mort Walker »

Lalmohan wrote:
panduranghari wrote:The belief you hold that Trump will get free pass on BRF means you believe some how BRF is pro trump. That is not correct.
definitely the opposite impression is given in my opinion, I support Hitesh's right to express his opinion without people giving him grief
But you live in the UK which has its own biased opinions of both India and the US. That opinion being opposed to conservative governments in both countries. IMHO, the recent case of Amazon selling the Indian flag as a doormat is the litmus test. Those who had no problem with it should simply be banned from this forum. This forum is a pro India forum plain and simple. Not a place to express opinions.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Yagnasri »

Of course, Hiteshji shall have his say and his views. But that is not going to change the views many in brf has on Billary. What she and Bill did for us is a matter of record and had she got elected it would have been more of the same against India. I am not just speaking here about Bill presidency. SoS Hillary did try to "get Modi" through her NGO gangs when there was no need or benefit for the US in that.
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Lalmohan »

incidentally my friend - I voted for the Conservative party at the last election, my decision to do so was mostly driven by a shift in that party's stance to be more pro-Indian

so lets be a little more careful with dispensing your opinion before you rule yourself ineligible to participate in the forum - which is predominantly opinion driven and that too of highly variable quality

and the india flag incident with amazon was in canada btw
Lalmohan
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Lalmohan »

Yagnasri wrote:Of course, Hiteshji shall have his say and his views. But that is not going to change the views many in brf has on Billary. What she and Bill did for us is a matter of record and had she got elected it would have been more of the same against India. I am not just speaking here about Bill presidency. SoS Hillary did try to "get Modi" through her NGO gangs when there was no need or benefit for the US in that.
that's fine - but neither he nor any of the others, even if they are pro-Hillary ask any of you to shut up.

no US president has done the right thing for India and neither will the next one
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Re: Understanding US thread-III

Post by Falijee »

The British ex-spy behind the Trump dossier was an FBI asset
The man behind the sensational story concerning information the Russian government had supposedly collected about Donald Trump is a former British intelligence operative and was a longtime intelligence source for the U.S. government who had assisted the FBI during an investigation into corruption by FIFA, the world soccer association, according to sources familiar with the matter.The operative — identified today by the Wall Street Journal as Christopher Steele, a former Russian operations officer for Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency — had worked as a consultant for the FBI’s Eurasian organized crime section, helping to develop information about ties between suspected Russian gangsters and FIFA, said one of the sources, who is directly familiar with Steele’s work.
The credibility of some of those allegations is now in question after Trump, at a news conference, denounced the claims as completely false and attacked the news media for circulating them — and the intelligence community for including a two-page summary of the explosive charges in a classified briefing that was given to President Obama, to congressional leaders, and to Trump himself.“It’s all fake news. It’s phony stuff. It didn’t happen,” Trump said at his Trump Tower press conference Wednesday. “It was gotten by opponents of ours. It was a group of opponents that got together. Sick people, and they got together and put that crap together.”
The operative’s reports also included multiple other claims that are now in question: One of the operative’s reports alleges that Michael Cohen, a top lawyer in the Trump organization, had met with Russian officials in Prague involved in hacking the election. On Wednesday, Cohen denied he had ever been to Prague and produced his passport to prove it. Another of Steele’s reports, first reported by Yahoo News last September, involved alleged meetings last July between then-Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page and two high-level Russian operatives, including Igor Sechin — a longtime associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin who became the chief executive of Rosneft, the Russian energy giant. After initially declining to comment, Page wrote a letter to FBI Director James Comey after the story was published denying that he had ever met with Sechin; the Trump campaign, however, cut its ties to him.
Still, U.S. officials said the allegations were not easily dismissed, in part because Steele was a known quantity who had produced reliable information about Russia in the past. Damage to Trump's reputation may already have been done !
All that begs the question of what the public should make of Steele’s reports, in light of the “hall of mirrors” atmosphere that surrounds much intelligence reporting about the Kremlin. The format of the reports tracks the writings of professional intelligence reports, with each claim tied to a particular source, even if the sources (per standard procedure) are never identified. Steve Hall, a former top Russia operations officer for the CIA until 2015, said he found aspects of Steele’s reports to be credible, especially as they related to the Kremlin’s plans for hacking the U.S. election.“I find some of it indeed has the ring of truth,” said Hall. But, he added, “other parts of it are problematic.”
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