In addition to the story about Flynn seeking immunity, we had the first public hearing of the Senate Intel Committee, which at least for now shows much more promise of being a bipartisan and relatively thorough investigation than the one that has been tanked on the House side by the White House stooge Devin Nunes...
The chairman and and ranking member of the Senate committee held a joint press conference on Wednesday that I found very heartening and confidence building...
They've already got a witness list that is 20 persons long, they've devoted seven full time staffers to the investigation, (the House committee has three) and they laid out a very comprehensive range for the scope of the investigation. (And not one word about the central "importance" of Trump's shiny object, "the leaks")
Yesterday's hearing was fascinating and very educational about the scope and nature of Russian election interference strategy and practices; in the US Presidential election, but also in the elections of other countries, and perhaps most importantly of all the implications for future elections. Not just the cyber attacks but also the use of correctly described "fake news"...
If you didn't see it or hear it and you're interested in this...and anyone who cares about the integrity of the American election process really should be...I highly recommend either catching one of the replays I'm sure will run on C-SPAN over the weekend, or check it out on YouTube:
If you don't have 3 hours to devote to it, then bookmark it and watch it in segments, and fast forward past the less interesting parts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBf7rEF-Iqo
Among the revelations:
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politic ... rylink=cpyRussians took Trump’s side in GOP primary, too, expert tells Senate panel
WASHINGTON
Before Russian propaganda and fake news targeted Hillary Clinton, it went after Republican opponents of Donald Trump, including Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Lindsey Graham, as well as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, according to a cyber security expert who testified before the Senate Thursday.
Clint Watts, of George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, said during a break in a rare Senate Intelligence Committee public hearing that the one constant of the Russian campaign was “pumping up Trump.”
Watts was one of six experts brought before the committee Thursday as Congress’ efforts to investigate Russian election meddling moved to the Senate after 10 days of drama and chaos in the House Intelligence Committee’s probe that appeared to freeze that investigation.
The leaders of the Senate probe had pledged to avoid similar tension in their investigation, and the first day of public testimony seemed intended to do that, offering testimony from experts to help define the history, scope and methods of Russian, or Soviet, efforts to interfere in U.S. politics.
Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., introduced the testimony as a way to help Americans “establish a foundational understanding” of Russian activities in the 2016 election.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the committee’s senior Democrat, said the Russians in 2016 hacked into Democratic emails, then used the information they obtained to attack Clinton. The also spread false news reports, often targeted to users of social media, to drown out legitimate coverage and “to diminish and undermine our trust in the American media by blurring our faith in what is true, and what is not.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/cyber- ... repeat-it/Cyber expert drops Senate intel bombshell: Russia targets Trump with fake news because he’ll repeat it
A cybersecurity expert testified that Russian “bots” pushed their disinformation campaigns during times when President Donald Trump was likely to be on social media — and he dutifully hyped those conspiracy theories.
Clint Watts, a former FBI agent and counterterrorism instructor at West Point, explained Thursday that Trump as a presidential candidate helped Russia take active measures to interfere with the election, whether he realized it or not.
“Part of the reason active measures have worked in this election is because the commander-in-chief has used active measures at times against his opponents,” Watts testified.
Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and George Washington University, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Trump and his campaign’s use of Russian active measures happened in plain sight — even if most Americans were unaware at the time.
He testified that Paul Manafort, then Trump’s campaign chairman, promoted a bogus story Aug. 14 about a terrorist attack on a NATO base in Turkey, which originated on the Russian propaganda websites RT and Sputnik.
Trump then cited a Sputnik article Oct. 11 about Benghazi that later disappeared from the internet, and Watts pointed out that the president denies the conclusions of U.S. intelligence about Russian election interference.
Watts also testified that Trump claimed repeatedly that the election could be rigged, which he said was the No. 1 theme pushed by RT, Sputnik and other Russian propaganda outlets.
“He’s made claims of voter fraud, that President Obama’s not a citizen and, you know, Congressman (Ted) Cruz is not a citizen,” Watts said. “Part of the reason active measures works, and it does today in terms of Trump Tower being ‘wiretapped,’ is because they parrot the same lines.”
He told the senators that Putin was exploiting the inability of social media users to properly weigh evidence — and he said those efforts were specifically targeted to the most famous and powerful Twitter user in the world.
“I can tell you right now, today, that gray outlets, that are Soviet-pushing accounts, tweet at President Trump during high volumes when they know he’s online, and they push conspiracy theories,” Watts testified.
He explained that Russia planned the operation more than a year in advance and targeted specific groups of voters — both likely Trump supporters and Bernie Sanders voters — in swing states with anti-Clinton propaganda.
“They play all sides, much like how in infantry school about how they use artillery,” Watts testified. “They fire artillery everywhere, and once they get a break in the wall, that’s where they swarm in and focus.”
The stuff that came out at that hearing yesterday, (which unfortunately has not yet gotten the press attention it should because of being over-shadowed by two other big Putingate scandal stories that broke yesterday; the Flynn immunity request, and new revelations about the collusion between the House Intel Committee Chairman and the White House) should hopefully help to get some more of my Republican brethren to understand that this is not (as Trump keeps falsely claiming) just a partisan story pushed by a bunch of crybaby Democrats who can't get over losing an election...
It's the story of a dagger being pointed at the heart of the American democratic process by a hostile foreign power, not just in this past election, but on a current and ongoing basis, and in future elections...
A dagger they will point at anyone, regardless of party, who takes positions displeasing to the Kremlin...
And they are being aided and abetted in this by The President Of The United States...
