GRU russia intel

see KGB

collusion

=<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/your-regular-reminder-that-mcconnell-abetted-russian-election-interference-and-is-doing-it-again">https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/your-regular-reminder-that-mcconnell-abetted-russian-election-interference-and-is-doing-it-again</a>Running interference for the occupier of the Oval Office, the execrable Rep. Steve Scalise is <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveScalise/status/1147494683272187904" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">attacking Joe Biden</a>, saying “Russian interference in America’s elections happened on Obama and Biden’s watch.” That’s “irrefutable” he says, pointing to a craptacular 2017 <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/video/obama-administration-knew-about-russian-meddling-in-august/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">CBS News report</a> from 2017 that vaguely references the “political difficulties” President Obama faced in addressing Russian hacking without once mention Mitch McConnell.<div class="p1_7" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Those political difficulties were entirely of McConnell’s making. He’s the guy who, in reporter Greg Miller’s <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/18/1827396/-Remember-when-Mitch-McConnell-covered-up-Putin-s-interference-to-elect-Trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">retelling</a>, was fully briefed on everything the intelligence committee knew about Russian interference. He was told that Russia was intervening to hurt Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump. And McConnell told the CIA, “You’re telling us that Russia is trying to help elect Trump. If you try to come forward with this, I’m not going to sign onto any sort of public statement that would condemn Russian interference. But I will condemn you and the Obama administration for trying to mess up this election."McConnell doesn’t have that card to play in the lead-up to the 2020 election, another one that he appears to be just as committed to helping Russia fix. As we speak, McConnell <a title="" href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/14/politics/mcconnell-election-security/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">continues to refuse</a> to take up legislation to protect the next election, falling back on that old saw, “states’ rights.” His excuse is that “Democrats would like to nationalize everything” and that they “want the federal government to take over the election process because they think that would somehow benefit them.” It does happen to be true that clean elections in which all eligible voters are able exercise their franchise tend to result in Democrats winning. That’s McConnell’s tell right there—he doesn’t want a clean election.<div class="p3_7" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">McConnell also argues that the Trump administration did a “terrific job” in working with state and local officials in the 2018 election and asks, “Where is the applause for that?” That’s in spite of the fact that <a title="" href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/24/1782938/-Bipartisan-group-of-21-state-attorneys-general-demand-congressional-action-on-election-security" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">bipartisan attorneys general</a> were pleading with a then-Republican Congress to give them some help just a few months before the election, alarmed at the threat they knew existed.<div class="p4_7" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">A <a title="" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">week ago</a>, the Democratic House passed an expansive election protections bill, [zoe?] with mandatory back-up paper ballots and post-vote audits to ensure that elections systems won’t be compromised by hacking. Democrats have got more legislation coming, hoping a barrage of bills will force McConnell to respond to bipartisan pressure to break his blockade. Thus far they haven’t been able to make a dent in his refusal to consider the bills.McConnell’s obstruction might have something to do with the past big campaign donations he’s received from <a title="" href="https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/05/08/putins-proxies-helped-funnel-millions-gop-campaigns" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">pals of Putin</a> and the <a title="" href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/4/24/1852770/-Something-is-really-rotten-in-the-state-of-Kentucky-and-it-s-coming-from-Russia" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">millions</a> those same Russian oligarchs are pouring into his home state of Kentucky, in the form of capital investment in an aluminum plant. It probably has everything to do with the fact that he’s just about the least popular politician in the nation and that he’s up for reelection himself this cycle, and is <a title="" href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/431002-poll-33-of-kentucky-voters-approve-of-mcconnell" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">underwater</a> in his home state, with a “razor-thin” lead over a generic Democratic opponent.<div class="p6_7" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">So, no, Obama and Biden aren’t to blame for Russian interference in the 2016 election. Granted, Obama could have ignored McConnell’s threat and gone ahead with his warnings, but he was well aware of the lengths McConnell would go to to poison the election—he was right in the middle of McConnell’s blockade of the Merrick Garland Supreme Court nomination and knew that there are no depths to which McConnell will not sink. He’ll happily do it again to win.</div></div></div></div>

no lnx

When Special Counsel Robert Mueller issued the indictment against Roger Stone, a long-time ally of President Donald Trump, he filed it while noting that it was connected to another case: the indictment of Russians who hacked Democratic emails during the 2016 campaign.

Stone has been charged with lying to Congress, tampering with a witness, and obstructing justice.

Stone’s lawyers objected to the assertion that the cases were connected, a motion that could have triggered the case to be assigned to a different judge. But on Friday, Mueller responded to the lawyers’ objections and revealed why the cases are connected:

In Netyksho, eleven Russian military officers are charged by indictment with, inter alia, conspiring to hack into the computers of U.S. persons and entities involved in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, steal documents from those computers, and stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

…

As alleged in the Netyksho indictment, in 2016, the Netyksho defendants stole documents from the DNC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Clinton campaign chairman. Those defendants then released many of the stolen documents, including through a website maintained by Organization 1. In the course of investigating that activity, the government obtained and executed dozens of search warrants on various accounts used to facilitate the transfer of stolen documents for release, as well as to discuss the timing and promotion of their release. Several of those search warrants were executed on accounts that contained Stone’s communications with Guccifer 2.0 and with Organization 1. Evidence obtained from those search warrants resulted in the allegations that the Netyksho defendants hacked and stole documents for release through intermediaries, including Organization 1, and that Stone lied to a congressional committee investigating, among other things, the activities of Organization 1 regarding those stolen documents.

Here, “Organization 1” refers to WikiLeaks, which published the stolen emails.

Mueller also argued that Stone’s actions are part of the same “alleged criminal event or transaction” as those at issue in Netyksho.

He explained that the “criminal conduct alleged in Netyksho was a central focus of the congressional investigation that the defendant is alleged to have obstructed, and therefore the activities underlying the crimes charged in that case are part of the same activities underlying the crimes charged in this case.”

Since Stone’s lies came up in the context of an investigation the Russian election interference and possible connections to the actions of Americans, the cases are linked.

“The defendant’s false statements did not arise in a vacuum,” the filing said.

Reporter Andrew Prokop noted that further discussion of the warrants in question was filed along with the documents, but it was under seal.

==

<div>

<div>video essays on the New</div>

<div>York Times on Russian</div>

<div>disinformation:</div>

<div>Operation Infektion.</div>

<div>(thanks Maggie!)</div>

<div>

</div>

<div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-disinformation-fake-news-elections.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opinion/russia-meddling-disinformation-fake-news-elections.html</a></div>

<div>

</div>

<div>

<div>OPERATION INFEKTION: A THREE-PART VIDEO SERIES ON RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION</div>

<div>RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION: FROM COLD WAR TO KANYE</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>CreditCredit</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>By Adam B. Ellick and Adam Westbrook</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>WATCH: This is a three-part film series. Scroll down and click to play any episode.</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>Russia’s meddling in the United States’ elections is not a hoax. It’s the culmination of  Moscow’s decades-long campaign to tear the West apart. “Operation InfeKtion” reveals the ways in which one of the Soviets’ central tactics — the promulgation of lies about America — continues today, from Pizzagate to George Soros conspiracies. Meet the KGB spies who conceived this virus and the American truth squads who tried — and are still trying — to fight it. Countries from Pakistan to Brazil are now debating reality, and in Vladimir Putin’s greatest triumph, Americans are using Russia’s playbook against one another without the faintest clue.</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>EPISODE 1</div>

<div>MEET THE KGB SPIES WHO INVENTED FAKE NEWS</div>

<div>We reveal how one of the biggest fake news stories ever concocted — the 1984 AIDS-is-a-biological-weapon hoax — went viral in the pre-internet era. Meet the KGB operatives who invented it and the “truth squad” that quashed it. For a bit.</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>Video</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>EPISODE 2</div>

<div>THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS OF FAKE NEWS</div>

<div>The Pizzagate playbook: same tactics, new technologies. How the seven rules of Soviet disinformation are being used to create today’s fake news stories.</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>Video</div>

<div>

</div>

<div>EPISODE 3</div>

<div>THE WORLDWIDE WAR ON TRUTH</div>

<div>Governments from Pakistan to Mexico to Washington are woefully unequipped to combat disinformation warfare. Eastern European countries living in Russia’s shadow can teach us how to start fighting back, but only if our politicians decide to stop profiting from these tactics and fight them instead.</div>

</div>

<div>

</div>

</div>

<div>

President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chair was pressured by a Russian oligarch over his debts, Time magazine <a href="https://time.com/5490169/paul-manafort-victor-boyarkin-debts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style=" box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">reported</a> Saturday.

Former Russian intelligence officer Victor Boyarkin “was a key link” between Manafort and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin.

</div>

==

recap overview 2016

<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-russian-government-used-disinformation-and-cyber-warfare-in-2016-election-an-ethical-hacker-explains-99989">https://theconversation.com/how-the-russian-government-used-disinformation-and-cyber-warfare-in-2016-election-an-ethical-hacker-explains-99989</a>

<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-russian-spies-love-american-universities" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-russian-spies-love-american-universities</a></div>

</div>

<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Under the alias Cynthia Murphy, Russian spy Lydia Guryeva attended Columbia Business School, and ingratiated herself with a <a href="https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/the-russian-spy-ring-and-the-v-c/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">key fundraiser</a> for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. Guryeva’s instructions from Moscow, according to a 2010 FBI complaint, were to “strengthen…ties w. classmates on daily basis incl. professors who can help in job search and who will have (or already have) access to secret info” and to report “on their detailed personal data and character traits w. preliminary conclusions about their potential (vulnerability) to be recruited by Service.”</div>

Now another graduate student at an urban East Coast university, who similarly cultivated powerbrokers and political operatives, is accused of being a Russian spy and taking orders from high-ranking officials in her homeland. Maria Butina, who received a master’s degree in international relations this past spring from American University in Washington, D.C., courted the National Rifle Association’s top guns and sought access to Republican presidential candidates Scott Walker and Donald Trump. She pleaded innocent last week to charges of conspiring to act as a foreign agent.

If the charges against Butina are accurate, she’s only the latest in a long line of Russian agents to infiltrate U.S. universities. Dating back to the Soviet era, Russian spies have sought to take advantage of academia's lax security, collaborative, global culture, and revolving door with government. Russian intelligence understands that today’s professor of international relations may be tomorrow’s assistant secretary of state, and vice versa. Although cyber-spying and hacking offer opportunities to glean secrets at less personal risk, the traditional strategies of human espionage persist, and sending a spy to school is prominent among them.  In that respect, little has changed since 1938, when Semyon Markovich Semyonov became the first Soviet agent to enroll at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and made contacts vital to stealing scientific secrets. Or since 1958, when KGB officer Oleg Kalugin entered Columbia’s journalism school. After graduation, posing as a Radio Moscow correspondent at the United Nations, Kalugin attended events at Columbia and reported back on them to Moscow. His report on a speech about U.S.-Soviet relations by Zbigniew Brzezinski, then a Columbia professor and later national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, earned kudos from the Communist Party’s Central Committee.

After that, “I went all across the country, from Harvard to Columbia and the West Coast, listening to what people said and reporting it if I thought it was interesting,” Kalugin told me. He rose to head the KGB’s foreign counterintelligence branch before falling out of favor in Russia, moving to Washington, D.C., and becoming an American citizen.

Sometimes, Russian agents join the academic community as students or instructors. Of Guryeva and the other nine “illegals” — sleeper agents without diplomatic cover — who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/29/AR2010062905401.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">pleaded guilty</a> in 2010 to conspiring to act as foreign agents and were swapped back to Russia, seven went to U.S. universities, including Harvard, The New School, and the University of Washington. One taught politics for a semester at Baruch College, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/30/nyregion/30suspects.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">lambasting American foreign policy</a>.

In other cases, agents hold diplomatic posts at an embassy or consulate and forage in nearby campuses for recruits and information. It’s easier, cheaper and less conspicuous for Russian intelligence to enlist a student or professor who can be steered to a federal agency than to lure someone already in a sensitive government position. Exploiting open campuses, spies slip unnoticed into lectures, seminars and cafeterias, where they befriend the computer scientist or Pentagon adviser sitting beside them.

Butina enrolled in American University’s School of International Service in the summer of 2016, university spokesman Mark Story said. She concentrated in cyber policy and became a research assistant at the university’s Kogod School of Business. With research funding from the Kogod Cybersecurity Governance Center, she and two professors, Mark A. Clark and J. Alberto Espinosa, co-authored a March 2018 paper on “<a href="https://www.american.edu/kogod/research/cybergov/upload/CybersecurityKnowlNetworks_Mar2018.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Cybersecurity Knowledge Networks</a>.” (The paper is still on the center’s <a href="https://www.american.edu/kogod/research/cybergov/research.cfm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">website</a>.) Clark and Espinosa declined comment.

University spokesman Story declined to say whether Butina’s involvement with the center raises any concerns, or if the university plans to review her activities. He added that the center doesn’t do classified work and has no contracts with intelligence agencies.The cybersecurity center was founded in 2015 to provide “<a href="https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2016/11/15/sept_19_2016_amer_univ_meeting_minutes.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">guidance</a> specifically to boards of directors, senior executives, and other leaders so that they can make informed decisions about cybersecurity.” It has a <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/raytheon-partners-with-american-universitys-kogod-cybersecurity-governance-center-300271061.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">partnership</a> with defense contractorRaytheon Co., and was headed from June 2017 to March 2018 by a former lawyer for the National Security Agency.

Raytheon spokesman Michael Doble said, “There is no connection between our support of this respected school and what one of its students may or may not have done.”

Butina participated in February 2017 in a “<a href="https://www.american.edu/cas/carmel/news/gettysburg-dialog.cfm" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">weekend of seminars</a> and cultural immersion” in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which brought together 10 American University students from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Azerbaijan with a dozen students from Gettysburg College to discuss U.S.-Russian relations in the post-Soviet era. Susan Eisenhower — a frequent adviser to businesses and the U.S. Department of Energy, and an expert on foreign policy and national security issues —led the seminars as well as a tour of the Gettysburg home of her grandfather, President Dwight Eisenhower....

===

<a href="https://www.alternet.org/meet-12-russians-us-government-indicted-last-week" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/meet-12-russians-us-government-indicted-last-week</a>

...

12 Russian officials who were indicted by the Grand Jury of the District of Columbia. It is the fact that these people were indicted that prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to insist that American President Donald Trump turn over Americans like one of our former ambassadors, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/07/20/salon-interview-michael-mcfaul-and-bill-browder-vladimir-putins-most-wanted-men/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Michael McFaul</a>, over to his government in order to be interrogated.

The key difference, of course, is that Putin is fabricating charges against McFaul and others like whistleblower Bill Browder, while the accusations against the 12 Russian officials are rooted in serious investigative work. Yet who are these dozen Russians that have been identified by Robert Mueller's investigation?

According to the <a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/80-netyksho-et-al-indictment/ba0521c1eef869deecbe/optimized/full.pdf?action=click&module=Intentional&pgtype=Article" style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">indictment</a>, the Russian officials singled out by the government were Boris Alekseyevich Antonov, Dmitriy Sergeyevich Badin, Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, Nikolay Yuryevich Kozachek, Aleksey Viktorovich Lukashev, Artem Andreyevich Malyshev, Sergey Aleksandrovich Morgachev, Viktor Borisovich Netyksho, Aleksandr Vladimirovich Osadchuk, Aleksey Aleksandrovich Potemkin, Ivan Sergeyevich Yermakov and Pavel Vyacheslavovich Yershov. With the exception of Kovalev, the indictment describes all of these individuals as "GRU officers who knowingly and intentionally conspired with each other, and with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury (collectively the 'Conspirators'), to gain unauthorized access (to 'hack') into the computers of U.S. persons and entities involved in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, steal documents from those computers, and stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election."

The  indictment claims that these individuals hacked the email accounts of staffers and volunteers at Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign by at least March 2016, hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic National Committee by at least April 2016 and began releasing tens of thousands of stolen emails and documents by at least June 2016, continuing to do so through the month of the presidential election.

And who are they specifically?

According to the indictment, Netyksho is a Russian military officer whose unit (Unit 26165) "had primary responsibility for hacking the DCCC and DNC, as well as the email accounts of individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign." Antonov was assigned to that same unit and oversaw a department within it that was "dedicated to targeting military, political, governmental, and non-governmental organizations with spearphishing emails and other computer intrusion activity." Antonov is accused of having "supervised other co-conspirators who targeted the DCCC, DNC, and individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign." Badin held the title of "Assistant Head of Department" in that unit and supervised various attacks on the Democratic and Clinton-related targets chosen by the Russian government.

Then there is Yermakov, who the indictment claims was a master of aliases, using "various online personas" in order to engage in a number of hacking operations. These names included "Kate S. Milton," "James McMorgans" and "Karen W. Millen." Lukashev was a senior lieutenant in the Russian military and, like Yermakov, used a number of online pseudonyms, including "Den Katenberg" and "Yuliana Martynova." Lukashev "sent spearphishing emails to members of the Clinton Campaign and affiliated individuals, including the chairman of the Clinton Campaign." Morgachev, by contrast, was in charge of a department at the unit that developed and managed malware, including one hacking tool called "X-Agent," and is charged with supervising the agents who implanted the X-Agent malware on DCCC and DNC computers and then monitored it.

<a href="https://goo.gl/FAVt8c" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">READ MORE: Donald Trump, Brexit and the Russians: A dangerous turning point in "World War IV"</a>

Kozachek is described in the indictment as a lieutenant captain who had been assigned to Morgachev's department within Unit 26165 and employed pseudonyms like "kazak" and "blablabla1234565" in order to do his job. He also "developed, customized, and monitored X-Agent malware used to hack the DCCC and DNC networks beginning in or around April 2016." Yershov, meanwhile, is accused of having "assisted Kozachek and other co-conspirators in testing and customizing X-Agent malware before actual deployment and use." Malyshev, on the other hand, was a second lieutenant whose work for Morgachev's department involved monitoring X-Agent malware that had been implanted on Democratic Party machines. He used pseudonyms like "djangomagicdev" and "realblatr."

Osadchuk is a Russian colonel and the commanding officer of Unit 74455, which "assisted in the release of stolen documents through the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 personas, the promotion of those releases, and the publication of anti-Clinton content on social media accounts operated by the GRU." Meanwhile Potemkin was a Russian military officer assigned to Unit 74455 who supervised a department "responsible for the administration of computer infrastructure used in cyber operations. Infrastructure and social media accounts administered by Potemkin's department were used, among other things, to assist in the release of stolen documents through the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 personas."

Throughout the document, considerable detail is given about how various email accounts owned by either the Clinton campaign or other Democratic Party bodies were deliberately targeted by individuals or groups of individuals on this list. It explains how they hacked into these accounts and what they ultimately gained from doing so. Kovalev specifically is accused, among other things, of hacking the website of a state board of elections and stealing information about roughly 500,000 voters "including names, addresses, partial social security numbers, dates of birth, and driver’s license numbers." He is also accused of hacking into the computers of a company that supplied voter registration verification software, targeting "state and county offices responsible for administering the 2016 US. elections" and visiting the websites of counties in states like Florida, Georgia and Iowa in order to find vulnerabilities.

It is worth reminding the reader, at this point, of what McFaul told Salon earlier in the week — namely, that Putin is trying to create a false equivalency between the crimes he ordered committed by Russian officials and the fabricated charges he has created against McFaul and Browder.

"But let's be clear: What Putin was doing was assigning moral equivalency to a legitimate indictment with lots of evidence against several Russian military intelligence officers for violating American sovereignty in 2016 during the presidential elections, with a completely fabricated, cockamamie story invented by Putin," <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/07/20/salon-interview-michael-mcfaul-and-bill-browder-vladimir-putins-most-wanted-men/" style=" text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">McFaul told Salon</a>. "To even, for a moment, give any kind of dignity to what President Putin proposed was not in America's national interest, from my point of view."

==

<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/mueller-indictment-russian-intelligence-hacking.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/mueller-indictment-russian-intelligence-hacking.html</a>

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/rod-rosenstein-expected-to-announce-new-indictment-by-mueller/2018/07/13">https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/rod-rosenstein-expected-to-announce-new-indictment-by-mueller/2018/07/13</a>/bc565582-86a9-11e8-8553-a3ce89036c78_story.html

no lnx

A dozen Russian military intelligence officers were indicted Friday on charges they hacked Democrats’ computers, stole their data and published those files to disrupt the 2016 election — the clearest connection to the Kremlin established so far by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of interference in the presidential campaign.

The indictment against members of the Russian military agency known as the GRU marks the first time Mueller has taken direct aim at the Russian government, accusing specific military units and their named officers of a sophisticated, sustained effort to hack the computer networks of Democratic organizations and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein announced the charges at a midday news conference. Mueller, as has been his practice, did not attend the announcement. Court records show that a grand jury that Mueller has been using returned an indictment Friday morning.

The suspects “covertly monitored the computers, implanted hundreds of files containing malicious computer code, and stole emails and other documents,” Rosenstein said. “The goal of the conspirators was to have an impact on the election. What impact they may have had .?.?. is a matter of speculation; that’s not our responsibility.”

The indictment comes days before President Trump is due to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland. Rosenstein said he briefed Trump earlier this week on the charges.

Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani said on Twitter that the indictments “are good news for all Americans. The Russians are nailed. No Americans are involved.” He then called on Mueller “to end this pursuit of the president and say President Trump is completely innocent.”

Who has been charged in Russia probe and why VIEW GRAPHIC

The 11-count, 29-page indictment describes in granular detail a carefully planned and executed attack on the information security of Democrats, as Russian government hackers implanted hundreds of malware files on Democrats’ computer systems to steal information. The hackers then laundered the pilfered material through fake personas called DC Leaks and Guccifer 2.0, as well as others, to try to influence voters.

One of their conduits, identified in the indictment only as “Organization 1,” was WikiLeaks, the global anti-secrecy group led by Julian Assange, according to people familiar with the case. The indictment describes WikiLeaks communicating with Guccifer 2.0 to obtain material.

On July 6, 2016, according to the indictment, WikiLeaks wrote, “if you have anything Hillary related we want it in the next tweo [sic] days prefable [sic] because the DNC [Democratic National Convention] is approaching and she will solidify bernie supporters behind her after,” referring to Clinton’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). WikiLeaks explained, “we think trump has only a 25% chance of winning against hillary .?.?. so conflict between bernie and hillary is interesting.”

WikiLeaks released nearly 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails on the eve of the convention later that month, providing an embarrassing look at party operations and attitudes toward the Sanders campaign.

[Read the indictment of 12 Russians charged with hacking Democrats]

2:43

Rod Rosenstein announces indictment of 12 Russian agents

The deputy attorney general announces the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence agents in connection with hacking during the 2016 election. (The Washington Post)

A former Justice Department official who was previously involved in the Russia probe said the charges should serve as a warning for the United States to buttress its election security as Americans prepare to vote in congressional elections in November.

“The detailed charges in this indictment make it unmistakably clear that the United States faces an aggressive, sophisticated adversary bent on using cyber means to subvert our democratic processes and institutions,” said David Laufman, a former chief of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. “Now is the time for unequivocal recognition of this threat by both the executive branch and Congress, and for a unified and well coordinated commitment to confront it.”

The indictment offers troubling new accusations about the extent of Russian hacking efforts and interactions with Americans.

“On or about August 15, 2016, the conspirators, posing as Guccifer 2.0, received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress,” the indictment states. “The conspirators responded using the Guccifer 2.0 persona and sent the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate’s opponent.” The indictment does not identify the candidate.

The indictment also describes an online conversation between the GRU, posing as Guccifer 2.0, and a “person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.”

People familiar with the case said that person is longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone. In August 2016, the hacker persona wrote: “please tell me if i can help u anyhow .?.?. it would be a great pleasure to me.”

Stone’s lawyer Grant Smith said, “It is clear from the indictment issued today that our client, Roger Stone, was not in any way involved with any of the alleged hacking of the 2016 election. As he testified before the House Intelligence Committee under oath, his 24-word exchange with someone on Twitter claiming to be Guccifer 2.0 is benign, based on its content, context and timing.”

U.S. officials identified one of the GRU sections that carried out the operations as Unit 26165, which worked out of a building about four miles from the Kremlin. It was responsible for hacking the DNC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to the indictment, which accuses Viktor Netyksho of being the military officer in command of Unit 26165 at the time.

Although the DNC was able to partially kick the Russian hackers out of its system in June 2016, the indictment says three months later, the GRU “successfully gained access to DNC computers hosted on a third-party cloud-computing service” which held “test applications related to the DNC’s analytics,” according to the indictment. The hacker stole that data from the DNC, the indictment said.

Another group of Russian military officers, Unit 74455, working out of a building that GRU officers referred to as the “Tower,” used fake online personas to spread stolen files, officials charged. The indictment identifies Col. Aleksandr Osadchuk as the commanding officer of that unit.

The indictment also notes an interesting development on July 27, 2016 — the day then-candidate Trump gave a press conference declaring his hope that missing Clinton emails would be found and made public, saying: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”

The indictment says “on or about” that same day, “the conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office. At or around the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton campaign.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected the indictment’s allegations as lacking evidence and described the charges as a clear effort to derail the Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki.

“It is unfortunate that distributing false information has become the norm in Washington, and that criminal cases are being initiated based on clearly political motives,” the ministry said. Referring to the Mueller investigation, the statement went on: “The question remains how long this shameful comedy that is embarrassing the United States will go on.”

Rosenstein said the hackers interacted with some Americans in the course of their efforts but noted that those people had not been charged with a crime.

“When we confront foreign interference in American elections, it is important for us to avoid thinking politically as Republicans or Democrats and instead to think patriotically as Americans. Our response must not depend on who was victimized,” he said. “There will always be adversaries who work to exacerbate domestic differences and try to confuse, divide and conquer us. So long as we are united in our commitment to the values enshrined in the Constitution, they will not succeed.”

Mueller and a team of prosecutors have been working since May 2017 to determine whether any Trump associates conspired with Russia to interfere in the election. With the new indictment, his office has filed charges against 32 people on crimes including hacking, money laundering and lying to the FBI. Twenty-six of those charged are Russians who are unlikely to ever be put on trial in the United States.

In February, Mueller indicted a group of Russian Internet trolls who worked out of the Internet Research Agency, a company based in St. Petersburg and owned by a wealthy associate of Putin.

[Russian troll farm, 13 suspects indicted in 2016 election interference]

Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is in jail in Alexandria, Va., awaiting trial this month on financial fraud charges brought by Mueller but stemming from activities that predated the Trump campaign.

Mueller’s probe has come under sustained attack from Trump and at a press conference in England on Friday before Rosenstein spoke, the president again labeled the investigation a “witch hunt.”

“I think that we’re being hurt very badly by the — I would call it the witch hunt,” said Trump as he stood beside British Prime Minister Theresa May. “It really hurts our relationship with Russia.”

Rosenstein said of his decision to brief Trump, “It was important for the president to know what information we’ve uncovered because he’s got to make very important decisions for the country. He needs to understand what evidence we have of foreign election interference.”

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frum bk:

press: hannity and new say no indep media eg CNN

local fox crew said gianforte guilty, but not asked to be on nat'l; rush applaid, 116K$ ON election day 113

russian dis-info 400 ppl, 20m ri8bles (400K$ per mo; 40 rooms0 russian version of FB, made fake ppl on US soc media 115; 100K ads; target 10 m ppl in slected districts and states; msg reached 126M FB users 116.

russia ~ Fr Macron, so vidfeo ell cut hand wash inverted; rebel media posobiec got adv notce of email dump; big overlap betw anti-marcon and pro djt, 18K bots; 118

cernovich pizzagate guy got WH leaks (susan rice unmasked)

trad media tried to be balaced, so any crumb or djt normalcy touted 120

media restriction 1st sign of decline of democ 122

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<div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/7/headlines/facebook_says_russian_troll_farm_bought_ads_to_polarize_us_electorate">https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/7/headlines/facebook_says_russian_troll_farm_bought_ads_to_polarize_us_electorate</a></div>

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<div>On Capitol Hill, representatives of Facebook told lawmakers Wednesday the company unwittingly sold $100,000 worth of advertisements to a Russian company that aimed to polarize the U.S. electorate on issues of gun rights, immigration, LGBTQ rights and racism. The company was described as a Russian "troll farm" with a history of pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda. Democratic Congressmember Adam Schiff cited the move as evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.</div>

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<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/world/europe/trump-russian-lawyer-fsb-kgb.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/world/europe/trump-russian-lawyer-fsb-kgb.html</a>

MOSCOW — The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. last year after his father had won the Republican nomination for president had once represented <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/russiaandtheformersovietunion/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about Russia and the Post-Soviet Nations." class="meta-loc">Russia</a>’s top intelligence agency in court, according to at least two public records.

The lawyer, Natalia V. Veselnitskaya, who is now at the center of the political intrigue over the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia during <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/donald-trump?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Donald J. Trump." class="meta-per">Donald J. Trump</a>’s presidential campaign, represented a military unit founded by the Russian Federal Security Service in 2002, publicly available records show.

The service, known as the F.S.B., is the successor agency to the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/k/kgb/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about KGB" class="meta-org">K.G.B.</a> and was once headed by President <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/vladimir_v_putin/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More articles about Vladimir V. Putin." class="meta-per">Vladimir V. Putin</a> of Russia.

Ms. Veselnitskaya insisted after her June 2016 meeting with Mr. Trump’s son was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/08/us/politics/trump-russia-kushner-manafort.html">first reported by The New York Times two weeks ago</a> that she had no ties to the Kremlin and never worked for the Russian government. A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, has said Ms. Veselnitskaya “has nothing to do with us.”

Still, the court documents showing the lawyer’s link to the Russian spy agency, which was first reported by Reuters, are likely to intensify interest in her by American investigators who are examining the relationships between the Trump campaign and Russia....

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Hackers and Hacks

Julian Assange

Conservatives once called for the WikiLeaks founder to be locked up. During the 2016 campaign, Trump allies, including Roger Stone and Alex Jones, hailed him as a hero for releasing hacked emails from the DNC and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. (Stone claimed to have “back-channel communications” with the hacktivist during the campaign.) Assange—who has taken refuge in Ecuador’s London Embassy since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden over rape allegations (the case was dropped in May)—has claimed the source for the hacked messages was not the Russian government. The US intelligence community begs to differ. WikiLeaks’ release of the first batch of Podesta’s emails was curiously timed: It dropped less than an hour after a video clip of Trump bragging about sexual assault went public. Thereafter, the material was released in daily batches—that is, in a manner designed to inflict maximum harm to the Clinton campaign.

Guccifer 2.0

Guccifer was the handle of a notorious Romanian hacker who was sentenced to 52 months in prison in 2016. Guccifer 2.0 is the online persona that surfaced in June 2016 to take credit for hacking the DNC. The persona has claimed to be a lone wolf from Romania, but the intelligence community and outside experts have concluded that Guccifer 2.0 (which direct-messaged with Stone) is almost certainly a front for Russian intelligence. It’s a misogynistic one at that. “I’ve never met a female hacker of the highest level,” Guccifer 2.0 wrote last year. “Girls, don’t get offended, I love you.”

DC Leaks

The mysterious website and its associated Twitter feed popped up in June 2016. Over the course of the campaign, it published the hacked emails of military and political targets, including Colin Powell, NATO commander General Philip Breedlove, and the campaign staffs of Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The people behind DC Leaks, which is no longer active, claimed to be “American hacktivists,” but the US intelligence community reported that the site was a front for Russia’s military intelligence service.

Trump is already guilty in the Russia scandal—here’s the evidence

RT and Sputnik

In its joint report on Moscow’s election meddling, the US intelligence community described RT, the TV network formerly known as Russia Today, as “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet.” The report noted it “has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks”; Assange hosted a show for the network in 2012. RT also has controversial ties to Flynn, who was paid to speak at a 2015 gala for RT in Moscow and frequently appeared as an analyst on the network. Another Kremlin-supported outlet, Sputnik, spread fake news while boosting Trump and attacking Clinton. In late May, newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron confronted Putin about Russian meddling in the French elections and slammed the two news outlets as instruments of “lying propaganda.”

Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear

The shadowy groups are affiliated with different branches of the Russian security apparatus. Cozy Bear has been linked to a variety of cyberattacks against government and corporate targets throughout the world, including a 2015 spear-phishing attack on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. According to CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC, Cozy Bear first targeted the DNC in the summer of 2015. Fancy Bear penetrated the DNC’s network in April 2016, apparently unaware Cozy Bear had gotten there first. The group’s targets have ranged from the World Anti-Doping Agency to the German parliament.

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WFB BS?

Ukrainian Rebel Commander Identified As Russian GRU Military Intelligence Colonel

Key figure in covert Russian subversion campaign in eastern Ukraine

Igor Vsevolodovich GirkinIgor Vsevolodovich Girkin

BY: Bill Gertz  ed

June 20, 2014 5:00 am

A key figure in covert Russian efforts to destabilize eastern Ukraine is working for Russia’s GRU military intelligence service, according to U.S. officials.

Igor Vsevolodovich Girkin, who is currently using the nom de guerre Igor Strelkov, has identified himself in press reports as "defense minister" of the self-proclaimed, pro-Russian "Donetsk People’s Republic. This week he called for Russia to send military aid to rebels in eastern Ukraine.

U.S. officials said Strelkov is considered a leading pro-Russian rebel who is undermining stability as part of a major Russian covert action program in Ukraine.

Officials said Girkin is a GRU colonel who was first identified by the Ukrainian SBU intelligence service. Girkin traveled to the Crimea in February and traveled to Donetsk in April. While in the Crimea was a military adviser to Sergei Aksenov, the current head of Russian-occupied Crimea.

He is also a close aide to the so-called Donetsk prime minister, Alexander Borodai, who is also a Russian. Borodai also worked with Aksenov in Crimea, an indication the Russians may be planning a similar annexation in the Donetsk region.

Girkin and Borodai were employed by a Moscow investment firm called Marshall Capital. That company is owned by Konstantin Valeryevich Malofeyev, who has been linked to funding of pro-Russian separatist activities in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

On Friday, the Treasury Department imposed financial sanctions on Girkin and six other Ukrainian separatists for their role in seeking to destabilize Ukraine.

"The United States will continue to take action to hold accountable those persons engaged in efforts to destabilize Crimea and eastern Ukraine," said David S. Cohen, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. "These individuals have all contributed to attempts to illegally undermine the legitimate government in Kyiv, notably by falsely proclaiming leadership positions and fomenting violent unrest."

Girkin led the abduction of military observers in Ukraine, and attacked military brigade and stole a large cache of weapons, Treasury said in a statement.

Disclosure of GRU activities in Ukraine comes as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, criticized Moscow’s covert subversion.

"The tactic that Russia is using is one I would describe as proximate coercion, subversion, and misinformation," Dempsey told a Senate defense appropriations subcommittee on Wednesday.

The strategy is to mass forces on the border and threaten the use of force and employ subversion through surrogates and proxies, along with misinformation to arouse ethnic populations, he said.

"I doubt that there'll actually be a full-blown invasion," he said. "But we've got to be alert to the other tools that [Putin] may use to actually undermine stability, notably in the Baltics and in some of our Eastern European allies."

Russia has "lit a fire" in Ukraine that is burning out of control and the country is facing a "very difficult path," Dempsey said.

In London, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday that Russian troops were again building up along Ukraine's eastern border, and Russian forces were seen conducting troop maneuvers nearby.

U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports said Russian covert action programs have been underway in Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as other areas.

The rebels downed a Ukrainian military helicopter on May 29, killing a key Ukrainian general and demonstrating they have advanced anti-aircraft weapons.

The rebels are known to have portable anti-aircraft missiles, anti-aircraft artillery, and armored troop carriers.

The missile that downed the helicopter could not be confirmed as having been supplied by Russia, but other arms found after battles with rebels have revealed they were recently shipped from the Russian military.

Intelligence reports also indicate that Russia is sending Russian troops disguised as Ukrainian to support pro-Russian rebels in the region. Rebels have described the Russians as "volunteers," including Cossacks from southern Russia. Similar tactics were used prior to the takeover of Crimea in March.

Another indicator of covert Russian forces is the discovery of a unit called the Vostok, or East, Battalion, a well armed group of ethnic Chechen special operations commandos who are fighting with the rebels.

An earlier Vostok force was set up by the Russian military using ethnic Chechen special operations commandos who specialize in urban warfare and who were led by Russian officers. The unit was dispatched to earlier conflicts in Chechnya and in the battle with Georgia in 2008.

Officials identified the border town of Antratsyt, near Luhansk, as a key base for the infiltration of both Russian fighters and weapons.

The newly elected government in Kiev this week offered to halt its military operations against eastern pro-Russian separatists. Newly-elected President Petro Poroshenko offered amnesty to rebels that surrender. The amnesty was limited to rebels that were not involved in capital crimes. Poroshenko also offered to allow Russian fighters to return to Russia.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters Wednesday that the plan will only work if the Russian government supports it, something that has not happened so far.

"Russia of course must support the peace plan instead of continuing to support the separatists on the ground," she said.

On Tuesday, Psaki said there were reports of renewed Russian troop movements close to the Ukrainian border.

"Our concern has been focused more, naturally, on the actions of the Russian separatists and the movement of military tanks and other equipment across the border," she said.

Other reports indicated Moscow is covertly delivering arms, including tanks and rocket launchers, to rebels in eastern Ukraine, in addition to the intelligence operatives.

Regarding Girkin, the GRU officer was quoted in a Russian newspaper on Monday as calling for Moscow to send military aid to two so-called "people’s republics," in Donetsk and Luhansk. The eastern Ukrainian cities are strongholds for anti-government rebels.

"I am calling on Russia as the commander of the [Donetsk People’s Republic] militia and as a patriot of Russia and the Russian people. It can be considered as an appeal on behalf of the Donetsk militia," he told the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.

"If Russia does not take prompt and decisive action, they [the Ukrainian Army] will achieve their goal," he told another pro-Russian news outlet. "Several thousand militiamen near the Russian border cannot stand long against powerful enemy artillery and aviation."

Girkin said his militia lack funds and supplies. "We can ‘bite' the enemy, attack them from the flank, we can operate through sabotage and reconnaissance forces, but we cannot change the situation only with heroism," he told the pro-Russian LifeNews outlet.

The GRU, acronym for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff, is playing the key role in Moscow’s efforts to destabilize Ukraine following the military annexation of Crimea earlier this year.

So far, several GRU officers have been exposed by Ukrainian authorities, including GRU Lt. Col. Kirill Koliuchkin, a naval attaché expelled by Kiev for spying activities.

The European Union in April imposed sanctions on more than a dozen Russian officials, including GRU Director Lt. Gen. Igor Sergun. The sanctions are largely symbolic but including Sergun on the list highlights the key role being played by GRU spies in Ukraine.

In addition to GRU operatives in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s Spetsnaz special operations commandos also are engaged in subversion.

Mark Galeotti, a New York University professor who writes the blog "In Moscow’s Shadows," stated in a recent post that the GRU has been given new life by Russian covert action in Ukraine.

The service, under Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former officer in the rival KGB, has faced large-scale cutbacks in personnel from 2009 to 2011.

Over 1,000 GRU officers and about 80 GRU generals were dismissed, retired, or transferred to other units, Galeotti stated. The cutbacks were the result of bureaucratic infighting with the civilian foreign spy agency SVR, acronym for Foreign Intelligence Service, and the domestic political police and spy agency known as the FSB, for Federal Security Service.

Galeotti said the GRU is a key element of Russian asymmetric military-political warfare tools. "They are less valuable as straightforward war-fighters and much more so as covert operators and the facilitators of other deniable operations," he said.

"Not only may the Ukraine conflict help stop–or at least bring a temporary ceasefire to–internecine struggles within the Russian security apparatus, it may well prove the savior of the GRU in its current configuration."

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